Thank you for your report to the vandalism noticeboard. I saw your question to the administrator who declined to act on your report and thought someone should respond here, since a response there might have gotten archived or removed before you had a chance to see it.
The reason for caution in blocking IPs (as opposed to registered accounts) for edits that aren't that recent is that IPs are sometimes reallocated from one person to another. We don't want to block an IP because one person has been vandalizing with it, and later on, a completely innocent person sits down and happens to come up on the same IP and is blocked even though he or she didn't do anything wrong. There are technical ways of telling which IPs might be static versus dynamic, but where there's any doubt, some administrators hesitate to block unless the edits are very recent.
That being said, there are no other edits in the history of Wikipedia from this IP, so I think a block would have been made anyway if there had been a longer history of bad edits. But in this IPs history, unless I am missing something, there are only two edits in total. Unless the edits are pretty gross (BLP violations, etc.), we usually allow more warnings than that—whether we should is a separate discussion.
It does indeed help very much. I appreciate you taking the time to explain. I think I understand now. I didn't realise that IP addresses get shared out amongst different internet users. I thought the refusal was simply because blocks should be preventative and not punitive. Given that some unrelated user might get hit with a block for no reason then it makes perfect sense. Thanks a lot! — Fly by Night(talk)16:08, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Fly by Night, thanks for fighting vandalism and welcoming new users. You might already know this, but I wanted to drop a friendly reminder to remember to subst welcome templates. Substing can be done by substing; e.g. {{subst:Welcome}} instead of {{Welcome}}. Since the wording on boilerplate templates may change, it is always best to substitute them when possible so people will see the message as it originally appeared when posted. This also avoids errors that may occur if the template includes a signature (this one does not) and incidentally also reduces the load on the servers from transclusion. Anyway, happy patrolling and happy welcoming!
Thanks for reverting the vandalism to my userpage - next time, remember to check a user's edit history before actually classifying them as "good faith." If you checked User_talk:Chriswuk's history, you'll see that every single one has been vandalism, and he defaced my page because I had gave him a level 3 warning.
Thanks for your message. I'm sorry, but it's very hard to classify this edit as vandalism. It just looked like he was experimenting with the page parameters. Going by WP:AGF, we shouldn't judge an editor by their previous edits. So what if a user has vandalised 100 times? His 101st edit might be him turning over a new leaf. You have to treat each edit individually or else a bias will build up, and it will be impossible, or at least pointless, for an editor to change their ways. Have a nice day. — Fly by Night(talk)11:24, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your rationale, perhaps I am more hawkish than you. I certainly took this into account when warning him, and routinely modifying userpages of those who have warned you does not count as good faith in my book at all. At least he's stopped now. Cheers, –- kungming·219:31, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry. I don't question your actions at all. I know how frustrating and, at times, down right annoying it can be. Let me know if s/he starts up again and I'll do my best to help. — Fly by Night(talk)22:10, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. It would look better with bullet points if it was a straight out !vote. But with it being a discussion, the indent system allows people to follow the thread of the conversation more easily. Had it been a formal WP:RfC then I would have agreed with adding the bullet points. — Fly by Night(talk)23:01, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't tagging with {{Rfctag}} the same as opening a WP:RfC? That's what I understand from what I read on both pages: putting the tag on a talkpage effectively creates an RFC. Anyway, I still think that it's like shooting a mosquito with a canon, since the guidelines are so crystal clear on this. If I were to open such a thing, it would feel like a user conduct issue, and I don't think that such would be approriate at this point. Let's see what happens with the current entry... DVdm (talk) 12:49, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't try to advertise any product, this is a freeware thing and i didn't even code it. I found it useful when removing the virus, because all the other tools on the internet are payware and nobody links to this. Should i rather create a new article subtopic "a freeware fixer has been released..." and then include it in references? That's really silly —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.184.73.10 (talk) 16:15, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You mean this link that you added to the Vundo article? Well, you added a link to a "scanner and fixer". Whether it is free or not is irrelevant. That link was put there so that people would follow it and use the program to scan for and to fix any problems. Therefore, the link was designed to promote the software. That goes against WP:SPAM and as so the link had to be removed. You shouldn't create a subtopic either, because that would need to be removed for the same reason. Besides that, I doubt that this piece of software would meet WP:NOTABILITY (WEB) and so wouldn't warrant mentioning; even if done in a none promotional way. Please don't forget to sign your posts with four tildes: ~~~~. If you have any other questions, then do please feel free to ask. — Fly by Night(talk)16:27, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What about the articles where they list a bunch of software? They also "promote them". Would it be better if i created a whole new page called "list of software that fixes this virus" then..? 93.184.73.10 (talk)
Writing those kinds of articles is like walking a tightrope. Writing an article about online software, provided it meets WP:WEB, is okay if it's done in a neutral, encyclopaedic, matter of fact way. I'm sure you can see that that's different to going to an article about a virus, then adding a link to a website that provides software to search for and remove said virus. Take a look at some of our better articles like Ubuntu (operating system) and Windows 7. Can you see that they're done in a neutral, encyclopaedic, matter of fact way? They inform the reader about the software and don't just encourage them to use it. They even include links to the official sites; but that's so the reader can gather more technical information. They don't just link to a download page, or to a site where you can buy the software.
About the page you suggest: that's a bad idea because it would fall foul of our guidelines on what Wikipedia is not, in particular: Wikipedia is not a directory. The thing is that you can't just put everything you know onto Wikipedia. Some things should go on, but lots of things shouldn't. And if it should go on, then it has to be done in a way that follows our guidelines.
