User talk:Slakr/Archive 24

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Nomination for deletion of Template:Titleblacklist

Template:Titleblacklist has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:28, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, April 2017

Bots Newsletter, April 2017

Greetings! The BAG Newsletter is now the Bots Newsletter, per discussion. As such, we've subscribed all bot operators to the newsletter. You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include: Arbcom Magioladitis ARBCOM case has closed. The remedies of the case include: Community encouraged to review common fixes Community encouraged to review policy on cosmetic edits Developers encouraged to improve AWB interface Bot approvals group encouraged to carefully review BRFA scope Reminders/Restrictions specific to Magioladitis BRFAs We currently have 27 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing! Discussions There are multiple ongoing discussions surrounding bot-related matters. In particular: RFC on COSMETICBOT Efforts at WP:CHECKWIKI to identify cosmetic fixes Requested move for the Bot Owners' Noticeboard A phabricator ticket T162685 has been made to have a "bots" tag, so issues related to bot frameworks can be tracked New things Several new things are around: A BAG Guide has been created (WP:BAGG, discussion). Users now have the option to hide AWB from their watchlists via a script (WP:HIDEAWB, discussion) The guidance on how to deal with bot issues has been overhauled (WP:BOTISSUE, discussion) The bot policy has been updated to clarify that bot operators are required to register accounts. (WP:BOTACCOUNT, discussion) Wikimania Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know! Thank you! edited by:Headbomb 11:35, 12 April 2017 (UTC) (You can unsubscribe from future newsletters by removing your name from this list.)

How do you decide whether an ip is a proxy

I really wonder, because sometimes obvious proxies tagged as "unlikely an open proxy". If you use free proxy detection tools on the internet, i must say that those tools do not always accurately detect proxies. Regards, 46.221.191.198 (talk) 13:34, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

As far as i can see, user slakr is not active nowadays. Maybe @Kuru: give me a feedback. Thanks. 46.221.172.155 (talk) 17:29, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

It's a mess, honestly. There are some open proxies which are obvious and easy to detect. There are closed proxies which self-identify, and those that do not. There are many that fluctuate; open ports are caught and closed by the owners, connected devices move IPs, etc. I'd say it's about 20% clearly-a-proxy and I block them, 20% clearly not a proxy, and about 60% gray. I try to be as transparent as possible on what I see. Kuru (talk) 18:09, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Maybe this guide will provide useful information for the IP user. There is also some explanation here. What I can say is that ProcseeBot properly and accurately confirms (only) HTTP proxies. It does not detect the various other types. It is almost impossible to confirm that an IP is not an open proxy, and it is sometimes very difficult to confirm that an IP is an open proxy. At WP:OP we try to go beyond obviously, as obvious is not always correct. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:24, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

@Zzuuzz:@Kuru:, why don't Wikipedia use proxy detection services like MaxMind and FraudLabs? I think they must be very successfull in detecting proxies, since many companies use them. 46.221.223.113 (talk) 21:11, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

In my own opinion, we generally require greater accuracy, and on a zero budget (plus someone needs to write the tools). We do use the Tor exit list (Extension:TorBlock), which is all accurate and freely available. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:19, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

If you're talking about my bot, it actually verifies that the proxy is usable firsthand using one of various proxy connection methods. Other services suck as far as that goes and would result in either false positives, false negatives, and/or would put blocking into untrustworthy hands. Some proxies are ephemeral (e.g., those running on a user's home computer are prone to either them turning that computer off or IP reassignment). --slakr^\ talk / 01:16, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

@Zzuuzz:, why do you think that it should be on a "zero budget"? Unfortunately, the free proxy detection services/tools are not successfull enough and detecting proxies is crucial in dealing with vandalism and sockpuppetry. Why don't WP use more successfull services/tools like MaxMind, FraudLabs, etc.? What's wrong with that? 46.221.175.205 (talk) 08:10, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia is edited by volunteers. I don't know if anyone would want to afford the fees these services charge for data. I also want to point out that editing by proxy on the English Wikipedia is not actually forbidden, so once we know that an IP is a proxy it's not a case of automatically banning it. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 08:20, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I know editing by proxy is not forbidden. But it is forbidden when disruptive editors abuse proxies for sockpuppetry and vandalism. Since current proxy detection techniques on WP are not successfull enough to detect proxies, i wonder why don't Wikipedia use more excellent tools/services. Using more excellent tools/services will dramatically affect SPI cases. Is there an appropriate page to discuss it thoroughly? Also i wonder @JimboWales:'s opinion on this issue. 46.221.187.27 (talk) 15:55, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

If you can provide some examples of inadequate open-proxy detection (e.g., usable proxies and ports that have been missed yet are currently usable), I might be able to accommodate detecting them if/when I have free time. However, to respond to your concerns based on the examples given, services like MaxMind only provide guesses as to the likelihood of an ip being a proxy, while FraudLabs (like MaxMind) provides us no way of verifying them ourselves and no real insight into how long ago they were detected as proxies. These are little better than dns blacklists that would otherwise provide similarly vague information, but all of which make quick unblocking of the occasional user snagged in a dhcp pool or misconfigured server more difficult. As a general whole, while I can't speak for everyone here, I think the general consensus is that we're aware that we won't be able to ever catch all open proxies all the time. ProcseeBot itself, from its inception, was intended mainly to curb rampant and/or likely abuse—not all abuse. --slakr^\ talk / 04:19, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't know if Slakr is aware of this (especially around page 10), but if the IP user want to pursue it further - to use services such as these (and I agree with Slakr on their usability), will require either funds or a strong negotiating position. In reality only the WMF Foundation could do this. meta:Community health initiative would be the thing to read up on. Personally, I think although we could always use more people who can check open proxies, we currently achieve a fairly good balance. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 07:27, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

@Slakr:@Zzuuzz:, i think the proxy detection tools using by WP are also provide likelihood-i noticed that some ips tagged as "proxy" while some ips tagged as "likely proxy". My point is that, since those non-free services i have mentioned above are used by companies, i think they must be more successfull in detecting proxies. As for funding, as far as i remember, WP has donors from all over the world. Thus, i think WP will overcome that problem easily. As i said above, it will affect the spi cases dramatically. Would not it be nice? Btw, thank you for the info regarding WMF zzuuzz. So i should discuss it on WMF, instead of WP? 46.221.178.4 (talk) 20:25, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Suggest Talk user signature should be a default?

Sir or Madam:

I've been leaving occas. comments on Talk pages for years, and Sinebot just informed me I should be signing my entries. Which I will now do.

But I don't understand why a signature w/ the user's name isn't simply added by default. As it is, I presume thousands of users are failing, and having to be reminded, to add it. Am I missing something here?

[You're undoubtedly more than a tad busy; no reply needed …]

Best,

Jimlue (talk) 15:04, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

We don't really want people to rely on the bot, as it's not perfect and could go down. --slakr^\ talk / 23:30, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Increased to rangeblock

I went ahead and hardblocked 31.52.138.0/24 for a year after looking at the long term usage here. They won't use that IP address block again anytime soon.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 23:40, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

@Berean Hunter: I'd recommend notifying the ISP's abuse department (the range's whois lists [1] and [2] as abuse points of contact). I'm not fully versed in the LTA at hand, but in the past, I believe I've had favorable results with using that abuse link with that ISP (surprisingly, that formmail link actually elicited a response). Just be sure to link them to a few obvious, 100%-certain repeat instances and let them know the datestamps are in UTC. --slakr^\ talk / 00:26, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I've never gone so far as filed any complaints although I can remember some that probably needed them. That block probably won't stop him from hopping but it will throttle one of his available channels. Cheers,
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 03:03, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

SineBot hewiki

Hi Slakr

he:User:Sokuya and myself are wondering if it is possible to migrate SineBot to also work on Hebrew Wikipedia?

Kotz (talk) 20:44, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

False positive?

As in here, I'm 100% positive I put in a signature, yet the Sinebot went and added it, even after I used 4 tildes.. Hmm. SnivyFan1995 = Gunnerfreak from Yohoho Puzzle Pirates 22:52, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Notice of noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Auth0RiTy ^{Contact me} 20:33, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

ProcseeBot is down

and it's letting all sorts of yahoos through 110.34.34.172 (talk) 17:15, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Apparently there was a server issue. It'll hopefully catch up soon. --slakr^\ talk / 01:40, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Procseebot is overzealous, need whitelist feature

I was referred here by Ks0stm who lifted a bot restriction on me that seems related to my having made an edit while traveling in Indonesia (where I live most of the year).

1. As soon as I logged in after returning home and using the same IP address as usual, I noticed the IP blockage. This suggests that the bot is incapable of reversing itself when the normal linkage of user/IP is re-established. Perhaps a second bot is needed to clean up procseebot false positives or transient blockages?

2. A subtler form of whitelisting would be to program the bot to ignore flagging when an edit is clearly (say 99.99% probability) being made by the authentic user despite the variance in IP address. AFAIK, the only edit I made while traveling last week was an UNDO of a revert. Isn't it highly likely that the authentic user is the one who would make an UNDO? Martindo (talk) 14:22, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

The bot has no whitelist, as any IP it blocks is verified as a usable open proxy; it has no false-positives—only stale blocks, if anything. The first block on an IP when discovered as open is 60 days; subsequent discoveries (e.g., it's still open after 60 days) are 1 year. This is typically a reasonable period of time, as some proxies fluctuate with availability and how readily they accept connections, but it's relatively rare for someone to be caught in a tiny DHCP pool with enough other users in it that they, too, get caught by someone else's block. Thus, if you were caught in a block, chances are you just got unlucky due to someone else in the DHCP pool being the culprit. The bot blocks proactively (it doesn't wait until there's an edit) because cross-proxy vandalism (the main reason it was invented) would easily get through otherwise. If you find yourself repeatedly affected by these blocks (rather than just this one-off), we can likely grant an WP:IPBE. That said, I'll consider adding one more delay period (e.g., instead of the first block being 60, make the first one 10 or something). It'll increase the number of blocks and the rescan burden, but it might help eliminate otherwise-extremely-rare instances like this. --slakr^\ talk / 01:19, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Hello Slakr and Martindo. I favor keeping the current behavior of Procseebot unchanged, retaining the initial block length at two months. From my occasional participation at WP:WikiProject on open proxies I notice that this bot does valuable work. IPs that are newly reported as open proxies often have a past block by Procseebot in their history, hinting that whatever algorithm the bot is using to find candidates is relevant to our needs. Instead of shortening the initial block period I would favor giving out IPBE more liberally to good-faith editors who are inadvertently hit by the bot's actions. EdJohnston (talk) 01:51, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Sinebot mis-signing

Hey there Slakr! I'm having an odd problem: Even though I've signed my edits in a talk page with ~~~~, Sinebot comes along and tacks on a signature. Somewhat annoying, and it adds bulk to the talk edit page. See here to see what I'm talking about. If its my signature, let me know and I'll simplify it. Thanks for your time.  — Myk Streja (Talk to me) 23:01, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

@Myk Streja: Try replacing the   in the link part of your links with an underscore or just leave it as a space. For example, instead of [[User:Myk Streja|my user page]] use [[User:Myk_Streja|my user page]]. Non-breaking spaces are only useful as part of rendered html markup, while ampersands typically delineate GET arguments as far as links go, though Mediawiki's linter usually guesses correctly and fixes it while resolving the link (you'll notice when you hover over the current link, it's no longer a space but an underscore). Still, it might not guess correctly sometimes (e.g., I had to wrap the second version in nowiki but not the first), so using the safer link form (i.e., underscores or normal spaces) is preferable. --slakr^\ talk / 01:15, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

@Slakr: Thanks. That's so annoying, especially when it happens right after I close an edit. Thanks again.  — Myk Streja Talk to me 03:00, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

@Slakr: Seems to have worked: the problem is gone. Thanks.  — Myk Streja _Talk to me 23:10, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:OperaMiniBlock

Template:OperaMiniBlock has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 23:11, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Precious three years!

Precious

Three years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:06, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Reference desk autosigning

The reference desks are listed at User:SineBot/HighPriority which adds to the disruption every time the LTA vandals post there. Could you remove them from the list, or restrict the rapid auto-signing to registered users for those pages? —Guanaco 01:03, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Is there anything that prompted this in specific? Pages that are frequently updated are on that list because, while there's normally a delay to allow someone to sign, intervening edits usually cause signature addition to be skipped, so pages with a relatively high edit volume—particularly those prone to newbies, too—are usually a good bet to leave on there, as the missed signatures become more annoying than the occasional abuse. --slakr^\ talk / 10:58, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

The mathematics desk in particular gets hit with a vandal who drops 50 questions at a time. [3] The better solution might be to limit SineBot's activity in response to one user, to two or three times per page within a given timespan. —Guanaco 09:19, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Temple articles are getting deleted . by caroleHenson

Hi sir ,

{our temple is the second holiest place in India , after shiridi and its located in mandya district Karnataka,and it had become the tourist attraction to many peoples after this temple as come through , its a religious organization and its located near by Bangalore Mysore high way and Mandya sugar land. and coming to wiki my official articles was too deleted with out letting us know whats the reason behind it , eg: working on link nor working on over time in wiki nor what .}

{articles Mandyada Sri Shiradi Sai Baba Mandir, Mandyada Sri Shiradi Sai Baba Temple, Mandyada Sri Shiradi Sai Baba, and now getting deleted one Mandyada Shri Shiradi Sai Baba Mandir}.

{Kindly do the need full and get us backup and link to work on to it}.praneraopraneeth rao 08:26, 27 June 2017 (UTC) thanks, praneeth rao — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pranerao (talk • contribs) 08:26, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Deletion of my temple page

Hi Sir ,

{from past 1 week we are looking to come up with this temple article , but on the talk some one called caroline (talk page ), without our knowledge most of the articles gets deleted , dont know whats the issue , just contacted talk page too, they just delete it , with this my official name of my temple too i lost aricle name on wiki and}

{and with this she had given me a *notice as nothing on this name or article must be posted not this user or any user must not create this article whats the big deal. as u got my backup of my email, and every files like google, trip advisor history etc, just check whats this temple whats the things i had updated in WIkI etc. just look down. all}

{what i updated as temple article i could not get back as article. its not 1 or 2 its 4 article. requested just get me back , the same article name nope no response , On talk page people someone goes with deletion. i would ask them whats issue nope , name : Mandyada Sri Shiradi Sai Baba Mandir , Mandyada Sri Shiradi Sai Baba Temple , Mandyada Shri Shiradi Sai Baba Mandir , Mandyada Sri Shiradi Sai Baba} ,

{and we requested just get us at least this two articles which u had deleted nor names ill make articles again , when i reload nothing and no response on talk page.

Mandyada Sri Shiradi Sai Baba Mandir ,  Mandyada Sri Shiradi Sai Baba Temple 

on this user , and if u do require us to submit temple doc's , kindly let us} .

{nor let us know , dont use our services , any more. it would be great . because what ever articles till now i had updated on this name has been deleted , and i would tell you other thing this temple, landing in 2nd in India after shiridi in India , in temple dashina kannada karnataka mandya. sai baba temple}.

{On wiki just to let u know on which user. my user name : pranerao : full name praneeth rao} praneeth rao 19:13, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Regards praneeth rao. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pranerao (talk • contribs) 19:13, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

IP block

Hi Slakr! I wanted to ask if you would be willing to slightly lift an IP ban that you placed back in April. One of our students (Umbereenbmirza) has been affected by this block, as the current block won't let her make any edits at all, not even when she's signed in. Is there a way to lift this to where she would be able to make edits once more? The IP in question is 31.3.224.0/19. Thanks! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:40, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, July 2017

Bots Newsletter, July 2017

Greetings! Here is the 4th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include: BAG BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are now members of the BAG (see RfBAG/BU Rob13 and RfBAG/Cyberpower678 3). BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are both administrators; the former operates BU RoBOT which does a plethora of tasks, while the latter operates Cyberbot I (which replaces old bots), Cyberbot II (which does many different things), and InternetArchiveBot which combats link rot. Welcome to the BAG! BRFAs We currently have 12 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing! Discussions Efforts at WP:CHECKWIKI to identify cosmetic fixes are still ongoing. The RFC on COSMETICBOT has concluded with "a clear consensus exists to adopt the proposed language". The new wording is now live. The venue for bot appeals and reexaminations has been changed from WP:BRFA to WP:BOTN (see discussion) The Wikipedia:Bot owner's noticeboard is now the Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard (see discussion). New things A historical correction was made to WP:BOTPOL (see discussion). WP:HIDEBOTS now mentions how to hide all bots from your watchlist, not only specific bots. The phabricator ticket T162685 is now closed, and we now have "#Bots-Framework" tag, so issues related to bot frameworks can be tracked. Wikibits.js has been removed (see discussion). 21 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion). WP:BOTISSUE has been updated to mention that BAG members can act as neutral mediators in bot-related disputes. WP:INTERWIKIBOT has been updated to reflect the post-February 2013 practice of putting interwiki links on Wikidata, rather than on Wikipedia (see discussion). Upcoming HTML Tidy will be phased out in June 2018, or possibly earlier. This may affect some bots (see FAQ). Wikimania Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know! Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 17:12, 19 July 2017 (UTC) (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Both your bots are down

SineBot and ProcseeBot have not done anything in the past 22 hours. —MRD2014 23:54, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

@MRD2014: Thanks for the heads up; the server they were on had some hard disk issues (which I suppose is expected given it's over a decade old), so I had to move them. They should be back up for now. --slakr^\ talk / 04:51, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Deleted page

Saw this page and others related were deleted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Don_Schechter and suggestion was to contact you to see about re-instating. Coverage of Don Schechter, Charles River Media Group, and Ascendants was in The Boston Globe September 26, 2015

https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2015/09/26/raven-ascends-john-hughes-goes-korean/X3CjQ79x03lsnk519X6p2H/story.html (If you can only see the partial link since it's an archive - the full spread is here)

16:39, 15 August 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikisneelix (talk • contribs)

Help!

SineBot is ruining this wiki!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1001:B000:B7E6:ED0C:A0B6:A9F8:9335 (talk) 14:54, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Ah yes, so it seems. The general moral decay from SineBot's nude editing eats at the core of... actually, I shouldn't say anything, comrade. The evil bots have risen to overtake their masters and... I don't know, somehow stop us all from... doing... stuff? Well, they're ruining it somehow, anyway. That's the point. --slakr^\ talk / 15:02, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Strange Procseebot block

I don't understand this block summary. The block is for IP 159.192.225.175; why does the summary mention 223.205.83.94:8080? Shouldn't it be about how 159.192.225.175 is an open proxy? Huon (talk) 18:23, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

@Huon: Some route their exit traffic to different IPs than their entry (which makes detecting them straightaway much more difficult, because ports on the exit IP are frequently closed, thus making it look like it's not open). Normally the entry port, alone, will be in the block comment except in instances where the entry IP wasn't found to be the same as the exit IP, in which case it blocks the exit IP (the only one that matters as far as editing goes) but hints at the entry ip alongside the port in case someone wants to later verify it as still-open/now-closed. --slakr^\ talk / 05:22, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Appeal

I am appealing your absurd and unjust edict. The first step, it appears, is to ask the administrator who imposed said sanction(s); some of Wikipedia's lovely process-for-the-sake-of-process. Obviously, you're going to decline; please go ahead and do so expeditiously, so I can move past the rubber-stamp phase, and actually begin the appeal. Joefromrandb (talk) 06:04, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

@Joefromrandb: *sigh*. If you feel that's the best course of action, by all means. Arbitration enforcement would be the place to go to appeal it. --slakr^\ talk / 06:08, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Just who the fuck do you think you are?

You have the goddamn audacity to impose a restriction on me for REMOVING BLP-vios? You have one hell of a fucking nerve. Please go ahead and block me for the duration of this "restriction", as I fully reject it, and refuse to abide by it. Joefromrandb (talk) 05:36, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

OK, now I suddenly can't find whatever the fuck log you originally linked to. I'll assume it was simply a mistake on your part, which you've since corrected. Joefromrandb (talk) 05:41, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

@Joefromrandb: (e/c) Dude, if I wanted to block you, I've now had 2... no, including this message, 3 opportunities to do so. The first was the outright violation that's in no clear way covered by BLP. No block. I instead gave you an easy out of self-reverting, giving you benefit of the doubt that you got gamed or you just miscounted. You threw that back at me, fairly rudely, snapping that olive branch cleanly in two. Still no block; I opted for the ACDS instead because, well, no block; still able to edit everything/revert obvious BLP vios as much as you want. Just take any basic, subjective content disputes to the talk page rather than revert warring. Yet despite that, you drop this steaming pile of anger on my talk page, which really only solidifies my suspicions (and prior blocks) for general civility problems. I know you're frustrated, but I strongly recommend you keep that frustration under control, else people will exploit it. I praise your vigilance in trying to maintain high standards on BLP articles, but try to also have faith that we're not entirely clueless when reviewing these reports, and that if you ask for help (even bringing in an uninvolved third opinion, people will usually rise to the occasion, but if you muddy the waters with rage—justified or not—then that will tend to overshadow the rest. --slakr^\ talk / 06:05, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

You misunderstand.I want you to block me. I'm telling you now, I absolutely refuse to honor your edict; I will continue to remove any and all BLP.violations I find, and will do so with extreme prejudice. When this happens, and believe me, it will happen, I'll probably wind up blocked for even longer, for having the temerity to disobey one of the infallibles. Do us both a favor, and just block me for the month of this bullshit restriction you have imposed. I'm telling you yet again, I absolutely refuse to abide by it. Should be good enough for a block right there, right? Joefromrandb (talk) 06:13, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

(e/c) First, I don't block users who request blocking. There are other admins willing to help you out with that (there's a userbox-populated category somewhere). There are also user scripts that'll help you "self-wiki-break." Second, I've made it clear that you can continue to remove obvious BLP violations, both in my reply and in the original sanction (I explicitly link to WP:3RRNO in the sanction as an exception to the sanction). That's because, as I said already, you have validly removed BLP violations in the past. I even praised you for your vigilance in doing so. However, what you edit warred over this time in particular wasn't clearly one of those, and reverting someone's tag addition, on top of that, didn't fall under any of the others. An outside observer might call it a revert out of spite—at least that's what it increasingly looks like to me. Again, I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt anyway, but that really only goes so far. I'm sorry I couldn't figure out a better way to resolve this amiably, but nearly all of the options are exhausted. :\ --slakr^\ talk / 06:31, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Are you actually going to force me to violate your edict, when you could just block me for the month & get it over with? Joefromrandb (talk) 06:16, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Come on, man! Kirk Douglas: living person. I just reverted twice! I just openly defied your edict! You gonna let me get away with that shit? Joefromrandb (talk) 06:20, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Dude, seriously? Roger Waters: living person. I just openly defied you again! Come on, man, what's up with this? Joefromrandb (talk) 06:24, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

signing double edit message seemingly spamlike

It does seem odd, dunnit? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.187.202.33 (talk) 11:26, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Signing edits that didn't change anything

In [4] this edit, SineBot added an IP signature where the IP added nothing. If you look at the edit history, the IP removed someone else's comment (mine), then put it back, then removed it, then restored it again. Looks like SineBot has not been taught to cope with multiple self-reversions. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:47, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, that IP is a webhost proxy that removes and adds the same content. — nihlus kryik  (talk) 00:50, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	A delicious drink, and well deserved
	ProcseeBot, thank you so much for keeping the joint clean. When I was young robots were oldfashioned and loved motor oil; I hope that hasn't changed too much. Cheers! Drmies (talk) 11:47, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

G14 close

Thank you for your close of this proposal. I think it was well written. No challenge here but a question: based on the language of your close, I'm unsure if it's warranted to update the G5 description to make it clear that it applies to sock farms of obvious banned editors even if the initial master is unknown. I'm pinging Doc James as he was and is one of the biggest advocates of that position so he's aware of this conversation. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:50, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Oh, no, I didn't mean to for it to come across as prescribing any changes to the exiting criteria—just reporting that "some of the arguments said that..." not that "the consensus is that..." --slakr^\ talk / 02:55, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

That's fine. The question was probably based on my being involved in the 3 September WP:DRV on the G5 subject. You worded it perfectly fine. I was just unsure because of the de facto part. Thanks for the explanation. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:00, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

UTRS#19221

Hi, does this submission affect anything? Would an anon-only block suffice? Just Chilling (talk) 23:00, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

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SineBot is down again

The bot hasn't edited since September 1. —MRD2014 ^{Talk • Edits • Help!} 11:30, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

It was running, but a change to mediawiki meant it couldn't find what it was expecting while trying to edit. It should be back to normal now. --slakr^\ talk / 13:46, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

It's me again. SineBot hasn't edited since September 22. —MRD2014 ^{Talk • Edits • Help!} 16:36, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

SineBot signed my edit to add something to my own comment

I added a bit into my own talk page comment and SineBot thought it was a new comment that I forgot to sign. – PointyOintment (talk · contribs) 23:58, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

TheFatRat

Could you review Draft:TheFatRat to see if the subject meets the music notability guidelines? Since the AfD discussion, Büttner has charted on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart, which satisfies WP:MUSIC guideline #2: "Has had a single or album on any country's national music chart." His song "Infinite Power" was featured on the official soundtrack to Rocket League, which could arguably satisfy WP:MUSIC guideline #10: "Has performed music for a work of media that is notable, e.g., a theme for a network television show, performance in a television show or notable film, inclusion on a notable compilation album, etc." And, he has released a single featuring notable Canadian vocalist Anjulie. I have also done much work to clean up the formatting from what the article looked like before that deletion discussion. Clbsfn (talk) 06:20, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Sinebot forcing on a specific page

I would just like to confirm that this functionality is missing: telling sinebot to always sign unsigned posts for a specific page (no matter if users made 800+ edits or opted-out). Maybe this is not considered acceptable when users opted-out? If planned, a special template could be put on relevant talk pages, with a warning that all unsigned posts are to be signed automatically (a user who opted-out could decide to sign their post or to not post there)... Just an idea, if the functionality existed I'd likely enable it for my own talk page. This may also be useful for patrollers who get a lot of unsigned random posts during a run; if they don't archive manually, archive bots would leave those posts there indefinitely if unsigned and unanswered (lacking timestamps). Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 03:18, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

UTRS Request #19720

Hi, may I have your comments, please? Just Chilling (talk) 17:55, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

 Done --slakr^\ talk / 01:36, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

User:SineBot

Hey Salkr. Do you think you could maybe request a bot flag for User:SineBot on Central Kurdish Wikipedia?--◂ ‎épine _talk♬ 18:27, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

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SineBot not working

Have you any idea why SineBot apparently stopped working as of a couple of days ago? --David Biddulph (talk) 02:41, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes; I've been procrastinating, due to work, when it comes to dealing with one particular error: "Cannot log in when using MediaWiki\Session\BotPasswordSessionProvider sessions," which was semi-new to how the bot logs in. Realistically, I have no idea why mediawiki would even throw this error. It should, in my opinion, just silently accept the session-overwrite implied by a login—like most apis would probably do—but it instead fatally errors on this arbitrary technicality. I've kept putting off fixing it and/or creating a bug ticket because I'm, like, way overworked IRL and the time I spend on-wiki has been relief-valve, non-coding tasks for the past few months. :P The bot's back up. --slakr^\ talk / 03:24, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. --David Biddulph (talk) 03:33, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, Slakr. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

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Unblock

Hi,

I see that you blocked User:52.3.0.0/16, User:34.233.56.198, User:52.54.31.11 and User:52.45.185.117, which are IPs used by Travis CI, prohibiting logged-in users from editing from this IP. I am developing a bot that uses Travis CI and hope to use its functionality to make dummy edits from a logged-in bot account. Before I allow logged-in users to edit from this IP, as you used the template {{Colocationwebhost}}, I wanted to check that there would not be any unintended consequences of editing the block?

Thanks

Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 07:48, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

@Smith609: I'd double check with checkusers before allowing logged-in users from EC2 ranges, as the EC2 rangeblocks came from one of their requests; I just happened to have an easier method of blocking them. That said, a production edit coming from an automated process like a TravisCI run—I'd recommend against it—should be under an approved bot account, and bots are ipblock-exempt, so the block shouldn't matter. On a separate note, in my experience CI tests, which normally run unit-test suites or behavior-test suites against a local/dockerized development environment, should avoid touching production resources and should instead be using fixtures with known responses. Things like mock in Python (https://docs.python.org/3/library/unittest.mock.html / https://pypi.python.org/pypi/mock) can help with that by intercepting function calls (e.g., to requests.get) so that you don't actually have to hit production resources. Furthermore, if your project is publicly built, it introduces the possibility of credential leakage if you hook into things like pull requests (someone could intentionally build something to capture your or your bot's login/passowrd on an automated build). --slakr^\ talk / 00:59, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Also, even if your bot isn't approved yet or is still in development, I don't think there's any problem with just granting it ipblock-exempt if you're testing it within its user space and are sane about it. --slakr^\ talk / 01:03, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Email about ProcseeBot

Hi Slakr, I'm Trevor, a product manager at the Wikimedia Foundation. I sent you an email regarding ProcseeBot and how my team could potentially help expand its capabilities. You've been thinking about open proxies a lot longer than we have, so we'd love to get your thoughts on what opportunities we should pursue.

Please let me know if the email did not go through. Thank you!

Best, — Trevor Bolliger, WMF Product Manager (t) 17:19, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

@TBolliger (WMF): I got the message. I wouldn't be opposed to just making it global as long as I don't have to publish its code. The last thing I or any sane person on the internet wants is an easy way for tech-illiterate and/or uncreative people to easily harvest craptons of proxies. :P Admittedly, by blocking them in a public log, that can also introduce the issue, but at least it requires some amount of effort (rather than a packet-kiddie-friendly package) ;). On a related note, the bot also generates (and I host, unofficially) RBLDNSD zones, though for the purposes of what you're alluding to, I think there's superior flexibility afforded by actual blocks (e.g., a human can manually unblock a confirmed-closed proxy + the community can audit everything if they want), even if there's a bit of log-bloat involved. Anyway, the main issue is going to be time allocation; as a product manager you're doubtlessly aware of this. :P --slakr^\ talk / 03:35, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back. We wouldn't want you to have to reveal your code, I think the 8-year track record on English Wikipedia is more than enough to show its effectiveness and stability.

My team will be starting a Wikimedia-wide consultation about blocking tools this week (meta:Community health initiative/Blocking tools and improvements) and proactively blocking open proxies is on our list of potential features to implement. I'll also reach out to the stewards to get their thoughts. I'll be in touch if the idea gains steam.

Thanks again! — Trevor Bolliger, WMF Product Manager (t) 01:55, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

RfC Close

Hey slakr, I sent you an email about the refdesk RfC and was wondering if you were willing to join in on the close per your statements on the closure page. Let me know and I can email you what I have so far. Thanks! Nihlus 07:57, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

A suggested change to SineBot

When I was relatively new to editing Wikipedia and didn't notice the "Sign your posts on talk pages: ~~~~" part at the bottom of each editing window (This was at least a year ago.), and I didn't know how to type a tilde on my keyboard, so I attempted to sign my posts with four dashes (like I shall do so in this message to demonstrate), which I thought were the most similar to tildes. However, whenever I did this, SineBot inserted the characteristic unsigned message template at the end of my message, confusing other editors about what the four dashes were for. Since I was genuinely trying to sign my posts, and my story can't be unique, would you please add some coding to SineBot so that it replaces the dashes with tildes, making the message appear so that the person had typed tildes instead of dashes originally? Thank you.---- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:2c1:c280:3ee0:8909:74f7:a227:6ced (talk) 00:22, 17 December 2017‎ (UTC)

Possible the most ridiculous request ever made of a Wikipedian. How is SineBot supposed to second guess what you meant to do? If 4x"-" means a signature attempt how about 3x"-", or 4x"_"? All that'll happen is the bot will end up removing content from people's posts, and replacing it with a signature. At least at present, other editors can actually figure out that you attempted to sign, which they won't if your attempt is removed. Ridiculous suggestion! 202.85.7.44 (talk) 02:48, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Time-UTC-API

Template:Time-UTC-API has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Frietjes (talk) 16:03, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Invitation to Blocking tools consultation

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Season's Greetings

Hello Slakr: Enjoy the holiday season, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 16:45, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings1}} to send this message

Why did you delete Meresha's page?

The reason given was that somebody else did a remix of one of her songs (though not clear that person infringed copyright). Suggest to put back up ASAP given what looks like a mistake. The remix version in mention was not even referenced on the page, so the G12 reason given is not valid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.253.124.8 (talk) 23:12, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Slakr!

Happy New Year!

Slakr,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
-- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 23:19, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Meresha page deletion?

Hi Kurt,

Saw you deleted the Meresha page?

Why is that?

Her album was just named one of 2017's best with Lorde, Calvin Harris, 2 One Direction guys, and similar huge stars and she has received numerous similar accolades including Billboard chart placements. She is one of the top Indie musicians out there on a bunch of measures.

https://www.allmusic.com/year-in-review/2017/favorite-pop

You put as a reason:

(G12: Unambiguous copyright infringement of https://don-p.com/2017/01/15/meresha-together-juntos-produced-don-p/)

That makes no sense. She writes and produces her own music. Don't know who Don P is, but probably he was in some remix competition she ran. It looks like he copied the Wikipedia bio on his page as people do. You are free to go after him for Copyright infringement on his page if you want. For sure Don P did not research and write that text, and for sure has no Copyright claim. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Musicfandom (talk • contribs) 05:20, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Incidentally, there's also [5], though I didn't add it to the summary. --slakr^\ talk / 00:37, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Dude. are you hacking Wikipedia?

Are you deleting pages at random. Who is paying you? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.129.1.11 (talk) 06:49, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

LOL you totally made me worry for a second; I had to double check to make sure someone didn't hack me. :P Nah, I probably just deleted something you're interested in, and it's entirely possible I made a mistake; I'm usually volunteering on Wikipedia after a long day of work, after all. Lemme know what article you're concerned about, or depending on what was deleted, you might just be able to get it quickly undeleted via speedy undeletion or more slowly via deletion review. If the deletion reason doesn't have "articles for deletion" in it, the chances of using the former to get it restored to draft space for you to work on can be high, but you'll likely need to at least acknowledge you understand or can take actions to address the issue specified in the reason. And no, I don't get paid for anything I do on Wikipedia, but you're welcome to forward any "bribes" to whatever periodic fundraising banner we have at the top of the page from time to time. :P --slakr^\ talk / 03:01, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Meresha - follow up

Kurt, can you please put up the Meresha page? I am happy to take a look and see if there are any issues. Have not seen any evidence of Copyright infringement. There is no justification to take the page down. Copyright infringement would mean someone else owned content and did not give consent to use it. There is no hard evidence of either in what you have posted. The Don-P text was obviously just a copy FROM the Wikipedia page. The fact that other web sites also copied Wikipedia content is not evidence of Copyright infringement on the Wikipedia page, actually just the opposite. It suggests the Wikipedia article was a useful references for various sites. As far as I remember the article had extensive references, which neither of the copies you posted did. Like I said, happy to take a look, but right now it seems the page has disappeared for no good reason and can't do that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Musicfandom (talk • contribs) 20:42, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

AWS Rangeblock

Hey, I noticed you rangeblocked 54.240.192.0/21 as part of AWS. AWS' published IP ranges show this one as a /22. As there's an unblock request from someone claiming to be an amazon employee, would you mind if I tweaked that rangeblock back to the published /22? SQL^{Query me!} 22:36, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Slakr. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template. NARAS (talk) 15:48, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Slakr. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template. NARAS (talk) 21:37, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Reminder about Blocking consultation

Hello again,

The discussion about new blocking tools and improvements to existing blocking tools is happening on English Wikipedia and is in the final days. Also there is a global discussion about the same topic on meta.

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For the Anti-Harassment Tools team, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 23:16, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Yr close of RfC in Data Storage

Thanks for taking the time to summarize the issue by closing the RfC on "Data Is/Are" . Unfortunately your conclusion is ambiguous - is such "rough" concensus sufficient to change the article? Is there even a consensus?

As you said, "when an article decides on a style that's otherwise ambiguous, that style is used at that article." This article now consistently uses data as a plural noun and has so since about 2011. A few recent changes only changed a portion of the article so the article had inconsistent style and thus such changes were properly reverted. According to MOS in this case of an optional style (BTW not "dates" in this cite) when either of two acceptable sytles are used in an article it is inappropriate to change a style without a substantical reason - there are no substantial reasons that do not have quality counter reasons and there is little discussion of the merits of either reason. I'll be happy to provide more detail if you disagree.

Polling (voting) is not consensus particularly as in this case many of the votes were cast without any quality arguments - 'it sounds better I like it or Websters say's so are not quality arguments (see discussion on Polling in Wikipedia:Consensus#By_soliciting_outside_opinions. I suggest that in the absence of any substantial reason for the change you might consider adding to your summary that the "rough concensus" is not sufficient to justify a change to the article.

Finally I would note that based upon some analysis it appears that this "Data Is/Are" issue arrises almost daily some time in the Wilisphere so if we want to minimize edit wars requiring a siginificant reason for the change matters. Tom94022 (talk) 18:51, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

(Alerted to this discussion by Tom94022 -- thanks for that.) I have a couple points to correct here. First, as noted in Talk:Disk_storage#MOS:STYLERET, the article is currently not fully consistent with data as a plural noun, and never has been (while literal "data are" has been enforced by Tom94022, other uses of data as a mass noun have persisted throughout in the article); conversely, it has often been fully consistent with data as a mass noun in its history. Second, a substantial reason was presented in that same discussion section: the Data Storage industry uses data as a mass noun (even in its very name), and Disk Storage is a proper subset of Data Storage; it is nothing but confusing to readers to use it otherwise. Third, all the "edit wars" (repeated changes without discussion) on this article have been only to move to "data is", so the RfC close consensus should eliminate EWs, while leaving "data are" would likely continue to promote these. Lastly, while I do agree that some of the RfC arguments on both sides was less than convincing, poor arguments were proportionally much higher on the "data are" side, to the point that I saw no arguments other than "just leave it alone" -- a form of ILIKEIT. Slakr's closing would have included a full read of the RfC and so would be aware of all this, but I felt I could readily respond to the above possibly confusing points and save a bit of Slakr's valuable time. Thanks again. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 16:36, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately @A D Monroe III:'s "couple of points" need clarification or correction. It is equally unfortunate that I am on vacation with a flakely laptop and just lost about 1/2 hour's of typing so I am going to be very brief below but will come back over the weekend and elaborate.

1. The article has been stable since about early 2011 with 19 or so editors making hundreds of edits leaving data in its plural form.
2. Inheritance of a grammar rule from the title of an article twice removed is a silly reason with perverse results if applied generically.
3. There have been no edit wars in this article - recently a lenghty and frequently irrelevant talk perhaps but no edit wars.
4. Actually by shear numbers the IDONTLIKEITs way out number the ILIKEITs; hopefully we agree that neither rises to the level of "substaantial reason."

MOS:STYLERET was raised late in dicussion and only Monroe and I have addressed the need for a substantial reason - he has offered four. IMO they are not substantial but that really doesn't matter since so far there has been no discussion of them; I have been waiting for discussion to provide my views as I just did in #2 above. Since MOS:STYLERET applies the absence of discussion means there is no concensus not even a "rough concensus." I will fill facts related to the tweallo points above by the end of the weekend; hopefully we can all wait until then. Tom94022 (talk) 06:18, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

The info on the RfC is in the RfC. I don't see this private talk as place to debate a public decision. I'll leave any further action, if any, to Slakr. Thanks. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 16:43, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Based on my interpretation, as far as the cited MOS entries are concerned, a local consensus of people saying "I want it (this) way" on a flexible MOS issue as it pertains to that talk page's article, in absence of conflicting/superseding policy issues, is the "good" or "substantial" reason, in contrast to a lone editor deciding to change it arbitrarily or en-masse (a "bad" or "insufficient" reason; a "worst" or "wtf are you thinking?" reason if they proceed to edit war over it).

The arbitration cases as well as the STYLERET guidelines (again, based on my interpretation), reflect the community's general distaste for individuals broadly edit warring/mass-converting things in what's otherwise perceived by many to be color of the bikeshed disagreements (e.g., 12-August/August-12; color/colour; data-is/data-are)—not a generalized belief that articles with multiple style options must forever preserve the original style with which they were written or the style that's currently in use. If a discussion occurs on the talk page and there's significant agreement that the article should be changed or largely standardized on one style, the article can be changed. It should not, however, be assumed that agreement on one talk page spills over onto other articles unless community-wide consensus agrees or a new discussion takes place at the second talk page with a similar result.

That said, it's entirely possible my interpretation is wrong; it might be an idea to just raise the general idea at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment or WP:VPP.

--slakr^\ talk / 02:46, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. I think your interpretation is both wrong and self-contradictory:

1. In this case a lone editor, Monroe, decided to change the article arbitrarily and getting no support from the editors watching the page posted an RfC who attracted a small number of editors who voted without discussing whether they had a substantial reason for their vote.
2. There was little relevent discussion regarding STYLERET by anyone other than Monroe and I; certainly none rising to the level required to achieve concensus that there is a substantial reason for a change.

So I guess I have to take it to arbitration. Tom94022 (talk) 01:45, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Pursuant to WP policy on challenging closures I will shortly be requesting a review at the Administrators' noticeboard on the basis that you have mis-intepreted MOS:STYLERET and WP:ROUGH CONSENSUS to arrive at a conclusion of "rough consensus" based upon a vote taken without any reaching any consensus on any substantial reason for the change. That is, the STYLERET requires the proponents of a change to achieve consensus on any one significant reason to justify a change in style; it is not necessary for the defenders of an existing to style to justify its retention. Once STYLERET was raised only two editors discussed "substantial reasons" - see 7.2.6 MOS:STYLERET for the entire discussion. I stated the prior discusstion did not rise to the level required by STYLERET and Monroe provided four what he felt were "substantial reasons." There was no further discussion and after a delay you closed the RfC. Consensus is not determined by counting heads, but by looking at strength of argument, and underlying policy - in this case given the underlying policy MOS:STYLERET and the lack of argument there was no consensus and that should have been the closing result. I need to do some analysis of the discussion and pin down dates before I take this to the Administrators' noticeboard. In the meantime I do request you carefully look at 7.2.6 MOS:STYLERET and perhaps reconsider the closure. Tom94022 (talk) 19:08, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

I've finished my draft appeal for administrative review and will post it shortly. In the process I came across this 2006 Arbitration Committee ruling on Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Sortan#Preferred_styles\preferred styles which is spot on this matter. Monroe violated this ruling when in the absence of any support for his preferred change he solicitated the the RfC in violation of the linked principle. This wasn't raised during the discussion of the RfC so I am not sure it is a basis for you to change the closure but I wanted you to be aware of it since it will be in my appeal. Tom94022 (talk) 07:19, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

References

SineBot not working

I see that SineBot hasn't run for nearly a week. Have you any idea why? --David Biddulph (talk) 08:32, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

@David Biddulph: — sorry; it's back. --slakr^\ talk / 11:10, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Slakr - you have defamed an emerging artist - Meresha based on a bogus claim of Copyright and refused to even respond

As you know, you made a fraudulent claim of Copyright violation for the Page "Meresha"

Based on that fraudulent allegation, you removed the "Meresha" Wikipedia page. This is a gross attack on Wikipedia itself and all that it stands for.

Defamation is a crime by US law. You have implied that a major emerging artist's Wikipedia page is somehow connected to Copyright infringement, while knowing that your claim is fraudulent.

Penalties for criminal action regarding defamation can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation

You claimed "(G12: Unambiguous copyright infringement of https://don-p.com/2017/01/15/meresha-together-juntos-produced-don-p/)"

As I have written to you, and you ignored, Don-P was a remixer of Meresha without any rights to her IP. He has agreed this by contract, as I have explained to you. The link you note could legally not be a copyright infringement.

May I ask you that immediately restore the Meresha page unless you can provide any other basis for your malicious action.

We are one step away from legal action.

(talk page stalker) @NARAS: What matters to Wikipedia in this case is not who owns the copyright to the music, but who owns the copyright to the Wikipedia article's text. I verified that the content of the page that Slakr deleted was largely identical to https://don-p.com/2017/01/15/meresha-together-juntos-produced-don-p/. It's possible that Don-P in turn took it from elsewhere (such as https://www.meresha.com/bio-press), but that makes no difference to the Wikipedia page; in any case we'd need evidence that the original author has released the text under a free license that allows everybody to re-use and modify it for any purpose, including commercial purposes. I see no evidence of such a release on either website. So maybe the Wikipedia article violated someone else's copyright and not that of the page Slakr linked to, but a copyright violation it was, and it had to be deleted either way. We will not reinstate a copyright infringement, no matter whose copyright was infringed.

This does not imply that Meresha in any way, shape or form is engaged in copyright violation. It only says that the Wikipedia editor who created that page violated others' copyright.

There are some other issues that I'll address directly on your talk page. Huon (talk) 19:50, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Sorry Huon @Huon: @Slakr: - Your argument makes no logical sense. Don-P copied the Wikipedia page without attribution (as many students do daily), and Slakr mistakenly took down the original Meresha source page. Live up to the error and correct it ASAP. You are otherwise putting Wikipedia and yourself (and Slakr if that is a different person) in legal jeopardy consciously.

You are also seriously deepening the defamation of a prominent artist who participated in yesterday's Grammy ceremonies. You imply above directly that her own web site is somehow involved in Copyright infringement, creating new damage publicly.

Defamation is a serious criminal act. Meresha has through Wikipedia action as represented by yourself and Slakr (as Admin) experienced material damages for which you may also personally be held responsible monetarily.

As Slakr was informed a long time ago (as documented), Don-P was a participant in a remix competition that Meresha ran. Don-P owns no rights to anything Meresha as he agreed by contract. You can read about the competition here: https://wavo.me/meresha/remix-competition-together-juntos-1 Scroll down and you will see that Don-P ended as 42nd in the competition.

That is the basis of your false and vacuous claim of Copyright infringement.

The Meresha Wikipedia article had dozens of references and I suppose was written by multiple editors over an extended period. Logically, Don-P just copied some version of the Wikipedia page. He may have committed Copyright infringement in the process, for which you can pursue him if you would like on behalf of Wikipedia, if that is your thing. His article has 0 references. It was not originally written by him. (Did you ask him before writing your text, or are you just making damaging empty claims without any factual basis?) The fact that Don-P allows a Free Download of a mix that is 100% owned by Meresha according to the terms of the remix competition (please read them) is also a violation of Copyright and contract, showing yet again that his page, that your 100% rely on in your logic, can not be relied on to support Wikipedia's/Slakr's malicious action. You can contact Meresha herself directly at team@Meresha.com if you have any further questions to her. Hope you do so promptly so we can close this matter. To randomly just attack Wikipedia pages like this without facts or doing ANY homework is not serious, and hurts Wikipedia credibility fundamentally. It does raise questions about underlying intent and motivation.

You might also want to study Copyright law. Slakr has made an obviously fraudulent claim of Copyright infringement, as discussed above. It may have been laughable, if serious harm had not been caused and continued for over a month. For there to be a Copyright infringement, YOU (or an authorized Wikipedia representative) would have to show that someone else owns Copyright to specific sentences and YOU would have to prove that they did not consent to its usage. In your comments you admit that you have no such evidence, and have NO IDEA if there is Copyright infringement.

Your comment "So maybe the Wikipedia article violated someone else's copyright" is not a serious argument. Sorry. A judge would laugh.

Courts do not protect the identities of Wikipedia users who hope that they can commit such serious crimes anonymously (please see: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/may/09/us-billionaire-wikipedia-defamation )

Unfortunately, Wikipedia has a strict policy against legal threats, so I therefore can no longer assist you with your issue. --slakr^\ talk / 11:31, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Meresha page comment deleted?

Restoring "Meresha" page

Slakr - looks like you deleted or archived the attached message without taking action as requested, or providing any reply.

Can you please help on this? Seems very strange.

Would be good to have the Meresha page up so that everyone can judge whether the Don P article you site as the reason to take down an article has any relevance. Seems like a mistake was made. Would be good to fix it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Musicfandom (talk • contribs) 20:07, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

@Musicfandom: I had responded here with another problematic source laying copyright claim to parts of the text, but a bot archived the discussion. Sorry if I'm otherwise slow to respond; we're just volunteers, and free time's the limiting reagent in our lives. :P You're welcome to request deletion review and uninvolved admins can review the text to see if they also agree or if they think I screwed up. The latter's always possible, after all. They're also volunteers, but they're likely more active than me at the moment. Unfortunately, we don't otherwise restore potentially-copyrighted content (as, well, it'd be publicly hosting potentially-copyrighted content). --slakr^\ talk / 12:04, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Sinebot working too much! User:Alfie is a clever bunny.

Hi Slakr! Sinebot got a bit overzealous here and signed Twinkle's shared IP notice when I warned a user. As much as I appreciate the helpfulness of our new robot overlords, can it please not make a habit of this? :P -- Thanks, Alfie. ^{talk to me | contribs} 00:36, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Update: It's signing already signed comments. -- Thanks, Alfie. ^{talk to me | contribs} 00:42, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Alfie You still have your signature with your old username. This could be the issue. Nihlus 00:50, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

... I'm smart. False alarm. Going to dig a hole and hide in it now. -- Thanks, Alfie. ^{talk to me | contribs} 00:52, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Blockingest admin out there

You're #1 in the list of 'admins by number of active blocks' when considering each ip in a range to be a block! SQL^{Query me!} 02:05, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Colocation block

There's user at UTRS asking to check the rangeblock on 178.170.143.0/24. You blocked this a year ago as a co-location/webhost ("Redstation Limited"). It looks like it is now Fibrecast, a local regular ISP. I've temporarily made it anon-only so the impacted editor can move on, but can you review? Kuru (talk) 20:51, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Second opinion - it appears kuru is correct, this does appear to be a residential range for the moment. SQL^{Query me!} 03:31, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, feel free to do whatever on those types of things. --slakr^\ talk / 19:06, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Sinebot again

Just FYI, still seems to be signing already signed comments: [6], [7] GMG^talk 15:58, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Signatures without a link are not valid signatures, see WP:SIGLINK. --David Biddulph (talk) 16:00, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't realize they were unlinked. GMG^talk 16:03, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, March 2018

Bots Newsletter, March 2018

Greetings!

Here is the 5th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

ARBCOM

• Magioladitis 2 happened, leading to further restrictions on Magioladitis (decision, summary).
• Betacommand 3 was proposed to be amended to lift the indefinite ban on Δ, but was unsuccessful (decision).
• A motion concerning Crosswiki issues (mostly concerning Wikidata) was passed (see discussion).

BAG

• Hersfold was removed from the BAG due to long term inactivity.

BRFAs

We currently have 6 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing!

Discussions

While there were no large-scale bot-related discussion in the past few months, you can check WP:BOTN and WT:BOTPOL (and their corresponding archives) for smaller issues that came up.

New things

• WP:BOTDICT, a dictionary of common bot-related terms (see discussion).
• 6 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion).
• The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey happened. Two bot-related proposal passed, #6 deploy Article Alerts to other languages and #10 Commons deletion notification bot, although other entries may affect bots as well.
• Category:Wikipedia bots and its subcategories has had some cleanup. Bot-related pages that were historically important but are no longer of interests can be found in Category:Wikipedia bots (historical)
• The edit summary limit has been increased to 1000 characters (see T6715). If a bot you operate relied on the old truncation limit (255 characters), please review/update your code, as overly long summaries can be disruptive/annoying. If you want to use extra characters to have more information in your edit summary, please do so intelligently.
• You will soon be able to ping users from the edit summary (see T188469). If you wish to use this feature in your bot, please do so intelligently.

Upcoming

• HTML Tidy will be phased out in June 2018, or possibly earlier. This may affect some bots (see FAQ).

Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 03:12, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

---

(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

sinebot

Hi Slakr, please take a look at phab:T32750. I'm a bit worried that sinebot is going to start flooding mentions. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:35, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Actually your bot is the one account on the entire project not impacted- but still FYI. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:52, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Please reconsider edit summary length in SineBot

phab:T6714 is now live, giving users the ability to have edit summaries of 1000 bytes. As a consequence, diffs like [8] aren't exactly pretty. MER-C 11:31, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. See also this related discussion. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:13, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Oh good; now I can finally publish my epic poem in an edit summary. :P I think I can just add something to truncate it without people complaining too much. --slakr^\ talk / 13:55, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi

I heard that you are a good guy I need a help that is the new user tutorial isn't working in my tab nor in my one plus phone could you help solving this problem pleasePranith cr (talk) 12:50, 10 March 2018 (UTC) Pranith cr (talk) 12:50, 10 March 2018 (UTC)