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Template:Active editnotice

BLP, SPAs, a proposal

Per the investigation and discussions at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/COI edit allegations I propose as follows:

1. user:John Quiggin and user:TimLambert are cautioned not to edit articles, especially biographies of living individuals, where they have a pre-existing off-Misplaced Pages dispute with the subject. Suggestions for improvement, comments regarding potential issues of editorial conduct etc. should be raised on the talk pages or appropriate noticeboards taking care to assume good faith and ensuring that comments about named individuals are kept neutral and supported by evidence.
2. The individual who has edited as 99.142.1.101 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 99.144.192.23 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 99.141.252.167 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 99.151.169.221 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 99.151.166.95 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 99.144.192.74 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), is a single-purpose or agenda account and is banned from commenting on or editing articles in respect of or relating to user:John Quiggin (John Quiggin) or user:TimLambert, including John Lott (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), John Quiggin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), Richard Lindzen (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), Roger Bate (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). This topic ban applies to the individual not the addresses and will continue to apply should the user choose to register an account.
3. Serenity (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a single-purpose or agenda account and is banned form editing the article John Lott, constructive suggestions for improvement to the article may be made at talk:John Lott iff supported by reliable independent secondary sources.

• Support as proposer. I know the IP raised a partly valid concern but he did so in a way that was grossly biased, tendentious, failed to recognise obvious issues with his own conduct, failed to follow the normal processes for dispute resolution instead going straight to escalation, was reported in an inaccurate manner, and at the same time engaged in conduct which was also indicative of an undeclared off-wiki agenda. The style and substance of the complaints mitigated against speedy investigation and resolution, and no credible attempt was made to address the issue with the user directly beforehand. Guy (Help!) 00:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

It may have gone unnoticed, but I did discuss this issue directly on Quiggin's talk page on March 2. Quiggin was not interested in discussing the topic. As to your other concerns, could you offer a diff as a supporting reference? Thanks. Also note that the listed contribs for me are anything but SPA and show a broad and rich edit history, as did the contribs I provided, including article creation. 99.142.1.101 (talk) 01:00, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support. This seems to be a sensible solution. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:33, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support - There's a clear conflict of interest concern, and when we have BLPs at stake that makes it much worse. -- Atama頭 17:36, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose #1, but support #2. COI, even if it exists, does not preclude the editing of the relevant articles - guideline (not policy) merely states that the COI should be disclosed and that the edits still need to observe NPOV etc. Yes, care should be taken to cite all relevant text to reliable sources and to maintain a neutral tone. But cautioning John Quiggin and Tim Lambert not to edit articles is an overreaction.radek (talk) 15:28, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

• I see what you're saying but we should be sure that we maintain a "clean hands" approach in respect of BLPs, I don't think either will find it hard to persuade others of genuinely valid edits on the talk pages and if my reading is right this is roughly what Jimbo thinks about this particular issue. Guy (Help!) 18:19, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

• The COI guideline also has suggestions regarding how to handle disruption caused by editors who have conflicts of interest, see this section; the first proposal above is only a minor expansion of what is already suggested for COI editors. -- Atama頭 19:54, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support generally. With the first one `I'd prefer to see a form where they can still edit the article, but only after taking the proposed edits to the talk page and obtaining consensus for them (with the obvious corollary that no consensus defaults to no edit). This is how past COIs have been managed. Orderinchaos 17:14, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose all 3 - #1 is too weak, what is this "cautioned not to edit" business? Either they are allowed to edit those articles or they are not. If not call it a topic ban. If so why say anything? #2 and #3 seem unnecessary as there is no prohibition on being an SPA as JzG is aware (I am only assuming that they are SPA since I haven't personally checked their edit histories). --GoRight (talk) 04:27, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
  • The proposal does not prohibit SPAs. It restricts two specific SPAs who have evidenced problematic behavior. MastCell  05:24, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
    • I apologize, I guess in my attempt to be terse I was being unclear. JzG appears to be (based on the description above) seeking to impose sanctions on these editors based solely on their being (allegedly) SPAs. I am not aware of any policy that forbids SPAs from editing the pages he has listed. If their status as SPAs is not at issue why is it being raised?

      Having read the associated sub-page I believe that the IP was raising valid points and we should not be shooting the messenger, especially one pointing out valid (I assume since JzG is warning Lambert and Quiggin) BLP concerns. Likewise writing glowing comments about Lott doesn't seem to violate any particular policy either, does it? There is no checkuser confirmation that Serenity is Lott, is there? So why are sanctions being proposed here without evidence? Refer the matter to SPI where it can be handled properly if sock puppetry is suspected. --GoRight (talk) 05:51, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

The irony of sanctioning one set of BLP violations while condemning another set is what gets me the most, I think. JzG's proposal at least treats both as problematic behaviours needing to stop. The elephant in the room is that one is left-wing editors attacking a right-wing one, while the other is a right-wing IP attacking two left-wing editors. Let's leave the baggage at the door and be fair minded Wikipedians here. Orderinchaos 11:24, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Well the whole left-wing vs. right-wing dynamic is certainly may be in play here, as you point out, but in this instance at least I think that there is an important distinction to be made. The (alleged) left-wingers have been engaging in questionable activities to attack their ideological opponents in a manner that (arguably) negatively affects the quality and the credibility of the main space articles of the project. The (alleged) right-winger, on the other hand, is engaging in legitimate WP:DR to attack his opponents by merely pointing out the damage that they are doing to the project and to try and put a stop to it which (arguably) serves to improve the quality and the credibility of the project.

There may be times when these roles have been reversed, I don't know, but in every such case we as Wikipedians should take appropriate action against those doing actual damage to the project and support the actions of those who have raised the issues and thus enabled us to do so. This approach would create a forcing function in favor of positive impacts on the project without regard to the whole left-wing vs. right-wing dynamic that is motivating the behaviors on either side. --GoRight (talk) 18:30, 23 March 2010 (UTC) Updated based on the commentary below. --GoRight (talk) 01:38, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Note: This is not Left/Right, the questions were raised after Lambert's blog was introduced to remove The Times of London as a reliable source. I was unaware that Quiggin & Lambert were even users here until well into that discussion at the Reliable Source Noticeboard. The concerns are neutral concerns regarding COI, indeed ample evidence of blatant COI violations is easily found - as in these examples in which Quiggin has created entire articles, and supported them, for some of his friends and fellow bloggers at "Crooked Timber". . There is no grey area there. One doesn't join a business and then create promotional advertisements for ones fellow website members here at Misplaced Pages. Rules regarding COI are important, fundamentally important. I have had *zero* content interaction with the users and no direct disagreements beyond impeaching Lambert's blog as a WP:RS regarding the Reliable Source status of "The Times" of London and the associated talk. 99.142.1.101 (talk) 20:34, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd hardly call labelling one's opponents "brownshirts" as "engaging in legitimate DR". I'm also not quite sure how you'd characterise the blatantly misleading comments by the IP about the Australian media scene, either. The ironic thing is in the section above, they "impeach Lambert's blog as a RS" (correct) but have relied on idle comments by right-wing commentators in Online Opinion, a blog (which they claim is an RS and even a media outlet!), to base their own attacks. Selective amnesia/blindness is useful when one finds another's views ideologically agreeable, but it is not useful in productive conflict resolution. All three editors have issues. Two need to be restricted in some way. The other needs to be banned. Both conclusions are justifiable by their own actions and by policy. (I'd note I wouldn't even have had a view on this and would have dismissed it as lollish wikidrama had it not been for the actions of the IP in this direction - I think climate change is a great beatup and wish I could turn on a radio without hearing about it - but I'm totally against intellectual dishonesty in all its forms.) Orderinchaos 01:04, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I've made my main points and I don't wish to reopen the entire debate here so I'll simply agree to disagree and let you have the last word. --GoRight (talk) 01:38, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support generally per Orderinchaos. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:54, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
• To be even-handed, upgrade #1 to a topic ban or downgrade #2 & #3 to a caution. —DoRD (talk) 13:09, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose I have another idea. Quiggin and Lambert are banned from editing the BLPs of people they have already trashed publicly on their personal blogs, and the IP editor is congratulated from bringing this issue to our attention. Meanwhile, whoever made this outrageous proposal has failed to govern in the interests of Misplaced Pages and should be put on warning for poor performance. Alex Harvey (talk) 00:45, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose, generally per Alex Harvey, but I do hope Mr. 99.1 decides to register an account. Pete Tillman (talk) 03:44, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Pete, whilst you and I use our real names, the majority of editors don't. Maybe I am just misunderstanding something, but I haven't quite understood what difference it makes if someone chooses to edit anonymously from a static IP, or from an anonymous, registered account. In either case, one's identity is protected, and one can do whatever they please, without any fear of consequences. Anyone can, if they want, have two separate networks set up at home, with two different providers that assign IPs from two separate ranges. Sure, they'll geolocate to the same country, but big deal. On the first network, register account A, and call it Beeble, and on the second network, register a second account B, and call it Brox. Do this carefully, and consistently, you can run two entirely separate accounts and there's no way the Misplaced Pages Foundation will ever find out about it. I see nothing but hypocrisy in anonymous editors (yourself, therefore, excluded) calling on an the anonymous static IP editor to register. If Misplaced Pages is to grow up, it needs to ban anonymous editing, period. Alex Harvey (talk) 05:48, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Creating an account would make it a bit easier to appraise the totality of this editor's work. Right now, his contributions are spread over several IPs, with no straightforward way to collate them. In contrast, a registered editor would have a unified contribution history. Furthermore, in another thread it was suggested that this editor's IP has a habit of changing immediately after each time he's been blocked, which raises the specter of block evasion. If one were inclined to question this editor's good faith - which is not unreasonable given some of his/her behavior - then the changing IPs start to verge on avoiding legitimate scrutiny. Alternately, perhaps this editor has a record of solid, productive contribution which is hidden under a different IP, and which would cause his/her presence here to viewed slightly more positively. As to having 2 different ISPs at home, that seems like a rather expensive way to try to game the system, but undoubtedly Misplaced Pages has editors obsessive enough to try it. Such is life. MastCell  19:18, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose And furthermore I think Guy should be warned not to use his administrative "oomph" to lessen sanctions against people with whom he has apparent off-wiki relations with while attempting to topic ban their accuser. TheGoodLocust (talk) 05:16, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

• You what? Against whom, exactly, am I advocating lessening sanctions, and what is my purported off-wiki relationship with them? All three have made edits which skirt if not violating WP:BLP, one (the IP) is here solely to attack an identifiable individual. The proposed sanctions address precisely that and nothing else. Guy (Help!) 15:13, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I remember very clearly that you, Tim Lambert and John Quiggin are facebook friends of another editor on here (linked from their wikipedia userpage). The fact that you've defended this group of people (e.g. another time you've used your administrative authority to defend your facebook associates), multiple times, strains credulity. It is clear that these people should be topic banned from the area not "warned" (but never enforced) and you should quit defending people with whom you have off-wiki relations with - at the very least it looks bad to outside eyes. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

ROFLMAO! I have over 200 FB friends, many of whom are Wikipedians whose usernames I recognised when they friended me. I have no idea what other friends they might have, or whether Quiggin and Lambert, whose names I had never even heard before this started, have friends in common. Oh, no, wait, I just looked them up on FB. I know your problem here: the friend in common (there is only one) is The Antichrist Himself. A baseless conspiracy theory from a climate change denier - why am I not surprised? Guy (Help!) 22:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes well, it is clear from both your attitude, actions and attack against me that you are not a neutral party in this affair and shouldn't be involved in any way - much less the lead role you've (once again) taken upon yourself to defend these people. TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:59, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Funny, isn't it, how the comments in this section fall into two categories: people who support my proposal based on my detailed analysis of actual editing behaviour, and climate sceptics who want the IP to be given a free pass just because he found some marginally questionable edits by a couple of editors who nobody had taken the trouble to try to inform about policy. Guy (Help!) 07:00, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

It could be said that the comments break down into another set of categories: People who oppose your proposal because of the disproportionate sanctions, and global warming cheerleaders who want to give two BLP violators a pass because they agree with them. —DoRD (talk) 13:12, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure it could, there are people who will believe anything. Guy (Help!) 23:57, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

• OpposeWhy is the ip getting topic banned for bringing such outrageous behaviour to light? Quiggen and Lambert should be topic banned not "asked to be good boys" The IP should be congratulated not punished mark nutley (talk) 15:22, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

• The outrageous behaviour is coming here to pursue an off-wiki agenda against an identifiable individual from behind a cloak of anonymity. Most of his reports were stale or not actionable and he did not even try to do things the wiki way, he went straight for shit-stirring. We can do without that kind of stupidity where living individuals are concerned. Guy (Help!) 22:41, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

• I have calmly and patiently on several occasions pointed out, and supported with reference, that my discussing these concerns with the subject was rejected with absolute finality. I have also clearly shown I was unaware that Quiggin & Lambert were even users here until well into a discussion at the Reliable Source Noticeboard.. Your unfounded and unsupported "claim" that I have an agenda regarding Lambert & Quiggin is becoming tendentious - as is your obvious pressing of an invalid complaint regrding my airing of this matter. Please recall the comments of the founder and Chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation and his views on this very matter in regards to my, Lambert & Quiggins actions: My criticism of Lambert & Quiggin has been well supported and factual. COI harms the project whether done to harm ones enemies or to promote and bolster ones personal projects - as in these examples in which Quiggin has created entire articles, and supported them, for his close co-workers at "Crooked Timber". There is no grey area there either. One doesn't join a business and then create promotional advertisements for ones fellow website members here at Misplaced Pages. Rules regarding COI are important, fundamentally important. I have had *zero* content interaction with the users and no direct disagreements beyond impeaching Lambert's blog as a WP:RS regarding the Reliable Source status of "The Times" of London and the associated talk. Your unsupported "claims" to the contrary do nothing to change this.99.142.1.101 (talk) 01:45, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

The diff you present is neither calm nor a good faith attempt to assist an editor in understanding policy, it's arguing the toss about your persistent removal from article space of the name of someone against you harbour an obvious grudge, with a side-order of WP:ABF and a garnish of vitriol. Guy (Help!) 08:54, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Your blind, unreferenced and unsupported "claim" that I harbor an "obvious grudge" is bizarre. I have had *zero* content interaction with the users and no direct disagreements beyond this. Period. Your transparent effort to provoke speaks volumes about your character, and your pronounced and extended campaign harms the reputation of Misplaced Pages while threatening it's ability to maintain it's standards. It was not I that twisted their arms and forced them to violate foundational principles regarding the integrity of our process, nor was it I that forced a mouse into their hands and forced them to write BLP's claiming that in one case that their long standing enemy was involved in a conspiracy with the shadowy "international tobacco industry" to fight malaria in order to divert the WHO from reducing smoking. This all has a quite the 'through-the-looking-glass' surrealness about it. 99.142.1.101 (talk) 12:50, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Your inability to accept any fault whatsoever has not gone unnoticed. Guy (Help!) 22:10, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I entered the police station and reported a crime that occurred in an area of town I don't walk through involving people I did not know until this month and have never associated nor interacted with prior. The "fault" is not mine. I realize that often here it's hard to fathom that sometimes people really do just beetle around neutrally. But it does happen that, as Freud was said to have observed, 'sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.'.99.144.249.249 (talk) 22:35, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Really. That's why you've spent so much time assiduously removing the name of Tim Lambert from articles, is it? Forgive me if I am more than slightly sceptical. Guy (Help!) 00:02, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Lambert's name was removed from citations because the referenced link did not include his name as an author of the paper. The specifics are found here in the discussion from which this AN/I incident was preceded:, and in this edit within that discussion: Note that the website has now (about a week ago) acknowledged its error and corrected the attribution to include Lambert. WP:Verify is the policy that guided that action, one that was done with community support at the RS noticeboard. Your blatant mis-characterization of my openly correcting the attribution after community discussion is ill-mannered and offensive. You may wish to consider how your actions could be viewed here by others. 99.144.249.249 (talk) 01:27, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

When you say "was removed", you mean you removed it, and edit-warred over it with the credited author, and refused to accept the credited author's word that Lambert was a co-author. Your personal animosity is quite blatant here, and your steadfast refusal to acknowledge fault or bias is in contrast with the reaction of the people you are attacking, which is the reason I proposed a stiffer sanction in your case. You appear not only not to admit there is a problem, but to repudiate the very idea that a problem could exist. Bringing one problem to people's attention does not give you the right to engage in the same and worse behaviour yourself, as several people have noted. Especially when your problem behaviour is ongoing while much of what you report is stale, unproblematic or in some cases non-existent. Guy (Help!) 09:34, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

No, when I said "I removed" - I linked to my edit which clearly stated it was my edit, "Attribution has been corrected in these. No article text (except the removal of the name) was changed, nor refs removed when I corrected the attribution." You sir, are quite clearly seeking to create the impression of a violation where none exists - notably with a fresh accusation as we enter the second week of your baseless campaign against me. Your odd claim that an edit summary from a wiki user claiming that the ref is wrong - and that the "credited authors word" claiming to 'know better' and disputing the clear linked reference to the contrary somehow meets WP:RS, WP:Verify and WP:OR, is breathtaking. I can't tell whether you are still an Administrator or not here, if you are you should consider reviewing our core principles, especially regarding "Verifiability, not truth" and the previously linked policies, as this is a textbook example without grey area. If you are not still an Administrator, you may wish to reflect on why. 99.144.249.249 (talk) 13:18, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support The two users named in point 1 have each shown a good ability to hear advice and to react in an appropriate manner. The individual in point 2 damaged their case by pushing an agenda too hard. Johnuniq (talk) 23:39, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose per proposer's blatant bias, unless #1 is upgraded to a topic ban rather than a wee slap-on-the-wrist. —DoRD (talk) 02:34, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support - a reasonable wrap up of this situation. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:36, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

ElEditordeWiki (talk · contribs)

This post related to a specific problem, dispute, user, help request, or other narrow issue, and has been moved to the Administrators' noticeboard for incidents (ANI). Please look for it on that page. Thank you.

YellowMonkey isn't following the protection policy or guidelines with their protections.

YellowMonkey (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

I've reported a number of cases of YellowMonkey not following the protection guidelines first to him and then to RUP All of them have been unprotected on RUP and none of them really had enough vandalism for them to be protected at all in the first place.

• Archived talk page discussion Anuruddha (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Archived talk page discussion Nguyễn Văn Thiệu (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Archived talk page discussion England cricket team (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Archived talk page discussion Army of the Republic of Vietnam (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Talk page discussion Thaipusam (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Talk page discussion Devaasuram (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Talk page discussion Freedom of religion in India (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Talk page discussion Freestyle swimming (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Talk page discussion Dural, New South Wales (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

A general challenge for review has been also been done and this hasn't gone anywhere (and has in fact been archived). As the admin in question has made several hundred indefinite semi-protections over the past year can these be reviewed please? Thanks. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:38, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

It looks like the existing WP:RFPP process has already dealt with this. -- Cirt (talk) 18:49, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

As the administrator who unprotected several of the articles in question, I think at least a statement from YellowMonkey would be nice. In my opinion, many of these weren't even given a rudimentary explanation. Tan | 39 18:51, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec)I do admit YellowMonkey's responses to you on his talk page are pretty concerning, and that a few of those protections seem to be excessive. Perhaps there's a good reason for them, but at first glance none of his explanations on his talk page justify indefinite protection (or in some cases any protection). ThemFromSpace 18:53, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Of note, I didn't try particularly hard to find these articles for unprotection - it is almost certain that there are many more articles that are as deserving as these for unprotection. Only the first two that I found aren't from YellowMonkey's last 50 protections. Its probably fair to say I've had a reasonable go through the last 50 and I've picked ones that looked promising there, but not any further back in time. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:57, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

• I would guess this is probably a function of burnout. –xeno 19:01, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Eraserhead1 (talk · contribs), have you notified YellowMonkey of this AN thread? -- Cirt (talk) 19:05, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Xeno notified the user a short time ago. As an admin who unprotected one of these articles after 3 days had passed, I sympathise with YellowMonkey, and agree with Xeno that this is probably a function of burnout as IP hopping vandals who are willing to wait for short protections to expire before resuming are very frustrating. However, the protection policy states that protection should not be pre-empative, thus these indefinate protections seem to be over the top, potentially penalising legitimate editors because of one vandalism incident. --Taelus (talk) 19:09, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

• I'm disgusted by the comments here. This is not a function of burnout; it's a function of common sense. If "no rudimentary explanation" was given, you talk to the checkuser administrator - you don't just unprotect on your whim and expect one later. Just because you can't see the disruption so obviously doesn't mean it's not been occurring on a high scale level across articles under the India WikiProject. All of you are most welcome to come watchlist every single India article to ensure this vandalism does not occur and I'd like to see how long you last before you realise that the disruption is outweighing the need to allow "potentially legitimate editing". You just don't understand how disruptive editing occurs on these articles. YM is doing a thankless job and all we have is nitpicking by a group of users who seem to be acting in a manner that enables this disruption to continue. If you have a better way, go right ahead, because so far, it's not worked in practice . Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:14, 23 March 2010 (UTC) modified slightly. 20:17, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Are you fucking kidding me? Tan | 39 19:15, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Policy has worked spectacularly so far to deal with the problem, so I must be "fucking kidding" you. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:17, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Five of them don't even relate to India in any way, and Thaipusam is borderline, I saw it in Penang, Malaysia... -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:20, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Like the Vietnam article? . And when did this stop? Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:28, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

A perfect example of how blocking an IP would have been much wiser than blocking all new users indefinitely from editing this article. 205.228.108.57 (talk) 00:20, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Administrators who've tried to deal with this type of issue have given up due to the humongous timesink as the comments below have illustrated, and the project is worse off for it. Like I said, "If you have a better way, go right ahead, because so far, it's not worked in practice." Deny it as much as you like; it won't make it any less true. Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:12, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, good. I hate to see that you are "disgusted" with a perfectly civil conversation by people concerned by a lack of transparency. In other news, Freestyle swimming isn't a part of the India Wikiproject. Tan | 39 19:24, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

1 article; it's better I keep this civil rather than commenting on this discovery. The summary by the admin who unprotected at least appeared to show some understanding . Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:38, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

It's not one article. 205.228.108.57 (talk) 01:23, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I know; was sticking to the ones that were pointed out here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:08, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

• Getting tired of dealing with vandalism in the usual way, instead using indefinite semi-protections right off the hop isn't burnout? –xeno 19:25, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

• Indefinite is not permanent; it's for the period of time where the disrupting entity is active. It actually does go inactive when it's prevented from editing the article for a sufficient period of time; otherwise, it continues popping up. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:28, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

• Wouldn't indefinite protection just cause them to move to another article? I don't understand why the usual gradual increases in length won't be as effective as an indefinite. –xeno 19:31, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

• If I interviewed a regular vandal, I'd obviously be able to answer this better, but based on my experience - at first, yeah, but it seems to stop when it seems like too much work and seems like too long to wait before it can strike again. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:51, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

• Unfortunately semi-protecting articles is not without a downside for Misplaced Pages as a project. There are good reasons why we have a policy in place, and according to it many of YellowMonkey's protections are blatantly inappropriate. 205.228.108.57 (talk) 02:05, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Semiprotection is there to stop degrading of articles, and in the cases I locked, almost nobody cares about them if not none at all, apart from drive-bys piling extra bits on incoherently, usually spam or vandalism YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:02, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

• Perhaps you haven't read the views below. Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:08, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec) In which case I'd be seeing a large number of unprotections (i.e. significantly more than 3) by YellowMonkey in their protection log along with the more than 340 indefinite semi-protections in the last year. If that was the case I wouldn't have bothered to bring this to WP:AN. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:34, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, could you clarify this for me? When and where did you make the effort to remind him to review the many protected articles in his log? I mean, if you have a concern, typically you ought to give that user an opportunity to respond (and even address) the concern regarding his actions. You do agree that he may have unprotected ones which no longer warrant protection in his opinion if the concern was raised clearly and properly? All I could see was you objecting to a few articles on his talk and then escalating here - perhaps because you found that there are too many for you to look at (and opine on) personally, and because of your belief in the relevant guideline/policy. I mean, I could understand if he wanted or needed help with this task from other users, and we should make every effort to help out in that case, but if he wanted to sort some out based on the evidence (including CU evidence) which he has (and the rest of us don't), perhaps you jumped too soon? Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:05, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

See this (as linked at the top). -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:16, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying this for me; it seems the IP and you jointly did this, at one point. You waited a week...and then escalated it here. It seems I looked at the wrong diff. Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:27, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

No worries :). -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:34, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, may I bring up that what we were all looking for was explanations. We wanted YellowMonkey to pop in here and maybe give us a heads up as to why he indef protected a shitton of articles, including ones not even remotely related to the India Wikiproject. I'm not against indefinite semiprotection; I did it to a ton of articles per the Bambifan vandal. But I didn't include other articles I indef protected just because of some random vandalism under the blanket of that reasoning, and I try to explain to people what's going on when they ask. What we weren't looking for was a third party expressing his disgust at our questioning, and trying to explain everything under the India WP problem (which it clearly isn't). Tan | 39 19:37, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not a third party; and my disgust is not directed at the asking questions or hoping for transparency. I probably should've clarified my earlier comment; not all of the articles fall under the WikiProject India banner, but a large portion do, and I vouch for the fact that in the case of many of them, methods short of protection have been or were attempted. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:43, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

(edit conficts)Well this has taken a bit of a sour turn... I would like to clarify that my usage of the term "burnout" was not meant to infer any negatives here, quite the opposite infact! As I said previously, I sympathise with YellowMonkey and the fact that vandals are so persistant in evading our protections by simply waiting for them to time out, and I would like to thank him for all his work in the area. I cannot comment on the India articles as I haven't been involved with them at all in relation to these protections, but I do think that perhaps the first time protections on some unrelated articles could be toned down to not be indefinate. If the vandal resurfaces right away after the protection expires and is evading blocks and such, we can then impose longer protections. The protection policy says we shouldn't protect indefinately pre-empatively just in case there is repeated vandalism. If there is additional evidence that I am unaware of I would be happy to hear it, and said so previously when I unprotected an article and notified YellowMonkey, asking to be informed if there were any circumstances I was not aware of. Apologies for any misunderstandings here, --Taelus (talk) 20:33, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I apologise also; I did not wish to create further misunderstandings by expressing my own frustration, and fear that may have resulted here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 21:20, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

@Tan: As I do a fair bit of vandal/sock fighting and protections on India and cricket articles, I'll say that many times indef is required. I generally don't go the indef route myself, but the day after the protection expires, it starts again. Equivalent to Bambifan is Nangparbat, after a while, even logging actions in that page doesn't seem necessary. Every page from Cauliflower to Srinagar is targeted by him and there are "counter Nangparbat" socks too (User:Mrpontiac1 is one). These are never caught on early, unlike with Bambifan, there are at best three or four editors who clean up after these and very often, the edits just slide by. Then there's the caste articles, see the history of Nadar (caste) before protection in March '09. Not very different in the cricket articles either, too much regionalistic POV pushing etc. And take the case of Siddharth Narayan, I semi-protected it for a month, the day after it expired, the same changes to birthdates happens. Most of these articles are not watchlisted and these things just happen. Very often they are not caught until one of us does the weekly vandal sweep of categories. Indef may not be ideal, but what's the alternative if there isn't enough interest/bandwidth to clean up these articles within a short duration of the vandalism? —SpacemanSpiff 20:30, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Only one of the articles mentioned above had anything to do with Nangparbat in its protection description (Freedom of religion in India) EDIT: and it was only vandalised once, if it had been vandalised significantly I wouldn't have bought it up for unprotection (or here). -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:34, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

@Spiff: Awesome, but I never said anywhere that I have an issue with the idea of indefinite semi-protection. Tan | 39 20:38, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment on a slightly unrelated note, YellowMonkey does seem to generally avoid using the pp-semi template on the article's they protect. Using those would be nice so its clear that the article is protected. I had to add it to Cauliflower along with several of the other pages I've looked at to request un-protection for. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:52, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, Nangparbat is one of the socks who might justify very long protection for an article. See WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Nangparbat for the background. He is a sock who may restart the nonsense when protection expires. Since he has been abusing Misplaced Pages since his account was created on 4 August, 2008 and since he is relentless and immune to all discussion, semiprotections of up to two years in length would be reasonable. (He hits too many articles to expect the protecting admin to keep them all watchlisted). Semiprotection is used because it is not practical to stop him with rangeblocks. Multi-year protection can be reasonable, but indefinite protection is something I don't often see a need for. EdJohnston (talk) 20:56, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

The SPI investigation is only the tip of the iceberg actually. The people who kept logs for NP like Hersfold, Thegreyanomoly and myself stopped. I stopped because it was too much work since he uses so many socks. I've also been reporting NP socks to Nishkid64 and YellowMonkey. This is why the SPI isn't updated. NP is the one of the biggest sockpuppeteers in English Misplaced Pages if you count IPs. Jarlaxleartemis, Scibaby, or Bambifan101 are the only other people I know who come close and I have some doubts on Scibaby and Bambifan having more socks. Rangeblocks are completely out of the question because one, the range is too big and two, collateral damage is very high. Long term semi-protection is the only thing slowing him down. Elockid 21:24, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

But if you protect too much you risk him "winning" by having so many pages protected :(. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:27, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Precisely. Besides, although I appreciate the burnout factor, one cannot possibly justify all this murder under the single umbrella of Nangparbat. I mean, did you actually look at the list?

I don't think Nangparbat was interested in cricket, Australian schools and places, Vietnam, etc.

Some protections are 1-2 minutes apart, barely enough to click on the history of the article. 118.7.212.11 (talk) 21:58, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

The thing is that 6 out of 9 of the articles that are on this list are recently protected, only the first 2 I found and the one you found are older. If its more than burnout there should be a decent number of articles to challenge the protection status of there. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:43, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

PS Maybe Misplaced Pages has to take legal action if its really that serious. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:43, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

The NP articles were not protected to win a war or a dispute. They were done to prevent further disruption from him especially with Kashmir related articles. Also protected to keep the other banned users from editing: he likes to edit war on those types of articles especially with banned users like Mrpontiac (currently active) and Hkelkar (personally have not experienced but there's some threads on ANI on this) who also edit the same articles as Nangparbat. Time and time again has shown that short term semi is not effective on NP. A good example is Jammu and Kashmir (everything from October 08 and now is because of him) or the SPI. Abuse reports have been filed, but they've been rejected. Elockid 22:03, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I think I'd be challenging Semi-protection for being too weak if Jammu and Kashmir wasn't indefinitely protected - its such an obvious vandalism target. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:11, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

To elaborate on the above its the major part of a complex disagreement between two major world powers both of whom have large proportions of the population which speak English - its highly likely to be a big vandalism target, sock or no sock. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:47, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

would agree with others that nangparbat has been a major source of disruption on many India related articles and since a rangeblock is out of the question and legal action against him by WP does not look like a good possibility either I think indefinite semiprotection definitely makes sense for articles he hits. he has a dynamic IP and his address changes very frequently so blocking him each and every time consumes too much resources to be efficient. Wikireader41 (talk) 02:23, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

So assuming Nangparbat doesn't cease his activities, wouldn't the number of indefinitely semi-protected articles grow indefinitely? There must be a better way. –xeno 02:25, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Strongly agree. An edit like this cannot possibly justify an indefinite semi straight off, Nangparbat or not Nangparbat, else we really are in trouble. 205.228.108.57 (talk) 04:01, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Someone needs to find out who he is and tell his mom. It worked last time.... Hesperian 02:28, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes I think that contacting his ISP should be considered though I am not sure if something like that has ever been done and what wikipolicy governs that. though as an avid NP reverter I do think he might be slowing down partly as a result of YMs efforts and also thosse of Nishkid64 was taking care of bulk of this work previously.Wikireader41 (talk) 02:35, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Well I doubt his parents would care. People with strong racial opinions usually inherit them YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:02, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

If the semi-protections of articles such as Cauliflower and Financial Centres are justified then I think its highly likely they will care as its affecting more than just a small number of articles. Getting an official letter from the ISP telling you to stop is damn serious, as you could then get your internet cut off. I'm sure BT (or whoever his ISP is) would rather do that than get an article in the press criticising them for not blocking a vandal who is affecting that many different articles. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:19, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment - I strongly disagree with the "indefinite-is-not-infinite" argument that regularly pops up. First of all, it's as preposterous as claiming that the term of a 6-month protection is not 6 months (just because it could be undone earlier). Secondly, what matters is that in practice indefinite is pretty much infinite, because protecting admins tend to forget about their indefinite semis. YellowMonkey's case eminently illustrates this point. I don't see many instances in which he revisited a protection without being asked, despite our protection guidelines suggesting that "The only way to determine if ongoing semi-protection is still necessary is to remove the protection and see if the vandalism resumes at previous levels". 205.228.108.57 (talk) 04:01, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, why haven't you got an account? Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:08, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, why are 3% of your last 500 edits - dating back a month - to articles or article talk pages? Tan | 39 04:38, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't know, but if you have something to say, say it, Tanthalas39. In fact, humour me and open an RfC if you're really curious; maybe my time has finally come. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:03, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there's any need for an RfC; it's pretty obvious what the problem is. Tan | 39 13:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

You don't think there's a need for many things when it suits you; and it's clear that it has nothing to do with tiredness. Oh, you going to ask if I'm "fucking kidding" you again? Gee, I'm sorry, I must be going significantly off topic. Feh. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:47, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Wow, grasping at straws, are we. That's okay, I'll disengage and you can continue doing.... well, whatever it is you're here for. Tan | 39 13:50, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

When an admin is incapable of appropriately responding to criticism about his own conduct, it's not grasping at straws. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:02, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Response by YellowMonkey (& convenience break)

1. Schools. I do a weekly sweep of all the high schools in Australia by using RCL on the cats. 85%+ are just spam/vandalism/students abusing/bragging about their school or reverts of it. Reaction time to vandalism is often half a day or more for a large proportion. Nothing lost by liberally semiprotection, as almost all edits are worthless. On another note, most schools apart from the famous government-run examination-only schools that produce a lot of scientists/mathematicians, and sandstone private schools that produce a lot of political/business leaders etc, and dominate the school compeitions, have almost no indept sources and all the content is personal knowledge or school website fluff, and should be nuked, but V, RS, NPOV isn't mostly secondary on AFDs, but that's another story. Either way, most content, even if not vandalism, fails V and RS anyway.
2. Subcontinent. The average article here is very poor, much worse than random stuff on other countries, regardless of some FAs. Most regulars only tend to their personal collection and the community service levels are much lower than in other WikiProjects, and has been so for 4 years at least. Vandalism software and prompters only catch obvious vandalism but not non-obscene stuff, fluff, spam etc so manual locals and scanning people are needed. As an example, this and a check of the articles on large cities/districts of 500,000 or more reveal fossilised spam/vandalism piled up everywhere; I'm not going to bother starting all the lists of Punjabi ppl etc, these are full of vanity additions, or the caste articles, full of POV and fluff and random additions. As for politics eg the ruling Nehru-Gandhi family it's not uncommon to see articles on Prime Ministers sometimes vandalised for a day or more, or in late-2006 someone added to Rahul Gandhi that he was a rapist and it lasted multiple days, simliar for corruption etc. On Australian articles, vandalism, unsourced slurs on ministers and political parties get rolled back within 10 minutes; not here, they can stay for extended periods and get stuck in here, hence the more liberal protection in this area. A very large part of WP:INDIA PAK etc are nothing more than dumping grounds as random driveby incoherent/unencyclopedic additions almost never get reverted. To put things politely, the average established subcontinental editor is very very placid, except for the casteist/regionalist/religious factional editors. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:02, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
3. Cricket. The rate of semiprotection here is very, very much less than in the two categories above as there are a lot of enthusiasts who roll things back quickly. Only the most infamous/confrontational players who provoke strong feelings from fans are locked, eg those who always fight. The denisty of participants in cricket is much higher than those in India and schools, where vandals, spammers and hatemongers are much more prolific. Just trawl through a cat of schools or Indian politicians/geographic entities and a very high proportion, 40%+ have entrenched spam/nonsense and most edits just pile on more layers YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:02, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
4. Australia. Not much protection here, due to lots of active people checking more than their personal articles. Except the schools. Unlike people who are interested in certain sports or politics, and check the whole cat, I don't know of any people who like reading lots of books about various schools and so forth. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:02, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
5. Banned users in UK eg Nangparbat or typically really noisy Indian ranges with 50+ semi-regular editors. Blocking is not very useful on Indian IPs unfortunately, so sprotection is the only way, and not a bad way given how obsessed with spam teh average subcontinental IP/casual is YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:02, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

If people want to truncate the protection, that's up to them. I'm not a politician who goes around claiming to be the head of any wikiporject or claims credit for the success of that wikiproject (eg other people's FAs) and trying to find disciples and build up a personal following etc, so if the situation deteriorates I won't have much to lose since I wasn't taking credit for the better times, or getting a free lunch out of others' FAs. I'm not referring to anyone here, but it isn't hard to work out what I'm getting at. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:02, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I think this is much ado about nothing. I've unprotected a few articles that were indef semi-protected by YM (though I would defer to YM and Spiff on their India article semi-protects) and he has never objected or questioned the unprotection. So YM has a strong semi-protection policy while I have a weak one, but, as long as no battles break out, I don't see why the two policies can't coexist on wikipedia. I suggest requesting unprotection at WP:RFPP whenever you believe a different opinion is warranted. --RegentsPark (talk) 05:40, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't cover Army of the Republic of Vietnam for example which looks to me like the reason it was protected was because someone self-reverted a test edit. I also think his reaction to my requests weren't as polite as those to you. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:44, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this is a big deal by any standard.

We have an admin who, in good faith, is so desperate to fight vandals that is recurring to inappropriate tools to do that. I am even prepared to believe that WP does not offer better alternatives, but if this is true then we have to come up with something quick.

If it isn't, I do not accept that all these protections can be shrugged off just as someone having a lower threshold, because then we might as well take WP:PP, with all the blood that has been shed on it, and throw it in the bin. Granted, we are not here to decide an absolute, rigid threshold that applies to all cases, but if YM's low threshold is considered acceptable, this sets a dangerous precedent and makes our project at risk.

We are talking about 350 indefinite protections in a year. This is more than 12% of all current indefinite semis in the English WP. In other words, one in eight current indefinite semis has been granted by YM.

This is not a witchhunt, YM seems selfless and open to discussion. I think we just need to help out someone who is trying to do the right thing, but seems confused about the significance of indefinite semi-protections and their rules of engagement. 118.7.212.11 (talk) 13:03, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

As soon as the type of article that YB semi-protects gets 12% of editorship traffic, then that is reasonable. YB is not "fighting vandalism" by sprotecting articles, he is limiting damage to rarely reviewed articles that are the target of vandals; a nuance apparently lost to some commentators. Likely the most review some subjects, those relating to the Indian subcontinent for instance, is within the recent changes arena - and I know from experience that editors who are not familiar with nationalist, cultural, religious, local political, caste (I should not think the majority of En-WP editors are aware that caste distinctions are as much a potential for dispute as religion/nationalism in some areas of the subjects), gender (yup, there is that also), etc. considerations are only effective in combating obvious vandalism. Until the majority of editors are prepared to immerse themselves into the cultures and interests of these low visibility (to the editorship) subjects then we need to understand that those few who do are employing the only measures that maintain some reasonable standard of reliability for these articles. That some ip is unable to update a local cricketers domestic statistics is a price worth paying to stop another vandalising the article by saying that the subjects mother was from the untouchable caste - and I don't think that the majority of editors would even understand why such a comment might be so offensive. As for my fine words, I only know the subjects that YB patrols well enough to recognise that there are these problems, but not sufficient to be able to resolve them; I am not knowledgable enough. If editors care about the reputation of WP outside of the privileged nations (and sometimes you have to ask if they do) then we should be grateful that there are a few that do their best with the tools available. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:29, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

That argument would hold more weight if 5 out of the 9 articles didn't have anything to do with India whatsoever, and the Buddhism article and Thaipusam aren't totally mainstream India related topics. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:30, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

That would be were the "those relating to the Indian subcontinent for instance" (my underlining) disclaimer is noted - not all YB's edits are to India, but also other non mainstream topics. There is simply a shortage of English language editors interested in reviewing a great many of them, even if they do read all of the content. I simply used the example of India since I am aware of the issues, although not knowledgable enough to assist to any great degree. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:39, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Why not just indefinitely semi-protect all stubs in the whole encyclopaedia? Clearly no-one watches any of them, so vandalism could stay for ages. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:41, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

No, it's not that undeveloped articles aren't watched. Heaps of people (enthusiasts) patrol entire cats of science, footballers and cricketers etc, whether the article is developed or not and revert problems on the articles. It's certain topics (people tend not to be "school fans" and only many only patrol their old high school/uni) where nobody patrols the topic with a decent breadth. Or just some Wikiprojects where people are totally communally disinclined wrt cleanup stuff. I know some FA writers of yesteryear in India who did nothing else and said that patrolling the non-elite articles, so to speak, was pointless and that passing FA was the only useful and meaningful guarantee of POV (well 2006 FAs were poor and many passed on WikiProject pileons in those days, many with people from teh same country with the sam ePOV worldwview so it doesn't guarantee rough NPOV at all); for many of them, having a lop-sided prominent article on PMs etc didn't matter. Just a check of the topic editors at WP:AWNB and WT:INB using the revision history counter (as well as the fact that the latter is more afflicted by hopeless drivebys), and looking up the edit history of the main contributors, shows a clear difference in how much removal/cleanup of vandalism/spam-prose/vanity lists/unencyclopedic stuff is done YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 03:42, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

That's great, what about the other five articles I bought up that have nothing to do with India? Or the two that are fairly international. That the India project is dysfunctional is very sad. But that doesn't mean the same level of protections should be applied to other articles - and to semi-protect whole classes of article means that its impossible for new editors to get into those projects. We'll see what the community has to say on schools, I'm tempted to say its a reasonable idea so its possible that it will pass, its one of the reasons I didn't actually challenge any schools. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:25, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Confused? YM? I think that his mountain of content work and succinct and detailed summaries of the articles he's involved with above show an ample degree of clue and far greater degree of analysis than I have seen to date, especially in pointing out differences in areas of the mainspace that no-one else has to date in this argument. Ultimately no system is perfect, and yes every semiprotect risks driving away IPs, but I think his notes on secondary schools and less-monitored articles are worth considering. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

And they are good points, however they largely don't apply to the specific examples that were bought up here. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I also think that if schools articles are going to be protected more carefully that is fine, but the Misplaced Pages community does need to be given an opportunity to respond on it. I suggest starting an RFC on WT:PP. I also think that if one user has been responsible for 1/8 of all semi-protections and I've found 9 within a few days that are definitely incorrectly protected that needs to be looked at further.

PS Its clear that YM is a great contributor to the site, just look at all those FA's. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

• Thank you for your detailed response and continued vigilance, YellowMonkey. Hopefully flagged protection/revisions/whatever will eventually lend a hand for this particularly sticky situation. I may take a look at the older items and unprotect some iff I feel I can adequately watch for the subtle vandalism. –xeno 14:38, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't mind anything being unprotected if people watch it closely enough that the % of time it spends in a vandalised state is low. For a while John Howard was unprotected it was vandalised all the time but reverted within 2-3 minutes even if it was subtle and didn't set off a prompting tool. If ten people are willing to sign up to a group of articles so that it is well-covered then that's their choice even though it might be a waste of guard time if the disruptive IPs far outnumber a good-faith one YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 03:42, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but I still think that it's a pretty inefficient way forward. It sounds a bit like, feel free to fill in the holes I'm digging.

Can I suggest you consider one or more of the following please YM?

• Slow down the rate
• Revisit some of your recent indefinite semi-protections, because I think it's undeniable that at least *some* of them were inappropriate - or at the very least that's what the un-protecting admins thought
• Use termed (as opposed to indefinite) semi-protections where applicable (have a look at WP:RFP for guidance on terms)
• Try to submit some of your WP:RFP and see what response you get

Would it be possible to try some of these for ~1 month please, perhaps in selected areas? We can then reassess the situation more calmly. Thank you. 118.7.152.209 (talk) 14:43, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:59, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

More administrators required to handle requests for 'confirmed' permission

According to the this, there are less than 30 people watching Misplaced Pages:Requests for permissions/Confirmed. I would appreciate it if some more admins could add this page to their watchlist.

Given that there are several threads ongoing above and elsewhere about wide use of semi-protection, giving new users a front-of-the-line pass to edit semi-protected articles is one available remedy. 'confirmed' userright should be handed out liberally, but retracted at any sign of trouble. A handy link to watch the page is here: watch. –xeno 14:55, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

That's reasonable. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:30, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know about that page. At least at first reaction, the "remedy" doesn't sound obviously good. A major benefit of autoconfirm is to slow down sock farmers, which handing out 'confirmed' liberally tends to work against. "Retract at any sign of trouble" is difficult if the "trouble" is long-term POV pushing that is hard to detect in a user's first few edits. I've been editing from IP addresses for years and don't run into semi-protection issues often enough to consider it a big problem from an unconfirmed-editing standpoint. (It does tend to provoke user complaints when it happens). It might be reasonable in some special circumstances to fast-confirm some new editors whose real names are known and verified by OTRS, and who have some concrete reason to be creating new articles or editing semi-protected ones right off the bat. Others should just be advised to get some experience editing non-problematic articles before messing with problematic ones.

In the case of newbies hitting topical subjects that are vandalized due to high traffic, it would probably help to rewrite the templates that explain semi-protection. The new template would gently explain that while almost all WP articles can be edited immediately, a few (0.02% of the total, or whatever the number is) require the user to be active for a few days before editing, and that newcomers can instead use the (new) "request a change to this article" wizard. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 00:07, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I think leaning on this obscure page (I also never heard of it) would do nothing to alleviate the downside of semi-protections, particularly the inappropriate ones. The only people who would benefit would be a bunch of long-time editors and those committed enough to vandalism, POV etc - the very people that semi-protections allegedly aim to protect us against. 114.146.68.105 (talk) 21:38, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

The page is part of Misplaced Pages:Requests for permissions. –xeno 21:40, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Library of Congress website revamps, links broken

Today the Library of Congress rolled out a new website design. Apparently they haven't gotten the kinks out and most or all of the source links from Misplaced Pages are currently broken. Found out about this shortly after the close of the business day in Washington, D.C. So if anything needs verification from that site in the short term, please be patient. Durova 00:05, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Looks like they've now been redirected on the LOC website. Thanks. Jujutacular  21:32, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Minimum Requirements check and deletion of an RfC

Good day, could the minimum requirements be checked for the following RfC: Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/MarshalN20. According to the Minimum requirements standards of the RfC community, it lacks the evidence of a second user attempting to resolve the issue. The user in question is User:RBCM (Who has neither a user page or talk page), who signed the RfC but failed to provide any "evidence showing that he tried and failed to resolve the same dispute." The issue in question was my alleged conduct problem in the Diablada article.

The RfC in question has been open for nearly 6 months, and so there has been plenty of time given for RBCM to provide evidence.

It is completely unfair for an RfC to remain in Misplaced Pages (even if it is currently closed) if it does not meet the minimum requirements.--MarshalN20 | 04:59, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not at all familiar with the RfC, but the fact that the 2nd certifying user appears to be an SPA would seem to indicate that this should not have been certified. (I haven't read through the entire RfC to look for an evidence that the second user did try to resolve things though). Maybe list it for MfD, unless an admin is willing to delete it? -- Bfigura 20:49, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Ivana Kubešová crashing browser

I just looked at a vandal IP's contribs (User:64.25.210.131), and one of the article he's recently edited (with the last edit) is Ivana_Kubešová. Every time i try an view that article my browser crashes (i tried in Chrome too, and it crashes as well). I think it could be because of the IP. Can someone check that article out?--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 08:11, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

It has since been reverted by another editor. Looking back at the revision, it seems the crashing was caused by the fact the page size was increased to almost 425,000. It loaded for me in Firefox, although it took quite a while, so perhaps pages of that size simply refuse to load in other browsers? Anyway, tagging this as resolved for now. --Taelus (talk) 08:34, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe the problem is that my puter is slow as a snail. Thanks Taelus.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 08:49, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Stuck RfC re actor pages and their hard-coded formatting

Could an uninvolved someone(s) have a gander at:

• WT:ACTOR#Filmography

and the subsections and suggest an appropriate route forward? It's a long read; maaf.

There are on the order of 30,000 pages involved, so it would be good to get on it. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 18:31, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't this notice be on WP:VPT rather than here? Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:22, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

It is, in part, a technical issue and I'd welcome input from that perspective (it's my perspective). What I'm looking for is to get the discussion un-stuck and a sense of appropriate direction from uninvolved parties. I'll drop another note @vpt. Cheers, Jack Merridew 22:41, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

But administrators aren't any more or less interested or uninvolved than any other editor, so there's nothing for an administrator to do as an administrator, so there's no particular reason this should be here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:13, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

New interface is on its way

Hi everyone. I thought everyone might be interested in this WMF tech blog post . Apparently we're getting a new default interface! Here is an example of how it will look - Not too impressed with the vector skin myself - I think our current skin is clearer and it stands us out as a wiki. By the looks of things, we don't get much say on the matter though - the decision seems to have been made already sadly. Ryan Postlethwaite 00:32, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I should note, that by default, many of our gadgets and scripts won't work anymore. Scripts that rely on the API shouldn't be affected though. That said - read the blog post, it explains things better than I could! Ryan Postlethwaite 00:35, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

How do you change the settings, individually, to keep the current as the default? -- Cirt (talk) 00:34, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

It'll have instructions - basically, go to preferences and select "MonoBook". Ryan Postlethwaite 00:35, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that the decision was made even before the "beta" began, apparently based on the rationale "this cost a lot, so there's no turning back." —David Levy 00:37, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

That's sad, because in my opinion it's far worse than our current skin. Ryan Postlethwaite 00:37, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't see how it improves usability. —David Levy 00:43, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I would argue this is a good time to quote Misplaced Pages:If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Ryan Postlethwaite 00:45, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Just to make this clear, we're changing the skin for no apparent reason and simultaneously breaking a large amount of scripts? Excellent, well done. Black Kite 00:49, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

One word: UGH! -ly. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:29, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Indeed - we paid good money for this skin - so you better like it! –xeno 01:16, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

This will not go smoothly or be much of a net-good. ;( Jack Merridew 00:58, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I wonder how we should go about telling the rest of the world before they suddenly flip out when Misplaced Pages gets jumbled about. I will miss these good ol' days of the skin that most of us has grown up to know and love. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:12, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I've been using Vector the past month or so (I like it IMO as it looks much neater), and I can say that blocked user script works, User:Dr pda/prosesize.js works, WP:REFTOOLS works, but User:Mr.Z-man/patrollinks.js does not work. –MuZemike 01:28, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Patrollinks seems to work for me. It's right there in the actions menu. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 02:26, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I've been using Vector for half a year. Most scripts will work. The warning is more for non-english Misplaced Pages. The one thing that might be an issues is that you will need to move the content of your monobook.js to your vector.js (The next version of mediawiki will have a personal common.js btw, so that in the future such skin changes won't be a problem anymore). Also vector is great, most folks are just old farts who like to see everything stay the same. Well we have http://nostalgia.wikipedia for those people, wink wink :D —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 01:58, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Right, anyone not sharing your assessment of the skin is an "old fart" who opposes all change. It's inconceivable that reasonable people might have different opinions on the matter. —David Levy 02:15, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Reasonable people can just stick to monobook. Nice and comfy. And from my personal experience following the usability team, most of the negative responses have been from the most seasoned editors, and most positive responses from the category who had trouble using Misplaced Pages before. And since seasoned editors can stick to monobook, I don't see the problem. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 02:22, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Fair cop. I am an old fart, fwiw. —DoRD (talk) 02:37, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't assert that my preference is the right one and anyone who disagrees is a young whippersnapper (the converse of your remark). I assert that a process based upon a predetermined outcome in which the default skin is replaced (no matter what) is highly flawed.

Because the option of retaining MonoBook as the default (and possibly tweaking it for improved usability) was never on the table, users content with the status quo were far less likely to participate in the "beta," so the results were destined to be skewed in favor of Vector.

Maybe the change is for the best, and maybe it isn't. It was going to happen either way. —David Levy 02:48, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

P.S. if you are only finding out now, perhaps read the signpost, Village pump, mailinglists or the planet weblog aggregator once in a while. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 01:59, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, the issue isn't "finding out now." It's that the proclamation handed down quite a while ago (along the lines of "The skin isn't even close to ready yet, so we have no way of knowing how it will turn out, but we've invested a considerable sum of money, so it will become the new default, period.") has stuck. —David Levy 02:15, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome to develop a better skin that has even higher results in the review group. Since that didn't happen in the past five years, I think perhaps you see where the problem might be. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 02:22, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

See above. —David Levy 02:48, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm curious to hear why you think Vector "isn't even close to ready yet". Do you have any specific issues or suggestions? --Catrope (talk) 19:54, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

If the usability initiative stuff achieves its aim to reduce the barriers to editing WP, then we'll probably get a lot of new editors. I don't think much thought has been given to the implications of this on admin workload -- do we need to? (New vanispamcruftisement will now be wikified and referenced! Awesome!) MER-C 02:23, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

If you want to be cynical, consider the alternative: what if we don't get enough new editors over time and retiring users shrink the pool of established, good users (whether admins or not) such that the community decays? You need new users to get established users. Also, I'd definitely prefer wikified and referenced vanispamcruftisements over unwikified, unreferenced vanispamcruftisements. :p {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}} 02:46, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure we'll get some excellent editors out of this. My point is that given such changes to WP's editing base we should hope for the best and prepare for the worst. MER-C 04:06, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone know if the major scripts like Popups, TWINKLE and HUGGLE will still be working after the new change? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 02:34, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

All have been fixed where needed over 6 months ago. All gadgets should work as well, and many popular userscripts have been converted as well. If you find scripts that don't work, report them at VP/T and someone will take care of it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 02:38, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks TheDJ...as long as those three work, I think most people will be happy :) Take Care...NeutralHomer • Talk • 04:51, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I believe this was made for the vast majority of the people who use Misplaced Pages... the readers... and I can see where that comes in handy as a reader... as editors, we can all easily switch back to the monobook interface if we want. The Thing // Talk // Contribs 04:45, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Resolved – Motion for early closure reviewed by User:Shereth and declined. –xeno 14:39, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Resolved – Herostratus (talk) 11:11, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

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