UDWiki talk:Administration/Discussion

Hi, I'm not a moderator, so please feel free to move this comment to the relevent place, but where do I go to speak to a moderator about something on the wiki? I have a query about the recruitment page.-GrownUpSurvivor 16:22, 27 September 2006 (BST)

Well, there's Wiki_Questions and obviously Talk:Recruitment, but you might as well ask your question here. --Brizth ^{M T} 16:40, 27 September 2006 (BST)

Thanks. I was checking the Recruitment page yesterday and the 'Red Army' ad has disappeared. It was only 9 days since the last timestamp and the group page hadn't received a warning (although we have received a reminder to update in the past). I wondered if anything else was wrong. -GrownUpSurvivor 17:58, 28 September 2006 (BST)

What seems to have happened is that this edit by some noob reverted the page and timestamps to old versions. And then it was deleted the next day in this edit. In short, Conndraka didn't notice that the page had been reverted and removed the ad by the normal rules. --Brizth ^{M T} 18:26, 28 September 2006 (BST)

Okay thanks. I didn't want to replace it if it had been removed for some vital reason. Clarification appreciated. --GrownUpSurvivor 20:48, 3 October 2006 (BST)

Suggestion

I have a suggestion but dont know how/where to suggest it! I think there should be a new catagory for suvivors, expanding on the construction skills, i think there should be an engineer skill where suvivors can build barricades between buildings. I.e making it impossible for a zombie, suvivor without free running to pass, wether in a building or not, without dismantling the cades. To avoid confusuion, I would call them Diversions, rather than cades. This will help suvivors repair ruined buildings by buying them more time.

The place for this type of thing is the suggestions talk page first, and then the actual suggestions pages if it is likely to be well received. I doubt this will get a good response though, it would be a very annoying addition to the game for newbies (without free running) trying get around the city -- boxy • talk • 14:16 11 October 2007 (BST)

Arbitration

Is not a place where sysops should be involved, too much like a censor and would essentially make them moderators which a whole policy states that they are not. Sysops jobs are not conflict resolution they are administration, arbitrators should either be left public with limitations on what they can do(and limitations on what arb rulings sysops will enforce). Elitism among arbitrators can only cause problems, limiting the options of who can arbitrate creates that elitism and creates a group of wiki elites who can punish people for not liking them, as has been the case in multiple past arbitration cases, mostly because Sysops decided to go along with punishing that person or liked them just as little as the person who ruled on the case, sometimes even because they brought up the arb case.--Karek^maps?! 07:10, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not understand what part of Sysop involvement in arbitrator you don't agree with. Is it Conndraka as a Sysop offering his services as an Arbitrator? Is it Sysops having to process arbitrator ruling's breachs as they are now based on their own bias more than an objective look at the ruling? Or maybe both? --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 07:19, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

You could always suggest a policy that removes the section of A/A that calls the breaking of a ruling "vandalism" first, and then institute the A/A equivalent of A/VB. You'd be requiring the ruling arbitrator to promise to be around to sort out any squabbles over the life of the ruling, however. --Karlsbad 07:26, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

It's things like Wikigate. Although the person who arbitrates being the one who punishes isn't too great either considering their mind is made up before the A/VB case is even proposed, it helps establish Arbitration as a part of the user banning process, not the conflict resolution one.--Karek^maps?! 07:30, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

That is a really good idea, Karl. --Cyberbob ^{DORIS CGR U!} 07:35, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Requests for Assistance

It has recently come to my attention that a zed spy/sympathizer is placeing extremely detailed posts, includeing theories as to where people may be, on several of the suburb in the NW corner of malton. I was curious what the policy was for editing/removeing such posts, or possibly rewriteing them so as to maintain a neutral standing on the page. I know there is a "no deleteing others posts" rule, but these are so blatently target for zeds to know where they may find survivors it's a little irritateing. O and I'm not sure if this is the place to post this or not? Thanks for any info. --Mr NoName001 22:36, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Could you post a link to an example, please -- boxy ^{talk • i} 05:14 3 January 2008 (BST)

I hate to say it, but I'm fairly certain that there isn't much that can be done, I think it's a skirting the "gray area" type of thing but here are a few pages where you can find them, there under the news posts.http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Dakerstown and http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Jensentown The individual always seems to scout the suburb "while dead" but from what I have gathered from a few sources this particular individual is never "alive" so I'm just curious if this is crossing the line or if it's fair play. On a side not you all may want to check the Pitneybank page's news. They're getting just a tad off of the "neutral" stance of news ;) Look at it and you'll see what I mean. Thanks for hte help.--Mr NoName001 05:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

It all seems to be fair enough to me. The most NPOV stuff is survivor stuff about their groups minor activities. Making a list of which individual building have people in them is pushing it a bit, but posts like this from WanYao are simply reporting on the "state of play" in the area... which is exactly what the news section is supposed to be for. BTW, scouting as a human, to aid zombie hordes is allowable within the rules of the game, and even if it weren't, it's not something that we police on wiki -- boxy ^{talk • i} 05:35 3 January 2008 (BST)

10-4 :) Thanks for the help Boxy. I was kinda hopeing it could be changed, but I knew I think that it wasn't really wrong. Just makes it a little harder for the survivors to fight back when the bad guys know exactly where your at. Such is life though. Again thanks for the help.--Mr NoName001 05:43, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the thing a lot of people don't get though, is that the Suburb pages are there just as much for the benefit of zombie players, as they are survivors -- boxy ^{talk • i} 05:57 3 January 2008 (BST)

I have another question. It has come to my attention that a group listed on the stats page of the game may in fact be a massive zerging movement. the group is called KHAOS. There are a supposed 125 members, but almost no mention of them on the wiki and no group page(for so large a group this is highly unusual as you know) not to mention that the average group level is 8. I want to bring this to someones attention but I'm not sure who to write to, I know this is really for wiki admin stuff, but I thought you might be able to point me in the right direction, or at least inform the right people about the apparent potential for a serious abuse of the zerging rules. Anyway just looking for an answer and thought you all might be able to help. Thanks.--Mr NoName001 06:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

That's no where near a level of proof that would be worth looking into. Like the FAQ says, let the automatic zerging countermeasures handle it -- boxy ^{talk • i} 07:42 7 January 2008 (BST)

10-4 Thanks for at least giveing me an idea about it.--Mr NoName001 16:43, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

"Category: Human Groups" WTF??

I never noticed that before... The term "human" to refer to survivor groups is yet another example of the blatant pro-survivor bias on the wiki. Zombies are humans: undead humans. The Human Groups category needs to be deleted in full, and all instances replaced with Category:Survivor_Groups. I don't know if this can be done simply or not... If so, make it happen. ASAP. If not, talk to The Rooster about making a bot to do the mass editing required. ;) But... seriously... Category:Human_Groups must go. --WanYao 11:29, 3 August 2008 (BST)

It has to be done manually on each and every page in the category, which is why it hasn't been changed and probably won't for a while, at least probably not until the more important grindy jobs have been done, it's just not high on the list of priorities.--Karek^maps?! 11:59, 3 August 2008 (BST)

There are Human groups and Zombie groups. Trying to claim that zombies are just undead humans is as annoying as insisting on calling people "(blank) Americans." Humans are very different from zombies in this game and you can't argue that. As I see it, the reason we have a basic "human" category is so that we don't add our judgment of a group on their page. We don't deem a group "PKer", "Life Cultist", or "Pro-Survivor". We just say this group is made up primarily of starting class humans.

We don't want bots doing mass editing like that because we need someone to look at the page and make sure it isn't kiddie porn, vandalized, or a crit 1 that needs to be dealt with.--– Nubis ^NWO 13:25, 3 August 2008 (BST)

I should point out we do in-fact have all of those categories you listed_{(except Pro-Survivor)} and then some, and they do see a decent amount of use. --Karek^maps?! 13:37, 3 August 2008 (BST)

I had something about that, but edited it out. I was going to say I never put those labels on a page because I think the group has the right to define themselves. I just want to look at the page and make sure it is "ok" then stick a basic label on it under the belief that as the group grows it will find its' path. Or because some groups just don't quite fit in the smaller pigeon holes. --– Nubis ^NWO 15:37, 3 August 2008 (BST)

Living characters are called Survivors in the game. And zombies are called zombies. There are no "humans" or "PKers" or "GKers" or "death cultists", etc. in Urban Dead. They're all Survivor characters. Now it makes sense to add stuff like PKers, etc. because those are clearly defined playing styles within the greater Survivor moniker, but aren't really "pro-survivor". But... calling Survivors "humans" is pro-survivor bias. However, since no one seems to give a shit... whatever... Have a nice day. --WanYao 23:43, 3 August 2008 (BST)

Wiki home page contents/links need updating

Specifically those tables of content. Many of the links are obsolete and/or rather useless. Sadly, the centering map is one such example. Each external link needs to be checked to see if it's functional. Meanwhile, all links should be evaluated for relevancy, obsolescence, etc. Time for a clean up. Of course, I'd work on it myself... but I cain't... --WanYao 11:32, 3 August 2008 (BST)

If you have any suggestions as to which links should be removed, please do feel free to post them and I will take care of it.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 13:59, 4 August 2008 (BST)

Templated Signatures

Why is that a bad thing? I don't have page load problems either except my page. Next are we going to ban my page? --Sonny Corleone ^{DORIS MSD pr0n} 01:31, 28 September 2008 (BST)

For those not seeing problems with templated signatures; remember when some vandal pasted the whole Talk:Suggestions in someone's sig? Ah, good times...
There are also other problems with them, most visible in suggestion voting. Namely: newbies. Often they just approximately copy how others have signed their posts and end up with {{User:Newbie}}. This isn't noticeable if they have no userpage at the moment (it just results in a red User:Newbie). If they later create a user-page, it gets included in the middle of the voting section. Not nice.
However, there is one thing Grim is wrong about. The amount of data that gets transferred is exactly the same regardless of whether the code is in a template-call or directly in the page. What it does, is increase the amount of processing required serverside. The extra processing makes the page generation take longer. Slow connections download the slowly generated content pretty much the same speed as before, but fast connections might have to wait for the page to get generated. Meaning that the effect is more noticeable on fast connections, not slow ones. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 12:28, 3 October 2008 (BST)

I don't really mind about their use/banning its the changeover thats going to cause the shitstorm. You ban them, you post so in wiki news, you remove the sections in help/welcome sections about creating them. Fine.

Of course then you're going to spend a few weeks having to constantly police the policy, explaining to every casual player that comes back whats going on and why theyre being warned, even then you've got the sigs of many an abandoned account all over the place catching the eyes of the new, silently calling them to do something crazy.

Or could you just remove the option from my preferences? IN which case it will probably all be fine. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 22:41, 3 October 2008 (BST)

There's actually a ridiculously easy way of stopping automatic templated sig use. Just edit {{nosubst}} from {{{{{1}}}}} to {{subst:{{{1}}}}}. The sigs will then get automatically substed in (I tested this in my sandbox). Yeah, you could still manually write {{User:Midianian/Sig}}, but you'd have to do that each and every time you sign. You couldn't use templated signatures unintentionally. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 23:06, 3 October 2008 (BST)

Unless you save it as a macro (I have no idea what i just said) But yeah, that would limit it quite nicely. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 08:38, 4 October 2008 (BST)

Communal Accounts

I'm both shocked and amazed that Boxy's looking for a way to ban me(!) Quite simply if the account in question is used for vandalism, block it and escalate me, regardless of IP. I know everyone else who's got access and am happy to take the fall. Though considering the implication, I don't expect the pages to be locked, because that would just be petty. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 05:45, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

You're hardly the first person to have a communal account.--Karek^maps?! 06:17, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

No, but I'm the first to have a section on this made for when vandalism occurs and we must ban the alt for great justice! Even though you and I have the same number of escalations, it's mine that causes discussion on this page. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 06:28, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I wish I could say that I'm shocked and amazed at your reaction to my simply discussing this. I'm not looking to ban anyone, it's just a situation that (like I said on the main page) I haven't seen come up before, and has the potential to make things difficult if things start going wrong. What are the advantages to such an account? -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 06:38 3 January 2009 (BST)

You've never seen it before? What are the advantages? Why don't you ask the sysops I got the idea off? -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 07:26, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Well I don't know about that account, but it doesn't seem to say anything about multiple users being able to log on to it, only that multiple users have the right to edit it's sub pages (and only those with prior permission). And I don't like your implication that just because a sysop may have done it, or something similar, it's automatically "a good thang" -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 10:41 3 January 2009 (BST)

Did you check the IP logs? Did you check the IP logs of the current account in question? If you did you'd better have a fucking good reason, because that's what led to J3D's demotion. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 11:04, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Did I check to see if multiple people were using the account? Yes. Did I check to see who else was using the IP addy? No -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 11:55 3 January 2009 (BST)

I'd lay money you won't let an impartial user check those logs. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 12:00, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Any sysop can check the logs -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 12:10 3 January 2009 (BST)

Did you miss the section where I said impartial? -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 12:13, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

How impartial do you have to be to see two IP addresses come up when you search a name? --HAHAHA DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS 12:28, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Seeing is one thing, expressing that sight to the community that sight is a different thing. Hence why Boxy will not allow an impartial user to view the logs. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 12:35, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

You need to have lived in a sealed box your whole life. -- Cheese 12:33, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

So anyway. Is it designed to have multiple people able to log into the account? It just seems to me to open the door for trouble -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 12:10 3 January 2009 (BST)

Please link the policy and section that disallow multiple users to an account. Until then feel free to keep 'what seems to you' to yourself. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 12:13, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

FFS, do I have to make a policy discussion about this before you'll even discuss it? I just wanted to talk about it, and see if there was some reason for them -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 12:20 3 January 2009 (BST)

After your behaviour on A/M? Yeah you fucking do. I have to give you precisely nothing. You're the one looking for avenues to ban this account, fine, bring me the policy and the specific section. Until then fuck off and deal with it. Go ahead and make a policy over it, watch it be ruled non-retroactive like every other policy on this wiki. Quite simply either deal with it, or abuse the position of trust you have been placed in by the community, again, and ban me and this account. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 12:25, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Shoo, you're doing that thing where you don't know what you're talking about again and are just being paranoid and defensive. If the account is used for vandalism then we will act accordingly, until then stop acting like someone is abusing power, we're discussing how to do our jobs in a questionable case before it arises.--Karek^maps?! 17:41, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Contribs

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, but if not please feel free to move it to the relevant place. I noticed that my signature on my contribs to the Rolt Heights Suburb here here here here and here have all been removed.

I guess it's a small matter, but I did write the Descriptions for all those Areas that now seem credited to Mobius187 --Sara M 04:18, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi there, we had a history purge on the wiki of all the old page diffs/revisions/whatever from a certain amount of time ago in order to reduce the amount of info the server was carrying. Therefore, a lot of peoples' revisions don't show up and it looks like some pages were created quite recently even though they have been around for a while (example: the main page's history). --ZsL 04:33, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Your contribs have been wiped from the wiki's history to save server space. None of those contributions were signed comments, because location history sections are community contributions, meaning that they're a community effort, rather than attributed to a single person (even if only edited by one person) -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 13:17 12 January 2009 (BST)

Expansion of Crit 6

Ha ha ha, what? Meat puppeting it? As far as I know, which obviously can't be everything, there was no meat puppetry involved. Hell, the only thing I did in this case was ask it to be speedied, failed, then said someone else can put it up for A/D. After that, I simply argued why it should be removed. Calling meat puppetry because a few of the more active users on the wiki voted against it is just bullshit. Have fun ruling the wiki with no pesky community to stop you from doing what you want monsieur Haggie and Nubis. Go ahead and reply with the same tired arguments of how the community is stoopid, and that you guys who are supposed to be on the same level as us should be higher and have the final say in everything because you know whats best. Right.-- dǝǝɥs oʇ ɯɐds: sʎɐʍ1ɐ! 00:11, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Ignoring that I intend to serve the request your speaking of based on the vote. It's not an issue of a bad faith request. We all know what those look like after Nalikill.--Judge Karke, self-proclaimed Decider of Everything and Ruler of All 05:06, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your input.--– Nubis ^NWO 13:24, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Iscariot's Vandal Data

Here is some unsolicited community feedback. I can't believe that half of the sysop team abstained from voting on Aichon's suggestion. Come on party people, get that bootie up on the dance floor and shake it! We trust the sysops to handle vandal data and all that important stuff, and they mostly do a great job, but for some reason whenever a truly difficult/controversial situation arises which requires their meaningful input, half of them disappear like they were escaping a burning building.

When you compound this abstinence, or whatever you want to call it, with the fact that sysops are routinely kept by the community so long as they don't kick up ginormous shit storms or rock the boat, then you have a recipe for institutionalized apathy. I would propose that if some of the sysop team can't weigh-in meaningfully when their votes are requested, then they should step aside and make way for users who aren't afraid of a little disagreement.

Now, to reiterate, I like the job that the current sysop team is doing and I really like a couple of the 'sops who abstained here. However I feel very let-down by the fact that they couldn't be bothered to commit their opinions to a "yes or no" vote on this issue. Anyways that's just the opinion of one wiki user, and you're free to disagree.--_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 12:42, 13 August 2010 (BST)

There is sound reasoning in why abstentions were made, eg. personal bias and the like, and considering the big picture I'm not surprised they abstained. They were absent through the recent Nubis misconduct case towards the end when push came to shove and that enough was reasonable evidence to indicate they thought the Iscariot question was a null issue, or one they didn't want to be involved in, only a handful of the ops even posted there let alone demonstrated interest in seeing this through. Honestly, I'm surprised Boxy abstained since he is the only one I know for sure has checked Izzy's A/VD from the start of this to the finish besides me and Aichon- and since Aich and my positions were so differing I was hoping he'd offer the final say on it that could tip the balance- but alas, no cigar, and I'm sort of saddened by it (not boxy, just the lost opportunity to see some closure on my and aichons argument). Holistically the worst part of them voting abstain is that in the current state it's practically the same as voting against. --

 

 

 

 

13:36, 13 August 2010 (BST)

Truth be told, I'm disappointed as well, especially considering some of them made their opinions clear either in their statements here or on A/M earlier. As DDR said, we're looking for closure in this, and while we do have a result, we don't have a decision, which is what we needed. I'm concerned that this matter could come up again in the future, since we haven't taken a stance on it. Instead, we've chosen as a team to let it default, rather than choosing to stand behind it one way or the other. —Aichon— 19:24, 13 August 2010 (BST)

Admin page restructuring

Misanthropy and I were talking on IRC yesterday, and the topic of how annoying it is to cycle the admin pages each month came up. As is evidenced by the fact that none of us could be bothered to do it until six days into this month, I take it that we all hate dealing with it, so I propose that we either simplify the problem or else make it a less frequent hassle. There are two obvious ways to do this:

1. Make most of the archives quarterly instead of monthly.
2. Conduct our business on the actual pages (e.g. A/VB, A/SD, etc.), rather than the archive pages (e.g. A/VB/Archive/2010 10), then move the cases to the archive page at the end of the month.

The first reduces how often we have to deal with the issue, while the second makes the process more straightforward both for us and the users since there are less pages involved at any given time. Currently, we have some of the pages following #2's idea (e.g. A/P, A/D) while others don't (A/VB, A/SD, A/MR), which just makes things more complicated when we go to cycle them. Making matters worse is that those three in the latter group each have specific boilerplate text that we use for the archive pages (and is different than the boilerplate text on the main pages), which adds another layer of annoyance, whereas the former two pages have no such problem.

That said, there are a few caveats...well, one, anyway: A/VB. A/VB still gets enough activity that moving it to quarterly would break it frequently. Also, due to the fact that we need to put links to A/VB archives onto A/VD when we file vandal data, following the idea of #2 would make that job more complicated since we'd have to construct the link without being able to follow it yet, which is undesirable. So, basically, I suggest we ignore A/VB and leave it as it is, but move the rest (A/SD, A/D, A/MR, and A/P) over to follow those two ideas.

Also, since we just started a new quarter, right now is the ideal time to convert to a quarterly system. —Aichon— 06:36, 6 October 2010 (BST)

The only reason this is the one sysop task I very rarely do is because I don't see any easy way of doing it. I think the current system should stay, but we should make it easier to do. For example, if there was a maintenance template for each admin page that we could subst onto the new archives, it would be easier than what I assume we still do now (ie. copy the content from the old archive and just paste it back onto new, but without any of the entries). This would make it much easier to manage if you ask me. -- LEMON #1 06:46, 6 October 2010 (BST)

Well, at a minimum, I'm planning to clean up the pages by moving some stuff out to templates so that there's less to deal with each month, but there's no need to discuss that here, since that's just cleaning up the pages, not restructuring the system. And yes, we still do it via copy/paste from old to new, which leaves lots of room for errors, especially if we waited a few days before getting around to it. Nearly had some errors tonight when you edit conflicted me while I was in the middle of archiving a set of pages. —Aichon— 06:58, 6 October 2010 (BST)

I'm opposed to quarterly archives based on the obvious page-breaking issues. Personally, I support DDR's proposal; we definitely need more obvious info on how to do it (Didn't Iscariot have a guide somewhere?) and boilerplate stuff. Option 2 I'm pretty neutral on, but as you pointed out, there would be no links to it so it would be a bit of a screw up for VD. --Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 15:52, 6 October 2010 (BST)

See, it's only A/VB that's likely to break in quarterly archives, which is why Aichon's pointing out that it should be left out of that system. The rest of them are used infrequently enough that bunching three months at a time together isn't going to see a problem arise (look how small the past few months' worth of archives have been on A/MR or A/SD, for example, compared to this time last year). 15:56, 6 October 2010 (BST)

Sorry, I'm still not a fan with increasingly large and page-breaking sigs.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 16:00, 6 October 2010 (BST)

But it's a non-issue. If we follow your logic in the other direction, why don't we just reduce them down to weekly archives in order to ensure that A/VB doesn't break as easily? What you're saying makes no sense to me. And yes, Iscariot had a page, which is still linked from my "Other" page in my userspace, though his page has been deleted, but reading through it just gives you an idea of how complicated the whole process really is. And, again, I'm proposing we leave A/VB as it is for the obvious reasons, but that's no reason why we shouldn't move the rest over. It'd mean that all but one behave in the same way, as opposed to what we have now, where half behave one way, half behave differently, and everything has to be done via careful copying and editing done by hand. —Aichon— 18:01, 6 October 2010 (BST)

As the guy who suggested quarterly archives, I support that option. Aich pointed out, however, that VB would be too large to do this way, so either we make an exception with it, or restrict front-page comments to involved parties and sysops to cut down on size. I'd go with the exception idea, as it's not going to hinder us to have pages archived differently to each other, since that already happens now with A/DE. 15:06, 6 October 2010 (BST)

...I offer to help cycle. Only because I never really have anything interesting to do half the time. >_< --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 06:52, 6 October 2010 (BST)

No need to offer. Feel free to just jump in and do it. I'm only bringing this up because no one has stepped in to do it consistently since Iscariot left, and all of us seem to try dumping it on each other as much as we can (it was great when Yonn was new, since we dumped it on him, but he's wised up since then). —Aichon— 07:00, 6 October 2010 (BST)

Well, I won't mind picking up where Izzy left off. Again, got nothing to do half the time... =L --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 07:01, 6 October 2010 (BST)

So...why didn't you do it this month? <_< :P —Aichon— 07:18, 6 October 2010 (BST)

I was unsure whether regular users could do it. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 15:58, 6 October 2010 (BST)

First off, that was Red, I never did it, secondly I'm moving this so that all users can discuss it because it obviously involves them.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 16:01, 6 October 2010 (BST)

I actually meant that as a joke. Sorry, it wasn't very obvious. —Aichon— 18:01, 6 October 2010 (BST)

I gathered that it was a joke, it just wasn't me that did the archiving. :P --Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 18:08, 6 October 2010 (BST)

And I still do it, on the off chance I notice the month has changed. ~ Red Hawk One ^{Talk | space for lease} 19:06, 6 October 2010 (BST)

Wiki update FAQs

What Changed?

To answer the question on what's new (bolded items represent significant changes in functionality):

User rights

• Groups can be assigned the ability to change certain userrights (i.e. could give sysops the ability to give users the 'rollback permission'.
• There is a seperate 'undelete' permission
• A 'reason' field added to Special:Userrights
• Bureaucrats get a link to changing user rights on a user's contributions page

Administration

• Blocks can be modified without unblocking first
• 'Cascading protection' introduced - pages transcluded onto a protected page are automatically protected themselves
• Page protections can be given an expiry date.
• Nonexistant pages can be protected (i.e. to stop users recreating them)
• Users can be blocked from using Special:Emailuser
• Admins now have an option to watch the user/talk pages of users they block
• Autosummaries will be generated for deletion of pages longer than 500 characters
• Automatically fix redirects broken by a page move
• Show a diff of the revert on rollback notification page.
• A list of predefined reasons added to the protection/deletion/block forms.

Editing

• &minor= and &summary= as parameters in the url when editing, to automatically add a summary or a minor edit.
• on a category page causes the category to be hidden on the article page
• There are now "undo" links in the page histories
• Relevant deletion log lines shown when uploading a previously deleted file.
• Allow bots to specify whether an edit should be marked as a bot edit, via the parameter 'bot'. (Default: '1')

User Interface

• RSS/Atom feeds of watchlists.
• Edit count is shown in user preferences
• AJAX based page watching/unwatching (doesn't appear to be enabled, though)
• Watchlist reflects logged actions like move, protection, undelete
• An excerpt of the Deletion log is now shown whenever a user vists a deleted page

Special Pages

• Special:SpecialPages is now nicely organised
• A list of active users is now available
• Special:ListUsers is sortable by account creation time
• Special:WantedTemplates added
• Allow hiding logged-in users, bots and patrolled pages on Special:Newpages.

Other

• A bunch of security/bug fixes
• A bunch of UI improvements that aren't worth listing here.

--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 13:39, 21 April 2011 (BST)

Additional Note - the CSS is no longer the same. Some of the classes and ids previously present are no longer so. Probably the most prevalent of example of this is the townBox css class which no longer exists. Any templates using creative IDs for functionality should be checked to make sure that functionality still exists.--Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 13:55, 21 April 2011 (BST)

The "stealthexternallink" class seems to have been removed. :( ~ _{16:57, 21 April 2011}

PLAINLINKS still works: Urban Dead The colour of the text can be changed to mimic a normal internal link. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 22:16, 21 April 2011 (BST)

Not too surprising, it's a site-specific hack. Add:

/* stealth external links almost like normal links*/
#bodyContent .stealthexternallink a {
	background: none;
	padding: 0;
	color: #002bb8;
}
#bodyContent .stealthexternallink a.new { color: #CC2200 !important; }
#bodyContent .stealthexternallink a:visited { color: #5a3696; }
#bodyContent .stealthexternallink a:active { color: #faa700; }
#bodyContent .stealthexternallink a:hover { text-decoration: underline; }

to Common.css--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 17:01, 21 April 2011 (BST)

We could probably re-add missing class(es) like townBox to MediaWiki:Common.css to save having to fix all the individual templates.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 17:01, 21 April 2011 (BST)

It looks like the stealthexternallink class is present but it doesn't seem to be working. I bypassed browser cache. townBox doesn't appear to be present, though. ~ _{17:24, 21 April 2011}

I replaced it with your code above and still doesn't seem to work. ~ _{17:30, 21 April 2011}

townBox was removed in Mediawiki 1.13 because, I quote, "not one of the wikipedia sites is using it" - mediawiki has this tendency to consider Wikimedia to be their only user.

That code for stealthexternallinks should work, not entirely sure why it doesn't.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 17:44, 21 April 2011 (BST)

It appears to be a caching issue, although I have cleared my FF cache. When I check in IE, it seems to have worked (although I had to use Rooster's code which was formatted without line breaks. IE is now caching your version of the code for which produced unwanted spacing after the link). Do you know the the townBox class code? ~ _{18:03, 21 April 2011}

Yeah, the unwanted spacing was always an issue in certain browsers. I'm currently still seeing the broken code in Firefox, but I imagine the cache will sort itself out. I don't know the townBox class code off the top of my head, but I'll see if I can find it.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 18:14, 21 April 2011 (BST)

I got this code:

** classes for special content elements like town boxes
** intended to be referenced directly from the wiki src
*/

/*
** User styles
*/
/* table standards */
table.rimage {
    float: right;
    position: relative;
    margin-left: 1em;
    margin-bottom: 1em;
    text-align: center;
}
.toccolours {
    border: 1px solid #aaa;
    background-color: #f9f9f9;
    padding: 5px;
    font-size: 95%;
}
div.townBox {
    position: relative;
    float: right;
    background: white;
    margin-left: 1em;
    border: 1px solid gray;
    padding: .3em;
    width: 200px;
    overflow: hidden;
    clear: right;
}
div.townBox dl {
    padding: 0;
    margin: 0 0 .3em;
    font-size: 96%;
}
div.townBox dl dt {
    background: none;
    margin: .4em 0 0;
}
div.townBox dl dd {
    margin: .1em 0 0 1.1em;
    background-color: #f3f3f3;
}

from here. I believe there is more of it lying round somewhere, though, because it was spread across several different files.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 18:57, 21 April 2011 (BST)

I've added townBox back but I'm not really sure if it is working properly. Could be more caching issues. I really only see a few pages on the wiki using townbox. ~ _{19:55, 21 April 2011}

It might be caches, there might have been code that we're missing. I think the best way for us to find the full code is to grab the old version 1.9 of mediawiki and search through the old files.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 20:51, 21 April 2011 (BST)

It could also be that it's working properly but it is so underused here that I'm not seeing enough examples of it working properly vs improperly. Is this correct?

This is a townbox.

It looks right but I could be mistaken. ~ _{20:58, 21 April 2011}

That would be another possibility, yes. That looks right, and the same code breaks on wikipedia; so I'd guess that we've done it!--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 21:04, 21 April 2011 (BST)

Fixed my userpage back to what it used to look like, so I'd say yeah, you've got it. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 22:13, 21 April 2011 (BST)

Difference Between Revisions

When viewing page revision differences, changes are no longer displayed in red. Instead, the original has a strike-through and the change is underlined. IMHO this makes it harder to quickly see what change was made. Perhaps there is a system message that can be updated? ~ _{18:51, 21 April 2011}

Maybe, I'll check.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 18:58, 21 April 2011 (BST)

Personally, I like it better. It takes some getting used to, but you can now actually tell when spaces were added or removed, whereas before you couldn't. —Aichon— 19:00, 21 April 2011 (BST)

Changed my mind. I like it worse. The spaces are nice, but it makes everything else harder, especially when text is removed. —Aichon— 22:20, 24 April 2011 (BST)

Interestingly, all the Wikimedia sites use the old version.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 19:11, 21 April 2011 (BST)

The CSS for diff rendering is located at: [1]. I'm not sure if we can edit that, but it should be possible to override that using Common.css - I'll have to look up the code.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 19:30, 21 April 2011 (BST)

If you want to change the formatting then MediaWiki:Print.css should override the base code.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 20:37, 21 April 2011 (BST)

Unclosed tags in inclusions and double-click to edit changed

It's worth noting that unclosed HTML tags seem to be handled differently in this version of the software. I had a template that created two div elements (I've drastically edited the template today, so you may need to look at the old revisions for context), but then failed to close one of them (a mistake on my part). Previously, on being included, that element would be automatically closed. Now, it's not, meaning that if you have unclosed tags in templates, they could run away from you in a hurry. On the plus side, this should open up a lot of new possibilities for templates. For instance, previously, if you wanted to have a custom-styled box, you had to pass the content of the box into the template as a variable since the template had to be self-contained. Now, we can simply have a template that gives the code for opening the box, place the content right on the page itself rather than as a variable, and then put in the code for closing the box, which should reduce the complexity of the code significantly.

Also, the preference to double-click to edit a page no longer seems to be functioning in Safari. Not sure about other browsers or if it might just be a caching issue of some sort. —Aichon— 19:02, 21 April 2011 (BST)

Non double-click to edit in FF3.0, even with the option checked in preferences. ~ _{19:17, 21 April 2011}

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Unclosed tags have always been able to be part of templates, it's a trick I used when coding my Talk page if I remember correctly. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 22:07, 21 April 2011 (BST)

What I'm saying is that, upon inclusion, HTML tags will now auto-close, or at least some of them will (obviously I haven't tested them all...in fact, div is the only one I tested >_>). Previously, I tried to do that specifically, since I wanted to create a template that ONLY contained the opening div tag for all of my userspace, but wasn't able to do so since it always closed the tag when I included the template, which forced me to instead merely make a template with the CSS style for the div. I also know that it was changed with the update, because that template I linked in my last comment went from working perfectly fine before (because it auto-closed a tag I had accidentally left open) to being broken after the update and obviously running on with an unclosed tag. What it sounds like you might be thinking about is what you, me, and lots of other wiki savvy folks do on their talk pages, which is leave the container tag open so that people can easily post at the bottom of the page without having to mess with container code. Those are still auto-closed, of course. I'm only talking about inclusions here, which previously auto-closed, and now do not appear to do so. —Aichon— 03:40, 22 April 2011 (BST)

It must not be all html tags. Leaving unclosed span tags will shit up a page like nobody's business when transcluded. ~ _{04:01, 22 April 2011}

Now, they don't auto-close. Previously, they did. You're making my point here. :P —Aichon— 05:36, 22 April 2011 (BST)

Cascading Protection

It works! So does expiry protection time. Yay! When editing the cascaded protected page, I do not get the same big red warning that I get when editing a regularly protect page. I'm sure it's just a matter of changing another system message. Is it worth it to others to find out which one? ~ _{21:24, 21 April 2011}

I'm pretty sure it MediaWiki:cascadeprotectedwarning that would need to be updated. ~ _{21:41, 21 April 2011}

I just went with it. ~ _{21:47, 21 April 2011}

What's that gray box at the bottom of every page?

That's the Category section of the page. If a page has a category associated with it, the category will show up down there. --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 23:52, 21 April 2011 (BST)

We totally already have sections for FAQs, I just can't remember them. Maybe Wiki Questions? I'm sure there's another one somewhere, and there's the help documentation namespace. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 01:43, 22 April 2011 (BST)

Maybe after we get the bulk of the questions out of the way we could move this whole section to there, since some people are going to have questions. It doesn't bode well that the FAQs are lost in the help documentation. ;) --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 02:03, 22 April 2011 (BST)

What's with the side bar

Anyone else noticing that it doesn't always parse correctly. Page refresh will usually fix it. ~ _{02:11, 22 April 2011}

Once, yeah. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 03:26, 22 April 2011 (BST)

Can we...?

Get something like this working? I'd like to make a redirection image. --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 03:03, 22 April 2011 (BST)

is it doing the same thing as in the linked article?~ _{03:09, 22 April 2011}

I see now. Same is happening to my sig image. It looks like it might be an hack that Kevan would need to make. We'll take a close look at it though. ~ _{03:14, 22 April 2011}

It is, you can not edit php pages without server access. Best to just look for a javascript equivalent. Which reminds me, someone needs to create sortable tables, has to be a sysop. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 04:04, 22 April 2011 (BST)

I'll happily add it to commons.css if you can point me to the correct code. I'm not having luck finding it anywhere and I know next to zilch about coding in CSS. The wikitable class is also missing. ~ _{05:12, 22 April 2011}

Hmm, I would say look at Nexuswiki but Jorm seems to have changed where that goes. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 05:18, 22 April 2011 (BST)

@Akule. The best solution to present itself so far is to use the new inherent file handling features. Adding link= as an attribute to an image will produce the same end result of an image redirect. For example [[Image.Example.jpg|link=Example Page]] or see the image in my signature. We'll keep looking into other solutions, though. ~ _{05:29, 22 April 2011}

Actually, that's what that page was talking about, the internal code for this. Works fine, probably definitely from an older version. Also for hovertext last pipe can always be hovertext.--Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 05:34, 22 April 2011 (BST)

Yep. The Click templates are out, since the wiki now includes those features. See a full example here. —Aichon— 05:35, 22 April 2011 (BST)

That should work then. Thanks. --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 20:20, 24 April 2011 (BST)

shared.css

I found that shared.css is likely why stelthexternal no longer functions:

/* Plainlinks - this can be used to switch * off special external link styling */ .plainlinks a { background: none !important; padding: 0 !important; }

and possibly why wikitable isn't playing friendly:

/* wikitable class for skinning normal tables */ table.wikitable { margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; } .wikitable th, .wikitable td { border: 1px #aaa solid; padding: 0.2em; } .wikitable th { background: #f2f2f2; text-align: center; } .wikitable caption { font-weight: bold; }

According to the MediaWiki 1.16 release notes the wikitable class was moved to shared.css but in our case it doesn't seem to be working that well. I'm going to experiment with different skins to see if I get different results. I think we're stuck without stealthexternal, though. ~ _{07:38, 22 April 2011}

Ok. Getting different results with different skins. This is Help:Magic Words with the urbandead3 skin. The wikitable class is displays normally but not with the default skin. Same applies to stealthexternal. Here is Template:GroupCat which uses the stealth class. It displays normally with urbandead3 skin but not default. ~ _{07:48, 22 April 2011}

The urbandead3 skin also fixes sortable tables and colorization of the difference between revisions pages. Make RC look all pretty, too. ~ _{08:02, 22 April 2011}

Plainlinks has always been an alternative to stealthexternallinks. At least as far as hiding the external styles. But yes, any templates or such using the old stealth external should probably be switched to plainlinks instead of implementing the older code in the css.--Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 13:39, 22 April 2011 (BST)

I'd probably wait on it for a bit. I think all these problems can be solved by kindly asking Kevan to alter LocalSettings.php to use urbandead2 or urbandead3 as the default skin. Alternatively, he could make some adjustments to the urbandead (default) skin so that it worked similarly to its counterparts. Changing the skin does much more than fix just stealthexternal links so it is worthwhile to have it done. ~ _{14:35, 22 April 2011}

I think we should start a list of things we can't fix on our own to present to Kevan. $wgMaxSigChars could be updated in DefaultSettings.php to allow for more signature characters in user settings and people won't have to change their sigs to templated. ~ _{14:56, 22 April 2011}

*cough* (Sysops can totally edit stylesheets, FYI.) ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 13:24, 27 April 2011 (BST)

May I suggest adding some of the old code (e.g. the stealthexternallinks class to Mediawiki:urbandead.css?--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 09:30, 11 May 2011 (BST)

What the...?

The search function seems to be off. I did an everything search for "Welcome" for example, and it turned up no pages. An everything search for "Project" turns up tons of pages, and based off of the results, it looks through the text on the pages. For some reason "Welcome" did not. --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 22:38, 25 April 2011 (BST)

I've also noticed some discrepancies. The word Welcome should show up in search. In fact, doing a google search for Welcome site:wiki.urbandead.com returns dozens of pages. Something is definitely off about the new search. ~ _{22:49, 25 April 2011}

Amusingly a search for "Project" returns Project Welcome, but a search for "Welcome" does not. Interestingly enough, we can now do one letter searches now, instead of being limited to search words being required to be over three letters. --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 23:18, 25 April 2011 (BST)

I think it could be filtering it out, like how search engines usually filter words like "the" or "and", because they don't narrow down the search. It could be that for some reason our search engine is not looking for welcome (Perhaps because the word is included on over 10,000 pages). Don't know how we'd fix it if that was the case though.--Yonnua Koponen ^{T G P} ^^^ 23:44, 25 April 2011 (BST)

Excpet that it also seems to be filtering search terms that should not turn up so many results, as well. I was searching for the phrase "townBox" the other day to figure out which pages were affected. It did turn up some pages but it did not turn up User:Karek, though the term is in fact found within the code of that page. I really don't know what is going on with search or what (if anything) we can do about it. ~ _{23:53, 25 April 2011}

Could that be becuse you were expecting results in places other than the main namespace? -- ϑ^anceϑ^anceℜ^evolution 05:37, 26 April 2011 (BST)

No, I don't think so. I used advance search to search all namespaces. It did find the search term in other namespace articles just not Karek's user page. ~ _{07:18, 26 April 2011}

It lets me do a search for "a", and shows tons of results for the letter a. Ironically, I also did a search for "the" and results came up. --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 00:04, 26 April 2011 (BST)

Rollbacks

I just did some rollbacks of vandalism yet the rollback is not logged in the history nor does it show in recent changes. I get the message that the rollback was successful and the pages was clearly rolled back but there is no history of it. Very weird and kind of frustrating. ~ _{00:25, 26 April 2011}

Files

I actually forgot about this important note because it's been around for so long. We can now undelete images. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 06:11, 26 April 2011 (BST)

Nice. ~ _{07:19, 26 April 2011}

It seems that images deleted before the update cannot be undeleted. Or perhaps images deleted long ago cannot be undeleted. I tried on one that I had uploaded but was deleted last november because I did not ark it. I was able to restore the page but not the image :( ~ _{07:51, 26 April 2011}

Yes, because before 1.8 there wasn't even an archive for them. Anything before now is gone for good. There's also a slight chance this will only work with new uploads but that's gonna be something we'll have to figure out the hard way. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 14:57, 26 April 2011 (BST)

Yeah I'd be surprised if any images pre-update would be undeletable. Since the entire point of not being able to undelete them was because once they were deleted they were purged from the server to stop stress and space cluttering etc -- ϑ^anceϑ^anceℜ^evolution 16:08, 26 April 2011 (BST)

I think its just the date of the deletion, not the date of the upload that matters. I also tried on an image that was uploaded before the update but was deleted after it. I was able to restore it without any problems. ~ _{18:05, 26 April 2011}

Admin Page Category

No need for that to be on a protected discussion page. No real need to categorise admin pages since the udwiki/administration prefix is categorisation itself. Uncategorised pages in a namespace (i can't remember the right terminology cause i haven't played for so long and i'm easter drunk) but yeah, if you ever need to search or something liek that i've always just used [2]. You could always categorise them if you wanted but I dunno, never saw it as a real need D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 08:14, 7 April 2012 (BST)

K. Was just afraid it had been lost when the new cycling method was implemented. If categories are needed, {{A/Dsub}} and the like will need to be edited so that the category is subst'd in each month. ~ _{14:56, 7 April 2012 (UTC)}

Block China

I know we were joking about it on IRC yesterday, Rev, but one of the sysops needs to undo the blocks you made. No sysop has the authority to block an entire range like that. For that matter, you didn't have the authority to block the other ranges you blocked in the last few days either. Sysops only have the authority to block specific IP addresses associated with adbot/vandal accounts and to block IP addresses associated with open proxies. You can't unilaterally block ranges in a preemptive maneuver. And this isn't something you or even the sysops can decide, so it shouldn't be discussed here. You need to ask the community about something like this since it exceeds your current authority.

Also, as an aside, how do you know no legitimate accounts have been affected? Maybe no legitimate existing ones, but what about legitimate new users who couldn't make an account because they were blocked? Unlikely, perhaps, but possible, and not something we should be preventing without further serious discussion. —Aichon— 17:07, 23 May 2012 (BST)

Firstly: I can absolutely block IP ranges which have only been used to spam this wiki. Secondly: I did not block any ranges pre-emptively. Every single one of those had only spambot contributions in the entire range blocked. And believe me, I checked. (As someone with Special:CheckUser access can vouch).
If someone cannot register a new account, they can use the email link that appears on the block screen, or register from an alternate IP. (The blocks only affect anonymous users and registrations). ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 01:21, 24 May 2012 (BST)

Email this User link only works if you've an account on the wiki with an email address linked to it. Plus, emailing an Op to register is really putting more work on the Op. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 01:44, 24 May 2012 (BST)

That's a setting that can be changed, but in the meantime I'd be happy to publicly list a contact email address if necessary. I'm banking on it being less work than constantly dealing with vandalism. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 03:12, 24 May 2012 (BST)

This should be handled through policy discussion. Aichon is right on the money, this goes beyond your authority as a sysops. -- Thadeous Oakley Talk 19:03, 23 May 2012 (BST)

I contend that it does not. Show, don't tell. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 01:23, 24 May 2012 (BST)

The onus is on you to show that you have the authority. Not the other way around. —Aichon— 02:11, 24 May 2012 (BST)

Discussion continued in IRC. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 03:12, 24 May 2012 (BST)

As an added note, if anyone wants to see said discussion, I have chat logs. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 04:22, 24 May 2012 (BST)

Sure, I'd like to see. ~ _{04:28, 24 May 2012 (UTC)}

My logs are better. (And as an interested party, you're welcome to view them.) ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 04:58, 24 May 2012 (BST)

IRC discussion resulted in TV Tropes getting linked and much time being suddenly misplaced. Also, there was a lack of agreement and much joviality, as-is usual between us. —Aichon— 04:45, 24 May 2012 (BST)

Wow, wtf? IP blocking and entire country without really discussing it with the community first. As the two people above me.--Shortround }.{ My Contributions 20:48, 23 May 2012 (BST)

I've not IP blocked an (note spelling) entire country, you dingus. I've blocked a few ranges that were only used for spam. This is the discussion. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 01:38, 24 May 2012 (BST)

IP range blocks are fine. Rev has shown plenty of just cause for blocking them, I think. If any legitimate user has fallen victim to colateral damage, we can deal with it through other channels. ~ _{04:12, 24 May 2012 (UTC)}

Just cause? Yes. Authority? No. If you check the Guidelines you'll see that it limits sysops in their authority to block people, and it's also clear that it only allows them to block users (and presumably their associated IP addresses) in response to something the user has done. I.e. You have to have made an account here and done something wrong before sysops are allowed to block you. Sysops are not permitted anywhere (except in the inapplicable open proxy policy) to block IP addresses unassociated with users. While I'm confident Rev was careful, he blocked IP addresses that were unassociated with any accounts here, which means that he exceeded his authority. It's another case of "right idea, wrong way". —Aichon— 04:45, 24 May 2012 (BST)

We also have the ability to block proxy and abusive IPs. Just because most sysops don't know how to work their tools does not prohibit those who do from using them effectively. Show me the harm and I'll concede that you may have a valid argument. FFS, as an administrator I have the responsibility to take care of that which I administrate. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 05:00, 24 May 2012 (BST)

You're making an end-run around my complaint about it being outside your authority. Pragmatically, I have few issues with what you did. That's besides the point, however. Allowing your actions would set a very dangerous precedent with regards to sysops and the limits of their authority. Beyond that, we both understand why the other disagrees, and this talk page isn't the forum for settling the matter, so I see little point in arguing with you here. —Aichon— 05:46, 24 May 2012 (BST)

I just wanted my disagreement on the record. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 05:56, 24 May 2012 (BST)

why is this being discussed here and not misconduct D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 09:44, 24 May 2012 (BST)

FTR i'm not saying that because I think it is. But plenty of people seem to be vehemently against this use of powers so it should be tossed there otherwise it's never going to go anywhere : |

Certainly an interesting idea. If there was a method for unregistered visitors to email ops I doubt I'd have any problem with it (also if it actually failed to work in any way in curbing bots I'd suggest it go personally). D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 10:02, 24 May 2012 (BST)

Can we set up a page with such low protection status that any non-registered user could edit it?--Shortround }.{ My Contributions 11:27, 24 May 2012 (BST)

Not without intervention by Kevan. As I said previously, I'd be happy to put up a public email address for appeals if we want to go down that road. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 11:36, 24 May 2012 (BST)

Yep, I know it needs to go to A/M, but I wanted to give it a day or two first. You'll notice above that I didn't argue any further specifically because I was aware that A/M was the place to sort this out. I'm simply in no rush to head to A/M, since I believe in trying to resolve things like this issue (i.e. easily undone, no demonstrable harm, no ill intentions) without its use when possible. —Aichon— 19:17, 24 May 2012 (BST)

After talking to Aichon, I'm thinking about starting a policy discussion. It'd be up tomorrow at the earliest because my head is killing me, and probably later because I'll be busy tomorrow. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 11:36, 24 May 2012 (BST)

You should consider policy discussions earlier. They're free, y'know -- boxy 07:04, 25 May 2012 (BST)

Users claiming to be other users

What should we do in situations such as this, in your opinion(s)? ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 02:23, 24 August 2013 (BST)

I'm confused what the problem is. From what I can see, it's a case of User A saying, "I'm User B and B can do whatever he wants with my stuff," and User B saying, "Yup, I'm User A." At that point, I'd let B do whatever he wants with A's stuff and would hold each of them accountable for anything that the other does. Seems pretty straightforward, since even if they're not the same person, they apparently want to be treated as if they were. —Aichon— 05:01, 24 August 2013 (BST)

I'm probably misremembering, but I don't think Revenant is allowed to release checkuser info like that. I know you can't revealing when two accounts are the same person. What about revealing two accounts are not? It seems to go against the same principal. --VVV ^RPMBG 02:07, 27 August 2013 (BST)

In general I agree that it's not good practice to go saying anything about checkuser, but I don't actually think Rev broke any rules in this case. Making the statement that "checkuser says they share an IP address" reveals hidden information with certainty. Making the statement that "checkuser says they don't share an IP address" only tells us that there's insufficient data to say anything with certainty. Additionally, sysops are permitted to reveal checkuser information when it's necessary to do so as part of administrative affairs (but they should always be reasonable when doing so), and Rev had a valid question to ask regarding how an administrative matter should be handled. Moreover, now that I'm thinking of it, having alts for no good reason is grounds for banning one of the accounts since alts without a purpose can only be used for purposes of bad faith, so between the question he was asking and that fact, Rev had plenty of valid reasons for revealing as little as he did. Again though, I agree that sysops should avoid doing so as much as possible, just because it can get sticky. —Aichon— 03:15, 27 August 2013 (BST)

The checkuser privacy policy is about preserving privacy not talking around the source of information that verifies something fishy is going on and that you're NOT someone. You want to see an example of an actual violation of the checkuser policy? Look up J3D's A/M history. The information is hidden becuase it can be used to get general home locals of wikizens or to harass them and those are the cases that are violations of the policy. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 04:23, 28 August 2013 (BST)

No real issue. It's a fairly clear case. --Rosslessness 08:22, 27 August 2013 (BST)