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Hey all. We're working out how to ratify the Global bans policy on the talk page and at Global bans/ratification. We're likely to hold either a vite ala the one for global sysops, or an RFC. Per one very sensible request, I just wanted to ask in advance for 2-3 Stewards who would be willing to close the discussion (and thus stay uninvolved in the deliberation). Having a couple volunteers in advance will put everyone's mind at ease I think. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 20:16, 27 April 2012 (UTC) Reply

You probably mean "a vote", not "a vite"? Ruslik (talk) 06:42, 9 May 2012 (UTC) Reply

The whole "three closers" system is not enshrined in policy even on enwiki, let alone globally. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 09:30, 3 June 2012 (UTC) Reply

Hello everybody,

Since my IPs were quite lot of time used by a spambot (creating self-redirects and nonsense pages, it hopelessly begins to be well-known). Could you just block all my accounts locally and delete the history of my contributions so that the spambot could not use my account to vandalize ? I just want to disappear completely not to be related with a spambot, until I find a mean to get rid of it and create a safe account. Thank you. Nebogipfel (talk) 20:43, 28 May 2012 (UTC) Reply

Dealt with at Steward_requests/Global#Global_unblock_for_User:Nebogipfel — billinghurst sDrewth 22:50, 28 May 2012 (UTC) Reply

This is not what I was asking for. Could you just do that or is it impossible? Thank you. Nebogipfel (talk) 23:44, 28 May 2012 (UTC) Reply

You have no evident relationship with a spambot (sulutil:Nebogipfel or luxo:Nebogipfel), and the statements elsewhere simply state that an underlying IP address you used in a dynamically allocated system aligned. As you are within your account, please feel free to update your password, and utilise a strong password. We generally do not block good accounts. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:49, 29 May 2012 (UTC) Reply

Could you just delete the history of my contributions? This spambot (or another resembling one) once compromised an account I created and that looked good. I really want to disappear. Thank you. Nebogipfel (talk) 05:23, 29 May 2012 (UTC) Reply

So a straight answer is, neither your account nor your edits will be deleted. If you want to disappear, stop using it. Bencmq (talk) 05:39, 29 May 2012 (UTC) Reply

Thekosher is globally blocked, after being banned by Jimbo from all projects, but, without any appropriate discussion on any noticeboard I can see, has had this block lifted on Commons (no search of the Commons administrators noticeboard shows any discussion of him) and a few other locations. Not only does he get people to pay him to edit wikipedia (w:MyWikiBiz), he also has a history of threatening others. A global ban should not be overridden., particularly without discussion. 86.179.74.155 06:20, 3 June 2012 (UTC) Reply

You're rehashing a two-year old event, as Jimbo said on his enwiki talk page. Drop the stick.--Jasper Deng (talk) 06:28, 3 June 2012 (UTC) Reply

Also, a global lock is a global lock, that's in effect regardless of local blocks. The account cannot be logged into, even if unblocked.--Jasper Deng (talk) 06:29, 3 June 2012 (UTC) Reply

Then how is he editing here? http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Thekohser The account is still globally locked. Obviously, something has gone wrong with the lock, because it's not working to keep him from logging on. 86.179.74.155 09:24, 3 June 2012 (UTC) Reply

That account is unattached from SUL. As the block log shows, a local admin removed the local block in the 25 days when the account wasn't globally locked. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 09:28, 3 June 2012 (UTC) Reply

Well, then, last question: Isn't that basically block evasion? 86.179.74.155 10:12, 3 June 2012 (UTC) Reply

Not at all. This is the decision of the local sysops. You should contact them, but I'm sorry stewards can hardly do something here... -- Quentinv57 ^(talk) 10:14, 3 June 2012 (UTC) Reply

No local sysops are available at the moment. See recent changes.--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:19, 23 June 2012 (UTC) Reply

Jasper Deng reports that this is done. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:55, 24 June 2012 (UTC) Reply

‎Hi,

Ansiklopedika.org is a general encyclopedia wiki in Turkish which is naturally disliked by most of the Turkish wikipedia users. User:Vito Genovese in the Turkish Wikipedia yesterday has gone back years past in the turkish wikipedia history to clean all the discussions and all other includes that contain the word ansiklopedika and censored all of them. He has got not a cause for that more than personal dislike. It is against the policy about censorship in wikipedia projects. I have tried to explain about the case in the turkish wikipedia but user kibele and use vito genovese censors all about complaints and words that contain the word Ansiklopedika. I have no good English and also very weak about the case so i need your help against the censorship of the word Ansiklopedika in Turkish wikipedia. Thanks a lot.88.249.24.234 09:17, 3 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Putting it mildly why is strictly necessary, in order to make tr.wiki work, to deal with ansiklopedika? --Vituzzu (talk) 09:19, 3 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

I find that censor necessary because of spammers and trolls. Some IPs come and attend at discussions once in every month just to write the name of the encyclopedia website. So the censorship is not unfair. Utku Tanrivere (talk) 22:47, 19 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Who knows that some i.p.s are not used by you Mr. Utku? Ozgurmulazimoglu (talk) 09:12, 20 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Ansiklopedika is not censored, it is blacklisted because of the trolling and spam by its users. The links are used for trolling wikipedia discussions. Most common usage form is the addition of "help ansiklopedika then!" to every unresolved discussion by an IP adress, which may sometimes be identified as our past trolls. Ansiklopedika.org was also used for spamming, but to a lesser extent. I know that ansiklopedika is a genuine attempt to create an encyclopedia, but it still lacks enough quality articles and the sheer number of trolls make it unreasonable to remove from blacklist.--Khutuck (talk) 06:53, 20 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

IE it is not a peer reviewed source which is why it is not a reliable source. Like all other typical wikis, forums, and blogs. -- とある白い猫 ^chi? 07:27, 20 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

May i ask sources for trolling and spam by its users please? Could you show a few spamming and trolling examples? You should know when you say something you have to prove it. Thank You.95.10.129.95 08:45, 20 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

lacks enough quality articles: Kürtaj at Ansiklopedika Kürtaj at TR wikipedia; Emniyet kemeri at Ansiklopedika Emniyet Kameri at tr wikipedia; Gelişmekte olan ülkeler at Ansiklopedika Gelişmekte olan ülkeler at tr wikipedia; Truva Atı at Ansiklopedika Truva Atı at TR wikipedia. And you are right Turkish wikipedia has not got 7500 galaxy stubs. Best regards. 95.10.129.95 08:57, 20 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

This is not the place for such a complaint. Feel free to file a Requests for comment. This noticeboard is for urgent steward interventions such as spam bot attacks or compromised accounts. -- とある白い猫 ^chi? 08:49, 20 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Thanks. 95.10.129.95 08:57, 20 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

• 212.121.219.1 xwiki-contribs • xwiki-date ^(alt) • ST • IP info • WHOIS • robtex • gblock • glist • abuselog • bullseye User:212.121.219.1 Global Edits

User:212.121.219.1 who is permanently blocked in the English, Assyrian, Navaho, Saterland Frisian, Thai and Welsh Wikipedias and temporarily blocked in various other Wikipedias and in Wikimdia Commons is spamming the same images cross-wiki in the Turkey and Azerbaijan country articles again under these IP addresses:

• 2.96.52.41 xwiki-contribs • xwiki-date ^(alt) • ST • IP info • WHOIS • robtex • gblock • glist • abuselog • bullseye User:2.96.52.41 Global Edits
• 78.147.119.95 xwiki-contribs • xwiki-date ^(alt) • ST • IP info • WHOIS • robtex • gblock • glist • abuselog • bullseye User:78.147.119.95 Global Edits
• 2.96.58.242 xwiki-contribs • xwiki-date ^(alt) • ST • IP info • WHOIS • robtex • gblock • glist • abuselog • bullseye User:2.96.58.242 Global Edits

The user was the subject of serious acts of vandalism as had been the case in English Wikipedia until the permanent block: English Wikipedia User talk:212.121.219.1

Other spammings from these addresses is happening cross-wiki and relentlessly so. Apart from vandalism I am afraid that this user has the ability to hack because some of the articles this user edited on were briefly disrupted. The IP address of the user is subject to change but stem from the same region and the pattern is the same. Due to the constantly changing IP addresses, is it possible to semi-protect the Turkey and Azerbaijan articles from IP vandalism, since many Wikipedia encyclopedias in other languages are small and ill prepared to deal with this ongoing vandalism?

Saguamundi 17:05, 16 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

If the images are the same, the abuse filter will work better. Ruslik (talk) 09:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Protection of articles is an issue for local wikis, not for stewards, though if requests are left unconsidered at local wikis then global sysops (and stewards) are able to undertake the consideration. The protection is not something that stewards can resolve by imposing a universal decision on communities. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:41, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Hi. I wish to file a complaint against User:Vituzzu for the abuse of his global sysop tool at tpi.wikipedia.org. As the local administrator to that site, I placed a block against a user under the name of Irclogbot around 2 months ago. There was at that time, no indication of the owner of the bot, and given the potential risk of (what I thought to be) a bot which logs IRC being present on the wiki, I proceeded to issue an indef block. About 1 hour ago, Vituzzu, performing a global sysop action, unblocked that bot without speaking to me first or even leaving a message on my talk page to ask me to unblock it.

My issue here is that I subsequently discovered from a discussion about the action with him on IRC in #wikipedia-en that not only did he unblock the bot, he owns the bot - and that to me, at least in my mind, is wrong. You should not be carrying out unblock actions against things or accounts you own. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Since the site has a local administrator (me), I am not happy that this action was performed, and consultation with another steward over this matter tells me that this could be seen as abuse of the tools. Your assistance in clearing this matter up, swiftly, would be welcomed. Thank you. BarkingFish (talk) 23:05, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Apologies for the error in the title, and thank you Peter Symonds for picking that up. I wrongly assumed the same person because of the user's irc nickname. Sorry. BarkingFish (talk) 23:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

I have just been educated about that myself: bots without edits are not supposed to be blocked, they do not need a contact-page until their first edit. So you should not have blocked this one. Seb az86556 (talk) 23:16, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Edit conflict, but along the lines of what Seb az86556 was saying, why did you block it in the first place? Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:17, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

(ec) no, wait, your reason was different. Seb az86556 (talk) 23:18, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Oh, I see, he just blocked it because he felt it was violating a Wikimedia policy without making any attempt to contact the bot owner or find out what the bot did. Makes sense. Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:20, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Yes, the reason was that I got it the wrong way round. That was my fault. The message had intended to infer that public logging of IRC via Wikipedia was forbidden, per the information here on meta in the IRC FAQ. I blocked this one because the immediate view of the username gave me the impression that the intention of the bot was to log IRC communications via Wikipedia. I am now, thanks to you Seb, only just educated also that bots without edits should not be blocked. So the issue is now two things: I should not have blocked the bot - which I accept, but also that Vituzzu as the owner of the account should not have unblocked it. I accept whatever comes to me for what I did wrong, I have no qualms about that at all. And, Ajraddatz - there was no indication of who owned the bot, I only found that out when I was informed of the unblock in #wikipedia-en. BarkingFish (talk) 23:24, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

My apologies for overruling you action but as I said on the irc your action has been made with a complete false reason (as you told me on the irc): the logging of most of IRC channel on the wiki is not allowed, while every content from wiki can be used everywhere (!!).

I recognize I would had better asked you before (and actually I didn't see you were on the irc) but honestly I thought it was a clear-cut case (so it perfectly fits our policies) on a global-sysop wiki so it didn't need more attention also considering it was a really low-low-importance issue.

Anyway I'd like to ask you why did you show to be fine with my explanation on the irc and then you started this thread, it's quite a strange behaviour imho. --Vituzzu (talk) 23:26, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

I wasn't completely fine with your explanation on IRC, you will note above though that part of it was an error in the way I worded the block. As I said, I had no idea who owned it, there was no indication on the talk page or the user page of who owned the account, so I had nobody physically whom I could contact to find out what it was supposed to do, prior to applying the block. It didn't seem to reach you that I have a talk page you could have written on, before doing this, and that you shouldn't be unblocking accounts that you own. A clear cut case (in my mind) is asking someone else to lift the block - on an account you own, it's the equivalent almost of unblocking yourself. Also, just to note - the reason I started the thread was discussion of this with someone else who is a steward, and whom I will not name unless ordered to do so - that person informed me that your actions amounted to abuse of GS privileges. BarkingFish (talk) 23:32, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Our "final statement" was "well I'd better ask you to do it" but now it seems to find out the "great abuse". Changing your mind is not so clean but is quite legit, the "steward of the Mistery" is also a weird detail but, it is, just a detail.

Anyway, meanwhile I was having that issue on tpi.wiki I was discussing about a similar problem (a completely wrong block) on nv.wiki but I did anything on my own. This clearly shows I thought the block of my irclogbot was just a mistake and it was a clear-cut problem to be solved. Again I apologised about it so it's pointless to go on saying the same things. If you think I did an unrepairable abuse start an rfc about me asking the removal of my tools, honestly I cannot do anything more than apologising for this supposed COI. --Vituzzu (talk) 23:42, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

We leave it there then. However, all stewards please note the message below. Thank you. BarkingFish (talk) 23:58, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Good evening. Further to the above, please be advised that a local community request has been placed at this location requesting input over the next 7 days, to ask the local community whether we should opt out of the Global sysop program. I will be in touch further should this gain consensus, or if there is no local objection within one week from the opening of the discussion. It may be slightly longer as I am moving to Germany over this coming weekend, and will be out of touch for a few days while I get set up. Please bear with me. Thank you. BarkingFish (talk) 00:01, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

All this because you made a bad decision blocking a bot... wow. Ajraddatz (Talk) 00:05, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

This is not a one sided thing, Ajraddatz, and please don't make it sound like it is. I might have made a bad decision - Vituzzu made another one - all I'm doing is asking the community if they still want GS there or not. I will abide by any decision either way, if they say they do, so be it. BarkingFish (talk) 00:16, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

But, as you say, you are the only one who usually votes on such things. That, and you are talking about an automatic pass if nobody objects, which seems very likely. Ajraddatz (Talk) 02:39, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

I got my admin perms the same way, because nobody objected. Should I hand those back too because it seemed "very likely" that it would automatically pass? BarkingFish (talk) 12:53, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

I kinda have to agree, this proposal seems very pointy (pardon the cliché)Frood (talk) 00:09, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

It's not pointy, but it's hopeless; you are in the same quagmire as any other "small" wiki. You now need something like 5 (or what wasit?) active users who support your idea. If you don't get those, global sysops will remain. This was the same situation that led to global sysops in the first place: Smaller wikis' protests were outvoted by users from wikis who would not be affected by any decision anyways. So I suggest you just close that request, you'll never get enough people to support you. Seb az86556 (talk) 00:26, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

In the past, Seb az86556, due to the limited size of the active userbase at tpi, we have gone either based on any comments, or on an absence of objection to a proposal. I was made an administrator there on the same basis. This is why I put the message there - to give people a chance to say yes or no, and on a small wiki, the fact that we can be "outvoted" by non local members doesn't seem right. I will leave the message there. A local consultation process is simply not possible - it's the same reason we don't have a local RFA procedure, or I wouldn't have needed to come through the stewards to do it. BarkingFish (talk) 00:30, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

I understand. All of us unimportant people are in the same boat. Nonetheless, few or no votes will not be accepted by meta to opt you out of global sysops. Or maybe you could start the revolution and let everybody else know... Seb az86556 (talk) 00:32, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Precisely why I have plastered the notification of the discussion up in the Sitenotice there. Hopefully enough people will see it, and comment. I don't see anything on the Global Sysops page here regarding opting out, which gives a minimum limit - it just says "local consensus" and as I say, we don't have a big enough userbase to gain consensus for damn near anything - so we get ignored because enough people aren't there to say yes or no? BarkingFish (talk) 00:37, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Yes. Not saying that's right or I approve of it, but "yes". Seb az86556 (talk) 01:14, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who disapproves of that. Regardless of the size of the community, something should be in place so that "no objections from local users" should be allowed as a reason to turn something on or off. We did it with the abuse filter, I got my admin privs the same way, what the heck is so different about this? Anyway, I'm out for now. I'll carry on this tomorrow, but there needs to be a policy change here. Ignoring the issue because we don't have enough people to speak out about it is absolutely wrong. BarkingFish (talk) 01:31, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

┌───────────────────┘
This is one of the most ridiculous threads I've seen here. The global sysop proposal was passed, by consensus from users, across an extremely wide spectrum of Wikimedia projects. The purpose is to assist small communities with few or no active administrators with routine maintenance. You are putting your project at a severe disadvantage if you attempt to opt-out, because you are the only administrator; so if you are absent at any point, stewards will only deal with stuff anyway. The fact that you disagree with this one action (from a steward, not a global sysop) is fair enough, but to attempt to opt-out of the global sysop wikiset is a rather pathetic overreaction. I highly doubt this proposal will get the consensus needed, but really, a bit of perspective is needed here. PeterSymonds (talk) 06:47, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

The way you're portraying this is simply not true. Global sysops was passed by a consensus of users from English, German, French, Dutch, and maybe a few other so-called large wikipedias. Objections from those who'd actually be affected by the change were overruled. Seb az86556 (talk) 08:31, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Thank you Seb. Peter - you will notice that I am not attempting to get our Wikipedia opted out - I am simply, as I stated to Ajraddatz above - "asking the community if they still want GS there or not." - But as you already said, if we don't have the global sysops there, the stewards will do the job anyway. So what is wrong with getting rid of the global sysops since the stewards can back up and do the work anyhow? As for the GS policy being passed by the larger wikipediæ, whatever happened to listening to the little guy? BarkingFish (talk) 12:51, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

It is very unlikely tpiwiki will be opted out of GS wikis as you're the only active admin there. The other one is inactive for over six years now. Trijnstel _talk 14:12, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

Hello. I made a request for changing username for me and for my bot. I know that's too much, but it's just a notification. Thanks.--Avocato (talk) 02:46, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Reply

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