Wikipedia talk:Administrator intervention against vandalism/Archive 14

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IP Only Editor With an Agenda

An IP-only editor (24.239.183.202) has repeatedly been attempting to remove a reference to Nehemia Gordon in the the Karaite Judaism article without explanation, nor feedback. It appears that the user does not wish to have Gordon referred to as a Karaite.

The background to this is Gordon is a well-known Karaite (outside of Judaism — or even outside of karaite Judaism — he is usually the only Karaite that people may be aware of, for example, because of his association with football player Reggie White). However, in the last few years, Gordon has been collaborating with Christians in writing books as well as public speaking tours with many of the venues being Christian. He has not converted away from Karaism,and is still active in the upper hierarchy of the Karaite establishment, however, a number of Karaites (an a number of Jewish non-Karaites who feel this is an opportunity to tear down the most visible advocated for Karaism) have taken to disapproving him due to his association with non-Karaites and do not wish him to be called a Karaite anymore (none of the Karaites are individuals of any "rank").

It is this background that I think may be the motivation behind the IP user wishing to remove Gordon from the article (although, I could be wrong). Whatever the background, the user still seems to be trying to push a POV agenda by removing Gordon.

I have reverted the last three times the user has done this (over the course of the last 8 days). On the first undo, I added a new section to the Karaite Judaism article's Talk page explaining why I undid the edit, as well as proposing some changes to the article. I have also added descriptions to my undos when I made them (although, with this last undo I only remarked about this being another time — "And again" — and suggested this might need to go to higher Wiki powers). The IP-user has not made any attempt to explain himself. His whole contribution history (at least, as far as the IP-only is concerned) has been to remove Gordon from the article.

Apologies for the lengthy explanation. I have not had to report such a situation before, and wasn't sure what details you needed (I'm not even sure this is the correct location to report this). After 3 undos and no feedback from the IP-user, it did not look like there was any chance of talking the situation out, so I sought third party assistance where there can be some resolution. — al-Shimoni (talk) 03:06, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

AIV bots

The AIV bots appear to be asleep at the switch. :( 65.209.100.98 (talk) 15:23, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

They seem to be functional now. —Darkwind (talk) 19:23, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi, yes sorry, my server was restarted while I was away and so helperbot 7 was AWOL for a while. We should probably look into getting another helperbot running as they were originally designed to have a number running concurrently to ensure continuous service if one is down for a while. Will (aka Wimt) 21:03, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

If this is a current need, I'd be happy to help out, I have a linode with plenty of spare bandwidth. —Darkwind (talk) 15:31, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. HBC AIV helperbot7 (talk · contribs) hasn't posted to AIV in over an hour (though it has posted to UAA and TB2).   — Jeff G.  ツ 17:26, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

(ec) It came back.   — Jeff G.  ツ 17:36, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Administrator advice needed

I need some advice from an administrator. I am approaching a situation of edit war with User_talk:Elchori01 who is making POV, 100% unsourced edits to Ferdinand Marcos, Benigno Aquino, Jr. and another Philippine politician. This is not longstanding, but the pattern of his edits is clear. A set of his previous edits to the Marcos article were reverted in June by someone else. I have warned Elchori01 on his talk page about the need to provide reliable sources and observe NPOV. I have also opened topics on each of the relevant talk pages explaining what I've done and why, but I have no wish to get into a long discussion with this editor. I have now reverted his edits on three articles, twice in one day, and I don't want to breach 3RR. What should I do next? How can I get an administrator involved if it's too early to ask for AIV? Rubywine . talk 14:22, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

This situation is not appropriate for AIV because the behaviour you describe is not vandalism. If you want to report the user for edit warring the place to do that is Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. If you want to get some more people involved in reviewing the disputed content then there are various venues to do that, such as Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard or Wikipedia:Requests for comment. Hut 8.5 16:16, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. Rubywine . talk 16:30, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Rubywine has a poor understanding of Good Faith, Vandalism, Being Bold and Wikipedia in general. elchori01:talk — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elchori01 (talk • contribs) 16:54, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

This is not the place to resolve your dispute, please do so elsewhere. Hut 8.5 17:30, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

As a newbie editor I appreciate your input. I only made the comment here because I didn't know any better. Elchori01 (talk) 08:14, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Clarification requested

Is the warning level number (1-4) used in the various uw-vand templates based on the number of vandalism occurrences, or the number of warnings given? That is, if a new user only vandalizes, and clocks up vandalism on four articles before anybody notices the pattern, do we then add four warnings? If so, are they all at the same level (warn1), or do we add warn1, warn2, warn3, and warn4? I would prefer the latter, but what is the best practice? Has this been discussed? I ask because I may have done it wrong yesterday, and might be doing it wrong today. --Lexein (talk) 01:55, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

(Disclaimer: I am not an admin) My understanding is that the warning templates should be used on the basis of giving the user the chance to read the first warning and react to it (by stopping their vandalism) before leaving a level 2, and so forth. This is in keeping with AGF, that they may not know what they are doing is considered wrong, and so a friendly warning is given (along with the chance to read and understand that warning) before we "yell at them" with a level 3 or 4 template. So, just because they vandalize four times, they should still only get one warning at first, and then only get a level 2 (or further) if they continue vandalizing after the date/time of the first warning. —Darkwind (talk) 02:46, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Additional comment: This is also in keeping with Don't bite the newcomers and so forth, and may have been discussed at WT:UW or WP:UW although I can't find such a discussion right at hand. —Darkwind (talk) 02:48, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

We look at editors' edits and warn appropriately. We do not need to follow a set plan of escalating warnings levels regardless of the nature of the vandalism. A vicious attack page on a living person? A fourth level warning to start. By contrast for obvious test edits, succeeded by more between warnings, I'd go through the whole series. For childish vandalism but blatantly with bad intent I'd start with a level two warning. Use your best judgment.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:00, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok. Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but there's a little rash of new users only vandalizing four articles, in differing intensity, then going quiet. Seems like gaming, but I'm not a long-standing AIV'er. See my links above. I'm a strong believer in WP:AGF and WP:DONTBITE, except when I screw up and don't. --Lexein (talk) 04:16, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Damn, I have to remember to read more carefully. Yes, the first series of warnings you left was incorrect. We don't give four warnings at the same time for four past edits. Each warning comes after an incident or incidents of vandalism. However, given the user's spate of vandalism that you saw, instead of warning four separate times for the four past incidents, I would have started with a level three warning. As for your second situation, that's fine except that level three refers to what the language says. There is no reason you would make a self-reference to the level of the template, as you did, with words to the effect of "this is a level three warning." It is level three because of its stronger warning content. As for the rash of new users only vandalizing four articles, can you provide some details? They may all be one user, i.e., sockpuppets of a single person.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:55, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

The most recent is User:Coop Aurora, blanking a major page, getting warned, and blanking 2 more major pages in quick succession, then blanking the Talk page containing the warning to that point. The other two are linked above. I'm not a regular vandalism patroller; this pattern of behavior might actually be quite common, with no need or concern on my part. I was a bit surprised that Coop Aurora's behavior wasn't flagged by a bot. --Lexein (talk) 08:13, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Vandal User

Hi, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/202.93.171.138 All this user is doing in the last couple of months, is adding wrong information to articles. Watch the Diffs. Can't be more annoying.

I hope you will block his (or her) IP addr.

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.178.11.213 (talk) 23:52, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Wrong place to report this...this is just the Discussion page. And now, because it was put here instead of the main WP:AIV page, the Report was good at the time, but is now stale. (over three days since last edit) Re-report if this user resumes vandalising. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (User:N5iln) (talk) 17:41, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

i'm not a vandal i.e. false positive

I tripped the filter on the page List of drugs: D! I was adding some drug names and I did not do anything wrong, so please withdraw the request. --Tyranitar Man (talk) 13:31, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I removed it. (Don't take it personally - the automated reports inevitably generate some false positives, but administrators usually remove them fairly quickly.) -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:55, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Told this person to stop posting a fake cover, he gets defensive

Hello,

A few days ago, I posted the page for Kid Cudi's recent single Mr. Rager a few days ago. Since then, I had noticed that someone by the name 2pac Is Alive had been uploading a cover for the single. When I downloaded the single, the day it came out, which was a week before Kid Cudi's Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager was released, it gave me the cover for the album I just mentioned. Knowing that this cover was a fake, I took it off of the page, and thought that would be the end of it, but the next day, I see it on the page again. I took the cover off once more, and then went to the Mr. Rager talk page telling whoever was posting the cover to stop. 2pac Is Alive then comes on there and starts to get defensive and confrontational with me, and then proceeds to say that I should be blocked.

I've done my research, and this cover he's posting is definitely a fake, because, again, I bought the song the day it came out, and also, when I search for the cover all over the internet, it cannot be found. Can someone handle this guy for me? Thank you. Perfect is the word (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:34, 14 September 2011 (UTC).

You should probably be reporting this at WP:CCI or WP:ANI. This is just a Discussion page. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (User:N5iln) (talk) 23:22, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Request for related administrator’s attention

Sorry to disturb you. I have a few problems in the article King cobra and Black mamba. I have had a dispute with a user Sebastian80 for about 1 week. He removed some of the information and references in the article King cobra as he said that he didn’t believe those are true and some of the references were irrelevant. I reversed his versions and did some modifications (removal of the irrelevant references). He then claimed that the book cited is “children book” and unverifiable, asking me to scan the pages and show them. He had reported me as well and I was told to stop edit warring by a manager. I did scan the pages and added them. Yet, he kept removing all those information and references. Since English is not my first language and I am not used to talking much, I reversed his version but finally stated the reasons in the discussion pages and the manager’s talk page. Then another user called Ruuy Koot kept reversing the article back to the one done by Sebastian80. I immediately reported this to the above manager as I don’t know what to do and worry that I will be regarded as edit warring if I reverse the article again. Similar problems occur in the black mamba article where I believe there are a few exaggerations and again he kept covering some other references with his own ones, asking the others to stop “vandalizing”. I have stated all my edit reasons in the discussion page as well.

Thus, I would like to request the attention or even the intervention of administrators, especially those who have knowledge about snakes as they can have an objective judgment to decide who is vandalizing. I have privately reported these to another manager who has checked these snake articles for a long time but not received any replies yet. Perhaps he is busy doing his project. You can have a better understanding in the discussion pages of king cobra and black mamba, as well as their recent “old versions”(the ones before he deleting some information and covering his own on it). If my request is put in a wrong place, please help me to fix it as this is my first time asking administrators' intervention. Thanks so much! User:Fearingpredators (talk) 19:22, 23 Sept. 2011 (UTC)

See WP:ANI and Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. utcursch | talk 15:59, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

You were not supposed to be edit warring in the first place, and I've already told Sebastian to not call other edits vandalism.Jasper Deng (talk) 22:39, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism in Manhattan

This edit, made on 13 December 2010, was not caught until today. The IP that made this edit was a school that has been warned multiple times for vandalism and has been blocked twice. Notwithstanding that there has been no recent vandalism, I wonder if it's too late to take some kind of action without abrogating WP:DENY? At a minimum, the contributions from this school need to be watched, and the next vandalism should be met with an indefinite block, IMHO. ScottyBerg (talk) 15:28, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Dr Marcus Hill web bully

The above user and colleagues have been aggressive in removing 3 week old content from the Big Brother UK 2011 page. The above used the following threatening language today:

If you're talking about the housemates page, discuss it over there. 2) The removal was perfectly in line with policies: WP:BOLD, WP:BLP and WP:IINFO come to mind. 3) You're the one edit warring against the consensus supported by policy. 4) You keep bleating on about free access and censorship, and I'll keep pointing you at WP:NOTFREESPEECH. 5) You realise "by one user in collusion with others" is self-contradictory, don't you? 6) For fuck's sake, if you listen to nothing else people try to help you with, will you at least learn to sign your fucking posts? 7) I think people have been incredibly patient with you, assuming good faith and trying to show you why Wikipedia doesn't work the way you think it does. We are trying not to bite the newbie. However, I for one have pretty much reached the end of my patience with you. If you can't at the very least read the policies and guidelines I've pointed you at (they're just a click away up there) and explain why you think we're interpreting them incorrectly without bleating about censorship or claiming you have a majority position when you very clearly don't, then I'll stop being educational and just help to prevent you from causing further damage to this encyclopedia. It's not too late - I urge you to actually take on board the advice you've been given both here and on your talk page (I know you blanked it in a fit of petulant rage, but you can still see the old versions in the history). If you do this and act in a collaborative rather than confrontational manner, you can help to make this article and others better. If you don't, you'll just continue getting frustrated. Your choice. Dr Marcus Hill (talk) 18:47, 27 September 2011 (UTC)::

The above and several other users have deleted and blanked 3 week old content from this page and have censored content. Their conduct has been aggressive and overbearing and they did not consult on removing the housemates' details. The swearing goes against codes of civility and netiequette. This and other users have waged an edit war on this page and removed the summary details which were referenced and well read. Please investigate this bullying.

This is not the place to report users, this is a forum to discuss the proper functioning of the AIV page. Nor is the behaviour you describe vandalism. If you have an editorial dispute then the proper course of action is Wikipedia:Dispute resolution or, if you feel it requires administrative attention, WP:ANI. Hut 8.5 20:31, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

User:115.70.173.190

Hi. This appears to be a vandalism-only account. Can someone please take a look? Thanks. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Just FYI, the correct place to report it would be on the project page (WP:AIV), not the talk page. However I've looked at it and the user has been insufficiently warned so I wouldn't block at this time--5 albert square (talk) 23:08, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Random Edits

I have posted [1] a message at Portal_talk:Tropical_cyclones#Random_Edits requesting review of User:TaraLoveYou random edits by someone more knowledge in the subject then myself. Another Admin may decide to remove my block or extended it inordinately as appropriate based on more research. Jeepday (talk) 14:45, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

24.23.161.104 vandalism

24.23.161.104 is roaming the pedia making crazy political and religious cats. For instance the Louise Brooks page cat fields is totally destroyed. This user is frequently turned off and yet repairers with a new ip after some while. Please pull the plug!Parrotistic (talk) 00:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Report of account user seems rather aggressive

Poooooooooo123 has made (at time of typing) 1 edit (silly little vandalism), has had no warnings and has had no chance! People like that need to be warned and encouraged not banned. fg^t_c 01:20, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

...or reported to WP:UAA for inappropriate usernames... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 02:08, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

...or encouraged to change it (if one really must find any possible fault available). Sure the user is off to a bad start but after 1 edit we shouldn't be stringing them up. fg^t_c 02:36, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Two editors acting like bullies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2005_YU55#Closest_Approach.3F
♦ Beginning of vanadlism-type edits.
Not sure this is worthy of an incident report, but would like a second opinion of the behavior of these two,
deleting a valid topic on a discussion page and all the comments seems like vandalism to me personally.
Another reason I am putting this here is that I don't want to place the wrong warnings on their talkpages. 24.79.40.48 (talk) 13:16, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
I should be clearer, this is not a report, is a request for a second opinion. 24.79.40.48 (talk) 14:05, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Please see reply at Talk:2005_YU55#Complaint -- Kheider (talk) 15:04, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Rapid removal of reports by User:WikiPuppies

Why are reports removed/denied as something for reasons as stupid as "no recent edits in 30 minutes" for a registered user? This is ridiculous. Are we even fighting vandalism? Can some other administrator restore and reinvestigate reports removed by User:WikiPuppies?

I will be more careful next time. WikiPuppies! (bark) 19:05, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I've noticed that the administrator response time runs to 6–8 hours when the Americans are asleep. 30 minutes is not a valid time frame for removal. Fifelfoo (talk) 19:13, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

HkCaGu, the report of yours that was removed by WikiPuppies was an IP. As the instructions at the top of the page state "Unregistered users must be active now, and the warnings must be recent", he was correct in noting that the report was stale as far is AIV is concerned. It has also now been removed as stale by two reviewing admins, so please do not restore it. You also forgot to sing your post above... --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 19:38, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

All I know is that it's been removed by two non-admins. It is a static IP and a slow vandal that I reported. How else do we stop such vandalism? Write a long case on ANI? HkCaGu (talk) 19:42, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

It has been removed as stale by me (an admin) and twice by Icairns (also an admin). As the edits don't appear as clear vandalism, and the edits are intermittent and stale, perhaps requesting additional input at ANI may be useful to finding a long term solution if needed. Edit-warring to restore the report is not going to end well. Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 19:54, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

2 years, 8 months, 26 days? Arbitrary or significant?

Hiya. I was just wondering why now and then I see blockages of such odd amounts of time? Do you (admin) decide or is it automatically designated? Just curious. fredgandt 21:53, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

The blocking admin always picks the block length manually. In this specific case the block was for 1001 days, which I guess was just easy to type. Hut 8.5 23:20, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Hut 8.5. One less mystery to keep me awake at night.  fredgandt 23:31, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

This guy

This guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/71.70.245.52 keeps vandalizing the GFID page. someone please do something — Preceding unsigned comment added by RickyRozay (talk • contribs) 22:48, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

How to deal with vandal with dynamic IP and possible multiple identities?

I suspect a single person has been vandalising some pages such as the Daughtry discography page by keep putting in fake chart positions and sales figures. This person has been doing this for a long time, this entry comes from November 2, 2009 - [2], and the matter raised in the discussion page because a lot of time had been spent on reverting edits done by this person. He or she uses dynamic IP address from the same ISP - BT Central Plus. I suspect the same person uses the identity LostIntheCityLights because he or she behaves the same way (making fake entries on chart positions and sales) and shares the same interest in Daughtry, Adam Lambert and X-Factor UK contestants. That user was banned for vandalism, but I suspect he or she also uses the identity MattCardle because again, he or she behaves the same way and shows similar interest. I understand the problem inherent in banning someone using a dynamic IP address from a very big ISP, but is there anyway of identifying a user using a dynamic IP address and who has been banned before so that we don't have to go through the same process over and over again? Hzh (talk) 02:55, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Duplication in usage instructions

The example of how to report a registered user includes both {{Vandal|username}} and {{Userlinks|username}}. Is there any point in having Userlinks as well as Vandal? It seems to me like unnecessary duplication, which could confuse an ineperienced user. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:28, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd say remove the {{userlinks}} template. There doesn't seem to be any real need for it. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:31, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, this is the page where the instructions template can be found. If that page is updated, the bot should start enforcing then new version within half an hour or so. Will (aka Wimt) 21:47, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

 Done JamesBWatson (talk) 10:10, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Finding Vandals

Hello all users, as i was doing the good work of finding and repoting possible vandals and disrupters, i was wondering which are the easy and best ways to find these type of users ? All the time i need to search for different pages and revisions for that. Help will be greatly aprreciated. Thank you. TheGeneralUser (talk) 16:41, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Many people go to Special:RecentChanges and look for edits made by IPs and users with red-linked usernames. They then revert any vandalism with the Twinkle tool, and issue warnings to the vandals. After sufficient warnings, the user can be reported to WP:AIV to be blocked. After 50 or so reverts (so admins can see if you know what vandalism is), you can request rollback to use Huggle or Igloo, which automatically attempt to find vandalism for you. Cheers! Reaper Eternal (talk) 16:46, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Some vandals are wise to the "red link" clue, and create their user page before starting, (which simply isn't cricket). Therefore don't assume that it's a good edit just because it's a blue link. (Similarly, some long established editors never bother to create their user-page so keep a red link.)  An optimist on the run! 16:58, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

What I did when I reverted many this way was first watch for heavy content removal (high negative numbers in red) and also watch for the giveaway tags such as "section/page blanking", "possible vandalism", etc. Definitely use WP:Twinkle instead of manually undoing/warning, or you'll never catch up to those of us using Huggle, etc., already. ;) Calabe1992 17:06, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you all for your kind help :) Although now i usually check the recent changes page and look for other things that have been mentioned, but needed more advice on this. And again thanks a lot! TheGeneralUser (talk) 17:14, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Continuous Vandalism on article Doron Perkins

Doron Perkins article is being vandalized multiple times from different IP's of different categories. We need Immediate help there. Need page protection or a range IP block or maybe even both. TheGeneralUser (talk) 20:09, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Semi-protected. For the future, we have WP:RFPP specifically for this kind of request. CIreland (talk) 20:17, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. TheGeneralUser (talk) 15:22, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Request for assistance with IP vandalism (not one IP)

Resolved

 – by Franamax (thanks)

Please see Wikipedia:Editor_assistance/Requests#Help_with_an_IP.27s_vandalism.

Summary: Multiple IPs with the same first two groups of numerals [201.19...] are vandalising music articles. The reporter is seeking a way to track others (possibly linked) than the 3 already noted. fredgandt 02:43, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

This is not the proper place for reports. Calabe1992 02:54, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Does it look like a report? fredgandt 02:55, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Problem with an editor

This may not be the right place, but I haven't really found anyplace appropriate to address this problem. I have been having problems with one of the editors. The editor Afterwriting keeps "editing" the Wikipedia pages concering my church, especially Brazilian Catholic Apostolic page, as well as the Carlos Duarte Costa page. It is already hard for me to undo the vandalism that has been done to those pages by people who don't like our church, for whatever reason. Having to undo the wrong "edits" of a Wikipedia editor is unnecessary work. One of those edits is that he always reverses the last name of our first patriarch Carlos Duarte Costa to Costa instead of Duarte Costa. He doesn't seem to understand that Duarte Costa is the actually last name of our late patriarch and not Costa. Carlos Costa would be a total different person. He also doesn't seem to understand that theolgical content are not oppinions. When I write about what the church is all about, what the church believes, he actually values that as oppinion. He even at one point deleted the link to the web site of our church in Brazil, because it still is under construction. One his own page he says that he doesn't like fanatics, especially religious ones. My question at that point of course would be, after the "edits" that I have seen on pages on our church and church leaders, should he be then allowed to edit religious pages, when he obviously cannot be objective.

I hope that someone from Wikipedia is able to help me solving this problem.

Bellisapuffda (talk) 13:11, 9 April 2012 (UTC)Bellisapuffda

1. I didn't realise that only members of this church were entitled to edit articles related to it. 2. I don't believe that I have ever removed any link to the church's website. I can find no evidence for this. 3. Had this editor bothered to check my recent edits to the Carlos Duarte Costa article he would have noticed that I had already corrected all instances of "Costa" to "Duarte Costa" and also changed instances of him being called "Dom Carlos" etc to his full surname. 4. The other editor mistakenly believes that this and related articles are a means to express unreferenced personal commentary which promotes the virtues of this church while also explicitly soapboxing on the vices of the Roman Catholic Church. Other editors will easily be able to check these things if they are so inclined. Afterwriting (talk) 13:37, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The first thing you should do is talk to the user and try and discuss your issues with them. You can do this on the article's talk page or the user's talk page. The advice at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution should be helpful. This user is not vandalising and shouldn't be reported to this page. Hut 8.5 13:39, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Template:Non-administrator observation

Please see: Template talk:Non-administrator observation#What to do with this template. Thanks,
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:45, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Vandal's IP Address

Madman909090 vandalized the page for 1st Battalion 4th Marines. I was wondering what his IP address, being that I can't seem to find him on Wikipedia anymore. Would you be able to inform me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tie'rail (talk • contribs) 02:04, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

No, we wouldn't. IP addresses are not given out to anyone as they are private information. QU ^TalkQu 19:37, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Bot removes report

What should I do to keep the bot from removing a report: [3]; [4]?  --Lambiam 18:17, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

The bot is removing the report because User:WilliamH has blocked the range 201.19.0.0/16 for six months. See block log. -- Ed (Edgar181) 18:32, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, thanks.  --Lambiam 21:41, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Stats on AIV reporting

Would it be possible to collect data on who a specific user has reported to AIV and if they are blocked (A bit like the RFA voting pattern analyzer) Thanks User Talk:W.D. 16:09, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Before we create extra work, we need a good justification. What benefit would such an exercise bring? TerriersFan (talk) 21:04, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

A tool which analysed the outcomes of a given user's AIV reports would be very useful in evaluating requests for adminship, for example, where the success rate of the nominee's reports has an effect on their suitability for adminship. Similar things exist for AfDs, for instance. Hut 8.5 21:07, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that

User:Mattymagers is gearing up for something. I undid one edit fasces and then undid something on his/her talk page, which I have never done before, but if you (singular or plural) would take a look, that would be nine. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 02:34, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Block an IP address

Please block IP address 75.72.241.244 for Vandalism. See what this person did to this article. This person keeps adding Fox as part of the 2011–12 United States network television schedule (weekday). Fox is not part of the big three networks (ABC, CBS and NBC), because it doesn't broadcast daytime programming. If Fox broadcasted daytime programming then it would be on the schedule, but Fox doesn't broadcast daytime programming. Fox doesn't even have a daytime programming block and I have the proof right here. Click here and see for yourself. Can any of you administrators please block IP address 75.72.241.244 for Vandalism, because I keep telling that person to stop and that person doesn't listen. I would love that. Thank you so much and have a nice day. Mr. Slinks (talk) 01:21, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

And this person added The CW to the list. The CW does broadcast daytime television, but only broadcast one daytime program on the network so it does not need to be included on the list. Please block that IP address, because I'm getting tired of going after this person. Mr. Slinks (talk) 05:43, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

This is not the page to report vandalism. The correct page is WP:Administrator intervention against vandalism.

Thank you. Farine (talk) 04:56, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh never mind. Mr. Slinks (talk) 20:21, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Generic decline template

Would anyone oppose me creating a generic decline template (one which just said Decline with a graphic, and no additional text). I often find myself declining a report for reasons that are not well expressed by the template; I do write my own messages, but it would be much clearer if they didn't have the additional text at the beginning. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 18:16, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

You mean, like  Declined? Someguy1221 (talk) 18:24, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Like that, but incorporated into the {{AIV}} template. Although, I just had a look at the template and a generic decline is there. I'll add it to the box in the editnotice (if anyone doesn't want it there, feel free to revert and we can discuss). ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 16:10, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

What should i do?

The user Ponies89 is gearing up for something. Look what he did to the Artocle Tropical Storm Beryl(2012) ( go to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tropical_Storm_Beryl_%282012%29&oldid=505748353 to see what he did).Somebody just reverted it though(not me) I dont know what level of vandalisim he's on.He's been alerted 2 times.How can I alert him? 76.124.224.179 (talk) 14:45, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) We have warning templates which can used for this, have a look at WP:WARN, but remember that there are strict rules on when these can and can't be used. On Tropical Storm Beryl (2012) they have self-reverted their edits. Callanecc (talk • contribs) talkback (etc) template appreciated. 15:33, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Los Angeles Metro bus fleet

I don't know if this is the right place to report this, but I got a certain user or users/guests that is vandalizing the page and putting unreliable sources, false information, unnecessary & messy notes on the note section. I have simply explained on why I was cleaning up the messy page on "Los Angeles Metro bus fleet" page.

Recently IP Address user "208.54.4.160" have reverted my edits and was disrespectful to my edits, and I have since reverted his edits and told him that he was being reported for vandalism. I already have posted on his talk page telling him not to mess up the page. I have told user to stop reverting my edits in capital letters since I was getting frustrated,

Also, another user also keeps messing up the page and the Wikipedia user is "DiasMi012" is also messing up the Wikipedia page with putting unsourced, false information & unnecessary notes onto Wikipedia page. I have reverted his edits, but he sometimes reverts my edits causing an edit conflict.

I have reverted his edits because he has failed to provide sources, and has put unnecessary notes to the page and messed up the page. He has also put false information onto the page in the past, which I had to revert, for example he put 1997-1998 Neoplan AN440A on to retired section when the buses were not retired and were still in service.

This user DiasMi012 needs to be watched or blocked from editing in my opinion, same with guest user "208.54.4.160" as I'm getting tired of reverting their vandalism or mess they cause to the "Los Angeles Metro Bus fleet" page. I haven't told him anything on talk page to the user since I gave one more chance before reporting this.

I already issued a note to user Random5555 on his talk page too after he didn't provide sources for 2002-2003 NABI 40C-LFW so he doesn't need to be told anything.

However the main problem is user DiasMi012 since he's trying to act like if he owns "Los Angeles Metro Bus fleet" page when he doesn't and when he puts so many false information on the page.

I think the Los Angeles Metro bus fleet page needs to be watched since there's several members out there tend to put false information too many times and mess up the page and/or are vandalizing the page.

I try to make Los Angeles Metro bus fleet page accurate as it can be and never done anything wrong.

In my opinion, I think IP Address user "208.54.5.160" needs to be blocked from editing or warned and user DiasMi012 needs to be warned or be blocked from editing because they have been vandalizing the page and I'm getting really sick of reverting their edits because of so much of their vandalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asloge (talk • contribs) 15:43, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

This is not the place to report vandalism or in this case what one user perceives to be vandalism. Since you have already reported this same incident at WP:ANI, no further discussion is warranted here. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 19:41, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Action responses

After reporting a vandal here, it's difficult to find out what happens because the admin that processes the case deletes it immediately afterwards, forcing one to sift through the page history to find the result. It would be nice if the tools they use could post a copy of the result on the original reporter's talk page, or, instead of deleting cases after processing them, move them to a Processed section (which is presumably easier to implement). —[AlanM1(talk)]— 05:26, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Administrators don't use tools to remove declined reports from the page, they just edit it and remove the report. If you want a list of declined reports (which would get very large and unwieldy very quickly) then it would have to be implemented by one of the bots. Hut 8.5 07:33, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

What's going on with this page?

It's nothing but a list of reports with no text or instructions or anything. - Balph Eubank ✉ 19:08, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean? This is a page to report vandalism to Administrators (one of many Admin separate boards). The instructions are in the banner up top. It is supposed to be just a list of reports in a certain format detailed in the instructions. This one of course is the Talk page of AIV for questions and answers related to AIV issues. -- Alexf^(talk) 19:23, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Switching off 'glide

copied from here

I'm coming to request additional eyes, & maybe more stringent action. User:Rangesh Dubey has now four times in the space of about an hour blanked Powerglide or dumped a bio of an Indian film director. The same bio appears at User:Rangesh Dubey's talk page in its entirety, which leads me to suspect promotion of some kind. I've warned twice...but I wonder if it will have any effect. Am I overreacting? TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 15:55, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think any further action is needed right now. They've been warned and haven't repeated the action since. And they didn't blank it four times in one hour, they blanked it once over three edits. My guess is that it's a new editor who thought it was OK to experiment with existing articles rather than the sandbox. Hut 8.5 16:11, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Please stop admin from vandalizing my sandbox that I use as a rough draft place

User:VernoWhitney is constantly vandalizing my sandbox even though I use the content as fair use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DjSeptimus (talk • contribs) 12:57, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Nope, removing non-free images from the userspace is allowed under our policy. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 13:03, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I need your help.

Hi. Articles on Wikipedia must be written by the facts. Nevertheless, there are some people who fabricate deliberately about sales records of 'Solar' and 'Solar International' on this page: Taeyang discography(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taeyang_discography) and Big Bang discography(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_discography) and Taeyang(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taeyang) and Solar (Taeyang album)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_(Taeyang_album)) Especially, this user(88.241.000.000) getting around all pages related to Taeyang on Wikipedia just easily change the numbers of sales with no definite idea. The information this user typed is quite without foundation.(I want to say that information the user typed are totally fake. I can certify that. I know it. But I think that this way I would say is not objective.) Even this user gladly accepted the source of the information which I typed, on purpose, typed in a wholly different information from the source. First of all, I will prove this user deliberately typed in a wholly different information from the source. Here : http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taeyang_discography&oldid=527703088 You can see the references(2) above 183,000+ and 371,000+. But the references which I typed is speaking totally differently about it(the sales). Here another one : http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taeyang&diff=495701009&oldid=495069373 This user(01:13, 3 June 2012‎ 88.241.92.116) was first one wrongly typed that. And even at the time, the references had been dead. And please compare the two revisions : http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taeyang&diff=521086480&oldid=521086231 You can see the numbers had been changed in 2 minutes.(the 98,000 (Total- 160.000) copies -> Total Sales 371.000+ copies) How that was possible? 2 minutes later, Taeyang had sold that much? And After that, the references about that was saved by me yesterday. Here is that references : http://world.kbs.co.kr/english/program/program_musicnews_detail.htm?No=12432&current_page=64 You can see the user(88.241--) is telling lies. Yesterday, I saved the references, but the user just keeps going on telling lies even by using a non-related references. Now I will prove what are album sales of Taeyang. here : http://www.gaonchart.co.kr/main/section/notice/view.gaon?idx=36 Gaon is a national record chart of South Korea. Gaon chart is sales results that official distribution announce to the public. And this official record I directed is about Top 100 album sales in 2010. You can find the name(Taeyang,태양) in that page. He was ranked No.39 , No.55, No.70 in 2010. And you can think how about the sales records of 'Solar' and 'Solar International' in 2011. You can see 2011 charts, but it is korean, so you can wander around the website. So, I prepared this. you can just follow me. Please go to http://www.gaonchart.co.kr And please watch this. http://i.imgur.com/brFvX.jpg You can follow this red letters. Then, you can see this page. http://i.imgur.com/4MYNs.jpg If you scroll down, you can turn the page to the next. You can find out there are no name for Taeyang (태양) in 2011 album sales charts. In this 2011 chart, 100th place is for " 시크릿 가든 OST" of Various Artists which was sold 15,747 copies. So, we can know sales of Taeyang are lower than 15,747 copies in 2011. For your information, 'Solar International' album is a just album name. The distribution channels in marketing was not International. Solar International was the least sold version of Solar albums. Please block the 88.241.-- user on Wikipedia. At least, please block the user in the pages related to the BigBang and Taeyang on Wikipedia. I already tried to talk the user. But the user's IPs are flexible and the user didn't care and keep going on like that. I will wait for your solution. Thank you. Beahye (talk) 19:46, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I expressed my opinion

I am sorry but I have no connections to anyone here. like you wrote "Findblogging". I only express my opinion and the opinion of many Turks all over the world. Why I have to be blamed to be someone else. By the way the computer that I use is a public place and there is high possibility that many other people used it to open accounts within Wikipedia. Please solve this problem and help me.

Is it possible to stop this unusual situation to be blocked just because I use public computer? Can you help me?

MaintiredTurkiye (talk) 22:27, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

User talk:201.160.148.103

This blocked user is still causing a ruckus on their own talk page. We can't have that kind of stuff laying around. Dawnseeker2000 02:24, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Revoked talk page access, thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 02:30, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Second opinion please

Please see the discussion at User_talk:Jeepday#RE:_Vandal, I am either failing to get the message across or I am misinterpreting the signs. The other involved AIV Admin appears to be out on holiday. Jeepday (talk) 13:27, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Constant sabotage

I made a page titled Nicholas van Rensselaer I had birth death years and it was a stub. Innocently a user replaced what I had with info for a person of the same name but from generations before I didnt really read much but I rushed to thank him then realised the error and then I thanked him again told him that I fixed the mistake by creating a new article with the info he added and made a disambiguation page but that was not good enough he felt it needful to deface the page that had links to it already and told me Ihad to change the links... so I fixed it right back to what I had, meanwhile " Nyttend " sees the activity and gets involved in the incessant defacing of the article. I would greatly appreciate if you would encourage Nyttend to stop sabotaging my article User Nyttend

JGVR (talk) 03:16, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

This is not sabotage. This has been a good faith attempt to cleanup cut and paste moves (see Wikipedia:Moving a page#Fixing cut and paste moves for more information). This issue is also being discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Copy&paste/pagemove chaos. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 03:30, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Certainly you do not expect someone to retype everything after a saboteur wrecs and article?JGVR (talk) 03:38, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

There are ways of moving articles without cut/paste. See Requested Moves. There are legal issues involving copyright which prevent cut/paste moves from being acceptable. Also, please make sure you understand the concepts behind WP:OWN. Though you created the article, it belongs to the wider community (I simply mention this because you talk about "my article" in your complaint). — Oli ^OR Pyfan! 03:49, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Recent changes search

I'm not sure how often most anti-vandal patrollers use Special:Recentchanges, but I thought I'd post a notice here to let you know that there is a new tool at http://toolserver.org/~snottywong/rcsearch.html which allows for arbitrary searches through the recent changes table, with many search options that don't exist at Special:Recentchanges. Take a look and let me know if you have any questions/comments. Thanks. ‑Scottywong| converse _ 01:12, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Anal Vandal

Special:Contributions/205.154.156.24

This vandal enjoys inserting random information about human anuses on pages that have absolutely nothing to do with human anuses. — Carrot Lord (talk) 00:54, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Yobol vandalising crohn's disease article

A user named Yobol is constantly removing whole sections of this debilitating disease. He is constantly removing sections regarding ATG16L1, claiming it's not sourced, even though ATG16l1 association with crohn's disease is associated everywhere in thousands of papers. When we do source it he removes the section again and now the undo to hit 2000 letter edit has for some reason been locked and he removed multiple history edits. He is a vandal.

My reason for this complaint: I am a student of biology at KUL, ATG16L1 induces autophagy through NOD2 signaling with the help of the VDR gene, all are implicated in crohn's disease and these mutations indicate inability to remove pathogens from the intestinal wall like invasive E Coli and other pathogens which exploit this autophagy or nodophagy deficiency. Please block this person from edition the crohn's disease article.

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.225.215.72 (talk) 05:09, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Yobo1 is not vandalising, he is enforcing WP:MEDRS. And you are edit warring - stop it. Seek dispute resolution instead. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:23, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Covert Vandalism

It seems when some IP users and new editors with red names who are actually confirmed users(though I will not actually say my real account profile) who test the edits of other Wikipedians for their usage of articles, are (by my suprise) CVUs administrators and online experts in secret, but are only testing with other users and mainly the bots, if they are honest or else need help. Although, from the edits of the bots seem to know of the vandalism of what is going on in most sites. I have notice "Administrator intervention against vandalism" is not helping them out any way whatsoever, yet most of the time they are not misleading. An example is this revision. Now changing the edits from previous articles and believing it in another way intentionally and not commenting on the summary would be vandalism, however, some users such as User:Darkwindwho just keep stalking around WP:Administrator intervention against vandalism will not allow the edit as a vandalism target, however, the bot is not wrong from its revisions, as it is targeted certain detailed points of an article as of vandalism, such as this revision.

Now either, the User:Darkwind and some other editors are not correctly doing the job and using the term WP:VANDAL for another reason to not initiate the block sequence, or the bots have now the common sense to vandalize articles. I highly doubt the second one, however, if there are some blocks to be made from those who cannot be honest with bots or computers reverting the users, and having other misfit IP continuously vandalize the articles, than surely this website should be property to a higher multinational corporation than its own site made of users making their own policy and believing an vandalized edit is not, including a bot's revision. --216.124.141.231 (talk) 14:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Bot check

If vandals are testing bots to revert them back to other vandalized edits, there should be detection in the bot to locate the nearest confirmed user with notable edits.--74.34.71.32 (talk) 06:16, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

That's a good point. I've seen a few situations where vandals, sometimes working together (I think) perform major vandalism and follow it with minor vandalism; the ethical editor who comes along only sees the last edit and "fixes" the problem. I got caught up in this myself a few days ago when I reverted one of three serial bad edits. Fortunately, someone more observant than I saw the bigger picture and really fixed the problem. I wish I knew how to write such a bot.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 01:54, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Is it black history month in schools?

Is it my imagination, or are we seeing an unusually high rate of school vandalism on African-American pages? Choor monster (talk) 19:42, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

February is black history month in the US. Gtwfan52 (talk) 04:10, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I know that (I'm an American). I was being sarcastic, but I am wondering in all seriousness if anyone else is seeing disproportionately high vandalism schools directed against African-Americans? Choor monster (talk) 21:58, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata and Interwiki links

Wikidata has been deployed to the English Wikipedia. Wikidata manages interwiki links on a separate project on pages such as this.

Further information: m:Wikidata/Deployment Questions and https://blog.wikimedia.de/?p=13892.

All interwiki bots that run on the English Wikipedia have now stopped adding interwiki links.

Removal of interwiki links on a page linked to a wikidata item that contains the links is NOT vandalism. Please use this script which can identify if the links are found on wikidata.

If you have any questions regarding wikidata please use the talk page Wikipedia talk:Wikidata. ·Add§hore· ^{Talk To Me!} 20:58, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Well done, admins

I watchlist ~1,000 articles. I don't seek out vandals, but if they come across my radar, I warn them, follow them around briefly, and if warranted, bring them here. I find that the admins who patrol here provide fast, predictable, reasonable results. Protecting the project, but not vindictive, allowing for the fact that these are mostly children. I think you have the level right and would just encourage you to maintain the current standard. --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 02:36, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, thank you for your words of encouragement. They are definitely appreciated. --Jayron32 03:14, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Where to report...?

I get the impression from the blurb that this page is only for serious and urgent cases; is there some other place where lower-urgency vandals should be reported? I'm thinking specifically of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Epicfail987654321 who has made only a few edits over several months, but all of those are vandalism. There is one mild message on that user's page but no actual warning. Where should this be raised? 86.160.221.126 (talk) 13:52, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Here's as good a place as any (I've went ahead and blocked, by the way). It's not really for "serious and urgent" cases so much as it's for "immediate and straightforward" cases. That is, it's a user that's been vandalizing recently, whose edits are plainly vandalism, and who has been given a final warning before. When it's a registered account, not all the vandalism needs to be recent, but at least some of it should be, so that we know that blocking them is preventing something. (For IP addresses, it should always be only recent edits, since the IP addresses can change hands.) If all the vandal edits are old, then there's probably not much point to blocking them (since they're not currently vandalizing, blocking them wouldn't prevent them from doing more), and so they don't really need to be reported. Does that make sense?

Oh yeah, and just as an aside: like I mention above, if an editor doesn't have the set of warnings from 1 to 4 (final), it's usually best to give them the next warning in the sequence rather than reporting them, but for the guy you reported, it's clearly a vandalism-only account, so it's all right.Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:16, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

(OP) OK, thanks. You may want to consider amending the blurb to allow for such cases. Currently it is fairly definite that "The user must have been given enough warnings to stop their disruptive behavior". I suppose the meaning of "enough" may be open to interpretation, but usually one would expect it to mean at least some. 86.130.67.7 (talk) 01:53, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

I've got the same level of urgency on this: Special:Contributions/173.251.92.250. Warsamer (talk) 19:51, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Looks like you need to start at WP:R Van. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 20:01, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Bots

What's up with the bots? They seem to never be on, and when they are, it takes them longer to work than usual. Spencer^T♦C 01:42, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Please halt user

Please tell or stop 24.143.236.49 (talk) and 207.62.246.50 (talk) (the same user) to stop vandalizing the Chinese zodiac signs, Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. I keep fixing the problem, but the user believes this is a game, please at least try to warn the user or stop the user from taking chances on reviewing the user's contributions, please halt the person's actions. I appreciate your concern.--74.34.83.89 (talk) 01:18, 11 February 2012

Please stop 99.232.22.74 (talk) from vandalizing Tennis articles. I corrected some articles I saw. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prasad.tissera (talk • contribs) 07:23, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

(1) The edits in question, even if factually incorrect, are by no means WP:vandalism, (2) This is not the venue to report edit warring. kashmiri ^TALK 13:22, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Archives

Does the this project page have an archive? I don't mean this talk page, but the actual project page. There is a question at Teahouse about a report a couple days ago and I have no idea how to find it. Ego White Tray (talk) 12:36, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

No. Just the history of the AIV page. -- Alexf^(talk) 12:47, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

What to do about an IP editor who knows the system

163.150.129.57 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
The above IP editor has received at least one vandalism warning each month going back to last August, but never vandalizes enough to get blocked. I am posting this to talk because I'm not sure if there is a policy that applies to vandalism that occurs over such long time periods. Should we just wait and hope that he leaves the school over summer vacation or can we take action to stop the drain of having to revert and warn every month? Thanks, Andrew³²⁷ 22:28, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

{{Schoolblock}}ed. If there's a long-term pattern of abuse that doesn't necessarily meet the threshold for AIV, you can always go to the administrators' noticeboard. Cheers, Parsecboy (talk) 23:29, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer and the quick response. Andrew³²⁷ 23:32, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

HBC AIV Helperbots

They appear to be down. I haven't seen an edit from one of them on the project page since 8:02 AM PT yesterday. - Amaury (talk) 13:38, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

They appear to be working on the page where bots report users or IPs, but not here for some reason. - Amaury (talk) 15:27, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Seem to be working again. - Amaury (talk) 17:38, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi all, helperbot5 is on a reboot cron job so if the toolserver happens to go down it will restart itself accordingly. It looks to be working normally now. Let me know should it disappear again. Cheers, — JamesR ^(talk) 23:03, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Can someone wake up an admin, please?

Over a 1000 admins on WP, yet a massive AIV backlog (again). That makes vandal hunting a very frustrating and pointless affair. Perhaps it's time for a kind of admin-light, someone who can block obvious vandals. In any case, anybody home?  Yintan  12:56, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Agreed with Yintan. In the same course they even vandalize the AIV. Make me an admin, so I clear this backlog. Faizan 13:01, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Now you are getting a little carried away .  Yintan  13:08, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Urgh, lemme see if I can get at least something done here. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 13:21, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

That would be much appreciated, thanks.  Yintan  13:28, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Is a range block possible

In the last week or so there has been a rash of IPs from Texas whose only edits have been to vandalize various articles. These are the ones of found though I would guess there have been more.

• 2602:304:AF53:3E99:8DE7:A919:12DE:D0A9 (talk · contribs)
• 2602:304:AF53:3E99:C19A:A376:C9AD:25C (talk · contribs)
• 2602:304:CD00:B6A9:249C:5BB0:EC51:C782 (talk · contribs)
• 2602:304:AF53:3E99:B137:43AA:F356:85F0 (talk · contribs)
• 2602:306:BCEA:A630:354C:996F:A2FF:FB6E (talk · contribs)
• 2602:304:AF53:3E99:31EC:6415:6846:32AD (talk · contribs)
• 2602:304:AF53:3E99:C1CD:C4F5:41CA:D57E (talk · contribs)
• 2602:304:6E02:1C89:5CD4:6D29:941B:A348 (talk · contribs)
• 2602:304:af53:3e99:7000:9355:2de6:8b16 (talk · contribs)

Some have been blocked and others stopped editing after a few warnings. It is likely there are more that I haven't come across. Considering the articles hit it looks to be the same person(s). I am wondering if there is any kind of range block that could be applied to try and discourage them? If a) there isn't or b) there would be too much collateral damage then no problem - the whack-a-mole method of dealing with them will continue. I just thought I would ask on the off chance that we could do something. Thanks ahead of time to anyone who looks into this. MarnetteD | Talk 03:49, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Rangeblock is not possible. I saw this yesterday and semiprotected a few targets that were hit several times by this editor (I didn't, and perhaps don't, have a picture of the whole article range). Materialscientist (talk) 04:03, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply and for the blocks and page protections. They seem to have started out on random film and "Year in film" articles but they seem to be branching out - ugh it will be a drag if they are just clicking on random article and damaging whatever pops up. Thanks again. MarnetteD | Talk 04:11, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

With some of the IPs, it seems possible to block one range. This is AT&T and though, so there will be multiple ranges, somewhere around /48 I believe. But, I need a bit more info. Elockid ^(Talk) 00:02, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I often like to use edit filters to do what I call "targeted rangeblocks": a block on a range that would normally cause too much collateral damage, but is targeted toward a specific type of behavior to minimize collateral damage. If you email me details of their editing patterns (which are not apparent to me from looking at their contribs), I can see whether making an edit filter is feasible. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:26, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Question

How do i alert people to the use of "BAMF" as an acronym used as vandalism, usually after the name of a person (often not notable), so it looks like a title of some sort, but is just the acronym for "bad ass mother fucker"? i search for this term every few months, and find it used often on high school pages next to the name of someones favorite nonnotable athlete. I dont know if this Four-letter abbreviation is on any antivandalism word lists, but it should be. I will try other forums for this concern as well.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 06:00, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Helperbots down...

...again. Where's the best place to report these bot outages? Spencer^T♦C 13:46, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm looking at helperbot5 now. — JamesR ^(talk) 22:51, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

From investigation, it seems they are editing logged out. It may have been that the login mechanism used for the bots will need to be modified. I am currently working on this and hope to have helperbot5 back online soon. — JamesR ^(talk) 11:39, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

And helperbot5 is back online. I am preparing the source code for Wimt to update helperbot7 now. — JamesR ^(talk) 00:43, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks James! -- Alexf^(talk) 00:46, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

And with every good bot reconfigure, it comes with teething. If you notice any abnormal actions or none at all, let me know. — JamesR ^(talk) 01:24, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

@JamesR: Editing while logged out again, at the time of typing this. Ginsuloft (talk) 12:07, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

I've given it another kick to see if that resolves it. Not too sure why it stopped, however I will continue to monitor. — JamesR ^(talk) 00:31, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Is there any way to see what action, if any, was taken on a reported IP address?

Hello, I reported an IP user, User talk:203.104.11.5, for repeated vandalism recently. I notice that my report is no longer in the Reports section and there is nothing from Admin. on the users Talk page. Is there any way to see what action, if any, was taken? I am interested to check, in case I made an error in my report and/or to see what the outcome of the report was? Any comments would be appreciated. Melbourne3163 (talk) 18:48, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, are you sure you reported them? I don't see that you have any recent contributions to the AIV page. Writ Keeper (WK to move) ⚇♔ 19:00, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Oops, You are correct; I have had a 'senior moment' by the look of it. I warned him and that is on his talk page, and I recall starting a report on the AIV page but for some reason it appears that I didn't finish it! That's a worry! Should I do that now or does this discussion suffice? Thanks for your help. Melbourne3163 (talk) 20:03, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

No need to bother now. The IP has been blocked for a year. - David Biddulph (talk) 20:05, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Excellent. Melbourne3163 (talk) 22:52, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

User Eleassar vandalising 2Cellos article

Hello,

as the subject states,user Eleassar has been changing the contents of the 2Cellos article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2Cellos) even after he has been warned multiple times. On both their official page http://www.2cellos.com/us/biography, and their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/2cellos/info it clearly states that they are from Croatia,yet user Eleassar keeps changing it to suit his wishes. The state of secondary sources on this matter can easily be checked by doing a simple google search, there are virtually none that support his claim. With all that said, please make necessary steps to prevent him from vandalising the page. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Odiriuss (talk • contribs)

Hey, I think you're reporting this on a wrong page (see the notice above). In any case, this is over now, because I've opened a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#2Cellos nationality. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 11:37, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Heads up: VisualEditor currently hates diacritics

Just a quick note to let more folks know that VisualEditor is choking on diacritics. If you see a complete mess involving text that should have contained diacritics/accents, then it's probably a good-faith effort rather than vandalism. For example, if you the word résumé on a line by itself, it will be saved as

r

ums

It also sometimes results in chess pawn icons. See Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback#Links_and_accented_characters_in_tables for further information. (The problem is not restricted to tables.) This is already marked as a critical bug, but it's likely to be with us for at least another week (because it wasn't fixed last week at Mediawiki, and VisualEditor updates usually run there for a week before being released here). You probably won't see a lot of this, because it looks somewhat wrong in VisualEditor, too (although what you see in VisualEditor is not as completely wrong as what gets saved), but if you run across it, it's VisualEditor's fault, not the user's. Please ping me if you need help figuring out what's going on with a diff, or leave a message at WP:VE/F. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:42, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Archives?

Claims of vandalism are removed so quickly, that it's impossible to tell if some account has already been reported earlier in the day. Is this page archived? Is it searchable so one can see if an Editor has already been tagged? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:59, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

The individual reports are not copied anywhere for archival after they are dealt with, but of course they're retained in the page history.

Generally, if the account/IP was blocked, you can see that in their block log, and if they weren't, the decline message from the reviewing admin should be visible on AIV for at least a short while. I like to leave declines up for at least an hour if the page isn't very backlogged. You can also use a tool like WikiBlame to search the page history for a word or phrase -- the account name or IP address should work fine to pull up any reports in the past 500 revisions. That's currently about 3 days worth of history for AIV.

However, I'd say that if an editor does get reported, is declined, and then continues to act up later, they should be reported again anyway -- there's no particular need to check for prior reports if you believe the editor is disrupting Wikipedia. If you just want to see if they have a history of being reported for vandalism, just check their talk page and its history for evidence of prior warnings, which is probably a better guide since most vandalizing accounts/IPs don't make it as far as being reported to AIV. —Darkwind (talk) 12:27, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Darkwind. Most pages like Noticeboards or SPIs are archived so I'm a bit surprised this one isn't...but maybe that is due to the volume of vandalism complaints this page receives. I appreciate the thorough response and directing me to WikiBlame, I'll check it out. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 14:57, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Editnotice added

After frustration with what seems to be increasing numbers of inappropriate AIV reports, and a brief discussion on IRC, I've added a large "pay attention and only report vandalism here" box to the editnotice at AIV.

If you want to hide it, you can add the following to your common.css or vector.css file:

#AIV-edit-notice { display: none !important; }

This will not hide the handy expandable notation template guide box. —Darkwind (talk) 06:34, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I hope this helps. Now we need to have this message integrated into Twinkle, Huggle, etc. John Reaves 06:37, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

A step in the right direction, certainly. Mark Arsten (talk) 21:08, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Track and grade vandal reports

I posted a suggestion at the Village Pump it has received little response, not sure if it is because it is a lame idea, or because no one here is watching there. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 15:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Proposal is archived no strong opposition, but concerns about potential for misuse. Mixed response on potential of effectiveness. All responders question the technical 'how to'. I believe it is time to consider technical solutions, and if sufficient momentum can be achieved to create the potential tool. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:53, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

The technical how-to is actually not as complicated as it seems. A tool could be written to analyze the page history to find reports, and then determine if the report was removed as-is (almost certainly blocked) or commented upon with {{AIV}} before removal (almost certainly declined), and store that information in a table, indexed by reporter's username. One could then access the information in two ways -- a web interface for the tool would be easy to create, and an API interface only a little more complicated. An API interface to such a tool would make a user script possible which would display the AIV reputation of a particular reporting user in-line. —Darkwind (talk) 21:04, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking of a tool/bot writing a list of users who posted reports, who was reported (from {{IPvandal}} or {{Vandal}}) and then checking if the reported user was blocked in the next few (maybe 6) hours. Also as mentioned above, the Comments with any of the templates would add value and be easy to count/group. I like the Darkwind display suggestions. Jeepday (talk) 23:59, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Invoking Incrimination of Rights:

Subj.: Request of Unblocking Re: Education and Health

To whom it may concern,

I am currently a Wikipedia user and I want to request an "Unblock" for my account due to a "self-proclaimed" administrator blocked my account for alleged causes of out of scope materials, vandalizing project sites accusations of copyrighted files. Although, most of the uploaded media may have contained graphic or uncommonly used files subjects to certain viewers/users, I sustain on my right for my works for the reason of me owning all the files and are only dedicated to all educational and health purposes only.

In continuation to my queries, is this the right discussion page for my concern? If so, please reply and I will make a follow up.

Thank you very much.

Regards, Parker Phy — Preceding unsigned comment added by Parker Phy (talk • contribs) 05:18, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Which account is blocked? I can see no evidence of any blocks to the Parker Phy account. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:12, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Request for Vandal user and IP dataset

A friend of mine who is an active editor suggested me to ask an Admin regarding whether a list of vandals exists. I was wondering if there is a list of registered users and IP addresses that have been blocked for vandalism. I am under the impression that there might be a list, that may be accessible to the Admins. If not, then is there any ad-hoc method that I could use to access or know whether a particular user is a vandal. Thanks. Srijankedia (talk) 23:34, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

You can try Category:Vandalism-only accounts for a start but I am 100% certain this is an incomplete list as it is a compilation of accounts where the blocking admin uses a specific vandalism tag and many blocks are more ad-hoc. Also, each admin has a visible block log (see here for an example) but not every admin is consistent about providing reasons for a block and you would also have to look through the block logs of the 1,400+ admins manually.

I don't know if there are specific admin database of blocking actions you could ask access to. My recommendation is to visit the regularly updated User:JamesR/AdminStats page, look at the block section and contact some of the admins at the top of the list who hand out the most blocks (I believe this is a cumulative list so some of the admins might no longer be active).

I hope this helps, Srijankedia. Like most research projects involving data, the information is unlikely to be in the exact format you need it to be in and you might have to do some compiling yourself to get it into shape. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:47, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

P.S. There are also some bots that have great history of detecting and reverting vandalism (I think ClueBot is one). It might be easier to talk with a bot creator and see if they keep records of vandalism detection. If so, they are probably enormous as thousands of reverts happen daily. I'm not sure if they'd be willing to share how they detect vandalism (as then vandals could avoid those behaviors to avoid detection) but you can always ask. I'm sure any admins involved in this area (look at the main page history to see which admins are active) could supply you with more information. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:53, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, that helps a lot. I have already talked to User:Edgar181, unknowing that he was the 3rd most highest blocking Admin of all times. I will talk to the bot creators. That should definitely help! Really appreciate it. Srijankedia (talk) 21:55, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

You might want to take a look at the database dumps. You can download a file containing details of all log actions, including blocks. It should then be possible to filter it to users blocked for vandalism as you have the block reason. Hut 8.5 22:39, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

ThanksSrijankedia (talk) 00:50, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Courtsiding

Hi, I'm not sure what to do about the IP (hopper?) who keeps adding this unsourced information to the courtsiding article. What should I do? Thanks, Matty.007 18:48, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd ask for semi-protection (see Wikipedia:Requests for page protection) which should hopefully get the IP communicating - we can't have unsourced allegations against named living individuals in the article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:12, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure that the additions are being made by an employee of Sporting Data, whose employee was the one detained and against whom the court case fell apart. I have gone to RPP. Thanks, Matty.007 19:14, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Archieve

Hi! On which page are completed requests being archieved? Thanks. --Sumitsinha lko (talk) 14:31, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I suspect that there is no archive: the entries here are all purely mechanical reports, and there's no discussion worth archiving. Just an endless succesion of IPs and usernames and "done" / "not done" icons. If there was something to discuss, this one would surely not be the right place for the report. Cambalachero (talk) 18:18, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for page protection features a rolling seven-day archive of approved/denied requests. I imagine a similar process could be established for vandalism actions.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 20:15, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I think the archive can be useful when one has to report a similar case of vandelism as he (or someone else) has reported earlier. And also for research purpose about vandelism history of an IP/ group of IPs. --Sumitsinha lko (talk) 10:25, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Confirmation

I want to confirm this is the noticeboard to request a user be blocked for intently vandalizing pages before I start using it; Administrator intervention against vandalism. Kevintampa5 (talk) 04:09, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Yep, this is it, provided the reports follow the guidelines on the top of the page. Connormah (talk) 05:34, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

What "recent" actually means revisited

The instructions at the top of this page link to a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Administrator intervention against vandalism/Archive 9#What does recent actually mean?. The discussion was over five years ago and only four administrators commented, three of whom have subsequently been desysoped due to inactivity. I would like to revisit this question in order to determine the current consensus.

In my opinion, a simple "IPs must have vandalized in the last 24 hours" does not reflect major changes in internet connectivity since 2007. We have many more IP users who have static dedicated IPs or seldom-changing DSL IPs. If an IP has vandalized Wikipedia fifty times in the last two years (the last time being a week ago) with zero edits that appear to be from a different user, there is no reason not to give that IP a one-month or six-month block. On the other hand, an IP that vandalized dozens of times (including four times today) but has hundreds of recent constructive edits obviously from different users probably shouldn't be blocked at all. Basically what I am saying is that we should give more weight to the long-term history and less weight to what happened today. Otherwise, we give slow-but-steady vandals a break. Fortunately for us, most vandals are stupid, but some are clever and will adapt their vandalism to whatever we don't block. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:18, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

You raise an interesting point. However, when we are dealing with persistent vandalism coming from one "educational" institution, it is clear that many different users are involved: the vandals and the serious editors.

I have always held the belief that everyone should register: we all have email addresses, don't we? Why an admin. would want to spend his/her time checking on legit edits from an IP, rather than quash the vandals, is beyond me. Therefore, block the institution if it becomes necessary. Those who legitimately wish to contribute will do so after registering. Do the others really matter? I don't think so. Viva-Verdi (talk) 22:16, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

May I assume that you came to that opinion based upon the history of the IP address over at least a few months, and not just on the last 24 hours? --Guy Macon (talk) 22:33, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, I've kept track of enough IP vandals as a result of saving them to my watch list over a period of time until they are blocked—and, even then, continue to keep them on the watch list in case they re-appear. So, I know that, while there are periods where no vandalism takes place, legitimate editing does continue until vandalism re-appears because it is reported.

Now, the balance of "good" versus "bad" edits may well be in favour of the "good", but that is no reason not to block the entire IP for four pieces of vandalism in one day which have been appopriately warned. One must follow the protocol, but often this does not happen. A "final warning" is ignored, but no one then files a complaint with the admins. More vandalism then takes place: again no new series of warnings is issued. Too many bots post warnings without anyone personally bothering to look at the history.

Therefore, the time-frame is irrelevant to me. If the "bad" keeps happening, then block the IP. A genuine editor will register. If not, how much can we really lose??? Maybe quite a bit, but that is better than the obscenities, infantile nonsense, deliberate changes ("King Philip" becoming "Justin Beiber" throughout an article), etc., etc. which pervades WP far too often. Viva-Verdi (talk) 00:08, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

It remains the case that the overwhelming majority of users use dynamic IPs. Sysops can and do treat IPs different if an IP looks like it's not dynamic and if there's a lengthy patter of abuse. There's nothing that needs to be changed. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 17:17, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Serious vandalism?

Is there a way to report serious, multi-page vandalism? Like, a way of giving it top-priority or something? Dustin (talk) 03:35, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Like that IP user from a second ago. Dustin (talk) 03:40, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

The IRC channels !admin function might be of use of that. Active admins tend to lurk there, and if it's particularly obvious that it's vandalism, would be happy to block them for you. Linky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help/clickthrough (Note that !admin pings ALL admins in the channel. So make sure that it is serious, else just do a regular message.) Tutelary (talk) 04:03, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay; you can just look in this talk page's history, and you can see that the same IP came off to this very talk page during its rampage (and it was a rampage the way I see it; I have never dealt with this much vandalism from a single user at once till now). I sure have learned how useful it is to have my newly acquired rollback rights. (Just look at my contributions for about this time) Thanks for the suggestion. I don't know what you mean specifically by !admin, but I'll try to look into it. Dustin (talk) 04:16, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I see the particularly egregious vandalism. Anywho, what I was meaning by the !admin function is that !admin is a command in the IRC channel that when typed and entered pings all admins in that channel. So if I type '!admin There is this one IP user vandalizing about 10 different talk pages with variants of 'fat nigger', could some admin take a look? XLINKHERE' It would ping the admins to that statement, and they'd take a look and probably block the IP or protect pages if there are a barrage of vandalistic edits towards one page. Tutelary (talk) 04:19, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense... we don't have to say anything about this, but I think I by coincidence saw you on another page earlier today. In any case, thanks for the instructions. Maybe next time, I won't have to constantly revert vandalism before the situation is handled (although rollback is pretty much instantaneous). Dustin (talk) 04:24, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

user:Frmorrison has been dosen't reply on Angry Birds Epic during the edits about reverting the Same Games

Hi. I just wonder that the edits of user:Frmorrison about "Doesn't apply" on Angry Birds Epic article. He is vandalism. We can Block Frmorrison it should be a vandalism. 121.1.18.241 (talk) 00:19, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

sa.wikipedia.org problem

Hi ! I want to share some problems with you, because you are connected with sa.wikipedia.org. Our admin is neglecting us. Admin is not involving us in policy making process and when we are propose some requests, then also he don't even reply us. I and many other users of sa.wikipedia.org are felt helpless against our Admin. Please guide us in this problem. if you will not take it seriously, then in future it may be a big problem of sa.wikipedia.org. NehalDaveND (talk) 10:43, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

@NehalDaveND: I know that this may be late, but the Wikipedias are mostly independent of each other, so I don't think that the English Wikipedia can do much with the Sanskrit Wikipedia. The only exception I know of is stewards, but can only act if there are no administrators in the language. Piguy101 (talk) 00:20, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

LGBT rights in Croatia

Hello!

There is a serious problem with that article. An individual is constantly trying to destroy it, claiming that it is a propaganda, and that he is trying to stop "queer propaganda" as he calls it. He is deleting things that are official and have references, and is also copying things from different paragraphs and putting them in the introduction bit. He also has help from two other individuals, and wants for this article to have a view from opposition. I don't understand why would he, as article clearly states who is the opposition to LGBT rights in Croatia and why. I don't know what to do anymore. I can keep changing it, but that can last forever. We need a solution. People use Wikipedia do their research, and I don't think homophobia expressed by those individuals helps. That article is not a propaganda, but a neutral and informative piece of work on which people have worked hard. Thank you 11raccoon1 (talk) 21:40, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Read WP:BOOMERANG. The way it looks, you were reverted by several established editors. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:42, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Updating bot

Hello. I am updating HBC AIV helperbot to make proper use of the modern API and solve the problem with the bot logging out. While I am at it I am doing other general improvements such as adding the newer block flags.

While I am working hard to make sure that it works properly please do not hesitate to block the bot if there is some sort of issue with it. Please leave autoblock off though. Chillum 17:47, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Please put usernames in summaries

Twinkle and other tools automatically put the username being acted upon in the edit summary. However, when editing the page manually, it's easy to forget to do so, which makes it difficult to keep track of your list of pending reports, since the AIV page history is the only way to catch the quickly-deleted completed ones. Please try to stick usernames in edit summaries. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 10:16, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

A bot to produce a page similar to this one would be handy as well. I don't know how to write a bot.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 18:38, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

GiorgosY edit war

The GiorgosY is just messing up the List of wars involving Turkey, List of wars involving Cyprus and Cypriot intercommunal violence by adding unneeded and false edits. Thank you --FPSTurkey (talk) 19:38, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

I am reporting as well user FPSTurkey for a continues deletion of my edits that have no lies on what so ever and are well sourced. Is the user FPSTurkey that is doing the war and not me. Is him that he is deleting my material. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GiorgosY (talk • contribs) 19:42, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Please see the notice at the top of the page. This isnt the place to report vandalism. Vandalism needs reporting here if its edit-warring your reporting it needs reporting here. Amortias (T)(C) 20:15, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

I apologise, Amortias, I will move the discussion --FPSTurkey (talk) 14:28, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Aagadu page protection required - serious disruptive edits and vandalism by un established users

admin assistance is needed. Lot of disruption and vandalism is going on Aagadu. Please protect the article for 24 hrs Bewakoofian (talk) 19:56, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Recent Ayn al-arab Isssue

there is a redirect to kobane from ayn al arab and it is a clear violation of Syrian government sovereignty if wikipedia don't know about sovereignty please refer UN charter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.21.166.20 (talk) 07:04, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 October 2014

Markginacruz (talk) 05:22, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Stickee (talk) 05:36, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Need help about a user

Edit waring with no reasonable claim. He is a fanboy who comes in different IP to promote his actor and de promote his opponent actors articles. In the article List of awards and nominations received by Mohanlal he is reverting a reliably sourced award category (Vanitha film award-Best actor) and adding a manipulated information about the award which is also unsourced. Initially the original status of "Vanitha film award" (Best actor in Leading role - Twenty20, Madampi, Akasha Gopuram for Mohanlal) was unsourced. He removed it saying unsourced and made a cooked up award by rediting it as (Best actor in Supporting role - Twenty20) that also wasn't sourced. Seeing this i reliably sourced the award with the whole winners list of Vanitha film award 2008. But still that fanboy is reverting it. (Further info : Twenty20 is a film in which Superstars Mammootty- the fanboys actor and Mohanlal- fanboys rivalry actor, acted together with almost equally important roles. I think the Vanitha film award for best actor in leading role for Mohanlal made the fanboy think it will define him as the leading actor of the film and it frustrated him. And i believe thats the reason behind his edit war. There is already an edit war going on Twenty:20 (film) by the users User:111.92.20.29 and User:117.221.186.241 these two are vandal only accounts u can see it in their contributions. And i firmly believe these are anonymous IPs of the blocked user User:Bangbang43, he is a serious edit warrer.). I appreciate administration involvement to solve the problem. Thanks 106.77.176.158 (talk) 14:18, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

• You both are conducting a months long edit war without remorse. If you're not willing to come to the discussion table, nothing good will come of your efforts. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:03, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

About putting me Xand2 on the vandal list

User Chris Troutman reported me as vandal because he given me enough warnings that is not true you can see my contributions that after 15:23 UTC is my last edit on Hathor page rest is on my talk page and Chris talk page.If you look at my talk page where Chris posted last three warnings it is in:15:47, 15:48, 15:49 UTC at that time I was mostly on Croatian Wikipedia and didn't see it.My Egyptian words are mostly from free Dickson dictionary which is creative commons licence.You can look at Croatian Wikipedia Xand2 contributions and will see that after 15:48 I have only edited Croatian Wikipedia articles till 17:44 and on English Wikipedia only talk pages since then and he posted three warnings after 15:47 which I didn't see most in short time ranging from one to three minutes in which I didn't edit any English Wikipedia articles.I noticed after seeing that he have reported me as vandal that in his edit summary was warnings which I also didn't see. Xand2 金日光旦照 (talk) 21:14, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Please - seeking any administrator's review of user conduct

Greetings, any admin reading this. I'm writing to report a long running issue, so please, bear with me. Page in question is Module Syrian Civil War detailed map, user #1 is Pototo1. He doesn't seem to understand the rules of the module and is unwilling to reason. As backround, here and here are two talk page conversations on his conduct. The details of the edit warring at present that I am reporting can be found here and here. Basically, said user is arbitrarily editing without providing sources, then accusing me of vandalism and of bias when I revert his unsourced edits. I have reached out on the talk page (links above), I have reached out to an admin on my talk page - nada for results. To this day - he persists in upholding his vandalistic edit. Another user, LogFTW, has assisted, even though subject to a 6 month ban from the page. I reached out to the admin board on that - still have not heard back. I'm just really, really, frustrated with this. These editors are vandalizing the map - making unsourced edits, and refusing to reason when it's pointed out to them, then turning around and making accusations against me just for undoing their unsupported edits. Please. Help. If this is not the correct venue, please advise and redirect me. Thanks for your time. Boredwhytekid (talk) 16:38, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

It's just continuous Boredwhytekid (talk) 16:56, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Boredwhytekid is who are doing systematic vandalism.

He want to keep a edition without sources he is redrawing that again and again without any single source supporting him.

That's talked here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cities_and_towns_during_the_Syrian_Civil_War#Green_Circles_in_Al-Jebbah_and_Ras_al-Maraa_should_be_removed_if_you_no_have_sources.

Here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cities_and_towns_during_the_Syrian_Civil_War#Do_Something_for_stop_the_systematic_Boredwhytekid_vandalism_in_Qalamoun_Area.

A lot information more in this article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Qalamoun --Pototo1 (talk) 16:58, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Caps for the abandoned match

Hello everyone. For the abandoned match Serbia v Albania (UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying) an admin. User:GiantSnowman told me on my talk page that caps are not awarded for the abandoned matches (see discussion). Now I have some problems with some users to convince them for this issue. Lately User:Lindi29 has added caps at one of the players part of the abandoned match Serbia v Albania (UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying), Taulant Xhaka, pretending that the Uefa website counts these caps (see edit). Two of the biggest sources for national teams doesn't even count this abandoned match (Taulant Xhaka | National Football Teams) (Taulant Xhaka profile - EU-Football.info) . I have discussed long with the user. Eni.Sukthi.Durres (talk) 17:42, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with vandalism,I edit with a reliable and offical source who is in charge for this matches and decides if the game counts or not,for this match he is saying that Uefa is pretending but if we see Uefa has count the game and the caps to,but he is telling the opposite and making false statement against me and the Uefa website.And we are editors we disscus this thing on the talk page and reach a consenus not being convinced by an editor who wants only to edit the page by himself and reach decision only by himself.Thank You Lindi29 (talk) 19:55, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

• This discussion belongs on WP:WikiProject Football, not the AIV talk page. Lindi is correct that this is not anything to do with vandalism as well. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 21:15, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok I didn't say I'm reporting for vandalism but to make us clear and i didn't know where to direct. Thank you. Eni.Sukthi.Durres (talk) 21:30, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

AIV Help

Hello there. Can I be a clerk/ helper at AIV without actually being an admin. The tasks I would like to assist with are commenting on cases; such as not many reports, please AGF etc. I wouldn't be able to ban but I would like to decline obvious cases that do not warrant being at AIV. Thanks! TheMagikCow (talk) 19:03, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I comment on AIV reports without being an admin myself, but do not decline them. I do like this idea though! -- Orduin ^Discuss 19:09, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I see it as a good idea. Just use the non-administrative response templates. --w^{L<speak·check>} 02:03, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

WikiLeon Thank you for you reply. Where could I find the Non Admin templates? Thanks! TheMagikCow (talk) 06:57, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

@TheMagikCow: well, if you have not found them by now, the AIV notation templates can be found here. However, I believe non-admins can use the following:

• {{AIV|w}}- Warned user.
• {{AIV|f}}- No vandalism since final warning. Re-report if this user resumes vandalising.
• {{AIV|nesw}}- No edits since being warned. Re-report if this user continues vandalising or spamming after sufficient warnings.
• {{AIV|4im}}- User has been inappropriately warned. 4im warnings are appropriate for severe vandalism and defamation only.
• {{AIV|ns}}- User has been incorrectly or insufficiently warned. Re-report if the user resumes vandalising after being warned sufficiently.
• {{AIV|nv}}- Edits are not vandalism. Please ensure recent edits constitute vandalism before re-reporting.
• {{AIV|fp}}- False positive. Edits are not vandalism.
• {{AIV|c}}- Content dispute. Consider dispute resolution.
• {{AIV|n}}- Note:
• {{AIV|s}}- Appears to be a shared IP address, used by multiple users.
• {{AIV|3rr}}- This noticeboard is for obvious vandals and spammers only. Consider taking this report to Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring.
• {{AIV|a}}- This noticeboard is for obvious vandals and spammers only. Consider taking this report to Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.
• {{AIV|u}}- This noticeboard is for obvious vandals and spammers only. Consider taking this report to Usernames for administrator attention.
• {{AIV|r}}- This noticeboard is for obvious vandals and spammers only. Consider taking this report to Requests for page protection.
• {{AIV|spi}}- This noticeboard is for obvious vandals and spammers only. Consider taking this report to Sockpuppet investigations.
• {{AIV|ow}}- Stale warning.
• {{AIV|q}}- Question:
• {{AIV|e|X}}- Stale report. User has not edited in X.

@WikiLeon: does this list look acceptable for non-admin use?

Thanks! -- Orduin ^Discuss 21:21, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I would consider not allowing the use of the outright decline templates, but the others seem fine enough for any sensible editor to use. Sam Walton (talk) 21:33, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I think that using nac template before is also a good idea. TheMagikCow (talk) 09:15, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

No formatting information

In most of these Wikipedia pages, there is information on how to format a report. But when I came to file a report, there was nothing on the page or in the page's code that indicated what information was required and how to format a report. I had to go back in the page history to see how past reports had been filed. Since this is very unlike most other WP pages (like AfD, CfD, TfD, etc.), I believe this information probably was once there and has been accidentally deleted. Could someone more familiar with WP:AIV include instructions either on the page or in the page code as a comment? Thanks. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:46, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

On it! TheMagikCow (talk) 14:34, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

This is what I came up with. Any changed can be made. Can I post it on the main AIV page?
TheMagikCow (talk) 14:55, 22 February 2015 (UTC) User:TheMagikCow/aiv instructions

I think you should post it. The worst they can do is take it off!--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 17:15, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

It would probably be wiser to just modify the header here. Parsecboy (talk) 17:58, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

@Liz, TheMagikCow, Gaarmyvet, and Parsecboy: What about the existing text at the top of this section? Is that what you are on about? Mdann52 (talk) 20:34, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

I like the blue box. That textual comment could easily be missed or inadvertently deleted by an editor making an addition. It's just that for areas like AfD, CfD there are clear instructions. The best I could do when I tried to file a complaint was copy and paste another editors complaint and insert the information pertinent to my case. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:48, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

The box at the top of the project page does not give good instructions on how to use the two templates.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 20:59, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Widespread vandalism

I'm getting ready to go off WP for a while so I can't do this myself, but Kevin reported on the BLP board that there was a chance that a lot of political bios could be vandalized. Most of the pages have had varying levels of vandalism, so I think that some semi protection would be warranted on these pages since it is fairly widespread and a look at some of the pages shows that it's not going to stop easily. Semi protecting for a few days might help stave off the vandalism. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:29, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

I just randomly sampled some of them, and there is a good chance that every article has been hit in the past twelve hours, although it appears to have let up a bit now. Still, once people start waking up and watching the videos on rerun and YouTube, it will probably start increasing in occurrence again. I would also support semi-protection, as John Oliver indicated in the video that the vote will occur next month, so we also could have issues in June, once the vote is done. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 11:46, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Vandalism of biographical pages: 185.30.88.126 and 185.30.89.168

The above-referenced IP addresses have been used to vandalize biographical articles of targeted actresses. Pyxis Solitary (talk) 10:21, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi Pyxis Solitary, Please see the page header - this is not the venue for reporting vandalism. In future, and for faster intervention please report vandals at WP:AIV. Thanks. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:37, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

I did try to report it as per page header, but it would not save. Listen, I am not a Wikipedia expert and I am not a techie. There are no instructions provided anywhere (i.e. step 1, step 2, etc.) in plain and simple, direct language. I'm a Jane Doe who contributes to Wikipedia. That's it. There's a vandal that is persistently targeting the biographical articles of certain actresses. I've reported where the smoke is coming from...now you guys need to handle the fire. Pyxis Solitary (talk) 10:54, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

There are some instructions given at the top of the WP:AIV article, as per:-

• This page is intended for reports about obvious and persistent vandals and spammers only. Before posting here, please read the spam and vandalism pages, as well as the AIV guide. To submit a report, edit this page and follow the instructions at the top of the "User-reported" section. For other issues that require administrators, file an external request for administrator attention.

When you click the 'edit this page' tab you will see the instructions, with examples of what to do. Richard Harvey (talk) 14:52, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

We need better directions

There's a proposal for a small improvement to the directions above. I think it's okay, but I also think it doesn't go far enough.

Specifically, I think we need to use the "instructions" to help people understand what vandalism is. We do need the 'type this to make that' sort of instructions, but IMO we also need to make people say whether they believe the accused editor is actually deliberately trying to hurt Wikipedia (i.e., meets the absolute, definitional requirement for engaging in vandalism). WP:Nobody reads the directions, which is why our advice that the users have a look at the pages isn't really working for us.

Right now, if you suspected me of vandalizing, then the instructions you get when you edit are basically "Type *{{vandal|Example user}} optional brief reason for listing (keep it short). ~~~~". That might not be as useful as actual instructions, maybe even with buttons to click on that will fill out the form for you. What if we had something like this?

Do you want to report an editor for vandalism? Wikipedia separates reports of problems based upon the apparent intention of the editor. Reports for people whose primary goal is to hurt Wikipedia (e.g., by adding inappropriate profanity to articles) go to one place, and reports about editing that is unwanted or inappropriate, but whose primary goal is anything else (e.g., edit warring over the best music genre for a song) go to another place. Choose the correct box below to start your report:

Use this box to start a vandalism report about an editor who may be intentionally hurting Wikipedia with his or her edits.

Use this box to ask for assistance with an editor who may be causing problems, but is probably trying to help Wikipedia.

(The buttons are intentionally broken right now; they're for overall concept only. The goal is for them to fill in as much of the template as possible for you. For example, if you suspected me, then the form might as for my name and a reason, e.g., "WhatamIdoing" and "poop vandalism—I think her account might have been hacked").

In terms of integration with Twinkle, it might be possible to add an extra (required?) radio button that offers a stark choice between "might be acting in good faith" and "intentionally trying to destroy Wikipedia", and uses that information to determine the target page for the report.

What do you think? Would it be easier to use? Would it reduce the number of reports that have to be declined or sent elsewhere? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:22, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, I still like the blue box above which gives simple instructions and also resembles the instruction boxes in place on other noticeboards. First, I think anything is better than the nothing that exists right now. But I think it would be less confusing if whatever is instituted resembles instructions you'd find in other places on Wikipedia. Your design, while elegant, doesn't look like anything I've seen before.

• I really like the idea behind your intention--a certain proportion of claims of vandalism aren't really vandalism--but I think if an editor has gone to the trouble of coming to file a report here, it's because they don't think the editor is trying to help Wikipedia. I think it's important to remind filers that simple editing mistakes are not vandalism but you can start with an assumption that the editor believes there is a big problem or they wouldn't have come to this board to file a complaint, they would have just gone to the editor's talk page (which should actually be the first step taken). Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:18, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • I'd be happy to have people WP:BIKESHED the appearance until they like it. I'm totally not attached to the colors (although I do like the idea of having two colors, to make it more obvious that the two buttons do different things). My choices were based on what I could throw together quickly, and I'm sure that it could be improved upon. If someone wants to change the design every day for the next year, then that's fine with me; maybe we'd eventually figure out what designs actually helped people read the directions. I don't really care whether the result is matching everything else, or being intentionally different to attract attention. (See what we did at WP:ANRFC to try to get people to read the directions there. I think it worked, at least on people new to the page.) Someone like Edokter might have some good ideas.
    I like your idea about mentioning honest mistakes. What do you think about the idea of having a form-based system that starts by pre-filling the template? It's the function that seems most important to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:53, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
• Good God, I love this idea. Perhaps we need to work out the details, but ANYTHING to cut down on the ridiculous number of false positives we get here is a good thing. When I go to clear a backlog, nearly always more than 50% (often close to 75% or more) of the reports are not for simple vandalism, and inappropriate for this board. --Jayron32 16:14, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
• It would be a great improvement. What would also be great if there were some check boxes, (don't know if that is possible with our interface) for things like 4 warnings and vandalized after final warning, just to reinforce that in most cases its best to go through the full warning process. As for the number of bad reports that accumulate, I find its the borderline cases that pile up. My personal approach is to block those that I think justify a block, reject those that clearly don't, but then leave the middle ground, which some admins will block, and others will likewise leave. (Disruption that isn't to the level of a vandalism block, or reports where it looks like it may be vandalism, but I don't know enough about the subject matter to be confident the edits are bad) The result is the mostly good reports are all promptly removed by the bot, and you end up having a pile of borderline cases that someone needs to decide on. Monty₈₄₅ 16:42, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Checkboxes might be hard, but they could be done in Twinkle.
    Do you think it would be helpful to have a way to mark a report as "borderline" or "not obvious", to let other admins know that someone else had looked it over previously? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:53, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
    • Actually, maybe a discussion about how we really want to deal with borderline cases would be a good idea. I guess the idea of a borderline tag would be essentially saying "I've looked at this, and in my judgement its not enough for me to block, but I think other admins may be willing to and I want to leave it to give them the chance to make their own decision"? As opposed to a decline which would at least discourage other admins from deciding differently? That may be useful, but I guess the question is do we want to go that way, and basically tolerate lots of borderline reports, or should we try and tighten things up, declining more, and thus discouraging borderline submissions so we can focus on the very obvious cases? Monty₈₄₅ 23:28, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
    • (Non-administrator comment) For the marking of cases an admin feels could use a second look, it shouldn't be too hard to make something like {{GA2ndopinion}} except for non-GA-related use. Not going to go ahead and do it, though, as I'm not sure there's even a wish for it (or that I haven't overlooked an already existing template for that purpose) AddWittyNameHere (talk) 03:58, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
      • Yes, that's what I'm thinking. The 'problem' is that when you go to AIV and you see a bunch of stale cases, you don't know if most of the reports are bad (because you only see what's left) or if nobody ever looks at these things (because you only see what's left) or if people have been struggling with this particular report all day. AddWittyNameHere's suggestion of a simple tag along the lines of "I tried, you decide" might help. I don't think we could realistically require people to resolve every case they look at. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:46, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
        • I don't think it's necessary to do so; by definition a borderline case is one that needs to be discussed because it isn't obvious. For any case where that applies, this is not the right board for it. If it's borderline, it should be sent to ANI for discussion. This board is not for discussion. This board is for a "this really needs to be blocked now" type vandalism. If you need to explain why it is vandalism, it's not appropriate for AIV. Plain and simple. If an admin can't glance at the last 3-4 contribs in the user's editing history and tell right away that it's stupid stuff like changing random words to "poop" or something like that, then AIV is not the board to handle it. Borderline cases should be handled. Just not here. --Jayron32 16:24, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
          • The problem there is that some things are really obvious to people vaguely familiar with the subject and yet not all that clear to people who aren't. For example, repeatedly changing tennis scores to impossible results is blatantly obvious to someone familiar with tennis and the way its scored, but not to others. Or changing the native name of a location/film/town to a profanity/string thereof. Clear as day for people who speak the language, or for when it's a language that Google Translate's got a moderately good grip on; not so clear when it comes to for example Urdu or Tagalog slang and the admin who checks it doesn't speak that language. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 00:56, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
            • Right, so if you need to explain it, use ANI. The vandal still gets blocked. AIV should be for vandalism that is a) actually vandalism and b) requires no discussion to recognize. If you need to explain it and use diffs and twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence then AIV isn't the place. Use ANI. Blocks will still be issued. Just use the correct venue. --Jayron32 01:30, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
              • Yes, I know, I'm just saying that what's the dividing line between "blatantly obvious" and "requires explanation" is not clear to every editor and depends on which admin happens to be looking at it. It's easy to say "go to ANI", except that requires the reporting editor to first know -that- something is not as obvious to others as it is to themselves and that is where it often goes wrong. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 01:35, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
                • @AddWittyNameHere: I think that is probably the most concise explanation I've seen for the number of declined reports we get at AIV. I've said to people "If you have to explain it, it doesn't go here", and sometimes I get a response like "I didn't know it needed an explanation, I thought it was obvious." —Darkwind (talk) 21:44, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Archiving/removal of declined blocks?

Are declined blocks removed from the AIV page by User:HBC AIV helperbot, or some other bot, or do they need to be removed manually? Are there any accepted norms on how soon to remove them? Abecedare (talk) 15:41, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

They're removed by hand after a reasonable amount of time (usually after a few hours) so that people who made the original report have time to check in and see what the problem was. --Jayron32 16:11, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Abecedare (talk) 16:13, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

The rule I personally use is two hours since it was declined, give or take. Any longer than that will excessively clutter the board. I think I might also start using {{reply to}} when declining, especially if I'm suggesting an alternative like "go post at ANI". —Darkwind (talk) 21:46, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Ping reporting user for all declines

So, let me say up front that I don't do this myself, but I intend to try harder: should we have explicit instructions that admins should use the {{ping}} function to alert reporters that their report has been declined? We have a LOT of false positives here, and part of the way to combat that is by letting the vandalism patrol know what is wrong with their report, so they don't make the same mistake twice. I am concerned that many people who report someone and forget about it may mistakenly assume that declined (and then later deleted) reports were actually blocked, and thus they may never learn how to avoid such reports. I see lots of repeat customers among false positive reports, and I am wondering if the issue is not that such vandalism patrollers don't want to do it right, it's just that they don't realize what they are doing wrong because we don't ping them when we, as admins, decline to act. What does anyone here think about modifying the instructions or templates or something to encourage us admins to do a better job of alerting people when their report is declined? --Jayron32 16:29, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

It's probably a good idea, despite my not doing it myself. Because there is no standard on how long a decline stands for (unlike RFPP where I think the bot archives after six hours), a decline could sit for anywhere from ten minutes to 12 hours, at least a ping would give a diff in the notification, showing the response. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 16:31, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

How about we have the bot modified to wait say 15 minutes after the decline, and then remove the report, notifying the reporter and anyone who commented (but obviously not the declining admin) about the decline via a talk page message, including the decline reason, any attached message, and a diff to the last version prior to removal? Monty₈₄₅ 16:37, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Oooh. I like that. It would be automated, and wouldn't depend on admins to remember to do something, and wouldn't require any change to the instructions. If it can be done, that would be ideal. --Jayron32 16:45, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

@Chillum: Pinging the primary bot maintainer for their thoughts. Monty₈₄₅ 16:55, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I remember way back that there was a consensus for the bot not to remove declined reports, and that they be done manually. I do think that automatically pinging the reporter is a good idea. However the code has no concept of who made the report at present, and given the diversity of signatures it would be rather difficult to reliably parse that. Chillum 17:42, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm, just brain storming, but what about trying to identify the reporter from the page history, like a simplified version of Wikipedia:WikiBlame? Monty₈₄₅ 17:52, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

It can certainly be done. However since my bot works on page state and does not read the history it would essentially be a new bot. I am a bit busy on other projects right now to work on it myself but perhaps someone else could code it. Chillum 03:35, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

(reply to original and also @Monty845:) I think using {{ping}} to start with is a great idea, and if we all get in the habit of doing so regularly, we can re-evaluate the consensus for bots to remove the declined reports. (I'd still say an hour is a reasonable minimum, btw.) I'm hesitant to endorse automatic talk page messages unless there were a clear and easy way for the recipients to opt-out (or opt for a shorter message or something). I can't think of any other process on Wikipedia other than AFC where the end users regularly receive talk page messages with status updates. —Darkwind (talk) 21:57, 19 June 2015 (UTC)