User talk:Shirik/Archives/2010/June

112.204.35.67's Case.

Sorry to ask, it's my first time filing out one of the reports. Special:Contributions/112.204.35.67 and Special:Contributions/112.204.20.142 have very similar patterns. The former being banned for 6 months. So I don't know whether a check whether both IPs are the same user is necessary or not? Sb617 (Talk) 23:50, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

"Checkuser" is a tool that is primarily used to determine the IP address(es) of editors' accounts are similar or identical (or looking at an IP and determining what accounts are on it). Naturally, we already know the IP addresses here, so it's not really going to tell us much. In that case, it would have been more appropriate to file an SPI report without a checkuser request. This is, of course, unless you have some other reason to suspect that a checkuser is necessary, such as suspecting that there is an account on this IP as well. However, your evidence doesn't show any suspicion of that, which is why I asked. If you don't have reason to suspect that, I can convert the case into a case without a checkuser request; I just need confirmation that you don't have any particular need for it. Regards, Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 23:53, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

The IP doesnt have a registered account to my knowledge, but in the past was known to be stable. So if you can convert to a normal case without a CU, that would be appreciated. Sb617 (Talk) 23:57, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

 Done Easy case, case closed, IP blocked. Thanks, Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 00:21, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Response

I have responded on my talk page.--RM (Be my friend) 03:53, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Megafauna man

Hi Shirik, Would it be possible to go back to the live filter that was working for our megafauna friend? I've added the latest at the bottom of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds#Megafauna?. Thanks, First Light (talk) 04:04, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Replied there, Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 04:15, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Sockpuppet investigation

I appreciate your wp:Good faith additude regarding Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ARTEST4ECHO/Archive. I was wondering if you could help me to prevent this from happening again. I'm not sure if user:Lisan1978 is a WP:COWORKER or something, so I want to follow the advice as written there, "To avoid accusations of sock puppetry, users in that position should declare the connection on their user pages." What dose that entail? I'm not even sure who this account is or if 160.142.1.16 is my at home Comcast account number. I believe that user:Donnie Park had no ill intentions, but it's no fun being accused of breaking wikipidea rules. I would like to avoid this issue again. Is there a way to verify my account as being independent of user:Lisan1978 or user:160.142.1.16? —Preceding unsigned comment added by ARTEST4ECHO (talk • contribs) 06:20, 1 June 2010

Hi ARTEST4ECHO. Normally the next step would have been to run a checkuser. This is a tool which a very limited number of users can use to check IPs of accounts and retrieve other server log data. If you are independent of those users, this tool would have indicated as such. This case didn't even get that far because I found significant differences without the tool, and we prefer only to use that tool when there is reasonable suspicion of sockpuppetry (as it is a privacy-related matter). If you don't know that Lisan1978 is a coworker, etc., then don't bother trying to declare it; it is likely they are not. The phrase you are referring to is intended for users that know that other accounts might be linked together with the checkuser tool, such as families in the same household, or known coworkers. Since you're not in that position, it's best to ignore it. I refer you to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/SPI/Guidance#Defending_yourself_against_claims where it mentions that "if you have not abused multiple accounts or IPs and have not breached the policy on meat-puppetry, then that will almost always be the finding". Sorry you got caught up in this mess and I hope it never happens again. Regards, Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 13:34, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice. I will try and ignore it. Again, it's just no fun.--ARTEST4ECHO ^talk 13:36, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Re: UAA

Hi. Sorry about that: thanks for letting me know. What's the threshold that wakes the bot? I saw 20 untouched reports and assumed it must be loafing. -- Rrburke (talk) 14:13, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I think it should have already marked it backlogged and I've kicked the people responsible for it to see if it's broken for another reason as well. I'm not exactly sure what the header's supposed to look like, but I do know when the header's broken it tends to just sit around. Someone should take a look at it shortly. I thought the threshold was 10ish. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 14:14, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Can you also block?

You made edit to speedily delete the article. Good job. Is it possible for you to block the single-purpose user as well? I went to UAA but there's a backlog, and this account just keeps creating stuff. — Timneu22 · talk 14:16, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I was getting there :). UAA was how I found him actually. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 14:19, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, saw the block. Thanks again. — Timneu22 · talk 14:21, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Nice name!

Similar to Shrek. thumb|right Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 19:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Negro league baseball

Hi, will you please put a page protection on Negro league baseball. It is being vandalised. Thanks. Csigabi (talk) 16:26, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done I was actually getting there. Tracking them closely :) --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 16:27, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate the thought

...But I generally prefer to play whack-a-mole than protect my talk page if at all possible- unless of course it gets completely out of hand. Best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:31, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I protected it pre-emptively; the edits I was targetting didn't get through. Feel free to email me if you want more details. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 22:32, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Will do. Thanks for looking out for my poor talk page! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:38, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

What's the purpose of your protection of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard? The edit summary mentions attacks, but I see no evidence of a recent influx of them in the recent history. Thanks in advance! - CHAIRBOY (☎) 04:02, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi, see the red text at the top of this page :) --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 04:03, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

ANI Question

I am seeing the term "inbound dist. attacks" pop up on the protection log, but I am not seeing an attacks on the history. What attacks are you referencing? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 04:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

See the above question :) --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 04:11, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Was coming here to remove this question. Seen it after I posted. Sorry about that. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 04:13, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I've read your notice, and I think I understand it, and if it means what I think then it seems a reasonable and sensible exception to the general rule that pages aren't protected pre-emptively. But rather than work under assumptions I'd love to learn more about it (and about Wikipedia) if you have some kind of standard form email you can send me on the topic. (A check of my edit history will show me to be in good faith.) I clearly don't need to know to do what I do on Wikipedia so it would be for my education only. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:17, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Chitpavan

Hi Shirik, just to give you the heads-up about your block of User:Sun05061981. The material s/he was removing from Chitpavan was offensive and inappropriate, and either unsourced or poorly sourced. [1] I've reverted the article to an earlier version, and I've left a note for the account that added the material in the first place. In light of that, you may want to reconsider the block. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 03:30, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm fine with the revert, but I guess I left out of the block reason that part of the reason for the block was due to an issue raised at WP:SPI. This would hit WP:3RR. I'd like an explanation for that before the block is lifted; I have no objection to an appeal. However, feel free to unblock if you think that is wiser. I'm open to debate. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 03:33, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Ditto with the IPs that were blocked e.g. [2] What they were reverting appeared to be hatespeech, some of it unsourced, some sourced to Wikipedia or what seemed to be a personal website. I'd like to unblock so long as you really don't mind. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 03:38, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Feel free, just note that it was the IPs and the editor in question that were reported to WP:SPI. If this doesn't bother you, then feel free to do it. I won't hold it against you :) --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 03:39, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm assuming this was someone creating multiple accounts, or using different IPs, only to get rid of this material, but I'll keep an eye on them after I unblock. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 03:46, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Spam blacklist

Hey! Just a note to remind you that you need to log the reasons for additions to the spam blacklist. Cheeeers. :) Ale_Jrb^talk 10:13, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh, sorry! I will do that now. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 14:05, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Grab some glory, and a barnstar

Hi, I'd like to invite you to participate in the Guild of Copy Editors July 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive. In May, about 30 editors helped remove the {{copyedit}} tag from 1175 articles. The backlog is still over 7500 articles, and extends back to the beginning of 2008! We really need your help to reduce it. Copyediting just a couple articles can qualify you for a barnstar. Serious copyeditors can win prestigious and exclusive rewards. See the event page for more information. And thanks for your consideration. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 15:20, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank spam!

Hello, Shirik. You have new messages at User:TFOWR/Thankspam.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

TFOWR 21:34, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

When you have time...

...could you help me understand something? I saw this bot edit at AI/V and poked around a bit in an attempt to understand what was going on. I saw only two contributions by this IP, the most recent on June 9. I saw no deleted edits. If you could help me understand what tripped the edit filter and how serious this particular instance was, or could be, it would be greatly appreciated. Contact me by e-mail if you don't want to answer here. See ya 'round Tiderolls 16:18, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I've answered over email in the case that Shirik is busy. —Soap— 16:29, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

That answers my concern directly. Which illustrates my support rationale in your RfA, btw. Many thanks, Soap. Tiderolls 16:52, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

bitch you deleted my page

^^ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Faithtink (talk • contribs) 11:01, 13 June 2010

Yes I did. And I assume you know why not to make it again. If not, please review your talk page for suggestions. Thanks and have a wonderful day! --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 18:03, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

My talk page

Hi there Shirik. For the next two weeks (or perhaps a bit longer), I will probably not be able to be on Wikipedia very much. Is there a chance that you could handle the inquiries on my talk page? I would appreciate it very much if you could, or if you could find someone who could. Feel free to overturn any admin action that I might have taken. Best, NW (Talk) 06:15, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I will try to keep an eye on it. Take care, Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 06:16, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! NW (Talk) 06:40, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

We wouldn't happen to have a "block all IP edits" button would we?

looks like /b/ is now randomly attacking pages (which you probably knew) so what do we do now, all get out TW and HG? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abb615 (talk • contribs) 20:45, 15 June 2010

I seriously doubt they could overcome those kinds of tools. If things got really out of hand, the edit filter is always a tool that can be used. But I don't see that as necessary. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 03:52, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hi there SHIRIK, VASCO here,

Regarding your help in page move/page protection (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:NuclearWarfare#Request.28s.29), thank you very much for your assistance, NuclearWarfare and the wiki-world at large are proud of you!

Vandalism in the site will only end with the end of the world, so we have to be relentless...Keep it up, from Portugal - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 22:42, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Edit filter information

Hey Shirik! I was cleaning up LTA and noticed that several of the vandals there have edit filters designed to detect and deny their edits. However, some of these filter numbers are not listed in the LTA report. So I was wondering, is there an edit filter designed for Channel 6? And could you tell me if Special:AbuseFilter/287 is picking up anything? I'm looking to see if the report needs to be updated. Thanks. Netalarm^talk 12:37, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any filter for Channel 6. I haven't seen any hits on 287 recently (nor any activity from that target at all) so I might actually disable it soon. That report may be ready for closure, finally. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 14:08, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Stratz

I am grateful for the warning. I will keep this in mind on future edits.--Stephen C Wells (talk) 15:33, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Tag: repeating characters

I notice the edit filter does not overlook repetitive character sequences already found in the previous edit. This may also be an issue on other filters like BLP, Nonsense Characters, and Shouting. mechamind90 23:30, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

This is actually something that is difficult to detect. MediaWiki only reports lines that have changed, not the pieces of those lines, and we have no easy way of fixing this. It CAN be fixed, but it would cause a severe performance degradation; one we can't afford really. If it's becoming a particular issue on certain pages or globally, please let me know and I'll see if I can't correct the issue. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 02:38, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

There's been quite a few complaints, actually, on the false positives page and WT:Edit filter. I was going to make a change today that would cause it to exclude most cases where repeating characters were already in the lines being changed beforehand; if you think you have a better solution I'll let you handle it, but otherwise I'll go ahead with my original change later today. —Soap— 12:49, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Feedback

Re. WP:FEED

I think you've probably seen my comments on the talk page, about how we need to restructure the feedback system so that we have one page for each day, we transclude the most recent days on the main page, set up navigation, move the current requests across, add a box at the top showing the 'oldest outstanding requests', etc etc.

This really is desperately needed; the volume of requests now makes for a VERY long page, and archiving is not the best method at all; it can confuse new users, when their feedback 'disappears', etc. With a page-per-day, the links to their feedback would always remain - so we could alert them with a link on their talk page, and it won't matter if they check in 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or 1 year - their feedback will still be there.

I've had a 'demo' of it set up, and got a bit of help with the templates to auto-transclude the most recent days, etc - please look at User:Chzz/Wikipedia:Requests for feedback - please look also at a 'demo' day, User:Chzz/Wikipedia:Requests for feedback, and the nav page, User:Chzz/Wikipedia:Requests for feedback/navigation.

The demo isn't quite perfect, but to be honest, if we wait until it is, nothing will happen. We need to boldly implement it.

To do that, first of all, we need to clear things.

I'm asking people to help by moving any and all feedback into the archive, and tell the users with a note, something like this one.

The move-over to the new method will be much easier if we clear things down.

I'll also need help actually implementing the thing; please have a look at the proposed redesign, and if you can help out get it live, that would be great. Sorry this is a bit of a long message; I think it's important to sort this out, ASAP - and I need help with it.

Thanks,  Chzz  ►  03:35, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Update - This has now happened; there is no need to archive anything, any more. Now there are separate pages for each day, we no longer need to move old requests into a separate archive.

The main WP:FEED page will automatically just show the past few days.

If you can, please check over everything, because I'm sure there are lots of mistakes that need sorting out. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  12:39, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Incredibly persistent sock

Hi Shirik,

The article on Turkey is persistently plagued by socks of the banned User:Shuppiluliuma. This is a particualrly aggresive Turkish nationalist who was banned long ago and who has created hundreds of socks since. These days, he is obsessed with removing or watering down any mention of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey. Over the past couple of weeks, I have lost count of how many of his socks have been blocked, mostly by User:Tim Song. There is no stopping him, however. As soon as one account or IP is blocked, he immediately hops onto another. Here's a list of his latest socks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/88.251.79.127
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/85.101.204.35
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Asparagas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Dellakname-i_H%C3%BCmayun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/%C3%9Clk%C3%BC_Ocaklar%C4%B1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Iceman_rides_your_tail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/StanStun

You will note the similarities: similar topics (particularly Trabzon, Heybeliada, Turkish armed forces articles, in addition to Turkey), use of edit-summaries in good English, lots of small incremental edits to articles. Last time around, the only thing that stopped him was a 6 month softblock, which expired sometime in April, hence the disruption. Tim suggested I talk to you about a filter. Can you help? Thanks a lot, 02:21, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I've been looking at this for a bit, but I can't see anything similar enough to create a filter to block him. I may be able to create a filter to track, but it would be log only. I'll have to do some experimentation. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 13:58, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Notice anything a bit off?

Hey Shirik, Tell me if you notice anything weird about this page: [3]
(Well in this revision http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chris_Hansen&diff=369612511&oldid=367667085 )
..::Abb 615::.. 21:23, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

That's known as "fixed position vandalism". We have a filter for it, but he managed to escape it. Keep an eye on him; this generally indicates a strong intent to disrupt the encyclopedia. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 00:10, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

The filter has been running a cut-down version of the code since February, due to false positives that we couldn't seem to get rid of any other way. In fact it looks like you and I are the last ones to have edited the code. —Soap— 00:17, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Right; sorry if I mislead; I know exactly why it didn't hit him, and I don't intend to fix it unless it becomes a bigger issue. I'm leaving out details intentionally to avoid saying how he got around it :) --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 00:18, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Inbound dist. attacks

Hi Shirik, I noticed that you protected Space with an edit summary mentioning "inbound dist. attacks". Upon checking the history I couldn't see anything special. I was wondering what the abreviation "dist." stands for (distance, distant, distinguished, disturbing, ...?). Just curious. Cheers - DVdm (talk) 07:03, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

See User talk:Shirik/IDA for more info. --Bsadowski1 07:07, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

The perfect answer. Thanks. Feel free to remove this section. DVdm (talk) 07:31, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Social Populism

Ok, I'll give time and some peace to the editors. But it is plain vandalism to delete my critics on the talkpage. Come on. --IANVS (talk | cont) 18:26, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

The person that removed your comments is a new user, and is still getting to grips with Wikipedia. I highly doubt there was any intent to vandalise. The user's been told not to remove comments from talk pages again, and is speaking to someone more experienced and learning the ropes, so some patience would be appreciated. Thank you. --Deskana (talk) 18:30, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Page move

Hi there SHIRIK, VASCO here,

Could you please reinstate Danny Miguel's page name to the one you suggested last time i asked you ("Daniel Alves Gomes"), or "Danny (Portuguese footballer)"? I already sent a message to the person who changed it back, explaining the circumstances in which the page move happened (you are an admin, and i was simply "being bold", aided by the full certainty that this title was (IS!) wrong.

Cheers, thanks a million in advance, nice week - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 23:12, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

In accordance with BRD, please discuss the move before moving again, Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 02:12, 29 June 2010 (UTC)