User:Fvw/TalkArchive/7

This page has been archived, please do not edit it. New talk and comments on this talk go on my talk page.

Block

Thank you, Fwv. SlimVirgin 07:04, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Hi Fvw, do you need the blocking information to stay on my Talk page, as I was going to archive it? Let me know if you have a preference. Best, SlimVirgin 08:02, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Open proxies

Frank, I fully agree that open proxies should be blocked—permanently, too. But I am not quite sure that a bot is the right way to go. It seems to me that checking for open proxies can be done completely offline. (In fact, why check at all? Why not just assume that the list at e.g. [1] indeed does list open proxies, and just block all the listed IPs without double-checking?) Then just generate a list of the appropriate SQL statements, and have a developer run them. (I assume that blocks are stored in the DB somewhere.) Seems much simpler to me, especially because running the SQL on-site will produce less load on the servers, consumes no network bandwidth, and avoids the precedent of having a bot with admin privileges (which seems to bother at least one person). Did you talk to the developers, e.g. Tim Starling? Finally: make sure your bot unblocks IPs before blocking them as open proxies to ensure that prior short-term blocks get indeed overridden. Lupo 07:20, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Importance of Anonymity

To Frank and others: I understand the frustration with vandalism performed via anonymous proxies. While the initial reaction to block all open proxies seems like a good idea I think the ramifications of this decision should be explored.

There is strong historical precedent for supporting anonymous communications, be it whistleblowing or controversial topics to a desire to make a claim or position without influencing perception given personal reputation.

The suggestion to require a user account for anonymous editing was not deemed suitable due to the ease of creating new accounts as the abused ones are terminated. Perhaps there is a middle ground?

Some suggestions that come to mind:

- A user who creates an anonymous account will have all edits directed to a moderation queue. If the edits are deemed productive and useful they can be accepted.

- An anonymous user with a good history of useful edits might be granted direct access to avoid the delays associated with a moderation queue.

Again, I want to impress upon those involved that while anonymity can (and will be) abused there are times when it becomes critical to the discussions at hand. The state of affairs in China and other repressed nations as well as increasingly intrusive legislation here in the United States (PATRIOT act monitoring of web activities without a warrant for example) is a strong reminder of the importance of anonymity for controversial and important topics.

Please try to consider any workable solution that will serve both the interests of Wikipedia and anonymous users.

Thank you,

   Martin Peck

There are a lot of technical solutions possible for the anonymous editing problem, and if you want to code them, it'd be much appreciated. However, until we have those solutions, blocking anonymous proxies is a necessity. Keep in mind however that a single group of users being blocked from wikipedia is losing out on the labour of that group of people, but those edits can always (theoretically) be done by others. First-hand experiences and other information "that's need to be brought out in the open" shouldn't be put on wikipedia and will be removed anyway, wikipedia is not intended for original research and other unverifiable information. --fvw* 13:15, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan. Regarding the original research / unverifiable information this is probably of little use as you indicate. The corporate employee or expert desiring anonymity is probably more applicable (Unlimited Freedom blog my favorite example). I'll start looking at the Wikipedia sources to see if I might be able to accomplish this. Are there others already involved in this project working on similar / related features? I'll move remaining discussion to a devel list or appropriate forum. Thanks again.

advice on error

Thanks for that, I'm feeling at bit slack at the moment, I've been up all night Richard Harvey 14:46, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for reversion...

...on my home page. Paul Beardsell 20:05, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sandbox

Are you blind!? Its there-check my last post.

Arbitration Committee case opening

You have been named as a disputant in the recently opened Charles Darwin/Lincoln dispute case brought before the Arbitration Committee. You may wish to add evidence to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Charles Darwin/Lincoln dispute/Evidence to support your case. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 03:33, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)

Your blocking without explanation

Sir, you have blocked me without explanation for 24 hours yesterday. You simply said "vandalism" yet you gave no example as to what vandalism. I was not engaging in any vandalism so it leaves me wondering what you were refering to. Care to shed some light on the matter? 168.209.97.34 08:06, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Re large and bright-red banners people don't read

I don't know what the policy on this is, but my gut instinct says it would be OK to protect talk archives for preventing this sort of mishap (and any possibility of crypto-revisionism). Of course, some people may cry "abuse of admin powers" because admins can do that and mundanes can't... *sigh* How about a read-only archive: namespace? :-) JRM 12:05, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)

Yeah, perhaps some sort of archiving provision would be nice. But I think there are more important things to be done with (and more importantly, to) MediaWiki right now. I suppose I could protect them, but I'll just stick to petty whining until it becomes a real problem. --fvw* 21:01, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)

Oh, I was only kidding. I'm not going to ask for new features and hold my breath; if I really wanted them I'd look into becoming a developer. As is my understanding, the whole thing is a PHP/Perl/MySQL hack; I could manage that. However, using the software has a higher priority than fixing it right now. JRM 08:07, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)

Perl? I wish. All PHP. --fvw* 08:19, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the tip. I'll bump it down a few notches on my to-do list, then. >:-) JRM 09:30, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)

Request

Can you please not revert the gay template discussion? My edits of the gay holocaust article were in good faith but has now been totally reverted, I have been attacked on the talk page, and I will not edit it again. I don't want to be smeared like that user was trying to do, because this is my real name and I don't want to get in trouble. Thank you Noah Peters 21:49, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)Noah Peters

They're not direct personal attacks, so there's no grounds for removing them. You'll have to live with it. --fvw* 21:52, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)

These comments directly question my motives, implying I am homophobic, which constitutes a personal attack. I have removed no votes except my own, all the rest is stray commentary about me. PLEASE do not revert, or I will seek to block your IP. Noah Peters 21:58, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)Noah Peters

Noah's vandalism

O.K., will do. Jayjg | (Talk) 22:51, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for cleaning up after my mess. :) -- RyanFreisling @ 03:08, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ehm, I didn't. I'm leaving that pleasure all to you :~) --fvw* 03:10, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)

your alarming notice

Hello, it took some sleuthing to find who left this alarming warning for me, since you did not include any contact information. I believe you left the alarming warning after I added a link to the page regarding Bhajans, because apparently you deemed it to be spam. The referenced page is a noncommercial page of chanting and devotional singing that includes many bhajans and links to other pages of bhajans, and which is soon to include even more. If you deem it to be not appropriate to this topic for some reason, that is obviously part of your job, and I am new to this process, however it seems that you are quite quick to send alarming notices that must certainly chase away those who have come to contribute valuable links, such as the link I added to your bhajan page, which had no links at all until I added the link to our free, streaming audio page of bhajans, which also includes links to other pages of streaming audio bhajans. I think that it is a shame that I'll have to see your alarming notice whenever I check my user talk page at wikipedia.

FVW replied: Wikipedia is not a web directory. Only add links that are informative and strictly relevant to the subject. --fvw* 15:56, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)

Of course, giving a link to a free page of streaming bhajans is clearly informative and strictly relevant to the subject of bhajans. It was surprising to see that you left this message on my page and then chose to also leave the nasty warning alarm on my page just because you thought that my page of streaming bhajans somehow did not relate to the subject of bhajans. I think this makes it clear that you like to bully people who have come to participate in this effort, since I clearly explained why this alarming notice was not wanted or warrented. Is there an administrator that I can bring this problem to?

Great Googly Moogly

Hi. After you posted the VfD for Great Googly Moogly, I really got into it and did a fair amount of research and editing work. I agree that in its original state it wasn't worth keeping, but it's a completely different article now. Would you take another look at it and see if you think it's worth keeping in its current state? --RoySmith 18:55, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Pfft, it took some heavy pondering, but I've landed on the keep side of the line, though only by a hairs breadth. May I suggset you move the first line/paragraph down to the end though? After all, it is no longer the main topic of the article. --fvw* 23:27, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree about the first paragraph; I'll take care of that now. --RoySmith 01:07, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

User:DanP

Very well. I'm sure you'll agree that directing users to DanP's talk page is not objectionable. - Jakew 00:26, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC) There are rules against replacing user pages with profanities or insults. Mere editing and advising readers to read the talk page is perfectly acceptable. I suggest that you read up on the matter. - Jakew 00:31, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

VFD on CBHQ

Sorry, twas a mistake, having a lot of editing tangled up here :) JoeBaldwin 15:16, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

Autoblock

A block against me expired at 12:34 today. It is now 15:07, and I find myself unable to edit. The reason I am given is: "Autoblocked because you share an IP address with "Jakew". Reason "user page vandalism"." (from the mailing list) Fred Bauder 16:05, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. --fvw* 16:33, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

Inappropriate block

Fvw, I think that you acted inappropriately in blocking me for "user page vandalism". It is in the past, but I would still like to discuss this with you. I will set a watch on this page, so please reply here for clarity.

It is generally agreed that one of the distinguishing marks of a civilised society is the right to speak in one's own defence.

DanP made certain allegations against me on his user page. I felt that these were incorrect, and responded accordingly. There were two different versions of my reply. Let's review those:

1. "Yes, each will doubtless follow similar accusations by yourself. Childish? Yes. Irresponsible? Yes. Can you find anything after November 2004? I doubt it. I can change. Can you? - Jakew 00:03, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)"
2. "Please see your talk page. - Jakew 00:23, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)"

Now, according to Wikipedia:Vandalism, user page vandalism is: "Replacing User pages with insults, profanity, etc. (see also Wikipedia:No personal attacks)". I think that we can agree that neither of those comments is an insult, nor is either profane.

I can find no policy documents referring to it, but it is claimed that editing a user page in such a way that the user "might find objectionable" is not accepted (though it is definitely not vandalism - see above). Assuming this is true, I can just about see that the first might be considered objectionable, but the second? What reasonable person could possibly object to directing readers to his own talk page? - Jakew 00:56, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I've seen you revert several changes to this page, so I know that you're there. Do you have the slightest intention of discussing this? - Jakew 01:02, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Jake, this is most certainly a case of misuse of admin powers. I suggest you apply for mediation as by not responding to you it shows he has something to hide. - Robert the Bruce 01:49, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Utter rubbish. Both of you, stop trolling. If you'd like to make an encyclopedia, please do so. Stop the editing warring, the childish editing of people's User pages when you know that it's incorrect (and then doing it again), and the spamming of User pages trying to drum up support for ridiculous accusations against other Users. RickK 07:34, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

• I don't believe it is appropriate to defend an out of control sysop. I suggest that you stop for a moment and consider the medium to long term implications to Wikipedia as these people (blade runners) whose sole purpose (and joy) is derived through "slapping vandals" become emboldened and start to extend their need to control to normal folk. No matter what your POV is or what you may think of me or any other person around here these people should not be allowed to wreak havoc on Wikipedia. Think about it. - Robert the Bruce 09:48, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You have now made at least 50 contributions since I made my original request for discussion. It is therefore clear that you do not intend to discuss this directly with me. Are you prepared to discuss the issue via a mediator? - Jakew 00:55, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Good luck Robert. I have had RickK block me simply because I was cleaning out some old entries in MY OWN TALK PAGE!!! After the block I have tried to discuss the block with him on his talk page but he simply reverted my requests for discussion. While I do understand your concerns I think it's hopeless because wikipedia does very little to control their rogue sysops. RickK seems to take even greater enjoyment from blocking ISP proxy servers without regard to everyone else who is using it. It's such a shame that a few bad apples can ruin the rest of the bunch. 168.209.97.34 07:29, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

hi fvw -- I agree that this is rather a big fuss over a 12h block, and now that it appears your 'enemies' are only too happy to gloat over it, I imagine you'll feel even less inclined to talk about it. But anyway, to me it looks as if you were just a little bit too trigger-happy here. I can well understand this, seeing the amount of justified, necessary vandal-blocking that you do. But I also think that, seeing that Jakew is taking the block, and especially your refusal to talk to him, badly, that a brief apology would not hurt you. Jakew asked me to bring this up. I have no particular feelings about this, it just seems that it would be best to apologize now, even partially, or with reservations, than allow this to develop into a drawn-out 'case'. best regards, dab (ᛏ) 17:38, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Heya, thanks for your concern. May I ask why you think the block is inappropriate? Have a look at the history for User:DanP. Robert made a similar edit which was unsurprisingly immediately reverted. From this (and the usual differentiation of function between talk and user pages) its seems to me that the edits Jakew made where clearly (to him as well) against the wishes of its owner. Anyway, I appreciate apologising as a way of defusing these matters, but considering that I stand by my decision I think apologising would be disingenuous, not to mention misleading. --fvw* 18:01, 2005 Feb 1 (UTC)

Two things:

Although I do have a grievance with your block and consequent refusal to talk to me directly, I don't consider you an enemy. I would like nothing more than to resolve this and move on.

Secondly, you're incorrect to describe the edits as against the wishes of the page owner. They were clearly against your wishes, but the owner of the page has explicitly stated that I am welcome to make reasonable changes to that page (this post-dates the episode, so of course you weren't to know). - Jakew 16:15, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

---

ok, I've looked into it. As far as I can see, you reverted edit's of Jakew's to DanP's Userpage three times, shortly after he made them. They were not vandalism and would have been appropriate on a Talk page. After that, you blocked Jakew for 12h, after two warnings. This all happened without DanP's involvement who has probably not even seen, let alone complained about the edits. We have no clear policy about User page 'ownership'. Some people get mad when you edit them, others don't care. I had thought at first that you had blocked without warning, which would have been clearly inappropriate. As it stands, Jakew knew a block was coming and still insisted on editing DanP's User page [2]. This seems just a little bit immature, but otoh, I don't really see the point of your guarding DanP's page before he had even complained. I'm not saying you are abusing your power. I'm just saying you seem to have issued a block that may not quite stand up under scrutiny. Admins are allowed to make mistakes, and use their good judgement. Let's say that it is possible to disagree about this case. Seeing Jakew's conciliatory attitude, I really suggest you just say "sorry for the block, Jakew, I may have been a bit rash, but then why didn't you just use the bloody Talk page, when you wanted to talk to DanP??", and we'll all walk away from this the happier. dab (ᛏ) 17:26, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

External links vs External link

I'm having a little trouble finding the entry in the manual of style right now, but "External links" is always supposed to be plural, even if it's just one link, as it's a "standard section name". --fvw* 17:30, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I'll just ignore these for the time being. If you can locate the style guide reference please let me know. --GRider\^talk 18:34, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee case opening

The case against User: Robert the Bruce has been accepted. If you wish, you may bring evidence to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Robert the Bruce/Evidence. Exploding Boy 19:27, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

67.101.158.54

I am sorry if I bother you by trying to put more information on the site. I thought the site was a really open source project. I am leavign the page open like that becuase along with The Lower east Side Tenement Museum of New York the NY University and the City College of New York we want to create an articulo in this issue (Museums and Civic engagement). We had the idea that the article should be writting in an open source fashion and we though that wikipedia should be the best place. BUt after you message I think we should take our project to a more open enviroment.

I really dont understand your attitude.

Have a good day!

Gonzalo Casals another gay male with a more openned mind!

thanks for ...

your persistence with "Condi Rice" vandals. !!!!

Obsession

Ok, either you obsessively read your talk page or you got it already.. Well, it's both, actually. And I agree, he's about to cross the vandalism line. Joyous 03:49, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

George W. Bush

All this vandalism is giving me a headache. Sorry if my edit seemed like I was saying yours was vandalism - but you accidently reverted to my version, which i didn't realise was a revert to a different vandalised version. I hope it all straightens out now... AlbinoMonkey ^(Talk) 06:06, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Not at all, sorry about reverting you and keep up the good work! --fvw* 06:07, 2005 Jan 30 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Casting Pearls

Yes, I get a bit enthusiastic about voting. I got really carried away last November, and voted for George W. more than 62 million times, so this could have been a lot worse. Thanks for noticing! Tuf-Kat 06:13, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

revenge etc.

Yeah, you were a few seconds faster. I've got to go do something else for a few hours, but I have a question: for the block on Sexman69, when our blocks expire, do the indefinite blocks come into effect, or did our blocks nullify those indefinite blocks? How does it work exactly? -- Curps 09:08, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've finally bitten the bullet and read the source, it turns out that the first block to expire removes all blocks of that address (range blocks only get deleted if a block for that specific range expires). I don't necessarily consider the username against policy (but perhaps I'm assuming too much good faith), so I'm not going to unblock and reblock indefinitely, but I'm not going to object if someone else wants to either. --fvw* 09:16, 2005 Jan 30 (UTC)

Feeding_babies_in_emergencies

You seem to have just deleted a page that was being listed for copvyio, because it was supposedly the duplicate of a mistitled version of the same page (which, it seems, never existed!). I am farily certain that our current copyvio policy requires the copyvio notice to be present as the page is listed for a week or two on WP:CP prior to its being deleted. I have restored it. -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 03:01, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The original copyvio is still there in the page history of Feeding Babies In Emegencies (which won't be deleted until the 5th), so depending on how you see matters it's either a duplicate page creation or a deleteagain. Still, if you want to keep this one for the full 14 days too, be my guest. --fvw* 03:06, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC)

Ahh. You provided the wrong link to the duplicated-from page. Way to confuse everyone. :) -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 03:10, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I did, overcapitalised and misspelled, it's a lot to get right :). I went back and corrected it though, is it still wrong anywhere? --fvw* 03:12, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC)

Protecting George M. Cohan

Thanks for protecting that page. I was starting to get pissed off with battling them. Evil Monkey∴Hello? 03:58, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

How do you find out how many edits you've made

How do you find out how many edits you've made? Do ppl use a script? Is there a users stats page somewhere?

Try this. Heed the warning on that page though, edit counts say very little. --fvw* 04:42, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC)

vandalism?

Sorry I don't know what this is about. I have only edited three times total, all very small: one was a mistake where i clicked on the wrong thing, once i edited two lines out of a newspersons profile because it was incorrect, once i changed "is it" to "it is". I don't know much about IP addresses being shared, I thought everyone got one to themself. This is weird because another site I visit very frequently gave me much the same message earlier today, telling me to stop harassing another poster, who I do not even know or had heard of. Could you please provide the pages that were vandalized, and I will see if I have even visited them. Thank you.

Sean

The article in question has been deleted again already, it was a rant of personal attacks, I'm sure you would have remembered had you posted it. Your computer does have its own IP, however your browser is probably configured to use the shawcable proxy. Go to your browser settings and disable "use proxy", you should get a slightly more private talk page that way and not run the risk of being blocked from editing because of others. Let me know if you need any help. --fvw* 05:18, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC)

ok i'm not sure how to do that, what if i just sign up an account? I don't plan on editing much if at all, but i don't want anyone thinking i'm making personal comments about them. thanks.

i've done so, vega007 is my username

1923-24 NHL season

Thanks for adding that cleanup (context) notice at 1923-24 NHL season. When I saw that there was a clean-up notice, I didn't realize that the lack of context could be a problem. --Ricky81682 (talk) 09:10, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a useful tag, I only discovered it a few days ago. You might want to reconsider having a separate article for that NHL season though, unless there's something especially noteworthy about that season for which there isn't room in NHL or whereever. Wikipedia isn't a sports almanac after all. --fvw* 09:13, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC)

Noah Peters

Hello, you seem to have encountered User:Noah Peters before, could you please comment on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/User:Noah Peters? Lots of confusing edits and signature forging by several accounts. I smell a troll here... jni 09:36, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Please visit it again I have added an update. Thanks. Apollomelos 04:15, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Korean spiritualist vandal

Frank, thanks so much for stepping up and keeping an eye on this guy. I certainly hope I got through to him. - Lucky 6.9 22:25, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Open Proxies

There is an interesting battle going on at Islamophobia (for the last few days) where someone using open proxy restores the old version, and the other one restores the newer version. The following are the open proxy IPs used by the person who restores older version.

• 67.169.85.194
• 61.11.26.142
• 61.11.26.142
• 65.243.124.18

Google search for the first IP shows it to be proxy and the other IPs are probably proxies too. Can you keep an eye on this article? These open proxies need to be permanently banned. (interestingly this began as soon as Djames gave up reverting so I wonder if there is a connection there) OneGuy 07:47, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Or it could simply be OneGuy doing it to try to set Djames up for a block... OneGuy does know how to play the system and has the sysops wrapped around his finger. Anything is possible. ... at 08:34, 2005 Feb 1 168.209.97.34 modestly refrained from adding four twiddles

Leckhampton

Why do you want this page gone so badly? it's not vain.. it's a legitimately interesting and important place. if it gets deleted now, it'll just be back in a few years anyway.. Mlm42 09:45, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

So is Leckhampton getting deleted, or what? is voting still going on? Mlm42 21:14, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The vote is still going on. --fvw* 21:22, 2005 Feb 4 (UTC)

CheeseDreams

I've reverted your 1 week ban and replaced it with a 2 day ban (expiring 2 days from your original block time). 1 week is meant to be the MAXIMUM penalty allowed by the ArbCom for CD violating the order on Christianity-related articles. I've already argued elsewhere that The Jesus Mysteries is only peripherally Christianity-related, so a warning and a short block seems in order. Now, I'd expect a 1 week ban if CD tried editing Historicity of Jesus again or something. I hope you'll see that using the maximum penalty for the most minor of infractions is ultimately counterproductive. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 17:44, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

I didn't ban the maximum for my original block. The 1 week block was for editing the article despite being blocked by using sock puppets and dynamic IPs. I think block-evasion to edit an article the ArbCom (or at least the 3 members who have expressed themselves on the matter) have declared off-limits merits the maximum term. But I'll leave it to you. --fvw* 18:10, 2005 Feb 1 (UTC)

See my comments on CD's talk page and the admin noticeboard. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 20:29, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

blocked users

Sorry. Can edits made under an anon IP while being blocked be reverted? He is using and got blocked so far with User:172.180.199.158, User:172.182.76.177, User:172.182.76.127, and User:172.176.58.8. -- Chris 73 Talk 03:54, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

That would be very useful yes, but I haven't found anything in current policy which allows that apart from for hard-banned users. I'd definitely support changes to policy that allowed reverting of blocked users and a reset on block timers for block evasion. --fvw* 03:59, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)

There is some discussion about this on Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy#Editing while blocked. Some admins reset block timers if the user edits while being blocked, although it is not a standard policy yet. -- Chris 73 Talk 04:25, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Confirmation of sysophood

I have absolutely no opinion about this debate, including whether or not it needs revival; I was just trying to categorize Wikipedia space to make things easier to find. I put anything that wasn't clearly accepted, rejected, or inactive into the thinktank, where hopefully it will either become more useful or be scuttled. -- Beland 04:10, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Oh well, I'll have to get around to it myself then. Good work on the categorisation anyway! --fvw* 04:11, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)

A comment that was not put in a section despite the honking big banner at the top of this page

Hey, I've been back for weeks now. :-) As for adminship, I don't think so; I don't want to become like Peter Mandelson or something... :-) Evercat 04:17, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hey, I just wanted to make you an admin again, I never offerred european commissionership. Still, your call, just let me know if you change your mind. --fvw* 04:21, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)

Thanks for your consideration. By the way, you're up even later than I am. Wow. :-) Evercat 04:25, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Categorization

Heya, I noticed you added Jimbo and Larry to Category:Wikipedia basic information, I'm not sure this is appropriate. Wikipedia categories (which sadly don't have their own namespace yet) shouldn't be used on main-namespace articles. A part of Wikipedia:Avoid self-references I suppose. --fvw* 05:19, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)

Well, I found Larry floating around in Category:Wikipedia, which I was tidying up, so I categorized him and set Jimbo to match. I don't think the policy about avoiding self-references does, or really, ever can apply to articles about Wikipedia itself. Otherwise, we'd basically have to delete those articles in their entirety. The only reason these people have articles is because they are Wikipedia founders, so it only makes sense to mention that in the articles. I think we have enough articles to justify a "Wikipedia history" category which would have only "content" about Wikipedia, as opposed to "Help" information or collaboration pages, though I haven't created that yet because it'd be confused with Category:Wikipedia historical pages, which is for inactive archives. Perhaps that would help to more strongly separate the two worlds. Though they are also both listed on Category:Wikipedians with article, which is itself an eventual descendant of Category:Wikipedia. (It seems there's only so much that can be done to prevent worlds from colliding where they actually overlap.)

Taking a look at the all the sediment that's accumulated in Category:Wikipedia basic information, I'm tempted to nominate it for deletion anyway. It's a hodgepodge of things that belong in Category:Help and other subcategories of Category:Wikipedia. Though the top level also needs to be purged, and there are a slew of things on Wikipedia:Auto-categorization/Wikipedia namespace that need to be categorized.

Having said all that, feel free to make whatever changes you think are appropriate; I won't sweat the details. -- Beland 05:51, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Bot suggestions

Since most of these proxies haven't yet been used (though I've found some real gems in the contributions, like this), and there's some significant lag time between testing and blocking, could you omit or encrypt the port number in the comment field? Otherwise, you're providing a gold mine of currently-unblocked, pretested proxies for anyone who stumbles on the page.

Nice catch on the spam! Did you go through all the contribs? I had thought that it should be done, but decided it would be way too much effort. As for hiding the IP, I don't think it'll be necessary, the current state of things is that if someone wants to edit via an anonymous proxy it's zero effort to find 50 that work. In future when (I hope) anonymous proxies that work on wikipedia will be scarce, the testing runs will be much shorter and blocks will happen much quicker after testing. I might even make it block during the run (it's all a collection of shell one-liners). Just hiding the ports isn't much of a deterrent either, and doing the proxy edits logged in isn't feasible because many anonymous proxies strip cookies.

Yes, I've been looking at all the contribs; very few have any edits except for your test, and almost all of the rest are either good edits or already reverted. My point about hiding the port number (not the IP): sure, they can scan the host themselves, or pick another from a proxy list, but why make it any easier for them? The last time I looked at proxy lists in earnest (about a year ago) barely one out of four still worked. —Korath (Talk) 15:15, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that's pretty close to my current result ratio. Not logging the port would mean more work when creating the to-be-blocked list though, so I don't really think it's worth it. You don't need to port scan to find out the port by the way, just plug it into google and it'll spit out 20 pages listing both the IP and port. --fvw* 15:19, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)

I've also found about fifty cases so far where the editing ip doesn't match the ip given in the comment, including eight where the editing ip is listed more than once. Do you want these? (Please reply here, as I'm stalking watching this page.) —Korath (Talk) 10:30, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed those. In most cases it's an anonymous proxy that's behind a regular ISP proxy. I haven't decided how to handle those yet, I'll probably send a nastygram to the ISP in question warning them that their proxy might be blocked from editing wikipedia if they don't get rid of the open proxies. --fvw* 14:25, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)

Boothy-Is-Goofy

Hey Frank, i think that this guy needs to be kept an eye on. I have a feeling that he is a sockpuppet from the Detroit page or something, he left a message on my talk page in which i removed,i have an idea of who it could be but i cant prove anyting yet, anyway it is a directed towards my. Thanks for saying something to him, i am not going to quailfy him with a responce. --User:Boothy443 | comhrÚ 14:30, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

PD category

I purposely didn't add my user page to the PD category, I think the cat bar though sometimes useful seriously messes with the aesthetic. When someone wants to do automated license computation I'll have to change my ways but until then I'm sticking with a plain non-category PD box. Thanks anyway though. --fvw* 15:11, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)

Sorry about that! I should have asked first. (To defend against people like me, you could put a comment like

<!-- intentionally not in [[:Category:Public domain license]] -->

in there.) dbenbenn | talk 15:19, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Not at all, it's nice to see someone actually reads my page; Asking up front for such things isn't necessary, it is a wiki after all. And I have high hopes that the sun bleached bones of those who tried to categorise my userpage before will ward off any future categorisers. :-P --fvw* 15:51, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)

"Abandon all hope, ye who categorise here." I'm curious about your Rcpat program. Does it automatically flag editors who have {{test1}} in their Talk page for closer attention? Does it do "sockpuppet detection" as you have on your Todo list? dbenbenn | talk 17:20, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hehe, quite.

Flagging users who have test templates on their user page would be very useful, but isn't feasibly alas without server side modifications (otherwise you'd have to request the talk page of each anon who edited and had a talk page, which wouldn't be nice for server load). It does however highlight users who have no talk or user page, as these are often freshly created users. Sockpuppet detection is another thing that can't be done here, it needs to be done on the server.

The method of operation is that you flag users/IPs as good, bad or risky in the rc patroller, which means in future they either don't get shown (for trusted users) or get flagged in red or yellow so they're sure to get your attention. That way you don't have to look at edits for good users if you don't want when patrolling, and repeat vandalism shows up like a sore thumb. --fvw* 17:58, 2005 Feb 3 (UTC)

Proxy tests

Frank, can you explain me what are you doing in User:Fvw/proxytest? I'm always RC patrolling and always see anon IPs (surely you) editing that page. I'm curious! --Neigel von Teighen 17:57, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm wondering too. It's a little heavier than usual this evening, and in User:Fvw/proxytest2. O_o —Mar·ka·ci:2005-02-3 05:41 Z

For the full story, see Wikipedia talk:Bots##OpenProxyBlockerBot. The short version is I'm scanning for open proxies which I then block, to stem the anonymous proxy vandalism. I don't think I'll get all of them, but I think blocking the majority will slow down certain vandals, and also pretty much stop vandalbots like Wik's. --fvw* 17:58, 2005 Feb 3 (UTC)

WP:AN reorganization and 3RR

Hi, you mentioned on WT:AN that you'd like to see the 3RR stuff elsewhere, not on an AN subpage? Fine with me, but can you lead the discussion to create rough consensus on where? I'd like to get on with ficing up the archives, Navboxen, etc but I don't want to do it once, then have to re-do it again if things get moved around. (I did temporarily patch WP:3RR to refer to WP:AN/3RR as the location to report problems, but that's easy enough to update if it gets moved). Noel (talk) 19:16, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Deleting your name

Did you ask the editor who orginally put your name on the Charles Darwin arbitration page that you could delete your name? I am willing to assume good faith and await your reply before I revert your inappropriate conduct. Everyone reverted vfp15 because that was the consensus, not just you. --Nasrallah 01:49, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have removed my name as both things it claimed were incorrect. I am not a party in the arbitration matter nor do I oppose the inclusion of the fact. See my statement further down the page. --fvw* 17:58, 2005 Feb 3 (UTC)

Your proxy tests

Hey, Frank, what's going on with your proxy tests? One of the proxies you tested from just vandalized Gzornenplatz's User page. RickK 06:53, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, they're open proxies, figures they'll be used for vandalism. If it turns into a trend and it becomes clear people are using the list created in the history I'll start blocking as I scan. This should only be an issue on this first run though, as after that the runs should become a lot shorter. --fvw* 17:58, 2005 Feb 3 (UTC)

Why the bot posts on wikipedia to test if it's open proxy anyway? The bot would run faster and won't consume Wikipedia resources if the testing is done somewhere else. If you can access any site (such yahoo.com) using the proxy, that would mean it's open proxy and should be blocked indefinitely immediately. And if a later test (done next week or month) fails, that would mean the IP is no longer open proxy and should be unblocked (and blocked again if the next test is positive etc). Just a keep the list of IPs and let the bot test every week or 15 days. Block/Unblock the IPs (or the bot could do it automatically) depending on the test results OneGuy 10:10, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Not all proxies can access all sites. Not all proxies can do posts. There are at least a few people who run open proxies I know of that also edit wikipedia, and have blocked their proxy from accessing wikipedia so it doesn't need to be blocked and they can still access wikipedia. --fvw* 17:58, 2005 Feb 3 (UTC)

I just noticed that you blocked several open proxies. Shouldn't you have first unblocked them and then block them indefinite? What if one of this IP was blocked previously for 24 hours? Wouldn't that mean it would get unblocked after 24 hours? OneGuy 20:37, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your Controversial block

Why do You banned me yesterdey? Your block wasn't backed by official policy. And why do you simply ignored my emails?--Emax 14:05, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

I replied to you in <20050202023811.GA22920@var.cx> which was delivered to your mailserver at Feb 2 03:37:37. --fvw* 17:58, 2005 Feb 3 (UTC)

I dont received any emails from You. Thats why im added my comments on administrators board--Emax 18:07, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

Not relevant to a subject?

Hi,

I submitted a few links to pages that I thought were directly relevant to subjects in the Open Source space and have seen them removed because the "wiki is not a series of web links" -- well sorry but what's the point of having a wiki with "External Resources" if you don't link to relevant resources that are directly related to that topic. Its certainly not SPAM.

What is the process of putting something up for a vote?

Tekna

First, please read meta:When should I link externally and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. If after that you still feel the links are appropriate you can take it to Wikipedia:Requests for comment, but I doubt you'll find much support for it there. --fvw* 17:58, 2005 Feb 3 (UTC)

Edit count

Hi, Frank. Glancing through the Help Desk archives, I came across you saying that there is an old version of kate's tools available here. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be working for me. Any idea what's up, or has this wonderful tool also been lost for good? Thanks, Smoddy | ειπετε 23:48, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Edit count

Hi, Frank. Glancing through the Help Desk archives, I came across you saying that there is an old version of kate's tools available here. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be working for me. Any idea what's up, or has this wonderful tool also been lost for good? Thanks, Smoddy | ειπετε 23:48, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That version works for me. It's linked from near the top of WP:RFA. Don't forget that your user name is case sensitive and starts with a capital letter. You have 707 edits.-gadfium 01:54, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The one time I don't bother copying my reply to my own talk page and someone else joins in. *sigh*. Yeah, I took it up with a dev who restarted the apache to make it connect to the directory server and all was well again. --fvw* 01:59, 2005 Feb 4 (UTC)

Don't you ever sleep?-gadfium 02:02, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

fvw's reply on my talk page

Ungh, that's annoying. A new development too, I just pointed someone to the page a few days ago. I've already pestered the admins but received no response so far. Sending a question where it's gone to the wikitech-l list might be fruitful. --fvw* 00:05, 2005 Feb 4 (UTC)

Oh, aparantly it's being looked in to. No need to set my harassment scheme into working just yet. I'll keep you posted. --fvw* 00:14, 2005 Feb 4 (UTC)

And we're back! Yay. --fvw* 00:22, 2005 Feb 4 (UTC)

Thanks! Smoddy | ειπετε 20:30, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Toyslove images

Greetings. I left some questions for you at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion#February 4. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 03:21, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)