User talk:Coren/Archives/2012/August

CorenSearchBot reporting an article as a copy of itself

This edit to Hell's Kitchen (U.S. season 11) reporting that the article appears to be a substantial copy of Hell's Kitchen (U.S. season 11) seems rather peculiar. The page is now at AfD for other reasons, but the bug seemed worth reporting. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:39, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that sometimes happens when an article has been indexed by yahoo so fast that by the time CSBot looks, it's already been indexed and the article's name contains a single quote/apostrophe (which defeats the code meant to prevent that). Sorry for the trouble. — Coren ^(talk) 11:17, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

No trouble, it was more amusing than anything. Thanks for the explanation. --AussieLegend (talk) 12:14, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Conclusion

Thank you very much for your response.but, as a matter of fact I am curious regarding several points. I wish you would be able to answer. First of all, I am still unaware what was that issue of blocking me in coincidence. I see that there is no WP:SPI case against me neither any complaint from others. So, What was the need of checking the contributions of mine occurred from which IP.( Or probably using check user tool to see my IP , not sure how it is called) Doesn't it violates privacy policy ? Second one my room partner User:Irontaker and I share same computer. So, why not blocked him ; but only me? Thanks. GiantBluePanda (talk) 17:42, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Part of the job of checkuser is to help protect the project from disruption in the cases where normal administrators cannot; users returning in avoidance of a ban is such a case, and we often proceed on our own discretions in such cases (and, honestly, a very new editor jumping in on one of the noticeboards to comment about a different process while already clearly aware of jargon and procedure is one of the things we watch for, as it is extremely atypical of "real" new editors).

I didn't block your roommate simply because I had not noticed him as matching you. We sometimes have cause to "widen the net" and look around the editors when we do a check, but even if you were in fact a sock your behaviour was not so egregious as to warrant it; we usually take care to make minimal use of checkuser when it suffices.

Finally, the privacy policy explicitly allows a few users to look at private information – just not to then disseminate that information publicly. We are always extremely careful to not divulge what we can see using the tools, and any information we find (or you tell us) is kept strictly confidential. — Coren ^(talk) 17:57, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Help! - Don't know how to remove tags from our page, and your copyright infringement info is wrong.

Dear Coren:

Please forgive me, I still don't have the hang of WIKIPEDIA, we will be hiring someone soon who does. I'm not sure I'm even writing you in the correct space.

I represent a record label and theater production company.

One of our shows, has incorrect info on it from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love,_Linda:_The_Life_of_Mrs._Cole_Porter

Firstly, I don't know how to remove this stuff, whicc is inaccurate: The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic. If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. (September 2009) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2009)

Secondly, I just now saw your talk back to me: "What you violated was the copyright policy. Text in the article was copied from other sources. That cannot be--there is a big difference between "listing" and "copying". Removing the reference to Playbill doesn't help at all (and might make it worse); I note that the sentence "Although Cole Porter was gay, their companionship and love lasted through 35 years of marriage and together they lived a spectacular, glamour-filled life" is still "taken" from somewhere else (plagiarism = theft of intellectual property), as a quick Google search verifies. If you wish for this article to live, you will have to write it, not copy it. Hope this helps. Drmies (talk) 17:52, 30 August 2009 (UTC)"

We did NOT lift the text in the article from other sources - that is OUR PROPERTY that was re-quoted in press and news articles. If you Google that line, you'll see it's in all of the promo articles for LOVE, LINDA (!!) - they took it from US.

Any help you can offer is so greatly appreciated.

All my best, Michele Oliver 150 Music (talk) 20:45, 1 August 2012 (UTC)150 Music150 Music (talk) 20:45, 1 August 2012 (UTC) 150 Music/Productions www.150music.com

Please read the guide to donating your own copyrighted material to Wikipedia. Note that, in addition to copyright requirements, the article must still comply with notability guidelines, advertising prohibition and avoid conflicts of interest. — Coren ^(talk) 21:36, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

False Postives

Hi, when various editors of the 2012 Pacific typhoon season have been splitting articles off, they keep getting told that they are copyvios of http://www.eosnap.com/tropical-storms/ even though that site seems to be copying the PTS article. Can you do anything? Regards.Jason Rees (talk) 12:32, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, if you still have a lot to do I can suppress the warnings; but if you're about done there isn't much point: the 'bot will only warn on newly created articles, not on further work you do to them. — Coren ^(talk) 12:34, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Um, because the season is ongoing and there will be more deadly typhoons, i think it would be wise to suppress the warnings please.Jason Rees (talk) 12:53, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Heh. Fair 'nuf.  :-) That part of eosnap is now excluded from consideration on matches. — Coren ^(talk) 13:03, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Youreallycan

Youreallycan is causing issues on Stephen M. Cohen again, an issue that occurred prior to his block on 20 July 2012, this time in regards to new content that he is insisting is not allowed per WP:BLPPRIMARY. Would you please speak with him, either privately or in the discussion taking place on WP:BLPN?—Ryulong (竜龙) 00:47, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Coren, Youreallycan REALLY wants to make sure you see this link: * - Wikipedia:BLPN#Stephen_M._Cohen. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:59, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

At this time, this looks like a normal content dispute, and I don't see overwhelmingly strong arguments either way. I'm not sure what intervention I could make here that isn't just my opinion – which is worth no more than anyone else's. — Coren ^(talk) 02:26, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Wait, WTF? Did you two really just edit war on my talk page over the addition of an effing link to the discussion?! — Coren ^(talk) 02:39, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

• He added it in a way that made it appear that I put it there, and I never gave him permission to do so. He repeatedly ignored my requests to refrain from editing the page such that the link was included in such a manner, and I reverted him before deciding his disruption for the sake of disruption needed a wider audience.—Ryulong (竜龙) 02:48, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
  • It was just a bullet point at the head of a section. It wasn't inside the paragraph that you wrote, and communal lists, pointers, tables, and other such things at the heads of discussion page sections are common enough that no reasonable person is going to assume that they're always the work of any given person. This is a wiki, after all.

    Indeed, if anyone had thought it had been added by you, they'd have thought well of you, not ill, for adding a convenient link directly to the relevant noticeboard discussion section. That's not disruption, by a long chalk. That undo war here was very silly. You've got so far into conflict with Youreallycan that you've lost a sense of perspective. Try not to take everything that xe does as a personal affront. You two have a disagreement on something, but a bulleted pointer to another page at the head of a discussion section on Coren's talk page is most definitely not it.

    Oh, and it's now the end of the week, Coren. ☺

    Uncle G (talk) 19:53, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

BLP- Primary

Could I have your thoughts on something related to the above? See [comments here] for the best way I can articulate it. BLP-Primary as written is basically 'Thou must never use court documents' however there are quite a few legitimate locations where we can use primary sources, in fact they would be preferred due to lacking the skew the media adds - would a primary source (court document) that does not contain any personal info beyond name/company (no address, phone number etc) be acceptable in the place where we would normally accept primary sources? (Absent any better secondary) Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:12, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but they have to be used with a great deal of care. It may be reasonable to use some of them when used to support or provide detail for something already discussed in a secondary source, for instance. It's may also by okay to refer to a decision (and only a decision) as a source to support assertions about that decision.

That said, they are very hard to use right: it's easy to pick bits of them that completely twist their meanings, and many court filings are not reliable (because they are unfiltered pleadings, transcripts, etc). Also, in isolation, it's not possible to see if a document might have been vacated, thrown out, etc. — Coren ^(talk) 12:46, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. I am guessing its not worth trying to get the BLP policy modified in that specific section to be a bit more clear :) Trying to clarify that section given the tiny amount of times an edge case might show up would be a lost cause. Regards, Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:06, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Andreasedge

Coren, your previous comment “…Andreasedge's contributions were too problematic to continue, but the ban does allow him to continue participating in the mediation; I'm certain that at its conclusion, the community will be more than happy to reconsider the ban if he behaved positively” sounds encouraging for Andreasedge, but how will that now actually become a possibility? Thanks, --Patthedog (talk) 13:19, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Anyone may propose exactly that some time after the mediation concluded. I may well do so myself if Andreasedge's collaboration during the discussion show a genuine attempt to reach (and abide by) consensus. — Coren ^(talk) 13:34, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

• Seeing as Andreasedge has shown zero contrition in the face of strong community condemnation, may I submit that the community is well-served with the current restriction. The Beatles topic ban serves a very useful purpose: to make it clear via a tangible sanction that his actions are unacceptable. His notable defiance in the wake of the ANI thread closure is a clear indication of his attitude, including a barnstar he awarded to Patthedog [1]. Note the comment about the "vicious barbarians." Coren, I urge a close examination of his edit history before proposing any such reconsideration. Thanks. Jusdafax 09:17, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Wnnse Restarted

Hey Coren, i thought to inform you about Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Wnnse which i have restarted in light of discovering a new sockpuppet. I have given all the information and details on the sockpuppet investigations page. I think you should have look at it. Thanks! TheGeneralUser (talk) 21:47, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

TINC

Long live the Cabal! And thanks, TransporterMan (TALK) 22:32, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Notification of RFC/U concerning Youreallycan

I'd like to notify you, as a previous blocking administrator, that I've initiated a Request for Comments/User concerning Youreallycan (talk · contribs). The RFC/U, which mentions your block, can be read at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Youreallycan. Prioryman (talk) 14:32, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Question

Hello Coren, I noticed this post and had a question. In the link (here), I was wondering how you did (do) that "offset" thing that shows only a certain group of edits in history. I suppose it's something I should already know, but truth be told - I don't know how to do that. Thanks. — Ched :  ?  16:28, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

• Heh. It's heavy URL trickery, most people wouldn't bother with the effort; it's no surprise that most people don't know. The trick I use is page somewhere near the diffs I want, reduce the limit to 1 (add &limit=1 to the URL), then flip (with "older 1", "newer 1") to the first of the diff sequence. Once I got it, I change the limit= to the number of diffs. Voila. It's ugly, but it works. — Coren ^(talk) 16:32, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Very nice .. thank you. (copying to notepad for future reference. :-)). — Ched :  ?  16:35, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
    • cool — Ched :  ?  16:42, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
  • The offset parameter is just a date and time, notice. Uncle G (talk) 08:32, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Yeah, but I always misaim when I try this because of the UTC offset. Only takes me a few seconds to navigate to the right spot.  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 14:35, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Gooday

He is appealing your decision on his talk page, but has not realised he is meant to notify you. I'm not sure its the right place either but .... ----Snowded ^TALK 18:04, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

/* The RFC/U */ @Coren

It seems clear by now that your behaviour is viewed as highly problematic at best and that the way you are attempting to defend it in the RFC/U isn't scoring you any points – dismissing reasonable concerns by simply labelling people expressing them "haters" and "losers", or dismissing their concerns as "attacks" or "retaliation" is illustrative of those concerns and actively harms your position.

The RfC isn't heading anywhere comfortable, and there is increasing risk that this will degenerate into a pile-on dramafest. Can you even acknowledge that you need to adjust your behaviour to continue contributing on the project at all? While there is a great deal of legitimate exasperation with how long this has been going on, most people would be satisfied if you took genuine corrective measures now – and followed up on them. If you could actually stick to a no-revert policy and stop aspersions on anyone who disagrees with you, things might work out.

You will have to realize that your stance on BLP is very much extreme, and that the vast majority of editors who disagree with it are neither out to get you nor "POV pushers". They just disagree and think you are wrong.

Can you try? — Coren ^(talk) 00:55, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Sure I can - if there is some real discussion opportunity - I can agree to a no revert editing condition - I don#t want to attack anyone - its not a conducive environment for good faith discussion - have a read of some of the multiple personal attacks against me there .. I will stop contributing to that page - can you help me there and suggest/offer a no revert editing condition, that will resolve any edit warring concerns?Youreallycan 02:24, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

You're preaching at the choir, here. You need to engage those editors, and convince them with that proposal. The problem is how you handle what you perceive to be adversity, and you need to be able to handle criticism without lashing out. Avoiding the RFC is doing exactly the opposite of what you need right now. — Coren ^(talk) 12:24, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:Turnitin

Hi Coren! There will be an RfC in the next few weeks about a trial for plagiarism detection company Turnitin. I'd really like your feedback about the trial design, as part of the trial involves a comparison between Turnitin and Madman/CorenSearch Bot. Would you be available to chat via phone or skype, maybe Thursday at 2pm EST? Cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 15:59, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think I can do a voice chat on a weekday afternoon, but I can do my best to help and coordinate any testing. The idea of collaborating with Turnitin is interesting, though there is much to clarify and discuss before it can be done.

Philippe has gone for a three-week vacation, and I'd really prefer if he was closely involved in this (And we probably want to bring Erik on board too); but I am at your disposal to see if we can work a testing and discussion plan out with everyone. Feel free to also point the Turnitin people in my direction for the technical aspects. — Coren ^(talk) 16:30, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I'm more than flexible and could do a weekday night or a weekend, whatever works best for you. The proposal does appear rather new but it's actually been kicked around the Foundation for a solid few months now. Philippe was definitely involved, as was the Legal department. CT Woo chimed in during a conference call, although I am not sure if Erik participated in discussions. The Foundation has given the go-ahead for an RfC for a trial. So still preliminary but it's a first step. As for the technical implementation, that's is still up in the air, but for the trial alone, we don't need to alter any infrastructure or workflows. We just need to see if Turnitin can work on old and new articles, and CorenSearchBot is the best point of comparison for that. I know you don't currently operate on old/existing articles, but I was hoping that just for the purposes of this trial we could run 75 old articles through your Bot. Let's discuss all of this in more detail whenever you're available. I really want your input on the proposal and the trial design as well. Cheers! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 13:43, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

CSBot can be run on old articles, but its output wasn't really designed for the kind of analysis you'd need for comparison; I can make a special version with more verbose reports, though, that would be considerably more useful. Lemme think on this a bit and see what I can whip up. — Coren ^(talk) 14:33, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Since you were there at the time …

• User talk:DGG#External disputes imported into Wikipedia

… you might be able to remember. I've also asked JzG and Moonriddengirl. Uncle G (talk) 18:05, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

On Sourcing

Question: Subject X has an article which has info removed due to controversial BLP issue. The article has info that is uncontroversial but is supported by a source that is explicitly discussing the controversial info. Technically the source is a reliable source, but should it be used given that it pretty much lays out exactly what isnt in the article? (This question is in prelude to me removing something, in order to stave off arguments later) Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:34, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

SPI 99.251.150.62

Your name came up here, I thought you might like to know. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:35, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for improving the clarity of the situation at SPI. Question: what is the proper protocol if a user has a "hunch" about who the troll might be? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:10, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

A hunch doesn't suffice, you need evidence. — Coren ^(talk) 03:11, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

That's what I thought, the trouble is, all a user would need to do is avoid giving any concrete evidence to avoid a CU, but I do see the logic against giving in to seemingly random witch-hunts. What would a detective do? I think they would ask the victim to list any possible enemies, and the detective would check the 3-5 most likely suspects for alibis. That's the first thing a law enforcement agency would do, and as far as I am concerned, the trolls behaviour has crossed the line into attempted fraud and legal harassment/cyberstalking. So something needs to be done IMO. Any suggestions? What constitutes evidence exactly? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:29, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• How do you know the IP doesn't have a static addy? They may have simply went to a local library or coffee shop. Wouldn't that result in a slightly different IP addy? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:32, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • It's about context and in which range the IP is. Also, there are other tells. Sometimes, it's not clear – as was the case here – but usually, end-user ISP addresses are easily told from each other and distinct from that which most business use. — Coren ^(talk) 03:39, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Okay, well thanks for taking the time to explain that to me. To clarify, are you saying that you know its a non-business IP, yet we cannot indef them no matter what they say or do? Why not exactly? I'm not trying to be difficult here, I really want to understand the reasoning behind this. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:02, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• If the IP troll could change their IP addy by simply turning off their modem for 5 minutes then why did they wait out the last block before returning to troll soon after it expired? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:35, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • There can be a number of reasons; some ISPs will not give you a new IP unless you've been off for some period of time. The user may have been using his connection for something else they didn't want to interrupt. They may simply not have bothered. — Coren ^(talk) 03:39, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
    • True, I agree. Thanks for taking the time to respond. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:02, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

User talk:Penyulap

I've left a msg that may be of interest to you there. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 12:27, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Regarding socks

Hi, Coren. I just wanted to ask you about something that I found a little confusing. Recently, you indefinitely blocked User:99.251.125.65 for trolling and harassment. Since then, we've had multiple duck socks of this guy that have shown up, among them 99.236.135.28 and 99.251.125.65 (there might be more). From what I can tell, though, none of these socks have followed their master into the oblivion of indef. (NB: The user in question was connected to the blocked User:KBlott via this address. I don't think there was ever a proper SPI, though.)

Like I said earlier, I realize we can't go around indeffing every IP that is problematic, but when we have such obvious cases of sockpuppetry, shouldn't something more be done? If the original one was problematic enough to warrant an indefinite block, why not the socks? If it was a registered user, we wouldn't hesitate to get rid of every sock that crops up. And for the IPs, we wouldn't even have to indef them, as I see it. A block of six months to a year should take care of the problem without the potential collateral damage than an indefinite block brings.

Anyway, I might be incredibly ignorant of some policy or guideline here, so let me know if that's the case. Just wanted to check with you, though. Thanks! Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:32, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

The short of it: whatever account that troll might once have used, they are now sticking strictly to anonymous editing on a dynamic range of a major ISP that is also used by unrelated legitimate editors. There's very little to do but play whack-a-mole, I'm afraid. — Coren ^(talk) 22:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

While whack-a-mole may well be our best option here, can't we at least block for more than a week at a time? Shouldn't these blocks be for 3-6 months at least, given the racist, uncivil, obscene and harassing nature of the master's edits? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:58, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Again, if they can just turn their modem off and on and get a new IP, then more than week causes collateral damage. And I never have done an indef on an IP, static or dynamic. When someone is socking with IPs and keeps coming back, I never block for more than 3 hours, since I know they will just cycle and get a new IP anyway. Once that IP has been cycled, having it blocked is harmful to Wikipedia as it might be stopping a good faith editor. I notice a recent interest in this topic, but the fact is, you can't stop IPs from doing this, all you can do is whack them, try to not make a big deal out of it, as that just feeds the trolls and makes them more likely to continue. Seriously, the bigger a deal you make, the worse you make the situation because you are (oddly enough) giving them a reward. Best to ignore and just let the 'mins block as needed. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 00:05, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Great points as always Dennis, thanks, I will do my best to follow your advice. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:07, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Understood. Thanks for the clarification, Dennis and Coren. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:11, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Help Me

I think my IP address is constantly changing. So, sometime It shows that Your IP is blocked by checkuser. This glitch is very annoying. Can you help me in this matter ? GiantBluePanda (talk) 10:27, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Your input is needed at ANI

RE: User:GiantBluePanda, whom you blocked, then unblocked, and now seems possible you were either right the first time, or ...well, just pop by when you can please. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 12:58, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

• @Coren! You advice was right about staying low profile when you clean start. but, It was my deadliest mistake not to follow it. Now, It's all up to you to decide my fate. Good Luck. GiantBluePanda (talk) 13:05, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
  • No, it isn't up to him, but his input is needed. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 13:12, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Err, I fail to find a related thread anywhere? — Coren ^(talk) 14:13, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
      • At, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#User:GiantBluePanda. GiantBluePanda (talk) 14:28, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
        • My mistake, it was WP:AN. It shouldn't have been an either board, but certainly not AN. But the sock is blocked, so all is balanced in the world. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 02:01, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Andreasedge, again

Hi Coren. As you know, I take a dim view of Andreasegde's combative editing style, and I continue to be concerned by what I can only call his ongoing hostility and disruption. Could you please take a look at the Beatles mediation [2] and determine if his conduct is actionable? I now suggest an Rfc/U should be contemplated, but I thought it best to come here first per your previous ANI closure, topic ban determination, and subsequent comments regarding a possible easing of restrictions prior to the one year period of sanctions. Thanks as always, Jusdafax 01:19, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Jusdafax. Actually, no behaviour in formal mediation is actionable, by definition. Have a look at the part in the mediation committee's policy about the privileged nature of mediation. Feezo and I take complaints about incivility very seriously, though - have a look at Feezo's latest post at the mediation page. If you have any questions or concerns you're welcome to email Feezo or myself in confidence. Best — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{(have a chat)} 02:10, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I was going to say something along the lines of "I've no intention of interfering with the mediators" anyways.  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 02:12, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Live and learn; my thanks to you all. Jusdafax 02:25, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Peter Estenberg article has been fixed

The article Peter Estenberg was tagged for having copied a list of descendants from another resource website leaving too many similarities. I have read the guidelines and the problem has been corrected. There was a threat of deletion posted. This problem has been fixed. Please do not delete the article. If there are other issues please inform me so I can fix them with no further prolems arising. Thank you for taking the time to help improve the article.

TheWriteGuy2 (talk) 03:57, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Pointless random question about CSB

Hey, Coren, I was looking at CorenSearchBot's BRFA (damned if I know why), and I was wondering about the whole thing with Google's terms of use. Looking at the source, it looks like you still use Yahoo; if you don't mind my asking, did you ever get a straight answer from Google, or did it just kinda fade away? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:11, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) This may be somewhat of an aside, but Google changed their terms of use earlier this year as I recall nd no longer has the explicit prohibition against automated queries. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:53, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, talks with Google ended up being fruitless last I checked; whereas Yahoo was amenable (we currently use their BOSS service). I'll look again at Google; I always did like the quality of their results better. — Coren ^(talk) 21:14, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Hunches

I know a hunch isn't evidence, but since I don't really understand what fully constitutes evidence, I am seeking clarification. 1) The user I suspect states on their talk page that their name starts with a "K". 2) The IP master is thought to be Kblott. 3) Both Kblott and the suspected user are from Canada, and both support the same position in regards to "the/The". 4) The suspected user and I were in the middle of a dispute when the user stopped editing, one day before the IP appeared and began bothering me. Is this evidence? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:53, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Turnitin call

I've emailed you about a call tomorrow at 1pm EST. Would love you to join! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 16:35, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

• Update on the call:

Hello, Coren/Archives/2012. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Ocaasi ^{t | c} 16:25, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

CSB too sensitive?

Just now, VWBot (which I assume is a clone of CorenSearchBot) tagged an article I created, Cinta Costera, as a copyvio. Only a single phrase matched the site it listed, and not even exactly so. Perhaps it might make sense to exempt anything under 400 "real" bytes (as in, not headers, categories, templates, or ref tags) in the bot algorithm? Just a suggestion. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:19, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Wait I just realized: At the time of VWBot's tag, the offending phrase wasn't even in there. I have no idea how "The Cinta Costera (meaning Coastal Beltway) is a land reclamation project in Panama City, Panama" managed to match anything remotely similar in http://www.roadtraffic-technology.com/projects/cintacosta/. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:26, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

That part of VWBot is a slight fork from an older version of CorenSearchBot. I'll take a look at the diffs from the current version and maybe some regular expressions this weekend and see what can be done with short articles. VernoWhitney (talk) 05:31, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Meet the new sock

Same as the old sock. I hate to bug you with this, but if the mole needs whacking, I'm afraid I don't know of anyone else uninvolved who's familiar with the situation. I don't blame you if you don't want to deal with it, though. Thanks for your time and advice on this, either way. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 06:08, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

And it continues. Just hypothetically (or not), what would happen if I just reported him to AIV? Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:26, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I just gave him a year to think on it.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 03:56, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

My RfA

Thank you for participating at my RfA. I appreciate it and hope I continue to see you around. Kurtis (talk) 14:07, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Concord Home appliances

hi there!I got the info from the Concord website itself!not beirut blablabla! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elie555121 (talk • contribs) 08:58, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

"The Beatles" mediation

Hi Coren; would you be willing to judge the results of the Requests for mediation/The Beatles poll? Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 09:25, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't know how appropriate this might be viewed since I have previously sanctioned a participant. I don't mind, provided everyone is willing. — Coren ^(talk) 14:13, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Mail!

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Ocaasi ^{t | c} 16:45, 30 August 2012 (UTC)