User:Fvw/TalkArchive/12

This page has been archived, please do not edit it. New talk and comments on this talk go on my talk page.

Open proxy?

70.150.2.9 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) just blanked User talk:70.124.106.230 twice, where I left a {test2} for adding a bunch of vulgarity to George W. Bush earlier. Looks like a proxy [1] to me.—chris.lawson (talk) 00:48, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Yup, blocked. --fvw* 00:53, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

As usual, thanks. :)—chris.lawson (talk) 00:55, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Same vandal is at it again, using 208.53.138.80 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) to blank all these pages I've warned in the last 20 minutes.—chris.lawson (talk) 01:06, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Another open proxy, blocked. --fvw* 01:08, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Now using 202.71.244.18 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)—chris.lawson (talk) 01:10, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Gosh, annoying. Thanks for the talk page fixup. If this anonymous proxying keeps up I may have to dust off my proxyblocker bot... Blocked. --fvw* 01:17, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Actually, on second thoughts, I'm going to bed. If there's more open proxy trouble your best bet is probably WP:AN/I if you want a quick response. Night night everyone. --fvw* 01:36, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Hello again. :) 68.167.30.226 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) seems to be back. Don't think this one is a proxy, though. Just a heads-up.--chris.lawson 04:04, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Oh yes it is. Blocked. --fvw* 04:19, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Open proxy...?

Thanks for fixing that block for me. I admit that I'm a bit unclear on the "open proxy" thing and I thought that this might have been one. What's the secret? - Lucky 6.9 01:07, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Here's an explanation of what open proxies are. If you're not sure if a host's an open proxy just ask on WP:AN, someone's bound to answer within minutes. And unlike regular editing, it's best not to be bold with admin actions. Don't block indefinitely unless you're 100% sure it's an open proxy (and that goes for page protection, speedy deletion, and what's that other magical power admins have? Oh, rollback. Ok, so maybe it doesn't go for rollback. But it does go for the others). --fvw* 01:12, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Gotcha. Thanks for the help and have a great weekend. Gonna sign off and head home in a minute.  :) - Lucky 6.9 01:14, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

User:DESiegel

Looking at articles where I personally have removed CSD tags placed by him, I see [2] [3] [4] [5] [6], and there are probably one or two or three others that were deleted through a proper VfD process. Looking at Special:Contributions/DESiegel I see a significant amount of other examples of stuff he's tagged as {{nn-bio}} that's still around as well. JYolkowski // talk 13:49, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

What a coincidence, I was just moving to neutral based on what Dragons Flight linked. Thanks for the extra links though, and for bringing this to our attention. --fvw* 13:51, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

going going gone

banana banana banana banana banana banana banana Bishonen | talk 16:04, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Could you elaborate on that? --fvw* 22:40, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

My RfA

I have responded at some length to the comments and questions about speedy deletes at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/DESiegel. Please look over my comments and see what you now think. DES ^(talk) 16:08, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Cowbell

Nooooooooooooooo!!! Ok, I'm done. I shall reluctantly have less cowbell. Thanks for the (unfortunately neccessary) message. Friday (talk) 23:53, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry about that, I realise this makes me Wikipedia:The department against fun, but anything to protect wikipedia. --fvw* 23:56, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that's sucky, will do though. Alf ^melmac 00:20, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate the advising; good call. You'll always have my cowbell, though. Sirmob 00:51, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

That just sounds obscene... --fvw* 00:53, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Too bad, I really like that image (and skit), but good call anyway. Maybe could I make a link to Image:Cowbell2.jpg, instead of the image, or is that not covered? (I shall comply, sadly). -[[User:Mysekurity|Mysekurity]] ^{[[additions | e-mail]]} _{01:06, 25 September 2005 (UTC)}

Yeah, you could probably get away with linking it, I won't complain about it anyway. This is where it all gets a bit fuzzy, as fair use wasn't really designed with HTML in mind. In theory, being able to view/link the image without the article might not be allowed under fair use, but it's technically unavoidable. --fvw* 01:12, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

RE:Speedies

I dont remeber tagging any images for speedy deletion. Type O Spud 00:27, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Ehm, I mean pages. Oops. --fvw* 00:28, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Ok sorry i just thought that a Wikipedia space that infolved a conversation that should be moved to a Tfd page should be deleted fast because there would be nothing on it. Type O Spud 00:30, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid you'll have to use Wikipedia:Miscellaneous deletion for this. Who knows, someone may want to keep it. --fvw* 01:10, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Speedies

Okay, understood, I've been doing it a lot for a long time. Thanks again, because I like people telling me I do a bad job. But never tell me when I do a good job. Leave me alone alright, everything I tag at the time I tag it should be deleted. If they fix it up, then they can remove the tag, because once I tag it I don't check it again. So leave me alone. Private Butcher 00:31, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I didn't personal attack you. I told you to leave me alone, and my work isn't appreciated, you can try to feed me that bullshit but I eat bacon. I'm just trying to do a good job, so leave me to it. Private Butcher 00:37, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

You're not allowed to make personal attacks against anyone, not just me. Wikipedia is a community effort, if you're not willing to interact with others you might want to consider going somewhere else. --fvw* 00:39, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I know wikipedia is a community effort, I've been working hard, and I've worked with others, and I told you I understand. I don't personal attack, I don't do anything wrong. So leave me alone. Private Butcher 00:45, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Dumbass is a personal attack. --fvw* 00:47, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Fine then block me, I broke a rule, I personally attacked. I deserve it, so go ahead. I forgot I did that, and now I feel like an asshole. So block me for doing something that idiotic. Private Butcher 00:49, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

It's ok, we all make mistakes. Just something to keep in mind. --fvw* 00:51, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

It's not okay at all. I've made "mistakes" twice in the past 3 days. First I tried to advertise a project I'm working on, then I personally attacked an innocent person. I'm a failure at this. Private Butcher 00:55, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

And both times the matter was resolved, that's the nice thing about wiki's: The odd mistake doesn't matter, things can always be fixed up later. --fvw* 00:56, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Okay thanks. I just want to be a really good editor. I'd like to create big great articles, and I would like to be able to be the big hero that stop vandals and deletes tons of nonsense. But I'm not any of those things. I'm kind of an okay editor, that tries but always comes up short. I'll try to be a better and nicer editor, so then you won't have to talk to me again about anything I did wrong. I have mental conditions that make me feel extremely bad whenever I do something wrong, so you may think I'm just being weird over all this, and overreacting but its really because of that. Private Butcher 01:02, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Don't sweat it, you haven't been around that long, even the most prolific of editors and vandal-fighters were accident-prone in the beginning. --fvw* 01:04, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for that

Sorry for that, I was just trying to help.. the image doesn't link to anything and I thought that someone has uploaded it for no purpose. (Swollib 01:32, 25 September 2005 (UTC))

Anything that isn't listed at WP:CSD goes to WP:IFD for discussion first. Happy editing! --fvw* 01:33, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Re: Your user page needs less Image:Cowbell2.gif

You have the image Image:Cowbell2.gif on the page User:Messedrocker/Unofficial Wikipedia Humourous Picture Gallery; this image is copyrighted and used in the Will Ferrell article under Wikipedia:Fair use. The use on your user page of that image is unlikely to be covered by use however, and as such is probably a Copyright violation. Could you remove the image from that page? Thanks. --fvw* 23:36, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Sure, I can remove it from my gallery. However, keep in mind I found this image, and did not upload it for the sake of my gallery. Just thought I'd let you know. —MESSEDROCKER (talk) 01:38, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Yup, the history vindicates you entirely. It's still a copyvio despite its primary use being elsewhere I'm afraid. Thanks for the quick response. --fvw* 01:40, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome. I'm just curious as to why you don't want the picture in the gallery. I'm aware of the fact it is a copyvio, however, wouldn't it be more appropriate to want it deleted from Wikipedia, as opposed to my gallery. I'm just curious and all. —MESSEDROCKER (talk) 01:55, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Its use on Will Ferrell isn't a copyright violation, and as long as people want it in that article there's no reason to delete it. --fvw* 01:57, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Thomas Hodges

The page that is being deleted is not an autobiography, It is about a close friend whom I admire very much.

It doesn't matter, the point is the person isn't notable. --fvw* 02:26, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

So if I explain why he is notable, it will not be deleted? I had planned on discussing that as I expanded the article.

Yup, just make sure you add verifiable sources for your claims though. --fvw* 02:30, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Color articles on VfU

Per Redwolf24's request, I've separated out the color articles at Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion. Cheers! -- BD2412 ^talk 03:05, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks From User:Gadugi

I realize that you have been trying to help me and train me on Wiki. I know it has been a bumpy road dealing with a type A pesonality like me, but I wanted you to know I realize what you have been doing and I appreciate your not so gentle baseball bat across the knees approach. I also know you have been dealing with me a lot more gently than I may deserve and I apprecite what you have been doing. Thanks. 67.177.35.211 06:59, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Please ban user: 82.34.113.18

Just check their contributions

Cowbell image

Hi Fvw, I've removed it from my talk archive, as requested. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 10:38, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Prof Pardalato speedy deletion

Regarding "Prof Pardalato" speedy deletion, is this not one of the criteria for speedy deletion of articles: "Very short articles providing little or no context (e.g., "He is a funny man that has created Factory and the Hacienda. And, by the way, his wife is great.")."?

Nope, the example you gives no context as to who or what its subject actually is, whereas the article in question does. If you feel it shouldn't have an article of its own (and I'm sort of inclined to agree with you on that) you can either take it to WP:AfD, or perhaps the best option would be merging the content with a relevant ducktails article and redirecting the pardalato page. --fvw* 20:43, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Blocked users

Hi Fvw, thanks for all your great vandal-fighting. What is the policy wrt blocking open proxies? Some people seem to think they should never be blocked indefinitely. I haven't been following the relevant policy changes too closely... Cheers, +sj + 21:10, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Do they? I think there's at the least a pretty strong concensus that anonymous proxies can be indefinitely blocked and all other blocks on IPs should be limited, though perhaps I'm just out of touch. Nobody's challenged that part of the blocking policy yet anyway. Just make sure you verify that it's really an open proxy, I've seen far too many "oh, it's probably an open proxy let's block it indef" blocks. --fvw* 21:20, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I've started a discussion of this on that page? I seem to recall unfinished discussions about this when the auto-blocker was being worked on, and some of your recent blocks have been unblocked. I don't feel strongly either way; but I did block what looked like a proxy earlier today only to discover that it has special "only block for 15 min at a time" status, despite not being an AOL address... (see User_talk:24.71.223.140) +sj + 21:38, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I'll be with you there in a minute, just got to finish my watchlist. Thanks for pointing out those unblocks, Danny didn't have the curtesy to let me know he'd undone them.

Keep in mind an open proxy and a proxy are two entirely different beasts as far as we're concerned. Normal proxies are used by many ISPs and though they can make blocking vandals more difficult they aren't a major problem. Open proxies on the other hand are a major problem as they allow vandals to hop from random IP to random IP without any blocks sticking. --fvw* 21:52, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Right. A little more discussion on WP:BLOCK and Special:Blockip of how to handle regular proxies should clear things up. +sj + 22:06, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the feedback there. Followups on that talk page. +sj +

VFD

I'm changing it to point to the new process for deleting votes, which keeps getting reverted to a redirect. See [7]. --SPUI (talk) 22:26, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

User vs User talk

Yeah, you're right. I followed the wrong link. My bad, and thanks for warning.--Kaonashi 00:28, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Banning me

That would be pretty hard from what I've heard. ISP bans are frowned upon by administrations, and when they do happen, they are for finite periods of time. But mostly what you should do is check the page where you thought I had been causing mischief, and see that the particular user in question-Steve espinola, actually reverted your revert because he had asked me off site to do something like that for him. Your brand of fascism is particular venal... you claim to be part of an open network of editors, but what you are is on overt level of police, not everyone working on other peoples pages are doing so maliciously. I do find it rather interesting that you never reverted Sojambi Pinola's edits of the same user's page which were clearly vandalism. So, your a bad boob of a sham, a travesty of an editor, and a crooked person. I have no use for your threats, and have reported your threat to administrators, who advised of my rights. I will continue to edit. Please DO NOT POST ON MY PAGE AGAIN!!!!216.175.112.9 03:26, 26 September 2005 (UTC) 03:26, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Removing comments

It's my own comment. I just wasn't logged in. Go and bully someone else. -- Grace Note

No it wasn't. --fvw* 04:40, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Ah okay, my apologies. I didn't see his comment. Maybe a server thing. Sometimes it doesn't give you an edit conflict when someone else posts a comment while you're posting one. I've seen it on talkpages from time to time. In any case, don't bandy words like "vandalism" about. Assume good faith, man, you're way too fond of throwing your weight around with anons. I don't vandalise pages and you ought to know that. You've seen me around. -- Grace Note

September 11th

Your edit summary was inaccurate, no link was reverted. Stirling Newberry 15:08, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

How odd, I was trying to revert out the link. Sorry about that. --fvw* 15:11, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

WMD

In your recent edit summary, you wrote that "Small amounts of weapons of mass destruction are weapons of small scale destruction". You cannot possibly think this, can you? I don't disagree with your edit, just your rationale. One nuclear weapon would be a weapon of mass destruction. You don't have to have a large quantity. Oh well. Just thought I'd say something. Cheers. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 20:25, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, and in this context, I wouldn't consider one nuke a "small amount". A few vials of anthrax (or whatever the going currency in anthrax is) however is a small amount. --fvw* 20:27, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

True, but where do you draw the line? Is a weapon of mass destruction something that can kill or maim 10,000 people? 1,000 people? 100 people? Something that can cause widespread panic? --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 20:43, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

You're stuck with a Sorites paradox as soon as you start using terms like WMD anyway; I didn't choose to use them, I was merely handling the claims given. --fvw* 20:47, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, I suppose you're right. The semantics may be off, but the essense is correct. I actually think the U.N. established concrete definitions of WMDs, but I forget where I read them. Oh well. I've truly enjoyed our little chat. See you around. Cheers. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 20:51, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

nn-bios

Recently a user posted to the help desk inquirign about what happened to Svitlana Azarova. The logs revealed that you deelted it as an nn-bio (no doubt correctly). This note is to suggest that you consider notifing the creators of articles deleted under A7, as s number of them don't understand what has happened. I have created {{nn-warn}} for this purpose, and i am encouraging others to use it, hoping they will dind it worthwhile. This is, of course, merely a suggestion. DES ^(talk) 20:35, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll keep it in mind; I don't expect to use it on all speedied articles but it should come in very useful for good-faith efforts like Svitlana Azarova appeared to be. --fvw* 20:40, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

911 revert

I sort of figured. There is an edit war going on over there, and these things happen. Stirling Newberry 20:54, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Barnstar

Hi, I dont believe that we have conversed, but I keep seeing you on my watchlist, and I think that Im justified in giving you this:

Journalist awards Fvw for doing a great job of reverting vandalism, and being a tireless Wikipedian. Keep it up!

Journalist | huh? 27 April 2024

Awww, thanks. As you mentioned, we haven't run in to eachother so far, which is the only reason I haven't voted support on your RfAr, but luckily it doesn't look like you'll need it; Therefor I'd like to use this opportunity to preemptively congratulate you on your adminship and beat the rush. --fvw* 21:06, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the congrats. Greatly appreciated. By the way, do you have any idea how I can format my sig so that the date shows. I think Ive tried everything. →Journalist >>talk<<

Yup, it's Impossible, sadly. This has annoyed my quite a bit too. --fvw* 00:14, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Simpsons trees

Hi, can you undelete my images that you deleted? They should have been sourced {{pd-self}} but I guess I forgot to. I dont think they are on my computer anymore (I cant check, as all my data is on a different computer at the moment) so, could you re-upload my stuff? Thanks. -- Earl Andrew - talk 03:36, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Nevermind, I have figured out how to restore them. -- Earl Andrew - talk 05:41, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Glad to hear it, for future reference images can't be undeleted via the regular undelete function, you have to go via Wikipedia:Lost images.

Image:Simpson tree.PNG didn't have the pd-self template despite it being in the upload summary (odd, that, I thought the upload summary was automatically put in the image description pag?), so I've added it. Since it does say "I the uploader" you may want to remove it and add it yourself just to make it official though. --fvw* 18:42, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Strange, it worked for image:bouvier tree.PNG. I deffinately see an image tag there. -- Earl Andrew - talk 20:55, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Treacka

Please keep an eye on WP:CSD, this, though probably not salvagable, isn't a speedy. Happy editing! --fvw* 15:56, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

• I have had a look at the WP:CSD article - there does not seem to be anything notable about the edits to it. I am very puzzled by your redirect of treacka to troika - can you cite any external links to substantiate it? All I can see is a number of pedigree dogs! -- RHaworth 06:05, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The whole "doesn't assert notability makes it a speedy" thing only counts for biographies sadly. As for the redirect to troika, the original article claims the word is decended from troika, which is all I was going on. Pretty tentative, I'll grant you and I'd be fine with other things being done with or to the page in question. --fvw* 18:35, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

IP blocking

Hi Fvw! I'm experiencing some problems due to the activity of the vandal with the IP number 82.117.194.66, and your efforts to restrain him. I am using the Serbia Broadband ISP's proxy for Internet surfing, which is unfortunately the same IP number our problematic contributor is using. I fully well understand that you're doing what you must, but I would like to inform you that SBB is a big ISP, with a lot of users, and 2 of burrecrats from Serbian Wikipedia are using that very same IP number, and they are affected by blockings.

Angela and other admins on IRC told me that it is very uncommon practise to block IP numbers infinitely. If there is necessity for blocking IP 82.117.194.66, could you please try to keep it as short as possible, in accordance with frequency of vandal's activity, since it affects several contributors. -- Obradović Goran (ta^lk 18:50, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Heya, sorry for the inconvenience. There is some misconception about this with some of the older wikipedians, but in fact it's policy to block open proxies indefinitely on the english wikipedia.

Anyway, so far for the bad news, now the good news: I can no longer access the proxy at 82.117.194.66, so it would appear the ISP in question got their act together and locked down their proxy. Let's hope it sticks, and happy editing! --fvw* 18:58, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Re: WP:VIP

It was not a content dispute. The user was vandalizing and please do not revert again. Also, don't you dare block me again. -- Mike Garcia | talk 23:57, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

External Links

External links to libertarian blogs is completely within the wikipedia rules, because blogs are an incredibly important tool to the libertarian message. Not only do they represent one part of libertarianism (namely "spontaneous order," distributed knowledge, etc.), but they have been extremely effective at getting the libertarian message out. The links I included on the page are some of the most heavily traveled, and respected libertarian blogs on the Net. They aren't "selling" anything, and each of them represents in large measure a significant part of libertarianism. Why did you delete them??

Because they aren't encyclopaedic content about libertarianism. As I mentioned earlier, Wikipedia is not a web directory. --fvw* 02:05, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Neither is the Free State Project, think tanks, the Libertarian Party, or any of the other things under the "libertarian movement" heading. That's why I put the blogs in that section, and not in any other. Blogs are en enormously powerful tool for the libertarian movement, and as such they should not have been deleted.

The Free state project is a description, which is meaningful to the article. I agree with you that the external link to the free state project doesn't belong there though. --fvw* 02:12, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

NPA

Wow, where did i violate NPA? I sure don't remember doing that, and that's one of the rules i believe in the most. :/ A diff or two would be nice. --Phroziac^(talk) 02:30, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

There was some talk of morons and such on coolcat's page protection and the related pages. It's no biggie, the annoyance gets to us all some times, but even if they are just vandals it's not conducive to pleasant editing and don't solve anything. As they say, don't wrestle in the mud with pigs, you both get dirty and the pig enjoys it. (And that's not a personal attack but a metaphor). --fvw* 02:33, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

LOL, I remember that. That protection notice was just a joke, but I won't do it again since you commented. --Phroziac^(talk) 02:37, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Seduction

Hello Fvw - I see you too have been reverting the addition to this article. User:70.225.174.15 left me an anonymous note telling me to stop. I didn't and justified my reasoning on the article's talk page. You may like to take a look. Cheers

Yeah, that's how I found out about it, I had your talk page on my watch list. I quite agree with all that, let me know if you need any help should he keep pushing the paragraph though. --fvw* 03:17, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Was there any need to delete Sardenny?

I mean really, what is the point?

Also, where in the world did you get the power to ban my editing ability? I don't call adding a fictional planet to a list of Star Wars systems vandalizing bub.

Lythian 06:09, 28 September 2005 (UTC)LythianLythian 06:09, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

You'd already vandalised other articles and added an unsourced and not plainly verifiable claim to the star wars list. If you want to add sardenny to the list, please provide a source per WP:V. --fvw* 10:16, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

38.114.26.217

Why did you revert his user page to test? It's the second time he's vandalized it, so it should be test1, at least.

NPA

Please keep in mind WP:NPA, even for people you feel are harming wikipedia and vandals. --fvw* 02:22, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Oops, you were repeating someone else. Still not the best of ideas, but it doesn't merit an NPA warning :-). Happy editing! --fvw* 02:24, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I do not think I should be any politer to people repetively vandalising my own userpage. RCP can get stressful you know. --Cool Cat ^Talk 13:39, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

If you can't handle recent changes patrol without violating our basic civility policies perhaps you should turn your efforts to a more gentle aspect of wikipedia. --fvw* 14:13, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Excuse me, please block me immidiately if I am being uncivil to vandals then. This makes little sense. --Cool Cat ^Talk 15:03, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

My RfA

fvw-- Thank you for your comments on my RfA. I know I have made mistakes in my past, but I think I have shown tremendous growth since then. I have responded to my detractors on the RfA page. I don't anticipate you changing your vote, and this isn't a plea to do so. I just want people to hear my side of the story. I don't try to deny anything. Thank you for your time. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 14:13, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Canada, eh?

Did you mean to rollback your own rollback on Canada? "32 270 507 millions" is a bit of silliness if you ask me. android79 14:52, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it was just a typo with a missing decimal point. At first I thought it was nonsense vandalism too, and since I'd already gone to the user's contributions and found a string of country edits that looked like a a vandalism spree judging just from the history list, I mass-reverted them while loading up the diffs. A little careless of me but the server is tediously slow today (not that that justifies it). After the diffs came up I realised my mistake and mass-reverted myself again. The canada edit does need a little tuning though. Not sure if the number should be rounded or just decimal-pointed. Is there any guideline or manual of style angle to the matter? --fvw* 14:58, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

User talk:Satpersian

I think we've had a three way edit conflic dealing with this. But no harm done! Cheers --Doc (?) 17:48, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

We did? I must have been on the best end, I didn't notice any of it. But it was nice to see we agree with eachother's judgements (I didn't notice you were doing the same until I saw the block log). Happy editing! --fvw* 17:50, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Ask a stupid question day

Tiresome as it is, Ask a stupid question day just needed reverting: it was, I think, an ok article which had been mistakenly pointed to a non-existent one. -Splash^talk 01:09, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Right you are, I assumed that since it was on VfU it had been AfDed already but apparantly it was different content and not an AfD but a speedy. Still not sure what if anything should happen with it, so I'm hesitant to even revert, but I've undeleted it. I'm sure you have a better idea of what to do with it so I'll leave it in your hands. --fvw* 01:51, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

My block

Yeah, that was actually me trying to edit again, triggering the autoblocker. I think I'm on a dynamic IP, so that shouldn't block any innocents. My short break was triggered by real life stress, lack of sleep, work piling up to my ceiling, and the realization that Wikipedia is populated by a bunch of little cliques. But I'm feeling better and more included now. Thanks for your note! Cheers, Bratsche^{talk | Esperanza} 03:28, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Welcome back! I assume you mean static IP though? Otherwise if you get autoblocked and your IP changes, someone else could end up with the blocked IP. --fvw* 03:35, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Proxy test page

How does your proxy test page work? — JIP | Talk 07:06, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Jinx! I was just deleting the proxy test pages to start afresh. The general idea is that I scour the net for open proxies, try to edit the proxy test page through them, and if it works, block the living daylights out of them. --fvw* 07:08, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Your POPBot seems like a good idea. A few thoughts that came to mind. (1) Is it possible to alter it so that when the open proxies are editing the test page they enter a meaningful edit summary. (2) Is it necessary to edit on a live Wikipedia at all? Whatever the edit summary it will inevitably clog up recent changes to some extent. Is there not a test site somewhere running the same version of Mediawiki that you could use? (3) Do you have any sense of how much of a dent this will put in the problem? Are there any estimates of how many open proxies are out there, and at what rate your bot will find/block them? (4) Do the blocks work across all Wikimedia sites or just on enWiki? (5) Not knowing much about these things, is there any danger that genuine users will be trying to edit from the same IP address as these open proxies? OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 13:54, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Good questions. 1) Not entirely since I'd rather not publish the proxy port and optional alternate IP for all to see until they're blocked, but I've added some human readable text at the front. 2) Yeah, I know how annoying bots on WP:RC are, but seeing as some people have been kind enough to block their open proxies from editing wikipedia this is the only way to be sure we're not hitting any of those. 3) A reasonably decent one I hope. I started doing this in january but had to abort it for technical reasons, and judging by the increase in userpage vandalism it caused I'd say at the very least it annoys people (those could have just been annoyed RC patrollers though :-P). I'm not aiming to block all open proxies, there's millions of those, but if I can block 99% of those that can be found on open proxy lists on the web, I think it makes life a lot harder for those that are trying to avoid blocking or want to puppeteer. 4) I'm only an admin here, so it's just here for the time being. Someone from a different wiki approached me about blocking open proxies there too though, and I'd be happy to provide lists to them or run the bot there too (the scanning phase would only have to happen here). 5) Yes, there are a few users who's ISP proxy are open proxy. We usually arrange for their proxy to not be permablocked or for some other workaround to be arranged; At the moment those ISPs have been getting their things in order though, because in the past few weeks two major ISPs that had their proxies open have locked them down. And of course there's a few people who run tor outproxies, but that's a rather easily solved problem, we just ask them to block the outproxy from editing wikipedia and then unblock them. --fvw* 14:07, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I've been wikistalking your bot off and on for a couple of hours, well, monitoring the history page of its updates. Looks good to me so far. What lists of open proxies are you using to generate the test list? I may be able to add a few more if you run short of sources to test. Feel free to drop me an email if you'd rather not publish the list in the wiki. --GraemeL ^(talk) 15:16, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Strangely hypnotic, isn't it? It's been eating a good deal of my time today too. So far lack of proxy lists hasn't been a big problem, the scan has only just reached 1500 hosts scanned with a good 6.5k to go. I'm pretty much using what comes up with a google of "open proxy list", which seems to get some decent results. Then I write a brief kludge of sed, awk, shell, perl, wget, lynx, whatever seems the least work to parse the lot into a list of IPs and I dump them in the scan pool. The only thing I'm not looking forward is the socks proxies, as I haven't been able to coax any commandline HTTP tools into talking both SOCKS4 and SOCKS5, so I'll probably end up having to hack up something that'll make a simple SOCKS request myself. You don't have experience with SOCKS by chance do you? --fvw* 15:23, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

It is indeed hypnotic. I was thinking you might be able to rsync some of the spam prevention RBLs if you were running low of addresses to test. They should be reasonably inclusive, frequently updated, and there are several that deal exclusively with open proxies. Sorry, I don't have any experience with SOCKS, but a quick Google finds some CPAN modules if you have Perl on the box. --GraemeL ^(talk) 15:31, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I suppose that's an option too, good idea. --fvw* 15:34, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Would it be worth including the reverse DNS lookup of the IP address in the edit summary? It might make it easier to identify any ISP proxies that are on the list. --GraemeL ^(talk) 16:09, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, but 8k DNS lookups costs quite a bit of time, especially considering the majority of them have DNS servers that time out for some reason. If I was going all nice and non-blocking IO I could parallelise, but it's all just shell scripts and glue. And anyway, I'm not sure I'd want to read over the entire list :-) --fvw* 16:14, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I should have thought about that. I maintain an automatic mail blocking list for my own servers and do the reverse lookup as a separate process for that very reason. --GraemeL ^(talk) 16:31, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Howdy! Your open proxy bot is a cool idea, great going! My question is regarding the time of day that it is being run. It seems like WP is usually pretty busy around now, and I've read guidance on the bot page that bots should, when possible, be run at off-peak hours. I'm not looking to wiki-stick you, just interested in your thoughts on this issue. Regards, CHAIRBOY (☎) 17:02, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

A fair question, but is this wiki busy time? I thought the peak was US evenings? Hold on, I'll go see if I can find some pretty mrtg graphs. --fvw* 17:09, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

According to this report from October 2004 (and I would guess the traffic patterns are pretty similar even today) 1600 GMT is pretty busy. I'm going off the number of edits I see in RC Patrol too. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 17:17, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

What d'ya know, we are sort of climbing the hump right now, at least on the squids. I'll shut it down in a minute, just let me kill a last bug. --fvw* 17:19, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

You can see up to date stats here. --GraemeL ^(talk) 17:31, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Looks like it's zooming along live now and looking good. Is there any log produced other than the block list? --GraemeL ^(talk) 20:23, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Some local stuff but nothing else on wikipedia no. Even if this achieves nothing else, at least I'll have majorly annoyed everyone monitoring recent changes ;-P. --fvw* 20:27, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

deleting link to more reading info on Afghan war

Kindly explain why in the case with the Soviet war in Afghanistan a link to a book about the Soviet experience was deleted? I have noticed that many of the Wiki sites carry similar reading material - novels, and readers could only benefit from additional information on the subject.

Afghan war veteran

Wikipedia is not a web directory. External links should be extensions to the article which add things that are currently missing from it but ought to be in there in the ideal case; The external links section isn't the place for links to all websites related to the topic. --fvw* 14:10, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, in that case look at this:

Fiction See: Vietnam War (lists)#Fiction

Do you have anything against adding a Fiction list to the article about the Soviet war in Afghanistan?

As an external link, yes. But if it's a notable book and you're willing to write an article about it I'd welcome it (note the vietname war fiction section doesn't contain external links). Good luck! --fvw* 14:21, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't think I'm prepared to write a seperate artical about the book, but I would like to contribute by listing the various titles (without external links), both fiction and non-fiction, written about the Soviet invasion. Can you help to set up such a section at the end of the article?

I'm not sure that's useful if the books don't have articles. --fvw* 14:30, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

These on the Vietnam page don't have any articles linked:

Non-fiction Fall, Bernard. 1967. "Hell in a Very Small Place: the Siege of Dien Bien Phu". Just, Ward. 1968. "To What End: Report from Vietnam." Oberdorfer, Don. 1971. "Tet: the Story of a Battle and its Historic Aftermath". Emerson, Gloria. 1976. "Winners and Losers: Battles, Retreats, Gains, Losses and Ruins from a Long War". Caputo, Philip. 1977. "A Rumor of War". Santoli, Al. 1981. "Everything We Had: an Oral History of the Vietnam War by 33 American Soldiers Who Fought It". Mason, Robert C. 1983. "Chickenhawk". Moore, LTG Harold G., and Galloway, Joseph L. 1992. "We Were Soldiers Once... and Young". O'Brien, Tim. 1973. "If I Die in a Combat Zone". Puller, Lewis B. Jr. 1991. "Fortunate Son". Woolf, Tobias. 1994. "In Pharaoh's Army". Langguth, A. J. 2000. "Our Vietnam: the War 1954-1975". Laurence, John. 2002. "The Cat from Hue: a Vietnam War Story". [edit] Fiction Ford, Daniel. 1967. "Incident at Muc Wa" (filmed 1976 as "Go Tell the Spartans") Greene, Graham. 1955. "The Quiet American". Herr, Michael. 1977. "Dispatches". O'Brien, Tim: 1978. "Going After Cacciato". Webb, James. 1978. "Fields of Fire". Heinemann, Larry. 1986. "Paco's Story". O'Brien, Tim. 1990. "The Things They Carried". Ninh, Bao. 1995. "The Sorrow of War'. Hasford, Gustav. 1979. "The Short-Timers". (filmed 1987 as "Full Metal Jacket") Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_%28lists%29"

Then someone did things in the wrong order. --fvw* 14:50, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

pointelss list of podcats directories

If you look through the podcasting history, you'll see that killing off pointless external links has occupied about 75 percent of its overly crowded history ... sigh! - DavidWBrooks 14:55, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

White Horse Circle

Please do not speedy delete redirects. I have performed a proper merge. --SPUI (talk) 14:57, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

That's nice, but the outcome of the AfD was delete, so the page gets deleted. If you need the history for GFDL purposes we can move it to a subpage of the article's talk page. --fvw* 14:59, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

The redirect does nothing but make the encyclopedia better, by making it easier for someone looking for information about the White Horse Circle to find such information. There is no benefit to speedying it, out of process I might add. --SPUI (talk) 15:01, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

The page was deleted per AfD. Creating a redirect where a deleted page was is not recreation of deleted content. A properly formed redirect is not a valid candidate for speedy deletion. A successful nomination and deletion through AfD is not a ban on anything ever being placed at that location. SPUI walks near the border of policy sometimes, but this is a case of a valid attempt to improve the encyclopedia. Please restore the redirect. Unfocused 15:19, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I've recreated the speedied redirect. On the simple criterion of "we're here to write an encyclopedia," I really cannot see how on earth assiduously enforcing an AfD in which almost all of the not-a-votes were demonstrably against the actual deletion policy helps to write an encyclopedia. This matter is also being discussed quite a bit on wikien-l, and I urge you to weigh in - David Gerard 15:23, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Just a me-too, here. This kind of deletion-for-deletions-sake seems to be going a bit far.

• The directions on the New Jersey State Prison website refer to this as a landmark: " Take Route 206 north to 195 West exit (a right. turn just before the White Horse Circle in Hamilton Township)."
• The Baldassari Regency Italian Restaurant in Trenton also gives directions in terms of this landmark: "From I-295 North: Travel to Rt. 206 North. Travel around the White Horse Circle toward Trenton."
• Mrbreakfast.com gives directions to the only two restaurants it recommends in Hamilton Township as follows:
  • "Fame, Whitehorse Ave. about 1 mile from Whitehorse Circle"
  • "Manetas, On South Broad St, about a mile down from the White Horse Circle, across from Eckerds."

So why delete the redirect? --Tony Sidaway^Talk 16:02, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Because that way madness lies. 20 years from now we'll have 50-page disambiguation pages for all common roadnames, despite the fact that wikipedia isn't atlas. Cleaning up now prevents work later. --fvw* 16:06, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Okay, let's see your supporting evidence. How many other White Horse Circles are there? --Tony Sidaway^Talk 20:17, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Statistical toponomy holds no fascination for me. --fvw* 16:23, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I guess you've noticed the revert war at Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey over SPUI's attempt to subvert AfD by posthumously turning a delete into a merge/redirect. Anyway, I'm going to blovk SPUI for breaking 3rr, in recreating the same redirect about 5 times after it was deleted (the same thing as a revert). I doubt that will solve anything though. Does this need an RfC? -R. fiend 20:55, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Actually I'm not going to block him, as one is not supposed to block people they are in the middle of an editing conflict with. I'll put his name up at the proper place, though. -R. fiend 20:58, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd have thought not, but apparantly some people who didn't bother with the AfD seem to agree with his tactics now, so perhaps an RfC would be better yes.

• There is a paragraph on White Horse Circle in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey (which you may argue the value of, but frankly, is any human addition of information to a Rambot-created page a bad thing?), so I can see no reason not to have a redirect except to try to prove a point to SPUI. Please do not delete it again. --Stormie 21:13, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

  That and it'll turn wikipedia in a mess of minor-trivia redirects. But I'm not going to delete war over this. --fvw* 16:23, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

==Who's RfA== Thank you for supporting my masters RfA. He appreciates your support and comments and looks forward to better serving Wikipedia the best he can. Of course I will be doing all of the real work. He would have responded to you directly, but he is currently out of town, and wanted to thank you asap. Thanks again. --Who's mop?¿? 20:39, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Deletion activity

I would like to know why you felt compelled to delete my post regarding Murshida Carol Weyland Conner of Sufism Reoriented.

There is only one article on the Internet regarding her, and I entered the URL as a link TO it.

And you deleted it. I would like to know why. There is no 'copyright' issue, people have been crossposting URLs since the dawn of the Internet.

Karl Moeller

mkarl2@qwest.net

Wikipedia is not a promotional tool, nor is it a web guide. If she is notable you can create an article about her, however just a link isn't of any use. --fvw* 16:30, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

User:Fvw/POPBot/scan

Hi,

Is this a real page created by you (or your bot), or was it originally created by the recent pagemove vandal? I restored it just in case. -- Curps 04:57, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Nope, that's mine, thanks for rescuing it. See User:Fvw/POPBot, the short version is it's an open proxy scanner. --fvw* 16:38, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Merkey block evasion

Two more sockpuppets have been added by Merkey: User:137.118.252.209 and User:CowboyLawyer. It might be necessary to block these accounts as well.

It does look like it, but the article regulars appear to be coping with it ok. I'm not going to block for sockpuppetry just yet (it's probably a dynamic IP anyway), though I'm not going to object if someone else does. --fvw* 21:46, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Re: Global city

Hey, thanks for your caution. Call this a lapse (but not inappropriate); I actually edited a controversial edition made by another user (who was cited to support Nixer) who made...unsubstantiated contributions. It was Nixer who reversed my changes. I only responded to that, restoring the prior text (before all recent said edits), and will honour my commitment; I have also requested of the mediator a block on all attempts (by everyone) to ensure the article's integrity. If I erred, I apologise. Thanks! E Pluribus Anthony 16:17, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I suggest you go apologise to Nixer instead, and propose to both stop editing the article again. Nixer made the same agreement with the understanding that you'd agree to do so as well. --fvw* 16:53, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I will express regret appropriately; I have also requested that everyone (at least users familiar with this) refrain from editing the article (informally or through mediation/block) inappropriately until this is resolved. Thanks! E Pluribus Anthony 17:01, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I regret to inform you that Nixer et al. are continuing to make edits on the global city article, beyond the scope of mere vandalism reverts, etc. I have not done so since our last communication, and extended an 'olive branch'; to no avail. Do with that what you will. Let me know if you need more information. Thanks. E Pluribus Anthony 23:13, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Block self

Bored? :) --Cool Cat ^Talk 18:46, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Nah, just needed to check how exactly the block pages respond for my proxy blocker bot. --fvw* 18:51, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Sweet. Hey can you check proxies on User:MARMOTs isp? --Cool Cat ^Talk 18:58, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm only scanning for open proxies. Did marmot even use those? If so, hers will be blocked along with everyone else's. --fvw* 19:04, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Have a look at Wikipedia:Long term abuse/MARMOT --Cool Cat ^Talk 20:07, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism detection bot

Heya, someone just told me your vandalism detection bot also puts all entries in the block log on that channel. You might want to filter out blocks by me or where the reason contains POPBot for the time being, as the bot's making 3 unblocks + blocks a minute, and is going to be doing so for quite a few hours yet. --fvw* 20:22, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Actualy, the bot records those. :) --Cool Cat ^Talk 20:30, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Since they are blocked indefinately I do not see a reasn to log them. I have intervined. Thanks for letting me know. Although you already know about ths from IRC --Cool Cat ^Talk 20:33, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Why were all the links in the airsoft section removed?

I agree, Wikipedia is not a Web Directory. If that is the case, then why these links to UK forums and news sites? If UK forums and news sites are here, why not US based forums and sites?

If you're going to remove all the links based on the fact that Wikipedia is not a Web Directory, then remove all the links! Other than the the first link, I don't see why the other UK forum links are there as opposed to the US forum links. Is Wikipedia specifically geared towards UK viewers!?

Furthermore, many other topics in Wikipedia have links to non-commerical forums websites. Why specifically only allow UK forum sites? Airsoft is not an exculsively UK hobby or sport by any means!

Just my 2 cents as a player and member of the community.

You're right, I've missed a few. I've kept the UKASC link, as they do have quite a few articles that expand upon what's in our article. That seem reasonable? --fvw* 21:28, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear Fvw, you seem to be a bit to eager in removing elinks. While I prefer that all elinks are moved out of the body and into the main, it is better to have some relevant in the text (as sources or examples) instead of none. 'Wikipedia is not a dictionary' policy was designed to avoid having articles which are nothing but a list of external links and nowhere does it state that external links themselves should be removed from articles. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 23:07, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

If they're links with informative content on the topic I quite agree. Bulletin boards and club pages without extra content aren't useful as an extension of the article however. Have a look at Wikipedia:External links. --fvw* 23:20, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

db-copyvio

Sorry about that. I got slightly confused. I think we'd like to force people to copypaste in a URL though, otherwise the admin has to guess one: was that what your edit summary meant? -Splash^talk 03:26, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

168.209.97.34

Hi, I've gotten an e-mail stating that 168.209.97.34 is the address of the proxy server used by two major South African ISPs and asking that it be unblocked. You appear to have blocked it as an open proxy. Could you please investigate or clarify? Thanks. Jayjg ^(talk) 08:55, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

• Please unblock 168.209.97.34 (talk · contribs). I usually edit from this IP address. The entry in the block log says 19:56, 1 October 2005, Fvw blocked 168.209.97.34 (infinite) (contribs) ({{BlockedProxy}} <!--POPBot: Open HTTP proxy, inproxy: 168.209.97.34:80 unknown-->). Well, yes, it is an open proxy, but the many thousands of people who are forced to use it have no control over that, and there's not much vandalism from it. Until such time as mediazilla:550 is fixed, please try not to block 168.209.97.34 except for short periods in the event of vandalism. —AlanBarrett 15:23, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Ungh, that's a pain. I've unblocked it and we'll have to have a look if anything can be done about it. --fvw* 07:55, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. We really need a way of blocking anons from a particular IP address while not blocking logged-in users on the same IP address. This would solve the Tor problem too. —AlanBarrett 13:31, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Not really I'm afraid, vandals aren't generally scared of logging in, it's just that at the moment they have no reason to. --fvw* 13:34, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant it would reduce the Tor problem. Is there an on-wikipedia place to discuss that? —AlanBarrett 14:35, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I am talking to the ISP about securing their open proxy. —AlanBarrett 14:35, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. I just got CCed on a mail from someone else (or possibly you) doing the same. --fvw* 14:46, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

you've gone crazy

Hi there. A word of advice: your mass blocking of IP addresses is affecting A LOT of innocent users, including me. This is MY IP address: *210.55.230.21* Okay? I've unblocked myself (I know the heading says I shouldn't - and who the hell made that rule anyway?) I've been a registered user for 20 months, and a sysop for 14 months; I challenge you to justify your blocking of me - or of any other persons you've blocked. I had to scroll through 1500 blocks of yours to find my IP! Don't laugh, this isn't funny. I'm thinking about reporting you for administrative abuse. BTW, I considered blocking you for an hour just to show you what it feels like, but I'm not that mean-spirited. David Cannon 09:03, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

As I've also been blocking open proxies, I'd like to comment on this. It appears that the IP you're editing from is an open proxy. See [8]. The blocking policy states that "Administrators are permitted and encouraged to IP-block anonymous proxies indefinitely." It's possible that your ISP has misconfigured its proxy server(s). I'm not going to re-block the IP at the moment, but I wanted to make it clear that fvw was completely in the right in blocking. Carbonite | Talk 13:38, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Well then, the policy needs to be rethought immediately. That's been my IP ever since I went on to this server. I've got another server I can use - but not during "peak hours" for which I pay through the roof. This server is on a fixed monthly charge, so I have to use it during peak hours. I think a huge number of innocent people are going to be affected by this, and I can see it serving no useful purpose whatsoever. Deal with cases of vandalism when they arise, but don't carpet-bomb preemptively. David Cannon 22:05, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Why not contact your ISP in New Zealand and ask them why they have open proxies in the first place? If it's a misconfiguration on their part, they should fix it... if it's their policy, well then, the policy needs to be rethought immediately. Systematically blocking open proxies is long overdue. -- Curps 00:47, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I haven't much to add to what was said above, though for future reference there's a searchbox on the IP blocklist, or you can just click unblock on any item you want and change the value in the Address or username field. --fvw* 07:55, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay, no hard feelings. I'm sorry I got so hot under the collar last night. I was upset when I suddenly found myself blocked in the middle of doing something, but now that I've had a night and a day (mostly) away from the machine, I can see that my reaction was over the top. For that I apologise. David Cannon 11:34, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, that's much appreciated. Sorry you got affected by this as an innocent bystander. --fvw* 11:37, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

That proxy-bot of yours

I just noticed a posting on Talk:Ashida Kim that, through a couple links, took me here, which you might want your proxy-detection bot to take a look at.--chris.lawson 21:49, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

That's one of the lists I'm using, was there an open proxy on it that didn't get blocked in the bot run? Please let me know if there is, that could mean a bug (or it could have just been down during the scan of course). --fvw* 07:55, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I dunno. I just saw the post by those nutjobs and figured I'd give you a heads-up. It doesn't look like they've been able to do any large-scale disruption yet, so you've probably taken care of most of the ones on that list.--chris.lawson 11:44, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

On second thought, you might wanna take a look at 213.140.21.235 (talk · contribs).--chris.lawson 11:59, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks like an innocent-and-pure-as-driven-snow italian cablemodem to me. --fvw* 12:07, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Blocks

There is no "supposed to" in blocking. Test messages are simply a suggestion. Blocking is ultimately up to the administrator. If you disagree with my blocks, simply unblock them. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-3 14:21

POPBot and previews

Could POPBot learn what it needs to know just by going as far as "Show preview" instead of going all the way to "Save page"? This would reduce clutter in lists of recent changes and contributions. —AlanBarrett 14:42, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it would (actually, I like the "clutter" in special:contributions, as it makes it very easy to see it's an open proxy when investigating vandalism), but the problem is the IP the edit comes from needs to be blocked, and that isn't always the IP you use when connecting to the proxy (the requests from the proxy you connect to may be routed through other proxies, either on purpose or because they're behind a transparant proxy). --fvw* 14:48, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

You could use ...&action=edit&section=new, put "~~~" in the text area, do the equivalent of "Show preview", and parse the result to see what IP address Wikipedia thinks you are using. Or there's http://ipid.shat.net/iponly/ and other similar services to tell you what your IP address is. —AlanBarrett 15:02, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

That would work yeah, clever that. The what-is-my-ipadress wouldn't work though, as some anonymous proxies have specificly disabled access to wikipedia to avoid the owner being blocked from editing.

There's one last little fly to dip in the ointment here however: Anonymous proxies are generally rather flaky, and on the scan I ran this weekend I detected 987 open proxies on the scanner end, yet when I parsed the history of the scan page the total was 1016. Some proxies had managed to make the edit but hadn't succeeded in returning a page; these would still need to be blocked though. --fvw* 15:11, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Would it be possible to do it as a two-stage process? Anything off your lists which doesn't get blocked using AlanBarrett's "preview and parse" method could be run through your current one. Based on your figures, this would reduce the "clutter" in special:contributions by 97%. OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 15:21, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that would take twice as long, but work. --fvw* 15:24, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

It wouldn't quite be twice as long, as it's only the ones that aren't blocked the first time that have to run through a second time, but I understand your concern. Actually, that's an interesting question - roughly what proportion of all the IPs you're testing are successfully editing Wikipedia? Are there a lot on the open proxies lists which aren't actually open>? OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 15:39, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Most open proxies get closed down quickly as they start sucking up bandwidth; the number of working proxies depends on how old the list is and the type of list. Using the top few google hits for open proxies I got about 11% working for HTTP proxies, and about 2% working for SOCKS proxies. --fvw* 15:45, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Complaint

Hello, I just checked the block log and noticed the number of blocks you've been performing. While I appreciate that you're attempting to prevent vandalism, I see no reason to block 90% + of those IP addresses besides them being open proxys. Your blocks are disrupting the block log, and the shire volume of them makes it nearly impossible for other admins to check the validity of them. If you want to block proxys from accessing the site, you should speak to a developer about implementing a software based solution rather than misusing the block user privlige. Erwin

I will add that several users are considering an RFC so it might be a good idea to stop at least for the time being. Erwin

If you dislike the idea of this bot Wikipedia talk:Bots is the best place to bring up the matter, but there appears to be quite some support for it. The blocks are easy to verify though, as all blocked IPs have an edit claiming to be an open proxy in their edit history. --fvw* 15:56, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I support a software based solution to open proxies but not mass blocking of 1000+ accounts! Anyway if you say it has support then it is not my place, but I haven't seen anything on the talk page you mention from the developers. Erwin

Nope, I discussed it on IRC. If you think the block table is still going to cause technical issues I can walk you through it if you want though... --fvw* 16:09, 3 October 2005 (UTC)