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Strategic Planning

The Wikimedia Foundation has begun a year long phase of strategic planning. During this time of planning, members of the community have the opportunity to propose ideas, ask questions, and help to chart the future of the Foundation. In order to create as centralized an area as possible for these discussions, the Strategy Wiki has been launched. This wiki will provide an overview of the strategic planning process and ways to get involved, including just a few questions that everyone can answer. All ideas are welcome, and everyone is invited to participate.

Please take a few moments to check out the strategy wiki. It is being translated into as many languages as possible now; feel free to leave your messages in your native language and we will have them translated (but, in case of any doubt, let us know what language it is, if not english!).

All proposals for the Wikimedia Foundation may be left in any language as well.

Please, take the time to join in this exciting process. The importance of your participation can not be overstated.

--Philippe

(please cross-post widely and forgive those who do)

User:TTN

I have just speedily closed Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Grail (DC Comics) (2nd nomination). I want to flag the situation up since the article was nominated one day after a deletion debate had been closed as No consensus regarding the same article. The article had been nominated both times by TTN (talk · contribs), who has formerly been involved in arbitration cases, namely Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters and Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2. TTN makes pertinent points regarding why he relisted in the deletion debate, but I do find myself concerned give the user's past history. I offer up both my close of the debate and the swift renomination for review and comment, given my concern and also the possibility that such concern has biased me. Hiding T 21:30, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

• The remedies for EnC 2 have long since elapsed, so my first comment is that something shouldn't be closed simply because TTN opened it. It was probably right to be closed, though it didn't meet any speedy keep criteria. I'm pretty unhappy to see all the old warhorses dragged out again on these AfDs...kind of reminds me why I left that whole part of the 'pedia. IMO you haven't done anything wrong, hiding. Protonk (talk) 06:44, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

  zee problem is TTN has imediately returned to what got him sanctioned in the first place.©Geni 13:02, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

  Remedy 1 had a time limit; Remedy 2 did not. Remedy 2 directed the parties in conflict "to cease engaging in editorial conflict and to work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question." If TTN's current editing practices have violated this direction, there are two courses of action -- returning to Arbcom for enforcement action, or developement of a community sanction. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 18:19, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

  Except interested parties have repeatedly sought clarification on remedy 2's applicability to TTN's AfD crusade (of sorts) and been told, variously, that it didn't apply. Protonk (talk) 21:22, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• Delete "article" — Misplaced Pages:What Misplaced Pages is not#Misplaced Pages is not a battleground is only a policy, not a reality ;) Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:07, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

  and which way would you personally prefer to have it? DGG (talk) 17:56, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

  I would prefer it if more editors where here to build a respectable encyclopaedia rather than having no idea what the distinction between that and a fansite might be. That's the core issues. Misplaced Pages is not a fansite. Misplaced Pages is not an indiscriminate collection of information. What do we discriminate against? Fanwank. Cruft. Swamps of plot summary. Disruptive editors who are vision impaired. Inappropriate content should be removed Mercilessly. Wikia can have the inappropriate content; they can have the editors who are primarily interested in such content, too. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:37, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

  Do you create quality articles Jack? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:41, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

There should not be a time limit for renominating for a no-consensus closure, as "no consensus" is emphatically not "keep". Anything that can get a definite consensus one way or the other is better. Sceptre 18:12, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

• I'd agree, but offer that would that to be the case, we should simply not close discussions until consensus has been reached. A re-nomination one day after the closure of the previous discussion is always bound to seem "off", for want of a better word, and in all my time on Misplaced Pages there's been an assumption that a month is a "reasonable", for want of a better word, period between afd nominations. And since consensus can change, it's always hard to pin down exactly what a "definite" consensus is. I'm sure you'd agree a page for which a consensus to keep has emerged can later be nominated for deletion. I think a lot of the time it is about that collegiate atmosphere we are supposed to enjoin in. It involves us thinking to ourselves, well that was a really dumb decision, but perhaps the right time to mention that would be in a couple of weeks rather than right now. Or do we disregard the idea that politeness, good faith, civility and eventuality are the oil which keeps the engine of collaboration working? Is it better to get the right result with the "least" amount of fuss or the "most" amount of fuss? A perusal of the second debate shows it descending into typical "farce". Waiting a month may have avoided feeding some of the "actors" a pre-prepared "script", if you catch my drift. Like I said, TTN made pertinent points in the debate, but the speed with which the article is nominated forces the debate on to different ground. I'm wondering if the pertinent points would be better able to breathe if they were made in a month or so, and that such a wait might also remove any concerns regarding TTN's behaviour such as the ones I found myself pondering and which led to this discussion in the first place. Hiding T 09:40, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Consensus can change, but it tends not to do so in the blink of an eye unless you have some very persuasive arguments. Certainly repeat nominations can happen, but doing so immediately seems unwise, and very likely to be a waste of both time and breath -- hardly fair to those involved in those discussions if they have to keep going at it day in, day out. If the closure is inappropriate, that's a different thing, but at this rate the discussion might as well not have been closed at all. – Luna Santin (talk) 09:58, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

This really does seem disruptive at best, isn't there a Magic 8-ball page about gaming the system until you get your preferred outcome is wrong? If this editor has been active for a while in this one area and they were encouraged by Arbcom to work toward a more equitable long-term consensus then this really would seem counter to that. Instead of working toward solutions it seems like a campaign to simply remove items one doesn't like which may or may not actually help the overall situation. Relying on outside wikis to be the repository only works if we are sure which information actually is or isn't encyclopedic. Frankly it's either on Misplaced Pages or it's not - we shouldn't expect anyone else to hold stuff we might think is worthy, it's either kept or not. With a lot of these articles as well mergers into lists with redirects would be acceptable routes but the adversarial approach hinders consensus-building to do that. It takes work to dialog and hear each other and it takes more work to merge or listify than delete. If TTN is unwilling or unable to play nice and try to make that happen then maybe they should take a break and get some perspective. If they are frustrated likely others are as well. -- Banjeboi 10:25, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I really don't see why this automatically has to be me forcing my view. Has anyone actually taken a good look at the first one? The first two days were slow, with one delete and one comment from A Nobody stating that there are other topics with the same name as Salvation, Texas, the second article in the nomination. A Nobody then should have either waited for the article to be deleted, or just have created separate articles, but he did not do that at all. Instead, he combined all three topics inappropriately, which lead to an obvious keep for that article. Afterward, the article was split, and the original content was easily removed and forgotten, which means that it would have been deleted had he not done that.

That whole mess overshadowed Grail (DC Comics), and if you look at the AfD, the number of delete and merge comments outweigh the keep arguments both in numbers and the actual weight of their arguments. That seems like a perfectly good reason to nominate Grail separately. People have mentioned DRV, but I have never seen anything like this last more than five minutes before being closed as an inappropriate venue (only fifth nomination BLP articles are ever dealt with there), and please do not even attempt to recommend discussion on a talk page. If you have dealt with fiction, you will know that dead articles never receive anything past two comments. Basically, if there is even a need for a discussion like this, it should be about A Nobody using fairly underhanded editing to force a keep, even though he couldn't have cared less about the content. TTN (talk) 16:16, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• Comments on two separate issues:
  • Regarding previous Arbitration, there was also the declined E&C3 (Jan 2009): Request to amend Full case
  • Regarding DRV, no consensus closures are particularly difficult to overturn, but I think there's enough here for a reasonable discussion. Relist as new AfD is also a possible, though unlikely, outcome.
    Flatscan (talk) 03:17, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment - to get back to Hiding's original point, I must have misread that bit at the end of the original AfD, where DGG and other arch deletionists noted the merits of renominating separately based on the divergence of sources available to the original articles in question. In the highly unlikely event that such a discussion did in fact take place it would then appear that, yes, Hiding, you did act rather inappropriately - not only in closing as you did, but further in imputing as you have the motives of the nomination since reasonable grounds had been provided in the first go-round to separate out the nomination into individual AfDs. However, what's done is done, so the best outcome here is to admonish User:Hiding to act more responsibly in the future. Eusebeus (talk) 15:38, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• I don't recall outlining anywhere what I had "imputed" the motives of the nomination to be, whatever that means, but take the thrust of your criticism on board. My only wish was to try and cut drama off at the outset and work out from there. As I said when I brought the thing here, TTN raised pertinent points regarding why he relisted in the deletion debate. Any "imputation" has as much to do with reactions to anything TTN does as much as to anything TTN does. The second debate was becoming somewhat "unhelpful", and rather than see that develop along such an "unhelpful" path, I thought it might be better to take a step back. As to what the first debate debated, there's a wonderful "smorgasbord" of opinion raised within it, such that any potential outcome could be viable, and it doesn't logically lend to a swift, unchallenged renomination. If it did, the original closer would have closed according to that consensus. But I take on board the advice that sometimes I don't get it right, even if I try to do so for the best of reasons, and I thank you for your feedback. It's a shame you imputed my motives so incorrectly too, but then... Hiding T 20:28, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I just looked at Grail (DC Comics) and its sources, and I'm going to propose a merge to Preacher_(comics). --Enric Naval (talk) 14:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
    • WP:N3D may be a useful essay to consult in this situation. Flatscan (talk) 03:41, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Premature AfD closers

In regards to this AfD. It was first closed prematurely a few days ago. Now it was closed 14 hours before it was supposed to, a 14 hour period added because the previous early closure which disrupted people's ability to respond.

The admin there closed it as no consensus, even though only 43% of those responding voted Keep, with one of them being a simple !vote and 2 being the editors of the page, which means an actual keep percentage being quote lower. Please see here for the mathematics.

However, the main complaint is this and this. One is a statement from hours ago which states that they already predetermined that it would be no consensus, even though there are more and more deletes with the only keeps coming in on things that were already debunked.

It also shows that the user closed the AfD with an admitted bias and predisposition. The worse of it is this statement: "I'm gonna' enjoy watching the drahmahz". I do not feel confident that the user is using tools in a way that can be trusted by the community and they have closed in an inappropriate manner that violates CoI. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:57, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

The morons have more guns than you do Ottava, let it go. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:03, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I honestly want to know what Jimbo, Godwin, and the rest of the WMF feel about this issue and the manner people are treating this whole situation. This is a page that serves as nothing more than a mouth piece to allegations against one of our users. To be bluntly honest, I would want everyone connected to writing that page and in support of that page to receive a 24 hour block for WP:NPA violations. To repost those allegations without even a court trial on Misplaced Pages with a Wikipedian as subject, that is one of the most disrespectful and lowest things you could do to another Wikipedian. It is bad enough when it is done to anyone, but at least people could respect the people that they edit with and not stoop to such things. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:06, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Please just drop the issue, there wasn't a chance in hell of that AfD closing with a consensus either way, no matter how much canvassing you did (and still do) on IRC. Jeni 01:27, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. Just because an argument is long and complex doesn't mean it doesn't show consensus. I think this was a premature, bad close. Of course, in full disclosure, I voted delete. But a close of "keep", after the full length it was supposed to run, would have been less troubling than this. Closing as "no consensus" was a lazy way out. Tan | 39 01:31, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

And dishonest. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Understandably, I disagree that "keep" would've been the proper close. I go agree that I took a lazy way out, however, because I believe a merger is probably the best course of action overall. Cheers. lifebaka++ 01:35, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

On a related note that is not specific to this particular instance, AfDs are being closed early. I meant to post the following a while ago, but it was when editors were doing the "dramaout" so I feared there would not be a large response:

One minute into the day, there was only one open AfD that has been open seven full days. While I do not doubt our administrator's skill at determining consensus, I do not believe that ~80 AfDs were closed in less than a minute. What I want to know is why administrator's aren't honoring the fact that deletion discussions at AfD are supposed to last seven days. For some reason, this is turning into a race to close more discussions than any other administrator, and it is cutting in to the time that editors are supposed to be able to argue the fates of articles. Malinaccier (talk) 01:32, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree. And that's sort of what I was getting at. Lifebaka, I don't mean any insult, and 99.9% of the time I support your actions. However, I have to say that this was one that should have been closed very late, if anything. Closing as "no consensus" prior to the deadline is a little illogical, no? Tan | 39 01:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't terribly mind if you revert my close (with links here and the related thread on my talk page, if you do, for transparency) but I don't believe that an additional 14 hours, 14 days, or even 14 weeks is likely to actually change the overall consensus. I'd be happy to amend my closing statement to state such explicitly, as I really should have when I closed it.

I agree that AfDs are being closed too early these days. This has lead me away from closing AfDs, since most of the time I head over to WP:AFDO it's empty. Cheers. lifebaka++ 01:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no honesty or integrity here, so no real surprise. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:41, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. Is anyone taking this to DRV? I'm heading out for a bit; if it's not at DRV when I get back I'll set one up. MIght as well continue the discussion there. Tan | 39 01:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it will matter. If the page isn't cut, the OR wont be removed (I mean, come on, a page from 2007 being used as a reference? And most people say all of the references are great. Did they even read them?). The problem wont be fixed. It will just stay there with a huge section devoted to the allegations. The only way to stop this is to put an amendment to BLP which states "No allegations" - i.e. we can briefly state that there were allegations and of the general nature, but we cannot elaborate or reproduce what they state. That would effectively kill any of these pages, as there would be no "meat" to base the page on and make it seem bigger than what it actually is. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:55, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll leave to the side the issue of the National Portrait Gallery copyright conflicts article and AfD and address the more general concern here. As others say above, AfDs are being closed too early. As someone who closes them from time to time I've noticed this, and it's something I've meant to bring up. Except in certain specific circumstances (a clear - as in very clear - WP:SNOW situation, a withdrawn nom and no real !delete votes left, etc.) AfDs should simply never be closed early. It is absolutely unnecessary. Either AfDs run 7 days or they don't. Having a deadline makes sense, because it means editors know they should be bringing in any additional information (more sources etc.) within a certain time frame. If we close 12 hours before the 7 days is up, why not close a day before? Or three? No 'crat would ever dream of closing a close RfA 12 hours early with a note saying, "at 80% so clearly going to pass," yet admins routinely shut down the AfD process early.

Why? It's hard to avoid the impression that it's because they want to close a lot of AfDs, and in order to do that you need to jump the gun. When it comes to controversial AfDs like the one discussed here, this happens quite often. Trigger happy admins sit around and can't wait to close the AfD that 200 editors commented on. This is where the real problem comes in (and I'm not saying the following is necessarily what happened in this situation with the National Portrait AfD). When it's all about being the first to close a given AfD (controversial or not), inevitably the focus will be on getting there first rather than getting it right. Most AfDs are not controversial and are easy to close, but even with those there is no godly reason to jump the gun before the 7 days are up other than wanting to be the person to close it. Clearly there is not a backlog problem (except for difficult AfDs, which can sit around), and therefore no need to get a head start. It makes no difference who closes an AfD so long as it's done well, and indeed it's probably desirable to have a number of admins closing a few AfDs rather than 2-3 closing basically all of them.

Personally I thonk we should say enough is enough. When I come across early AfD closures, I think I'll start making a point of asking the admins who close early to stop doing that when there is no reason to do so. I encourage other editors (admin or no) to do the same. If AfDs are supposed to run for seven days then lets let them run seven days (part of the irony of this is that the comment period was just extended by two days). You don't get extra ribbons on your admin buttons for closing the most AfDs on a given night, and we should be emphasizing that quality rather than speed is far more important. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:23, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. The nature of a wiki allows for each page, each discussion, to be taken on a case-by-case basis. Yes, most discussions should run for 7 days, but there are many cases where forcing a discussion to run for 7 days is impractical, unproductive, and downright silly. WP:IAR outlines this quite nicely, I think. –Juliancolton |  02:34, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:IAR is not a blanket policy. It cannot be applied to such a broad range of debates so arbitrarily. I cannot believe that out of say, 80 AfDs there are only five that are not "impractical unproductive, and downright silly" enough to close early. IAR is supposed to be applied with care on a case by case basis. Malinaccier (talk) 02:38, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. As you said, arbitrary rules can't be applied to extensive processes, which is why I believe universally enforcing the 7 day rule would be inappropriate. –Juliancolton |  02:43, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that as long as there is activity and that there isn't an obvious snow (huge amounts of one side and nothing from the other), then an AfD should stay up for 7 days. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:44, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec, responding to Julian) I'm not sure that "forcing" a discussion to run for seven days is the right word here. You just let it sit there another 12 hours (or whatever)—you don't force anything. Could you outline examples of some of the "many" cases where closing before 7 days is a good idea such that we should invoke IAR, and where not closing early would be "impractical" (I find it extremely hard to believe that waiting a few more hours is impractical), etc. etc.? If there are really so many examples of that, should we not just toss out the 7 day guideline, since clearly if we follow that rule it often causes us to be "unproductive" and "silly?" I don't think you can just assert what you are asserting and toss WP:IAR into the mix, you need to explain why ignoring this particular rule (which again was specifically recently adopted since people thought 5 days was not enough time) is a good idea. As I said in my first comments there are times where an early closure makes sense (no one has said anything about "universally enforcing" the 7 day rule so that's a strawman best cast aside right now), but I'm not talking about things that end up getting speedied, SNOW closed, etc. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, as a general rule, there's no deadline. It is rarely going to hurt matters if an article is open for a few more hours or days while we have possibly have further discussion. Unless of course, one is worried that we need to rush to get this all done before the deadline. That said, I was under the impression that the extension from 5 to 7 days was made to deal with the early closes at 5 days. That is, we all knew we'd be getting closes this way at 5 or 6 days like the policy originally intended. So if we enforced the limits strictly we might then want to dial back to 5 or 6 days. JoshuaZ (talk) 02:48, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

(also responding to Julian) I mean a rule such as IAR, a rule that has many possible consequences to its application, not a simple technical rule such as leaving AfDs open seven days. Malinaccier (talk) 02:53, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

@Bigtimepeace: An example would be Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Chikezie; CSD obviously doesn't apply and there was no landslide consensus, but it was a scenario where further discussion would be unproductive and inconclusive. –Juliancolton |  02:55, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

@Malinaccier: Fair enough, but I still believe very few "rules" should be blindly applied. –Juliancolton |  02:58, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

This has come up twice before. Once here and once over at AFD talk Here's what I said in the latter discussion...

Ideally, debates should run for 7 days but an administrator (or other) should be free to evaluate discussions on the 7 day old log without worrying about the exact second it was opened. This is especially true if the discussion has enough comments to make a call but nothing for the last few days. However, I will say that it's a good idea to start from the bottom of the log because this is where the oldest discussions and most of the relisted discussions will be. I will also concede that a closer should be more mindful of the time (not just the date) the discussion was open if he plans to close "delete" or if one of the discussions close to the top is still drawing comments

This has been common practice for as long as I have been working at AFD. IMHO if closers were barred from touching AFDs until they appeared on "old" then a lot of debates would be open a lot longer then they need to be. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 03:01, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Arguably the real problem at AfD these days is not unclosed AfDs hanging around, it's a lack of comments in AfDs. Articles are routinely relisted because only one or two other people (and sometime no one) besides the nom has weighed in on the matter, thus making it impossible to determine consensus.

Also there is apparently an existing consensus on this issue, already expressed on the AfD talk page in April, and I think we should abide by it unless there's been another conversation since then. In terms of the change to 7 days, discussed here, part of the rationale was that "AFDs should be extended to 7 days to gather more opinions and because some people can only access Misplaced Pages on weekends." Please note SilkTork's closing note in that thread, which said the extension closed with a "strong consensus," and that "To ensure the reasoning behind this proposal is carried out, early closures need to be discouraged." This was less than four months ago, so I think we still have a consensus to discourage early closures. Unless we want to "IAR" with respect to a fairly recent and strong consensus, I think we should respect the idea that AfDs should run for 7 days, with certain specific exceptions.

If people want to close an AfD on day 6 (assuming it's not a SNOW or other obvious early close), they'll need to explain why they're going against the consensus established in the earlier conversation about this very topic. Again, I think we should all collectively ask admins who do this kind of thing to refrain from doing so—it's not necessary, and no one has argued against the idea that it inevitably leads to a race to close AfDs, with quality at times suffering as a result. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:11, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

In practice, a policy that " debates should run for 7 days but an administrator (or other) should be free to evaluate discussions on the 7 day old log without worrying about the exact second it was opened. " will soon come to mean closing after 6 days. True, I don't worry about the actual seconds, but I do at least pay attention to hours (although I have once or twice been an hour off through miscalculation of time zones). DGG (talk) 03:41, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I would like add my voice to those who feel early AfD closures are a problem. If the guidelines say "at least 7 days", which they do, then debate should run at least 7 days - not 6d1h, 6d12, or 6d20h. The "rush to close" mentality currently found at AfD is seriously bothersome. --ThaddeusB (talk) 04:50, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

(thread hijack) I haven't cruised by AfD in quite awhile, because it doesn't seem to need my help. But I can't help but notice we have almost month long backlogs at WP:PUI and WP:FFD, WP:CFD needs help as well. Not sure why people like AfD so much. We have quite a disproportion of admin tasks here. I'd like to encourage some AfD regulars to stand back, and try working on some of the other deletion discussions for a change. We shouldn't have early closings in one section, while a month goes by without a closure in another section. Really, what is the deal? -Andrew c  03:23, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

A very good point, which I say as someone very much guilty of not helping out with those backlogs. Obviously AfDs (and articles generally) are more high profile and therefore attract more admin attention, but that's not a great excuse, and I think your point is well taken that early AfD closes seem especially unwarranted when there are backlogs elsewhere. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:05, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Need to add e-mail to account for Password Recovery

Hello, I am unable to log into my account and it says that I did not register an e-mail address to have a new password sent to when I created the account. My account is now 7 years old and I have made a few contributions with it that I don't want to lose. Per meta:Privacy policy#Discussions I would like to request that an e-mail address be added to my account so that I may recover my password. How can I contact an admin to go about this? 98.231.181.127 (talk) 00:57, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

This is server level stuff. An administrator can't do that. Also, if you've left this account unused for seven years, just make a new one and move on.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:59, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I've used the account for 7 years, not left it sitting... I've only been away from wikipedia for about 3-4 weeks and now I'm unable to log in. How can I contact someone who can handle server level stuff? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.231.181.127 (talk) 01:01, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh. That makes more sense. I am still not sure of the proper channel to request assistance.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:05, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

• The history of the account does not die, and is available to you and everyone else. I suppose contacting one of the Misplaced Pages:Bureaucrats would be worthwhile. They would know if you can be aided or not, or what avenue, if any, is available. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 01:42, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The only people who can add an email address to your account or reset the password for you are the developers. You will also need to be able to verify your identity in some way, for example, have you emailed someone in the past who can verify that your account really belongs to you and that you are the person you claim you are. I would probably start with the Functionaries mailing list, functionaries-enlists.wikimedia.org. Thatcher 17:11, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Jimbo Wales and Bishonen

The Arbitration Committee has passed a motion relating to the above named parties. It may be viewed at WP:AC/N.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, MBisanz 05:01, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Discuss this

Academic Research Study Survey: Final Call

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As part of an ongoing research project by students and faculty at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science and headed by Professor Robert Kraut, we are conducting a survey of anyone who has participated in the Request for Adminship (RfA) process, either voting or as a candidate.

The survey will only take a few minutes of your time, and will aid furthering our understanding of online communities, and may assist in the development of tools to assist voters in making RfA evaluations. We are NOT attempting to spam anyone with this survey and are doing our best to be considerate and not instrusive in the Misplaced Pages community. The results of this survey are for academic research and are not used for any profit nor sold to any companies. We will also post our results back to the Misplaced Pages community.

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If you have any questions or concerns, feel free comment on my talk page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CMUResearcher (talk • contribs)

Tags a long term feature?

I remember seeing a discussion on tagging articles and another editor mentioned the Category:Articles needing additional references from June 2006 page on a talk page. I think it's worth addressing whether these tags are helpful to our readers and whether there's a better way to include them and get articles fixed up. Is that discussion still active somewhere? Was it resolved? ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:35, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

You might have better luck asking at the help desk or Village Pumps; this doesn't really have anything to do with administrators per se. FWIW, that page is only wikilinked from one user talkpage. Regards,  Skomorokh  07:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Would it go in the Policy, Technical, Proposals, or Miscellaneous section at the Village Pump? I've seen it said that Misplaced Pages is a MMORPG, but it seems more like a choose your own adventure book... ChildofMidnight (talk) 07:38, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Policy (if you're interested in a formal change, or finding out what the prevailing consensus is) or Misc (if you're looking for an unstructured general discussion) I'd say. Good luck on the Garden of Forking Paths.  Skomorokh  08:19, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. If only Garmin made a gadget to help me navigate the policy pages. My map and compass aren't helping much at all and I keep hitting dead ends where the story ends unsatisfactorily. :) ChildofMidnight (talk) 08:31, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

What is wrong with Misplaced Pages??

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I rewrote an article about tripel beer from Belgium using two books by Belgian authors (Jef van den Steen is a retired teacher who has spent over 30 years researching Belgian beer and Geert van Lierde is a well-known journalist who has written several popular books about beer. van den Steen's books include a lengthy bibliography.) I was therefore quite surprised to find that User:SilkTork (and Misplaced Pages adminstrator) had completely rewritten the article . Since we have corresponded by email in the past, I asked why he had changed it. He wrote me: "The new version of the Tripel article is built on reliable sources. The old one contained mistakes, was inaccurate, and had few reliable sources." When I replied asking what the errors were, I got no answer.

Now, let's look at his reliable sources: a wine shop in San Francisco (http://www.plumpjackwines.com/plumpjackwines/), an American beer import company (http://www.belgianexperts.com/), several amateur brewing sources and a couple of British beer writers, including Michael Jackson. However, I discovered that what Michael Jackson (a usually reliable source) had actually written ("I believe the first golden Triple was produced by the Three Lindens brewery, at Brasschaat, near Antwerp, in the post-war period, when brewers of strong, top-fermenting beers were trying to compete with Pilsener-style lagers." ) was different from what was written in the article ("The first golden strong pale ale which is associated with the term, was brewed by Hendrik Verlinden of the Drie Linden (Three Lindens) brewery in the early 1930s, when ale brewers were looking to compete with the pale lagers from Plzeň." I posted a third-opinion request and several days later, to my shock, I read this: "I don't really see why a third opinion is needed here: there is no discussion, and there are three active editors here (so really an RfC or something else is better). Having said that, here's my take. SikTork's edits are very well done, and are a huge improvement over the previous version of the article."

Does this mean a wine shop in San Francisco, amateur brewing groups and beer importers (all American, btw) are more reliable about the history of a Belgian beer than a Belgian scholar and journalist?

The new version of the article is complete fiction - there is hardly a single accurate statement in it. According to several Belgian books, for example, the beer produced by the Three Linden (Drie Linden) brewery was a dark beer, not golden/pale, and furthermore it is very doubtful it was a tripel. Secondly, the first sentence of the new article reads (in part): "Tripel (also Trippel) is a term used by brewers mainly in Belgium and the USA to describe..." In my country (the Netherlands), there are far more breweries (relatively speaking) producing a tripel (almost half the breweries in the country) than in the USA and Danish breweries also produce quite a few, yet neither country is mentioned. Also, tripel's are not all pale. For example, Het Kapittel Watou Prior and Achel 8 Bruin are both dark and tripels.

If Misplaced Pages is the place to publish fiction, nothing need be done. Otherwise the article needs to be reverted. But, be careful! User:Peterdjones, who I filed an admin notice about here will tell you the article is accurate and, besides, accuracy is not necessary because "it's supported by consensus" (hint: it isn't, but even if it did, wouldn't WP:RS be more important?).

So, what is wrong with Misplaced Pages? Mikebe (talk) 14:01, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

This noticeboard is not an appropriate place for this comment. Please return to talk:tripel. 1Z (talk) 14:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

AfD needing some cleanup.

Can we get someone to cleanup the text-blocking at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Kira Takenouchi (2nd nomination). Two editors have added huge blocks of unformated text, which makes the discussion difficult to follow. --Farix (Talk) 15:24, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

This really isn't an admin issue. (And personally, I didn't find it so difficult to follow that reformatting someone else's comments would be called for, but that's just me.)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:36, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Category:Places impacted by urban decay

Category:Places impacted by urban decay (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Chocolatechipcookie91 (talk · contribs · count · logs · email)

Can someone please look at this and the edit history of the creator and tell me if this qualifies as a CSD? It appears to be highly point of view motivated. Please take care of the procedures needed to delete if possible and let me know the best way to handle dubious categories as opposed to articles. Sswonk (talk) 17:51, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Resolved Was recreated multiple times by same user after being deleted at Misplaced Pages:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_January_26. User was previously given a final warning, and blocked for 48 hours following today's recreation. OhNoitsJamie 19:29, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:ALT text on a restricted template

I need an admin to add WP:ALT text to the two compasses at Template:Geographic Location based on feedback received at Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/McDonald's Cycle Center/archive1 about http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/altviewer.py?page=McDonald's_Cycle_Center .--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 18:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggest the alt text to be used at Template talk:Geographic Location#Accessibility support and add {{editprotected}} to the page. –xeno 02:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Single IP Lookup

Single IP Lookup is a tool that I just finished, it combines about four lookups that are needed when looking into IPs. Feel free to use and abuse it. if you have any other feature requests or tool requests please let me know. It does Whois, local block log, current Global and local blocks affecting a giving IP. β 00:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Would be nice to have a location function, see trustedsource.com for an example, for when a location is needed say for a suicide or violence threat. Otherwise, good tool :) - NeutralHomer • Talk • 00:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I am looking for a good geoIP tool. but I cant find one that can be read via script. β 01:04, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

There is this. Not sure if you can put that in script or not, but it does have a search box on the parent site and gives a Google Maps view of where the IP comes from. Not sure if that helps or not. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 01:08, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Found one, Single IP Lookup now has IP geolocation :P β 01:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Is it GeoLite City? If not, you may want to look into GeoLite city. CSV imports easily into a MySQL database and there are monthly updates. Accuracy is something like 83% within a 25-mile radius. — madman bum and angel 04:04, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Sweet, I have bookmarked it and will use it when needed. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 01:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Very useful, Betacommand. I tested a few that I knew would do the trick, and it did. Keegan (talk) 04:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

It looks handy, but I checked 2 IPs and they came up with almost no information (despite being currently blocked). Example. Bug? -- Luk 07:11, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Fixed the issue. any more crop up let me know. β 13:59, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Hm, it says that I live in Vallejo, California. hmwitht 13:46, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Im looking for a better geoip tool than I have any suggestions are welcome. β 13:59, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Geolocate can only go so far. This is not a Bad Thing® Keegan (talk) 20:49, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Beta, what determines the range caluclated in the first tool? It is the largest range blockable on en.wp owned by the target ISP or is it something else? Protonk (talk) 18:43, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

whois -h whois.cymru.com " -v -f 127.0.0.1" is the whois query and where the CIDR is obtained from. β 22:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Longtime blocked user requesting unblock

• Agnapostate (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User is making a compelling case for being unblocked. Given the nature of his block, I am bringing it here for consensus. I am officially neutral on the subject. --Jayron32 02:11, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

• I agree broadly with ForesticPig's comment. A block that removes a wikilawying account is generally a good one, but the stated justification was worrying. But NPOV isn't a suicide pact. I'm hesitant to recommend an unblock because the reason is insufficient. An unblock should show that ICB was wrong, that circumstances have changed, or that editor behavior has changed. We should have some confidence that the same course of action won't be pursued following the unblock (or, obviously, some confidence that the course of action wasn't wrong in the first place). I don't see that here. Protonk (talk) 02:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

The ed. offers not to edit in the field that was the source of the problem, but while he was here he seems not to have edited any other area (broadly speaking).DGG (talk) 04:04, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

"In light of this, I am willing to avoid all articles on the topic in the future if that is necessary so as to consequently avoid involvement in further negative disputes if unblocked, though I would prefer otherwise"--So he does. I skipped over that sentence. If that is the case then I'm ok w/ an unblock. Protonk (talk) 04:32, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Oppose unblock of former SPA, if he wants to edit other than the child sexuality areas he can set up a new account but this account with its record shouldn't be editing wikipedia at all. Thanks, SqueakBox talk 13:36, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Blocks relate to the person not the account. The last thing we want him to do is start another account and edit a different topic area without the block log linking the old account to the new. Protonk (talk) 17:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I have unblocked him with an effective topic ban from any articles related to youth rights, pedophilia, or anything remotely related. I will take responsibility to monitor contributions for a period of time; any admin can re-block without consultation or warning. Tan | 39 18:11, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I would like to comment that I might have overstepped my bounds here - not in the unblock itself, which I think is appropriate, but in that Jayron put the unblock request on hold so that he might gather consensus here. I saw Protonk's agreement with the potential unblock and, feeling the same way, stepped in. I apologize if I acted prematurely or stepped on Jayron's toes. I should have just said my piece here and let Jayron handle it. That said, I don't think we needed a long !vote on this; a couple opinions and we're good to go. We can always reblock if abuse resumes. Tan | 39 19:34, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

It's all good dude, I don;t mind at all. If you're unblocking him, I'll assume your also taking tacit responsibility as well; just keep an eye out for any of the former problems that led to his block. --Jayron32 23:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Request to use an image

Please allow to use the image File:Édouard-Henri Avril (29).jpg in the article trainfuck NSFW so that I can improve the article and prevent deletion. Thank you. --Meister und Margarita (talk) 07:32, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Done. - BanyanTree 07:59, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

This is a ridiculously bad article. The references are just links to porn sites. It even has the classic line "But sometimes the roles are switched and bottoms become tops and tops give up their asses." - deary me. Can this just go or does it have to be AfD'd? Ryan Postlethwaite 11:41, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Sexology

The above talk page seems to have got screwed up somehow. --Simon Speed (talk) 11:41, 6 August 2009 (UTC) OK, forget that, somebody's fixed it. Thanks to whoever that was. --Simon Speed (talk) 11:42, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Victor Lopes

Victor Lopes (talk · contribs) is a member of the autoreviewer usergroup, which means his new articles are flagged for no reviewing necessary. However, he was also the author of the José Higgins UFO incident article, which administrator Closedmouth just rightfully speedily deleted as "complete bullshit". Could someone please remove him from the autoreviewer usergroup? Thank you, NW (Talk) 16:47, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Based on the present AN thread concerns, I have removed the autoreviewer userright. Any admin may feel free to reinstate without contacting me. — Scientizzle 17:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Um. I'd be curious as to Closedmouth's decision to delete that article - there was no speedy deletion notification (and "complete bullshit" doesn't really compare to our speedy deletion categories, considering the article had references, though weak), the article's been around for a couple of years, Victor Lopes has been editing with no apparent problems since 2006... this seems kind of abrupt. Tony Fox (arf!) 20:31, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

It was more on the sense of IAR than anything else, I would say. The article presented an "Alien Encounter" as if it were fact, and had no useful content. I suppose it technically could or should have gone through AfD, but this was a fine application of the IAR in my opinion. NW (Talk) 20:44, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. En-cy-clo-pe-dia. Not a judgment on Victor, but that article really had no merit. Keegan (talk) 21:04, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest at least a bit more investigation. In my experience, Victor Lopes is a decent and sensible editor, and quick to see other points of view. He could at least be allowed to have his say. Bretonbanquet (talk) 20:40, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm back online and clicked through the deleted revisions of José Higgins UFO incident for a more comprehensive review of the issue. The article was created by Victor Lopes back on February 21, 2007, so it's rather likely that Lopes has had ample editing experience since then to warrant re-instating the tool, and doesn't appear to have any major or recent editing issues apparent by a cursory glance of his contributions. I also think the speedy deletion was a bit iffy and certainly crudely worded: sourcing was limited some websites that probably wouldn't pass WP:RS muster or an AfD discussion, but there were sources. A DRV may be appropriate if anyone is interested in pursing it, but Closedmouth should naturally be contacted first.

Given all of this, I've unmarked this thread as "resolved", I'll reinstate the autoreviewer userright for Victor Lopes, and I'll drop a line to Closedmouth. — Scientizzle 21:17, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe a person who calls other experienced editors' work "bullshit" and then delete it without even notifying the author is qualifyied enough to be an administrator. However, this is not the matter here. Scientizzle recovered my autoreviewer rights after I started writing here but he did it before I could send this message, so I'll just paste my original comment: "I humbly believe my autoreviewer rights shouldn't be removed, because only this and a couple of other articles of mine have been deleted, out of more than 300 I created. In addition, that article was created when I wasn't that experienced, but these rights were given to me just some time ago, after I expanded my understandings of the Wiki politics. And let's face it: these rights are a benefit for users, and not for me: I can keep creating as many good articles as I want with or without the autoreviewer rights, but being in this group makes the job of newpages patrollers easier". I'd like to thank Scientizzle for putting me back to the group of autoreviewers. I honestly can't guarantee this will be my last deleted article, but I always try to provide a minimum of qualification for my articles to stay. Victão Lopes 21:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

My talkpage is being hit by vandal

I reported some vandal-only account earlier for trying to crash people's browsers by vandalizing the featured article with links to a gigantic subpage. Now socks are doing the same to my talk page. Can someone please semiprotect it for a day or so? <>Multi-Xfer<> (talk) 03:11, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I also logged at WP:RPP on your behalf.    7     03:15, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks guys! They're still creating accounts or else there are sleepers. Maybe a checkuser or an IP block is in order? <>Multi-Xfer<> (talk) 03:22, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Incivility and soapboxing by Keepscases

Moved to Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for adminship. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

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