Bookerj

When I opened WP tonight - 20111207 - but without logging in, I was greeted with a "New Message" template pointing me to a ClueBot NG Reversion warning posted on the User Talk page for IP user: 98.217.71.200. The warning is for RevertID: 538726, dated 20110810 T 13:31, just seconds after the offending edit to article bicycle. The ClueBot warning message is reproduced below for reference, and also notes the (probably) offending edit is one that was made on 20110810 by that IP user.

A quick review of edits to the article on that date reveal an edit by that user which is a clear, non-controvertible instance of malicious vandalism. So this note is not to report a false positive; the revert is justified. But though my IPv4 address - dynamically assigned by my ISP/Cable provider - is currently the offending IP (according to IPCONFIG), I was certainly not the author of this offensive edit. I have made a few dozen edits in the past year, but never without logging in, and never to that particular article. By a near miss coincidence, I made two edits to another article and a Talk Page on the prior day: Aug 9, and I have made nine edits since then without ever seeing the Revert Warning.

So it appears to me that ClueBot NG made a valid revert, posted the warning to the IP user's Talk Page. I presume the warning went unacknowledged, since it remains there 3 months later. I simply stumbled into the picture when my ISP reassigned me to an IP address that had tripped the bot 90 days before.

Incidentally, I note the proper place to challenge ClueBot reverts -- for false positive claims at least -- is at http://report.cluebot.cluenet.org/. But as User ClueBot's Talk Page advises, that server seems to be down at the moment. My objective in writing to you is not to complain, since I am fairly confident that the warning applies not to my UserID (bookerj), but to the anonymous vandal who previously shared my current IP. Instead, I'm merely offering this info on the chain of events in case you wanted to know this can happen.

Here's the revert warning:

August 2011

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to make constructive contributions to Wikipedia, but at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Bicycle, did not appear to be constructive and has been automatically reverted (undone) by ClueBot NG.

Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Note that human editors do monitor recent changes to Wikipedia articles, and administrators have the ability to block users from editing if they repeatedly engage in vandalism.

ClueBot NG produces very few false positives, but it does happen. If you believe the change you made should not have been detected as unconstructive, please read about it, report it here, remove this warning from your talk page, and then make the edit again.

The following is the log entry regarding this warning: Bicycle was changed by 98.217.71.200 (u) (t) ANN scored at 0.959495 on 2011-08-10T13:31:36+00:00 . Thank you. ClueBot NG (talk) 13:31, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

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One last note: As you see, the Revert Warning on user 98.217.71.200's Talk Page cites the log entry for the warning, but does not contain a description of the offending edit, nor a "MYSQL ID:" tag. I obtained the Revert ID from WP:Bicycle's History page. Instead of making challengers track down this Revert ID, why not place it directly in the Warning's log entry. I gather that's the intent, but it apparently is not consistently working. Just FYI.

Please let me know if there's any other info that you'd find helpful; I will probably retain the referenced IP address for some days at least. -Jim Smith, UserID: bookerj, jamesptrk5@rcn.comBookerj (talk) 10:47, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

April 2014

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to We'll Never Turn Back may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• * ''[http://www.allmusic.com/album/well-never-turn-back-mw0000478319 We'll Never Turn Back]]'' at [[AllMusic]] website

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 20:36, 5 April 2014 (UTC)