User talk:AmandaNP/Archives/2013/March

This is an archive of past discussions with User:AmandaNP. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Sock check: additional user

Hi. Regarding Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Pproctor, thanks to your analysis, I uncovered yet another potential sock that may be associated with that investigation. I've added the user name to that page. Could you take a look and, if appropriate, also analyze that new name? Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 21:37, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Done yesterday. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 13:01, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Incidently on the mediation acceptance page http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation/Peter_Proctor, there is a claim an editor was a sock or meat puppet by some of the very people you have found to actually be such, can that be shown to be cleared up and such allegation be removed if unwarranted so it doesn't effect the mediation?

" Also, for whatever it is worth, it should be noted that the filing editor of this case is also a DR/N volunteer and was asked to step back and contribute to the dispute as a regular editor due to accusations of sock puppetry and lack of impartiality that I have yet to see any evidence of. The editor should be seen and looked at now as an involved party and not a DR/N volunteer.--Amadscientist (talk) 05:01, 18 January 2013 (UTC)"

If you google and go to a site called CorporationWiki under "Peter Proctor" and/or John McGinness along with companies Nanoflux, Novelta, Drugscom Inc" up will come this interactive diagram with a web of connections, particularly if you click on Peter Proctors icon there, I do not know if these web of people connections shown, including Proctor with McGinness match your findings or assist in someway.Inhouse expert (talk) 16:01, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

You would have to talk to Amadscientist if you wish to remove his comments from the RfM page, I can't remove them for him. Thank you for your research, but at this point it doesn't seem to change much unless I am missing something. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 18:35, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

You should get the Nobel Prize for the thoroughness of your work I saw. Dr. Proctor is a poster for approx 20 years on a very tight knit community of online hair loss websites as pproctor, where there has been a small group of posters over the years that have created a "hair cult" around him & his products that no one knows if they work relative to FDA treatments as promoted. How could your research findings about sock/meat puppetry be used to identify if the same insidious campaign of Sock/Meat posters here, is occurring there to boost sales from perhaps similar IP's, other methods you used to ID, etc...? Where are the IP's of the accounts you suspended available publicly now? Perhaps if administrators from those sites contacted you & assisted or were assisted by cross referencing IP's, etc... would that be ok? Any ideas of yours how your research could be helpful in regard to others not being mislead by same group elsewhere for profit?Inhouse expert (talk) 05:19, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)He cannot reveal those IP addresses publicly. That's considered private info.--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:30, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the complement. As Jasper mentions above, I can't release some of that info because of the Privacy policy. My methods just come from being trained by others at SPI and from experience. Though for for practical reasons I don't write public documents nor provide information for profit in this regard. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 06:14, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Who ever submitted the sockpuppet recommendations some how lumped me in, and I was the only one found not to be a sock or meat puppet, which is all very good, however I know how people are about just the accusation as part of your online record, can I or who can edit me out of the sock puppet page investigation, since I was found not to be one, I don't want my name of course up there with them, can I just edit that page, taking it out, or can you?Inhouse expert (talk) 17:33, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

User:Qassam3983

User:2.133.92.82 seems to be a sock of him, he keeps trying to un-strikeout Qassam3983's vote on Talk:Depiction of Israel in Palestinian textbooks. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 03:39, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Proxy blocked and some revdels made. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 16:13, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

122.57.148.12 too. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 08:14, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Blocked the IP without bothering to check for a proxy, and semi'd the page for a month. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 08:22, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Please read

I have been patient and listened to your comments and been ready to answer any questions you have. Now you are just writing huge walls of text with heavy personal attacks, going on and on about ArbCom and the past which I can't change, and you aren't asking any questions about the incident, which was my original offer to talk to you about. Therefore, i'm done, and am going to go find something better to do. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 00:46, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Please read my message to the ArbCom, as it directly concerns you. Int21h (talk) 00:31, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

The language I quote in here is not for all eyes and ears, so I have collapsed it. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 02:00, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Don't you mean your third message? (Maybe not directly to ArbCom...) Nice of you to just notify me now. Anyway, your comment about "I hold this so-called committee responsible for the events that transpired that led to my permanent ban." Wait, did I miss something? (Excuse my sarcasm) I unblocked you, and you are not permanently banned (well yet...if you continue on this trail someone else might make that happen). Since you call for my resignation, I'll make it a really simple response, no. I have a unique set of skills to help offer the team, and I'm human, I make mistakes. So far you have called me incompetent, questioned my mental health, and misrepresented the facts. Furthermore, you told admins "fuck you", told them to "go fuck yourself" called them "little fucking bitches", called me a "fucking douchebag", and you told us to "take my thousands of edits and created pages and shove them up your ass". So much for no personal attacks... Even after that, I gave you a sincere apology which you claim to be empty, I unblocked you, and even gave you IPBE back without any questions. Now your still going on about 1 simple mistake. To top this all off, there were 3 other CUs that originally agreed with my view. (Although i'm not going to give you their names because you'll just troll them) Also regarding your email, I did reply to it, you never replied back. It's not my problem if you couldn't access that mail account, I replied. And it wasn't like you sent me 10 million emails, you sent me one very small email mostly asking me to resign because I was wrong. If you can stop trolling everyone (including me), I'd be more than glad to 'sit down with you' and go over what I can tell you without breaking the privacy policy, and try and answer your questions. If you don't want to accept my apology, fine by me, but I'm dropping the stick, and moving on. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 02:00, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate your reply. Its a little late and a dollar short, but at least you said something of substance finally. And yes, I will continue on this trail, even though I know it does not lead to paradise. On the contrary, I know this will get me nothing but very powerful enemies and attacks from all directions. No one ever said doing the right thing was going to make you popular.

And your [censored] right I made personal attacks. I was banned. Not just banned, but emergency banned outta nowhere with no effective means to bring it to the attention of the community. My conduct was in no way covered by Wikipedia policy, given this affair has little or nothing to do with Wikipedia, besides the Wikipedia ArbCom being the source of your privledge which I seek to revoke (if only temporarily). My personal attacks ended as soon as your personal attack ended. I do not accept your apology nor will I tender one. The fact that ArbCom has let 3 other CheckUsers that obviously made the same ridiculously outrageous mistake just adds fuel to my fire. I will not troll them: I will seek to have their CheckUser status revoked. Please, please do not confuse the two.

I will not "troll" you. I did not even think we would ever carry on a conversation. If you consider this whole affair to be "trolling" by me, then I think this only gives more weight to my hunch that this is only the tip of the iceberg, that you ban users for things that do not warrant bans, and definitely not emergency bans with no public or even private discussion, and no much as even a shred of proof to refute. Your refusal to provide proof would likely have been a death knell for these so-called "appeals" for many others you have likely persecuted. How many "simple mistakes" you have made and how many good, competent editors are now banned for life? They cannot say, to be sure, because they have been silenced. I consider myself to be lucky that, yes, apparently there is someone on this board that is not incompetent. And I definitely think that should come up if and when they renew their membership. But they should renew their request for membership, in competition against everyone else who will potentially run.

You seek to minimize a complete and permanent emergency ban with absolutely no discussion, and no good reason for the ban to be emergency, as a simple mistake. The fact that it was an emergency ban with no prior discussion, even though I was obviously not being disruptive, is why I believe, yess still believe, it was malicious. Why else the emergency? Why else the complete lack of discussion even after the ban? Oh, right, you sent me emails that I magically didn't get, which is in no way your fault. Just another mistake I guess. But what mistake can possibly be more destructive? What, prey tell, is not a simple mistake then? How many is too many for you to step down? For you to be removed? How many? How many good editors must never be heard from again? Int21h (talk) 02:51, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

You were blocked, not banned, and it has since been lifted, let's keep that factor straight. Yes, you were emergency blocked by me. I understand you were frustrated with the block, and I don't blame you for your language used, and I'm not asking for an apology, nor have I asked for one in the past. There was a private discussion off-wiki with other CheckUsers in which ANY checkuser here on enwiki had the ability to review. I got three others to certify the results and two of those three to agree to an emergency block (they all agreed to a block if answers didn't satisfy), and then I made the block. I have not persecuted others, and that's another attack at me, but your still upset with me, so i'll let that go. All blocks I make are with reason justified under Wikipedia Policy, and the moment different light comes to, I reverse it. I do not seek to minimize it, I just seek to have a civil discussion if you wish, and no, civil is not going after my flags and the rest of ArbCom's positions. I'm not going to force you to believe anything, I'll let you come to your own conclusions. Also, the email I did send in reply is pasted below this thread and I can give you exact technical information about it. It was a disruptive mistake to your editing, I will absolutely agree with that. I will not however resign my flags unless I or my fellow CheckUsers or a good chunk of administrators agree that my opinion and judgement are clouded to the point where I can't hold an objective opinion. Again, you can still believe what you wish, I'm not forcing anything on you. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 07:47, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Email
From: DeltaQuad Wikipedia <address@removed.com> To: Int21h <address@removed.com> Date: Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 06:13:43 -0500 Subject: Re: Wikipedia e-mail Just so you know, I have unblocked your account an left an apology on your talkpage. DeltaQuad English Wikipedia Administrator and Checkuser

If the change lie with Wikipedia or ArbCom Policy, then I will take what I can get. But it obviously is not going to come from this ArbCom; a new ArbCom must be constituted. Too much time has gone by for me to believe they will do anything but nothing. And you have to understand that my appropriate response simply cannot be to just take your apology on its face and leave things as they were--as they are. Something must give, something must change. And there is where ArbCom and I do not see eye-to-eye, they simply are not concerned, they simply think all fault lies with you, or that no fault lies with anyone, I am not sure because they say and do nothing. I reject that. I reject that you and your three amigos are the only one who are responsible, and that nothing besides an "apology" is required, or even that an apology means anything. (Is that what Wikipedia is? An apologists playground?) So the question I asked was "What must change" coupled with "What can I change"? I had to make a decision.

THE MEAT OF MY ARGUMENT

This was simply to drastic an action, with no prior discussion in the community. And to make things worse, and why I place blame squarely on ArbCom, is it is ArbCom's doing, what you did. It is their doing. ArbCom made those policies. ArbCom gave you the power. ArbCom immunized you from any and all community discussion or meaningful review. What?! Why are you above reproach? ArbCom decrees that any Administrator, as you so eloquently stated in your permablock messaged, who attempts to overrule you would be himself potentially permablocked. And lets say an Admin did just that? They would have broken the rules, and though I would have been unpermablocked technically they would have to stay permablocked. I reject that logic. It is the logic of tyrants. ArbCom still to this day does not demand you provide an explanation; they don't even demand you provide an apology (to be fair neither do I).

Because that is the ultimate exoneration of your actions, that it was within Wikipedia--nay ArbCom--Policy. But unfortunately what releases you binds them. I refuse to accept that a six year editor, quite plainly doing nothing wrong as a User required a User block, an emergency User block at that. Your lack of explanation made me angry, to be sure. Its as if I was doing something minding my own business and some guy comes out of out nowhere and wants to take away my "WikiLife". And without any further discussion or warning, immediately proceeds to do the deed. Oops, sorry, you looked like someone else. I was angry, I was permablocked, and my appeal was or was (obviously) going to be denied, that much was clear.

But so what? Is that the solution for the next time this happens? For the User who has been "accidentally" surprise permablocked to have no other recourse besides a single appeal directly to the court of last resort (ArbCom), with nothing but a pen and paper and a "reasonable amount of time"? I threw that last part in because the appeal procedures, now as it was then, only require "community discussion", which is quite obviously precluded by both the permablock and the admonition that you as a CheckUser are immune from community discussion. Their silence, ambiguity, and inability to foresee the results of such an inflexible policy, this is what irritates me, as it is their doing, and theirs alone. Its ArbCom policy. This may come off as insulting, and I'm sure if I didn't say this may come of as insulting, but, they would surely permablock me for it and end this quickly (Ὁ λόγος δηλοῖ ὅτι οἷα ἡ πρόθεσίς ἐστιν ἀδικεῖν, παρ᾿ αὐτοῖς οὐδὲ δικαία ἀπολογία ἰσχύει), but oh'well: they were the hunters, and you were nothing but the hound. I will not be content with choking out some errant dog in a dark alleyway. I will not be swayed by his puppy wuppy eyes as his master releases yet more hounds on the world to do what they were trained to do. I think it would do all of us editors a disservice.

Hence my problem with ArbCom. And I can do nothing about the procedure. That is all internal ArbCom policy, their prerogative. I will not waste my time going through a pointless exercises of pleading for change with an ArbCom that plainly does not care about my problem. They have bigger problems to deal with, like trivial editwars on trivial articles. The fact that I must plead with you--who only now admits you were wrong--after you outright said, and I quote, you and "several CheckUsers" had "verified the results" is folly. They say I must plead with the judge after sentence has been pronounced before I can appeal, but also say if I squabble with the judge, and other contradictory nonsense, I will be permablocked.

SOME RANTING

I have heard it before. It is the language of tyrants. It is time we stop pretending that oh no not ArbCom, ArbCom would never, could never... They do all this as volunteers, we simply could not live without them, without our dear leaders, and no one else could possibly be Caesar, any claim to the contrary is tantamount to climbing buildings as spiderman yadda yadda yadda. They must quit modelling their actions on the judiciary of Germany or the International Criminal Court, whose only vaguely similar counterpart in the United States as I have pointed out is the US Guantanamo military commissions, and more like what we expect here in America and England. Germany is used to it, it is all she has ever known, accept for brief periods of revolutionary fervor or American occupation. But this is not Germany. Wikimedia and Wikipedia, and definitely not the English Wikipedia and ArbCom, should not be run like Germany and their Germanic and Latin counterparts. More is expected of us. What happens here matters, and every single good editor lost because of malfeasance or incompetence is a punishing blow, and there are so many one can take before it spells the end, maybe only even one could be enough. A single court (no chambers or presidiums or working committees with a role of the dice to see who will decide your fate) with a cohesive and identifiable policy that can be relied on, something you will not find in any other court system. Because that's what they are, a judiciary. They judge or judice. Its time to start asking some serious questions. Its time to stop pretending Wikipedia exists in a vacuum or that this is someone else's problem.

IN CLOSING

And on top of it is the notion that your powers directly result as a delegation of their powers, so they should be held responsible for your [censored] ups. ArbCom is responsible. If they are not, then who? What is an appeal if not to a superior power? It would not be an appeal then, it would be a lie. An outright lie to claim such a procedure is an appeal. Yes, I believe they are both a superior power and responsible for their subordinates. What I am asking for is a serious review of what happened here--and all I got was threats of permabans and other adverse actions. So be it then, this is how it will begin.

The more I discuss this the more I realize it isn't you. The more I read about ArbCom's behaviour the more vital I see it is to get these guys out. And so, like I said, this is how I see all this ending: they must step down, they must ban me, or I must incessantly call for their removal and any and all appropriate times and places. No, I will not disrupt editing, or at least make an effort not to. But do not despair, do not think all this is just because of you and your three amigos, I actually am somewhat thankful that now I see it is bigger than that, bigger than you or me or this ban or any other. Because if not me then who? Those who have been unfairly banned? If not now then when? It is ArbCom. Its a pattern. And its ArbCom who is to blame, and ArbCom should do the right thing--something, anything--or suffer the consequences. And since many months now have passed, with out so much as even a peep, there it is.

FIAT IVSTITIA ET PEREAT MVNDVS ET HOC NVLLATENVS OMITTATIS

Respectfully, Int21h (talk) 00:19, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

And, to be clear, I think you still have not given me an explanation. You have said you were sorry, about which I could care less, but you haven't told me what happened. Still. What information did you rely on? That is what I asked for from day 1. (Yes, other things were said.) Was it the HTTP headers? Was it my IP? What else is there? Do you know now that there are those of us out there, many of us, who do not want to be easily identified by every scumbag on the Internet? And that we know how? And that its easy and only getting easier? I do not want an apology. I want, at a minimum, an explanation. The fact that you keep ignoring my demands, as ArbCom is, is still quite frustrating.

But at least I can edit now while we have this long ... conversation. Int21h (talk) 01:18, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

To answer your question it was the useragent provided by the HTTP of the software Tor browser that you were using for the two operating systems you used as you mentioned on your talkpage. That and the IPs also matched up. Tor is a shared IP as you would know, so other blocked/banned users showed up on those IPs, and a fair chunk of the huge list of Tor IPs you used had socks that linked back to a longterm banned user who put obscenities in the names of it's socks. Furthermore, there were overlaps between the times that you were using those Tor IPs, and when this sockmaster was using the same Tor IPs. Since you are denying my apology now, I won't try and give you another one, I'm just going to try and work through this with you to get the answers you want the best I can provide them. You are also right, I didn't hold an onwiki community discussion about this, I did it offwiki between checkusers, and then applied the block. I should have done my investigation first, presented it to the community, and then seen how that took it's course. Did I do that? No, bluntly, I fucked it up, and not just a little, I fucked it up bad. Why? Because I did not have the knowledge that the Firefox provided by Tor lied to me about your operating system, web browser, and it's version. Since that version is also a very old version (since were now at Firefox 20 in betas if not higher), not many people use versions that old, and I thought that was more evidence with the already matching Tor IPs, UA matches, and time overlaps. But lets be clear, I was absolutely wrong and it's going to make me 10x more cautious dealing with Tor IPs now. That point has been nailed into me. Now I am happy to answer your questions about circumstances, but talking to me about ArbCom and the appeals procedure is a dead wall, because I can't change any of that on my own. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 22:11, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, as to the apologies I would appreciate it because every time I refuse to accept it I look like an asshole. Which I may be, to be sure. I hope you understand it is on principle: people come to expect that apologies must be accepted, or must be accepted right away, or must be accepted publicly. I simply will not commit or contribute to that line of thought. Its time that being politically correct isn't a pejorative. As for my conduct, I simply just did not think a situation would ever come up where I would have to explain myself on these very personal beliefs. They are just that, personal beliefs, and any and all such demands for them will and should be met with scorn, if only because they change so frequently--and everything one says can and will be used against me in the court of public opinion, thereby holding one to beliefs he may have held in error. But I digress. I simply was not planning for anyone to change their minds or do the right thing here. And yes, my conduct was possibly vindictive, possibly still vindictive, but I will not suppress my feelings, or censor my speech, at the drop of someone else's hat. Yes, that's probably in violation of community policy or ArbCom policy or whatever. I considered myself unbound by any such external moral systems after I was banned--or permanently blocked or whatever. Was I wrong? Possibly, but I'll tell you I would do it again.

This was my first introduction to the CheckUser was when this started; to ArbCom as well. This whole affair is bringing major flaws in this whole procedure, this whole system, to my attention. Very little in all this has made me less angry. That this discussion has started, yes, this is good. But jeez. All that to get here?

This is why I was so pissed. I knew, as I wrote on my talk page, there was nothing besides my IPs that was personally identifiable for anyone who knew what they are doing. This is by design. None of this should have ever come up, that my User-Agent is apparently spoofed (fuck if I knew), but now its all in the fucking open. I view any and all information about my location and software used as a vulnerability. Vulnerabilities sometimes do no damage, sometimes vulnerability can have far worse consequences. You may not realize this, but the CheckUser has a government counterpart in many countries. And when those CheckUsers find you, when they match up personally identifiable information, it doesn't result in a fucking ban, it results in violence, and there is no violence like government violence. These CheckUsers will fuck your shit up. They will take turns in 8 hour shifts fucking your shit up, shift after shift and into your night and day, until you are fucking begging them to kill you. I'll bet you think I'm fucking joking, or overracting or something. These things are not relegated to history, they do not always happen to someone else, the world is not like America or Wikipedia. And yes, they should thank their lucky fucking stars there are so many of us, here in America and some in Europe and elsewhere, that spend a ridiculous amount of time and effort making sure those CheckUsers can't. Any information you think you have that is identifiable is, at best, identifiable only of stupid or disadvantaged trolls. A smart and resourceful troll or sockpuppet or whatever the hell you guys hunt is going to, or at least should if he was smart, use public computers--libraries, public wifis, etc.--or some other form of open or semi-open proxy. He's isn't going to use his real fucking name and set up a fucking 5 year old account to get an IPBE. And for the open proxies, these crap IRC-era proxy scans will soon be at an end I hope, but until then there are plenty of alternatives. A smart troll is going to go into "about:config"--no plugin needed. And with these simple steps, what else does the CheckUser have? That's right, you guessed it--judgement based on editing content. That's what all this hinges on for the hard to catch troll. Editing content. You are targeting people for content. This is why I assume all this is malicious--no competent admin is going to base their decisions on easily spoofable information tracking down a hardened troll, and my IPBE should have covered me from the whole IP-based decision making. I simply thought it would be common knowledge, I mean "general.useragent.override" has been there for like fucking ever. And that's the solution, to ban a User account? WTF? That doesn't even make any fucking sense, but with the reasoning I have seen thus far I am less and less surprised. And all that is because of ArbCom and their policies, so strike fucking one.

The fact that, as I said from the beginning, you were not aware of all this? You fucked up? You should have known? Its all your fault? And ArbCom bestowed on you, from what I can tell, a pretty fucking awesome power? That's strike two against ArbCom.

And to the so-called "appeal" procedure. Does anyone see all this as anything but arbitrary? As a giant and ongoing fuck up on ArbCom's part that they refuse to even discuss? Does anyone see that if it were not because of ArbCom, you would not have been able to do this as an emergency, that your actions are still within policy, wrong as though they may be? I mean, its hard to not miss anything as I sum up my argument in one swing like this, but the appeal procedure is a joke, non-existent. It contradicts not only what I have come to expect, but itself. They have written it as if its not the first and only appeal available. That's a fucking lie. They have wrote it to be ambiguous that a permablock, given all the information we know now, still would be in order. Community discussion is fruitless (you cannot be overridden, and as you say it was already "verified" by the only "community" that could do anything), fruitless discussion is forbidden (TROLL! TROLL! GET THE TROLL!), and community discussion is required. I mean, what the fuck? A violation of any of those is grounds to deny the so-called appeal. Is that suppose to be a joke? Am I reading something wrong? That's fucking strike three, and that is why they're out.

To top it if they as much as told me to go fuck myself--sorry, told me to discuss it with you, using my personal email account, the one that might has well have had my fucking social security number printed on it (ohhh then just change it after your done--we're only volunteers here you know), or to switch it to some other email account, after you were plainly and explicitly ignoring me. (Lets not revisit why or if it was correct.) That's just being a fucking asshole. Int21h (talk) 00:18, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

And, to repeat myself, its not as if I want them banned from the game, I just think they should get the hell out of the batter's box and let the other players play. Int21h (talk) 00:26, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
	For your work at SPI over the last several months, where you've taken up the work that nobody else wants to do, I am happy to use my 80,000th edit to give you this barnstar. Rs chen 7754 10:58, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Rschen, and congrats on 80k edits :) -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 18:36, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

DQ, I saw the dust-up at the Arb talk page, and it made me want to stop by here and offer you a few words of appreciation and support. As it happens, I saw the PProcter SPI case yesterday, and came away from it feeling that you were a Wiki-hero for solving that unfortunate situation. You are doing good work, and it's appreciated. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:50, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

If there is such a thing as endorsing a barnstar, please consider me to have just done that :) Someguy1221 (talk) 01:06, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks guys, appreciate it. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 22:13, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 February 2013

In the media: Ex-WMF trustee creates "Wikipedia Corporate Index" for PR agency

Recent research: Wikipedia not so novel after all, except to UK university lecturers

News and notes: "Very lucky" Picture of the Year

Discussion report: Wikivoyage links; overcategorization

Featured content: Blue birds be bouncin'

WikiProject report: How to measure a WikiProject's workload

Technology report: Wikidata development to be continued indefinitely

Requesting your opinion at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests

Hi, I'm contacting you because you have recently contributed as a reviewing administrator to WP:AE. I've made a suggestion relating to the management of that page at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests#Structural improvements to AE threads, and would appreciate your input. Thanks, Sandstein 22:33, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll try and stop by there tomorrow. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 06:10, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Int21h block for sockpuppetry

I left my final comments below, and this discussion is now closed. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 12:41, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Per WP:ADMINACCT and WP:DR, could you please answer the following questions about your erroneous block of the Int21h account for sockpuppetry: When making the block, did you take into account the age of the Int21h account (created 29 May 2007) or the fact that it had a clean block log? When you informed Int21h of the block[1], you gave the following as your reason: You have been blocked based on CheckUser evidence that you are clearly abusing multiple accounts. If you believe this is a mistake, you may email me. At this time, until my investigation is complete, i'm not going to release the account names in which are matching with you as this is a big investigation and is not complete, but several CheckUsers have already looked into this offwiki and have verified the results. If you wish not to email me, you can appeal right to the Ban Appeals Subcommittee by emailing arbcom-appeals-enlists.wikimedia.org. Why did you feel it necessary to ban the Int21h account immediately with an incomplete block explanation, rather than wait until your investigation was complete and you could provide a full explanation of the block? You also mentioned that several other CheckUsers corroborated your block. Please name them. If Int21h was "clearly abusing multiple accounts", why could you not name at least some of the other accounts? Did you have any evidence that the Int21h itself account was disrupting the project, or that the sock accounts were assisting the Int21h on talkpages, etc? Int21h correctly described the mistake you made on 28 December 2012[2] Did you investigate whether his assertion was correct? Why did it take three weeks to discover that he was correct? You have indicated that you wish to retain CheckUser access despite this incident[3]. When you made the block, you placed a template warning that any non-CU admin undoing the block risked losing their admin status.[4] In the future, how can non-CheckUser editors check your blocks and ensure you have not made another mistake? Regards, --Surturz (talk) 23:56, 1 March 2013 (UTC) This sounds like "And did you stop beating your wife?", to be honest. --Rs chen 7754 00:31, 2 March 2013 (UTC) These are all questions that either have been answered, cannot be answered due to WP:BEANS concerns, or are based on faulty premises which assume wrongdoing. If this is your attempt to "resolve" the "dispute" (which is already resolved as best as anyone uninvolved can tell, and has been apologized and compensated for, and exists now only in the mind of Int21h, who refuses to acknowledge apologies or explanations of how the error happened and will be corrected for the future), you really need to go back to the drawing board and try to organize your thoughts again before attempting to draw anyone else into it. WP:AUSC exists to address complaints about checkuser use, and if you're determined to pursue this you're free to contact them, but I suspect you'll hear the same thing from them that you and Int21h have heard from multiple other editors this week: yes, it appears an error was made; yes, that error has been corrected, explained, apologized for, and discussed among checkusers; and no, that error was not part of a pattern of abuse or incompetence that would make it rise to the level of censuring any checkuser or abritrator involved. There is literally nothing else that can reasonably be requested of the involved users at this point, and continuing to beat the drum of "but something ELSE must happen!" is becoming unreasonable. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 04:44, 2 March 2013 (UTC) Fluffernutter nailed this mostly, especially how this appears to be in bad faith making it look like I was acting out of malice, against policy, and wanting to target Int21h directly, which to be very very clear is not true. I do want to add though that some of it is covered under the Privacy policy/CU policy, and other parts of it are covered by access to private lists and wikis that I can't post without the direct permission of the authors or owners. You may wish to read the above section which answers some of your questions and the ArbCom talkpage which also answers some. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 05:28, 2 March 2013 (UTC) Apologies if I appear to be acting in bad faith - I am not. I do not think I have any history with either you or Int21h and believe I am uninvolved. Apologies also if I have implied you acted out of malice or were targeting Int21h, FWIW I do not think you were acting with anything except a desire to improve WP. However, I do think you were acting outside of the WP:ADMINACCT policy, which states: Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrator tools, and unexplained administrator actions can demoralize other editors who lack such tools. Subject only to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions. Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed. Your block did not adequately explain the reasons for your block. It was essentially your word against Int21h's. I realise it must be extremely tiresome to be grilled over one mistake, particularly with Int21h as hostile as he is. However, if we are to accept CheckUsers blocks where the reasons for the block are not revealed due to privacy concerns, then we must be assured that they are worthy of the highest trust. I believe I have been civil, I have not made any personal attacks, and I hope I have now convinced you that I am not acting in bad faith - so per the WP:ADMINACCT policy, could you please answer my questions? Thank you. --Surturz (talk) 10:15, 2 March 2013 (UTC) You have been told by DQ and two others to drop it, so please do so. The proper venue if you still have a complaint is WP:AUSC as you have been told numerous times. Thank you. --Rs chen 7754 10:20, 2 March 2013 (UTC) You're missing one key point. DQ made the block on CheckUser evidence, which isn't covered by WP:ADMINACCT, and is only reviewable by WP:AUSC or technically the Ombudsmen. Legoktm (talk) 10:32, 2 March 2013 (UTC) Sorry guys, but I'm just frankly getting very tired of this, so I'm going to answer the questions, so people can sit down, have a coffee and give me some breather room before asking the same questions again along with some new questions pointing to the fact that I am not being accountable or that i'm acting with malice towards a user in the community or to the community. For the record, I always invite second reviews (and in this whole mess a whole 3 other CUs with the rest of the CU team being able to comment) so that if I make a bloody mistake like this, someone can point it out and I can clean up the mess I created. Q: When making the block, did you take into account the age of the Int21h account (created 29 May 2007) or the fact that it had a clean block log? A: The age of the account, I can't tell you specifically how much I paid attention to that factor, but I understood that Int21h's account was at the very least over 1 if not 2 years old. I did take into account the clean block log. Q: When you informed Int21h of the block[5], you gave the following as your reason: You have been blocked based on CheckUser evidence that you are clearly abusing multiple accounts. If you believe this is a mistake, you may email me. At this time, until my investigation is complete, i'm not going to release the account names in which are matching with you as this is a big investigation and is not complete, but several CheckUsers have already looked into this offwiki and have verified the results. If you wish not to email me, you can appeal right to the Ban Appeals Subcommittee by emailing arbcom-appeals-enlists.wikimedia.org. Why did you feel it necessary to ban the Int21h account immediately with an incomplete block explanation, rather than wait until your investigation was complete and you could provide a full explanation of the block? A: As I've said at least once (in the above thread) and if I remember correctly two times already, the number of accounts with overlapping time frames, the same technical information, and the immediate appearance (but needed time to investigate and verify) of it being a long term banned serial sockmaster is why I blocked with the information I had. To further note I also provided the {{checkuserblock-account}} template which provides some comments within itself. Q: You also mentioned that several other CheckUsers corroborated your block. Please name them. A: I told you above that there was stuff on confidential functionary resources that I couldn't tell you without the explicit permission of the functionary who said it, and this is one of those answers. If I posted the names here, I would be violating access to private data because the intended audience was only functionaries. It would be like another ArbCom-l leak. So no, I won't release names without permission. Q: If Int21h was "clearly abusing multiple accounts", why could you not name at least some of the other accounts? A: Looking back at it now, in rear view sight, I could have at least listed 1-3 accounts that were involved. I failed there, and I will completely admit that. Q: Did you have any evidence that the Int21h itself account was disrupting the project, or that the sock accounts were assisting the Int21h on talkpages, etc? A: At the time, no, I did not have any evidence to say that the Int21h account was being disruptive 'by itself, or that any of the sock accounts were editing the same articles, project space pages, talkpages, etc. together. Q: Int21h correctly described the mistake you made on 28 December 2012[6] Did you investigate whether his assertion was correct? Why did it take three weeks to discover that he was correct? A: His assertion, at the time, was that I was completely wrong in what I had already investigated, double, and triple checked including with other CUs. So if I read this correctly your asking if I went back and poured over it again wasting time on what I was already convinced on? Please tell me where the logic is in proving to yourself that you think that you are right when your sure of it. Q: You have indicated that you wish to retain CheckUser access despite this incident[7]. When you made the block, you placed a template warning that any non-CU admin undoing the block risked losing their admin status.[8] In the future, how can non-CheckUser editors check your blocks and ensure you have not made another mistake? A: This is not a fair question. Your directly questioning my judgement on things I don't have control over and "threatening", if you will (though you can't actually do it), for my CU flags to be pulled. Because it is private evidence I must notify users that it is a checkuser block, and use that template when evidence is involved related to the use of CheckUser. Now the Arbitration Committee ruled a long time ago that these blocks, because they contain sensitive and private data that only CUs can see, can not be overturned by a normal administrator. That was not my decision, it was the decision of an ArbCom before I actively started editing here IIRC (or at least before I knew about the effect of a CU block). Non-Checkusers would have to confer with another CheckUser to verify my blocks in the future (which again, as I indicated above, I am open to at any time, because I am accountable). I did not mandate the access level of this private data, the WMF did with the Privacy policy. If you don't want either of those constraints to be there, then go chuck the whole CU system and say goodbye to getting and additional help with sockpuppet detection and investigation, because I can't do a thing about it. Now I've sat down and answered every single one of your questions, despite some of them being already answered, and explained to the best of my ability why the hell I fucked up. Maybe I didn't do it in exactly a civil manner, but when your asked to answer stuff that you've already been over, being watched by the whole community and being examined into pieces, and have people making nice tl;drs a mile long that you actually go and read through and answer, and then get personal attacks and people questioning your motives and beliefs (and i'm not saying this one is you, Surturz) that you try and defend on this wiki, they will get defensive. I'm sorry that you have to read through all the incivility, it's not how I normally am, but it's necessary in this case. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 14:30, 2 March 2013 (UTC) Thank you for answering my questions, I appreciate that this is no fun for you. I don't think there is a privacy concern naming the three certifying CheckUsers because your fellow checkusers have already publicly discussed the identity of the certifying users - Elockid has said that they were not involved in the block[9], J.delanoy has also said that he was not one[10]. Coren said that he "probably" was one of the confirming CheckUsers[11] and it is this "probably" that worries me - perhaps you thought the three confirmed your verdict, but there was a misunderstanding. I would like to independently verify your claim that three CheckUsers certified your block reason. So please name the three certifying checkusers. Ask them for permission first, if you like. If they don't grant permission just state that. I reiterate that I do not think you have been dishonest here, I am sure you think you have told the truth, but I think it is worth also making your claim publicly verifiable. Finally, I am not threatening you with anything - I'm not even an admin. Please realise it would be very easy for me to say nothing and that it is reasonably scary demanding answers from a CheckUser about governance issues. --Surturz (talk) 11:02, 3 March 2013 (UTC) I'm sufficiently concerned with the tack that you are choosing to take here - you are acting like your own self-appointed Audit Subcommittee. Functionaries are bound by privacy rules, and DeltaQuad cannot release the names of the CUs who were involved, or he could lose access to the tool on those grounds alone. CheckUser is not subject to the dispute resolution process, contrary to what you believe; it is under the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Committee, the stewards, and the Wikimedia Foundation staff, due to the privacy matters involved. FWIW I am only a SPI clerk and not a CheckUser, oversighter, or ArbCom member. Now please let the matter rest. --Rs chen 7754 11:14, 3 March 2013 (UTC) I would be telling you who ran the checks against Int21h, which is data contained in the checkuser log which you don't have access to and is covered by the Privacy policy. To release data from the checkuser log, or from the resource that contains these names is not only inappropriate, it's against policy to reveal that private data. I'm also not going to ask my fellow functionaries to go through what i've gone through to satisfy your curiosity, or for you to question them about these matters, and that's completely unprofessional. A similar thread like this was posted sometime last year on the on the checkuser talkpage and was declined and forwarded to the Audit Subcommittee. There was no misunderstanding, I made three direct statements about what I thought was going on, and asked them to certify it or not. Your directly questioning my ability to read, if not my ability to tell the truth. I told you the results of that above. If you don't trust my word on that, I'm sorry, take it up with the Audit Subcommittee. It's not my information to release. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 12:41, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I left my final comments below, and this discussion is now closed. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 12:41, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Per WP:ADMINACCT and WP:DR, could you please answer the following questions about your erroneous block of the Int21h account for sockpuppetry:

When making the block, did you take into account the age of the Int21h account (created 29 May 2007) or the fact that it had a clean block log?
When you informed Int21h of the block[1], you gave the following as your reason:
You have been blocked based on CheckUser evidence that you are clearly abusing multiple accounts. If you believe this is a mistake, you may email me. At this time, until my investigation is complete, i'm not going to release the account names in which are matching with you as this is a big investigation and is not complete, but several CheckUsers have already looked into this offwiki and have verified the results. If you wish not to email me, you can appeal right to the Ban Appeals Subcommittee by emailing arbcom-appeals-enlists.wikimedia.org.
Why did you feel it necessary to ban the Int21h account immediately with an incomplete block explanation, rather than wait until your investigation was complete and you could provide a full explanation of the block?
You also mentioned that several other CheckUsers corroborated your block. Please name them.
If Int21h was "clearly abusing multiple accounts", why could you not name at least some of the other accounts?
Did you have any evidence that the Int21h itself account was disrupting the project, or that the sock accounts were assisting the Int21h on talkpages, etc?
Int21h correctly described the mistake you made on 28 December 2012[2] Did you investigate whether his assertion was correct? Why did it take three weeks to discover that he was correct?
You have indicated that you wish to retain CheckUser access despite this incident[3]. When you made the block, you placed a template warning that any non-CU admin undoing the block risked losing their admin status.[4] In the future, how can non-CheckUser editors check your blocks and ensure you have not made another mistake?

Regards, --Surturz (talk) 23:56, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

This sounds like "And did you stop beating your wife?", to be honest. --Rs chen 7754 00:31, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

These are all questions that either have been answered, cannot be answered due to WP:BEANS concerns, or are based on faulty premises which assume wrongdoing. If this is your attempt to "resolve" the "dispute" (which is already resolved as best as anyone uninvolved can tell, and has been apologized and compensated for, and exists now only in the mind of Int21h, who refuses to acknowledge apologies or explanations of how the error happened and will be corrected for the future), you really need to go back to the drawing board and try to organize your thoughts again before attempting to draw anyone else into it. WP:AUSC exists to address complaints about checkuser use, and if you're determined to pursue this you're free to contact them, but I suspect you'll hear the same thing from them that you and Int21h have heard from multiple other editors this week: yes, it appears an error was made; yes, that error has been corrected, explained, apologized for, and discussed among checkusers; and no, that error was not part of a pattern of abuse or incompetence that would make it rise to the level of censuring any checkuser or abritrator involved. There is literally nothing else that can reasonably be requested of the involved users at this point, and continuing to beat the drum of "but something ELSE must happen!" is becoming unreasonable. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 04:44, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Fluffernutter nailed this mostly, especially how this appears to be in bad faith making it look like I was acting out of malice, against policy, and wanting to target Int21h directly, which to be very very clear is not true. I do want to add though that some of it is covered under the Privacy policy/CU policy, and other parts of it are covered by access to private lists and wikis that I can't post without the direct permission of the authors or owners. You may wish to read the above section which answers some of your questions and the ArbCom talkpage which also answers some. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 05:28, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Apologies if I appear to be acting in bad faith - I am not. I do not think I have any history with either you or Int21h and believe I am uninvolved. Apologies also if I have implied you acted out of malice or were targeting Int21h, FWIW I do not think you were acting with anything except a desire to improve WP. However, I do think you were acting outside of the WP:ADMINACCT policy, which states:

Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrator tools, and unexplained administrator actions can demoralize other editors who lack such tools. Subject only to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions. Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed.

Your block did not adequately explain the reasons for your block. It was essentially your word against Int21h's. I realise it must be extremely tiresome to be grilled over one mistake, particularly with Int21h as hostile as he is. However, if we are to accept CheckUsers blocks where the reasons for the block are not revealed due to privacy concerns, then we must be assured that they are worthy of the highest trust. I believe I have been civil, I have not made any personal attacks, and I hope I have now convinced you that I am not acting in bad faith - so per the WP:ADMINACCT policy, could you please answer my questions? Thank you. --Surturz (talk) 10:15, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

You have been told by DQ and two others to drop it, so please do so. The proper venue if you still have a complaint is WP:AUSC as you have been told numerous times. Thank you. --Rs chen 7754 10:20, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

You're missing one key point. DQ made the block on CheckUser evidence, which isn't covered by WP:ADMINACCT, and is only reviewable by WP:AUSC or technically the Ombudsmen. Legoktm (talk) 10:32, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry guys, but I'm just frankly getting very tired of this, so I'm going to answer the questions, so people can sit down, have a coffee and give me some breather room before asking the same questions again along with some new questions pointing to the fact that I am not being accountable or that i'm acting with malice towards a user in the community or to the community. For the record, I always invite second reviews (and in this whole mess a whole 3 other CUs with the rest of the CU team being able to comment) so that if I make a bloody mistake like this, someone can point it out and I can clean up the mess I created.

Q: When making the block, did you take into account the age of the Int21h account (created 29 May 2007) or the fact that it had a clean block log?

A: The age of the account, I can't tell you specifically how much I paid attention to that factor, but I understood that Int21h's account was at the very least over 1 if not 2 years old. I did take into account the clean block log.

Q: When you informed Int21h of the block[5], you gave the following as your reason:
You have been blocked based on CheckUser evidence that you are clearly abusing multiple accounts. If you believe this is a mistake, you may email me. At this time, until my investigation is complete, i'm not going to release the account names in which are matching with you as this is a big investigation and is not complete, but several CheckUsers have already looked into this offwiki and have verified the results. If you wish not to email me, you can appeal right to the Ban Appeals Subcommittee by emailing arbcom-appeals-enlists.wikimedia.org.
Why did you feel it necessary to ban the Int21h account immediately with an incomplete block explanation, rather than wait until your investigation was complete and you could provide a full explanation of the block?

A: As I've said at least once (in the above thread) and if I remember correctly two times already, the number of accounts with overlapping time frames, the same technical information, and the immediate appearance (but needed time to investigate and verify) of it being a long term banned serial sockmaster is why I blocked with the information I had. To further note I also provided the {{checkuserblock-account}} template which provides some comments within itself.

Q: You also mentioned that several other CheckUsers corroborated your block. Please name them.

A: I told you above that there was stuff on confidential functionary resources that I couldn't tell you without the explicit permission of the functionary who said it, and this is one of those answers. If I posted the names here, I would be violating access to private data because the intended audience was only functionaries. It would be like another ArbCom-l leak. So no, I won't release names without permission.

Q: If Int21h was "clearly abusing multiple accounts", why could you not name at least some of the other accounts?

A: Looking back at it now, in rear view sight, I could have at least listed 1-3 accounts that were involved. I failed there, and I will completely admit that.

Q: Did you have any evidence that the Int21h itself account was disrupting the project, or that the sock accounts were assisting the Int21h on talkpages, etc?

A: At the time, no, I did not have any evidence to say that the Int21h account was being disruptive 'by itself, or that any of the sock accounts were editing the same articles, project space pages, talkpages, etc. together.

Q: Int21h correctly described the mistake you made on 28 December 2012[6] Did you investigate whether his assertion was correct? Why did it take three weeks to discover that he was correct?

A: His assertion, at the time, was that I was completely wrong in what I had already investigated, double, and triple checked including with other CUs. So if I read this correctly your asking if I went back and poured over it again wasting time on what I was already convinced on? Please tell me where the logic is in proving to yourself that you think that you are right when your sure of it.

Q: You have indicated that you wish to retain CheckUser access despite this incident[7]. When you made the block, you placed a template warning that any non-CU admin undoing the block risked losing their admin status.[8] In the future, how can non-CheckUser editors check your blocks and ensure you have not made another mistake?

A: This is not a fair question. Your directly questioning my judgement on things I don't have control over and "threatening", if you will (though you can't actually do it), for my CU flags to be pulled. Because it is private evidence I must notify users that it is a checkuser block, and use that template when evidence is involved related to the use of CheckUser. Now the Arbitration Committee ruled a long time ago that these blocks, because they contain sensitive and private data that only CUs can see, can not be overturned by a normal administrator. That was not my decision, it was the decision of an ArbCom before I actively started editing here IIRC (or at least before I knew about the effect of a CU block). Non-Checkusers would have to confer with another CheckUser to verify my blocks in the future (which again, as I indicated above, I am open to at any time, because I am accountable). I did not mandate the access level of this private data, the WMF did with the Privacy policy. If you don't want either of those constraints to be there, then go chuck the whole CU system and say goodbye to getting and additional help with sockpuppet detection and investigation, because I can't do a thing about it.

Now I've sat down and answered every single one of your questions, despite some of them being already answered, and explained to the best of my ability why the hell I fucked up. Maybe I didn't do it in exactly a civil manner, but when your asked to answer stuff that you've already been over, being watched by the whole community and being examined into pieces, and have people making nice tl;drs a mile long that you actually go and read through and answer, and then get personal attacks and people questioning your motives and beliefs (and i'm not saying this one is you, Surturz) that you try and defend on this wiki, they will get defensive. I'm sorry that you have to read through all the incivility, it's not how I normally am, but it's necessary in this case. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 14:30, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for answering my questions, I appreciate that this is no fun for you. I don't think there is a privacy concern naming the three certifying CheckUsers because your fellow checkusers have already publicly discussed the identity of the certifying users - Elockid has said that they were not involved in the block[9], J.delanoy has also said that he was not one[10]. Coren said that he "probably" was one of the confirming CheckUsers[11] and it is this "probably" that worries me - perhaps you thought the three confirmed your verdict, but there was a misunderstanding. I would like to independently verify your claim that three CheckUsers certified your block reason. So please name the three certifying checkusers. Ask them for permission first, if you like. If they don't grant permission just state that. I reiterate that I do not think you have been dishonest here, I am sure you think you have told the truth, but I think it is worth also making your claim publicly verifiable.

Finally, I am not threatening you with anything - I'm not even an admin. Please realise it would be very easy for me to say nothing and that it is reasonably scary demanding answers from a CheckUser about governance issues. --Surturz (talk) 11:02, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm sufficiently concerned with the tack that you are choosing to take here - you are acting like your own self-appointed Audit Subcommittee. Functionaries are bound by privacy rules, and DeltaQuad cannot release the names of the CUs who were involved, or he could lose access to the tool on those grounds alone. CheckUser is not subject to the dispute resolution process, contrary to what you believe; it is under the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Committee, the stewards, and the Wikimedia Foundation staff, due to the privacy matters involved. FWIW I am only a SPI clerk and not a CheckUser, oversighter, or ArbCom member. Now please let the matter rest. --Rs chen 7754 11:14, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I would be telling you who ran the checks against Int21h, which is data contained in the checkuser log which you don't have access to and is covered by the Privacy policy. To release data from the checkuser log, or from the resource that contains these names is not only inappropriate, it's against policy to reveal that private data. I'm also not going to ask my fellow functionaries to go through what i've gone through to satisfy your curiosity, or for you to question them about these matters, and that's completely unprofessional. A similar thread like this was posted sometime last year on the on the checkuser talkpage and was declined and forwarded to the Audit Subcommittee. There was no misunderstanding, I made three direct statements about what I thought was going on, and asked them to certify it or not. Your directly questioning my ability to read, if not my ability to tell the truth. I told you the results of that above. If you don't trust my word on that, I'm sorry, take it up with the Audit Subcommittee. It's not my information to release. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 12:41, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

@DeltaQuad, I just wanted to thank you for being so forthright and trying to resolve this difficult situation. I have a great deal of respect for you and thank you for your many years of service you have volunteered to the project.
@Others, There is nobody on this project that hates bad blocks more than I do—and something needs to be done to fix it. DeltaQuad made a mistake, admitted it and fixed it as best they could. If you have any history with the project, you will know that, in the past, it was rare for a CheckUser to admit their mistakes and there are bad blocks still in place. This is not the case with DeltaQuad and focusing on DQ is actually harmful to the cause of fixing all our bad blocks because DQ is one of our best functionaries who actually admits mistakes and tries to fix them. My suggestion would be to focus on the policies and educating our userbase so the bad blocks don't happen to others in the future. Please give this suggestion some serious consideration. Thank you. 64.40.54.87 (talk) 21:08, 2 March 2013 (UTC) Moved per request [12]

Thank you for your comments, I appreciate it. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 07:27, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

OTRS question

OTRS has received an email from someone claiming they were blocked by you.

Not their user name, but their IP.

The IP they listed is not the same as an IP you blocked to day, but close enough that there may be a typo.

They claim they cannot log into their account because they forgot their password and they can't request a new password because they cannot log in.

I'm a little out of my depth here.

Am I correct that the password reset page does not require being logged in to use? That wouldn't make much sense, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything.--SPhilbrick (Talk) 01:45, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

You do not need to be logged in to do a password reset, though I have heard that if the IP your trying to use is blocked, you can't use password reset. So I would send him a reset, and if he's blocked further, he will have to appeal via UTRS. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 03:02, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks.--SPhilbrick (Talk) 12:49, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

He remembered the password, so now moot, but I'll try to remember this for next time. By the way, I see you are going through a tough time. Hang in there. Your responses above are remarkably measured, given the situation. Of course, that why we pay you the big bucks. Seriously, hang in there. I know I've made mistakes, and will again, I hope I don't get the Spanish Inquisition when it inevitably happens.--SPhilbrick (Talk) 13:50, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Siabaf

I posted another user on the page that you might find helpful in determining what's going on with it.—Ryulong (琉竜) 10:22, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I found 3 more. And if you would not mind, could you semi-protect Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zordon? This is where all the socks are ending up.—Ryulong (琉竜) 01:21, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Commented there. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 01:35, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Is the CU data really that bad? I know you're not allowed to comment on IP usage, but the IPs that have been disrupting that debate (along with the debate on Hurricane Kira) might be of some help in clearing things up perhaps?—Ryulong (琉竜) 01:40, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Also how the hell do we still have data for Don't Feed the Zords?—Ryulong (琉竜) 01:43, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Ya it's that bad. several clustered states with mostly mobile IPs and some business IPs which have nothing on them. We don't have data on the original user IIRC, but his created socks, as he's still active today. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 03:47, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I honestly haven't even considered he's still about after I blocked him myself 4 years ago. I've only noticed a chain of users fucking up the Power Rangers pages. I guess they latched onto the Zordon AFD to make a point with the fictional Hurricane one.—Ryulong (琉竜) 05:21, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Several of the non-CU sock accounts are still unblocked and editing, eg. Att3847 (talk · contribs) who is probably do not feed the zords.—Ryulong (琉竜) 04:51, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

In a case like this, it is best for me to only block everything obvious, since I ran the checks. I will ask for a clerk today to review the behavioral evidence and determine blocks. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 12:20, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

He keeps posting copyvio summaries like Yuffo did, at least. It's a clear relationship as far as I can tell.—Ryulong (琉竜) 03:22, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

These guys keep coming out of the woodwork.—Ryulong (琉竜) 18:48, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I've blocked TVlover as BCD per the contribs like Yuffo and CU evidence. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 14:13, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

He's back already.—Ryulong (琉竜) 17:49, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Library IP anonblocked 2 weeks. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 17:53, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Do you think that's sufficient? Because I'm now really having flashbacks to Don't Feed the Zords and another ancient banned user.—Ryulong (琉竜) 19:38, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Based on CU data, yes. Feel free to reping me after 2 weeks if it resumes or if more socks show. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 19:46, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Don't feel like making a new thread. He's back as AManWithTime (talk · contribs). ~~I'll~~ I'm reopening the SPI ~~if you want me to~~ so it can be properly logged (I'm going with BuickCenturyDriver as that's where all the mess was last time).—Ryulong (琉竜) 06:48, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

YGM

Hello, AmandaNP/Archives/2013. 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 remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

–BuickCentury Driver 12:04, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Replied since the last batch. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 01:35, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
	I think you're owed one of these for the extraordinary slog you've put in at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Siabaf; that looked (from a non-checkuser's vantage point) like one hell of a mess to sort out. Yunshui 雲‍水 08:13, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. :D It's all in a days work. That's actually one of the more simpler cases i've dealt with. I've had socks like AlexLevyOne, Jvolkblum, and YAJ who are a lot harder to nail. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 08:39, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Request for your opinion

Hi DQ. I wonder whether I might be able to get your thoughts on User:RocketCRP5? He appeared to have been caught in the autoblock of User:Professional Music Blogger (SPI report), which he appealed via UTRS. Since RocketCRP5's only article edit (way back in 2012, long before PMB was active) was this, to the same Rocket Records page that PMB and his sockarmy were interested in, I assumed that it was an older iteration of the same sockmaster, but now that he's vociferously protesting his innocence I'm no longer as certain. Would you mind reviewing the block and offering your opinion? Yunshui 雲‍水 10:19, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

At a glance, it's definitely a 'been there, seen that' story with the appeal. The claims made by him that he is hacked is a standard way people try and get out of blocks. Also since there are 7 appeals from the IP in UTRS, I doubt that helps him much. Furthermore, I ran him through CU, and he's got 5-6 socks with him, leading me back to Professional Music Blogger. Since Jpgordon has also ran the check and agreed, I think your fine and I've reserved the UTRS appeal, and i'll take care of it for you. (For my notes, UTRS appeal #6915) -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 10:56, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

I've been passing over all his subsequent UTRS tickets, obviously, but I did notice he seemed pretty peeved... Thank you so much for taking care of it, and for offering your input. Presumably this would make Professional Music Blogger a sock of RocketCRP5, rather than the other way around? Yunshui 雲‍水 11:40, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

That is correct. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 11:44, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Re: 'This discussion cannot be allowed to die'

While I believe that the community can suspend ArbCom's ranks if it so resolves, that is not at all what this thread was ever intended to be about. I created it with the specific purpose of us at least seeing through the block log revdel suggestion, which was alluded to with "meaningful consensus" and "this particular measure", and which seems to have near-universal support as a solution.

Aside that, and if I had it to do over, I might also added as concrete points that we conclusively move forward with (a) reviewing our unblock request process to make sure that innocent contributors are always able to find relief, (b) ensuring that IPBE adequately protects users in good standing, and (c) improving CheckUser instruction. That's my idea of justice—making sure that problems are fixed, not going after anyone's hide. — C M B J 06:05, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to insinuate anything you were in support of something you weren't. I do think that this is the improper venue for a suggestion like such as only the people dedicated to the thread would have commented on it (well maybe a few passer-bys too). In my opinion Villiage pump (policy) would be the best place to continue and take that up, instead of this thread where it might just very well die. As for your three other points, except for C, I didn't see any concrete proposals. As for C, I still have to update the CU guide on CU wiki a bit, but other than that I saw nothing concrete either. This is just the phase of getting it out of the dead thread, and moving it to VPP where it could have meaningful effect vs. an ArbCom noticeboard and a dead thread. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 12:29, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 March 2013

Op-ed: We must do more to turn readers into editors

News and notes: Outing of editor causes firestorm

Featured content: Slow week for featured content

WikiProject report: WikiProject Television Stations

Mail

Flyer22 (talk) 18:41, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I saw this this morning, and I'm waiting for a reply from someone else for a second opinion. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 19:12, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I figured something like that may be the case. I'm usually patient when waiting for an email reply, but the guide to emailing you made me think that you probably regularly receive a lot of emails per day and that maybe you would somehow overlook mine, especially since the guide makes it clear that shorter emails will get a quicker response. My email isn't long, but it's not the shortest either, of course. Flyer22 (talk) 19:23, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Yep, no worries. I also encourage people to put the template here if they want to track it, otherwise, if it's long, I do admit it can get lost or take a long time to get a reply. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 19:25, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I took your suggestion to leave the "You've got mail" note on your talk page into consideration and, obviously, finally left it. Flyer22 (talk) 19:40, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

This issue has been dealt with and we found 2 additional ones that we took care of. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 02:37, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Images deleted

Hi, I noticed you deleted the images on the Ashley Chin article for his album covers; File:Muslim Belal - The Transition.jpg and File:Muslim Belal - Pray Hard.jpg. I did not know that these were listed for deletion and I have good reason to believe that they should not have been deleted. As no other editors other than the the nominator commented for them to be deleted, is it possible that they can be re-listed for deletion again so consensus could be reached? Thanks. Tanbircdq (talk) 21:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't want to restore something that is eventually just going to be deleted again, so can you provide a valid defense to the deletion reason that was claimed? -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 02:32, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Although the images are only used on the artist’s article, both albums are discussed in detail within the article, including release date, full track listing, length, genres, other artists featured, label, and critical commentary of the artist’s music. The images add to this by serving as a significant and primary means of visually identifying and illustrating the albums. Tanbircdq (talk) 23:45, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

While a lot of information may be listed about the track, but could you please point out the critical commentary, where the image directly is subject to commentary? Also how does the picture if deleted take away from the understanding of the subject of the article, or the text that is in it? (I've also invited VernoWhitney (talk · contribs) the nominator to discuss this) -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 23:30, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

The key requirement which I brought up in my deletion nomination is WP:NFCC#8, and DeltaQuad touched on it above. How does the presence of those two images help a reader understand the existence of the albums? Is their existence harder to understand without them in the article? Unless I'm missing something there is little actual commentary (track listings and other such details--while important--are not critical commentary) about the albums in the article, and none about the cover art which would require a visual aid. VernoWhitney (talk) 01:42, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

The subject in question cannot be adequately conveyed by properly sourced text without using the non-free content as the images provide an immediate relevance to the reader more capably than the textual description alone. Tanbircdq (talk) 00:35, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Asking about an SPI

When you have a few minutes, please cast your expert eyes at User talk:Tryptofish#Re: SPI and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Pproctor. I'm not looking for checkuser, because I don't see a need, but I am looking at the behavioral patterns, and you now have some experience and familiarity with this case. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:02, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Done I've dealt with the case at hand. I do feel that there are more socks, some names that I can't report because I don't have enough evidence, so I doubt we've seen the last of it. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 23:14, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, and well done! --Tryptofish (talk) 23:19, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

thanks

Thanks for dealing with Silviabe333‎/Topfin. Azylber (talk) 14:20, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Drbkmurali

I know that CU's won't comment on the links between IP's and Named accounts, however given 117.203.124.105 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) only and recent edits to Hope Hospitals and it's talk page, is a block matching that of Drbkmurali (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appropriate ? LGA _talk^edits 23:11, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Commenting solely with my admin hat, I think it's safe to leave it for now. Do let me know if they start editing again though. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 23:36, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks and will do. LGA _talk^edits 00:00, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Indic scripts from infobox

Hi DQ, since it's quite unclear about removing indic scripts from the infobox on the rfc you made earlier. I'm wondering whether you could clarify this? Torreslfchero (talk) 10:06, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

There was already a clarification over a year and two months ago. Could you please be specific on what you need clarified? -- DQ on the road (ʞlɐʇ) 17:03, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I know there is rfc regarding scripts in the lead but I couldn't find whether scripts in the infobox (like this) should be removed. I'm quite uncertain from the rfc whether indic scripts should also be removed from the infobox (see above example). T4B (talk) 21:07, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

The RfC only covers the lead, not the infobox, in my opinion. Other than that, existing policies in place would cover it. If there are no existing policies, well then your free to do as you wish until someone disagrees, you take it to a talkpage and establish a consensus. I don't primarily work in that topic area, so I wouldn't know where the relevant policies are. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 22:49, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. T4B (talk) 07:50, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

SPI

Hello Sir,i just read your comments here,yeah my level of English is intermediate and i have been correcting it from there.Then please tell me the main point of concern here so i will learn from it.Thanx---zeeyanketu ^discutez 18:14, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

"Every user has right to edit even after being blocked", that is not true. If a user edits after they are blocked, they are sockpuppets and abusing multiple accounts or evading a block. This is one of the core reasons in which SPI exists. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 01:15, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

OC Transpo routes

Hello, AmandaNP. You have new messages at BigBenzino's talk page.
Message added 01:34, 13 March 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

DHeyward IPBE

Windy and long but not sure what else you need. Blocked IP/range causing the problem sent. --DHeyward (talk) 05:30, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Not long at all :) I've replied. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 16:11, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 March 2013

From the editor: Signpost–Wikizine merger

News and notes: Finance committee updates

Featured content: Batman, three birds and a Mercedes

Arbitration report: Doncram case closes; arbitrator resigns

WikiProject report: Setting a precedent

Technology report: Article Feedback reversal

User:Evangp unblock request

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Just a passing mention in a SO unblock appeal, nothing serious. Yunshui 雲‍水 08:58, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I dropped a note. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 17:59, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Checkuserblock

If you block an IP with {{checkuserblock}} as the reason, should there not be some associated message to go on their talk page, since an IP doesn't have a user page to leave that template on? I ask from just seeing a block of that type you made. I was able to trace the block to an SPI, but a less experienced user would probably have some difficulty. Thanks for any clarification, — Hex (❝?!❞) 15:06, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Users will always see the block message either way when they try and edit. Also leaving that on the IP's userpage could confuse other editors from that IP in the future, and it's also not practical to do it for rangeblocks, as every page would have to be tagged. I could put it on a single IP's talkpage, but in that event, it's most likely that any user appealing will be the blocked user themselves, who have already been notified of a block on their original account.

Also please never assume that if a checkuserblock is close to an SPI, that it's related to that SPI. That's because I frequently handle multiple requests at once, including undocumented requests from IRC. I also every (insert time-based word here, ie day, week, 3 days, etc.) deliberately switch around CU blocks so they don't match an SPI, or wait till later to make them. And the whole purpose of the checkuserblock is that it's not really supposed to be traceable back to the SPI anyway, so the system of the appealing user not being able to get to the original SPI is working as it should. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 15:30, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks for the explanation. In this particular case, I happened to know what was going on with that particular IP, so no assumption was involved... I wouldn't do that anyway. — Hex (❝?!❞) 10:04, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Tramadul

I was just finishing a checkuser request for Chuzzz (talk · contribs) and 61.8.119.132 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), who are both obvious socks of Tramadul. Should I still submit it, for the record (I was just previewing it when I saw your indef of Tramadul)? Thanks, First Light (talk) 15:10, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/MalesAlwaysBest which I just finished. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 15:20, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks - should I add the evidence for the IP? That would be:

Tramadul was blocked for 72 hours, protesting his innocence and showing his inability to understand why he was blocked. The blocking admin finally told him that he would be blocked indefinitely if he ever returned to the Paul Frampton article,[13] which was the cause of his block and much discussed at ANI. Before the block ended, 61.8.119.132 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) started inserting the same language into the article as Tramadul had threatened to do on his talk page.[14] The IP had also edited the Paul Frampton and other articles previously, placing the exact same BLP violating links in other articles[15] that Tramadul had been doing.[16]

First Light (talk) 15:28, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

You can if you wish, as the CU who ran the check, I'm bound by the privacy policy not to comment on the IP. If you wish for the IP to be blocked, that would be a good next step. Hope that helps. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 15:33, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I've added the IP, using the already created checkuser request I had prepared. First Light (talk) 15:39, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Help desk

Just out of curiosity, why was this posted to the help desk talk page, of all places? Frigid Ninja 23:24, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Because you guys interact with new users as far as I know, and that's exactly who we deal with, and an area where we would like to see people with experience in dealing with new accounts since that is our job. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 22:04, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

That... makes perfect sense, looking back. I was just confused, and thought it could have been a possible mistake. But then again, who am I to accuse the great Administrator DeltaQuad of making a mistake? (that's a joke, not mean sarcasm or an insult) Thanks, Frigid Ninja 22:26, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

My unblock request

Hi DQ, you declined my unblock request for [[17]] because it needs to be from a main account. So please unblock that IP-Address, I am who i am (never been blocked in 9 years on WP, several 1000 edits and Founding member of my local chapter). For technical details, the IP-Adress is the IP-Adress of my OpenVPN Server. I sometimes use VPN for various reasons including avoiding Telecommunications data retention, having the ability to use Last.fm. etc. Arved (talk) 10:56, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I can not unblock that one single IP address as the software doesn't work that way. I can however give you an IP block exemption. It appears that you are using a software based proxy, which means you couldn't just switch browsers to edit Wikipedia. Therefore since you need the proxy to avoid censorship and data privacy issues, and because your a long term user, I have granted your account the block exemption. This will require you to be logged in to edit from your proxy. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 04:18, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Andrey Borodin

Hello DQ. I see you blanked Andrey Borodin for copyvio, but I don't see where the copyrighted source is. What I see underneath is a large article with a bunch of cites, and none of it is obviously wrong looking. I would like to restore the article, and deal with the offending bits. Will you please explain what exactly is the copyvio? -- Y not? 21:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

The first example of it found was with a part I already removed like this diff where the whole paragraph was from this external site. As of this revision that I found, it looks like all the copyvios were inserted here and just have been reworded since. If you look at the third and fourth sentence of that paragraph of "Education and early career" in that diff, and compare it to the fourth paragraph, first two sentences of the subjects about page which is listed as the source for that text, you will see it's the same. Furthermore compare the second paragraph, second sentence onward in that Education and early life section to the third paragraph of [18] You'll find another exact copy. That should express my concerns as why I think this article could have copyvio issues with. Of course I haven't gone through the whole entire article, but it seems like there is an issue on the surface. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 04:35, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

OK thanks for the explanation. I guess somebody with time on their hands will have to go through Andrey here and clean him up. Cheers. -- Y not? 11:55, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 March 2013

News and notes: Resigning arbitrator slams Committee

WikiProject report: Making music

Interview: Meeting in the middle: Wikipedia and libraries

Featured content: Wikipedia stays warm

Arbitration report: Richard case closes

Technology report: Visual Editor "on schedule"

To those trying to contact me via email right now

Hi everyone, if your currently trying to contact me via email, I am currently backlogged. I came in today with a stack of 23 messages in categories that I normally reply to. That number is now down to 7, and of those 7, they are mostly big tasks behind them. So if you can find another way to deal with the situation at hand, or leave something here at my talkpage, that would be appreciated. This message will not be included in the regular archive and will be removed once resolved, along with any replies. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 04:57, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Re: ACC needs help (from Teahouse talk)!

Greetings
I had one account at ACC which was disabled because I did not sign in for 45 days. It was a mistake! I was/am active in Wikipedia (en)! Could you please enable the account! I have submitted my identity etc to Wikimedia. --Tito Dutta (contact) 04:53, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

My username was Titodutta! --Tito Dutta (contact) 04:54, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for coming to help. I have re enabled your access. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 16:58, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! I can see there are some Indian names, I'll start with those, since I am familiar with those names (including their meaning) --Tito Dutta (contact) 17:28, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I'm back as well (username bility). I'd like to help with the backlog if you would reactivate me. Thanks! — Bility (talk) 17:40, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Done Please familiarize yourself with the guide again and re-subscribe to the mailing list here. If you are an IRC user, join #wikipedia-en-accounts-unreg ^connect and we will get you setup with channel access. -- Cheers, Riley 20:06, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

And one more: my tool access was withdrawn for inactivity. Any chance you can reactivate please? Thanks.--ukexpat (talk) 19:52, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I have reactivated your account, but I don't see you as identified to the Wikimedia Foundation, so you'll get a message saying you need to do that first before gaining access. If i'm in error, or whenever you get that in, let me know. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 20:36, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks - I did provide id to join the OTRS team. Do I need to do something different for the tool? Thanks.--ukexpat (talk) 00:22, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Error message!

I am getting this error message: Login error

Visitors to Wikipedia using your IP address have created 6 accounts in the last 24 hours, which is the maximum allowed in this time period. As a result, visitors using this IP address cannot create any more accounts at the moment. If you would like to request an account be created for you, follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Request an account. --Tito Dutta (contact) 18:27, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Done via irc :D [stwalkerster|talk] 18:51, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

More User:MooshiePorkFace?

Hi, just an FYI. I noted User:WilliamH's revert of 65.127.208.182 adding back old material attributed to User:MooshiePorkFace at Zultanite. That same IP is currently reverting back old "Dobsonians are cheap" material at Amateur Telescope Making diff, diff, diff (switched to IP 67.216.17.3). That old edit came from User:GHJmover who (in my view) may be related to this series of users. So MooshiePorkFace=65.127.208.182=GHJmover=another whole series of socks? Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 15:12, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

GHJmover is

Stale, so I can't run a check on him and CUs do not comment about the link between accounts and IPs. I will get another admin to look over the page to see if protection is worth it though. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 08:27, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 March 2013

WikiProject report: The 'Burgh: WikiProject Pittsburgh

Featured content: One and a half soursops

Arbitration report: Two open cases

News and notes: Sue Gardner to leave WMF; German Wikipedians spearhead another effort to close Wikinews

Technology report: The Visual Editor: Where are we now, and where are we headed?

Recent research: "Ignore all rules" in deletions; anonymity and groupthink; how readers react when shown talk pages