User talk:A. B./February 2007

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This page is a chronological archive of past discussions from User talk:A. B. for the month of February 2007. Exchanges spilling over from late January or into early March may have been retained elsewhere to avoid breaking their continuity. In order to preserve the record of past discussions, the contents of this page should be preserved in their current form. Please do NOT make new edits to this page. If you wish to make new comments or re-open an old discussion thread, please do so on the User talk:A. B. page. If necessary, copy the relevant discussion thread to the user talk:A. B. page and then add your comments there.

thanks anyway

Thanks, but I'm done with Wikipedia. Best of luck to you and your editors. (REMOVED 04:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC))

Sorry about the meta blacklist

They can't blacklist those sites without evidence that it is beyond normal admin tools. What I can do is have shadow's bot, which is taking the IRC feed from Linkwatcher deal with these links automatically. We can then see if there is more then one IP range, or other nasty stuff that we can come back and have them blacklist it.

A copy of the post I left to Shadow1:

Have a look at the following links (here). They should be added to the bot. See the meta blacklist proposal, that probably won't get added due to the fact that it was not spammed by multiple IP ranges. (here). Cheers! —— Eagle 101 ^{(Need help?)} 17:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

If you know exactly what admin actions I need to be taking to resolve this on this wiki, let me know on my talk page thanks! —— Eagle 101 ^{(Need help?)} 18:28, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Stuck drill string deletion listing confusion

Yes, it is a mishap in progress. Still working on it. Thanks. -TRosenbaum 06:48, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I think I've fixed it now. --TRosenbaum 06:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

wiener-gasometer.at Whitelist/Blacklist

Hello! Thank you for your respond at the whitelist-Discussion of wiener-gasometer.at. You will find a Request for Removing from the Link from the Blacklist on meta here and I didn't get any respond there since I have written this proposal. I am sorry, that I have posted this link on too many wikis on relevant articles and I won't do this any more and I am extremely sorry for that - I don't wanted to produce spam. This link was used in lot of wikipedias as a source and reference for articles on the topic of gasometers (gas holders), gasworks, gaslightning etc. a long time earlier than I have posted it. So it would be very helpful, if it is possible to remove the link from the blacklist in the meta-wikipedia or put at least whitelist-entry on the english wikipedia. Thank you! Andreas.poeschek 11:26, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Andreas, I'm not an admin, so I cannot help you. I suggest you take this up with the person that recommended your link for the blacklist. --A. B. ^(talk) 13:09, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I thought you are an admin - no problem :-) Andreas.poeschek 15:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

RE:

Please put new discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Real Social Dynamics (2nd nomination), and not an old archive. Thank you. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 00:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Why was my link deteted?

my link on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_fatigue_syndrome to [www.chronicfatiguetreatments.com] was deleted. I asked first on the talk page if i could add it, no one had a problem with it. So i added it. Its not spam, it is a legitamite site with no ads and is a chronic fatigue community that has over 150 members. It was deleted for spam, but if you look at the site it isnt spam. Could you please reconsider the link. thanks

Hi. That link is inappropriate -- see the External Links Guideline. Forums and blogs are inappropriate sites to link to -- see the "Links normally to be avoided" section, item #10.

http://www.chronicfatiguetreatments.com falls into that category.

Feel free to ask for a second opinion, however, at WikiProject Spam

I hope this answers your question.

--A. B. ^(talk) 23:30, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

John T Reed

Thanks for the notability references.... --PeterMarkSmith 10:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

ElliottGann.com

I don't really understand why you qualify links to ElliottGann.com like spam. Do you mean that the content in these links is not helpful and don't give a deeper view of Candlesticks Chart ? ElliottGann link is the only non-commercial link in the external link of Candlestick chart. --Fillmnnight 14:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I have responded to your comments here and elsewhere in considerable detail at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Response to Fillmnnight. Other editors will look at all this there and if they think I was in error, they'll note that. I'm certainly open to their input. --A. B. ^(talk) 19:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Listing stuff on meta

A. B. can you please leave us permanent links to the wikiproject spam pages. That was when this is archived, and if any questions are asked, we won't have to dig through wikiproject spam archives. Just click the "Permanent link" button on the toolbox, before going to give the url to the evidence. Thanks! —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 00:42, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

If you have questions feel free to ping me on my talk.

OK. --A. B. ^(talk) 00:43, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

SEO

Thanks, A.B. for your comments on Wikipedia talk:Search engine optimization. I will read them carefully and try to incorporate your ideas into the essay. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 22:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Spam and IRC channel

Hey, is there any way I could talk to you over IRC. Join the #wikipedia-spam-t on the freenode network. We have quite some anti-spam tools around I'd like to show you. Cheers! and please reply on my talk page. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 03:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Look for me under the nick Eagle_101. Thanks —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 03:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Its really really simple... and we have some tools on there that will be invaluable to you to counter spam with, especially all that hard detective work you have been doing... we have tools to assist with that. What browser are you using? If you are using Firefox, may I suggest Chatzilla, the place to download it would be at this place on mozilla. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 03:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Please reply on my talk page. :) —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 03:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I can work with trying to get you a better client later, but do the following to run chatzilla, I think you will like some of the stuff we have.

1. Download the plugin, thats pretty simple :D
2. go to Tools -> Chatzilla
3. Type into the client the following: /server irc.freenode.net (no space before the /)
4. chatzilla -> preferences -> global -> general -> specify nickname, ident, realname (pick any nick you want, you don't have to put your real name, just put something)
5. Then /join #wikipedia-spam-t (agian no spaces before the /)

Cheers! and if you have any problems let me know, on my talk page. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 04:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good, I might not be on (or as EagleZzZ) but someone will likely be in that channel. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 04:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Have you been having problems? You can always use http://ircatwork.com , though I would suggest a "real" client. If you do use ircatwork, set the server to irc.freenode.org , the nickname to your pick (A_B) or something of the like? And finally set the channel to #wikipedia-spam-t. Cheers! —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 15:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I haven't done anything yet. I've spent hours on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Maximus System Solutions spam on Wikipedia.[1] By the way, if you get the chance, take a look at it for blacklisting on Meta (I've filed a request there). --A. B. ^(talk) 15:20, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, but I can't wait to show you some of the tools we have to make the gumshoe detective work easier. See [2] [3] [4] [5] [6].

Basically we have tools to make the digging part of spam fighting one hell of a lot easier. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 15:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you having any problems? If you are, let me know, Cheers! `—— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 20:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Currently the tool that you would be interested in is down, but it might be up by tonight, I hope that you are able to figure this out (its really not that hard, and if you have problems just ask ;) ). Cheers! —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 18:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Did you ever figure this out? —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 19:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Explanation for vandalism warning to User Pleclech

Hello, A. B. Please look at User:Pleclech's edits in the history on the Robert D. Arnott page and then please look at the talk page for Robert D. Arnott. I think you would agree that writing "The final line of this reference is 'ADVERTIZEMENT'." in an article and then reverting it after I removed it is blatant vandalism. I realize, looking at your talk page alone, that you are quite busy, but please look over these things a bit more carefully. By making comments that exonerate him on his talk page, before looking deeper into the matter, you justify his actions and encourage him to vandalize more. Thank you for your critical eye, though. Clearly, no want wants Wikipedia edit disagreements to turn into games of vandal warnings. VivekVish 19:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree and stand behind my original comments based on the following:

• I stepped through every edit to the Robert D. Arnott article as well as every edit to Talk:Robert D. Arnott. Pleclech had made about 270 edits at the time you gave him a final vandalism warning; I also stepped through every one of his economics and finance-related edits up until the time you warned him. Only then did I leave the note on his talk page explaining what I thought was a very inappropriate warning and a note on your talk page expressing my opinion. --A. B. ^(talk) 19:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

What about "The final line of this reference is 'ADVERTIZEMENT'." and "in the journal he edits" mentioned repeatedly? Are those good edits? VivekVish 19:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Forgive me. The question isn't just whether those are good edits are not, since they are obviously not, but whether they constitute blatant vandalism. It's hard to see it as anything else. The Wikipedia:Vandalism#What vandalism is not page did not cover editing a page in order to degrade the subject or references of an article. However, that behavior would fall under the category of "a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia." VivekVish 19:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
  • One final point. All that is necessary for the {{Blatantvandal}} tag is that the edit is clearly done in bad faith. There is no mention of multiple bad faith edits as a prerequisite, although User:Plechlech did revert to the vandalized edits even after I put the blatant vandal tag on his talkpage, which justifies Pleclech's being "blocked from editing without further warning," if I understand the policy correctly. It is difficult--indeed impossible--to argue that adding the line, "The final line of this reference is 'ADVERTIZEMENT'." is not done in bad faith--more specifically, it was meant to degrade the subject of the article and the reference in question. Therefore, I stand doubly firm behind my use of the {{Blatantvandal}} tag. However, if by convention, the Blatant vandal tag tends not to be used on first-time vandals, even if the vandalism is done in bad faith, I would prefer that the policy be edited such that it mentions that distinction. VivekVish 20:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Since we disagree, perhaps a neutral outside opinion would be helpful. Perhaps we should ask for an opinion at WP:ANI or WP:RFC. --A. B. ^(talk) 21:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Please do. While we wait, allow me to revert to my edits. I really don't want "The final line of this reference is 'ADVERTIZEMENT'." and repeated mentions of "in the journal he edits" to be lying around this or any other article. I would do this on the grounds that in a dispute, it is probably better to leave out that which a user considers vandalism than to leave it in, until the issue is resolved. I don't know if there is a formal rule on this, but I believe it makes sense. In the event that this issue is resolved against me, I will happily revert to User:Pleclech's edits. Thank you, A. B. VivekVish 21:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The warning was removed from Pleclech's page in accordance with both your and Elonka's comments. [1] [2] VivekVish 00:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments and edits to my talk page. I quite accept that the edits I made were not the best possible, but I'd become very irritated at the blatant spam, copyvio and puffery made by sockpuppets and anon editors on various financial articles. My edits were factual though!

Don't worry about me taking heat - if I wasn't, my edits wouldn't be improving the articles enough. Abuse from sockpuppets counts as a barnstar in my book. Pleclech 23:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for alerting me to the issue. I'm happy to have been able to help. Best, Elonka 02:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for St. Louis Arsenal/Sandbox Clarification

Thanks for making the extra effort to clarify the 101 site issue when I was trying to cite while working in my sandbox. If I understood the concept of barnstars you definitely deserve one. Thanks again! Americasroof 10:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Adminship

Have you given any thought to an RFA? I'd be more than willing to nominate you if you were interested! You've been a great asset to the community through your work with the spam wikiproject and I think it would benefit you (and the project) immensely if you had the ability to block spammers and delete/protect spam targets. Think about how easier life would have been on Mary Washington if we had a couple more users with admin tools (I had been given the tools myself in the first days or so of that an it was a bit overwhelming at first). Would you be interested? Metros232 14:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks -- I'm flattered. You're about the 7th person to ask me. It would certainly make what I do easier. My concern is that I have been in a lot of disputes in the past, so I'm not sure I would make it through an RfA. I was a slow learner when it came to feeding trolls.

I've been dismayed by how close Hu12's current RfA has been as well as how close BozMo's was -- both, in my mind, open-and-shut, no-brainer picks. If candidates like them are squeaking by, it's not clear what the prospects are for mere mortals unless they're carefully avoiding any controversy until they stand for RfA. Standards seem to be rising across the board; while edit count is not a concern for me now at 7500, I was surprised to see people object to BozMo's 4500 edits. Some were concerned about his low number of article edits, but others were objecting to the total edit count. A year ago, people were talking about whether it was too picky to expect candidates have 1000 edits.

Take a look at my talk page archives and see what you think -- I'd be interested in your feedback. You might also see what some others think as well. --A. B. ^(talk) 14:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Take your time to consider and have a look at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/A. B.. It's your call from here on out :) Metros232 12:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow, I really appreciate your comments. I think I will probably do this, but I need time to consider my answers to the questions. I also have some off-Wiki obligations to meet in the next week or two. --A. B. ^(talk) 13:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, definitely take your time! I actually wasn't planning on creating that until this weekend at earliest. But I woke up early this morning to get ready to go teach and found out after I woke up that my district's closed today, so I found myself with some free time :) So, yeah, no hurries. Metros232 13:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey A. B., I had someone stop by my talk page a few days ago and ask about the status of your RFA because he'd be interested in supporting you if it ever opens. Have you given it further thought or is more time necessary before you decide? Thanks, Metros232 18:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I've thought a lot about it but have had a lot going on recently off-Wikipedia. I just learned 30 minutes ago that I may be making another unexpected trip in the next day or two.

I am 99% sure I will stand for RfA, but I want to be well-prepared. I expect some questions and concerns from participants and I want to make sure I'm not missing in action.

Thanks again, --A. B. ^(talk) 19:44, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, take whatever time you need. I only asked because I've gotten comments about it (positive ones) from other users, so I figured I'd check in on the status, Metros232 05:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I hope you do consider Adminship. The admin:user ratio drops yet again, and most like will continue. I can't think of any one better suited for this type of role on the project. Screw the hot coals, and bureaucrats!--Hu12 01:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey A.B.

Hey A.B, i just saw the message you left me, it's ok man, i was going to make a Car Forum database on wikipedia but some woman told me that its not really worth while, so she put it in my talk page, or my userpage, and you came along and told me about spam, so i got rid of it, no big deal..Anyways, i hope im entering this in the proper field here so you can see it, i wish wikipedia would make a simpler private messaging template other than this editing stuff, other than that, i didnt think anyone read the Yugoslavia related articles that i write :| But thank you! :) Zlatko 20:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism or no?

Thanks for your comments. I appreciate your insight on the "vandalism or no" question. I did try to engage Plecech in a discussion because I could not see the reason for nominating for deletion, and asked that he/she assume good faith , but Plecech was nonresponsive. I eventually decided to warn Plecech for vandalism because, when I checked the history, Plecech seemed to have a history of nominating for deletion finance related pages, regardless of merit (not just the one you alluded to). Also, comments accompanying Plecech's edits for this and other pages tend not to be constructive and don't assume good faith, e.g., "another hit and run editor," "is this a joke?" and that kind of loaded language. In retrospect, I could have sent it to resolution, but as I said Plecech was nonresponsive, and he'd already decided to move forward with deletion.

My view is, instead of deleting every page we don't agree with, we should put our effort towards improving articles (provided they meet standards for inclusion in Wikipedia, of course).

That said, I'm still a fairly new (and sporadic) editor, getting used to wiki nuance. It's tough to see prolific wiki editors who appear to have an axe to grind - which is why we should all assume good faith, I suppose!

Thanks for your comments. I will review the vandalism standards. Netsumdisc 17:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

It was very clear that you were operating in good faith for the good of the encyclopedia when you issued that warning. I appreciate your work here. I'm just keenly aware seeing some other editors' talk pages of how much a vandalism warning can become a scarlet letter for an editor.

If after reading the vandalism reference, you think the warning was inappropriate, you might consider leaving a note on Plecech's talk page. That doesn't mean you have to concede anything editorially, just comment on the warning you left. --A. B. ^(talk) 17:42, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I think if you look impartially at my history of edits and comments you'll find them always factual and almost always justified (nobody is perfect). The "is this a joke?" for example refers to Espen Haug who was supposed to have a degree in garden plants from Dømmesmoen Gartner Skole Grimstad which as far as I can see doesn't exist and is a rather strange qualification for a financial analyst. Pleclech 00:28, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

reappearance of child-support-laws-state-by-state.com

[7] After the two month or so absence, its back. I know you maintain it here. I thought this was black listed? oh well, here are the socks:
Funnyguy1021 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
76.186.104.189 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
76.186.80.218 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

child-support-laws-state-by-state.com
--Hu12 22:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

By the way, thanks. I assume you've seen the lengthy at:

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#The Christmas child support spammer: child-support-laws-state-by-state.com

or, after archiving:

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Feb#The Christmas child support spammer: child-support-laws-state-by-state.com

Unfortunately I was unable to get it blacklisted.

--A. B. ^(talk) 21:46, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Lists of utilities

The following is a note I left at User talk:Bill Clark; since Bill's apparently left Wikipedia, I'm posting a copy here for others to comment on if they wish:

Bill, I'm sorry I've not gotten involved earlier in your disputes. I'm very involved with WikiProject Spam and saw the reference to your cable TV-related edits but I did not interject because I was busy. I'm very interested in infrastructure-related issues and I see both sides of the issue.

I'm inclined to think that adding a utilities section to the inline text of articles for towns is inappropriate. We're not really a directory for relocation information. A separate section within the article body for that material just adds to article's clutter.

That leads to the idea of adding links at the end of the article, but that's an even poorer idea. If we get more than about 5 external links (not footnotes) at the end of an article, my experience has shown that the article quickly becomes a spam magnet: see the essay, "Spam Event Horizon". If the gas, power, cable, telephone and water utilities all get links, then you have 5 right there. In bigger towns, the CLECs are going to want their links, too.

Most provinces or states have WikiProjects to cover topics within their areas. Some of them have developed little information boxes for each town encapsulating basic information (population, founding date, etc.) I think utilities could be added unobtrusively to these templates but this should only be done with the consensus of the WikiProject members for that particular area. I wouldn't push it now, given the current stink over so-called cable "spam".

The preferred approach instead is to add a link for the town to Open Directory Project, better known as "Dmoz.org" or just "Dmoz". This not just allowed but specifically encouraged by our External Links Guideline. "Wikipedia is not a repository of links" but DMOZ is and the two are very complimentary sources of information. It really helps our external links problem since now we just tell folks to take it to DMOZ and link back here from the DMOZ page for Podunk or vehicle insurance or whatever.

So for example, instead of adding a link to the cable company in Highlands, NC, add a link to DMOZ for everything in the town:

• http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/North_Carolina/Localities/H/Highlands

Highlands doesn't have any DMOZ entries for its utilities but it should. If you wanted a cable TV link, you could:

1. Submit suggestions to DMOZ for inclusion
2. Become a DMOZ editor yourself:
   • http://dmoz.org/help/become.html#how
3. Perhaps work out something informal with DMOZ for the interested Wikipedia and DMOZ editors to share some efforts with them for the lists I suggest below. (I say "informal" because we're so anarchic here that it would take forever to herd all the cats to get formal approval and we wouldn't need it anyway).

Before I get to the lists, however, I should add that I'm not involved with DMOZ and I don't know much about how they operate. Maybe this isn't realistic.

What I think would be very helpful on Wikipedia are lists by state of utilities along the lines of "List of cable TV companies in Ohio", "List of power utilities in Bavaria", organized by county or district and listing the multiple utilities in each county. Some provincial and state regulatory commissions publish maps of service areas; if public domain copies were available, they would be invaluable to these readers.

The people who really want to know about the cable TV operator in Highlands, North Carolina are people in the infrastructure business and they would probably prefer to have it on a by-state basis anyway. They'd also probably love maps and Wikipedia has some people who love to generate maps.

I think Wikipedia's coverage of utilities is poor and needs to be better. Georgia Power is a multi-billion dollar operation yet its current article, still just a stub, was only started 5 months ago. There are thousands of readers in the U.S. who could use this information. The same is true of utilities elsewhere around the world. I also think that any utility with >$10 million in revenues is notable and should have an article someday.

The demographics of Wikipedia's readers are much broader than those of the active Wikipedia editors which are still broader than those of our 1000 or so admins. That's not a criticism of Wikipedia's hard-working volunteers -- if anything, it's a call instead to get cable TV folks and others off their butts to help out here, too. Those thousands who could use the cable TV lists aren't editing here -- just reading. At least the cable TV world has one person (you) -- that's one more than some other industries have.

It would also be helpful to have a ranking list for each country of the largest utilities ranked by size. So for the U.S. or Canada, you could have rankings like this:

1. MSOs ranked by number of customers and/or
2. MSOs ranked by cable system revenues (to exclude other activities such as publishing).

I'd be happy to support you if you're interested, although I could not invest large amounts of time.

I also understand that Rome wasn't built in a day. Just in North America there are 50 states in the U.S. and 13 provinces or territories in Canada. Worldwide there are 190+ countries. Still, like all things on Wikipedia, this could start out small and incrementally grow over time, hopefully drawing in some help from others.

I have a reputation with some here as a hardliner on spam and link issues so I think I could perhaps bring some credibility to the initiative should questions be raised about spam. Feel free to contact me using the Wikipedia "E-mail this user" feature: Special:Emailuser/A. B. or on my talk page.

Thanks for all your work to date on Wikipedia. --A. B. ^(talk) 16:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

--A. B. ^(talk) 17:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

With Bill gone I don't know if anyone is going to be willing to take up the projects he was working on. I know I'm not real knowledgable about this stuff (my only involvement was an ill-timed block on Bill so he wouldn't delete his contributions here and subsequent unblock when he contacted me to tell me he was not rolling back any of his contributions). Hopefully at some point he will revisit this project.--Isotope23 17:21, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. My only interaction with Bill was the warnings prior to his block (and the request for that block) as he was disruptively removing all content he had added over several weeks/months.

That said, I think you've made a solid case for establishing Wikipedia:WikiProject Utilities or something similar here. While I've no real knowledge of utilities, you can count me as supportive of your ideas, if altogether unhelpful in their implementation... :) (I stick with waht I know: science) Hopefully you can convince others to join you in this. -- Scientizzle 18:10, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the invite, A.B. I see one major problem with your DMOZ-based concept, plus a couple of more minor problems. DMOZ will not list the same link in umpty-dozen categories. First the major problem: As a general rule, a website can be listed in one "Regional" (geographically based) category and one "topical" category; editors are admonished to find the single best-fit category, rather than listing it everywhere it is relevant. As a result of this rule, http://www.bellsouth.com/ (for example) is found only in http://dmoz.org/Business/Telecommunications/Carriers and http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/Regions/South_and_Southeast/Business_and_Economy/Public_Utilities/ . About the only time a utility would be listed in a locality category is when it serves only that one locality. The minor problems are that, due to issues related to recovery from the massive server failure, editor applications are not currently being accepted and externally submitted URLs are not currently being added to the directory. (I call these problems "minor" because they are temporary and because existing editors can add URLs.) Bottom line: DMOZ is not the place to "send" people to find out which phone company or cable system serves a community.--orlady 20:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Now to the more general question... Reflecting on Bill Clark's proposal, it seems to me that the identification of public utilities often is a nontrivial topic of interest in connection with a community -- not merely a service to people relocating there. For example: (1) municipally owned utilities and contractual deals between municipalities and cable operators both can be the subject of political controversy, (2) local initiatives to provide a particular type of utility service (such as city-wide Wi-Fi access or the burial of all electric lines) can strongly affect a community's character, (3) the adequacy of a community's drinking water source can be an important local issue, and (4) idiosyncrasies, such as a community's having a different phone company than the rest of the county, often are important elements in a community's "story." I see no particular value in identifying every utility serving every city, town, village, and hamlet, but I don't think this information should be banned. In most instances, naming the utility should not result in a new external link, since large companies such as Verizon, AT&T, and Entergy have their own articles to link to, and even many more local companies such as Cass County Electric Cooperative and Seattle City Light have their own articles (all of these are findable at Category:Public utilities of the United States).--orlady 20:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the excellent, comprehensive response,orlady. --A. B. ^(talk) 21:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

VegaDark's Request for Adminship

A. B./February 2007

---

Thank you for supporting my RfA. It was successful at a unanimous 52/0/0. I hope I can live up to the kind words expressed of me there, and hope to now be more of an asset to the community with access to the tools. Please feel free to leave a message on my talk page if you have any suggestions for me in the future. Thanks again! VegaDark 07:16, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

---

Zzuuzz's RfA

Hi A. B. Thanks for your support in my RfA, which was successful. Let me know if I can ever be useful, especially with all that spam. By the way, you are doing a great job. Thanks! -- zzuuzz^(talk) 21:45, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

zzuuzz you already do a great job with spam. I'm just in the process of requesting blacklisting of one of your newest friends, autoinsurancequoteonline.us:

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Still more spam on Wikipedia from VsiSoftware.com, Inc. and Insureme.com

I also appreciate your adding live links to the spam sites on user talk pages. It makes it easy to tell with a quick linksearch which users have already been warned. --A. B. ^(talk) 21:56, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

72.24.79.46's edits

Wow, this guy really doesn't like you! I wonder what's up with that; he apparantly has done nothing but spam and make completely unfounded personal attacks against you for no particular reason. Anyway, thanks for informing me about this, I was somewhat confused there. Pyrospirit ^{Flames Fire} 22:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I just read this post and since A.B. and I are currently involved in a conflict dispute it seems appropriate that I dispell any suspicions before they start. While I am not a fan of A.B. I don't agree with 72.24.79.46's POV and I don't want people to think that user is me. I looked at 72.24.79.46's contribution log and I see that the first edit is to Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/A._B. at 00:11 17 February 2007 (lets call this time zero). My first contact with A.B. was 18 hours later on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam and my first conflict with A.B. on Penton Media was 28 hours later. So unless I have access to time travel then it is not possible for me to be 72.24.79.46.

This is also the first I've heard of A.B.'s request for adminship. My vote is undecided at the moment. I suspect my final decision depends on how my conflict dispute with A.B. resolves itself. (Requestion 23:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC))

See my response to Requestion in the next section ("hostile and offensive"). --A. B. ^(talk) 03:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

hostile and offensive

Hello A.B. I find the tone of your edits and comments related to Penton Media to be hostile and offensive. Do you take a certain pride in being so condescending?

I used to enjoy fighting wiki spam, that was until User:Femto invited me to join Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam. What a mistake that has turned out to be. It's crazy, instead of fighting spam, now I am fighting you. (Requestion 22:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC))

No I am not trying to be hostile, condescending or offensive and I am sorry my comments and actions have now left you feeling sorry you've gotten involved with WikiProject Spam. Here's the history as I understand it:

1. You created the Penton Media article. It included material on the company's spamming on Wikipedia.[8]
2. Another editor, Jvhertum moved material about Penton's spamming to the talk page.[9]

   Edit summary: "moved to talk page"

3. You restored the spamming reference to the article itself.[10]

   Edit summary: "revert, please explain the move, this is valid and important information about Penton Media."

   then "The information has moved. Change User_talk:65.166.218.250 link to Talk:Penton_Media link."[11]

4. I reinstated Jvhertum's deletion of the spamming material from the article.[12]

   Edit summary: "delete self-reference -- see Wikipedia:Avoid self-references"

5. You restored the material referring to Penton's Wiki-spamming back to the article (but without the talk page link).[13]

   Edit summary: "revert but without self-reference"

6. Once again, I deleted the material about spamming in the main article as Jvhertum had done.[14]

   Edit summary: "Hi. It's still a self-reference even if you remove the wikilink to the talk page. Read the opening paragraphs of WP:SELF."

   I thought maybe you thought WP:SELF only meant linking self references; the opening paragraphs provide clear examples of forbidden self-references that don't include links.

7. You restored the material about Penton's spamming back to the article.[15]

   Edit summary: "self-reference removed. This advertising claim is a fact, I have cited references, the tone is completely NPOV."

   Edit summary: "add references"[16]

8. Since WP:SELF refers to text and not just links, I spent about an hour re-reading WP:SELF and then writing up my reasoning on the talk page, quoting extensively from the guideline.[17][18]

   Edit summary: "Self-references on in the Penton Media article"

   None of us have questioned the clear factuality of the spamming nor the neutrality of your edits to this article (always neutral).

   My concern was and still is solely with the article staying within the requirements of the WP:SELF guideline.

9. You replied on the talk page.[19]

   Edit summary: "Wikipedia advertising is encyclopedic. Bureaucratic self-referential recursive stack overflow error."

10. I replied briefly on the talk page: "I don't follow you -- what's a bureaucratic self-referential recursive stack overflow error?" and "My main point was to quote the guideline verbatim. Do you disagree with it?"[20]

    Edit summary: "→Self-references on in the Penton Media article - My main point was to quote the guideline verbatim. Do you disagree with it?"

    Since the guideline is so explicit I just didn't see (and still don't see how) anyone could justify a reference in the article space to Penton's links-spamming Wikipedia (unless it became big, notable news). I was trying to understand the specifics of what you disagreed with.

11. You replied very briefly that you disagreed with my interpretation of the guideline but did not give any specifics. [21]

    Edit summary: "recursive explanation, disagree with interpretation"

    You also explained the "recursive" allusion (which I'd been too dense to pick up on).

12. I left a note on the talk page stating I'd asked others to take a look.[22]

    Edit summary: "→Self-references on in the Penton Media article - I've requested others look at this question and at the guideline"

13. Wanting to another opinion in addition to mine and Jvhertum's and concerned I was missing something, I left a note at WT:WPSPAM asking for another opinion.[23]

    Edit summary: "(→PRISM Business Media Inc. - 2nd opinion requested -- Talk:Penton Media#Self-references on in the Penton Media article)"

14. JonHarder became the 3rd editor to disagree with the link: "I feel fairly strongly that the line should come out of the article, based on the reliable sources guideline."[24]

    Edit summary: "→Self-references on in the Penton Media article - Included to remove it." (<--Not very good English!)

15. Following this 3rd opinion and in the absence of any explanation for keeping it that addressed any specifics of the WP:HELP guideline, I deleted the link from the article to its own talk page and the accompanying mention of Penton's linkspamming.[25]

    Edit summary: "deleted reference to talk page discussion per WP:SELF"

16. You replied shortly afterwards to JonHarder.[26]

    Edit summary: "then who can investigate Wikipedia link spam?"

    I don't think anyone is questioning the quality of your work on tracking down all this spam -- it's been a tour de force.

17. You then reinserted the text to the article about Penton's Wikipedia spamming[27]

    Edit summary: "revert, that was not a discussion"

18. I deleted the link again.[28]

    Edit summary: "Two experienced editors have said the statement is inappropriate -- now see WP:OWN"

    I've added emphasis to "now" to show its original location

19. 8 hours later, I was looking at my watchlist and saw that I had put the "now" in my edit summary in the wrong place. I made a minor edit so I could record a revised edit summary:[29]

    Edit summary: "Yikes - misplaced "now" in last edit summary makes it look hostile; should've read "Two experienced editors have now said the statement is inappropriate -- see WP:OWN"

    I've added emphasis to "now" to show its revised location

    Less definitive than most other official policies, WP:OWN is mostly an essay with some real wisdom in it.

20. JonHarder weighed with a further comment about the link.[30]

    "→Self-references on in the Penton Media article - Original research applies mainly to the mainspace articles."

21. You left your comments in this section and the one above. [31][32][33]

    As for any concerns that anyone might ever mistake you for 72.24.79.46 (talk • contribs), fear not. 72.24.79.46/et al have a rich history; if you are truly bored, see the discussion and follow the links at User talk:Pyrospirit#A. B.'s request for adminship. As best as I can tell from comments he's been leaving around Wikipedia and Meta, he may have been threatened with legal action by a competitor (searchtexoma.com) who thinks he framed them into being blacklisted because of some Joe jobbing he did. The reality is that both he (texomaland.com) and searchtexoma did a ton of spamming, Joe jobbing or not. 72.24.79.46's comments here and on Meta get progressively more, well, interesting as the evening wears on in Texas. (Ditto his 24.119.101.26 edits.)

    With regards to a possible RfA, I've been asked by several to stand for RfA and Metros232 prepared (unasked) that RfA page for me. I haven't even decided whether to pursue an RfA and I'm already 0/2/0 today -- not a good omen! (As well, I think I can also count on multiple brand-new editors from Texas also opposing any RfA of mine). So far it's been a humbling experience and it hasn't even started.

You're doing great work and I think it would be everyone's loss if you cut back your work because of the Penton Media self-reference issue or something else I may have said or done.

--A. B. ^(talk) 03:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow, looks you spent a great deal of effort summarizing a fairly accurate account of the Penton Media history log. But this dispute isn't about WP: policy. You failed to address what in my opinion are the critical issues:

• Why did you feel you had to get involved in the first place? (see #4 above) I mean, why did you choose to fight this battle? What did you hope to gain? I see WP: violations all over the place on Wikipedia, but I don't go fixing all of them. I choose my battles carefully and with purpose. I don't know if you've learned this yet but Wikipedia is incredibly political.

• I found the copy-n-pasting of WP:SELF (see #8 above) to be difficult to read. I've read all the WP: policy pages many times and the way you spouted policy came across as rather insincere and offensive.

• Why did you feel you needed to call in external help? (see #12 above) You had the situation under control. Adminstration aid was not required. Yet again you failed to consider the political consequences of your actions. This might not of been your goal but the end effect was that you totally ticked me off.

• When JonHarder answered your call and showed up the exchange of bureaucratic WP: catch-22 was as painful as it was comical. I understand that your job as the Spam Czar is difficult work and there are rules to be followed but this self induced action paralysis only makes your job harder.

• The condescending tone in your "two experienced editors have said ..." comment finally pushed me over the edge. When I mentioned NPOV earlier you should of taken a clue that I wasn't a novice Wikipedia editor. I've been an editor for more than a year and a half.

I hope you take this as constructive crictism. I feel that your two main flaws are that you have an "unwillingness to discuss" and that you have the political savy of a robot. If you can overcome and learn the difference between replying and discussing then you might actually make a good administrator since having the political savy of a robot is a plus in that field of work! (Requestion 18:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC))

OK, wait a second. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed and I may even be a "robot", but step back a second and look the stuff you've written to me and others on this topic:

• "Your argument does not make sense."[34]
• "This is absurd."[35]
• "you have the political savy of a robot"[36]

And I'm supposed to be the one who's "hostile", "condescending" and "offensive"?

As for your points above:

1. "Why did you feel you had to get involved in the first place? (see #4 above)"

   At first, I didn't see that there had been a reversion; I just saw some text that needed to be fixed.

2. "I choose my battles carefully and with purpose."

   I wasn't picking a battle just trying to fix an article. Were you?

3. "I found the copy-n-pasting of WP:SELF (see #8 above) to be difficult to read."

   Sorry

4. "the way you spouted policy came across as rather insincere and offensive."

   You've made it clear already that you were offended but insincere? What's with that?

5. "Why did you feel you needed to call in external help?"

   Read my request -- given your obstinacy in what looked like an open-and-shut interpretation of the guideline, I was concerned that:

   1. Maybe I truly was missing something.

   2. Perhaps another opinion would help defuse what I suspected might be come awkward. Other than clear-cut spam and vandalism cases, I'm not sure I've ever gone past 1RR with regular editors.

6. "You had the situation under control."

   I'm not aware I control anything around here

7. "Yet again you failed to consider the political consequences of your actions."

   Ok, what political consequences? I'm missing this one.

8. "your job as the Spam Czar"

   I'm not sure I'm the Czar of anything, even my dog. I'm not an admin -- just another editor in the big anarchy of Wikipedia. I spend a lot of time helping with spam. I also edit articles for the sake of editing.

9. "your "two experienced editors have said ..." comment finally pushed me over the edge."

   I'm sorry you went over some edge. I don't think I said you were inexperienced but you sure seemed dismissive of anything I'd written. I thought it useful to point out that others agreed the material was inappropriate.

10. "you have an "unwillingness to discuss""

    I think the whole history of this sorry affair shows exactly the opposite.

11. "you have the political savy of a robot"

    I'm not sure how politics is involved.

    Not only am I not Macchiavelli, but I don't seek to be; I try to be straightforward and easy to read. If that's a deficiency, so be it. I'd prefer you assume good faith and not read stuff into my comments that's just not there.

12. "If you can overcome and learn the difference between replying and discussing then you might actually make a good administrator"

    ...and I'm supposed to be the "condescending" side of this exchange???

--A. B. ^(talk) 19:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Too many items to comment on. So I'll pick the more important ones:

• I still disagree with your interpretation of WP:SELF and JonHarder's interpretation of WP:OR. I believe there is more to it than that but there really isn't much value in discussing it at this point.

• On "political consequences." Trying to get a consensus, trying to get a RfA, need help with a particular task, ... all require politics if you want to succeed. My personal code of conduct is to only fight the battles that are important to me and drop everything else.

• On "unwillingness to discuss." At first you only "replied" and granted me the courtesy that an abusive spammer deserves. Now you are "discussing" and that is good. If you had "discussed" before step #4 above then this whole situation might have been avoided.

• On "having the political savy of a robot." That was an observation and an odd compliment of sorts meaning that you have the impartiality to make a good administrator. Funny thing is, as much as I dislike you, I might even would definitely vote for you if you chose to RfA.

(Requestion 21:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC))

Penton Media spam

Just want to send you a notice that I have added 89 new Penton Media owned domains to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2007_Archive_Feb#PRISM_Business_Media_Inc. The more I look the more domains I find so I think both the Prism and the Penton lists are still incomplete.

Do you know of any Internet service that allows you to make a query for all the domains owned by an enity? Also, do you know of a frozen in time read-only Wikipedia server that can do database queries? Kind of like the Wayback machine, such a server would make the deep digging and correlation easier since the majority of the link spam has already been removed. (Requestion 00:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC))

"Do you know of any Internet service that allows you to make a query for all the domains owned by an entity?"

• No -- I think there are some services you can pay $$ for, but I don't know much about them. I stumbled across a site that let me do this once as a free trial 3 months ago but I never could do it again for free (I think they recorded my IP) and I've long since lost the address.

"Also, do you know of a frozen in time read-only Wikipedia server that can do database queries?"

• I think this may be possible as there are all sorts of people that take various Wikipedia statistics and analyze them. I don't know much about it however. You could go to to Wikipedia:Statistics and start following hyperlinks, leaving questions on talk pages.
• Faster and slightly less comprehensive -- raise the question at WT:WPSPAM, asking who deleted links, then go and look at their contributions. I ran into a similar situation after the big Suite101.com spam controversy in December 2006. We all deleted links, then the Suite101 people came back very glibly and persuasively trying to convince the rest of Wikipedia that 90% of the links were added by neutral editors, not Suite101.com people, and that the WikiProject Spam link-nazis had run amuk. I found out who had deleted the links, then went through their contributions histories to find the articles, then the article histories to show that links in a large sample had mostly been added single purpose accounts.
  • Besides, I think a lot of WPSPAM folks would be interested in an update on what you're finding.

Sorry I can't help more -- these are good questions I'd be interested to know the answers to as well. --A. B. ^(talk) 01:54, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

PS I wasted 45 minutes trying to find that site I referred to but without much luck. --A. B. ^(talk) 01:55, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I just finished reading that link to the suite101.com discussion, unbelievable, that CEO should win a weasel award. This company deserves to be blacklisted for life, but the problem with that is it is so easy to create 1000+ unique domains. Just look at Penton with all their domains and the appropriately placed links. We expend more than 10X the effort to hunt it down and irradicate the link spam than it does to create it in the first place. Another thing that surprised me from the suite101.com discussion was that they payout a $2 CPM to writers. That seems like an amazing amount of payout for a revenue sharing scheme. It makes you wonder how much suite101.com is making but then it explain's the CEO's persistence. I think the Wikipedia links were extremely lucrative to them. The real worry is will you be able to recognize this beast when it resurfaces? (Requestion 06:14, 27 February 2007 (UTC))

I agree -- Suite101.com's persistence is telling. There was an AfD for their article and while we could find no reliable sources to establish notability, I did find writers with blogs who complained about slow payments, etc.

A similar case is the NICO Club spammer who has told us and the rest of the world that he doesn't need Wikipedia links:

• Wikipedia talk:External links#Disagreement as to Wikipedia's treatment of External Links (in this instance).
• Digital Point forums: google should penalize wikipedia
• Digital Point forums: NICOclub vs Wikpedia, Round 3
• Wikipedia talk:External links#NICO Club's additions to Wikipedia: the record

I used to worry about spammers inventing new domain names just to bypass our blacklist. I haven't seen a lot of this except from a few long-time vandals/POV-pushers that have developed an obsession with Wikipedia. The financially-oriented guys have lots of domain names they are throwing at us, but I don't see them developing new ones just for us. If you read the open forums like Digital Point (or the closed, "black hat" forums), most of them have so many irons in the fire that even though they love those Wikipedia links, they don't have the time or money to create domains just for us. If we're seeing them throwing new stuff at us, it's because spammers are continually developing new domains anyway. First of all, it's a low margin business and secondly the aggressive ones are replacing domains that have been blacklisted by the search engines.

I'm usually an advocate for blacklisting all of a spammer's domains and not just the ones we've actually seen spammed since I figure we'll see the others soon enough. Also, they're almost never appropriate for us anyway, so we lose nothing doing so.

As for Penton, we are just a tiny, tiny blip on their screen. They don't fit any of the classic spammer profiles (other than spamming). To name just one example, Transmission and Distribution magazine is one the major global publications for the power utility industry (possibly the major publication). T&D Expo is a gigantic tradeshow. Just those two properties alone alone rake in tens of millions in revenues for Penton and the majority of their readers/attendees are probably not big Wikipedia readers. One gauge of this is Wikipedia's pathetically light coverage of power utility transmission and distribution -- both the technology and the business. Power transmission and distribution is a critical infrastructure issue; in the U.K. it represents thousands of millions of pounds. In North America it may take in one hundred billion dollars or more (and I'm not including the even bigger generation segment). Yet by contrast, we have far better coverage of anime here.

Work your way through Penton's properties and you see the same story repeated over and over across many industries (although most are smaller than power). That's why I think it's so cheesy that Penton's done this to Wikipedia. For once, it's a spammer that really doesn't need us.

Once in a blue moon, we get an over-zealous employee of a big company spam us but as you have pointed out, in this case, it appears to be multiple players from Penton that have done this. --A. B. ^(talk) 14:03, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing here but I believe the source of the problem with Penton is that they had an internal corporate policy of encouraging aggressive linking. I don't know if it was the marketing department or if it was individual journalists or if it went higher up the corporate ladder but they should of known better. The fallout from this has the potential to be far greater than any benefit they might of received. It just isn't smart. Unfortunately I don't think this is an isolated issue since I've caught several large corporations engaging in this sort of wiki-shenanigans. (Requestion 17:53, 27 February 2007 (UTC))

RfA thanks

Hi, A. B., I just wanted to thank you for your support on my RfA, which was successful with a final tally of 61/0/2. I'm honored at the trust the community has placed in me and hope my conduct as an administrator will justify that trust. If you have any comments about my use of the tools I would be glad to hear from you on my talk page. Thanks again! Heimstern Läufer 08:31, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

It's been a week and a bit since my recent request for adminship passed, and since I haven't managed to delete the Main Page - yet - I figure it's safe to send these out. Thanks a lot for participating in my RfA; I hope to do a good job. If you see me doing something wrong, need help, or just want to have a chat, please don't hesitate to drop by :) – riana_dzasta 13:12, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Linksearch

I added the nowiki tag so I could reduce the amount of false hits when using the linksearch page. I then realized a few seconds later that it may be for keeping track of who is linking what. Thanks for the reply.--I already forgot 21:55, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

IP BLock

I will gladly replace the warnings. I apolagize if unblocking was innapropriate. I checked the block log and there was one previous block before the indef block so i figured another chance wouldent hurt. (I have also seen IP addresses with block logs of 12-14 blocks). SHould vandalism continue from them, i am 100% for an indef block. I also have the page watched so if they get warned again I can block. Again, I apolagize if unblocking was innapropriate. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 22:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I just left you another message as you must have been writing this. See the warning directly above. --A. B. ^(talk) 23:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

BTW, Hon jarder was indef blocked for username by ZZuzz or something like that. I removed the warning, it was obviously innapropriate. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 23:07, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Before accusing us of not being on a shared IP maybe you should research who Games Plus inc. is before making baseless assumptions and blocking anyone who defies you.

There are many people who use Wikipedia from here and a indef block is just out of the question. Maybe you could explain to me why you are against all external links. 66.93.251.114 23:28, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

External links are a massive problem on wikipedia. If links added do not meet wikipedias external link policies, they should be removed immediatly. I trust A.B. decisions in removing these links and the re-addition of them will result in an indef block, which I will not lift. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 23:32, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Partial list of background items:

• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive146#Spam socks including[37]
  • User talk:4.231.201.116
  • User talk:Freakdomination (such as this version prior to his blanking his user page)
  • User talk:66.93.251.126 (including earlier, deleted warnings)
• Ongoing battles over the same links 3 months later at LAN gaming center
• Talk:LAN gaming center#External Links
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2006 Archive Nov#LAN Gaming Center

--A. B. ^(talk) 00:50, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Some image copyvios

Hi A.B,

Good that I bumped into you. Can you please take a look at the image contribs of these two users --> User:WikiRaja and User:Kalaripayatt. Both of them seem to have uploaded copyvios onto wikipedia and simply continue to ignore requests for sourcing their contribs properly. Orphanbot on the other hand doesnt seem to know better and keeps giving them 7 day breathers. See this. Please advice. Sarvagnya 05:48, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I think nominating them for speedy deletion where appropriate as you've done with that example looks like a good idea. If an image doesn't meet the speedy criteria, then you can still take it to images for deletion (WP:IFD). Many of the images previously on the Bharatanatyam‎ page have had digital watermarks -- that's grounds for removal from articles and deletion, but not for speedy deletion. For example, see Image:Bharatanatyam 3.jpg; that can and should be deleted.

Good luck, --A. B. ^(talk) 06:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I just nominated the pic you mentioned above for speedy coz not only does it have a watermark, it is also from a blacklisted site. If I've taken any shortcuts here, I think WP:SNOW will cover me. What say? Sarvagnya 06:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

You have my support. Also, when I nominated a bunch of these for deletion the slow way, the site had not yet been blacklisted nor had the uploader been blocked indefinitely as a sockpuppet. These additional factors may further justify "speedy" vs. "slow". Here's a list of images I was involved in looking at when I was involved in the Bharatanatyam spam wars last month:

• User:A. B./Sandbox7#Images for review

Once the wars died down, I moved on to more pressing issues since nobody was trying to add the images every day. I did not finish working on the list.

If you like an image and it's not spammy in appearance, don't feel compelled to delete it because it came from a spammer. If they released it into the public domain for us, we can keep it.

You might also step your way through the various lists of sockpuppets:

• Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Santap
• Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Sselvakumar
• User:A. B./Sandbox2 -- comments
  • This is a temporary page I never got around to erasing
  • Accounts on the list edited Bharatanatyam -- they're not necessarily "guilty" of anything
    • heck, I'm on the list, too

In addition to link spam, at least two different camps engaged in "image-warring":

• At the time, by having a link to their web site from the image page, they indirectly linked their pages (in search engine calculations) to the Bharatanatyam article
• Most of the images had digital watermarks with the web address on it -- invisible to search engines but visible to readers. Aside from issues of spam and aesthetics, watermarks complicate reuse of our content by others under our GFDL license.
  • A variation was to have some sign in the background with the organization's name casually displayed. I think that is probably legally allowed for licensing (but may not be desirable editorially)

Thanks for your work on this! --A. B. ^(talk) 13:35, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

66.93.251.112 - 66.93.251.127

Thanks for the info and for updating the Checkuser details. Your investigatory skills are unmatched! I'm reluctant to apply any further blocks just yet as a) I feel that I am now too personally involved per blocking policy and b) things seem to have settled down. If it flares up again tomorrow I would probably do as you suggest. Lets see how the Checkuser thing goes. —Moondyne 06:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! It's time to put this one to rest for a long time.

I have an open mind, by the way, on one or two external links in addition to DMOZ, but not crammed down our throat with WP:COI, WP:POINT, WP:VAND, WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, WP:USERNAME, WP:SOCK, WP:CONSENSUS and WP:3RR violations (have I missed any?) --A. B. ^(talk) 17:57, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget WP:OWN and WP:SPAM! Seriously, I also just stopped by to say thanks. As always, your attention to detail and organizational skills are greatly appreciated! After we get the anticipated checkuser results, I'll probably post something at WP:SUSPSOCK to get some uninvolved admin attention, unless either of you have a better suggestion. Thanks again, Satori Son 18:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --A. B. ^(talk) 18:35, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's the evidence that Freakdomination and 66.93.251.114 aka Games Plus, Inc are all the same person. I think he's blown his cover. —Moondyne 23:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Stable

Yes, I guess I am ²³NA. I am aware of the Tojo thing. IMO there isn't enough evidence to really do anything here so I'm WP:AGF and monitoring.--Isotope23 17:49, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Good -- your approach makes sense. I'm not on a witch hunt -- I just wanted to make sure he was on at least one admin's radar screen. I also think your call re: his talk page + unblocking was a good idea.

Me -- I suspect I'm decaying --A. B. ^(talk) 17:53, 28 February 2007 (UTC)