Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Current issues and requests archive 42

Malfunctioning GoblinBot...

I think I have already pointed it out on IRC, but some edits Goblinbot reverts are not clear cases of vandalism. Another such case occurred just now.

• diffs

In the long run, I think the bot needs a few changes:

• Get away from a strict "anonymous user posted article change containing one of a few words (eg. vagina)" more towards an approach based on "scores" (as in: such a user posting a comment has a score of 0.3, but 0.7 is needed for clear vandalism.
• Do not use static word lists, but get these periodically from onwiki pages (fully protected).
• Rely on editfilter tags?

Yes, whether the case abnove is vandalism can be debated, but a bot repalcement/improvement should be considered.--Eptalon (talk) 14:52, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Longtime Sockpuppet

I just noticed that a well known and prolific sockpuppet from En Wikipedia has found his way here and created an account. USer:Willy On Extrasuperwheels seems to identify to User:Willie on Wheels, User:Willy on Wheels, User:Willie on wheels and a whole pile of others from English Wikipedia. Someone might need to do a checkuser and see how many others there are.Kumioko (talk) 21:36, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

It's not really him and also the account is globally locked. --Bsadowski1 21:38, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok but that seems like a pretty huge coincidence. Thanks for looking though. Kumioko (talk) 21:40, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Request for edit on protected user subpage

User:Barliner/userboxes/german has a redlinked category, Category:Wikipedian userboxes. Would an admin please change this to Category:Interest userbox templates? I did not do this via {{editprotected}} because I didn't want to create a talk page just for that. The user has not been active in over a year. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:01, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Osiris (talk) 03:22, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk) 03:44, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

COI/Self-promotion

Hello, just looking for clarification if any further action is required. I noticed User:Susie figgis editing the article Susie Figgis. I have left a message for the user to read WP:COI#SP but is any other action needed? Kennedy ^(talk) 14:06, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

User

User 46.60.252.85 has been vandalising frequently since 28 November. Looks like he needs a bit of attention. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:10, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

IP resolves to "Southwest Grid for Learning", so probably this is a school (or educational institution). IP Blocked for two weeks; account creation/TP editing left open.--Eptalon (talk) 14:34, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Can I get the flood flag for a little while please

I am working on some AWB typo and formatting cleanup and I don't want to flood the New changes so could I get the flood flag for a little while? Kumioko (talk) 01:25, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

taxoboxes screwed up

Overnight, someone has screwed up the taxoboxes. Please revert back to former, and discuss proposed changes with me. I am way the biggest user of taxoboxes on this wiki... Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:45, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I've fixed it, and made a note to the user. It looks like it was probably an accident, but one that can easily be avoided in the future. Osiris (talk) 09:51, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Just because you use the templates a lot doesn't mean any changes need to go through you, Macdonald-ross. This is a wiki, everyone is entitled to edit as they see fit. I'm a little surprised at having to remind such a regular editor about WP:OWN... Kennedy ^(talk) 12:25, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I didn't actually say they need to go through me. However, deliberate changes in established practice do need a new consensus, so in such cases everyone is not entitled to do what they like without consultation. As it turned out, this was not one of those cases. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:56, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Mass deletion of pages by 71.64.104.219 (and local block)

Please mass delete all pages created by 71.64.104.219, and a local block would also be appropriate. I already got a steward to block it globally, but the block is short though.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  00:14, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

The global block ends on 30 December. Blocks are meant to be preventative, so we will monitor the IP's edits after the block ends and will block if necessary. Chenzw  Talk  02:42, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Request

Requesting action re 222.165.27.167, repeat vandalism of my talk page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:10, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Done by Barras, along with a complimentary rangeblock. Chenzw  Talk  10:06, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Protection.

Hi folks. Would like to suggest the protection of both Daniel Tosh and Tosh.0. Both have been protected for fairly extended amounts of time in the passed, as they are both some of the most commonly vandalized pages on this wiki. The history of both of those pages paints a pretty clear message.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 01:57, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Done by Chenzw. Osiris (talk) 13:39, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Admin.

Hi Folks. I've been fairly inactive for around a year. I let this go for a while, however eventually I asked for my tools to be removed. It's been a long story as some of you know, involving school, work, and the death of various family members. I'm slowly coming back to the wiki, and my plan was to edit for a month before holding an RFA to ask the community for my tools back, as it has been so long. However, after the few days I've been editing I've had to nominate a few pages for deletion, and even send a user to VIP. I never thought it would come to this, but I kinda feel like this wiki needs active admins. At one point we had way to many of them, now it appears we don't have enough. I thought about nominating another user for admin while I got myself re-integrated back into the community, however, I've decided it would just be best to ask for them back myself. So, +admin please? It really wasn't my plan to do this, but I feel simple needs the help. I think I'm still within the criteria to get them back, so thanks.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 02:36, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Even if I didn't like what Gordon did to Bowyer, we're both Nascar addicts and I hope you'll succeed because we are few people not yet admins on top 50 on Simple http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaSIMPLE.htm and you're more trustable than Kennedy and much more serious than me. I could of course propose myself but I think it's better when the nomination comes from an already-sysop-user. ONaNcle (talk) 06:16, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

 Bureaucrat note: You do not meet the criteria to be considered as an inactive administrator in 2012, and since your flags were removed per your own request, I don't see why you cannot get them back. Putting this on hold for now in case Barras knows something I don't know. By the way, @ONaNcle: I don't consider your comment to be particularly helpful. Gordonrox24 resigned from adminship due to personal matters, and what you said has little relation to what is going on here. Chenzw  Talk  08:41, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

 Done - Welcome back. (now get back to work) Chenzw  Talk  10:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Statistics

Looking at the autogenerated statistics for Simple English is quite interesting. What I see, and would like to address:

• Out of the ten editors with the most mainspace edits (and supposedly activity), four do not have an admin status. In my opinion, they would be candidates for a nomination.
• 62 editors (with at least 3162 edits) do/did 57% of the editing, 15 people (with at least 10.000 edits) account for 33%, and 4 people (with 31632 edits) do/did 16%. This includes bots.

Summing it up: we probably have 62 "active editors and bots", which account for almost 60% of the mainspace edits.--Eptalon (talk) 09:41, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Some are heading towards major milestones: Sasso and Creol are neck-and-neck for 50,000 article-space edits, and Ep himself is verging on 3000 new pages. Tbennert with 2,251 new pages is also amazing. TDKR Chicago 101 is clearly newcomer of 2012, with 748 new articles in just over five months. These are awesome achievements. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:11, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

3000 new pages and yet you still insist on having "I have not written many new pages" on your user page, Eptalon. ;) Osiris (talk) 18:53, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

...most of which are two sentence stubs created after deleting some graffitti left here? - It really does not feel like it...--Eptalon (talk) 22:52, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

How does it determine who a bot is? It seems to think User:GoblinBot4 is a normal contributor, not a bot. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 21:05, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

there is a bot flag, but I guess it does not take that into account; as to GoblinBot4, there had been issues, so its flag was taken away.--Eptalon (talk) 21:37, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Its based on who has a bot flag and who doesn't. As Eptalon mentions GoblinBot4 had its bot flag removed so we could see its edits in RC. -DJSasso (talk) 12:50, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense. Cool tool, even if I'm not listed on it.  ;-) – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 13:29, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Deleting emptied cats

Today I emptied some cats, then QD'd them with the note, "This cat was emptied on 11 January 2013. You can wait 4 days to delete if you want." Is that acceptable? --Auntof6 (talk) 17:30, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

That is acceptable. But really when you empty a cat you should make a notification in some way. Situations where you want to delete a cat with a fair number of articles in it is supposed to actually go to RfD. So if you are taking a cat with a number of articles and then emptying it and then 4 days later QDing it. That really is skirting process. If it is a cat with 1 or 2 articles in it (ie below the generally accepted 3) then what you did is fine I would say. -DJSasso (talk) 17:35, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, they all had fewer than 3 articles. Would it help if I said something like, "This cat had only one entry, which was removed or recategorized on 11 January 2013. You can wait 4 days to delete if you want."?--Auntof6 (talk) 17:40, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I personally would still put the tag on after 4 days but what you did hopefully would make an admin stop and wait, because an admin is technically supposed to check that when deleting cats. Because it gives people a chance to notice you tagged it. Creol for example in that Greenland issue was more upset I think that he didn't get a chance to react to your QD because it was done in less than a day. But this is just my opinion. Others may have another view. -DJSasso (talk) 17:42, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Protection

There have been no good IP edits on Electrical circuit since the beginning of December. Requesting semi-protection. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 01:43, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

At a glance, it seems no different from thousands of other pages. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:31, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I am not sure I understand, does that mean pages are not normally protected here? Or is this just seen as not a lot vandalism? -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 09:28, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

This is not really a lot of vandalism - the article has only been vandalised 6 times since November 2012. Chenzw  Talk  09:55, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

User:Cyfraw

I would like to unprotect this page per request. Thanks --cyrfaw (talk) 10:45, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

 Done. -Mh7kJ (talk) 11:10, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Community ban proposal for Huik01

In December 2009, Huik01 was blocked. Since June 2010, it was discovered he had a large sockfarm and to this day has been creating sockpuppets. If you look at his category of socks, there are more than 40 (actually more like 60+) confirmed socks. I propose a community ban for Huik. --Bsadowski1 19:06, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

He pretty much is defacto banned. But if you want something official then yup I support. -DJSasso (talk) 19:36, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

• Sure. If he's confirmed to be a long-term sockpuppeteer, then ban him. Although I don't think there's much likelihood of them logging in to their original account and requesting an unblock... Osiris (talk) 02:41, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
• My name isn't one the list! Joking aside, go ahead. Yottie ^=talk= 11:24, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Flood flag

I'd like to request the flood flag as I plan to use AWB and don't want to flood the new changes log. MJ94 (talk) 00:33, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

What would the task be. Need to know what it is we are hiding because some tasks need to remain visible. -DJSasso (talk) 12:47, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

RileyBot malfunctioning

An IP made a bot edit (cleaning the sandbox). In accordance with the bot policy (all bots must log in to edit), this IP may need to be blocked. J9 91 20:13, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Not that big a deal for the type of work it is doing. But I have blocked it for 24 hours so the op will notice and fix his login. -DJSasso (talk) 20:19, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I have no clue as to why my bot is editing logged out... Anyways, the "Talk to the bot operator at User talk:Riley Huntley!" is there for you guys to use (I'm not saying it is your fault for not messaing me), I was away on a trip so I couldn't tell that it was having an issue. :/ - I just did a test run now and it is doing fine. I'll take a look over the code to see why, thanks! Riley Huntley (talk) 06:56, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but being that it was logged out. We couldn't be certain it was your bot. Not without doing a checkuser of course which wouldn't really have been appropriate. -DJSasso (talk) 13:25, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Telling me still wouldn't have hurted ;) Riley Huntley (talk) 15:17, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I oversighted the a private info here and replaced it with something neutral. -Barras talk 21:43, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Request for move over redirect

The new page Professor Albus Dumbledore should be at Albus Dumbledore, which currently redirects to Harry Potter#Main characters. Would an admin please move the new page over the redirect? Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:36, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

 Done. Osiris (talk) 08:00, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk) 08:03, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Request for import

Would someone please import en:Template:R from misspelling and its doc page? Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:29, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

 Done Chenzw  Talk  00:04, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! --Auntof6 (talk) 00:05, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Request to import template {{Infobox cricketer}} to get updates

The version we have of this template isn't accepting some fields like birth_date. Would someone please import the current version from enwiki?

By the way, is Import a right that non-admins can have? --Auntof6 (talk) 23:51, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I can fix this up. The policy on giving the flag out is here. It looks like the same sort of procedure for the flood flag. Osiris (talk) 03:19, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Getting the import flag is the same as an RfA. So you would run for it for a week and people would support and oppose. It is a right that can be a bunch of trouble and make a pretty big mess so it is very rarely given out to non-admins. -DJSasso (talk) 15:25, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Hmm though now that I read that page Osiris links to that page differs from how we have handled it in the past. I don't remember us coming up with those guidelines. But that is probably just me being old. -DJSasso (talk) 15:27, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Actually just found the discussion to switch it from RfA to temporary and I have no idea how I missed that discussion. Very low participation. I would have completely opposed making it a temporary flag. -DJSasso (talk) 15:31, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Definitely agree. Given the requirements, there is no way I would ever even consider jumping through all the hoops to get the flag. It is completely impractical to ever get the flag. Most import jobs here are 1 (template)-2 (template and doc) pages at a time. To require an RfP, waiting, getting approved, getting a Crat to flag, moving the page over, flagging down another crat to pull the flag.. for one template, just to preserve its history for attrib purposes. Flagging down a Crat (twice), every time I needed to get a location template ported over? I'd just flag the nearest admin and make them do the import for me or more likely copy/paste and toss on an attrib notice. The policy certainly pushes users towards the copy/paste/attrib practice. Just hope they actually do attrib it. Heck, the only reason to actually get the flag is to be annoying to the crats and make them flick switches over and over again for you.--Creol(talk) 23:00, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I agree. I was looking to see if I could save the admins some work if I did importing myself when I need it (which isn't often). Thanks for all the replies! --Auntof6 (talk) 23:13, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't mind a change to make it permanent. As long as the user is well trusted and knows exactly what can go wrong with it. I've lost count of the number of page histories I've had to clean up. Osiris (talk) 01:58, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Protection of Barack Obama

I think it would be good if the article Barack Obama is protected. There are no constructive changes in the history since the expiration of the last protection. --Mark91it's my world 21:16, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

We have had 44 edits to the page since the beginning of the year. About 25% (12) of these come from one editor (96.247...) and are constructive. Restricting editing to the autoconfirmed users blocks this user (since they are not logged in). Roughly about 15 edits are reversions. These two categories account for 62% of all edits. According to traffic statistics, there were 4900 views in the last 60 days, or about 82 a day on average. Statistics aside, I don't think the page needs protection, atm. --Eptalon (talk) 22:23, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Import needed

en:Template:uw-coi for Clarkcj12 (requested on my talk page) --Creol(talk) 22:02, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Imported, but needs more work to make the entire template completely applicable to our wiki. I will try to find some time to get that done. Chenzw  Talk  10:11, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, I guess it also needs to be added to the list here also when will it get added to Twinkle? --Clarkcj12 (talk) 15:11, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Our twinkle doesn't get touched a heck of a lot. Up until recently it was a use at your own risk script because it was imported wholesale without being modified to work on simple. But someone was recently working at doing that so it may end up there soon. Feel free to add it to the talk page warnings list though. -DJSasso (talk) 17:44, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Template import request

Resolved. Imported. Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 11:55, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Could someone import the template en:Template:Metroid series here? I'd like to add it to the Metroid articles, as we have a good amount of them here, and I think it would be useful for those articles. Thanks. Lugia2453 (talk) 03:08, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Done. Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 11:55, 1 March 2013 (UTC)