Wikinews:Admin action alerts/Archive 8

New block message
Hi Admins!,Can someone change the blocked text like this?

2602:304:AF53:3E99:6D8C:348C:FEE4:770E (talk) 00:16, 19 December 2013 (UTC)


 * While the admins certainly can do so, why would they want to be indistinguishable from Wikipedia? and some of the content is not applicable on en.WN. Is the current text wrong in some manner? -  Amgine | t 05:59, 19 December 2013 (UTC)


 * ❌ for the reasons Amgine gives. Plus, your paste wrought havoc on page width so I've removed it. For the sake of an accurate record, it can be viewed here, the diff that added it. BRS  (Talk)   (Contribs) 21:22, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Account Deletion
Sir,

I didn't knew that we could start an account using firm's name. Nor create a page for 'Pastors or Preachers'. I wanted to start a page similar to 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_hinn' for Pastor Tinu George. Please tell him how I can do that? And Please delete my login and pages created and all the urls.

Sincerely,

Inspire Ads Social Team —The preceding unsigned comment was added by InspireAds-Social (talk • contribs) 05:26, 23 November 2013


 * This is Wikinews, not Wikipedia. If you want something deleted at Wikipedia, you need to request it over there.  --Pi zero (talk) 13:30, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It's SEO. They just want the placement of their corporate name and the nearby link to Benny hinn (which spelling, luckily, is incorrect so probably doesn't benefit anyone.) -  Amgine | t 13:34, 23 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Can we inspire them to go play in traffic with advertising placards? --Brian McNeil / talk 17:52, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Auto spambot detection with User:Abuse filter

 * m:User:Abuse filter
 * See also: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/Abuse_filter
 * Brief description: note: not a bot; like User:MediaWiki default
 * See also: User:MediaWiki default
 * At Italian Wikipedia: it's currently their sixth sysop by blocks.
 * According to, we need to first get community consensus supporting this and we can then have the feature turned on. After that, the most prominent issue to consider is simply supervising its activity and placing restrictions on it.

I think this could be incredibly helpful, what do you think, community? -- Cirt (talk) 14:26, 29 September 2013 (UTC)


 * - As somebody who frequently goes through the filter list and blocks spam accounts that ping it, I would support it. I haven't seen names or edits that would suggest the filters are catching any people trying to make legitimate edits. --LauraHale (talk) 20:52, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
 * - Just a note that I fully support implementation of this, as well. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 00:30, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * (even though I'm not an admin) this has proved successful in other wikis. During my time as an admin, and just like anyone else in that position, I had to struggle with spammers. Wikinews would be highly benefited from this. Regards, Diego Grez (alternate account) alt. talk 01:03, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
 * as a sensible measure. Regex is not something I do well with, but I've been passing data to checkusers over abuse patterns for a while. Thus, I trust them to have spambot detection working pretty well by now. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:07, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I've asked to set it up, I left a note at m:User_talk:Billinghurst. -- Cirt (talk) 17:08, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ 55868 — billinghurst  sDrewth  09:25, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * that means that I have requested for it to be done. It is something that your community needs to request through to WMF as a configuration change, and that request I have lodged. — billinghurst  sDrewth  09:26, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ The change has been made to the Wikinews config, and is available in your abuse filters. — billinghurst  sDrewth  00:46, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Abandoned articles
Hello guys and gals, I am far from active anymore, but I do pop in and see what's going on from time to time. At those times, I like to help out with menial tasks. One of those was cleaning the cache of abandoned articles. But recently, I have noticed that they are to be moved to some user space. Why? This prevents me from participating in quick clean-up. Also, I've noticed the list just keeps getting longer as no one else is doing it either. So, I can only ask why this change? Cheers and happy editing. --SVTCobra 00:32, 24 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I do some of them from time to time, but yet the backlog keeps growing. And yes, the reason it's growing is that userspacing articles is more work than simply deleting them.  We need a tool to make userspacing articles easier; I hope eventually to provide such a tool, and meanwhile, we try to muddle on.


 * We have classes of journalism students coming through of late, and their grade is, so I understand, dependent on how their submissions fare, so we try to userspace articles known to be by students. --Pi zero (talk) 11:23, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

recent mass spamming
Hi,

The recent changes contain a lot of spam (I marked this as spam). Could you delete all this? Thank you. 81.185.159.158 (talk) 10:12, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I see no spam. I see suspect accounts, that's all. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 11:45, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I take that back, another admin has already deleted the spam. :p Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 11:56, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I meant to leave a note here, thanking the IP and noting it had been dealt with, but by the time I finished the cleanup, I forgot. Sorry about that, Chief.  --Pi zero (talk) 12:04, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/70.224.32.115
IP blocked anonymous users only, account creation disabled, for one year; much too long for an anonymous IP unless it is static with a long history (and then is not a school, etc.) Since this is probably our young cat friend who uses dhcp releases, it's a rather pointless length of time. -  Amgine | t 00:17, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Shortened the cat-fan's block to a reasonable time (two months). アンパロ Io ti odio! 00:47, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * A reasonable time limit for a non-static IP is 3 hours, 24 at worst. -  Amgine | t 05:14, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I beg to differ Amgine, dial-up is the exception, not the rule anymore. The majority of dynamic IPs for broadband are minimum 72-hour lease. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:28, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, this is a CU imposed block on the kittiesonfire range, and I don't see that admins should be changing the imposition of blocks by Checkusers, they have their reasons for imposing blocks of this nature, and it's not for us as administrators to change them. They have their job for a reason. I would kindly ask that the block be returned to 1 year, and any appeals on the length be referred to the blocking CU, cirt. BarkingFish (talk) 10:56, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Cirt applied this block on April 30. However, the IP shows no contributions and no deleted contributions. Is this a block in error? I would expect for, say, kittiesonfire that a range block would have been applied. Needless to say, I can't do a proxy check from work ;-) --Brian McNeil / talk 13:40, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Brian, every modem/router has the option to immediately release a DHCP-assigned IP. This is why our cat friend sometimes registers multiple accounts on multiple IPs within minutes of each other. Since this user *does* bounce IPs often, blocking for months is rather... well, pointless, isn't it? -  Amgine | t 17:50, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, but you're then left needing to wait until someone else takes the IP you had previously. Otherwise, you'll simply be reassigned it because the MAC address requesting, conveniently, matches a just-dropped lease. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:10, 4 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Sadly, it appears we can't do any good with this. I'll unblock, at least for now. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 18:01, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

- I would have appreciated it if the admin wishing to change the block had first contacted me as a courtesy at my user talk page, and I would have been responsive to that request. However, I will not raise any objections to this IP being unblocked at this point in time. -- Cirt (talk) 18:53, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Though I didn't initiate the discussion, I'll take that on board. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 19:12, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you! ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 19:24, 4 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: - See also the existing 2-week block at en.wikipedia.org. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 18:58, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Renewed socking with 2 new sock accounts, again. Blocked, again. -- Cirt (talk) 03:50, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm interested in following this up due to:
 * 20:34, 28 April 2011 PeterSymonds (talk | contribs) globally blocked User:70.224.32.115 (expires 20:34, 29 April 2011) ‎ (Cross-wiki abuse)
 * -  Amgine | t 04:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Update: link. ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 01:52, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

abuse filter mismathch for Addiing email addresses to articles
GUL E SAMOOM گُلِ سموم FROM: DR PROFF. S. MUJEEB ZAFAR ANWAAR HAMEEDI PAKISTAN E MAIL: < proffhameedi@yahoo.com >
 * Generally, that's because we do not permit provision of emails in articles - for the general reason that people don't want random strangers emailing them; or because invariably their inclusion is an attempt to spam us. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:51, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Block request
Hi. Please block. This is a crosswiki spammer; I already globally locked all accounts, but this is a nonsul one. Thanks. Trijnstel (talk) 16:32, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Pi zero (talk) 17:03, 31 December 2011 (UTC)


 *  amused me at first a little bit... ended up finding the notation as "no[n] " (mentioning here just incase some of you don't know like the bizare me). :) Cheers, Gryllida 11:34, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Archiving Wikinews:Requests for CheckUser
Feel free to move subthreads from Requests for CheckUser to the archives subpages when the checks and blocks are completed. Then, when filing new requests related to old ones, just give a link to the appropriate archived subpage and subsection link. Thanks! -- Cirt (talk) 02:26, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Kittiesonfire is Dantherocker1
Just an FYI heads up, the "Kittiesonfire" socks = ✅ as Dantherocker1 from en.wikipedia. All related socks can be blocked on sight. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 04:23, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Community ban proposal: Viriditas
I would like to propose a community ban for the above user. The background is that this user was invited to have a shot at participating in mainspace after some trollish sniping in Comments: space. I must stress there is nothing wrong with intelligent trolling in Comments: space. If anybody feels a strong need to read the thread, it is available here.  Since then, a great deal of timewasting has been undergone. The first article created was here; really, a remarkably good first effort. The initial problem presented was that there are only sources apparently predicting what is to come, which are then being used to try and verify it actually took place. This is, of course, time travel (a theme from the legitimate Comments: ranting). This is also relatively simple to fix by adding a couple of confirmatory sources, and changing anything remaining to "was scheduled to". The talkpage reaction is something quite extraordinary. There was a bit of back and forth, the ultimate result being utter refusal to even attempt fixing it; hardly the attitude of a useful editor. Apparently, the above, when explained, was "just making shit up" and I'm forced to conclude "Please quote tme the policy or guideline that says we can't use sources that are two days old," is a purposeful missing of the point. Even if not, it is a troubling attitude from anyone who is supposedly a helpful net-asset to the project. A most extraordinary exchange is to be found at User talk:Viriditas between the subject and Brian. It is perhaps remarkable in part in that Brian was actually friendly, but the reaction is also incredible. To summarise, Brian offered some advice and a promise that a tarnished WP would not be held against the user here. This is, apparently, an "assumption of bad faith". Two further issues are of importance here; first of all, a point was put to Viriditas: many sources for short articles is counter-productive and rarely needed. Viriditas repeatedly refused to even acknowledge this, be it presented as advice or even as a question. Since xe has a thing for policies and guidelines, I feel obliged to here point out WN:CS. Given that, for once in his life, Brian is actually being reasonable on this talk page, the attitude displayed to him in the latter comments especially is interesting. The second issue: the comment about excessive source use being problematic and troublesome was made here. The breathtakingly brazen immediate reaction is these edits - adding several sources, keeping it short. We now inevitably come to that article's talk page. A relatively trivial concern is raised about WebCite; once again, this is used as a starting shot to open a battleground. As-used it was apparently causing problems to people, yet a relativly simple request - to not shorten the URLs, which is where the problem seems to lie - is a "conclusion" this user "will not accept".  When told, bluntly, that xe was a troublemaker apparently using sarcasm, the immediate response was overblown sarcasm. Very funny. Disruption to make a point, amongst other things. It gets better. Apparently, peer review is a very simple task: "Every letter of every word in this news report has been verified and can be easily vetted in 60 seconds." If you can't review an eleven-source article (yep, it's now an eleven-source monster) in sixty seconds you "(have) no business reviewing". We're all fucked, I guess. Such a cavalier approach to the review policy is, to my mind, utterly unacceptable. To compare, look at the history of One year on: Egyptians mark anniversary of protests that toppled Mubarak and how long that review took with just a couple more sources; and, I thought that was fast - the review comment "Seriously intense amount of work in a short timespan," was aimed at the article itself, but the review was equally speedy. Once again, attitude problem is demonstrated by "I will not be changing anything or re-submitting this for another review" and yet Viriditas "(knows) exactly what peer review is". Once again, we're avoiding answering simple questions. Actually, no, more refusing to answer them. "Block away" was the reaction when it was suggested a block was highly likely for this disruption. Well, I think I'll do just that for a week. However, I'm inclinded to propose an indefinite full community ban. Blood Red Sandman (Talk)   (Contribs) 16:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * We've got experienced users both involved and uninvolved in the case commenting here, and everyone is in agreement. Closing as banned. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 13:23, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * as proposer. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 16:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Most definitely seems a case of "Disrupting Wikinews to prove a point". My original interaction with this user centred on the pepper-spray cop article. I'd say that Viriditas was looking for a complete (i.e. Wikipedia-esque) coverage of the issue; not a news report focussing on what was new. Xe also seemed to, at least initially, not grok what our Comments namespace is for. I'd say subsequent to being challenged to write here, xe is experiencing acute culture shock. As-ever, I'm the lightning rod for the output arising from such; and, I've stuck to my "no profanity" pledge put in place post-Tempodivalse. I'm neither for, nor against, a permanent ban of Viriditas at this point in time. I would like to see xe focus on one article, and get it published. Nowadays that is somewhat of a challenge &mdash; as-opposed to when I joined Wikinews in 2005 or so. To me, the 'checked in 60 seconds' comment was the most offensive. I can easily take personal attacks, and I try not to dish them out these days as I'm rather good at it. This was compounded by the &mdash; shall I say &mdash; childish remarks about asking for full URLS when using WebCite. However, I - in principle - approve of the idea of using WebCite, and will be looking to knock together some more code on wikinewsie.org to read the sources from published articles and push them into WebCite. That, I guess, may be the best that can be salvaged from this user. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:43, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Would kinda like to see Viriditas become an active contributor, largely based on this demolition of using Faux as a source. We need people who are capable of critical thinking, but throwing the toys out the pram on review failure is not acceptable.
 * I'm hoping that a week-long block is inappropriate, and people can make their case in less. So, I will shorten the block to 4 days and offer to post any "reasonable" comment from Viriditas into this discussion. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:58, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Having interacted extensively with Viriditas, I've had lots of opportunities to set actual behaviors against various hypotheses about xyr motivations. I've seen so many details, I wouldn't be able to write a summary such as the nominator's.  (I'm also frankly not in the best of shape, after three days of laboriously offering olive branches, and later lifelines, to this character who consistently responded by metaphorically spitting in my face.)  One detail easily overlooked, that did strike me at the time:  After xyr final remark on the Maui article's talk page (wow it's tempting to remark on some of that &mdash; see, that's why I'd have trouble writing a summary), xe made this remark in comment space and then immediately turned around and started four articles.  One of them about orange juice, and all of them about events that had not yet occurred (one in late February).


 * Brian McNeil's suggested interpretation, with the user who misunderstands things more and more badly, is a standard model I always try to apply (even when it isn't really plausible anymore, if someone is looking for a way out, offering xem this excuse allows xem to save face). But it passed plausibility and was later offered as a lifeline with the usual response.


 * Regarding the user's merits. I certainly thought webcitation a good idea, subject to the importance of using the long form.  But.  Viriditas has most consistently missed &mdash;I'm talking behavior here&mdash; missed the primary point of comments made.  Like, I say that I'm concerned something might turn out to be a problem so I'll be looking at that carefully once the initial problems have been fixed, and xe treats that as if I've said the article is unpublishable for that reason.  Or, we tell xem to use the long form of url for WebCitation, and xe treats that as a statement that WebCitation cannot be used.  I started out thinking 'low reading comprehension', but the more troll-like xyr behavior looked, the more I doubted whether xe had actually failed to comprehend what was said.  It's a classic choice between evils: didn't understand, or pretended not to understand.  Politicians are often like this, too: you think, FSM help us if that idiot got elected, then you wonder if they're really that dim, and in the end they get elected and you can't decide whether to hope they're dim or not.  --Pi zero (talk) 17:54, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * - incompetent user, very condescending as well. --William S. Saturn (talk) 05:13, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * . My charity tin is empty. These remarks regarding incompetent sourcing are more than enough to fully support a permanent ban. I'd rather make Mystic Meg an admin than trust Viriditas to write an accurate news article if xe considers sources three days prior to an event an accurate indicator of what actually took place. --Brian McNeil / talk 08:11, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe, in this particular case, it would be appropriate to at least save the Maui article in userspace so there is a visible record of this user's failings. One can only hope that Viriditas is satisfied that xe has proven xyr incompetence, although I doubt that is how xe sees it. --Brian McNeil / talk 08:31, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Every single comment from this user simply strengthened the case for a ban. 'scuse the language but,…
 * What a retarded fuck.
 * Trusting Viriditas with news production would be like trusting Michael Jackson's doctor to produce autopsy reports. --Brian McNeil / talk 14:24, 2 February 2012 (UTC)


 * &mdash; inappropriate conduct not conducive for positive collaboration on this project. -- Cirt (talk) 03:42, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Viriditas circumventing Wikinews via Wikipedia user talk page space
FYI, w:User_talk:Cirt.

My response was to forward to [mailto:wikinews-en@wikimedia.org the Wikinews OTRS queue.]

That appears to be the only appropriate next venue for communication.

Thoughts? -- Cirt (talk) 04:09, 11 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Given the highly opportunistic nature of xyr accusations here before being banned, seeking to waste as much of our time as possible with spurious procedural objections is very much in-displayed-character. --Pi zero (talk) 05:49, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Quite possibly. -- Cirt (talk) 06:09, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I've posted a heads up notice to all ArbCom members and all local Checkusers at this project, see Wikinews_talk:Arbitration_Committee. -- Cirt (talk) 19:35, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I've taken a very close look at the two IPs involved in this. The first is definitely a hacked university mail server. The second, I suspect my scan may be "stale"; the fingerprint I get for the address is best-guessed as an Airport, now only offering a VNC connection. The question would be, did this come up with 8080 open when scanned post-CU?
 * I find the good-ole-rant that Viriditas spouted over on enWP a bit,… rich. Xe is, essentially, accusing people within the Wikinews community of caring enough to joe-job xyr and waste other Wikinewsies' time. Highly unlikely.
 * That the two visibly-used IPs disrupting are in the UK ceases to be relevant when both are, or at least were, open proxies. Anyone, anywhere in the world could be popping up from those IPs.
 * Cirt, I'd ignore this &mdash; or just chat it over on checkuser-l. It isn't relevant if it is Viriditas or not, whoever it is needs blocked as-and-when they pop up.
 * Viriditas, here, has zero reputation to rant about. Let xe whinge on Wikipedia to xyr heart's content. I'm sure a non-Wikinews steward could exonerate everyone in good standing on Wikinews if that's what it takes. But, that could-well result in a check for cross-wiki abuse/taking the disagreement elsewhere on Viriditas' part. --Brian McNeil / talk 06:41, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, thought much the same thing, at WN:RFCU. I've gone ahead and blocked those proxies on a few projects. -- Cirt (talk) 06:56, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

WaWaWe seeks community approval and guidelines
What the heck is this??? -- Cirt (talk) 17:32, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * WaWaWe seeks community approval and guidelines


 * Reading it through, and noting the term "wawawewa" associated with Borat, I'd say it the heck is a hoax, and I've treated it as such. --Pi zero (talk) 18:08, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Is nice. I like very much. -- Cirt (talk) 19:17, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Conflict of interest at article = "Federal lawsuit against super PACs and their donors"
Conflict of interest, compare username with individual discussed in the article. Thoughts? -- Cirt (talk) 18:08, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Seems like a logical conclusion to me. Article sounds very self serving IMO. Enfcer (talk) 22:49, 23 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Complete CoI, and an appallingly constructed article in any case. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:56, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Legal threats
For the amusement of all, has threatened to take legal action against myself for not, on good faith, assuming that he holds the office he lays claim to.

As those on scoop will have seen, I've told him to go right ahead. I await the filing of papers, and the guffaws of a judge.

For your entertainment, here is Mr Kelly's profile on blogspot &mdash; in fancy dress no less! I'll leave it as an exercise for the amused reader to find his excommunication-by-blogger of the current Pope.

Those who are also administrators on Wikipedia may want to highlight the policy of no legal threats in the other place. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:03, 24 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh, excommunicating the Pope! We had someone do that in my local area, maybe half a century ago, but it's great to see yet another traditional social activity successfully adapting to the Internet age!  --Pi zero (talk) 11:54, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * So sad these people never follow through on the threats. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 19:30, 24 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I got another email, detailing his mistreatment at the hands of the Church of Rome. As B-R-S will doubtless approve, I told him to quit emailing me, or go through with his threat. I suggested Shillings, or Carter-Fuck might be worth contacting (oh to be a fly on the wall for that). --Brian McNeil / talk 14:09, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * judging merely by his blog, I'm not entirely certain this gentleman is entirely glued together properly at the seams. Bddpaux (talk) 15:06, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Xe resubmitted xyr article for review after being told it was disruptive. Xe has disregarded explanations of the nature of the problem. I blocked xem for a week.

Since the article xe has been failing to get published will qualify as abandoned well before then, should the article be moved to xyr user space? --Pi zero (talk) 00:36, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree with admin action taken. Userfying seems a prudent move. :) -- Cirt (talk) 04:52, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * See also Requests_for_CheckUser. -- Cirt (talk) 05:05, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Seeing the 'article' with four failing reviews, xe given precise examples of quality OR notes, and random flailing around for a 5th opinion, blocking seems apt. I would also suggest speedily moving the 'article' to xyr userspace and be done with it. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:33, 3 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I've hit a sock indef and a related IP for a week. There's also a sockpuppet investigation open on WP. Details at WN:RFCU. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 15:12, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup. -- Cirt (talk) 15:21, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * >:-D Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 15:27, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Checkuser technical confirmed at RFCU page, Jshellmann and other accounts
Basically bringing to local community for attention and review, I'll defer to other admins as far as admin action with regards to this case. -- Cirt (talk) 02:45, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Please see Requests_for_CheckUser.
 * Update: I've added an update at Requests_for_CheckUser. -- Cirt (talk) 15:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Block request
Please block the cross-wiki spam account locally as it's a nonsul account. Thanks in advance. Trijnstel (talk) 14:22, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Pi zero (talk) 15:24, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

‎Watti Renew
seems hellbent on ignoring every piece of helpful advise given xyr, and upon ignoring site policy even when repeatedly being given out. Xe seems to have xyr hands over xyr ears, screaming "LALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU." In short, we seem to have a disruptive user on our hands now and I'm seeking input as to what we do about it. Blood Red Sandman (Talk)   (Contribs) 13:01, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, I took a look at xyr contributions elsewhere and xe seems only to make this kind of problem here. On no other project has Watti had any issues engaging with or understanding other editors. This makes me inclined to believe this is not a comprehension issue, but rather wilful refusal to listen. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 13:18, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I think parties operating external to Wikinews have been systematically crippling potential contributors by programming them to expect Wikinewsies to be unreasonable, so preventing them from approaching Wikinews with the open-mindedness needed to acclimate here. The sad thing is, this doesn't even require those parties to be deliberately seeking that effect; it suffices for them to have a combination of naivety about how Wikinews works and about human nature.  --Pi zero (talk) 14:12, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry to be late to this, I very much think Pi zero has hit the nail on the head here; malcontents, whether those who forked off, or others riled up by people who've failed, spectacularly, on this project are indeed the likely cause of issues.

Spamming - suspect automated
I've just deleted two utter drivel pages that look like some form of spambot. List is as-follows:

What I strongly suspect is there are a few "in the pipeline":

Might be worth getting Cirt to run some CUs here, ... --Brian McNeil / talk 13:46, 21 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The second of those, Xiq6s3wen, I noticed first thing this morning as uncannily familiar; I meant to follow up, and then bad things started happening where I am irl that have kept me off Wikinews since. Notice the double-commas on that user's page.  You can find the same blurbs out on the internet generally, via google, with one difference: where the post here has double-commas, the copies out on the internet have between each pair of commas the name of some product with a link &mdash; making the text far more meaningless and absurd than the copy here.  I've no idea what the point of that is, but I've seen it before, sometime in the past... I'm going to guess, week or two.  I've been meaning to go through the deletion log, looking at user pages that I deleted to find one with those peculiar double-commas; then, armed with two users who used those double-commas, I thought I'd take it to WN:CU.  --Pi zero (talk) 18:10, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The double comma oddity suggests a borken spambot program. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:02, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I've just requested CU. WN:CU.  --Pi zero (talk) 13:09, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * And I see it cambe back as a "confirmed". I'm guessing this is a poorly-coded Chinese spambot. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:31, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

abuse filter mismathch for Page blanking
I'm not sure how this all works. Didn't curse, call for jihad, or promote drug use and violence. What did I do? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Willyp00 (talk • contribs) 15:53, 31 May 2012‎
 * What page? If it was the IP user talk page you created, the abuse filter may have objected to blanking someone else's user talk page.  You can request deletion of the page by putting delete on it.  --Pi zero (talk) 16:30, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Block request for Kurjdgg07
Please consider blocking this spambot. Mathonius (talk) 10:07, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Page deleted, user 100% blocked. Thanks for the heads-up, we do usually enjoy clubbing them with a blunt instrument. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:54, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The account is also another sock. -- Cirt (talk) 15:21, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * It would seem that almost-every time this pesky bot finds an unprotected page with an over-zealously deleted Commons image, it does damage to this project.
 * I'm minded just to push the block button and put forever in. Okay, it was a clear logo which copyright will exist in &mdash; and I've simply changed it to yet another which will probably be deleted. But we've absolutely every right to claim fair use on a political party's logo to decorate the category page containing news coverage.
 * When, and I think this is a simple question, will Commons start labelling images "or be moved to the relevant sister project(s)" instead of blindly deleting something clearly needed here and, I assume, on Wikipedia? --Brian McNeil / talk 16:07, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe that would be the best. I'd be in favour of a "CommonsDelinker" bot version for this project, which instead of removing the links, it uploaded the files locally. But then we would either need someone to code such a bot (I don't think it's such a big deal, actually), or simply ask the owner of the CommonsDelinker to stop running in this project. Diego Grez (talk) 16:05, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * That'd probably be good. Or, we swap the "Free use" upload with the "Upload file" and, in contrast to Commons dire warning about only uploading free stuff &mdash; we have one giving people a serious caution about putting free media on Commons. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:44, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm severely bot-challenged, but just on the logic of the situation &mdash; in order for CommonsDelinker to upload locally, it would have to have admin access to Commons, wouldn't it? That would seem a likely sticking point, as the good folks at Commons might well not be forthcoming with the privs.  --Pi zero (talk) 13:07, 6 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't think you can create a bot that accurately determines if an image is valid fair-use item or a copyright violation. However, I have always thought we interpret "fair-use" too strictly here at Wikinews. As long as you attribute, it seems fair to use (for breaking and current news) as observed by how different major organizations treat each others material.--SVTCobra 02:22, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * As may be emerging in more recent threads, the bot we likely want would do something much simpler than this, and wouldn't require any special privs on Commons. Trawl Commons to determine when a file used on Wikinews has been tagged for deletion on Commons, and either (minimally) warn us of the tag, or (perhaps more usefully) do a precautionary local upload and warn us so we can determine for ourselves what local action is appropriate with regard to the concern expressed by the tag on Commons.  No Commons privs are needed because the bot acts before deletion there, and no full AI is needed to determine copyright because the bot doesn't make the decision.  It doesn't resolve the roughly five hundred missing images we already have, but it should stem continued hemorrhaging.  --Pi zero (talk) 03:18, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Block request for Seanloon
This non-sul account has been used to spam cross-wiki. Please consider blocking it on this wiki as well. More information can be found here and here. Mathonius (talk) 12:22, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Pi zero (talk) 12:41, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Block request for Mainline
Please block this non-SUL spam-only account. It's a cross-wiki one and can't be stopped via a lock or global block. Thanks in advance. Trijnstel (talk) 22:06, 12 June 2012 (UTC)


 * ✅ --Pi zero (talk) 22:21, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Jersey News
I have been setting up a portal for Jersey. There are a few Jersey related items which have been archived, which I'd suggest moving in to the Jersey sub category which I have made. Also, I see that the Channel Islands are within the United Kingdom category, however these islands are not part of the UK. Perhaps, it would be better if they were moved to the Europe category? Jersey on wikipedia. Danrok (talk) 19:00, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Could you list the articles? It makes adding the categories a lot easier. And, the above list of editprotecteds is annoying as I've to add the cat and fix the talk. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:10, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Huangfu26365
Please consider blocking this spambot. Thanks, Mathonius (talk) 07:49, 7 September 2012 (UTC)


 * ✅ —Tom Morris (talk) 10:47, 7 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Caught their bot messing about here again. Blocked it. Not minded to lift the block this time.
 * I suspect inconveniencing Commons a fraction of how much their decisions-in-isolation inconvenience us is the only way they might pay heed to other projects. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:19, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * This is only a solution to a symptom. The images themselves will still be gone, and if doesn't remove the links, then the pages will just have ugly bare links on them. Best thing is to create another bot to upload the images locally, here, somehow. -- Cirt (talk) 22:12, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * All we actually see is those it can remove from Wikinews, not the hundreds or thousands that are redlinks on archived articles. --Brian McNeil / talk 23:12, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * =, of which template missing image is now used on
 * = . --Pi zero (talk) 23:23, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

This, actually, is not going to be that difficult a bot to create. :-) I'd not have it work on non-mainspace stuff, but reading latest headlines, scanning new articles for media files, checking if they're on Commons and copying them to Wikinews isn't that hard.

Do we have anyone still subscribed to foundation-l? Because this will be brought up there as us throwing the licensing resolution, which we tried to object to at the time, out the window. --Brian McNeil / talk 06:48, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Our bot should also [add] a template, fashioned for the purpose, to the file's info about the move. The template'd display some sort of note about need to reviewing the circumstances of deletion nom on Commons to ensure suitability for retention here, and add the file to a category.  Conceivably the bot might also drop the community a note somewhere of the local upload.


 * foundation-l has been renamed to wikimedia-l (they were very pleased with someone for smoothly managing the technical details of the move, which involved copying the archives over). I still subscribe although I rarely read any of it except to do a quick check of each Signpost as it comes out for mentions of Wikinews.  --Pi zero (talk) 07:58, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Payment for dalek.wikinewsie.org didn't go through at the start of this month (I suspect my useless bank screwing about again). I'd assumed it went out 1st or 2nd, and am a little stretched to renew it right now. However, what we need can run off the Amsterdam hosting. I'm proposing it do the following:
 * Read the list of published articles from the main page every 5 minutes.
 * Convert titles to pageIDs to be 'smart' in the event of any post-publish renames
 * Scan each page for File: links.
 * Save a copy of all files for a pageID
 * Check Commons to see if the file is gone.
 * If file has been deleted from Commons, upload a local copy.
 * Append the locally uploaded filename to a list somewhere.
 * This is going to eat a lot of space somewhere. I've a few things I need to work out, the 'trickiest' being retrieving the media we're backing up. And, if we take this beyond just working on the current list of published articles the time it takes to run will rapidly become excessive. Because of that, I'm only going to work on currently published articles for the time being. I've a few ideas regarding recovering media for archived articles, but I'll work on the important part for now. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:01, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * How often does this happen? Can we just replace the files locally, manually? Not for past instances, but from now on, as they occur? -- Cirt (talk) 12:57, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Let me work on this. If local uploads works out easier, that's what I'll do. If I can avoid it, I will. To a large extent the issue is proving Commons don't give a flying fsck about other projects. How I'm trying to approach this problem will better-showcase their insular, and irksome, attitudes.
 * Personally, I think the WMF image policy resolution was "bending Wikinews over a bench and roto-reaming the project, but we're just Wikipedia's Red-Headed bastard Stepsister, Right?
 * If we don't conclusively prove that Commons discriminates against non-Wikipedia projects, we'll have difficulties arguing with anyone. --Brian McNeil / talk 15:02, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It's been so long that it feels strange to comment here. But it would seem to me that it there's a great deal of pics and screen-shots, etc., that could be kept locally under WN:FU barring a Commons User with strict interpretations of Wiki-wide edict that does not legally apply to news organizations. Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:54, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You're completely right. There's a huge amount of stuff we can legitimately use, but overly-zealous Commons people would zap. It's one of those mildly annoying quirks that upload to Commons is more-visible in the sidebar. We can easily correct a local upload that should've gone to Commons, but far less-easily get back something when our first notice it's not valid for Commons is a redlink in an article. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:53, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I have to apologise that this is taking longer-than-expected. I decided that the 'crufty' botclasses.php was urgh, and have torn it down to basics which I'm slowly rebuilding into a far more sensible set of distinct classes.

I'm putting it on github, so anyone who has some PHP knowledge is welcome to ask for access to the repository. I'll also be putting up a separate repository for the Dropbox scripts. Those will be superceded at some point by the ownCloud install I've put on wikinewsie.org. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:17, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Block request
Please block ; it's a non-SUL cross-wiki spambot, which is why I can't globally lock it. Thanks! Trijnstel (talk) 16:19, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Pi zero (talk) 16:25, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

ownCloud
As a general offer to admins, as well as accredited reporters and reviewrs, I'd like to offer space on the wikinewsie.org ownCloud install at http://cloud.wikinewsie.org.

I'm happy to give anyone who falls into the above categories 10GB of storage, just drop me an email. Just remember, the files are not encrypted on the server-side; and, until we get a SSL cert for wikinewsie.org they won't be encrypted in-flight.

If you need more space for Wikinews-related reasons, I'm happy to sort that out.

What people might find rather nice about ownCloud is it includes an Etherpad-style app. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:22, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

meta:Proposals for closing projects/Closure of English Wikinews
Wikinews contributors, you may be interested in contributing your opinions to this discussion: meta:Proposals for closing projects/Closure of English Wikinews. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 14:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

United States of America tops list of world’s most positive countries 2012
I re-deleted this article, under the following circumstances.

The article was created by. There were fundamental problems, on which I wrote a series of extensive review comments; brianmc was more blatantly critical of the concept of the article. Unfortunately, most of what I wrote in review comments did not get through, for whatever reason. Along the way, claimed OR was added in the form of an interview, without reporter's notes; and later, after a not-ready review the reporter significantly modified the interviewee's claimed statements (still no notes). After I not-ready'd the article yet again, the author left the article long enough for it to be tagged stale and abandoned by DragonFire1024, and substantially run out its clock. About the time it would have been deleted, a functional-null-edit was made (some boldfacing was removed and then restored), presumably to make the article pro-forma unabandoned. Gryllida deleted the article as abandoned-with-two-day-warning &mdash; this was in the middle of my night, but after the fact I agree with the administrative decision to delete, as there appears to have been by this point an intent to not improve the article; I would not consider deliberate null edits a valid form of unabandonment under such circumstances. After the article had been gone for a little less than a day, KateAubourg recreated it, pretty much as it had been but with no state tag (neither tasks nor develop nor review), and recreated the talk page with a note demanding some other reviewer review it (with no reporter's notes and, as mentioned, no review tag).

In my administrative judgement, there was no effort taking place to improve the article, therefore the reason for deletion still applied, with a distinct possibility thrown in that the abandonment process was being deliberately abused. I therefore invoked the "previously deleted" criterion for speedy deletion. Admins may view the article and its talk page. --Pi zero (talk) 05:45, 16 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Update: Author recreated the page again.  RockerballAustralia reviewed it and pointed out some of its problems.  I have, therefore, restored the 68 deleted revisions of the talk page, and prepended the old content to the page.  (I expect I should do more in that vein, too, to indicate where the deletions were and the content of the intermediate deleted version.)  --Pi zero (talk) 12:20, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

A new era...
Hey motherfucks. You all know the names: Wazz, MyName, Nookdog, Rappy30. I'm back...and with two years of planning expect bigger disruptions than you could ever imagine. Coming in the new year 2013. Neutralizer
 * Welcome back. I should mention the wiki has better tools than previously, and I will be happy to mentor admins in their application. -  Amgine | t 07:53, 19 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Boring.
 * Next! --Brian McNeil / talk 10:01, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Block request
Please block for violating the username policy. The user is probably en:User:Devasthali, who was causing trouble on en.wiki around the time this account was created. Thanks —DoRD (talk) 18:36, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * ✅ --Pi zero (talk) 18:45, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Where's my account on pt.wikinews?
Hello. I can't log in to pt.wikinews. When I try log in, I get ''Esta operação foi identificada automaticamente como prejudicial, e foi consequentemente bloqueada. Se crê que a sua edição foi construtiva, por favor contacte um administrador, e informe-o do que estava a tentar fazer. Uma breve descrição da regra de abuso com a qual a sua acção coincidiu é: Remoção de conteúdo ~ This operation was automatically identified as harmful and subsequently it has been blocked. If you believe your edit was constructive, please contact and administrator and tell him/her what you were trying to do. A brief description of the rule of misuse your action tallied with is: Content removal''. Have I ever edited pt.wikinews? I think I never did. Moreover, pt:Utilizador:Garsd states Garsd is not even registered. What's happening? Garsd (talk) 09:11, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * As a guess, look at meta:Help:Unified login. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:19, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Problem solved. Thanks for the advice. Garsd (talk) 12:17, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Block request for Terry2012
This is a non-sul account being used to spam cross-wiki (see this overview). Please consider blocking it. Mathonius (talk) 02:34, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Heh. I'd actually blocked this minutes before your request.  --Pi zero (talk) 02:35, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Cool! :) Thanks a lot! Mathonius (talk) 02:36, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Deleted page query
Hi,

From my base in Australia, I am researching representations of climate change, policy and people in the Pacific. I followed a route of links from http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Australian_Labor_Party_announces_new_Climate_Change_Policy to http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Australian_Labor_Party_announces_new_Climate_Change_Policy/Media_Release and found that the meida release has been deleted, one day after the "Australian_Labor_Party_announces_new_Climate_Change_Policy" page had been created.

I am interested in knowing why this page was deleted by User talk:Nyarlathotep.

I am also writing to alert you that none of the three links put on the "Australian_Labor_Party_announces_new_Climate_Change_Policy" page are active.

Are you able to find out why this page was deleted?

Kind regards,

May from Pacific Climate


 * It was moved to the article's talk page, Talk:Australian Labor Party announces new Climate Change Policy. This is noted in the deletion summary, which is visible when you click on that link.  I've also fixed the url in the sources to link to the changed location.  --Pi zero (talk) 01:21, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

China-spammer is same as Japan-spammer
Heads up admins and CUs. From this check, I was able to mark ✅ that China-spammer is same as Japan-spammer.

Hope that's helpful info to you in the future, -- Cirt (talk) 18:39, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Propose controversial block: Computron
This is going to be controversial, and given I requested the CU and the related actions to the images and filed a sock puppet investigation on English Wikipedia about the user, I do not feel comfortable making the block myself. The CU proved inconclusive and in talked to two people behind the scenes, the view is that the inconclusive nature based on really old IP edits is the pretty much a confirmation that Computron = onewhohelps. At the same time, knowing that there were complaints he was a time suck for people trying to help him and open investigations, similar behaviors continued (included the behind the scenes complaining on IRC linked to in the CU report) and more things on problematic copyright (again linked to with the Wikipedia behavior) where this was explained but did not hear. This all for me confirms this is a case of an editor ducking a block. Onewhohelps is indefinitely blocked on this project and globally. If he is an indefinitely blocked user block evading, which the evidence suggests, he should be indefinitely blocked again. --LauraHale (talk) 20:53, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Let's put aside the "sock of X" issue; CU generally tends to err on the cautious side, the less network and deeply tech-savvy the person performing the CU, the less-likely they are to resort to port scans and other 'more inventive' ways of gathering additional information.
 * However, where what might initially be taken as inexperienced enthusiasm leading to problems and being a significant drain on community resources continues, there are grounds to consider blocks which stop that resource drain and encourage reform. If, as is suggested, the individual is a sock of a WMF-banned user; then, where they fail to reform in the face of such blocks, increasing blocks are likely to tempt them to resort to further socking. Then fresh, more-readily interpreted CU data would become available.
 * So, those who may be concerned over their involvement and potential COI in applying blocks, please put forward suggestions on an initial block with as-brief a summary of why (links, where possible). --Brian McNeil / talk 22:02, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Additional grounds for blocking beyond likelihood of being a globally blocked sock puppet user who creates small scale time sucking drama as a characteristic of socking:
 * Exhibits massive case of not hearing things, which lead to one to three people having to deal with Computron's not so happy over results. Examples of this time suck involve image copyrights, where user was uploading images from Twitter to Wikinews without having first secured copyright permissions.  (Explained repeatedly as not desirable, and not wanted, and that this eats community resources to follow up on.  Free images without these issues preferred.  Then Computron repeats this problem by uploading at least 10 images with non-free copyrights where he asked a Twitter user for permission.  Images apparently actually came from the BBC.)
 * User is not practicing due diligence in copyright, and is intentionally inserting unacceptable copyright materials on Wikinews.
 * Despite being told it was not acceptable and user would be subject to a likely CU and Wikipedia SPI if they put back non-free images into an article, user proceeded to do just that.
 * Despite the big issue over uploading 10 images that were not acceptable because non-free limited license, then uploaded additional non-free images. (Which I have subsequently deleted.  They did not tag them themselves but others did and admins had to spend time chasing down to delete.)
 * User has repeatedly complained on IRC about reviewing preference, with his stuff not getting reviewed and other stuff getting a review priority. This comes despite the fact that Computron has had repeatedly explained by several people that Original reporting will take precedence over
 * User has repeatedly explained to them about photo essays and the photo essay category, what qualifies as a photo essay and that the images MUST be their own or taken for the project on IRC. Despite an ongoing discussion with them about how their images from Twitter were not acceptable,   added photo essay category added.
 * User has taken snide jabs at other users on IRC, including implying things about tommorris's motivation and my motivation.
 * User has admitted on IRC to knowing the sock puppet master and saying she is very nice and misunderstood.
 * User has repeatedly had the concept of newsworthiness explained to them. And when this was done, had it explained some more.  They have been present when a number of conversations about newsworthiness took place.  Despite this, does not seem to grasp this concept even when explicitly laid out for them.  (And then shows little awareness by addressing these things on Wikinews.)
 * Appears to want to refuse to engage on Wikinews in discussions regarding their conduct. This includes on their talk page, and on article talk pages.   Does most of engagement on IRC, which makes it harder for a record to be proven.  (Also, classic behavior of the sock suspected of being.)
 * This situation has been going on for two months and being unresolved either way is causing anxiety amongst other users, eating up lots of time explaining things that Computron does not hear, leads to a new problems that then take hours and several people fixing, discourages people from contributing because of the ambiguity in how to best respond to the situation.

That is the short list. End of day: Massive time sink, massive anxiety sink, results in loss of productivity for others. tempted to block on those grounds as I cannot see this getting fixed any time soon. --LauraHale (talk) 22:33, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


 * After further consultation on IRC, I think we agree that a one week block is probably the best option at this point. In the mean time, we can work on fair use page to address the problems and try to prevent similar occurrences. --LauraHale (talk) 00:20, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Er. And if the disruption continues following the one week block, incremental blocks starting at a month. --LauraHale (talk) 00:21, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I think I'm about to say something unpopular. However, I've been asked my position on this matter, so here it is.

Although I understand where this one-week-block idea is coming from, I'm not on board with it. In all such cases one juggles two or more hypotheses about the user, and tries to choose a course of action that works under all hypotheses, weighted by their likelihood times the pros and cons of the proposed action. Yes, I track multiple hypotheses for everyone here (including myself, the essence of self-criticism); the probabilities differ from individual to individual. For example, I deem it highly unlikely brianmc is a sockpuppet of Tony1.

Here, there's the "well-intentioned" hypothesis and the "troublemaker" hypothesis. Others here seem to think this one-week block would help to distinguish between those two hypotheses, and would be sufficiently acceptable for both hypotheses. However, --Pi zero (talk) 13:54, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
 * In the well-intentioned scenario, I do not believe a one-week block is reasonable at this time. Computron has consulted with various Wikinewsies about various procedures, sometimes received mildly mixed signals, has made some poor judgement calls, and then gets blocked for it?  Without warning?  Sincere contributors should not be treated that way.  I realize Laura and I don't see eye to eye on this; we've discussed it off-wiki.  Our difference, so it seems to me, has to do with the plausibility of the well-intentioned hypothesis.  My perception is based on a variety of people I've interacted with over the decades, who have expanded my notions of the range of well-intentioned human behaviors.  I don't insist on the hypothesis, but I find it sufficiently plausible to warrant allowing for it.
 * A warning to Computron at this time, setting conditions for a possible block in the future, would seem to me more appropriate. One would want to give some thought to what to warn against, so as not to create ambiguous loopholes.


 * I concur with Pi zero. Without conclusive evidence of socking, we shouldn't be blocking because of the risk of punishing an innocent, good-faith user. If the problematic behaviours Laura lists continue, then we should block. —Tom Morris (talk) 14:06, 26 March 2013 (UTC)


 * In the view of inconsistency of our own actions (approving of Twitter photos and then denying them; asking to ack GOL with authors, but then also ask for a CC license first; tagging some articles as OR and then untagging some after a successful review; many of which were quite my own fault), I would side with looking at whether certain repetitive patterns emerge in the contributor's behaviour. If they learn, even slowly, it would ideally be fine. Gryllida&#9998;&#9997; 14:13, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Part of what's at-issue here seems to be a lack of clarity on media (I'm not restricting to images, because the same applies to video or audio). The idea I'm currently thinking might clarify that is to draw a flowchart. There are rules/guidelines that wouldn't easily fit the flow, but they're usually fairly sweeping points &mdash; such as "be suspicious" when dealing with people sharing images via twitter; you can do a number of 'sanity checks', such as checking their stated location against the event they've put up pictures of.
 * But, and this is a point that I'm raising to go forward to policy, we can't have photoessays made up of non-free images unless they're taken under circumstances such as sporting events where you've had to agree not to freely-license media in order to take photos. There's a "gotcha" to that too; you could think, "I'm not in the press box, if they're restricted by the NBA or FA, it doesn't apply to me". The question there is: Have you read the ultra-small-print on your ticket? --Brian McNeil / talk 23:26, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to close all language Wikinews
Please see Water_cooler/policy. -- Cirt (talk) 01:12, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

abuse filter mismathch for Page blanking
Hi I am trying to convert Portal:United States to template:NewPortal but it has detected that it is a harmful edit but it is not a harmful edit 217.39.13.92 (talk) 13:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

When all else fails
There is an extremely annoying aspect to the "selective understanding" Bluesky is demonstrating in-terms of where, and what, they may make changes to in an attempt to demo portals closely matching the main page layout.

One of the key reasons for pressing xe to create an account, is this last-resort solution. It even allows namespace-level targeting. :-)--Brian McNeil / talk 09:45, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Ideafarmcity
I, for one, am losing any inclination to assume good intentions here. I have restored the Howdy template to xyr talk page, and am somewhat concerned at xe actively soliciting people to communicate off-wiki &mdash; where people risk their emails being published.

If they're not pushing out content, I don't see a problem commenting on articles. If they expect Wikinews to dance to their tune, and it continues to waste people's time, not happy. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:31, 16 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I've been thinking about the implications of this user's aggressive notice against communication on xyr user talk page. This means xe is making xyrself less accountable than a user ordinarily is expected to be when interacting on the project.  Given the nature of xyr edits on-project, I do not believe xe should be allowed to continue participation on the project if xe is going to explicitly refuse comments on xyr user talk.


 * I propose to apply an indefblock, with no email but with edits to user talk allowed, with notification on xyr user talk that the aggressive denial of feedback by user talk is the reason for the action. Thoughts, anyone?  --Pi zero (talk) 12:32, 18 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I have notified the user at their talk page. I propose acting based on their reaction (when it happens, or within next 24 hours, whichever comes earlier). Gryllida 13:16, 18 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Time out! I've got to rush off to work.  I'm a newbie.  I can't even figure out what some of the above is saying because of all of the "xe" "xyrself" "xyr" stuff.  Being a newbie, I did not realize that I my solution to the unusual problem that I have would raise transparency issues.  Please just chill out until we have a chance to discuss this.  Much of the problem would have been avoided if people would have communicated with me rather than just deleting my pages along with all of the revision history.  IMO you are all way too quick to assume malicious intent.  I'll be back online in about 11 hours. Wo&#39;O Ideafarm (talk) 14:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)


 * My proposal is intended to address a specific practical difficulty. We aspire to WN:Never assume.


 * I've stated above my discomfort with stifling interaction on your user talk page. An obvious question is, what sort of legal difficulty could interfere with interaction there but not in comments space?  --Pi zero (talk) 14:31, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

To think of it, I would like to propose a few things.
 * That Ideafarmcity removes legal boilerplate regarding ways to communicate from their user and user talk pages on receipt of this message.
 * That Ideafarmcity goes with the project standards regarding desired use of all the project tools. No legal reasons should justify attempts doing otherwise.

I would like to ask Ideafarmcity to acknowledge these points before continuing as I think they would resolve the ongoing issues.


 * P.P.S. Removed a point entirely as no longer makes sense to list it separately from the line below (it did before, as it was a required thing, but now it's not). Gryllida 00:14, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I will also encourage them to contribute content to the project content-wise to write news articles about topics they're familiar with, and have no conflict of interest or personal involvement with. Gryllida 23:48, 18 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I would point out, gently, that participating in the project only by opining on topics of choice is not inherently a misuse of the project. While there may be problematic aspects to ideafarmcity's comments, that would not seem to be one of them.  --Pi zero (talk)
 * I just rearranged my lines per this comment, thank you. Gryllida 00:09, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Ok. I'm here now and am reading all of the above and will respond within the hour. Wo&#39;O Ideafarm (talk) 04:00, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Ok. I am going to rewrite both the user and talk pages right now, and will be back here when it is done. I still think that most of this tempest in the teapot is due to my newbie ignorance combined with hostility to my viewpoints. I can fix the newbie ignorance. The closed minded intolerance is on you guys! Wo&#39;O Ideafarm (talk) 04:12, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I have rewritten my user and talk pages. Any remaining concerns can be expressed on my talk page or here. Thank you all for your volunteer effort here. Wo&#39;O Ideafarm (talk) 05:03, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

BarkingFish and sockpuppets


Per w:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/BarkingFish/Archive, these have all been ✅ as longtime socks of.

What do other admins think should be done about this, with regards to the main account? -- Cirt (talk) 23:25, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Nothing right now beyond what is done until the account becomes a problem here, or there is a discussion on a possible global block. --LauraHale (talk) 00:26, 21 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with LauraHale. I took action at the time by cautiously withdrawing the IP exception I had given BarkingFish on off-wiki request.  I couldn't care less about the Tmalmjursson account, as it's so not-hiding-anything it makes the "sock" description look a bit silly.  As for BarkingFish itself, I want to either understand, or have a real problem going on, before taking further action.  --Pi zero (talk) 00:46, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks for the input, -- Cirt (talk) 01:24, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Deleted page
This page Negotiations begin on formation of a new Government of the United Kingdom has been deleted, but it is linked from the Wikipedia page on the 2010 UK general election.

M.R.Forrester (talk) 18:38, 22 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It shouldn't have been linked from elsewhere; it was never published. The mistake is, at least, unsurprising since Wikipedians often don't get the concept of review-for-publication (until and unless it's passed review, it's just a draft &mdash; whereas on Wikipedia, essentially, everything is permanently a draft).  Looking at the deleted history, I see it was redundant to UK elections: Hung parliament, Cameron to negotiate with Liberal Democrats.  --Pi zero (talk) 20:23, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Fixed sister link on en.wp. --Pi zero (talk) 20:32, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Unprotection or deletion of User:EdwardsBot
Hi. User:EdwardsBot was recently indefinitely fully protected from editing after being reverted to The Wrong Version by Brian McNeil. I asked Brian to unprotect or delete the page and he declined. Consequently, I'm raising the issue here.

It seems pretty inappropriate for an administrator to act in this way (fully protecting a user page out of process and after having restored a preferred version of the page) and I feel it will only antagonize an already tenuous relationship on this project. Could another admin please step in? --MZMcBride (talk) 14:40, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Brian said we'd consider what state the page ought to be left in. It'll get done; it's not one of our top priorities, but it'll get done.  We don't trust you to do it, because you've earned our lack of trust.  If you desire not to exacerbate the ill-will you have created with your bad behavior here, you'll take Brian at his word and leave the matter to us.


 * The page does not qualify for speedy deletion. As a matter of common sense (reflected in the wording of policy, for once), such userspace pages are not deleted at owner's request if there is an administrative need for them.  --Pi zero (talk) 16:04, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not asking for a consideration of the state of the page. I'm asking that it be unprotected or deleted. It doesn't seem like acceptable behavior for an admin to fully protect a page like this and it seems very likely to create a lot more ill will toward Brian and the English Wikinews. Please unprotect or delete the page. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:34, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * A fatuous appeal, in light of the ill-will you've been sowing here. --Pi zero (talk) 18:12, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * "fatuous", nice synopsis. Xe has also made "anti-wiki" accusations on my talk page, which I have responded to.
 * This should not become a point of disruption. But, when it will be properly discussed by community administrators is not something anyone can make any promises on; the project has far, far higher priorities than the injured pride of someone with zero trust within the community. --Brian McNeil / talk 06:54, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Block request
Please block ; it's a non-SUL cross-wiki spambot, which is why I can't globally lock it. Thanks! Trijnstel (talk) 13:06, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Pi zero (talk) 13:13, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

abuse filter mismathch for Addiing email addresses to articles
Hi,

In my first ever attempt to submit news, I in the notes section noted that I emailed screen shots to scoop@wikinewsie.org

When I tried to save and submit-for-review the article (I did both step simultaneously), I received this error message:

Warning: This action has been automatically identified as harmful. Unconstructive edits will be quickly reverted, and egregious or repeated unconstructive editing will result in your account or computer being blocked. If you believe this edit to be constructive, you may click Submit again to confirm it. Please send us a note if you received this message in error. A brief description of the abuse rule which your action matched is: Addiing email addresses to articles

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Anon20130708 (talk • contribs) 01:32, 9 July 2013

Wikinews sockpuppets
Hi. Similar discussion at Wikisource:. Please take a look at the following attack user pages, not created by the editors themselves, but by abusive User:Cirt as part of his disruptive cross-wiki agenda to personally harass me, and attack my real name, and that of my brother: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Diogotome and http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Daniel_Tom%C3%A9.

These user pages should not exist on Wikinews. These editors have zero edits on Wikinews, and so these user pages (not created by them) only serve to attack their real names (a violation of NPA and BLP policies). What's more, they are falsely tagged as "Wikinews sockpuppets". How can editors with zero edits on Wikinews be called "Wikinews sockpuppets"? The templates state "Please refer to contributions for evidence", but there are no contributions.

Also, please see:
 * http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Changing_username#Daniel_Tom.C3.A9_.E2.86.92_DanielTom
 * http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/User_talk:Zhaladshar#Changing_username_.28Daniel_Tom.C3.A9_--.3E_DanielTom.29
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Changing_username/Simple/Archive133#Daniel_Tom.C3.A9_.E2.86.92_DanielTom
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Changing_username/Archive18#Daniel_Tom.C3.A9_.E2.86.92_DanielTom

As you can see, "Daniel Tomé" is a public rename, and quite public at that. In what planet is this acceptable? It's not just an obviously false tag, it is also a direct baseless attack against my real name (Daniel Tomé). Do I need to state the obvious, that these pages need to be deleted? ~ DanielTom (talk) 15:09, 29 July 2013 (UTC)


 * If you're asking for some specific actions in regard to two accounts, you should be explaining, in a simple, clear, calm way, what happened (rather than what you believe to be someone else's motives for their actions), why you believe it should not have happened as it did, and what you would like done to remedy the situation. It's honestly a bit hard to sort out your concerns here, because they're buried under such (to be blunt) frenzied accusatory rhetoric.  I see you got even hotter under the collar at the Wikisource thread:  "Cirt has a habit of abusing his status as an admin and creating user pages for editors with zero edits on several wikis, just to harass people."  --Pi zero (talk) 17:13, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * In what planet is this acceptable? ~ DanielTom (talk) 17:50, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Depends on the circumstances. Which, you will note, I recommended you explain in a simple, clear, calm way without accusations about other people's motives, advice I would again recommend to your attention.  The term "sockpuppet" indicates an unacceptable technical situation, but note the word technical; it's not a personal slur.  A reasonable person might inquire of the blocking authority (in this case, Cirt) what is unacceptable about the situation and how it may be corrected so as to render things acceptable.  I see no evidence that you did this, but perhaps that would be part of the simple, clear, calm factual explanation.  --Pi zero (talk) 18:11, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * "I see no evidence that you did this" - perhaps you could act on that, do the right thing deleting the userpage, and let me move on. ~ DanielTom (talk) 20:03, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * May I recommend you tone down allegations against a project admin, and follow the advice given to explain what your issue is in a manner which makes some semblance of sense. Obviously, if an account has been blocked for sockpuppetry, you would not see the deleted edits because you are not an administrator. Nor, at least for this project, am I aware of you being a CheckUser.
 * Cirt is a well-respected Wikinews contributor, which gives no grounds to assume an urgent action or investigation is required. He also happens to be one of the project CheckUsers, and actions taken on the basis of CheckUser information only ever explained in a vague manner; that's Foundation policy, so quit ranting and explain what your problem is; nobody is doing anything here until we've consulted Cirt. If you want to escalate and risk egg on your face, hop over to meta and ask an OTRS Administrator. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:28, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * When a sockpuppet account is blocked, their edits are not deleted. Anyway, there are no sockpuppets here. And there were no edits to be deleted at all (these accounts never edited Wikinews). ~ DanielTom (talk) 20:14, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I am confused. Please cite BLP and NPA policies on Wikinews and quote from these Wikinews policies so I can better understand the violation.  As an admin, I am confused because have not heard of these Wikinews policies. --LauraHale (talk) 18:30, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Apparently there are no Wikinews policies that protect living people or against personal attacks. ~ DanielTom (talk) 18:40, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I am reasonably certain that we would not tolerate personal attacks, and have blocked people for that. (Investigating local policies is good research. In fact, citing non-existent policies makes you look guilty of making personal attacks... but no assumptions regarding your motives...) Now, before you go on citing non-existent policy violations, can you provide context for what you are talking about? I feel like I have walked into a the middle of a play in the third act.  What exact has cirt done? What policies have they violated? What proof do you have? What recourse are you seeking? --LauraHale (talk) 18:47, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * There are no policies that protect against completely misunderstanding what you are looking at. There are policies that lead to blocks which impose a period during which you can work out what you are looking at &mdash; something you should not expect us to do for you. We do not 'magically' pick up renames for other projects. You have to request a rename on every single project; and, where someone else has registered your desired username, you have to civilly request account usurpation.
 * I certainly will not be looking at any usurpations this week; nor, I very much doubt, will my fellow 'crats. I believe an apology might be in-order along with any such request. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:52, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Look, Laura, I am sure you do a great job at Wikinews, as does Cirt, and everyone else here. Please understand. I am not seeking any sanctions against Cirt. I have no business on Wikinews, and neither does my brother, and I don't want to be here discussing. Once these attack user pages are deleted, we move on, and you can continue your important work.


 * Needless to say, of course Cirt only chose some wikis where he decided to create these attack user pages, for users with no edits there: he didn't create said attack pages on Italian wikipedia, for example. On Wikiquote these attack user pages were deleted rather quickly, and on Wikisource the tags have already been removed, as well as on Commons where the blocks were reverted. Here, on Wikinews, Cirt has many friends whom I do not doubt are great people, but who alas without realizing it serve as enablers to his abuse.


 * The editors in question have zero edits on Wikinews. Their user pages were not created by them, and currently only serve as an attack, and are causing real harm to both mine and my brother's real names. Given that these accounts have zero edits on Wikinews, calling them "Wikinews sockpuppets" is simply unacceptable. Can someone provide evidence of actual sockpuppetry on Wikinews by these accounts? ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:00, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * @DanielTom: I am applaud cirt's wok in cross wiki sock puppet detecting. This has saved us a fair amount of aggravation on project, and there is no violation of policy as near as I can tell.  If your accusation is essentially: The user was blocked on another project for cause, and subsequently blocked here without this being shared with them... then thank you for bringing it to our attention.  We are aware of it.  We are not going to change policies.  If you have further questions, please ask. --LauraHale (talk) 19:10, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Where have I asked you to change policy? What I asked is for evidence that there has been actual sockpuppetry on Wikinews by these accounts with zero edits. If there is no such evidence, then there shouldn't be a tag on these editors' user pages claiming that they are Wikinews sockpuppets. Is that so hard to understand? ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:18, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * You are continuing to make defamatory allegations - as has been pointed out to you - on the basis of no access to deleted contributions. Desist. Final warning.
 * I looked at the old/new SUL reports for your username(s); it's an utter shambles. Go and ask one of your home project's CheckUsers to help you figure this out, and consult - on your behalf - the closed checkuser-l mailing list regarding any actionable points that might involve remedial action on multiple wikis. Nobody here is going to second-guess a CheckUser in good-standing; ranting will simply earn you a discouraging block (so we get peace until Cirt is about). --Brian McNeil / talk 19:11, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * There are no usurpations to look at here. What are you talking about? What deleted contributions? ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:14, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * You're not an admin; deleted contributions are not something we would disclose. Take the above advice, ask one of your home project's CheckUsers. They will know Cirt from the checkuser-l list, and are about the only hope I have left you're not going to annoy people until you're blocked. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:22, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * There are no deleted contributions, Brian. "Daniel Tomé" was created by me. I have never used it to edit Wikinews. In fact, I have never ever edited Wikinews. Other than this conversation, that is. Wikinews is the only place now where there is a tag on "Daniel Tomé" claiming that it is a sock (not even Wikipedia has it). Ironically, only in a wiki where it never made a single edit (Wikinews) is it called a sock. ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:27, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Daniel, I have explained to you that there is no policy prohibiting Cirt from blocking on English Wikinews a user that was blocked on English Wikipedia following a successful CU request that identified a sock puppet. You have informed us.  We have informed you no policy violation took place.  It is unclear what you are now seeking, after having informed us that no English Wikinews policies took place and you possibly advising us that our local policies should include warning socks the reason why they are blocked and providing more extensive documentation.  This is now understood.  What is your next objective?--LauraHale (talk) 19:31, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Laura, I didn't say any of that. My position is that there are no socks. I asked you to give me evidence that there has been actual sockpuppetry on Wikinews by these accounts with zero edits. To repeat, if there is no such evidence, then there shouldn't be a tag on these editors' user pages claiming that they are Wikinews sockpuppets. ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:35, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

The situation is like this. Suppose I create a user page for User:Laura Hale, and place there a sock tag. You, Laura, would rightly say that it was a baseless attack against your real name, and you would want that tag removed. So do I. ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:37, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you think they manner in which you asked for the issue to be looked at was reasonable. I do not; it was hysterical. The sockpuppet template is set to explicitly forbid spidering. I am not currently a checkuser for this project - but I know more than I care to about the tool. The mailing list is nonpublic; thus, I cannot comment on the manner in which checkuser established the account as a sockpuppet. Not written as policy, but we should not second-guess checkusers. A checkuser on your home project will have access to the mailing list logs; similarly, we have multiple checkusers and they may review the checks carried out by Cirt. This is the last I'm saying on this page until there is checkuser input; I suggest you have a nice cup of tea, and wait for qualified input. You're one brash and defamatory allegation away from a 'behaviour-modifying block'. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:39, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Any CheckUser would show that my "DanielTom" and "Daniel Tomé" accounts are related. Of course they are. They are renames. The point is whether they are used as socks on a given wiki. It has zero edits on Wikinews, and is therefore not a sock. And the only person being defammed here is me and my real name, in case you haven't noticed. ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:44, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Also, you are walking pretty close to a block. Please do not accuse people of violating civil law by posting defamatory statements.  Please wait for Cirt to show up.  Please read the links you provided, including the ones that suggest you are a sock and where you challenged cirt to CU you.  Those were your links.  Cirt did not defame you. The next time you imply that, without strong proof of this statement, you will be blocked,--LauraHale (talk) 19:51, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Laura, you are confused. I challenged Cirt to open a CU to check if his accusation that I was Kalki was true. Please see here. The result of the CU was that Cirt was incorrect. (He apologized to me.) ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:57, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Daniel, I read what you said and that was my understanding of your complaint. It was not clear what you wanted and why you came here.  The long and short of it is: cirt has an accumulated history of doing great work.  Your support of the problem user you are accused of being a sock of looks like, in English Wikipedia, a case of WP:DUCK.  You walk like a duc, you talk like a duck.  Having read your English Wikipedia defense of the user with so few edits, it rings alarm bells.  I theoritically have no problem with that.  If you wish your position clarified, you are free to request a CU on English Wikinews if you feel you need this type of exoneration. We can ask cspurrier to do the CU if you so desie so as not to bring cirt into it... but given the duck like behavior, I have little problem with the label.  We do not need deleted edits to see what was done on Wikipedia and read the comments by Not Your Ken see the problems here.  --LauraHale (talk) 19:41, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * You are not talking about my "Daniel Tomé" rename now, you're talking about my brother's account. Why would you think that my "Daniel Tomé" public rename, with zero edits here, could ever be considered a Wikinews sock? ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:49, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

If there was a sock puppet notification that an account with another name was pretending to be me, I would not see it as defamation against me. Rather, I would see it as a sign that admins were doing their job and preventing people from wrongly pretending to be me. I do not share your views on this. (Also, LauraHale is a common name, with at least 256 of them.)--LauraHale (talk) 19:44, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * So I am being prevented from wrongly pretending to be myself. ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:50, 29 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment: It looks like multiple other local admins have weighed in here. (More info at en.wikipedia block log and at en.wikipedia sock investigation case page) I will respectfully defer to the judgment of other local admins with regards to any further action or inaction with regards to this particular matter. -- Cirt (talk) 15:54, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem, Cirt, is that you are importing problems from Wikipedia to so many other wikis. On all those wikis, except on Wikinews until now, all your nonsense has been reverted. Wikinews is an independent project, and you're just wasting my time (and that of the communities) when you create attack user pages for editors with zero edits here. ~ DanielTom (talk) 16:40, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Maybe you could enlighten me, while you're here, how a public rename, "Daniel Tomé", could ever be considered a Wikinews sockpuppet (not to mention it has zero edits here). Thanks ~ DanielTom (talk) 16:43, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Cirt, you even unblocked my brother's account Diogotome on Wikisource. Why don't you delete these pages here, and let me move on? If you do I won't talk about you ever again. ~ DanielTom (talk) 16:55, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Is that a promise? -- Cirt (talk) 16:56, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * If you do the right thing: stop claiming that zero edit accounts are sockpuppets, and delete these attack pages. (I don't like your abuses, but if you stop wasting my time, I will pretend you don't exist.) You can quote me on that. ~ DanielTom (talk) 17:00, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah, so now you're changing it. There are some cases where there are sleeper accounts with users who create sockfarms of over 200 plus accounts. This situation is slightly different. You previously stated if I "delete these pages here", that would be acceptable to you for you to move on. Now it seems there are preconditions that I must never refer to sleeper accounts on future unrelated cases as socks? I'm willing to accept your request in this particular case. But in future cases on other individuals, those would have to be considered on a case by case basis with regards to different sock investigations. -- Cirt (talk) 17:03, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * @DanielTom, You have already been warned that these pages are not defamatory and you will be blocked if you say that again. You have been told they are not attack pages.  You are now being warned that calling them attack pages is unacceptable, especially given the link Cirt has provided regarding the CUs.  If you call them attack pages, which they are not, again, you will be blocked. You may not harass admins because you disagree with their admin decisions. --LauraHale (talk) 17:06, 30 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Update: ✅. I have deleted the user pages. I've unblocked the two accounts. I will defer further actions with regards to this user to other admins. I sincerely wish that this user will keep his word: "I will stop if you delete pages". Hopefully now we can all move on. -- Cirt (talk) 17:09, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Time to move on. I will keep my word. Surprised to see that we could come to a reasonable agreement. ~ DanielTom (talk) 17:13, 30 July 2013 (UTC) Your actions have been reverted by Laura, who doesn't know what she is doing, and must think she is helping you when actually the exact opposite is happening. ~ DanielTom (talk) 18:32, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Factually inaccurate, Tom. Cirt is no longer involved.  Nor does it actually matter which admin is involved.  This isn't, and never was, about the identity of the enforcing admin.  --Pi zero (talk) 20:02, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Pi, this is more complex than you might think. Cirt knows it, I know it, and other people who have looked at this know it. The SPI on Wikipedia was staged, and it was requested by Cirt, after I sent him an email where I told him that Diogotome is my brother, and that we live in the same house. Cirt never mentioned that in the SPI, and pretended the findings were unexpected. They weren't unexpected, they were predicted, and absolutely trivial. People at Wikiquote, Commons and at Wikisource have looked at this recently, and decided to revert the blocks and to remove the tags. Only Wikinews thinks it's a good idea to have these false tags damaging people's real names and reputations, despite them having zero edits here, and despite the evidence provided that Diogo is my brother. ~ DanielTom (talk) 20:19, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Evidently you haven't internalized WN:Never assume.


 * In any case, the obstacle to any change of status here is you. You've persistently ignored large quantities of good advice and information that have been offered to you here, instead playing the martyr and taking up admins' time.  --Pi zero (talk) 20:51, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Large quantities of good advice and information? Where? The only sensible thing I've seen here was Cirt deleting the userpages, which you should do as well. How can you insist that "Daniel Tomé" is a sockpuppet when it has zero edits here and is a public rename? Even at Wikipedia, where you like to copy problems, they've removed the tag. Why don't you do the same here? I'm not here to [take] up admin's time, quite the opposite, I want these false pages to be deleted so I can stop wasting my time. ~ DanielTom (talk) 20:58, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * @DanielTom, In case it is not clear to you, please read again: Your deal with Cirt was with Cirt, not with the community. You have no accumulated reputation on the project beyond posting comments viewed as attacking a CU with a positive accumulated reputation.  The CU evidence supports the sock related reblocks.  Your claims the SPI support the brother argument are based on your word alone, not the CU.  Our community allows cross wiki sock blocks.  This is because accuracy and project reputation for accuracy matter deeply to the project.  The serious allegations made against you on English Wikipedia supported by the CU support a local block. At this point, there is little you can do.  If the blocked accounts wish to appeal their local blocks and can provide the evidence we asked YOU for that is NOT reliant on us, then those cases can be dealt with individually.  You are digging yourself a deeper hole and working counter to your stated goals.  You may not agree this is good advice in your opinion, but it is GREAT advice towards getting your goals accomplished.   --LauraHale (talk) 21:04, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The CU evidence supports the sock related reblocks. What evidence, that me and my brother live in the same house? Your claims the SPI support the brother argument are based on your word alone, not the CU. It's not really an "argument", it's just truth. And stop pretending it's "my word alone". I've sent you scans of my Passport, and scans of his (my brother Diogo) Citizen Card. Not to mention his email with which he created his Diogotome account in 2009, diogofact@hotmail.com, is the same email he uses on Facebook, where you can find him (Diogo Tomé), and see that he is my brother. Not to mention his account has his real name in it. Maybe stop pretending you don't know this. it is GREAT advice towards getting your goals accomplished. What advice? I still don't see anything, except your insinuations that I am a liar, and your continued pretending that you don't know Diogo is my brother. It is tiring me out. ~ DanielTom (talk) 21:15, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Taking DanielToms word for it that Diogo is his brother (and reading his comments elsewhere as well), Wikipedia's entry on may interest him. --RockerballAustralia c 22:30, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Just see the evidence yourself. There is no need for you to be condescending. Much less to "take my word for it". My brother created this article about one of his professors on Portuguese wikipedia. His edits at Commons were also perfectly fine. Even at Wikipedia where he was blocked he only made one edit in a discussion. And we have never participated in the same discussions. Never. You cannot find any diff where he supported me in an argument, or where we took place in the same argument, or where he voted like I do, etc. We never edit the same discussions. Also, what do you think he is, five? I cannot tell him what to do. Certainly, your meatpuppetry suggestion would not apply at Wikinews anyway, as he has zero edits here. ~ DanielTom (talk) 22:55, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Let me be perfectly clear here (putting on my support manager hat); Mr Tomé, you are wasting a completely unreasonable quantity of time from the limited administrative pool here.

That will stop, or you will be blocked such that your rants and libellous allegations are restricted to your talk page. If you do not wish this to happen, then you will dramatically alter your interactions with the administrative community on Wikinews. There have been multiple warnings, this is a completely final one. You adopt a civil manner here, you drop the crap about Cirt creating 'attack pages', or you're restricted to your talk page from now until the end of August.

Is anyone in the Wikinews administrative community going to disagree with this? No. Not because they're "scared" of me - but, because I'm the one invariably left to put people in their place and tell them to behave. --Brian McNeil / talk 23:04, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Sir Brian McNeil, that is perfectly fine. I am trying to be civil. I sent another of your fellow admins an email with my brother's I.D. and my passport, even though that should be unnecessary, which shows how far I'm willing to go just to get this over with. Cirt deleted the pages, and he understands they should be deleted, please do the same (and I won't be here anymore so you can continue your excellent work at wikinews). ~ DanielTom (talk) 23:12, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Please check your email Patrick. ~ DanielTom (talk) 23:08, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

DanielTom
I just wanted to let others know about meta:User_talk:PiRSquared17. I did not feel there were many options: the poor conduct and the sock puppeting meant one or the other needed to be listed. As the sock puppeting thing was the loudest, I opted to redirect that page to his user page and have his user page explain why he was blocked. Another admin may feel free to overturn this action if they feel a particularly compelling reason. Otherwise, I would ask that project members not engage or discuss DanielTom on meta in order to avoid further escalation of the situation on that project. (We should really get an admin mailing list for admin decisions equivalent to what we had with scoop to better discuss these things.) --LauraHale (talk) 18:41, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Block for disruption

 * This demonstrates no knowledge of WN:WORTNET &mdash; in addition to the wilful trolling leading to its removal. I propose a, minimum, week-long block for the (otherwise productive) discussion to continue unimpeded. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:40, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I considered it, but would rather defer to see if xe decides to carry on despite this particularly clear rebuttal that xyr disruption is not welcome. A block will, in itself, become distraction. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 17:42, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Some degree of agreement; would prefer this left here, have touched on first point I pulled from the screaming rant, and consider this a second strike en-route to a prolonged block for contemptuous disruption and personal attacks. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:57, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Minus one Checkuser
I've requested at Meta for my Checkuser access to be removed.

I don't have time for that commitment anymore.

This will leave three Checkusers locally:



None of them are terribly active, but I'd recommend keeping all three.

I'd also strongly suggest trying to get two more, and I think and  would both be good candidates.

I'll still be around as a sysop and editor, but a bit less active than in the past.

Thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 16:01, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry to see you have to hand back the bit, Cirt. I'm not inclined to put myself forward because I'd prefer to avoid sticking my head back above the parapet and getting shot at by our detractors. I know, technically, I'm more-than-capable of doing the job (hey! I'm Systems Analyst working in Carrier Level technical support, I've scary levels of network infrastructure access). But, the Kook Report Wikipedia Signpost would have a field day sounding a call to vote me down.
 * I'd support Pi zero having the bit; however, I'd be reluctant to add CU to his responsibilities. Are there any CheckUsers active on other projects (saying such, I'm mainly referring to non-WP sisters as a source of folks who'd have no axe to grind, and familiarity a similar abuse profile as we experience). --Brian McNeil / talk 11:11, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks Cirt for the work you have done. I will try to keep a closer eye on RFCU. We should probably look at electing another CheckUser. Please feel free to e-mail me if there are any urgent CU. --Cspurrier (talk) 19:32, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Craig, you probably recall I handed back my bit after some poorly-chosen remarks about 'having someone checkusered'; the usual "fast and loose, let's attack Mr McNeil" interpretation being that I'd do it myself prompting that rather than a fugly mess of educating people about their inability to read English correctly.
 * I don't give a rat's arse about those who'd show up to say how 'evil' I am; at-issue is the fact we'd need outside support to meet the criteria for another CU to be elected. On that basis, and the various comments recommending we have another CU, a nomination being entered from someone outside the enWN community is probably best. --Brian McNeil / talk 23:08, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not really involved in sockpuppet-related investigations or any of that jazz over on Wikipedia (I'm mostly a "content" admin in that I do deletions and protections rather than blocks and bans), but if the community feels that they need another CheckUser, I'd be happy to put myself forward. I've been an admin on here and on the 'pedia for a while, and I'd like to think I'm mostly sane, calm and reasonable. I'm also identified to the Foundation. If there's any interest, I could apply formally. —Tom Morris (talk) 07:57, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd support that, and expect you to have no issues making good use of the tool. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:50, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Likewise. --Pi zero (talk) 12:40, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Someone may want to archive some stuff on the RFP page. It's so loaded with various closed discussions it's hard to make heads or tails of it. Also someone(s) should post more widely about this ongoing CU new RFP. CU RFPs need to get at least twenty-five (25) supports, and therefore it should get posted on various related email lists, perhaps pages at Meta, etc. Good luck, -- Cirt (talk) 22:47, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Abuse filter tweak
Can someone with abuse filter expertise add mywikibiz.com to the filter set? It's naught but a 'vanity' wiki, and I cannot see any circumstance where it might serve as a useful source of information for Wikinews. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:11, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I think you're mixing up your antispam tools. You want to add that to spamblacklist, unless en.WN is relying on an abuse filter filter to do simple domain matching (which would be an expensive way to do something which can be done easier by blacklisting.) -  Amgine | t 11:26, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yah, I may-well be. :) --Brian McNeil / talk 12:27, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Blocked sockmaster Kalki going for sysop at Wikiquote
Sockmaster Kalki going for sysop at en.wikiquote:


 * 1) Prior history by FloNight at https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User:FloNight/Kalki
 * 2) Chronology and restrictions noted at https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User:Kalki/Restrictions
 * 3) Current ongoing RFA at https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Requests_for_adminship/Kalki_(3rd_request)

Notifying here as it is directly relevant when a sock master with over 200 plus sock farm seeks rights of trust such as sysop.

Thank you for your time,

-- Cirt (talk) 17:06, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

MediaWiki talk:Robots.txt
Request to update the robots.txt sitemap url(s). -  Amgine | t 23:46, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Pi zero (talk) 00:20, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Emerging uses of transparent film
Yes, now deleted.

Was scratching my head over this one when reviewing what the Newsroom linked to; then I spotted the naked URL in it. So, now deleted as spam and the user is blocked. However, I have not blocked the contributor from editing their talk page. So, if pops up again, look out for spam on his talk. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:40, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Questionable edits to Admin pages
I temporarily blocked after I saw edits to my page. There are other edits. I did not yet revert them all as I'd like someone else to see if they have any merit. This user also succeeded in exceeding the maximum allowable characters in a name, which leaves my link useless. Please see my talk page history. From there you can see the other activity. Thanks. --SVTCobra 03:41, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * but yes, I forgot about diff-links. So here it is: .  I have no idea! --SVTCobra 03:44, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * They already asked the same here at AAA before. Now, I have left them a message on their talk page, explaining why they're blocked. --Gryllida 04:56, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Both fall into 2602:304:AF53:3E99:* range, possibly dynamic IP (the original one is not currently blocked). --Gryllida 04:59, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * All he did was ask some admins if they'd perform an admin action for them. It was a weird-ass request but it wasn't anything to block for. Incidentally, it's cool to see your name pop up on RC, SVTCobra. BRS  (Talk)   (Contribs) 05:17, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * This is probably a spambot. I have seen similar edits on other wikis dealing with blocks and block templates. 86.69.154.191 (talk) 06:35, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Doesn't show much more in the way of signs of intelligence than your average spambox; putting 'crat and admin open to recall templates on an anonymous page (IPv6)? --Brian McNeil / talk 17:58, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * ...I don't see those? And yes, it's an IPv6 address. BRS  (Talk)   (Contribs) 23:50, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I was looking at the deleted userpage. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:04, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Got it. Copypasta of PiZ's entire userpage, looks like. BRS  (Talk)   (Contribs) 00:17, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, BRS. I am glad that you guys are still around to keep the project alive. All the best to Wikinews! --SVTCobra 22:01, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: this is a cross-wiki LTA who tried to convince the other Wikimedia communities, including Wikisource and Wikiversity, to do the same thing to their MediaWiki:Blockedtext messages. Suspect it to be spam, but do whatever you want with your own. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 05:52, 28 February 2014 (UTC)