User talk:Isotope23/Archive 17

Blessed be the peacemakers …

… and I hope they have a Merry Christmas.

Thank you so much for your peacemaking work on the legistorm mess. --A. B. ^(talk) 22:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Seconded seems inappropriate for the season. Your input was very sound indeed and appreciated, thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:09, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Isotope, I have always been confident of your judgement and sagacity. I think, despite my own earlier attempts to find a mutually agreeable solutions, somehow I have become a divisive figure for some and whatever I say (short of abject groveling and self-abnegation) is only going to prolong the drama. I may be hard to reach over the next 10 days so here are my inputs:

1. I think I read somewhere that the whitelist consumes a lot more overhead than the blacklist. We're not supposed to worry about overhead normally, but if we go to add 535 links to the whitelist, it may be an issue if what I'm saying is true. In that case, blacklist removal may be the right thing. There are some pages somewhere on either Meta or MediaWiki that discuss this. If overhead's not an issue, then I suggest whitelisting. The link's proponents should then compile the list of URLs for you or another admin to add to the whitelist. Once you get the list, it should be easy to put them in whitelist regex format if you're handy with a text editor.
2. I don't know how Storming Media arranges their website. If it's along the lines of

   • legistorm.com/SalaryPages/congressman438.html

   then whitelisting is a no-brainer, since just one whitelist entry is required.

3. If the decision is made to remove the site from the blacklist, then you should not do this until we have the list of 535 good URLs. Otherwise it will make any future spam detection and cleanup harder.
4. Based on previous whitelist discussions of useful links that have been spammed, it would help to have the two or three most vociferous and aggressive proponents of this domain's value solemnly swear that they will personally be responsible for monitoring the link and ensuring there's no spam. As the saying goes, they should have "some skin in the game" -- sort of like personally puting up the bail for your ne'er-do-well uncle. They should know that if spamming starts again, they'll personally be on the hook for controlling it otherwise the domain will be blacklisted and they will be the ones to field the complaints. Anyone really here to build an encyclopedia (and not just argue) will readily agree to do this if they believe in what they've been saying. If they've got some magic bullet alternative (bots, someone else, magic, etc.), they still need to stand behind it (as well as supervise the bot's reports, etc.)
5. There needs to be some sort of bot monitoring and recording all link additions.
6. The RfC record should show that there was massive COI spamming; this innocent editor stuff is bull. That will make it easier to address any recurrences. It's also a precedent for dealing with the rest of Storming Media LLC's spam, which has not even been dealt with yet. I don't want someone reopening the same can of worms when we go to deal with this in the next week or two just to shove it down others' and my throat. There are 100s of these other links out there (the WikiProject Spam report has the other domains).
7. I recommend running a checkuser on the accounts involved. I think this is important for the record and should be part of the RfC record. Any sockpuppets should be indefinitely blocked.
8. Somewhere there's a list of the entire Storming Media LLC IP range. I recommend blocking it indefinitely or at least for several years. I know long IP blocks are anathema around here, but it's in the best interest of editorial control of our encyclopedia. It's the encyclopaedia everyone can edit, but not from the offices of a known spammer.
9. Blacklisting on meta blocks a domain not just on all 700+ Wikimedia wikis, but also every one of Wikia's 1000s of wikis and a substantial portion of the 20,000+ other, unrelated wikis that run on MediaWiki software and elect to incorporate our blacklist in their filtering. If blacklisted on meta instead of just en.wikipedia, Storming Media would have to request whitelisting on each individual wiki where they wanted links. There are also reports that some search engines may be using the meta list in evaluating web sites for link-spamming penalization. It's possible that we could blacklist on meta, then whitelist here. If so, that would really stick it to Storming Media. It would be good for both sides (them and us) if they somehow know better than to "play chicken" with us on spamming more links once we take them off our local blacklist. Blacklisting on meta for such a reason is antithetical to our whole way of doing things (user blocks are preventative, etc.) but not out of the question if they insist on forcing our hand.
10. I hate to sound pessimistic but I've seen so many of these. Once they've spammed enough times ("tasted enough spam blood") and seen the traffic increases on their sites, 90% of spammers just can't resist spamming us again sooner or later. That's true whether it's Leisure Suit Larry pedaling Viagra or an urbane PR flack with an Oxford diploma and a Harvard MBA.
11. It may be worth someone (mature) sending a carefully worded, professional, nonhostile e-mail to the CEO of Storming Media and laying out our concerns. (It should state that the sender is acting purely as a volunteer and not officially on behalf of the Foundation.) I've done this before with publishers that have spammed useless links to otherwise useful domains with valuable references for our articles. I didn't threaten or mention all the collateral damage of a meta blacklisting -- I just laid out that we wanted to be able to link to their sites but that uncontrollable spam would force us to blacklist them; this would be a loss for both sides. It could also be a potential PR embarrassment should someone like a competitor or unhappy Congressional staffer use Wikiscanner and publicize their spamming.

That's my eleven cents; I'm sorry it's long but these big cases are more complex than most editors realize. Thanks for all your help on this and have a Merry Christmas, --A. B. ^(talk) 17:39, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Plymouth Whitemarsh High School

You delted a large amount of legit information about the school, mainly including the schools current sports team. I do not see how or why a school would lie about information such as that, but if you could kindly fix the information, it would be greatly appreciated. I would like to add that most of the students that had been vandalizing the site have used false names, in a sad attempt to get other students in trouble. I'm and deeply sorry for the trouble they have caused. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tyleraaron (talk • contribs) 13:51, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

The sports team records and 'notable alumni' need to be sourced with citations; otherwise they are very likely to be removed.--Isotope23 ^talk 13:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

A long time has passed. I appreciate the deletion you did for me and I have done my best to leave my name out of the project; that includes any and all possible people that could try or might have tried to make an appearance for my person, albeit I cannot do anything about impersonators as there seems to be evidence of that, in the past. Press on! LN 199.0.85.245 (talk) 01:56, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

No problem L. --Isotope23 ^talk 03:36, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Legistorm

Hiya, I was wondering whether you think there's enough of a consensus at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#legistorm.com_de-blacklisting RfC, or should I try to solicit more input (maybe from WP:RS/N or the Village Pump?) Cool Hand Luke 19:55, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I would have liked to see a bit more than 2 uninvolved neutral parties show up to opine. Still, I don't think anyone could fault you for removing it based on the input there. If spamming from legistorm related accounts and IPs continues, it can always be blacklisted at meta.--Isotope23 ^talk 03:41, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Block of QuackGuru

I see that you blocked QuackGuru indefinitely. I'm concerned about this block. QG is a problematic but productive user. If you could explain the block in more detail I'd appreciate it. Thanks. JoshuaZ (talk) 15:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Say it's not so! The building will surely lament you leaving it.--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not a retirement as much as an indefinite hiatus. I need a break, but I may be back at some point in the future.--Isotope23 ^talk 23:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Glad to hear it, enjoy the break!--Cúchullain ^t/c 00:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Potenetial vandal alert

I've got the following message on my copypaste tab. I wanted to give it to you before you left. No such luck, I guess. Meh, here it is anyway.

Hey, Isotope, I've found another potential troll. He is User:NikhtaSt and he already has three vandalism warnings on his page. That's bad considering he's only been here a little while (the abscence of a userpage signifies a new user). Let's watch this guy. I don't like the way it's looking. (loads M4 Carbine) Here's some ammo. --Gp75motorsports ^{REV LIMITER} —Preceding comment was added at 11:46, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Deletion review

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Matt Howard. Since you closed the deletion discussion for this article, speedy-deleted it, or were otherwise interested in the article, you might want to participate in the deletion review. NatureBoyMD (talk) 22:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

QuackGuru

I've unblocked him - you don't really give a very good reason or justification anywhere - it's not on ANI, there's no mention on his talk page, etc, and the block log comment is odd in the least. Adam Cuerden ^talk 17:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)