User talk:Excirial/Archive 32

Excirial

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A message from MrAndrew16

Dear Excirial!

It is MrAndrew16! Regarding the warning from you, I would like to inform you about the reason I made the correction on the side of "Hungarian Tennis Championships". I received the contemporary Hungarian Tennis newspaper which reported about the some Hungarian tennis players' career and it mentioned a relevant information about the cancellation of the Hungarian Tennis Championships in 1941. Almost everybody supposed that the reason was due to the World War II which can be understandable and acceptable. However, the true reason was not the war - directly -, but the lack of balls! At first hearing, this kind of reason can sound strange, however it is real and it was the official reason! Foregoing the facts, I would like to request respectfully to revert back to this modification because I consider that this information is vitally important to understand why that championships must have cancelled.

Thank you for your understanding!

Best regards, Andras Ruszanov tennis historian, Grand Slam journalist MrAndrew16

Hello Andras,

When i first viewed at this edit it looked like a double entendre - a play on tennis balls and the metaphor "to have balls". If the text is replaced i would suggest changing it to something like the below. That would remove all ambiguity in the line itself.

• "The tournament was not held in 1941 because of a lack of [[tennis ball|tennis balls]]."

Besides this, would it be possible to add a source that mentions the 1941 tournament wasn't held due to the lack of tennis balls? The current citation doesn't seem to mention the cancellation of the 1941 tournament at all (Regardless whether this was due to the world war / due to a lack of material). A quick search didn't result in a usable reference stating the tournament was cancelled. I suppose that is to be expected though seeing the tournament was 76 years or so ago, and the likely sources were written in Hungarian which i cannot read. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 13:54, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Dear Excirial,

Thank you for your kind review and reversion! Regarding the source, this statement appeared in the official monthly magazine (Tenisz) of the Hungarian Tennis Federation dated June of 1943 on page 2 in the retrospective article about Jozsef Asboth's career. This magazine is written in Hungarian and I received the copy of the magazine a couple of days ago. It will be sufficient information or you need any scanned copy? Explanation the lack of balls: the Hungarian military industry used a lot of tires from which used to make the tennis balls.

MrAndrew16

Hello Andras,

Thank you, that is more than enough information for a citation in the article which is added now. As long as there is a reference after a statement any reader can double-check the original source to determine if the statement is indeed correct. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 19:38, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

A message from 72.48.201.70

its true no one has actually been there, if you can find the attendance for Tyler state park then show me and prove it 72.48.201.70 (talk) 20:02, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, i can see that clearly. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 20:06, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Southern Christian Leadership Conference - My error

I was trying to revert some vandalism that had been missed on the page and accidentally restored some you had corrected instead ([1]). I have fixed it now. My apologies. KNHaw ^(talk) 18:59, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Oh, no need to apologize - these things happen all the time. Besides, running into a fellow patrol is never a bad thing as far as i am concerned. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 19:10, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

A message from Jimmij5520

We are updating "Economic Development Incentive" section driven by our attorney Fred Kindel who authored a book on this specific subject. Apologies for not including the reason for edit on all of our edits. We assumed that one may suffice and request that our edits be restored to Feb. 1st edits. We were in the process of adding the 35 "Notes" citing our sources when we came across your message. Please advise.

Thank you, Mark Jimmij5520 (talk) 19:19, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

@Jimmij5520: Hello Mark,

It is best to include a summary in every edit, especially if the edit is a substantive one. If an edit fixes a simple typo or correct some less than optimal grammar in a line the rationale for that edit is easy enough to discern when reviewing it. Large edits such as the removal of the notes section tend to be harder to explain - since edits tend to be reviewed as single diffs (Eg: Old revision to new revision) from my point of view an editor suddenly removed all the references from the article. Since removing all references is very rarely a quality edit and due to there being no rationale in the summary i(why is it that this is not all caps? oh, yeah, because you are gay. your grammar is gay, and, even though this is 2016, I don't mean it as a compliment) reverted the edit with the aforementioned warning. In this case you were quite busy with the article and were simply restructuring your own references so the edit on its own is just fine.

As for restoring the old revision: A rollback of a page removed all consecutive edits made by the same user to the first edit in the page history made by another editor. I see you made a couple of edits in the meantime so i don't believe i should be flat-out restoring the old page only to overwrite these new changes. I'd advise having a look at the page history of the article. All old revisions are saved and can be opened, restored or copy-pasted from at will so it should be simply to revert the page to whatever previous state you prefer (Without me overwriting the three changes made after the warning message was send. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 18:45, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

A message from 2602:306:35F4:2510:D456:1F30:E1E8:50A8

Not sure why you deleted my factual comment. When I was first working in the film industry I saw the Angilyne billboard on Sunset Blvd (I was never aware of more than this one) and I asked someone who she was. Got a laugh from several members of the crew. Occasionally someone would speak of her as a joke. No big deal to me but she is still a (n) old joke in Hollywood. I am not sure when but I think I remember Jay Leno mentioning her and getting a laugh on the Tonight Show. Rob Braxton 2602:306:35F4:2510:D456:1F30:E1E8:50A8 (talk) 22:56, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Helo Rob.

The article is a so called BLP Page - a biography of a living person. Biographic article's tend to be more sensitive in nature than the average page and are therefore held to higher standards as far as content is concerned. The additional of the text "local LA joke" is pretty much a negative addition which was also fully unsourced - in other words, the average reader has no method to see if that statement holds ground. I could have edited the article and added "and convicted arsonist" to the lead and the effect would be the same - there is no source to back up either claim. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 19:06, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

A message from 81.152.40.198

Ben Swann is a conspiracy theorist why else would he report on conspiracies? . Stop deleting my edits. 81.152.40.198 (talk) 19:56, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

@81.152.40.198: I reverted this particular edit where you changed "Pizzagate conspiracy theory" to "Pizzagate conspiritard theory". Ignoring the entire "conspiracy theorist" part for a second, why would changing "conspiracy" to "conspiritard" be a quality edit? Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 20:04, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

A message from 2A00:23C1:5385:100:FD39:FF83:3E02:1BF8

You changed my edit about the banchory beavers. I would like to inform you that what is currently written on the banchory wikipedia page is false as they have not achieved anything at all and generally fail. 2A00:23C1:5385:100:FD39:FF83:3E02:1BF8 (talk) 21:12, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

@2A00:23C1:5385:100:FD39:FF83:3E02:1BF8: Your previous edits are pure vandalism and were reverted as such. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:20, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Concerning the Vandal At "White rhinoceros"

The user Therm1017 you just reverted at White rhinoceros looks either like a single purpose account or a sleeper account of a vandal, considering as how the only other edit it's made in this account is a vandalism edit from 2013 to White rhinoceros.--Mr Fink (talk) 21:05, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

 Already done by Materialscientist it seems. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:22, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Editor's Barnstar
	Sorry Alvarez50 (talk) 21:21, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

@Alvarez50: That's alright. I suppose that answers your question though? Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:24, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

FYI

Lionlionlionsreverwherr = Catcreekcitycouncil (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (SPI)

Thanks, GAB^gab 20:16, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

@GeneralizationsAreBad: Ah, thank you! I assumed these accounts were part of a bigger laundry pile, but i didn't know what drawer to stuff them into. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 20:22, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Err... yeah, about that... this whole batch (including CCCC) may be linked to yet another LTA case, which is - in part - what I'm trying to sort out now. Thanks again, GAB^gab 20:24, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I picked up the Billings crap while just on recent change patrol, had no idea what this is. Whoever this is wrote on someone else's talk page telling them they had no idea how big it was... oh the irony. Home Lander (talk) 20:32, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

A message from TangledWords

Hello There, I'm not quite sure why you took out an entire section of information from the Georgia Ports Authority entry that I added sighting copyright violation. I summarized information, and sited many sources, both from the company website, as well as outside media sources. None of the of information is copied word for word from a single source. If there is a specific fact that is in question, please be more precise so I can clarify the source or provide another source. Thank you for your diligence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Georgia_Ports_Authority&action=history

(cur | prev) 20:24, 9 February 2017‎ Excirial (talk | contribs)‎ . . (7,260 bytes) (-5,552)‎ . . (Undo: Removing copyvio's (http://www.gaports.com/Media/PressReleases/TabId/379/ArtMID/3569/ArticleID/61/GPA-Today-Service-Sustainability-and-Safety.aspx et cetera) / advertising / copy pasted press releases.) (undo | thank)

TangledWords (talk) 14:06, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

@TangledWords: Have a look at the copyvio detector report. I can see multiple sentences being literal copies of external sources. While only one to three lines are lifted from each article, they are still used literally so as a whole it still qualifies as a copyright violation. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 18:56, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the detail. I will rework the two sentences shown in the tool. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TangledWords (talk • contribs) 19:30, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Denise Gilligan

Can you please remove from the title..ex lover of joanne Hamilton as this is hurtful to Denise and embarrassing for her. I tried on her behalf but you restored. The rest of the information is accurate on the page. Spice71 (talk) 21:52, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

@Spice71:

Where on this page does it refer to Joanne Hamilton as her ex lover? I can see neither the words "joanne", "Hamilton" or "ex lover" on the page? Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:02, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Right beside her name..Denise Gilligan camogie player, ex lover joanne Hamilton. It's the title of the page Spice71 (talk) 22:12, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Ok, did you click the link in my previous message and did you see the "Joanne Hamilton" mention there? If not, what page are you looking at? There is absolutely no mention whatsoever of Joanne Hamilton on the Wikipedia page mentioned. It is possible that you are viewing a mirror of the Wikipedia page that contains the content mentioned - if this is the case i nor any other Wikipedian can help you, because those pages are not part of Wikipedia. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:37, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

A message from Hannah.survilas

Hello. I am a representative of El Camino High School. We would like to change the content on our wikipedia page. We don't feel that the info under the 'Media Attention' tab is relevant and makes our school look bad. We instead would like to talk about our school traditions and our annual Homecoming Show. Please let me know if we are able to do this.

Thank you, Hannah Survilas Hannah.survilas (talk) 19:27, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

@Hannah.survilas: Reading the above commentaru there are a few things i should mention here.

Before anything else: If you are editing an article you are closely related to or have an interest or stake in you have a so called conflict of interest - an interest in the article beyond writing a neutral and non promotional piece. If you are also compensated by a person, group, company or organization to use Wikipedia to promote their interests - that is, you are a paid employee editing on behalf of a company - this is considered paid editing which is strongly discouraged. If you are receiving or expect to receive compensation for your edits, you are required by the Wikimedia Terms of Use to disclose your employer, client and affiliation. You can post such a mandatory disclosure to your user page at User:Hannah.survilas. The template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=Hannah.survilas|employer=InsertName|client=InsertName}}.

Having gotten the more procedural matters are out of the way we can focus on the article itself. Based on the amount of coverage the incident received i would say it warrants a mention in the article, but it definitely does not warrant an entire multi-line section devoted to it. As of such i cut the section down from a multi-line explanation of the incident to a single-line with accompanying references. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 20:05, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Hello. I'm from El Camino High School. Thank you for changing our page. If we want to add stuff to our page, like our Alma Mater and our annual Homecoming show with pictures. How does that work??

Hannah — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hannah.survilas (talk • contribs) 18:44, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

A message from 174.114.114.41

Hello,

I updated a little bit the topic "Professional Organizing". There are other associations like NAPO out there. I listed the professional organizers in Canada and also the IFPOA where all the others associations around the world are listed. This info would be very helpful for someone else living outside of North America. Also, I have shared a blog "KW Professional Organizers" because they share a lot of great content with before and after photos and videos of real client's stories. These stories will help others understand what professional organizing is about.

I hope this info is helpful :)

174.114.114.41 (talk) 19:18, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Hello there 174.114.114.41,

First of, thanks for the additions! However, i have to point to Wikipedia's policy on external links which governs what should, and what shouldn't be added to an article. Generally taken an article on a generic topic shouldn't provide links to companies or groups in that line of work. For example, the Butcher topic shouldn't be linking to a butchery shop near you. Generally taken external links to organizations are only added if there is a specific reason to do so (Eg: The article is about the organisation itself). Blogs are generally taken a no-go as well, no matter how informative they may be. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 19:16, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

A message from Ucdsoewiki

Hi Excirial--One of our employees made some changes to the UC Davis School of Education page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_School_of_Education and they were removed as vandalism. Just wanted you to know that it this was indeed the School of Education trying to make edits to the page, not a vandal. We're going to do more of our edits offline and then come back to apply them to our page when they're completely vetted and notated. Hope we won't have any problem then. Ucdsoewiki (talk) 22:04, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

I suppose there are a few things i should mention here:

• The edits themselves were reverted because they added copyrighted content to the page. (The additions were literal copies of 174.114.114.41 http://education.ucdavis.edu/center-applied-policy-education and other pages which is marked "Copyright © 2014 the Regents of the University of California, Davis Campus. All Rights Reserved"). Yes, you are very likely the copyright holder of that content, but Wikipedia can only accept content directly if licensed under a compatible license (GDFL / Creative Commons). That said, directly copying content from a company, school or group website rarely generates a neutral and acceptable page so even if the license is acceptable, the content rarely is.
• If you are editing on behalf of a company or group you have a so called conflict of interest - an interest in the article beyond writing a neutral and non promotional piece. If you are also compensated by a person, group, company or organization to use Wikipedia to promote their interests - that is, you are a paid employee editing on behalf of a company - this is considered paid editing which is strongly discouraged. If you are receiving or expect to receive compensation for your edits, you are required by the Wikimedia Terms of Use to disclose your employer, client and affiliation. You can post such a mandatory disclosure to your user page at User:Hannah.survilas. The template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=Hannah.survilas|employer=InsertName|client=InsertName}}.

Again, editing with a conflict of interest is strongly discouraged due to neutrality concern. Just ask yourself: If UC Davis were to hit the news tomorrow regarding some high profile fraud case, would you be busy adding that information to the page next time you edit it? Or is it more likely you'd be interested in toning down or removing any mention of it? Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 19:24, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Bear flag (gay culture)

I reverted farther back on this page; IP edits (and one user, who is probably the same) added multiple names of people, I'm guessing as an attack on them. Thinking they possibly should be erased. Home Lander (talk) 21:00, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

@Home Lander: Yes, probably best to broom those out of the revision history. I've hereby removed the user and IP's edits. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:13, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. First time I've tried using that "chat" function on Huggle, I'm assuming it worked as I think it does? Home Lander (talk) 21:14, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

These edits are still showing on my end at the moment, fyi, not sure if it's my cache or not. Home Lander (talk) 21:17, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

@Home Lander: Yep, though i already noticed the new message popup in Huggle itself. The chat functionality in Huggle is effectively an IRC channel - two bird with one stone i suppose, since huggle fetches edits over IRC as well. Seeing your edit i am half tempted to joke its your cache now but no, that was actually a gaffe on my side. It tends to help if one selects the "Set" radiobutton instead of the "Unset" radiobutton when marking something as hidden. All i did on the first attempt was making the already visible edits visible.... Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:23, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Ha, right after I wrote that they disappeared so I scratched it. Home Lander (talk) 21:29, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Philippine hanging parrot

related
Hi there! I am still on the process of uploading the pic — Preceding unsigned comment added by DexDroid29 (talk • contribs)

A message from 71.15.136.230

Dr. Otto Heinrich Warburg supposedly discovered a cure for cancer. Is this true? 71.15.136.230 (talk) 17:56, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

A message from 95.90.184.214

Hi Excirial,

thank you for your kind message regarding this entry of mine! https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carden%20Loyd%20tankette&diff=765859665

My change was not constructive? It was my intention to correct the typo error (missing blank between 47 and mm like it should be between nearly every number an corresponding measurment unit [except °]) to improve wikipedia.

If you want to keep the wrong spelling, feel free to do so. I am not that attached to my sporadic contributions and do not want to argue about them.

Bye, bye. :)

95.90.184.214 (talk) 20:35, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi there 95.90.184.214

I'm actually a bit surprised seeing this revert - and that generally isn't a good thing from a quality perspective. I can see that you added two HTML encoded spaces to the article; I suppose might have opted to change these to two regular spaces but I wouldn't see myself reverting an edit over it, let alone revert while leaving a warning. My best guess is that this edit got caught in the middle of three other clear vandalism revert i issued in the same minute (Mayhap i hit the revert key a bit to enthusiastically and reverted two edits instead of one).

Either way, regardless of the reason the revert and the warning are nonsensical - sorry for that and thanks for pointing out for me. I reinstated your previous edit, which also allowed me to replace the HTML encoded spaces with regular ones. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 20:49, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Huh?

A nice cup of coffee...

Why did you revert my edit to Flash cut? [2] 208.95.51.115 (talk) 20:39, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

I saw [3]. Thank you for listening to me! 208.95.51.115 (talk) 21:11, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hi there 208.95.51.115,

You really shouldn't be thanking me for what is essentially cleaning up my own mistake - if anything I owe you an apology for the nonsensical warning and revert. This is a case where the original edit is neither highly suggestive and thus easy to interpret incorrectly, nor a case where the revert was caused by a technical issue such as me hitting the wrong button or accidentally reverting two consecutive edits instead of one. Instead I remember this revert and I completely misread the text being added - I'm not entirely sure what I thought I read any more but I am pretty sure it hadn't anything to do with a day of traffic chaos caused by switching driving lanes.

So again, sorry for this one. Guess I'll be pouring myself a cup of coffee (Or better even: Two) and see if that wakes me up sufficiently to return to reverting vandalism. Misfiring on suggestive edits or accidentally hitting the wrong key is something that can happen, but flat out "What on earth was i thinking?" reverts I'd like to keep to an absolute minimum . Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:24, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

You didn't warn me at all. I only noticed because (current) wasn't on my contributions page on the Flash Cut line. I guess you get a lot of complaints by vandals when you're fighting vandals, so I was thankful that you didn't treat my message as a baseless complaint, and also thank you for the nice response after that. 208.95.51.115 (talk) 21:51, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Question about claim of civility

And what of this admin who is also not being civil; are his comments being removed? Did you see the comment of mine that he deleted which explains he was continuing to be uncivil? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C2:1402:3E60:7DBB:5FF0:B683:99D4 (talk) 23:36, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

@2601:1C2:1402:3E60:7DBB:5FF0:B683:99D4: I do not see why this is relevant at all. This edit is quite simply a no-go, irregardless of the situation or whose signature is behind it: If that same comment had been placed on your talk page by another editor and I'd have spotted it my reaction would have been identical. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 00:10, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

I see it as relevant because while I don't disagree with your judgement on my comment, what you seem to be implying (and maybe I have this wrong) is that you DO NOT consider him using false claims to justify his actions as an Admin (or Editor?) and being snide, sarcastic, and dismissive uncivil. That does't gel. Especially when, if you read the history of posts, you may (and hopefully will) see that his doing so is because he refuses to acknowledge that what I've explained to him multiple times in multiple ways is true and that he can go and verify everything by just clicking on and reading the articles (however contrary that information is to his personal beliefs).

And I'm not sure how far back you can see but I was civil at first and tried to explain multiple times when making the edits (as he very quickly deleted them, seemingly without reading them - although apparently he did later) that everything was true and accurate - and I asked multiple times for him to please not delete my edits as they began a much needed work in progress (i.e. the mission statement of Wikipedia) - but no. That's where my lack of civility began with the edit war which ended with a block and my first post on his talk page (which again, I must admit did not help my goal of getting him to see reason, but that doesn't mean he had to sink to my level rather than considering what I had explained). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C2:1402:3E60:878:FB28:1340:85BD (talk) 12:25, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

I suppose i should have elaborated a bit further on this question - writing a response right before calling it a day helps keep things brief but this may have ended up being a little too brief to serve as an answer. Some context first: My main activity around the Wiki is vandalism patrol, which pretty much equals looking at diffs to determine if an edit is productive or not. If something is productive that's great, if something is not it is reverted and if something is an edge case it warrants another look, manual intervention or assumption of good faith followed by a move to the next edit. Since i solemnly look at diffs all i see is the information the editor added or changed and a note if they were warned for unproductive edits before. Technically more information is on the screen (meta data about the editor) but i tend to ignore it fully in order to judge an edit on its own merit so to prevent a self-fulfilling prophecy (Edits by IP editors and new accounts tend to cause more trouble, but if one keeps looking whether an editor is new it may just be a reason to doubt their edits more often as well).

While busy around the wiki i ended up looking at the edit i linked earlier. The edit itself is a no-go as it contains nothing beyond a personal attack aimed at another person. At that point i really don't care who made edit nor do i care if the edit was a response to previous incivility: If you see a lit powder keg you throw a bucket of water over it in order to defuse it - arguing who actually lit the keg and would thus be responsible for defusing it wouldn't solve the fuse being on fire.

Now, at this stage this type of problem usually shifts into the question who is to blame for this. Of course I could spend the next hour sifting through all the interaction between the both of you before writing a wall of text explaining:

• If the reverts were warranted

• And if that should warrant further action being taken.
• Or if the reverted were good but perhaps too heavy-handed.

• If you were block evading

• And if this was or wasn't intentional
• And if that should have consequences

• If your edits were uncivil

• If that occurred before and thus should be frowned at at.
• And.....

Now, I hope that list looks about as silly to you as it looks to me. From my point of view the both of you were busy trying to do something productive, ran into each other, got entangled and somehow managed to roll downhill in the process. The best way to solve that is getting untangled, having a laugh about it and then walking back up the hill again. Failing that its always possible to exchange and angry glare about the entire thing before dropping the matter. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 19:11, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

... Sadly this is still relevant because the post he deleted also explained my next move which is going to be to write up corrections and explanations for those corrections, and citations for those corrections, for both the Low Fantasy and High Fantasy pages in order to fix the information on both which is currently wrong and/or misleading. I believe this Admin fully intends to continue being dismissive and disruptive to this process as he has deleted my comments and posts multiple times and has explained multiple times to me that he refuses to acknowledge the facts of what I've presented to him (multiple times).

He has already deleted my comments, lied, and falsely accused me and then taken measures as an Admin to punish me for those false accusations - and I will not have him continue to undermine the quality of these articles, especially after submitting this write up which I will do to both his talk page and the talk pages of both articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C2:1402:3E60:D104:5961:E8B3:3902 (talk • contribs)

Ok, there are a few things i should point out here:

1. MelbourneStar is not an admin and neither did he block you. The block was issued by Drmies for what I believe to be a combination of the personal attacks in the edits and edit summaries, and the edit war on the article.
2. I am fairly certain MelbourneStar has no specific interest in the article beyond happening to be there while on vandalism patrol. The revert itself was likely triggered by the commentary in the edit, eg: "Everything below is incorrect but I will leave the decision of whether to edit/delete any of it to someone else" and not the rest of the text on its own. Looking at the next edit it quite plainly states "By all means, edit the article", with some added pointers as to what was deemed problematic. I'd say that clearly states "Go ahead with what you're doing, just keep these things in mind".
3. As for the reverted edit you mention: I interpret Melbourne's "seeing as we're past the insults" line as "I'm glad there is no more calling people a dick or asswipe so lets talk about the article (Eg:"happy to engage with you on this topic")". Now reread your own response after that: more than half of it is another barrage of attacks. If anything this reminds me of my own edit note on top of this page: "Keep it friendly. Treat me as you would like to be treated yourself. If your desire is to be treated impolitely, I won't respond at all.". And yes, I see this as one of those "I won't respond at all" comments.

We're now four days past this incident occurred so really, stop charging at the windmills thinking they are giants. We can argue to eternity who was at fault and it won't benefit any involved party or Wikipedia as a whole. In my eyes this is clearly a situation where two random editors happened to slam into each other, and not a conspiracy to prevent anyone from editing an article. So if nothing else drop the grudge and agree to disagree on the matter, but don't keep harping over it. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:46, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining all of that; everything makes a lot more sense now. The divisions of responsibility here are very complex to someone (me) who is taking this much interest in editing on Wikipedia for the first time so I very much appreciate the objectivity. I see that MelbourneStar is responsible for much less than I attributed to him at first and apologize for the misunderstanding that caused. I will continue my efforts now on the actual write up for the talk pages. That being said, if MelbourneStar had been an admin doing of all that it would seem to me to be a major conflict of interest so re-reading my deleted post I still think it's pretty damn funny (thanks for keeping it archived). Also, isn't a more modern idiom "feeding trolls"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C2:1402:3E60:3D40:EC06:C2F7:6330 (talk) 10:43, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
	Thank you for making so, so many edits to stop vandalism in its tracks. Pinkshrimp (talk) 19:28, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

@Pinkshrimp: - Thank you very muck! Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 23:11, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

A message from Seansandakn

Hey, How did you respond to my "contribution" so fast? Seansandakn (talk) 19:45, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

By watching recent changes made to the wiki in near real-time. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 23:13, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Once Upon a Time (season 6)

Just letting you know that this revert at Once Upon a Time (season 6) was unfounded; the IP was correct in removing the content. If one reviewed the sources given for he future episodes, they would find that they do not support the episode titles. Cheers. Alex|The|Whovian^? 01:48, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

@AlexTheWhovian: This is a revert I would repeat under similar circumstances. The problem isn't that the content removal is necessarily bad - the problem is that it is unexplained. There was no edit summary or anything else stating why the content removal was needed so there is no indication if this is legit content cutting or removal vandalism. The editor later repeated the removal with an edit summary indicating these were future episodes. That was enough for me to understand why the content was removed and hence, allow it through when i saw it. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 07:59, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I mean, sure, all to their own, but it's up to the editors to review the initial removal to see if it was valid, if it's not obvious vandalism, instead of blank reverting an editor's helpful and contributing edits. I would have also recommended using {{uw-editsummary}} on the editor's talk page. Alex|The|Whovian^? 08:02, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

@AlexTheWhovian: The {{uw-delete1}} was specifically created for this scenario: It states why the edit was reverted and explains the usage of an edit summary.

As for reviewing content removal: If i were to remove the full "Vitamin A regulation" section from the Gut-specific homing article this edit could be pure vandalism just as readily as it could also be a decent contribution. I could be cleaning up a copyrighted violation or removing information completely unrelated to the subject of the article, but i could also be removing content just for the hell of it. Since editors are not mindreaders it is generally best to err on the side of caution and reinstate the content: It is easier to re-remove content than to sift through an article's history to reinstate it if so required. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 08:57, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Up to you how you edit. I'll just keep an eye out for reverting valid contributions. Alex|The|Whovian^? 09:19, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Norfolk, Massachusetts

• Norfolk, Massachusetts (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Thanks for zapping the accounts having fun at the above but the only good edits since May 2016 were to add a comma and to adjust the coordinates. The history suggests that semi-protection for a week or more is needed to get the person to move on. Johnuniq (talk) 02:36, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: The last vandalism spree in June 2016 seems to have died off right after both accounts ended up blocked. For now i'll keep an eye on the article though i hope that we'll have the same "Gone when blocked" situation we had last time. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 09:22, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Can we talk about Huggle?

Hi Excirial,

As part of the Edit Review Improvements project, we are exploring ways in which new filtering capabilities can better support different review activities. As part of this effort we are considering how some of the ideas could be integrated into Huggle among other tools, and we want to better understand how these tools are used, identify where and how the new filters can be more useful, and discuss some initial ideas.

We plan to organise a small discussion session during the coming weeks, and since you already provided useful feedback on the ERI-Huggle talk page, we think you are an ideal candidate to participate. If you have time for a quick 30min. session, let us know.

To participate, please email the following information to me, pginer@wikimedia.org:

• Username
• city/time zone
• Best time to talk to you?
• Email where we can reach you
• Please use the subject line: Huggle User Conversations

Thanks! Pginer-WMF (talk) 10:26, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

A message from Rocckker13

Hello Excirial, I deleted the article I created: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christos_Rafalides because of a number of issues within it including and indexing issue and a lack of review. it has since been moved to the draft space for work and revision. Thank you. Rocckker13 (talk) 19:27, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Hiyas Rocckker13

I see you used cut and paste to move the article from Christos Rafalides to Draft:Christos Rafalides. While cut and paste works there are two problems with that method:

• Cut and paste doesn't delete the article. Instead and empty article behind in the mainspace.
• A second issue is that, for legal reasons, edits to an article must be tracable in the article's history. If a cut and paste move is used the article history is left behind on the old page, while a new history is started on the pasted article (Effectively splicing the history in half).

I performed a so-called histmerge on the article to merge both article histories back together. If you want to move an article around it is best to use the page move functionality since it moves the pages history over as well. If there is an article obstructing the move (I suspect the draft was in the way?) that can be tagged with {{db-g6}} to mark it for removal (Be sure to add an edit summary explaining the reason for the tag though!). Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 11:22, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Here is a Barnstar!

		The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
		You always seem to revert Vandalism before I can even look at the page. Keep up the great work! Tompop888 (talk) (contribs) 00:27, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you!

Something that may factor into the speed are the settings i use for Huggle. By default Huggle loads the page history, user history, ORES score and for each revision, which results in several query's being send to the server. Huggle only adds a diff to the queue once all data has been loaded, so the more it has to fetch the longer it will take to add it to the queue. Since i don't use any of that extra info i set Huggle to only load the diffs themselves which speeds up loading data and saves bandwidth. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 19:22, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting. I'll try changing my Huggle settings to see if that speeds it up, thanks! Tompop888 ^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:34, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

@Tompop888: I believe these are the ones i changed:

• Options -> Reverting -> (Enable) use Instant Reverts (Without this huggle waits 6 seconds before executing a revert - this can be used to hammer the cancel button if you mispress)
• Options -> Performance -> (Disable) Automatically load history and user info (Disabling this helps a lot, but you will lose the page history view and it will no longer display if a user has been warned before)
• Options -> Extensions -> (Disable) Ores Plugin \ Scoring plugin (I am not certain about the name, since disabling it only shows the DLL name).

May be one or two more, but those are the ones i recall right away. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 19:39, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Ok, I'll try using those settings and see how Huggle performs, again, thanks! Tompop888 ^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:42, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Carole Middleton

I cannot fix tiny spelling error - "its" should not have apostrophe in the "Business success..." section - on this page. Please help as you have done. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.182.96.231 (talk) 06:47, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Looks like it was fixed in this edit Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 13:57, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Clarence Thomas

related to this edit
Hello sorry I was experimenting and did not know that thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by PaulBunyan79 (talk • contribs) 20:42, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

A message from 172.81.80.5

172.81.80.5 (talk) 21:23, 27 February 2017 (UTC)I removed the content as I felt it was not the correct information. The person who created the content in the wiki is not providing the correct data since they want to promote the film by falsifying information.

Please be sure to add that information to the edit summary when saving the edit. This edit summary is saved in the pages history and can be viewed by anyone reviewing this history. Without a summary explaining an edit it can be nigh impossible to determine why an edit was made - this is especially the case when a large amount of existing content is removed. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 15:21, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I have never edited or changed wiki but you sent me a message saying I had edited dwight gayles page.

86.175.9.211 (talk) 13:15, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Your IP address, 86.175.9.211, was used on February 15 to edit the page Dwight Gayle. IP Addresses are often not statically assigned to a single user though, so it is quite possible that another person previously utilized your current IP address to edit Wikipedia. If this is the case, feel free to ignore the warning message altogether. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 15:26, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

A message from 34.192.250.252

I am sorry for my apparent outburst. I just think uneducated people shouldn't be allowed near intellectual sites such as this one. Please don't ban me 34.192.250.252 (talk) 21:57, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Johnny Strong Wikipedia Page

Hello, I am the manager for Johnny Strong. Someone keeps changing his birth year to 1974, which is false information. I have tried to change it, but someone keeps changing it back. Maybe it would be best if we deleted it all together. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teamjstrong (talk • contribs) 19:41, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Hello Teamjstrong,

Due to everyone being able to edit Wikipedia vandalism can be a hassle to deal with at times, though usually the vast majority of it is reverted in minutes. It looks like this particular user is somewhat more hell-bent on changing the page compared to the usual hit-and-run vandalism. Thankfully that editor seems to have the same IP address every day so i went ahead and blocked that address from editing for the next two weeks. With some luck that will be enough for them to lose interest in the page. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:15, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

A message from Drewmutt

Hi there! I just wanted to say I've seen you around doing some fantastic AV work and I'm sure I'm not the first to tell you that it's great to have sage folks like you for us newer guys to look up to. On a slightly related topic, it looks like you are able to do more than the packaged warns in Huggle although your config looks normal, any pro-tips? Thanks in advance! Drewmutt (^ᴥ^) talk 22:09, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Hiyas there Drewmutt,

Vandalism patrol is really wonderful in the sense that it doesn't matter when you start with it. Aside from me being able to reminiscence about the "good old days" where reverting vandalism required 5-10 clicks each and the patrol tools were no more sophisticated than "Scan if someone added 'poop' in a diff" anyone can do the same thing. If anything it's always nice to see other editors who also don't mind playing whack-a-mole game to keep things squeaky clean around here!

As for the packaged warnings - is there any specific warning or diff you are referring to? Initially I thought you were not aware of the dropdown next to the warning buttons but I see now that you are obviously using those as well. If you can give me an example of an edit that looks special i might be able to shed some light on the magic in there. (If there is any magic of course) Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:36, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your feedback! In my limited experience, I can say that I don't miss pawing through the recent changes feed ^_^ So, in looking for the example, I was thinking of this, then I went into HG, and there it was.. so that's embarrassing. It's just not one that I use a lot so that's probably why it must of been magic!

Also, I'm sure you know a lot more about this than I so any feedback would be welcome, but I got into playing with the Huggle Configuration (cautiously) and I found that you can add more warns and magic! Oh, and your talk page inspired me to head over to Huggle Proposed Improvements page, so I look forward to becoming more involved with the HG folks. Although no matter what improvements are added, I doubt any of them would be able to beat you to a revert Drewmutt (^ᴥ^) talk 23:11, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2017).

Administrator changes

Amortias • Deckiller • BU Rob13

Ronnotel • Islander • Chamal N • Isomorphic • Keeper76 • Lord Voldemort • Shereth • Bdesham • Pjacobi

Guideline and policy news

• A recent RfC has redefined how articles on schools are evaluated at AfD. Specifically, secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist.
• AfDs that receive little participation should now be closed like an expired proposed deletion, following a deletion process RfC.
• Defender, HakanIST, Matiia and Sjoerddebruin are our newest stewards, following the 2017 steward elections.
• The 2017 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Góngora, Krd, Lankiveil, Richwales and Vogone. They will serve for approximately 1 year.

Technical news

• A recent query shows that only 16% of administrators on the English Wikipedia have enabled two-factor authentication. If you haven't already enabled it please consider doing so.
• Cookie blocks should be deployed to the English Wikipedia soon. This will extend the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user after they switch accounts under a new IP.
• A bot will now automatically place a protection template on protected pages when admins forget to do so.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:14, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

rakanishu666A message from Rakanishu666

User JJMC89 had no previous issue with article notability, making several edits. nd only after edit conflicts, schedules the article for deletion discussion. This is clearly COI. This needs to be removed from deletion discussion. Rakanishu666 (talk) 22:03, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@Rakanishu666: Copyediting is something that can be done fairly quickly without looking at the included references, so i wouldn't consider this a direct mark of quality for the article. The deletion rationale itself is a valid one and multiple editors have already weighted in on the AFD discussion. I can see no clear indication that this nomination was obviously disruptive or malicious so i don't see a reason to consider this AFD halfway. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:15, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

A message from 129.118.77.110

I added hidden text to the Milo of Croton page because I wanted to test whether I could trick students who are cheating on online quizzes. I was hoping to find out whether I could influence where a search engine sent them. Since I did not have a chance to test this, perhaps you could tell me. Do you happen to know whether Google includes Wikipedia comment text in its hits? Could I insert some invisible misleading text on a few pages for 24 hours, or is that a violation of an important Wikipedia policy? 129.118.77.110 (talk) 21:15, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@129.118.77.110: Let me pose two counter questions:

• A high search ranking is considered a primary concern for many individuals, companies and the marketing agencies representing these. Would it therefore be logical that Google's search and answer algorithm could fooled by merely adding random HTML comments on a page?
• You are adding HTML comments to a Wikipedia article which have no relation to the subject in the article, do not improve the article in any way and are in fact malicious as their sole purpose would be misleading Google's answer to a question entered in the search box which would not only affect the students mentioned but every user worldwide. Does this, under any circumstance, sound like it would be acceptable?

And yes, there are rhetorical questions which was hopefully fairly obvious. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:42, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

A message from 132.177.238.71

Re: European dragon edit. My apologies - I only made the change to demonstrate to my students in real-time how anyone can edit Wikipedia. Was about to change it right back but you were faster. Sorry for the inconvenience. 132.177.238.71 (talk) 22:18, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Hello there 132.177.238.71,

I suppose this edit earlier today had the same purpose? If this is the case, may I recommend the public Sandbox or your current IP addresses talk page for these demonstrations? Edits in the main article space tend to be monitored in real-time so demonstration edits such as these generates some extra work for the patrols currently on duty. Further down the road these edits will pop up for editors who have the test page watchlisted and thus they equally spend some time checking the now reverted demonstration edit. It's not a massive waste of time by any stretch of the word but well, it's not the most productive way one can spend their time either.

On a secondary note: Might i ask why these demonstrations are held? Is this just a quick and actually fairly common demonstration to explain why no-one should just blindly copy content from Wikipedia, or is tgis part of a school course such as one of the currently running school and university projects? Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:42, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

A message from Kendall-K1

You probably already know this, but you can also just use Template:Uw-vandalism4im on a vandalism-only IP account. Kendall-K1 (talk) 21:43, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

@Kendall-K1:

Aye, i am aware that is possible but i tend to reserve those for the most severe cases of vandalism. IP's can represent multiple users so occasionally one or two warnings are enough to stem the influx of vandalism for a while without having to resort to a block. Besides that Huggle automatically selects the next warning level when an edit is reverted - its possible to override this but doing so tends to take more time than just reverting twice or trice. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:25, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

It's very unlikely for a IPv6 if the ISP is following the rules but I commend your tolerance. I've been using Twinkle, must look in to Huggle. Kendall-K1 (talk) 00:28, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

File:Arthur Winnington-Ingram, Bishop of London c1901.png

Please could you kindly remove the above image from en.Wikipedia, because that 2012 upload now contains outdated and inaccurate details, and it's in the wrong place.

The image is no longer unfree, and I have re-uploaded it on Commons as File:Arthur Winnington-Ingram before 1939.png (don't remove that one please!). Storye book (talk) 16:29, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Hiyas there Storye book,

This one is  Done as requested Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:25, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Thankyou. Much appreciated. Storye book (talk) 10:44, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Ljubiša Diković

Hi.

The reason why I removed so much content is because Ljubiša Diković was never charged with war crimes before ICTY. He was not charged before any national court by the state prosecutors. The only charge against him (which was dropped) was started by NGOs, some of which are used as a source in the removed content. Those NGOs were also court ordered to pay damages to Dikovic after he sued them. The content I removed also seemed very POV. Hope that explains it. 91.148.95.226 (talk) 19:25, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi there 91.148.95.226,

Please be sure to add this kind of information in the edit summary when removing a large chunk of content. If the rationale is hard to summarize, leave a rationale such as "Removing content - see talk page for rationale" and post the explanation on the article's talk page. Without some form of explanation removing a large chunk of text will be indistinguishable from vandalism for most people. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 19:32, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll try to summarize it before removing. 91.148.95.226 (talk) 19:34, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

66.76.33.114

66.76.33.114 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

Hi,

I'm not sure if 31 hours will be enough to stop this editor. They appear to have been blocked several other times for much longer durations. Thanks. 172.58.40.146 (talk) 21:14, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@172.58.40.146:

The address is a static IP so it is indeed more likely to represent the same user over a longer timespan. However, their last block was about a year ago and since static IP's are not entirely immutable it may be another user these days. If anything the IP can be blocked for a more extensive period of time if it persists with its current behaviour.. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:29, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Please block

...rather than warn, for racist vandalism [4]. Thank you, 2601:188:1:AEA0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 22:06, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@2601:188:1:AEA0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63:

The editor didn't receive a level 4 warning yet, so it is really best to just warn them a couple more times as they may turn into a valuable and productive editor yet. Oh, who am i kidding here? That name and those edits make this a case where we just "measure the length of the rope that will be used anyway". Blocked and tagged. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:17, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Exactly. When it's that blatantly offensive, is it policy to rev/delete as one would a personal attack or copyright violation? Thank you and cheers, 2601:188:1:AEA0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 22:32, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@2601:188:1:AEA0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63: It doubt anyone would mind it being deleted under criterion 2. The problem is that this type of vandalism is so common that one could spend half an evening deleting revisions while still not managing to cover them all. For most part these edits will get buried in the page history - its unlikely they will ever be reverted to. Personally I tend to revdel when vandalism is specifically targeted (Eg: On a BLP page / on a school page / when a name and surname are included and so on) and leave the rest to page history purgatory to take care of. However, i tend to make an exception if people ask for a removal of specific revisions (If within policy of course) so i'll happily remove these three. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 23:09, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that on all counts--it's as if we need a team of admins whose sole function is to red/del broadly offensive graffiti--and I appreciate your taking the time to respond here, and to follow up on this. Very best, 2601:188:1:AEA0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 23:12, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Vandalism

Your old friend is back again at User talk:204.129.158.106 Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 10:16, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

And he seems to be gone once more. Perhaps it will even stay that way. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:45, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

A message from 148.252.128.26

IP addresses, Wikipedia and you.

Dear Excirial

I have no recollection of recently editing the Heysham School page (an edit which you advise me you have had to reject) - it is not a subject about which I have any knowledge or in which I have any interest. I do not drink alcohol or take drugs (I am not being sarcastic!), nor am I (to the best of my knowledge) mentally impaired, so I am genuinely puzzled by your message.

Yours perplexedly

Neil Saunders 148.252.128.26 (talk) 14:17, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Hello Neil,

If you have no account on Wikipedia the Mediawiki software that runs Wikipedia will recognize you based on your IP Address which is assigned to you by your Internet Service Provider as opposed to recognizing you as a logged in account which has a username. This mechanism ensures that it is still possible to communicate with editors who wish to edit anonymously. IP Addresses can be statically assigned but often they are dynamically assigned instead. In laymans terms: An IP Address may either be assigned to a specific internet subscriber or collected in a pool and given out on a first come, first serve basis. In the latter case you will likely receive a new (and different) IP address each time you reset your router.

If you are assigned a random IP address it may have been used to edit Wikipedia before by another editor. Due to this it is possible to receive a notification that previously send to another user who used this particular address. In your case it seems that the then-owner of the IP address was warned but never looked at the warning, and no-one did so in the meantime (So when you visited Wikipedia, you were suddenly provided with a notification regarding an edit made about a month ago). This is a frequent source of confusion so I've opted to create an image that explains the situation. (Click to enlarge). Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:56, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

A message from 206.174.14.180

it was a mistake 206.174.14.180 (talk) 21:17, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

No worries; Mistakes can always occur. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 12:19, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

A message from Eddie891

Hello Excirial. I noticed that you recently undid an edit made by the IP address I edit from (45.47.111.86). I would just like to clarify that that vandal is not me, and ask if there is a way to indicate that the IP is shared. Great work stopping vandalism! Eddie891 (talk) 21:35, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi there Eddie891

There are a few templates that can mark an IP address as being dynamic. The most common one is likely {{Shared IP}} - that template has a few more variations for specific shared IP categories (Such as schools or companies. The IP you mentioned seems to be registered as a static IP (Though this may be incorrect, or the IP may have a longer TTL on its assignment than usual). If it is a static address the most appropriate template is likely {{Static IP}}. Otherwise the {{Shared IP}} template is likely the most appropriate one, unless you are currently editing from a school, company or other location specifically covered by the various template variations. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 18:54, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion, I merely meant to say that, while this is one laptop, multiple people use it. I have gone ahead and used the {{static IP}} template. While it may have taken little time on your part to answer this question, it really helped me, so thank you.  Done Eddie891 (talk) 12:18, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Quick Question from Tompop888

So let's say that an editor has been editing to an article/articles numerous times, vandalizing many times. However, the editors that keep reverting their edits don't leave any warnings on the vandalizing editor's talk page. Would this be an appropriate time to use the only warning (4im) template? Just wondering sense I have stumbled upon this situation a few times. Tompop888 ^{(talk) (contribs)} 21:25, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

@Tompop888:

In my eyes these situations tend to be judgement calls that heavily rely upon the actual edits that were made. The 4Im templates are the harshly worded "Cease and desist " templates that won't really do as a welcome for most users. 4IM's can be issued in these situations, but only if the vandalism is plain and clear and no degree of good faith could possibly apply (Eg: Adding swear words, replacing the page with random gibberish or other nonsense).

Other cases may warrant a less heavy-handed approach. While random page blankings and removals of entire sections are often just vandalism they can - at times - be attempts to fix some perceived issue in the article. In those cases the editor may not be malicious and shouldn't be hit with a 4IM at once if no-one even bothered to explain why their edits were undone (These people may have no clue what an edit summary or talk page is after all). Of course the first template could be a level 1 warning, followed by a level 3 or even a level 4 if the same (clear) issues persist.

In any case you may want to give a nudge to the editors who revert without warning, especially if the vandalism is persistent on the same page and reverted by the same editors. Without a warning to accompany a revert its can just turn into an eternal back-and-forth edit war which is a waste of everyone's time. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:21, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

François Joseph Paul de Grasse

Hello, Excirial - I'm in the middle of copy-editing Spanish ship Fenix (1749), and one of the figures mentioned in that article is François Joseph Paul de Grasse. As I was reading that article, I saw that there was a "citation needed" tag at the last sentence in François Joseph Paul de Grasse#Early life. I see that you have edited Knights Hospitaller, so I was wondering if you might be able to find a source for this sentence.  – Corinne (talk) 15:50, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi there Corinne,

My edit on this page was part of my regular vandalism patrol beat since the page was vandalized in this edit. Beyond just happening to be on the page by pure coincidence i don't have any subject knowledge or familiarity with the topic of the page. If i look at the edit history though it seems that the statement was added somewhere in 2006 by David Kernow. David hasn't edited in seven years but he did cite two sources in the edit. On first glance it looks like the statement was origionally sourced from this page as the age statement ("At the age of eleven") seems to match.

Hope this helps with the CE of your own page! Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:04, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for looking into this and for the links. I think I'll have to find an editor who is familiar with European history to sort this out. I think you are right, that both pieces of information in that sentence in "Early life" come from newadvent.org, which is the source for the first sentence of François Joseph Paul de Grasse#Naval career, so I don't know why the reference number, indicating it is from that source, doesn't follow the end of the sentence. Can we just put it there? (I don't usually add content, so I'm not sure.) Also, I noticed that the second sentence in "Naval career" has a "citation needed" tag. The sentence reads:

• In 1741 at the age of 19, he entered the French Navy.

However, in the article to which you provided a link, on newadvent.org, it says "In 1739 he entered the French navy". There is a discrepancy in the year. Perhaps Ykraps can help.  – Corinne (talk) 03:31, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

(tps) Alas, more options. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 51:3 (1927) has an article The Strange Case of Admiral de Grasse, which says he became a cadet in the French Navy "... when he was twelve years old, in the year 1733.". Of course that is a) different to either of the dates we already have, and b) suggests he was born in 1721.

There's also a book - "Admiral de Grasse and American Independence" (1945) by H.A. Trexler - which would clear it up. But at present I only have a book review of it which states that he became a Navy cadet at 14, after two years with the Hospitallers. On balance this accords better with our birth date and current Hospitaller mention, but not with the idea that he joined the Navy at 19.

Acad Ronin is also worth asking, as a regular editor on French naval matters. -- Euryalus (talk) 04:20, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Les hommes illustres du Département de l'Oise: bibliothèque du Beauvaisis; notices biographiques, critiques, analyses littéraires, citations d'ouvrages, documents particuliers, etc. by Charles Braine (Published 1858) - Says he was born in 1723 and entered the navy (Marine Royale) in 1749 making him 26yo. However before that (from the age of 11 or 1734) he was employed as an ensign on the galleys of the Knights Hospitaller (p.541). Online version here [[5]] --Ykraps (talk) 14:16, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Thanks for all your help! Alvarez50 (talk) 16:49, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

A message from 2606:A000:C757:CAF0:81CF:79DF:C53F:B6FE

Hi, you have a wiki page that lists examples of Moving companies in the United States. I am the web biographer for The REAL Greater Charlotte Movers & Cleaners, and am having a hard time getting our link assigned to the right Letter on the external link page. We do national moves just as the other companies listed.

Our link is http://charlottemovers.us and the page we should be on is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Moving_companies_of_the_United_States

Thank you for your assistance. Rob 2606:A000:C757:CAF0:81CF:79DF:C53F:B6FE (talk) 21:31, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Hello Rob,

Category pages such as the one listed above are only intended to categorize pages that have their own article - they are not intended for the addition of external links. The usual follow-up question to this response is "what can be done to create an article that can be listed?". To pre-empt that question: In order to have a stand-alone article for on any topic it must meet multiple criteria, though there are specific criteria for companies as well. The vast majority of the companies will not pass those criteria and won't be suitable for inclusion. To exemplify this: For every hundred company related article creations only a handful (Closer to 1 than to 5 in that regards) is actually notable and retained. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:49, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

A message from Sjö

Hi! Could you take a look at 129.63.85.46 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) who refactors comments on their user talk page while blocked, and decide if the block needs to be longer? To me, disruptive editing while blocked means that they will continue with the vandalism when the block is released. I posted a report at WP:AIV but the helperbot helpfully removed my report since the IP already was blocked. Sjö (talk) 12:10, 14 March 2017 (UTC

@Sjö: I don't think this one really needs a block extension or a reset as the talk page was vandalized right after the (school) IP was blocked. I assume the editor was a random university student who has long since left the school building and is - hopefully - not going to resume the same pattern later on. If the IP returns and exhibits the same behaviour a more lengthy school block can always be handed out as needed though. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:52, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

A message from 168.184.246.57

Dear Excirial, This must be some kind of mistake. You have the wrong person. I did not edit your article about Josh Freeman. He is a awesome player and I would never write anything bad about him.168.184.246.57 (talk) 16:12, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Hello there 168.184.246.57,

The warning you are referring to was placed on your IP addresses talk page back in 2012. IP Addresses are generally not static (And especially not across a five year time span) so it is very likely the IP used to be assigned to someone else who actually made the edit. As the IP has now been assigned to you the warning message placed back then will still be present. If it wasn't you, just disregard it entirely. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:55, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Sandhoe picture

related edit
Thanks new to wiki couldn't upload it to the page Tom henry (talk) 21:23, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

No problem at all, happy to help! Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:56, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

A message from TeresaPelka

Hi Excirial, this is the third time I receive a user talk message for me to refrain from making disruptive contributions to "C.B.S. Charleville": the IP address, when I look it up over the net, is mine, and I am the only person to use my laptop, as far as I know, but I have only just looked up the page "C.B.S. Charleville", I am certain I never made any contributions, and I do not intend to make any. Your warning is you will prevent me from contributing to Wikipedia altogether: I do sometimes, and would rather keep going. Is there a resolve? There has to be a mistake in interpreting IP addresses. TeresaPelka (talk) 12:10, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Hello TeresaPelka,

First off, welcome to the wonderful and confusing world of IP Addresses and the various methods of distributing them across the internet! Whenever you connect to Wikipedia before logging in Wikipedia will only know you as an IP Adress which is assigned to your connection by your Internet service provider. For reference sake, consider IP Addresses to be somewhat akin to a hotel room you're hiring. If i wanted to drop by for a visit hotel address and number, otherwise there would be no possibility for me to find you. An IP Address is similar to this - its essentially a location identifier that is assigned to you.

Now, consider a few variants of the "Hotel Room" example:

• If you are staying at a hotel multiple times, you may receive a different room each time.
• If you are staying at a hotel multiple times, you may consistently stay in the same room each time.
• The hotel room may have two beds, so not only you may be there, but another person may be there is all.

All these possibilities apply to IP Addresses as well. Your internet service provider may either be assigning you a new address each time you restart your router, but they may also be granting you a static address. However, even if you are granted a static address multiple people may be using the same outbound address at the same time (In this case your Internet service provider keeps track of "hotel rooms" occupants and ensures that everyone knocking on the door will reach the correct tenant behind it). This entire thing is actually more technical than this but i hope this makes sense in laymans terms.

Now, before you log into an account Wikipedia will only recognize you by your IP Address which may or may not be shared with other people. Seeing your comments this is a case where other people may be editing from the same IP address as well which results in the warnings you will notice before logging in. If the IP address is persistently used for vandalism it may indeed eventually be (temporally) blocked from editing to prevent further abuse. However, your own account should be separate from this entirely - while your IP address might be blocked from editing the account won't be. In these cases Wikipedia recognized that the account is editing from a blocked IP but it will understand the account itself is not blocked.

There are some more nuances to the above, but the short version is: If you're not vandalizing the page just ignore the warnings entirely and just log into your account if the IP address would end up being blocked. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:47, 16 March 2017 (UTC)