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(Initiated 29 days ago on 18 October 2024) This shouldn't have been archived by a bot without closure. Heartfox (talk) 02:55, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Heartfox: The page is archived by lowercase sigmabot III (talk · contribs), which gets its configuration frum the {{User:MiszaBot/config}} at the top of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. Crucially, this has the parameter |algo=old(7d) which means that any thread with no comments for seven days is eligible for archiving. At the time that the IBAN appeal thread was archived, the time was 00:00, 2 November 2024 - seven days back from that is 00:00, 26 October 2024, and the most recent comment to the thread concerned was made at 22:50, 25 October 2024 (UTC). This was more than seven days earlier: the archiving was carried out correctly. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:16, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There was no need for this because archived threads can be closed too. It is not necessary for them to remain on noticeboard. Capitals00 (talk) 03:28, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know. It is back in the archive, and hopefully someone can close it there. Heartfox (talk) 05:23, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Initiated 18 days ago on 28 October 2024) Discussion has slowed for the last week. I think the consensus is pretty clear, but I'm involved. – Joe (talk) 17:24, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Note: discussion has been archived. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:52, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Initiated 98 days ago on 9 August 2024)

Wikipedia talk:Notability (species)#Proposal to adopt this guideline is WP:PROPOSAL for a new WP:SNG. The discussion currently stands at 503 comments from 78 editors or 1.8 tomats of text, so please accept the hot beverage of your choice ☕️ and settle in to read for a while. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:22, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Initiated 58 days ago on 19 September 2024) Legobot removed the RFC template on 20/10/2024. Discussoin has slowed. Can we please have a independent close. TarnishedPath^talk 23:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Doing... I've read the whole discussion, but this one is complex enough that I need to digest it and reread it later now that I have a clear framing of all the issues in my mind. Ideally, I'll close this sometime this week. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:23, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. This issue has been going on in various discussions on the talk page for a while so there is no rush. TarnishedPath^talk 03:26, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Compassionate727: just checking in here. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:53, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Initiated 48 days ago on 28 September 2024) Discussion has died down and last vote was over a week ago. CNC (talk) 17:31, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Archived. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 20:53, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Initiated 39 days ago on 7 October 2024) Tough one, died down, will expire tomorrow. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:58, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Initiated 38 days ago on 8 October 2024) Expired tag, no new comments in more than a week. KhndzorUtogh (talk) 21:48, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Initiated 32 days ago on 15 October 2024) Discussion has died down. The last vote was on 4 November. Khiikiat (talk) 10:10, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Initiated 31 days ago on 16 October 2024) Legobot has just removed the RFC template and there's no new comments since November 7. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 00:29, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Initiated 13 days ago on 3 November 2024) The amount of no !votes relative to yes !votes coupled with the several comments arguing it's premature suggests this should probably be SNOW closed. Sincerely, Dilettante 16:53, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Initiated 304 days ago on 16 January 2024) It would be helpful for an uninvolved editor to close this discussion on a merge from Feminist art to Feminist art movement; there have been no new comments in more than 2 months. Klbrain (talk) 13:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Doing... may take a crack at this close, if no one objects. Allan Nonymous (talk) 17:47, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Initiated 16 days ago on 31 October 2024) Discussion only occurred on the day of proposal, and since then no further argument has been made. I don't think this discussion is going anywhere, so a close may be in order here. Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 07:03, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reluctant to close this so soon. Merge proposals often drag on for months, and sometimes will receive comments from new participants only everything couple weeks. I think it's too early to say whether a consensus will emerge. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 14:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Compassionate727: OK, so what are you suggesting? Will the discussion remain open if no further comments are received in, say, two weeks? I also doubt that merge discussions take months to conclude. I think that such discussions should take no more than 20 days, unless it's of course, a very contentious topic, which is not the case here. Taken that you've shown interest in this request, you should be able to tell that no form of consensus has taken place, so I think you can let it sit for a while to see if additional comments come in before inevitably closing it. I mean, there is no use in continuing a discussion that hasn't progressed in weeks. Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 15:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Wolverine X-eye, I don't think thats what they are saying. Like RfC's, any proposals should be opened for more than 7 days. This one has only been open for 4 days. This doesn't give enough time to get enough WP:CONSENSUS on the merge, even if everyone agreed to it. Cowboygilbert - (talk) ♥ 21:24, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cowboygilbert: So what should I do now? Wait until the discussion is a week old? Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 11:14, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Wolverine X-eye:, Yes. Cowboygilbert - (talk) ♥ 17:04, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cowboygilbert: It's now 7 days... Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 14:09, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Compassionate727: You still interested in closing this? Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 04:04, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't a priority, given all the much older discussions here. I'll get to this eventually, or maybe someone else before me. In the meantime, please be patient. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 13:34, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The anti-vandalism bot, ClueBot NG, currently appears to be down. The bot has not edited in almost 24 hours. As the bot has several maintainers, I assumed this would be the best place to post the notification. If I am incorrect, I apologize. Best, Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 04:36, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Alpha, thanks for reporting this. I've had a look at ClueBot's run page and that seems to be looking ok to me. I've emailed Cobi to make him aware of the issue--5 albert square (talk) 23:45, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I just saw that someone has asked about this on Damien's talk page, apparently it was originally down to maintenance work but now the server seems to be offline? Like I've mentioned above, I've emailed Cobi, hopefully he'll be able to give an ETA of when CBNG should be back.--5 albert square (talk) 01:00, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, a response from Damian, this is apparently a server issue which we're waiting on Rich to take a look at. There's currently no ETA of when this will be fixed, so until it is, I've put a notice on CBNG's talk page saying the bot is down.--5 albert square (talk) 01:43, 1 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone have any further information. ClueBot has now been down for about 90 hours. Andrew Kurish (talk) 02:02, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Andrew, I don't think there's any further information yet, there wasn't an ETA when I put together the notice for ClueBot NG's talk page. Hopefully it won't be too long :)--5 albert square (talk) 23:08, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all, I apologise for CBNG's downtime, this is due to me not being able to pay for the server and hence it being suspended by the host. I can assure you that the server will be back alive on the 9th of December which is when I get paid next. Sorry again for the confusion - Rich(MTCD)^T|C|E-Mail 23:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rich, thanks for the explanation. I saw Tedders suggestion on your talk page, do you know if that would be possible?--5 albert square (talk) 16:05, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How much does hosting cost? I may be able to help, if you want. bobrayner (talk) 00:49, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Seconded. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:46, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Reset Indent)This may not sound smart but why can't you just get a toolserver account? --Kangaroopowah 02:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Its actually a valid thought, however the toolserver has restrictions on how much resources any one user is allowed to consume. Given what Cluebot does it probably uses too much resources. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 00:59, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• The bot may be able to run on Wikimedia Labs at some point. Sven has asked below and I've added a note on the projects's talk page. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 04:33, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Update - The server will now be back on the 8th, however we will be moving it over to a Wikimedia Labs instance ASAP. - Rich(MTCD)^T|C|E-Mail 23:49, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've been trying to contact Rich on Skype and IRC without luck for the past two days after he suggested I might be able to help pay for it. ClueBot NG contributions indicates it is still down, so I asked on #wikimedia-labs for an update, and petan said the VM instance is created and Rich tried to start it without success. Nobody has heard from him since yesterday when he said he was busy (he's a student and works too.) I commented out the {{resolved}} header above for the time being; please check contribs before replacing it. 67.6.163.68 (talk) 14:43, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Update 2 - Okay, OVH have made me rage! They decided in their wisdom to fully terminate the server... so I've lost EVERYTHING(!). Me and Damian can get it back, albeit not fully taught... but it may take a couple of days. I am extremely sorry that this has happened and hopefully we can get it back up ASAP. When it is back up, we are going to need more and more community members to assist looking though the false postives so the database can be re-filled, anyone wishing to help can send me an e-mail or a talk page message and I will get you set up. Many thanks for your continued patience. - Rich(MTCD)^T|C|E-Mail 19:29, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Per Skype, the installation problem has been resolved on WMF Labs and ClueBot is compiling there presently. This thing apparently uses an artificial neural network (ANN) simulation to judge false positives. Anyway, a lot of help is going to be needed to review logs to get it working well again because the ANN database, which is usually stored in RAM apparently, was lost when the OVH ISP terminated the account. 67.6.163.68 (talk) 21:04, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

Recently Fastily has deleted a couple of talk pages on my watchlist with CSD G6. They weren't tagged or anything. Fastily restored the first one when I asked on his talk page, but hasn't restored the second one yet.

Based on recent talk page comments, Fastily has been deleting many other pages, restoring on request. Also some possibly improper AFD closures and other admin-bit actions. I don't have the time or energy to babysit Fastily or look through their deletions; can someone else poke around and see if it's just my impression or if there's actually a problem? tedder (talk) 18:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ouch. Looks like a fairly recent problem (hopefully). Maybe Fastily can just agree to go through all their recent "housekeeping" deletions and make sure they were valid, and to be more careful when applying that reason for deletion in future? Beeblebrox (talk) 19:01, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I had experienced a similar deletion of the redirect at Template:nfur by Fastily as G6 without any reasoning. I didn't notify him about it since he was away when I noticed but I also didn't think it was part of a larger problem. If he really has done such problematic deletions on a larger scale, then I think some broader review of their actions is necessary. Regards SoWhy 19:10, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have put that talkpage back, and I think I see the problem. He's going through a list of pages in the form Talk:Foo/to do or Talk:Foo/comments and deleting them all. Your deleted edit was Talk:Sepulveda/Expo (Los Angeles Metro station) so probably appeared on his list, assuming he'd used a bot to get pages of the Talk:Foo/whatever format. I'm not sure why all the other deletions are warranted as G6's - but a lot of them do seem to be old pages. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:11, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Well, to explain, it looks like this is the result of having articles with a "/" (forward-slash) in their name. This causes MediaWiki and related tools some issues, ultimately meaning that these pages (incorrectly) appeared in lists of talkpages without content pages -- presumably why Fastily thought they were fair game for summary deletion (as per norms). - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 19:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The list comes from Wikipedia:Database reports/Talk subpages with redirect parent. Most of these pages should be moved, not deleted. — Train2104 (talk • contribs) 20:47, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's just sloppy admin work. I wouldn't call it "abuse" as that implies bad intentions whereas this looks more like laziness. An admin is expected to at least look at a page before deleting it. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:16, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I guess the question is whether one considers the odd false positive acceptable if one handles lots of deletions. I'm guessing people feel not, here. On the other hand, it would be trivial to make sure your mass deletion attempts exclude titles with forward slashes in them from this point on. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 20:16, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see any excuse for deleting a page without looking at it. This is exactly why over-reliance on automated tools is a bad thing. They are no substitute for looking at it yourself and exercising judgement. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:22, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Fastily has been fast and loose with the deletion trigger for years now. The last time I approached him about it, he retired; looks like he's back at it again. –xeno^talk 19:26, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Xeno, approximately when was that? tedder (talk) 19:31, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

September 2010 or thereabouts. –xeno^talk 13:55, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Fastily should no longer be a redlink? Seems like the next step if this is a recurring problem. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:39, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Let's slow down for a second. Fastily deletes an exceptional number of pages, and he does so very quickly (he's performed about 1,000 deletions today alone). This will inevitably result in occasional sloppy and/or sub-par deletions. Even if 99% of those deletions were good, we would still find 10 bad deletions from today alone and might be noting the numerous complaints on his talk page. So are we seeing some sloppy work? Sure. Does Fastily need to slow down a bit in his deletions? Yes, I would say so. But, in the grand scheme of things, how large is this "problem", really? Swarm ^X 20:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As I've said, I consider any deletion where an admin clearly did not even look at the page before deleting it a problem. That is simply not acceptable. As others have indicated that this is a recurrent issue with this user that they seem unwilling to correct it, I don't believe we should just sweep it under the rug. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:39, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To Swarm's point, I think we have to look at the total number of errors, not just the percentage. Otherwise we'd have to accept 50 giant fuckups a day if the editor making them made 9950 good edits per day. An error rate of 0.5% is nice, but it's only part of the story. That said, Fastily is generally a responsive admin, so let's give them a chance to weigh in before going too far with this. There might be a perfectly reasonable explanation. 28bytes (talk) 20:54, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The point is that people make mistakes, and someone who does as much deletion work as Fastily is bound to have mistakes under their belt as well. From what I can tell, we're not talking about 'giant fuckups', we're talking about pretty minor stuff coming from a generally reasonable admin. Swarm ^X 21:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Fastily recently deleted a photo (File:Nelson Denis.jpg) for which I provided (as both subject and photographer) the copyright permission to OTRS. He left a notice to "get the photographer to release rights via WP:OTRS and the image can be restored." But that is precisely what I already did. I left Fastily two messages to this effect (with the OTRS Permission) and asked for guidance, but he did not respond. I think Fastily is donating his time and doing tremendous amounts of arduous work (1,000 deletions in one day?) but maybe he should have some assistance. That is a staggering workload. Nelsondenis248 (talk) 20:41, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This was already explained to you at the PUF discussion and by User:ScottyBerg. I recommended that you send an email to OTRS, which you did. When the email you sent is processed, and if the permissions are valid, the file will be restored. Frankly, I've done everything I can for you... -FASTILY ^(TALK) 20:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's correct, and I think that it's disingenuous, to say the least, for Nelsondenis248 to pile on Fastily and re-re-re-(etc.) -litigate this tired issue here. The photo was deleted because there was a previous PUF[1] which dealt with a previous OTRS letter that said precisely what his latest one did. To put it bluntly, Nelsondenis248's claim that he took this and other photos was simply not credible. Three photos were deleted, and when one was re-created it was deleted under G4. I suspect that he is going to continue to flail away at this issue until everyone is too tired to object. ScottyBerg (talk) 01:43, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In response to some of the concerns raised above:

• Only tedder's first 3 diffs ([2], [3], [4]) represent actual mistakes. These I corrected as quickly as possible. Being human, I will inevitably err periodically.
• I don't close AfDs....ever.
• I used a bot to compile and assess a list of pages (e.g. for usefulness, relevance to the encyclopedia, test pages, ect) subpaged under a talk page which was a redirect. At the time, the results appeared to be good so I went ahead and deleted the items on the list. Obviously, my code was not perfect. I'll be conducting a full restoration of those pages shortly.
• Admin abuse and RfCs? Whoa. I don't ever remember being unwilling to talk about my administrative actions. If I messed up, I'll be happy to fix it, no matter what it is. For the record, I'm neither being defensive about my errors, or for that matter, refusing to undo improper actions.

-FASTILY ^(TALK) 20:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for replying, Fastily. Human errors are okay, the number of errors is what makes me nervous. If we have to take an administrator to RFC/U or investigate "admin abuse", we have much larger issues as a community. tedder (talk) 20:56, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are a few issues that have been connected to Fastily (not necessarily the same problems as above but part of a larger picture?):

• His bot Fbot recently (this week) had two tasks approved for NFCC work, the tagging of images over a certain size for reduction, and removal of old versions of resized images. While both tasks are part of NFCC work, they are handling the process different than what we normally propose by human measure at WT:NFC. However, the WT:NFC regulars weren't even informed of these proposed bot actions, and only until I saw it act on an image I had (improperly, with regards to resizing) did I bring the issue up there. [5] Again, he was approved for the task but didn't seem to establish what the consensus was to do for these tasks.
• Just this morning I've noticed he mass tagged a large number of images for lacking fair-use rationale, which can prompt for their deletion in 7 days if not fixed. (This using the User:FSII) account. Except that a few of the images have non-template, and possibly weak rationales, but by no means lacking an attempt at one. You can see that a number of users are questioning this action on his talk page ([6]). We are generally more lax on tagging: completely lacking a rationale is one thing, but a broken or poor one is a different matter, and I don't think WT:NFC would have approved of this vigilance in the approach.

Alone, these aren't admin issues alone, but with the above cases noted above, there's some behavior that seems out of place for cooperative editing particularly on contentious areas like NFC. --MASEM (t) 21:02, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

These are not related at all.

• Fbot Task 9 is indefinitely on hold until consensus on what the threshold for tagging should be, what files should be exempt from reduction under WP:NFCC#3b, and if this task should continue. All users are invited to provide input! I posted a notice here about a week ago, but we haven't received as much input as we would have liked to. Please comment! (hmm, maybe I should start offering beer and cookies in exchange for input? :P )
• I'm working on that the no-rationale tags. As I mentioned on my talk page, in the upcoming days, I plan on conducting a full manual review of all my tags. Granted that you participated in that discussion on talk page, did you not see that? ;-)

-FASTILY ^(TALK) 21:16, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not to add wood to the fire, but Fastly just deleted a photo of mine yesterday, that I was sure was properly tagged.--JOJ ^Hutton 22:36, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

...and now editors are bringing individual disputes here. For an editor who does as much as Fastily, this could go on all day. Perhaps this isn't the best place guys? FWIW Hutton, you never responded to Fastily's request that you clarify. Cheers, Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 22:43, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, I was just going to let it go and re-upload the pick later. It absolutely flabbergasted me, that he does so many deletions, he had no idea what I was talking about. But when I saw this thread, I just had to chime in. Obviously there is a bit of smoke here. Perhaps we should be looking for the fire.

Here is the file: 250px, if anyone cares to look. I was fairly confident that it had all the proper tags and such.--JOJ ^Hutton 22:47, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) ×2 Take at look at the file redirects listed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2011 November 22. All of them were speedily deleted by Fastily while still undergoing discussion at RfD. Indeed some (e.g. File:Hopkins logo.JPG had explicit recommendations to keep and had had speedy deletion explicitly declined previously by another admin. The speedy deletion criterion given was WP:CSD#G7, and while it's true the only person listed in the history of the redirect page requested their deletion (which was declined) in the case of page move redirects G7 does not apply unless the same user was the only significant contributor to the moved page as well - in all the cases I've checked (which isn't all of them), this was not the case (e.g. what is now File:Hopkins Solutions logo.JPG was uploaded by user:Jsmith45 and moved by user:Sfan00 IMG.
While it's possible these would have been deleted anyway, I still think this is wrong:

• Pages shouldn't be speedily deleted while there is an ongoing discussion (unless that discussion is recommending speedy deletion) - doubly so when there are good-faith recommendations to keep (speedy deletion criterion only apply when deletion would be uncontroversial and they would be deleted every time - when there is no consensus this cannot, by definition, be the case)
• Pages shouldn't be speedily deleted after speedy deletion has been declined (except in cases of newly discovered copyvios)
• Pages should not be speedily deleted using criteria that do not apply (the occasional slip-up of selecting the wrong entry in a list is acceptable, but when all of them use the same wrong criterion it doesn't look at all like a slip of the mouse)
• Pages should not normally be speedy deleted when they have not been tagged.

When all four occur for the same page, and on many titles in quick succession, something is wrong.

I wasn't particularly happy about these when I saw them first, but didn't think it was worth mentioning as when I've raised similar concerns with other admins in the past, I've often received responses along the lines of "so what" or "who cares?" (I have a vague feeling that Fastily may have been one such admin to respond like this, but I am not certain and don't remember when this would have been to make searching for diffs productive). It was only after seeing this section that I went back and looked in detail.

Until this is resolved I would like Fastily to voluntarily refrain from deleting any page. We don't want to end up with another situation like we have with user:Δ. What I think we need to avoid that is four things:

• An explicit statement that the community expects very high levels of accuracy in relation to deletions and places a greater value on this than it does on high productivity (measured in terms of the number of actions taken).
• An acknowledgement from Fastily that he understand this statement, and that his recent editing has not been accurate enough
• An agreement from Fastily to take more care in the future, including checking every page before deletion.
• An agreement from Fastily to temporarily refrain from all deletions while discussions about any future concerns raised with him relating to deletion are ongoing. (if, as I hope, there are no future concerns this shouldn't be a problem) Thryduulf (talk) 23:20, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, though I believe these points were already addressed, and agreement to such terms was already tacitly made or implied in my responses above. So, for transparency, agreed to all the above except the issue you have with RfD. Nonetheless, I'm not going to fight over it, because it's a stupid argument and I have better things to do with my time; in other words, I couldn't care less if you restored the redirects. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 23:31, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• I just wanted to make a general observation. While I'm intimately acquainted with just one of the "problems" complained about, the general sense I get from reading these complaints is that Fastily has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way by using, not abusing, his administrative bit by correctly deleting photos etc. There is a pile-on here and I don't think it's warranted. ScottyBerg (talk) 01:50, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Fastily and I have worked together a lot, and he works faster than I would, but he always addresses concerns when they come up, so this dosen't worry me. I think part of the reason Fastily's numbers are so high is that he can't rely on other people doing the work when he's not around. There were things that just didn't get done when he was gone, and it was only after he came back, and found a large list of tasks waiting for him, that he's gone into hyper mode. Before you cosnider escalating this any further, please allow me to talk with him in private, I think that there's a very simple way to handle this so that everyone comes out happy. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:41, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. The percentage of mistakes that actually are a problem are small, it's just he makes so many edits. I've always found Fastily fine about restoring/discussing if there is a problem, so I don't think there needs to be too much made of this.Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:04, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sven Manguard is correct. I personally observed how literally nothing happened to one problematic photo for a period of two weeks, with no corrective action taken until Fastily returned. ScottyBerg (talk) 22:45, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do not want to run into conflict with anybody, but on the other hand I was just about to issue an ANI report related to Fastily as well as I came to conclusion that his/her approach as enforcing admin is not very fair, strange coincidence I found this report here.

1. Long ago he blocked me ("FASTILY (TALK) 00:37, 19 July 2011 (UTC): You have been blocked from editing for a period of 24 Hours for Edit Warring.") even though I could find that other administrators approach essentially the same cases differently: "Declined. No more reverts after the warning. Sandstein 06:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)" I do not understand if abstaining from article edits after warnings issued is not deemed as appropriate what else a user should do.

2. Now he closed the ANI case (I was told there is something wrong with this page and it might not be displayed correctly) run against me without bothering to address the arguments presented there in in my favour. I respect his opinion, he might not agree with them, but the ignorance is not very high wiki-etiquette and I strongly object such approach. I believe WP-enforcing admin should have higher standards to apply, IMHO.--Stephfo (talk) 22:21, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

3. Pls. also note I'm being harassed that I allegedly cannot defend myself against admin actions that I regard for highly biased. I allegedly cannot use mentor for my defence to find the status of material at WP:RSN pertaining to topic of my topic ban and I'm not allowed to ask Fastily to act in line with WP polices on closures.--Stephfo (talk) 22:32, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You fail to mention that you've been blocked repeatedly for edit warring (including twice by me). Based on your conduct at the time, I fully endorse Fastily's block. The closure of the ANI discussion also looks appropriate - you were actually very lucky to have not been blocked again for an indefinite period given that you violated the conditions which you agreed to when you were unblocked. Nick-D (talk) 22:45, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But your 7d blocks happened after his 24h block (thus I could not be blocked "repeatedly for edit warring" by then), and personally I consider your 1st block as well as your overall behaviour in cases related to me the same as those of his - highly ignorant of all arguments presented in my favour, and done in spite of fact that after warning I have not performed any activity at article pages. Please explain why you deem as appropriate to ignore arguments raised if WP:policy on closures states that their strength and quality should be assessed?--Stephfo (talk) 22:58, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note that Stephfo is sour for having been topic banned on AN/I. Fastily was an uninvolved admin and I asked him to close the thread because other admins on AN/I were involved and s/he is one of a handful of admins I know by name outside of AN/I. I have no comment as to the separate topic of this thread, I'm just pointing out that Fastily did not act incorrectly regarding Stephfo; there was overwhelming support for a topic ban, including by Stephfo's mentor. Stephfo, you either need to appeal your topic ban to arbcom or AN/I. Attempting to use other venues incorrectly like this may be considered disruptive. N^oformation ^Talk 22:51, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was topic banned by Fastily's closure that was highly ignorant of all opposing votes, IMHO. I do not regard him uninvolved due to reason that he participated in my previous blocks that, IMHO, he was not administering very even-handedly.--Stephfo (talk) 23:04, 3 December 2011 (UTC) And when I look at other admins such, for example Sandstein, how they handle the cases, I'm strongly convinced they would not apply such arrogant approach and the conclusion might very likely be completely different (I might even never be blocked, IMHO--Stephfo (talk) 23:17, 3 December 2011 (UTC)).--Stephfo (talk) 23:08, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Stephfo, any admin would have closed that discussion the way Fastily did - and a good many of them would have closed it with a sterner penalty. THE COMMUNITY topic banned you. The closing admin just confirmed it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:27, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with you that it was closed in civil manner, when counter-arguments were just grossly ignored. If possible, I'd like to ask whether I have a right to get another admin assigned who has a clean history record with respect to me and who is able to look into arguments of both sides, not just one.--Stephfo (talk) 23:46, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You've been topic banned from ANI, and the community feedback is clear that it isn't a Fastily issue, it's a Stephfo issue. Please heed the above editors, and note that coatracking into a discussion isn't the best. tedder (talk) 00:05, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you disagree then you need to post at AN/I or appeal to arbcom. There is no other way to appeal. Posting here will not help. N^oformation ^Talk 00:11, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can we topic ban Stepho from AN too? This is ridiculous. I'm all in favour of people defending themselves, but WP:CONSENSUS ... indeed, the consensus of the community...has placed certain limitations. If I were him, I'd be trying to fix my reputation, not screw myself over further. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 00:23, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I respect your opinion, but I regard this case of mine pertaining the above topic referred to as "Also some possibly improper AFD closures and other admin-bit actions.". "Consensus of the community" is weasels words, as this community includes also people whose voices and opinions has not been assessed. I wanted to spare one more report, but if you deem it as more appropriate, I can make a separate one. Thankx for your opinion. --Stephfo (talk) 00:34, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, make a report on AN/I and be done with this. N^oformation ^Talk 00:36, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just last technical question: I do not see his/her closure and my latest reactions in AN/I case dedicated to me, is it my local problem or is there something wrong with WP? I have tried various browsers and it is missing in all of them. Thanx.--Stephfo (talk) 00:58, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Look here Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:15, 4 December 2011 (UTC) Exactly the same link that Fastily posted on your talkpage. You do understand how an archive works, don't you? Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:17, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The real problem here is the script-assisted deletion. We've had admins in the past who have deleted large numbers of pages via scripts and rarely have such endeavours been without issue. No matter the massaging of the inputs, there will always be pages that shouldn't be deleted if they had actually been manually checked. Yes, there are backlogs but this does not give us license to delete pages at such a breakneck pace as to overwhelm any possible manner of responsible review. And this is an ongoing concern; see AN/ANI archives for "Fastily+deletions" [7]. –xeno^talk 13:55, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We also get a large number of problematic fully manual deletions. I did half a dozen CSDs yesterday and one was deleted when I tried to save the the declined-and-fixed version of the page, much the same ratio as when I did a bigger sample a year or so back. A significant number of AfDs go bad, and prods are possibly the worst, with as little control over nomination and I get the feelign a presumption to delete. Rich Farmbrough, 09:29, 6 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Whether its Misza13 or MZMcBride or SQL or any one of the many other past administrations using scripts to make many rapid deletions, it has virtually always resulted in massive amounts of controversy and avoidable errors. It seems like script-assisted deletions should fall under a fully separate criteria for deletion, with much stricter controls to reduce the likelihood of large numbers of errors. Nathan ^T 22:51, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To some extent deletions are inherently controversial, massive amounts of deletions will hence be massively controversial. "Avoidable errors" on the other hand is usually addressable (or they wouldn't be avoidable), and absent any evidence to the contrary, we should assume that Fastily is addressing avoidable errors as he goes. Rich Farmbrough, 13:48, 8 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Sorry, I never get into trouble so I don't know this stuff :) If I click on "email this user" and send them an email, and they later claim that I said something completely different from what I said, does anyone on-wiki have a way to check it? If not, what method do you guys prefer if you're trying to keep something private because you don't want to be publicly pointing a finger at someone, but you want to protect yourself in case they claim you said something different? - Dank (push to talk) 21:43, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unless you're emailing a mailing list there is no record of the email sent, and no way to verify if someone lies about its content. The best you can do is select the "E-mail me a copy of my message" option on the email user form--Jac16888 ^Talk 21:50, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 21:53, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Being slightly pedantic: that is not entirely true. I ask a CU to comment below.  Chzz  ►  22:05, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Right, checkuser can verify an email was sent but there is still no way to see the content of the email. –xeno^talk 22:06, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, thanks, Xeno, that was my pedantic point.  Chzz  ►  03:18, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was under the impression that in case of an absolute emergency, the Devs could see the contents of the email. Was this an incorrect impression? Sven Manguard Wha? 06:31, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's the correct impression. Sysadmins can view the contents of an email. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 06:44, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Where do you have this information from? I don't know that any emails are being logged, not see it in mail config. Petrb (talk) 15:53, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't mean it's not true, it may be logged but I just don't think that Petrb (talk) 16:01, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I had a quick look at my own little MediaWiki installation, and did a text search in a database dump, and I don't seem to see stored sent mails anywhere in that, but maybe I missed it. More likely any "logging" is somewhere else (in the mail subsystem used by WP servers, for instance... developers could access that, and the mail subsystem could be configured to log outgoing mail). Alternatively, if it is correct, perhaps it's a particular configuration of the MediaWiki version for WMF sites (or just WP). Begoon ^talk 03:05, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is a sizeable backlog of discussions to be closed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion. I don't have time to do it myself, and anyway I've commented in a sizeable proportion of them. RfDs are normally much easier work to close than AfDs, and almost always acrimony free! Thryduulf (talk) 04:11, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I closed several, how's the backlog look now? ~Alison C. (Crazytales) 07:35, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

meta:Talk:Terms_of_use#Closing_of_Discussion:_December_31.3F – Discussions relating to Wikimedia's proposed Terms of Use might end by December 31, 2011. Every Wikimedia user would have to agree to comply with the terms of this document, so if anyone has any concerns, then please let Geoffbrigham and those watching the page know about them. Geoffbrigham responds well to feedback. He and other have made many, many changes due to the feedback they've received. They will politely listen to anything that you have to say, so please don't be afraid to say it. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 14:00, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Update: December 31 will definitely be the final day to comment on the new Terms of use. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 20:27, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

 – Thanks!—S Marshall T/C 13:00, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No desperate rush but when someone has a moment, there are about three deletion reviews that are overdue for closure. All the best—S Marshall T/C 14:52, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A second attempt has been made at coding the policy. Please review User:Od Mishehu/Arbitration Committee Elections, and express your opinions at User talk:Od Mishehu/Arbitration Committee Elections. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 21:19, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it would be better to do this in a week or so, when the current election cycle is over? That way many of the active participants, including election administrators, election co-ordinators, and candidates can participate without fear that any comments or recommendations they bring will be accompanied by charges of lack of impartiality or personal self-interest. Risker (talk) 21:50, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

 – Request withdrawn, non-admin alternative found. Jclemens (talk) 06:05, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, this is just a quick notification to inform everyone that we have a brfa open, for a bot with administrator rights. The task it's self is fairly simple, it needs the rights to edit a full protected page in it's user space. See also, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Fbot 10 for the original BRFA. Thanks! --Chris 02:40, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If it only needs to edit that one page in its own userspace, wouldn't it be easier to just make it a .js page?  Chzz  ►  02:45, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's been suggested, yes. 28bytes (talk) 04:32, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The request has been withdrawn, in favour of using .css or .js page. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:30, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if this has been mentioned in any well-read fora, but User:CorenSearchBot is back for now. A few extra eyes on Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations would be very much appreciated. MER-C 08:20, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Huzzah! We just need ClueBot NG back and we can go back to letting the robots run everything. —Tom Morris (talk) 08:52, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords. ~Alison C. (Crazytales) 18:00, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This doesn't seem to be covered under WP:SPAM, so thought I should post here. Special:Contributions/Yjenith is spamming random editors about his new template. Where is the right place to announce new templates? Thanks, Filing Flunky (talk) 08:36, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Canvassing#Inappropriate notification seems to cover it better; Wikipedia:Canvassing#Appropriate notification explains the proper places/techniques to make such an announcement. Also, when you discuss any user on this board, there is a big orange banner when you edit this page informing you that you must notify them; it appears you have failed to do so. But, it also appears the user is being educated on his talk page by several users and has ceased said behavior, so this appears to be a non-issue now. If the user starts inappropriately canvassing again, WP:ANI is probably a better venue than here. --64.85.220.56 (talk) 10:39, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Urk. You're right, I forgot to notify that editor, sorry. Won't happen again. Filing Flunky (talk) 10:51, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• It may be useful if the admins could be circulated asking them to log in Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen all history merges done and all rejected history merges. That would stop it from looking like I am getting all the work of the history merging. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:05, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  Is that the only benefit? Jafeluv (talk) 13:03, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Actually WP:SPI does quite a few history merges on it's own, and I would think that the deletion log would be good enough to log them for me instead of having to log one ever time I do one. If we compiled a list for SPI, well, let's just say it would be one hell of a long list. Cases can be merged easily on a day to day basis and to ask admins to go over and log it when it's already in the deletion log...I think that's a little excessive. -- DQ (t) (e) 13:24, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• When did history merges become a part of the sockpuppet investigation process? Nyttend (talk) 23:22, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• The usual practice is to history merge some of the cases if they relate to the same person but are filed in different places. For example, a case about X was filed at WP:SPI/X and archived to WP:SPI/X/Archive. Then a case is filed about Y at WP:SPI/Y and it turns out that Y == X. Whenever practical (since Y is usually a fresh case, this is very often) we move SPI/Y to SPI/X and merge their histories (instead of merely copying the text over) so that everything archived at SPI/X/Archive can be found in the history of SPI/X rather than scattered around different places. No, we don't do history merges outside SPI case pages. T. Canens (talk) 16:32, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• • I don't really see the point of logging history merges, either. I always thought of WP:SPLICE as a noticeboard rather than a log. Is there any particular reason we need to keep track of them? T. Canens (talk) 16:35, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'm trying to create a new page called "Maximal Atlas" that would lead to Manifold#Atlases. However, it keeps telling me that

"The page title or edit you have tried to create has been restricted to administrators at this time. It matches an entry on the local or global blacklists, which is usually used to prevent vandalism."

Can someone please tell me why is this happening? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alesak23 (talk • contribs) 13:06, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Done for you. CIreland (talk) 13:08, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In what way did this cause problems with MediaWiki:Titleblacklist? I can't find anything that should have blocked this title, but I'm not exactly familiar with regex. Nyttend (talk) 23:21, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A little over a month ago I reviewed Stan Pitt, started by Dan arndt, for DYK, and both myself and another reviewer found instances of plagiarism from the cited sources. The issues were not addressed and the DYK nomination failed. Yesterday I followed up, and using a duplicate detector found that various lines had been plagiarized directly from at least four sources: here, here, here ([24]), and here ([25]). I brought it up at WP:CP. Afterward, I checked out two other articles created or expanded by Dan, and found more of the same: Phil Belbin includes plagiarism from here ([26]) and here ([27]), and Stan Cross contains plagiarism from here ([28]), here ([29]), here ([30]) and here ([31]).
Dan arndt is not a new editor; they've been around since 2006 and have made over 20,000 edits. Glancing through their talk archives shows concerns with copyrighted text and images from the beginning. I don't know how much of this rises to copyvio per se, but this is still a very serious issue that may date back several years, and it requires attention.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:16, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not coming to Dan's defense here, but you've given the editor all of 5 hours to respond to your DYK concern and about 14 minutes to respond to your other copyright concerns. Don't you think it'd be polite to allow the user a day to respond to your concerns. Perhaps you could convince them to review their other articles for copyright problems before dragging them here to humiliate them.--v/r - TP 19:05, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's not my intention to "humiliate" anyone. There was well over a month to deal with the concerns brought up at DYK, and it didn't get done. After seeing this and then finding that the problem affects other articles, I thought it best to get additional eyes on it.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:12, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see any reason to criticise the way in which Cuchullain is dealing with this. Just dealing with it at all is a service to the project. Looking at Stan Pitt, from October 2011, I can see the issues. The next step from here is often to consider whether a CCI might be warranted. The usual rule at WP:CCI is that five examples from different articles will cause a CCI to be opened. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:20, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not criticizing the way it's being dealt with. I'm criticizing the time in between elevation. I, myself, was recently brought to AN without an opportunity to address an issue beforehand. I know how it feels when I could've solved an issue quickly and now I'm being put in a dark room with a bright light focused on my forehead. So the guy dropped a DYK nom off at the project and never returned to check on it; if the issue hasn't been brought to their talk page then I say they should be given at least a chance to address it. If they blow it off, then fine, here we are. Excuse me that I don't support coming here prior to a personal discussion. Addition: But yes, I do think it's great that Cuchullain took the effort to look at the sources and check for copyright problems. It's tough.--v/r - TP 19:50, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, I've found three more articles that include plagiarism, either in taking entire lines or too-close paraphrasing: Keith Chatto from here ([32]) and here ([33]); Gerald Carr (cartoonist) from here ([34]); and Monty Wedd from here ([35]). The last article doesn't cite to the source and includes uncited quotations. It looks like this may have to go to WP:CCI.--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:08, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User:Dan arndt contacted me on my talk page and I think he would be agreeable to reacquainting himself with the copyright policy and fixing his errors. I've suggested he say as much here.--v/r - TP 15:33, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They expressed that to me, too, and they've already started work on some of the instances I pointed out. I think this is definitely in the category of errors that can be corrected with a bit of time and effort.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:53, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have been concerned for some time that the quality of AFD discussions hasn't kept pace with a clearer enforcement of our inclusion standards and this leads to a lot of unnecessary relists and will result, as participation continues to decline, in the process becoming even more arbitrary and confusing. That's if AFD doesn't end up breaking from a lack of policy based contributions. My view is that we need to improve understanding of what is or is not a policy based vote to improve the quality of debate. This will result in fewer relists, more consistent outcomes and allow the process to continue to work in the future. I'm proposing that AFD regulars who close and relist discussions explain which votes they counted and why and offer direction when they relist to make what's needed clearer. I started (yeah, its awful and needs lots of work) an essay to explain the process as above and would welcome any comments or feedback that anyone has on this. Since I'm going to spam this round the houses WT:AFD or the talk of the essay seem like good locations to hold the discussion. Spartaz ^Humbug! 18:59, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should include a list of inclusion guidelines on WP:AFD in table format and give a general overview of what each one covers and how they are generally interpreted. Then we could also have a list of inclusion essays that are often used. As an AFD admin, I will say that I give a lot of weight to WP:GNG. I also tend to give less weight to AFD regulars that use what appear to be copy/paste rationales on both the keep and delete sides. There are a few users I'll give more weight to if I feel they are voting against what they generally lean. For example, if I see DGG, MichaelQSchmidt, or Warden !vote to delete then I'm more inclined to pay close attention to what they say and will generally give their opinion a little more weight. On the same side, if Stauratyates (sp?) and some others !vote to keep then I will pay closer attention to their rationale. That's how I do it.--v/r - TP 19:11, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

and letting people see which votes count and which were a waste of bytes will obviously spur them to making more focused contributions the next time they step into an AFD. I do think its probably to discuss in general rather then name names though. For the sake of Harmony if nothing else. Spartaz ^Humbug! 19:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have you seen WP:ATA? That has existed for, oh, years, and hasn't improved much. Essays sure are fun, but are you positive yet another one will help? --Jayron32 19:25, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No of course another essay isn't going to make any difference unless we can persuade admins to give a clearer steer on what's a valid argument and what's a discard and providing guidance on relists. That's going to be what makes the difference because AFD participants will be able to understand better what sways a discussion and what is just noise and respond accordingly next time they vote. The essay is a vehicle to persuade AFD closing admins to take this on board and get some discussion going. Spartaz ^Humbug! 19:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The difference is that the Arguments to Avoid essay gives general examples and best practices, but does not impact the actual content of debates in any direct way, whereas the idea behind IAFD is that admins should commit to providing feedback in the debate itself. And that's not a bad idea at all. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 21:12, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see the same problems. There have been too many AfDs lately where all the comments after (& often including) the nom were for clearly unacceptable reasons. In practice, like Spartaz, I find myself in closing relying upon people I know to be sensible, rather the consensus of whoever might appear. However, trying to summarize the extremely complicated guidelines to a few words will leave out all the qualifiers and e3exceptions; the debate at an AfD is usually not about the basic rules, but over the interpretation or interpretative nuance of one of the rules. The solution is wider participation--if everyone looking here would just comment on 2 or 3 AfDs in the daily list it would help. DGG ( talk ) 00:42, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't always comment at AFD, but my personal rule is that I comment on two other AFDs for every article I nominate myself; that way I can assure that my nomination doesn't make any more work for anyone else. Perhaps if we made the instructions clearer to encourage anyone nominating an article for deletion to comment on a few. I know over at WP:DYK they made it standard for anyone nominating an article at DYK had to review/comment on another nomination, and it has helped reduce the workload considerably. I know that AFD is very different, but if we had a friendly reminder in a few places letting people know that it would be a good idea, when nominating, to also comment on someone elses nomination, it may drastically increase the participation. --Jayron32 04:41, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good idea but we have to face reality, participation in all of our deletion discussions is going down and that trend will continue. CFD and FFD already have very low participation rates that is affecting their credibility and I have seen numerous comments at DRV that regulars consider CFD so broken its not worth commenting on closes there. AFD is going to struggle in the future if we don't do anything about educating regular participants to make the best possible quality contributions. Am I misinterpreting the commentary here, but isn't it a bit ironic that a project designed around education isn't enthusiastic about a low overhead proposal to educate our own editors on how to best contribute to a key area that is extremely complicated and bedeviled by poor quality contributions? Spartaz ^Humbug! 05:11, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone please undelete all revisions of I'll Be Home for Christmas and histmerge them back into the article? The article was around for over 5 years, so I refuse to see how the whole thing was speedied as a copyvio. Not all of it could've been a copyvio. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 04:15, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have you asked Fastily about it? --Jayron32 04:20, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Over 80% of the article was plagiarized from this source, without acknowledgement. That said, I think the Library of Congress is public domain, so revisions could possibly be undeleted as such. Is it? CharlieEchoTango (contact) 04:24, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it was still plagiarized. Essentially, if you want to see the deleted article, look no further. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:25, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The legal/copyright notices/disclaimers for the library don't appear to mention the copyright status of content they appear to have created themselves: [36], [37]. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 04:32, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Federal agencies place everything they do in the public domain --Guerillero | My Talk 04:34, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Just checking, how do we know that they didn't use some of the Wiki article to write theirs? I don't see a date or attribution on theirs.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 04:35, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are a few federal entities that are technically non-US government, like the Smithsonian Institution and the Postal Service, and they happily copyright things. However, the Library of Congress seems to be an agency of Congress; check images such as File:US-LibraryOfCongress-AltLogo.svg and File:US-LibraryOfCongress-Seal.svg, which are marked as PD-USGov-Congress. Seems to me that the only relevant problem with the deleted text is that it didn't cite its source: it was plagiarism but not a copyvio. Nyttend (talk) 05:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In light of the above, and because I'm pretty sure the LoC is PD, I've reinstated the old revisions. I would advise however against reverting to the any of the old versions of the article, as they are mostly not verifiable or neutral statements (e.g. "it touched a tender place", etc). Just not encyclopedic... but not copyright violations either. CharlieEchoTango (contact) 05:57, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since LOC is PD, is it fair game to copy text from the linked page above into the article? This is an important song, and lots of that detail is great, but budiling it up from scratch again is going to suck. Gaijin42 (talk) 20:19, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Surely. We'll have to work on the tone somewhat, but we can always solve verifiability issues by prefacing statements with something such as "According to the Library of Congress,..." Nyttend (talk) 20:42, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, copying text straight from another page to build up an article is not a good thing -- we should always try to put information in our own concepts, not plagiarize someone else's. (Anyone want to take a swing at fixing Ron Nelson, come to think of it?) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:48, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed that plagiarism is uncool, but this can be dealt with appropriately {{PD-notice}}. Not technically necessary, but more ethical. CharlieEchoTango (contact) 20:51, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Don't we have tons of examples of "plagarism" of articles copied from PD encyclopedias etc? In any case, I will try to paraphrase where possible, but initial revisions may be copied. I will be sure to use the "includes text from " templates. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:02, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

After I deleted Jerusalem Prayer Team as a copyvio, Rjmains asked me for help with the copyright issue, and the source webpage now bears an unambiguous CC/GFDL release statement that's valid under our copyright policy. If I remember rightly, there's a bit of a COI issue involved here, which complicates the issue. I'm in the middle of preparation for finals week in grad school, so I can't spare the mental energy to give this situation the attention it deserves; could someone please help Rjmains? You'd do well to read his talk page and the deleted article before advising him or doing anything else. Nyttend (talk) 06:09, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mike Evans (journalist) was also deleted as a copyvio, but I'd guess (from what I remember of the situation) that the copyright issue is now resolved for it as well. Nyttend (talk) 06:11, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. The RfC regarding the lead section of WP:V ended a little over a month ago. There was an agreement that it would be closed by User:Newyorkbrad, User:Black Kite and User:HJ Mitchell. However, this has not happened because of the low availability of two of those.

Would anyone be interested in joining the process so that it can get back on track?

There is an existing understanding that closers should be three in number, be admins in good standing, not have participated in discussions leading up to this point and not have commented elsewhere in such a way that their impartiality might be questioned.

It's a responsibility to be taken seriously. A minor change is at stake, but it is one about which there are strongly-held views. It's also the RfC with the highest ever level of participation on Wikipedia. So there is a lot to read and it will probably not be an open and shut case.

Any takers? If so, please put yourself forward by making your mark below. --FormerIP (talk) 15:52, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tempted. Am I wrong, or is that RFC archived twice on that page? UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 16:18, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I guess that will make it twice as much work. --FormerIP (talk) 16:46, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could be persuaded. Depends how urgent it is, as there's a lot to read and I'm busy this weekend. Worm^TT · (talk) 16:21, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it is urgent is the sense that a decision is needed by 10 am. But I think editors want to know that it is moving in a forward direction. --FormerIP (talk) 16:46, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm willing to step in if the two above me cannot or someone below me has more enthusiasm.--v/r - TP 16:32, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I could do it... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:39, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe SlimVirgin could work with you. Leaky Caldron 16:41, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have plenty of time starting Monday and am willing to wade through the stuff. --regentspark (comment) 16:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. I don't have the time to do it justice before Monday anyway so that suits me. If Worm will join us, we'll have the requisite three admins. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:59, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From my limited knowledge of the three of you, that should be good. But can I suggest making yourselves known on the WP:V talkpage first? There has been a little concern there about the risk of a runaway train of biased and incompetent admins. Yes, its a tautological concept. --FormerIP (talk) 17:03, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• just checking but are the victims... er I mean volunteers familar with the term hospital pass?? Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:18, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me. If no one has mentioned it at the RfC by tomorrow, I'll mention it then. Lots of reading to do... yay! Worm^TT · (talk) 21:50, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Government: "A government can also be agreed to in order to close very contentious RFCs. A notable example of this was the 2011 closure of the RFC on the "not truth" issue in the Verifiability policy text. While in principle any univolved Admin is free to close a RFC, in this case it was decided that a group of 3 editors should have the exclusive right to do this. While no other Admin was formally prohibited from ignoring that decision and close that RFC him/herself, in practice any such closure would have been swiftly reverted." Count Iblis (talk) 19:29, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That proposal was pretty clearly rejected, Count Iblis -- taking the Rejected tag off is not a good idea. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:04, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've rewritten it to reflect current practice. Count Iblis (talk) 20:51, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment It is my understanding that the permission class of a user that the Wikipedia community trusts to specifically judge consensus already exists. If we're going to limit this close to a certain class of editor based on permissions held why not entrust it to the people we already trust to make difficult decisions regarding consensus(send it to 'crat chat)?Crazynas ^t 20:42, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In no way is the above meant to disparage or attack the neutrality or objectiveness or ability to judge consensus of any of the administrators that have volunteered, more of a procedural question. Crazynas ^t 20:50, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you're understanding is correct, actually, Crazynas. Admins/bureaucrats don't have the exclusive privilege of closing RfCs. --FormerIP (talk) 21:13, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No I do understand that, which is why my second sentence was conditional. This is a question for this particular closure (and others of this nature) why we're limiting the close to a subset of editors that are not selected primarily for their ability to judge consensus when there already exists a usergroup that is scrutinized on their neutrality and ability to gauge consensus. (in other words, allow any editor in good standing to assist the close, or limit it to the well defined group of users that are promoted based on this specific type of trust to judge consensus). Crazynas ^t 21:29, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I see. Yes, actually, that makes sense, except bureaucrats do not present a very large pool. I think, in this particular case it is just a case of consensus, for better or worse, between involved editors that they wanted admins. --FormerIP (talk) 21:37, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be grateful if an uninvolved admin could try and close the image compromise discussion at Talk:Muhammad/images. The exact section link is Talk:Muhammad/images#Proposed_image_solution, although there is other further discussion elsewhere on the talk page. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:53, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• I'd certainly hope no one claims that wall of text is a closable discussion. Hold an RfC or something, but that's just an argument that is difficult to parse and too long to follow. Voting is evil, but unorganized walls of text are worse. There is just no way outsiders to that discussion could possibly follow or comment intelligently on it without spending at least 30 minutes. It currently stands (if I counted correctly) at more than 31,000 words. That's a third of a novel. At most I'd hope it would be closed as "hold an RfC". Disclaimer/comment: I personally believe a handful of editors are creating these walls more-or-less on purpose in an attempt to get their way on censorship related issues. WP:NOT's talk page being a good example, with the pregnancy image debate being another one (but it at least was readable). Hobit (talk) 22:06, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]