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This page is intended to assist in policy enforcement, and to provide a centralized location for protection, unprotection and undeletion requests.
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this IP seems to vandalize in series. Latest activity was a little while ago. I leave it to the admins to decide on appropriate action. (Please let me know if there's a better spot to highlight this or if it's even necessary.) — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 09:15, September 26, 2009 (UTC)
Gone for 2 weeks - that should work alright, we can't really block for long periods of time for dynamic IP addresses, which this user may be. That sort of vandalism isn't much of a problem, as it only requires a click on the "revert" button, just annoying really RandomTime 09:21, September 26, 2009 (UTC)
Cool. I figured a 3-day ban would slow this particular series. (I wonder if it's a completely random IP, as the past contributions a few months ago were similar in tone, style, content.) Anyhow, thanks for taking care of them, however temporary it turns out to be. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 09:28, September 26, 2009 (UTC)
That almost looked like sandboxing. O_o RoseOfKali 10:52, November 5, 2009 (UTC)
Sandboxing on the main page, though? Dunno about that. But yeah, we've seen vandals like this before, some of them being much more obvious (included cursing/slander of Anet etc.), and they usually stop after a single vandalism/revert like that. No clue why they revert themselves, but at least that's less work for us to do. And no need for a block unless they do it again. —Dr Ishmael 14:27, November 5, 2009 (UTC)
Saw an edit link on the main page, decided to vandalize, then noticed it didn't actually affect the mainpage, is my guess. --◄mendel► 14:49, November 5, 2009 (UTC)
Ah, didn't think of that. Doesn't explain the other self-reverting vandals, though, since the majority of them weren't on the main page. —Dr Ishmael 15:13, November 5, 2009 (UTC)
True, but he seems to have left after those edits, so there's no need to block right now (i.e. we don't need to stop him since he stopped himself). —Dr Ishmael 15:13, November 5, 2009 (UTC)
We don't play wii on this site?
This page appears to be another type of vandalism (at least one I hadn't seen before). A quick google search finds at least a half-dozen links with identical or near identical text posted to forums and wikis. (Apparently Wii Ombouwen means Wii conversion or Wii convert.) Eaglemut marked the page for deletion. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 19:20, November 5, 2009 (UTC)
This kinda stuff's recurring, ("I just joined the site" spam), seemingly meaningless but could be used to find out inactive pages that then can be spammed more. I'd suggest that when you see a page like this being created, you blank it and put a delete tag on it RandomTime 21:38, November 5, 2009 (UTC)
I'd prefer you don't blank it. It's annoying to have to look in the history if the page is useful/should be retained elsewhere if that step can also be skipped by not blanking pages randomly in the first place (don't we ban for that?). --- -- (contribs) (talk) 21:42, November 5, 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, standard operating procedure is to not blank pages when you're putting a delete tag on them. Remember these pages aren't linked anyplace, except the "new and improved" Community widget, unfortunately: maybe we need to develop a procedure to move them out of Mainspace, e.g. from name to GuildWiki:Spam/name ? That would immediately remove them from exposure, and any editor can do that. If we didn't actually delete them then (maybe blank them and put a {{spam}} tag on), the pages would remain in the spammer's list of contributions. Opinions? --◄mendel► 07:31, November 6, 2009 (UTC)
I think it's a good idea to move the page into a quarantined space so ordinary contribs don't have to wait for a sysop to delete. Plus: it's easy. Afterwards... what's the advantage of leaving spam articles in the contribution lists? And would we want to do the same thing to IPs (that can get re-used by legitimate anons)? — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 07:42, November 6, 2009 (UTC)
I'm not certain there is an advantage, except when we're dealing with repeat offenders: pulling up their contribs and seeing contribs in the spam space would make their machinations obvious. (Admins can look up deleted contributions, though.) --◄mendel► 08:13, November 6, 2009 (UTC)
Since admins are the ones who will make the block, and since they can see deleted contributions, I don't see any reason to not delete spam. I don't understand the rationale for moving spam out of mainspace, though - even if it gets spammed more, it all goes *poof* once the page is deleted (i.e. disappears from RC and editor(s)'s contribs), so what's the problem? —Dr Ishmael 14:24, November 6, 2009 (UTC)
Monaco users (i.e. all anonymous readers) see a widget on the sidebar that lists recent mainspace edits, and by moving the page out of mainspace, its exposure is immediately reduced considerably. --◄mendel► 22:40, November 6, 2009 (UTC)
Particularly since there are now frequent periods lasting hours without a single mainspace edit. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 01:10, November 7, 2009 (UTC)
Urgent request: delete original image
Image:1751058.JPG The original version of this includes information that should not be displayed on the wiki. The original contributor replaced that version with a less risky version, so I don't want to tag for deletion. Is there any way to delete just the original? Thanks! (If all works, I imagine the last link will become a redlink.) — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:47, December 20, 2009 (UTC)
Done. --- -- (contribs) (talk) 18:32, December 20, 2009 (UTC)
So Happy Holidays, all! A F KWhenNeeded 15:07, December 25, 2009 (UTC)
Because the best place to wish everyone a joyful Christmas isn't the Community Portal, but the Admin noticeboard, huh :P
Happy holy days (again to AFK, iirc), regardless :) --- -- (contribs) (talk) 15:10, December 25, 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I recognise that :P
I just thought I'd remember you lot on this special day, and well... I don't really know the community per se. So... yeah. A F KWhenNeeded 17:09, December 25, 2009 (UTC)
Emergency request to wish everyone happy and merry." ←← Mebbe that's why it's good to post on the admin noticeboard? — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 18:00, December 25, 2009 (UTC)
Monaco issues
I received an email from a user saying they had difficulty seeing the wiki, as the monaco sidebar had moved itself to the content area. This issue started on Jan 1st I'm not seeing the error, can anyone else see it, either logged in - or logged out? RandomTime 10:17, January 2, 2010 (UTC)
Lcawte on #wikia confirms this for logged out users, default monaco - not for logged in uses RandomTime 10:33, January 2, 2010 (UTC)
Logged out user issues.
This is Gigathrash. I logged out to see if I could recreate the above problem, and I couldn't. HOWEVER this was because my skin became an odd combination between monaco and monobook, using the monaco recent changes, and monobook everything else. But the real problem is that any page content not only pushes the side bar to all the way down below it (it is still to the left, but below the page) AND the log in page is blank. So I can't log back in. Also, all content is centered.--174.23.201.120 10:42, January 2, 2010 (UTC)
Actually, it isn't just content. Everything besides the navbar is centered.--174.23.201.120 10:43, January 2, 2010 (UTC)
Try using monobook to log back in - this just keeps getting worse, and on top of it all, wikia keeps hanging, preventing my edits. RandomTime 11:16, January 2, 2010 (UTC)
Not all pages are affected, just ones with recent edits. Navigation bar is overlapping main content. Text is centered in main content boxes. When logged in moving from an ok page to an affected page logs you out.Thorn17 14:19, January 2, 2010 (UTC)
I had an add overlapping the main nav bar, and everything was centered. A friend has a screen that looks just like the one on the screenshot. When logged in everything is fine Lยкץ๒๏ץtalk 14:22, January 2, 2010 (UTC)
Both these issues were caused by a missing tag in the site notice. I've fixed it. —Dr Ishmael 15:58, January 2, 2010 (UTC)
Hell, I'm sorry guys, should have been more careful when coding the notice (I hate it when these things are my fault) RandomTime 20:35, January 2, 2010 (UTC)
Eh, easy mistake, I've done the same thing numerous times (not in a place where it would affect the whole site, but still). I wasn't pointing any fingers, but since you went and apologized, I guess we'll forgive you. :P —Dr Ishmael 20:42, January 2, 2010 (UTC)
hmm i'm still seeing the issue with the nav bar overlapping with the content, going into history and then into discussion and then to article tab fixes it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by24.6.5.11 (contribs) .
As will purging the page, it's wikia's cache that hasn't been updated yet that's causing the problem RandomTime 10:24, January 3, 2010 (UTC)
Gigathrash, if you log out you need to clear your cookies, or close your browser and restart, because the wikia servers will still track your HTML session and remember your old skin settings partially. --◄mendel► 10:05, January 5, 2010 (UTC)
freenode irc channel
To keep the #GuildWiki IRC channel on freenode (the alternative is setting up #wikia-guildwars , but I'd rather not have a freenode channel at all than that one), we need to do a registration to comply with freenode policy. For that, we need to name a primary contact. I would ask you all to approve that I am our primary contact in irc matters, or to suggest somebody else. (This does not concern the gamesurge #gwiki channel). Please respond even if you don't care about irc. --◄mendel► 11:57, January 5, 2010 (UTC)
My suggestion is that we remove the category pages for explorable areas, ie Kessex Peak, as they do not seem to have any function (correct me if I'm wrong).
On a completely different note, why can't we do an in-wiki link to category pages? --Kirbman 18:51, January 26, 2010 (UTC)
If you try to do a regular link to a category page, it will put the page in the category instead. To make a wikified link to a category or file, put a colon before the link name inside the brackets like such [[:Category:Kessex Peak]] to get Category:Kessex Peak --Gimmethegepgun 18:57, January 26, 2010 (UTC)
You see that there are pages in those categories, why do you say that they have no function? You use them to "tag" NPCs with the locations they're in, and that information can be used better than the list on the page. --◄mendel► 21:48, January 26, 2010 (UTC)
I've always wondered how the list on Kessex Peak is worse than the cat. Unlike the cat, you get levels (well, depends), categorisation by 'faction', a list of bosses and profession. What does the cat give? An alphabetical list of monsters. Do explain, Mendel :) --- -- (contribs) (talk) 22:29, January 26, 2010 (UTC)
Blah blah category tree is the best wiki navigation etc, also it's the "index" of this "encyclopedia". (T/C) 03:47, January 27, 2010 (UTC)
Just off the top of my head: the category system is something that automata can work with (none of that fuzzy "free text" stuff); it provides a level of redundancy to those other lists that can be used to check for errors and omissions, at very little extra cost. --◄mendel► 01:31, January 28, 2010 (UTC)
Delete war
User:Dr ishmael re-reverted a deletion here, ignoring my attempt to discuss the issue; I've moved the page to my userspace as a compromise for now.
The admin noticeboard isn't the place to discuss whether the pages should be kept or not;User_talk:M.mendel/Zaishen_Challenge_Quest/archive is. What I want to have discussed here is whether this was proper operating procedure. Personally, I think it wasn't, but I'm afraid to take admin action myself because of this - I expect I'd come across as pursuing a personal issue, maybe dismissed as going overboard, and thus I'd like wider comment on it.
Feel free to say something on the issue, regradless of your status on the wiki! --◄mendel► 22:12, February 22, 2010 (UTC)
It seems to me a bit like an issue with 1RV. Content was disputed, should have been discussed after the revert. --JonTheMon 23:19, February 22, 2010 (UTC)
"regradless"? What, so you aren't letting people that have dropped out of college and come back? Or does that mean no one who's graduated twice (4 years then grad school)? Stop discriminating, man! --Gimmethegepgun 01:19, February 23, 2010 (UTC)
There already was an on-going discussion at Talk:Zaishen Challenge Quest#retaining daily quest lists where I stated that I had "completely removed the manually-updated history tables" after deleting that page. The consensus (among everyone who had bothered to participate in the discussion) was that there was no worthwhile reason for keeping that archive. If mendel didn't agree with that consensus, he should have joined the discussion before I deleted the page - I thought it was pretty clear from the beginning that my intent was to get rid of all the extraneous archive/forecast subpages. Since consensus had already been established without mendel making any comment whatsoever on the issue, I felt that he was the one acting out-of-line by reverting the consensus-supported delete.
And yes, this does seem to be turning in to a personal issue. This is at least the third time in the past two months that mendel has directly overruled my administrative actions before opening discussing on the issue. —Dr Ishmael 03:36, February 23, 2010 (UTC)
I think pointing out that page on the second delete would have sufficiently calmed things down. Or even on the first edit, for folks like me who weren't following the initial conversation. --JonTheMon 05:43, February 23, 2010 (UTC)
I would ask that if an administrative action is the result of a consensus, that you point to the location of the discussion in the summary of your edit. This is the second time that this has confused me. Thank you. --◄mendel► 22:10, February 23, 2010 (UTC)
Well excuse me for expecting people to check RC to see if there might be an ongoing discussion pertaining to the deletion. Or is our bureaucrat too busy with more important things to pay attention to what's actually happening on the wiki? Do you just check the deletion log to see what I've deleted that you can revert to irritate me? Because that's exactly what it feels like you're doing, and yes, it's working. —Dr Ishmael 00:45, February 24, 2010 (UTC)
I should also probably mention that Ishy is a trusted editor, so he should have had a reason to delete the page, which you, mendel, could have asked for. --JonTheMon 14:05, February 24, 2010 (UTC)
I started a discussion on the talk page, the standard practice is "revert and discuss", it's not a highly exposed place where a bad revert might hurt, either. Dr Ishmael gave a reason on the deletion - how am I supposed to know that there's more? Is it standard practice to check all pages something is transcluded on (when it isn't any more) or places that might reference it (in the case before, a user's talk page)? I am trying, with my limited time, to review what happens to some important pages, and I glance at every admin action if I can, not just Dr Ishmael's. If I was going to just trust you all, I probably should do nothing and wait for my talkpage to ping - however, sometimes I do spot problems or errors that nobody else has seen, so I don't want to get that comfy just yet. --◄mendel► 22:59, February 24, 2010 (UTC)
You mean like this "trusted editor" blooper? :P RoseOfKali 02:32, February 25, 2010 (UTC)
I'm not trying to be rude, but... doesn't "and I glance at every admin action if I can" slightly undermine the whole RfA system GuildWiki has in place?
We trust you enough to... not trust you at all. A F KWhenNeeded 11:56, February 26, 2010 (UTC)
Getting a little edgy there, Ishy, try not to let it get personal. No real personal opinion on this myself, though I would like to point out that this is rather similar to, say, us keeping skill histories around. Those, however, do serve a bit of a use, though, in that someone might have said something about a skill in the past that makes NO sense now, you look at the history, and see what it was when they said it. Though ofc that doesn't stop people (mainly IPs) from commenting on 4 year old comments for skills that are completely different from what they used to be --Gimmethegepgun 19:10, February 24, 2010 (UTC)
tl;dr You remember those times when you reminded me how you don't check RC (anymore?), mendel? Yeah, about that. I'd have to say that falls under as reasonable, if not more so, an editor expectation as linking to a relevant discussion(s) in one's edit summary. (Which, you're probably aware, very few people ever do.) "There is truth in both sides of the argument." (T/C) 10:02, February 25, 2010 (UTC)
My view on deletions is that something deleted is considered to have a 100% consensus, if any admin-deleted page is asked to be reverted with any relevant argument to go with it, then it doesn't have full concencus, and a full deletion dicussion can start - in order for all users to dicuss it, it needs to be restored, there wasn't concensus, so it should have been restored RandomTime 15:35, February 28, 2010 (UTC)
Again? Has he been suspended for it yet? And is there a way to tell if those IP's were also his? In any case, he had more than one edit of the same kind on there, so a temp suspension is in order, imo, for 1RV and for "mild" vandalism. RoseOfKali 02:23, March 30, 2010 (UTC)
I was tempted to do that, but after the drama I've been involved with lately, I don't want to be seen as "getting personal" again. —Dr Ishmael 03:17, March 30, 2010 (UTC)
Well, from the WHOIS of those IPs, they're pretty far apart, and considering one has vandalized in the past (big time) I doubt that one's a proxy. Still, he did revert a revert, and reintroduced something extremely similar after the protection wore off, so I wouldn't say it's unjustified. I much prefer spamvandals in this regard, there's no question about banning them --Gimmethegepgun 04:11, March 30, 2010 (UTC)
I would like this conflict to be resolved without bans being necessary. 04:17, March 30, 2010 (UTC)
Then resolve it. I don't know what the heck to do anymore. —Dr Ishmael 04:24, March 30, 2010 (UTC)
This as been discussed both on the talk page of the article and Ismael took the steps to post on DNA's talk page. If it happens again, there is no choice but to use a ban. I can see that others don't want it to escalate to that, and neither would I, but steps of escalation need to be followed. I remember DNA being a very good contributor around here, and I don't know what all of a sudden sparked this incident. Hopefully this stops here, eh? -- Isk8(T/C) 14:44, March 30, 2010 (UTC)
I agree that there's a point where enough is enough, and I'm not saying "DON'T BAN DNA"; I would just be happier than a hog in a mud wallow if we didn't reach that point. If the whole thing is dropped as per Isk8's posts, or if we need to compromise on an armor description, that's fine with me. 15:10, March 30, 2010 (UTC)
As Isk8 pointed out on the armor's talk page, why does it need any more description than the other armor descriptions? Does the exotic armor description need to say that it has stripes, or that the Canthan armor that it has lots of bangles? Not really, as anyone can look and see that. The Shing Jea armor doesn't need a description about the flattery of female rit's busts because anyone can see it.Jink 17:05, March 30, 2010 (UTC)
A description should be perfectly acceptable if you can stand up in front of a teacher/parent meeting, say "this is what I do in my spare time" and read it out loud to them. I wouldn't dare do that with the changes being introduced there, would you? I was surprised to see that being done by DNA in the first place (but I was more than willing to let that one fly as humor, it made me chuckle), and then again after all the IP's re-re-re-reverting. However, he has been warned, so if it happens again, it would be safe to say that more than words are needed. RoseOfKali 19:08, March 30, 2010 (UTC)
GWiki's browser icon
How come it changed? (Whatever it's called, the little icon that displays in the browser tabs and the address bar. Favicon?) It used the be the shield with swords, like the main logo, and now it's just an ugly blue w-looking thing. Me no likey... :( RoseOfKali 18:15, April 1, 2010 (UTC)
Still the same old for me. It tends to Blink in and out of reality when Wikia's servers are acting up, though. --- -- (contribs) (talk) 18:43, April 1, 2010 (UTC)
Mine hasn't changed either. The blue W is Wikia's generic favicon, it probably gets loaded if your browser can't access our custom one for whatever reason. —Dr Ishmael 19:01, April 1, 2010 (UTC)
Yup, still the same. Though iirc, I've had something similar for a very short time at UnAnswers@wikia.--El_Nazgir 20:05, April 1, 2010 (UTC)
Stupid Ukrainian internet... <_< RoseOfKali 21:09, April 1, 2010 (UTC)
No, stupid Wikia, it loads for all of us, sometimes RandomTime 13:41, April 2, 2010 (UTC)
I agree, I'm having the same icon. I rarely see the Wiki "w".Venom20 14:17, April 2, 2010 (UTC)
Yay, the normal icon is back. :] RoseOfKali 19:55, April 2, 2010 (UTC)
I don't trust the Wikia image servers anymore with anything, so I load such images from my own hard drive now. Although even that still fails once in a while. :\ (T/C) 18:20, April 3, 2010 (UTC)
It's already ended, it was 5 minutes. Not even sure what for --Gimmethegepgun 19:17, April 13, 2010 (UTC)
It was for science. Misery 19:25, April 13, 2010 (UTC)
It's Felix Omni, who's a Bureaucrat due to being one of the most trusted members of the community. Nobody cares. A F KWhenNeeded 20:48, May 10, 2010 (UTC)
Someone reconfirm me. 00:24, May 12, 2010 (UTC)
/me reconfirms you. --◄mendel► 15:24, May 12, 2010 (UTC)
Has this wiki lost motivation?
Why is there no main War_in_Kryta page? The other wiki has one. It seems like this wiki has just given up trying to be relevant.71.245.193.139 05:26, May 17, 2010 (UTC)
We're not documenting the event in a War in Kryta page, we have all the pages for the NPCS and event locations. Just because TOW documents a certain event in one way, doesn't mean we are going to cover it in the same way. RandomTime 05:57, May 17, 2010 (UTC)
I like this section more now. A F KWhenNeeded 09:13, May 27, 2010 (UTC)
Heh, paragon FTW RandomTime 10:02, May 27, 2010 (UTC)
Incoming!
With the recent announced "war on botters", the next few days might see heighten levels of vandalism on the wiki as ppl discover their accounts banned and seek to take it out on all things Guild Wars. So would encourage admins to perhaps patrol a little more attentively in the short term if possible. --Wolfie (talk|contribs) 23:17, May 26, 2010 (UTC)
o7, here to serve. RandomTime 23:32, May 26, 2010 (UTC)
Oh yes, all us regular editors and contributors have done our share of rv'ing (lost count myself), but they can be persistent little buggers sometimes, and that's when it's useful to have someone actively around who is able to make them sit in the "naughty corner" for a while. Anyway, happily my concerns over large increases in vandalism seems to have been mostly unrealised (probably vented themselves sufficently on GWwiki instead :D ). --Wolfie (talk|contribs) 06:43, June 11, 2010 (UTC)
Not sure exactly what the problem is, but try editing it now to see if it works. It might be because of URLs you put in that tripped the filter. If it does work now, then it's an odd issue, but we've got more info to send to wikia. If it still doesn't work, post here, and I can try some other tricks to make the page work. RandomTime 17:06, June 5, 2010 (UTC)
A post here about the issue may help it not crop up again (according to Charit on IRC). UPDATE: You'll need to Request Editing rights firstRandomTime 17:50, June 5, 2010 (UTC)
Alright, I've removed this from the filter. It was from a spambot back in November 2009. Thanks for letting us know. --Charitwo (talk) 15:17, June 6, 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Charit RandomTime 16:53, June 6, 2010 (UTC)
For the record, we've also added some text to the message you get when you trigger the filter to where you can report false positives. --Charitwo (talk) 19:59, June 6, 2010 (UTC)
With the rise of automated spam and spambots, a spam filter is very useful (I'm not sure how much it prevents, but I would think that it does actually stop a major automated spam headache for users and sysops) yes, false positives can be annoying (thanks Charit for clarifying the reporting feature for false positives, that should help). What other features do you think annoy users, F1? There might be ways to ask wikia to tone them down, or have them disabled on a per-wiki basis if they are unneeded here, but there haven't been great complaints about particular features thus far. RandomTime 23:22, June 6, 2010 (UTC)
As per RT, the number one complaint people have about wikia is that it's wikia. And they're not going to change that. 02:18, June 7, 2010 (UTC)
I would complain more, but I'm sticking with the Monobook skin, so I never get to see most of these "improvements" that Wikia is shoving down our throats. —Dr Ishmael 14:20, June 7, 2010 (UTC)
(Reset indent) You could do that, might be a little messy with the paperwork, I don't think private companies normally hold sovereignty to rebel against and reclaim. You could always Change your skin preferences. It's up to you, really RandomTime 18:02, June 7, 2010 (UTC)
At least substitute that failure of a template you bastard! Anyway, considering the morons at the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are treated as people, I guess that means it would be possible to guillotine them --Gimmethegepgun 18:12, June 7, 2010 (UTC)
Remove the useravatar log from RC (assuming we can)
Whenever someone changes their avatar, it appears on RC. This is annoying because there's no easy way to see it, and so it just gets in the way. I would like to contact wikia to see if we could get rid of it from RC, and just have it as a seperate log, but they'll probably want consensus. Any objections to these plans? -- RandomTime 19:54, July 12, 2010 (UTC)
No objections, I completely support this. —Dr Ishmael 20:08, July 12, 2010 (UTC)
My mighty bureaucrat opinion is that I am in favor of this. 20:43, July 12, 2010 (UTC)
The point of the log is for us to check for vandalistic avatars. To do that, go to the user's page via the RC link. If you're on monobook, click "Monaco View" in the sidebar ("support" box) at this point. If the avatar is inappropriate, admins can delete it with a link right there, I believe.
An avatar uploaded here would show up on wikis all across Wikia, so if we removed our capability to check them, vandals would always upload their avatars here.
In the "enhanced" RC the log is always a single entry, hardly annoying.
I think it would be more fruitful to ask Wikia whether they finally have implemented a way to get an avatar from a username (much like a Media: link works for files); that's been asked for for quite some time, and if it's done right, we could probably do some nice things with that. --◄mendel► 21:34, July 12, 2010 (UTC)
I don't use enhanced RC, and yes - if there was a way if I could see it from the log, withought going through the steps, it's be fine. There's always Special:log. -- RandomTime 21:56, July 12, 2010 (UTC)
Even if someone does upload a "vandalistic" avatar, what can we do about it? I don't see any link "right there" to delete the image or anything like that. —Dr Ishmael 20:36, July 14, 2010 (UTC)
Me neither, I've contacted wikia about the issue, regardless -- RandomTime 21:43, July 14, 2010 (UTC)
Click on the avatar on the userpage, that should open a popup menu. --◄mendel► 21:45, July 14, 2010 (UTC)
Mouseover gives me this menu (see thumbnail), but clicking it is just a self-link back to the userpage. —Dr Ishmael 22:20, July 14, 2010 (UTC)
I just noticed I missed a reply here. When avatars were new, there was some obvious way for us to delete them, and I know I did it once or twice to find out how it worked. So either Wikia have removed it, or changed it. I posed a question at w:Forum:Deleting_masthead_avatars.
The capability has been removed, due to abuse (which I feel smug about predicting). So we can't actually do anything about bad avatars except Special:Contact them, which means the upload log is of very limited use - any user who sees an inappropriate avatar can Special:Contact it, after all. Under these circumstances, I don't mind the log being removed. --◄mendel► 08:22, July 30, 2010 (UTC)
We definitely did originally have the ability to delete avatars because I remember testing them with you, mendel, and indeed it was an extraordinary bad idea. The founder of bufuwiki, maintaining 2 articles since 2005, should not have arbitrary control over every other user in the database. 12:49, July 30, 2010 (UTC)
It's worse than that because you can make your own Wikia wiki in two shakes of a lamb's tail. --◄mendel► 13:05, July 30, 2010 (UTC)
(RI) Throw a link in here and prevent changes to the log from appearing, imo. Those who believe avatars should be monitered have a reminder on the RC page, and those who want the entry of it blocked get their wish, also. A F KWhenNeeded 22:48, July 14, 2010 (UTC)
Blank pages are blank
This is Gigathrash, I'm not editing while logged in because my personal settings have been broken by one of the many wikia updates since I have used the wiki and I get blank pages while loading. This is ALL pages, including special, mainspace, userspace, settings, edit, etc. If someone could either clear my monobook.css or somehow change my settings so that I can edit it, that would be preferable.--174.23.222.25 18:06, July 29, 2010 (UTC)
You're using Monobook and Ad-Block+? User_talk:Vipermagi#monobook_borked, try that :) --Vipermagi 18:46, July 29, 2010 (UTC)
What subscriptions are you using, Giga? And when were they last updated? The filter in question is ##.content-ads, which happens to be the class of the primary content div on Monobook. However, it's no longer in my ABP, so I had thought EasyList had just added it (accidentally?) and then quickly removed it for some reason. But if you're still having the problem today, then I don't know, unless your ABP hasn't updated the subscriptions in a while. —Dr Ishmael 19:21, July 29, 2010 (UTC)
The Visigoths sacked and looted Rome; they didn't sell it engine parts. ;) --◄mendel► 07:42, August 18, 2010 (UTC)
Maybe the "block reason" dropdown should have "advertising vandal" added to it; what Cq inserted wasn't, unfortuantely, nonsense. --◄mendel► 07:44, August 18, 2010 (UTC)
Still, didn't make much sense imo. :P --El_Nazgir 07:48, August 18, 2010 (UTC)
I didn't tag their uploaded image for deletion, assuming that y'all monitor RC more aggressively than I. Let me know if I should move to Plan B for the future. (Side benefit of this event: first time I got to use the rollback function since I had been blessed with the responsibility for avoiding the accidental mouse-clicks. Kinda fun, actually.) —Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 07:58, August 18, 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, but we've had that particular reason at least 3 times recently. Also, El Nazgir got the image 'cause he's a pro. --80.228.212.39 13:47, August 18, 2010 (UTC)
I moved [[:Image:DeepWound.JPG]] to [[:Image:DeepWound.jpg]] (maybe it should even be at Image:Deep Wound.jpg?). This resulted in more double-redirects than I would enjoy manually correcting. Could someone instruct their bot accordingly? Thank you. —Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 16:00, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
I went ahead and moved it again to add the space (so it will work with the skill icon template). I'll take care of the link updates tonight, my work firewall blocks AWB. —Dr Ishmael 16:10, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
Upgraded status to cooler and double-cooler (which holds at least 8 6-packs or 12 bottles of wine ^-^). —Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 00:02, September 18, 2010 (UTC)
Update site message request
The site message currently points to the talk page of the Leaving Wikia convo. Now that the main page offers a summary of the issues and the proposals, can we update the message accordingly? Perhaps:
In the past, we haven't used this page for this purpose, partially because it defeats GW:QDV, and partially because it serves more as a discussion page. Instead, you can use {{ban}} on a vandal's userpage or talkpage. While that incurs an extra deletion, wikis that track vandals on a noticeboard need to delete the vandal notices from same, which is more work when there is traffic on the page than deleting an otherwise empty userpage. --◄mendel► 09:28, October 18, 2010 (UTC)
Felix had already blocked the IP before you posted here, so that one was pointless in any case. —Dr Ishmael 13:16, October 18, 2010 (UTC)
I posted here because I actually had to revert multiple pages (and that never happens). I didn't see any evidence of admin action (and I checked). I am never going to post on a putative vandal's talk/user page (there's no point in discussion and it only lets them know details of the reaction they caused). I assumed that the best place to report a request for action would be on the single non-user page I am sure that admins visit, but vandals don't.
Ish: I thought an admin might want to hide that IP's edit summaries, since they are so inflammatory. @Mendel: what? How is posting here louder than actually posting on a talk/user page? When they login again (with same IP), they'll see a user page note, but they won't notice anything here.
I had planned to keep an eye out for vandals during the transition period (I expect a lot more of them in the coming weeks.) I'm happy to leave that task to others. —Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:03, October 18, 2010 (UTC)
Userpage edits don't generate notifications, only usertalkpage edits, so ban-tagging a userpage won't alert them to any reaction. Admins are supposed to be monitoring Category:Candidates for banning, so we'll notice it (I don't watch it specifically because I'm an RC addict). —Dr Ishmael 17:11, October 18, 2010 (UTC)
TBH, I'm sorta used to TEF's process of using the admin noticeboard. Yeah, if I notice it on RC I'll QDV it (bot rollback ftw), but sometimes if it goes unnoticed, a pre-watched page can help a lot. So, I'd say using the admin noticeboard shouldn't be the very, very first option, but if nothing is being done for a while, then post here. --JonTheMon 17:15, October 18, 2010 (UTC)
Evidence of admin action: the block was 3 minutes before the post here, and RC sometimes lags by more than that recently.
"it only lets them know details of the reaction" -- that's the point, they're hardly going unaware of the block. "When they login again (with same IP)" they're going to notice they're blocked.
"How is posting here louder"? Look above, there's an inadvartant rogue's gallery (and it would be in the history of this page even if deleted). Many people watch this board that would not see a user page bantagged, and triggering a watch when it's "only" a vandal means the purpose of this board (discussion of admin matters) becomes diluted.
You didn't mention the summaries, that would be a request best posted to a 'crat talkpage since only we have revision delete. I'll have a look at it presently. There is no legal reason to delete this; it's profanity, not even a personal attack. We've refused to delete worse than this in the past, and it's not even on the wiki. If the IP posts again, it will be judged by those summaries.
Please keep fighting vandals!
For RC-monitoring admins, it helps when the ban-tag edit summary is to the point; it automatically will be if you create a new page with the tag on it.
Jon, you're used to this because GW2W and GWW do it like that (as do other wikis). --◄mendel► 17:30, October 18, 2010 (UTC)
Community Messages
Ok, here's another note about the Wikia WayTM of doing things. On Special:WikiActivity (called Recent Wiki Activity), the sidebar has a section entitled "Community Messages". Admins can edit that via MediaWiki:Community-corner. Every user including yourself will get a notification bubble that this has changed, with a link to the WikiActivity page.
I do not currently know for how long after this change the notification is issued; I read somewhere it may be 24 hours after the change, but that would need to be tested. I also do not know whether anonymous readers receive this. --◄mendel► 13:20, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
Well, i just tried logged out in IE and it shows up, but it's not a floating box, it's just at the bottom of the (scrolled down) page. --JonTheMon 14:45, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
Apparently we can edit MediaWiki:Communitymessages-notice-msg to display something meaningful in the bubble that pops up for the community corner edit. --◄mendel► 09:36, October 21, 2010 (UTC)
Meaningful, huh. Perhaps we could have it shown the current saint's feast day. 10:02, October 21, 2010 (UTC)
The meaning I was alluding to was that if we edit the communiy corner, to also edit this message to give an abstract of sorts since there's no "real" site notice any more. "Leave feedback about the new skin here" or something, maybe? Or pushing the letter to Wikia. The site notice could transclude either message, since it only needs its ID updated to re-display. --◄mendel► 12:15, October 21, 2010 (UTC)
17:27, 5 December 2010 Randomtime (2,237 bytes) (Reverted User:The Scythe Has Fallen: The header is too long. This is an adminstrative decision)
17:20, 5 December 2010 The Scythe Has Fallen m (10,412 bytes) (Reverted User:Shadowcrest: rv vandalism)
17:09, 5 December 2010 Shadowcrest (2,235 bytes) (oops you accidentally the whole page, don't disrupt to make a point (that isn't even an important point))
My personal opinion: We administrate users, not content, that means there shouldn't ever be administrative decisions on content; especially not on users' talkpages, because we've traditionally left them for the users to administrate themselves. Whether the point that the overlong header was making is important or not is for Scythe to decide; the admin action came 6 weeks after the fact; and the admin action completely removes the context for the discussion under that header, so a note would definitely have been in order, at the very least. I do not understand why the long header would disrupt anything, especially if Scythe himself doesn't think so; and why it would "accidentally the whole page", the content below the header is not affected, and the other sections are easily accessed via the TOC. PLease restore my header. --◄mendel► 02:03, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
We "administrate" anything that disrupts the display of a page - I use quotes because this can be done by any user, not just admins. In this case, I agree that your section header was being disruptive. —Dr Ishmael 02:14, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
What exactly did it disrupt? --◄mendel► 02:30, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
And it doesn't disrupt RC either because the edit summary cuts it off.--Łô√ë îğá†ħŕášħ 02:36, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I wouldn't've touched it in the first place. Although it is really large, Scythe doesn't seem to care, and he 'owns' the page somewhat. Second-best would be commenting it out for a large part (it only makes it longer code-wise, which was the point, but makes it shorter content-wise). Next comes trimming it to maybe 25% size (alters the comment, but retains content). Last would be destroying context altogether. --Vipermagi 12:01, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I am of opinion that a section header that forces someone with 1920x1200 screen resolution to scroll in order to actually reach any discussion is in fact disruptive - or at the least, would be generally considered so anywhere outside of the userspace. That said, even in the userspace it's rather annoying, and looking at the past revisions with the full header hurts my eyes. Ultimately, the original purpose of a user's talk page is to provide a place to contact the user, discuss the user's contributions/projects, etc, though I realize guildwiki more often than not uses user talkpages more to hang out/chat/discuss random stuff. Personally, I would have shortened it, but not quite as drastically as Shadowcrest did. Wizardboy777 15:57, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Under current policy, I am against people altering someone else's text on anyone's user page (except their own) unless there's a rendering problem, spam, or a personal attack so egregious that removal is the only sensible action. Too bad for me if the page looks odd or is hard to read; that is the owner's problem; we should feel free to drop a note (or 10) to mention the issue, but we should not unilaterally take action.
However, I would also support a change to existing guidelines that specifies excessive header length as an example of a type of disruptive text that can be altered by a maintenance edit. On user pages, maintenance edits should be limited to truncation, leaving any rephrasing to the original poster or page owner; that limit should not apply to communal talk pages.
Long section headers strike me as mildly funny, in a I remember my great grandpa used to tell that joke sort of way, but they are otherwise annoying to parse. They aren't disruptive in the way that an excessive signature is, but they sure don't do the section (or the users involved) any favors either. In other words, they are on the border between bad writing and disruptive text; under current policy, we need to treat it as the former and leave it alone. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:10, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
When a section header crosses the line from "Long" to "Excessively Long", then it falls under disruptive text. 8k of text in the header is excessive. --JonTheMon 17:46, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
As a compromise, I have partially reverted the header to ~300 characters. This is enough to satisfy the original purpose of demonstrating how to "cheat" the 200-character limit in the standard new section title input box. —Dr Ishmael 17:59, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Dr Ishmael's compromise doesn't solve the issue; it is not actually a compromise because it favors the side that argues that admins can edit talkpages if they personally don't like the content.
The problem here is that "disruption" is arbitrary and not clear-cut; there is no consensus what it is, and there never can be; if you want to base admin actions on disruption, become an admin at gww: or gw2w: or sign up with Wikia staff. In fact, I argue that my 8000 character header disrupted nothing for 6 weeks; then Shadowcrest made a point via an edit and that edit caused disruption. If the header disrupts, so did the user who posted it; I did not receive a warning, I did not get a chance to correct it myself, I did not get a satisfactory explanation. ("I have to scroll to get to the current discussion" has applied to every admin's talkpage at one time or another, and it'd be silly to demand that this not be so.) So instead we have an admin declaring something unilaterally as "disruption" without explaining why this should be so to any of the parties involved; we get a "disruption" of the limited "sovereignty" over their talkpages that our users have historically enjoyed here. Then the page owner affirms his position, and another admin overrules it, not minding GW:1RV, and nobody is opening discussion. Frankly, that is disappointing, and I expected better of you. Dr Ishmael defended the right to keep a comment of someone off the wiki for 3 years to keep a comment about an issue long since resolved, but now he supports modifying the recent comment of an active user on the talkpage of another active user for no other reason that people have to scroll some.
The concept of "maintenance edits" has so far encompassed rewriting links where pages that were linked to were moved or deleted, i.e. generally fix things that got broken in the course of events to ensure the original writing escapes as intact as possible. There was nothing broken about that edit! There was nothing to maintain! To call this edit a maintenance edit calls into question what maintenance should be, and whether it stands for "arbitrary use of admin position". Please stop calling adjusting content to personal preferences "maintenance".
This is not about my header. Had Scythe shortened it himself, I wouldn't have minded much (though I'd have probably complained a bit, just for show). I don't care how long it is. I care deeply that a sysop who is on bad terms with a wiki editor modifies their talkpage for no reason that past practice on this wiki supports in any way, and does not think to adress this openly before somebody else does. I do not want this to continue. Make me understand why this is necessary, or stop. A compromise won't do, there needs to be understanding. --◄mendel► 22:06, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
The tl;dr version of the above WoT is: Who decides what gets written in headers, editors or admins? --◄mendel► 22:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Brb posting spam pyramids on every talk page I can see. I did what has always been done for ridiculous shit-- removed it. There's a difference between an 8000 character unnecessary section header and any reasonable conversation that extends that long (normal conversations also don't give the page a ridiculous horizontal scrollbar). Nobody was oppressed here. Move along. Shadowcrest 23:00, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
what has always been done -- well, only if "always" doesn't include 3 days prior, when you edited the very same page. Also, I've seen "ridiculous" scrollbars, and this isn't one - I doubt you'd see one if your screen was 1400 pixels wide, and of course there wasn't one on Oasis, for which this post was originally made; if you'd politely pointed this out to me, I'd probably have changed the line breaks that I did add in this edit. Also, educate yourself on the violence inherent in the system. --◄mendel► 07:58, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) A 8000 character header does not disrupt if it's the last thing on a page. When it's in the middle of a page it would. And what if the first removal was not as an admin, but as a user who found the header overly disruptive? What do you do then? And yes, the second removal had less merit (1RV) and I definitely wouldn't say it falls under maintenance edit (more like discretionary edit). However, your WoT loses a little bit of merit from your "just for show", arguing a point just for the sake of it (which in certain cases is disruptive). In the general case of other users editing another's comment, it's frowned upon, but there's a certain level of usability vs expression that this situation crossed (especially as talk pages are for the community). --JonTheMon 23:03, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I submit that when I posted it, my post was the last thing on the page (and also the first). I also still don't understand what distinguishes the header from other content you have to scroll past to get to the bottom of a talk page (except maybe that people don't understand the point it was making; but it was quite clear from context when it was made 6 weeks ago, and apparently Scythe, to whom it was adressed, got it - and that's the point of talkpages, they're not always meant to be understood by the general public, which is why we usually leave their "owner" some freedom to decide what happens on them.)
Admins act on content when it's vandalism, spam, or libel (or something broke, i.e. "maintenance"); if we see "disruption", I'd prefer for us to act on the user instead as this is the more long-term strategy.
You misunderstood my "just for show" point: I meant that if Scythe had changed the header, I would have respected that - I did not want him to, I did not expect him to, he in fact didn't, if he had done so I would have expressed my displeasure and disagreement, but I would have respected his decision and seen nothing wrong with him making it, hence my protest would have been, in a sense, "for show". This protest here isn't, because it wasn't Scythe who changed it, and I don't believe the people doing it should have been.
If the edit had been done as an editor and not as an admin, I'd have reverted the editor and explained to them that we respect the integrity of other people's comments, especially on other people's talkpages; that if you must, delete a comment outright; if you choose to change it, leave a note that you did so and why; but that it is vastly preferable to take your issue to the author if they are available, and let them make the change. I recall an instance where I managed to get an editor to remove their potentially inflammatory comment, thus averting drama, without actually editing it myself. To not give someone that chance, especially not wiki contributors in good standing, is quite disrespectful, and not the way I want this wiki community to work. (If you now think, "meh, it wasn't serious enough to be brought up on a talkpage", then why didn't you stay away from it in the first place?) --◄mendel► 07:58, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I will say one thing here: I resent you nitpicking my actions when I wasn't the one to perform the "administrative action" in the first place. I at least attempted a compromise to resolve this silly situation, but you rejected it. —Dr Ishmael 14:17, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
A compromise is an agreement between the concerned parties. If one suggests a compromise, it is customary to get the parties to agree before deploying it.
Your compromise was a compromise only as far as the header length was concerned; the real issue was unannounced admin edits to personal talkpage comment headers, and with your edit you came down fairly square on the support side on that one (i.e. you did announce it here, but you didn't wait for a reaction). To point this out is not an attempt to pick nits, but to correct a major misperception on your part of what I am on about; sorry if I didn't make myself clear enough.
I did not nitpick "your" actions, I addressed all three admins who did that sort of action, though you were the one who did it with the discussion already ongoing; I'll refrain from crying "disruption" since clearly that wasn't your intent. --◄mendel► 04:01, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Shut up
And write up a policy to avoid this kind of shit in the future. You'll have been working as a team to get us off wikia (and I can't thank you enough for that), but now you are squabbling among each other like little children. That hurts me. I love this wiki, and I love the people here.
Can't you see it? You are running around in the same old circles again. Don't go there; it's not nice (for anyone).
On a petite side note, I favour "owners" of pages making this kind of decision. Ask them to remove the invading or in any other way not nice parts.
Also, leave teh making of long and funny headers to me. Arnout aka The Emperors Angel 09:56, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Thank you. I've been trying to come up with a reply to mendel, but you're right - this is unnecessary nitpicking that isn't going to improve the community in any way. I'm going to ignore this issue now and focus on actually improving the wiki. —Dr Ishmael 13:58, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
What Arnout said. We have bigger fish fries. [sic] — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 21:47, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately, this is pretty big fish as well. Proof: if you stifle it here, the discussion just moves elsewhere (see below). It'd be good if could get off the personal and focus on the big issues at stake, though: I saw an attempt to extend admin roles here from what I perceived them to be, and I'm hoping we can affirm the old roles, but I don't see a consenus for that yet. --◄mendel► 04:10, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
User talk:Shadowcrest
The content between the lines was copied from User talk:Shadowcrest#ridiculous_shit ([..] elisions mine). --◄mendel► 03:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
[..] And finally, yes, we have historically removed stuff exactly like your header-- see [1] (spam pyramid template, which was removed from multiple talk pages and then deleted), [2] (same deal), [3]... etc etc. Shadowcrest 00:14, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
[..]
2.1) As it is not spam (read: excessively long single-edit post is not spam) it is not "exactly the same. It is also not "exactly like..." because it could be categorized as a mathematical equation, which (unless you were generating a spam pyramid because you wanted to count to lines or do trig on them or something) is not the same deal.
3) It spanned one page, therefore the last three links are redundant.
Don't throw out random links that don't matter into a discussion, please. — Scythe1:26, 8 Dec 2010 (UTC)
Quick refutation of 2.1: yes, an excessively long single edit can be considered spam when it has no meaningful content. Mendel's header held no content that was meaningful to the point he was making - it was the length of the content, not the content itself, that was meaningful. That is why I felt that editing it down from 8000 to 300 characters was an acceptable compromise - it was still long enough to suit mendel's point without being disruptive/spammy. Yes, it was disruptive - what do you call all this drama if not a disruption? —Dr Ishmael 01:50, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
I find this E-peen contest that is really getting nowhere several times more disruptive than the initial edit. a ToC would easily make it navigable and end any possible disruption (to an extent, I use ToCs though some people may scroll). This would (will?) go away once enough crap lands on my talk to force me to archive + stylize it so I don't have an ugly archive box, tbh imho. — Scythe2:06, 8 Dec 2010 (UTC)
Adressing the precedent that Shadowcrest cites, from the deletion logs:
User:Gimmethegepgun/Spamlicious was delete tagged by Gimme
User:Warwick/Spam Pyramid Template was 500 kB of Warwick's sig repeated
User:Warwick/Spam Crew! was not delete tagged, but Warwick consented to the deletion
An additional point is that these are outright deletions, not unmarked modifications of user talkpage comments.
In my opinion, none of these precedents apply to the matter at hand. --◄mendel► 03:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Moratorium
If I were to rule this place by fiat, I would force a moratorium on this conversation for 24 hours and block anyone who didn't comply. As I do not (drat!) I would suggest that we walk away from this for a little bit. Pissing at each other isn't going to do much good. There are some points on both sides, but there's also a lot of derision and slight mis-perceptions of comments. --JonTheMon 03:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Drat. I was only away for 19 hours. ;) --◄mendel► 04:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Telling people to stop arguing about the problem does not solve the problem.--Łô√ë îğá†ħŕášħ 09:00, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
I posted a sollution: write up a policy, or establish a code of behaviour. Its contents should be simple; if something is disturbing you, cindly ask if the owner of the page could remove the disturbance. Simple. Arnout aka The Emperors Angel 09:38, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Existing policy: "Assuming every edit is a well-intended edit, any reverts or removals should be explained thoroughly, unless the edit in question is obvious vandalism." (GW:AGF) Not enough? --◄mendel► 15:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Giga, he didn't ask people to stop completely, he merely asked for a pause. Bloody hell, now we're arguing about a request to calm down the arguing! XO —Dr Ishmael 14:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
FAQ
Q: Isn't it a bit silly to discuss the length of your talkpage section headers here?
Yes, it is. Discussion of my talkpage section header style should be directed to my talkpage.
Q: Why didn't you shorten your header?
Nobody asked me to. I didn't realize it would annoy people; it apparently didn't annoy Scythe (it was posted on his talkpage), nor did any of the people patrolling RecentChanges at the time complain.
Q: If you didn't mind shortening your header, why did you make such a fuzz?
I minded Shadowcrest and Randomtime (and later Dr ishmael) changing it without asking me.
Q: Couldn't you just have brought it up with them personally?
As it turns out, it doesn't affect only them; it is a problem of community standards potentially changing, and I believe any conflict arising from this change should be out in the open. It would probably have been better to first ask them privately whether they intended to change community standards.
Q: What is this standard you speak of?
"We do not censor talk pages" (Rose of Kali, here)
"GuildWiki talk pages are not censored, unless they are blatantly vandalised." (Randomtime, on User talk:Nikaido25)
"On other rare occasions, people introduce a topic with a misleading or gratuitous header. In which case, I will change the header, (a) noting so on the relevant talk page and (b) offering an explanation on the original contributors page. That extra work makes me hesitate before taking the drastic step, but shouldn't stop me if there's a true problem with the original. The other option I've used (for veterans) is to post a note on their talk asking them to change the header themselves." (Tennessee Ernie Ford, on User_talk:Dr ishmael/Archive 8#Headers are part of a comment)
Q: Reading that, didn't the standard already change back in August?
Yes, it did; now it is changing a step further, with the standard for the change lowered:
back then, the header was gratuitious, now it's just long;
back then, the comment was in Talk: space, which is administered by all, now it is in User talk: space, which is traditionally administered by the Users themselves, except (up to now) in exceptional cases.
back then, the comment was two years old, and the user not active on the wiki
Q: Are there other standards that apply?
Assume Good Faith promotes assuming all edits in question were intended as positive edits and that removal of any legitimate contribution should be well justified. I think it would also be common courtesy to contact an active editor before making a change to their comment that you have reason to assume they would not consent to.
Q: Don't we routinely make maintenance edits to comments without contacting people?
Yes, of course. These edits never change the meaning of an edit. They typically involve removing or adjusting links to pages or images that have been moved or deleted, or fixing wikicode errors that break the formatting of the page they're on. Shortening the text of a message is not maintenance.
Q: But wasn't your long header disruptive?
I am not convinced that the length of a text determines how disruptive it is; we deal with long text on talkpages all the time. My post didn't disrupt anything for 6 weeks, so first evidence seems to support me. I believe that rudely changing my header caused the disruption. But then this is one of the issues under discussion.
Q: What are the issues under discussion?
One opinion is that my header was disruptive, and that this justified the edit to it. Currently, Shadowcrest, Randomtime, Dr ishmael, Wizardboy, Jon the Mon and Auron seem to be in favor of this interpretation; Auron even sees it as grounds for a block.
Scythe, Gigathrash and Tennessee Ernie Ford have denied that the header crossed the line into disruption; Vipermagi, Tennessee Ernie Ford and Arnout have affirmed the right of the User talkpage owners to decide for themselves what they think "disruptive".
Q: What is your own opinion?
I do not believe that "disruption" is a good standard for policing wikis; on the wikis I know that use it, it has been watered down from its common language origin to apply to arbitrary annoyances. I do not wish for this term to become part of GuildWiki's administrative standards. We can do well enough with terms like "spam", "vandalism" and "personal attacks", which are less arbitrary (and still pose problems at times).
I believe that there would have been no drama if Shadowcrest had expressed his annoyance to me politely instead of editing my comment. I want to encourage all wiki users to exchange their views on controversial subjects instead of limiting themselves to controversial actions. All our policies ancourage this behaviour; the reason for this is that it makes the wiki run much more smoothly. I expect wiki administrators to not set a bad example in this respect.
Q: When will you let this matter rest?
I want to find out whether "disruption" is going to be considered a standard on this wiki from now on or not. I want to find out whether users retain the right to decide what to allow on their talkpages (obscenity and libel excluded). I want to find out what style of interaction is considered acceptable here. I believe these are important issues.
No thank you. --JonTheMon 13:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Ok, to be more constructive and focus the conversation, do you want to discuss what counts as disruption, or what should the response to disruption be? --JonTheMon 14:30, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
10:52, November 5, 2009 (UTC)
14:27, November 5, 2009 (UTC)
Kirbman 14:53, November 5, 2009 (UTC)
15:13, November 5, 2009 (UTC)
A F K When Needed 15:07, December 25, 2009 (UTC)
(T/C) 10:02, February 25, 2010 (UTC)
(talk|contribs) 23:17, May 26, 2010 (UTC)
† F1© Talk 16:57, June 5, 2010 (UTC)
A F K When Needed 22:48, July 14, 2010 (UTC)
