Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems/Archive 18

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Spam

Is there a spam blacklist here? Regardless, someone may want to do something about:

Writing on photos at random, including a couple I took. Thanks. Wknight94 talk 21:35, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Unambiguous spamming to me. On the BL. Thanks --Herby talk thyme 11:41, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Xanderliptak / Alexander Liptak

Xanderliptak (talk · contribs)
Alexander Liptak (talk · contribs)
173.24.117.126 (talk · contribs)

The user has boldy announced his intention to use different accounts in order to "make it harder to follow him".[1] Using variations on the same name is not much of a "hiding", which makes me wonder if it's a ruse to distract attention away from other possible socks. Complicating matters is that he's accused of editing the same articles with two different accounts. All that, combined with the endless licensing arguments that user has gotten himself into, both here and at wikipedia, does not strike me as appropriate behavior. He's also edit-warring over attempts by several users to post his dual-account info on his user pages. I'm not sure who's right in that circumstance, and a ruling here would be helpful. I'll notify him about this posting. Baseball Bugs (talk) 17:50, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

There is also a pending RfC on enwiki about this user. I'll post the link as soon as it's available. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:14, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
Certainly puppet accounts - the question is are they used in any way that can be termed "abusive"? --Herby talk thyme 18:20, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
Additionally - the accounts should be/must be crosslinked IMO. Attempts to avade that would - to me - be abusive. --Herby talk thyme 18:23, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
I agree. Also, edit warring is always ill-advised. This is especially so when it goes against the advice of Herbythyme, one of our most respected and senior administrators. Walter Siegmund (talk) 01:46, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
The obvious solution is to repost the crosslinks and then protect the pages so they can't be reverted. That's up to the admin, as pretty much anyone who cares is onto Xander's game now. There's an RFC being initiated on wikipedia, so he's getting himself into progressively hotter water on both sites, as time goes on. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:03, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Agreed, every other editor here has had to have crosslinks to accounts in which they created and edit from (just because Wikipedia has this policy and not Commons doesn't mean that it doesn't or shouldn't apply). Xanderliptak / Alexander Liptak has two opinions, 1. leave the crosslinking on the userpage and continue to edit under the two accounts or 2. remove the crosslinking and have one account blocked. A link in the user talk page is not good enough. Bidgee (talk) 06:10, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. There is no reason for editors to insist what belongs on my user page when what they want is already accessible on the talk page. That I should be threatened with a block for changing one user page once, when editors have been allowed and free to manipulate my user page a dozen times is far from a "respectable" decision. Is there any particular reason that the information can not merely stay on the talk page? No. There is no reason given as to why the two have to be linked, especially since there have been no abuses or anything, so the fact I have it on my talk page should suffice. And if the editors would stop harassing me and continuing these fruitless efforts to cause problems, this would have been done and over already. The idea is to have an account for Commons and an account for Wikipedia, separate so they will not be tangled as the editors here are trying to do. Instead, they want to revel in paranoid disillusions that insist I have some cunning plan at, I dunno, something. I can't really pin point what everyone is afraid of. Oh no, I am adding free images to Commons, run. :-/ [talk] XANDERLIPTAK 02:32, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh, are you saying that you are abandoning your "moral right" argument? Because your images are either "free" or they're not. You can't have it both ways. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:39, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Um, what? [talk] XANDERLIPTAK 03:53, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I said I wanted to make it harder for you, Baseball Bugs, to follow me from Wikipedia to Commons. You have attempted to block me on the English Wikipedia for my edits on Commons, which the English Wikipedia told you they could not do and which you were told was not even a violation on Commons. Nevertheless, it did waste a few days of my time on Wikipedia explaining everything. Once I finish dealing with your continuous ANIs, and the couple other editors following me around, I will be able to completely separate the two accounts. Xanderliptak for Wikipedia and Alexander Liptak for commons. It will be much more difficult for you to cause issues across the two sites after that point. [talk] XANDERLIPTAK 19:02, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

The admins may note the editor's boldly stated intention to try to obfuscate and deceive. The question remains: Is it appropriate for him to edit-war to remove the cross-links on his user pages? Is he in the right to keep deleting them (I think he's at 4 reverts now) or should they be put back and maybe have the page protected against editing? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:38, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't care too much that he has multiple accounts (or that he demonstrated his usual level of graceful charm and tact by blatantly vandalizing my user page). What I do care about is that once he has edited many of the same pages with both accounts, then from that moment on, both accounts are forevermore permanently intertwined and entangled -- and for him to be less than fully publicly open that the same person is behind both accounts is to be less than fully honest (possibly verging on sockpuppetry, depending on the exact circumstances). If Wikinger himself didn't object in any persistent way to me posting a cross-reference on User:Wikinger, User:CBMIBM, and User:Piast to indicate his use of multiple accounts, then I'm not sure what legitimate right Liptak has to object... AnonMoos (talk) 19:59, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

My user name is not "Liptak". It is commonly accepted that users be addressed by the user names. You do not know me, you have no reason to assume you can speak to me as though you did.
I don't care what one editor allowed you to do to his user page, saying that you did this once before by no means makes it a policy nor gives you the authority to edit everyone's user pages as you see fit. I like to leave my user pages blank. You have been reverted several times, and I made it clear I do not want anything on my user page. You already added the other profile to my talk page, is there any particular reason it also needs to be added to my user page, other than to harass me and try to incite me? You have found no issue here, so you are attempting to anger me and create one. Please, for the fifth time, I am asking you to stop editing my user page. [talk] XANDERLIPTAK 20:34, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
You do not own "your" user page, and as you are openly stating your intention to deceive, there needs to be a way for the community to be aware of it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:36, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
While I do not "own" it, it is my user page. It is generally accepted that the user decides what goes there. The fact that I repeatedly rejected your edits and explained that I do not want you editing my user page should have been enough. You have an issue Guess what? There is a talk page. Take it there. [talk] XANDERLIPTAK 20:54, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
That's an incorrect statement of policy about user pages. All pages belong to the community. Check out what it says at the top of mine. If you are running multiple accounts, and you are using them to edit the same things, you need to crosslink them, or you need to explain very clearly why a crosslink is inappropriate. If you will not give a satisfactory explanation, adding a crosslink to your pages is appropriate and you will leave it in place or the pages will be locked or you will be blocked, or both. Lar: t/c 04:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
I added the user's IP address, as he also makes no attempt to hide the fact that it's him (both here and on wikipedia) and maybe the cross-notification should be on all three accounts? Also, there is the start of an RFC/U about him being developed on wikipedia. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:45, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

"...he also makes no attempt to hide the fact that it's him..." Duh. 'Cause I'm not trying to hide anything. I began editing under an IP before I signed up. Since then, I forget to log-in sometimes. I tend to leave Firefox up all night and day, so it logs me off after so long and I do not notice. So what? [talk] XANDERLIPTAK 20:54, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

You had best start listening to what various editors have been telling you, or you'll liable to learn the hard way. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:27, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
You are not "various editors", you are one editor. You wrote up something on here before, it didn't work. You tried on Wikipedia twice, it didn't work. You just try to cause an issue and hope I loose my cool so you can claim injury somehow. You even said you reactivated this account only to follow me here. Stop wasting my time, the time of the board and move on. [talk] XANDERLIPTAK 21:53, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
No, I reactivated the commons account because I decided to start using commons, once I found out how to fix the "vector" problem. I didn't do it to follow you, you merely inspired me to do so; although there's no question that you need to be watched, as you have demonstrated that you have virtually no clue as to how things are supposed to operate. There are several editors in this very section that you aren't listening to. It is you that needs to stop wasting others' time. This particular item is the only one I've started - others have started the other complaints at wikipedia, including the RFC/U currently being developed on wikipedia. If you think you're right, and most everyone is telling you've got it wrong, you have to consider the possibility that you've got it wrong. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:17, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Xanderlip / Alexander outrageous personal attack

I can take a lot of grief from users, but I won't have my integrity questioned. Xander has now gone too far. On wikipedia, in the second part of his new comments shown here,[2] he accuses me of having stolen an image and uploaded it to commons. His statement is an absolute lie, and I want something done about it. I'll be notifying him, although he may have signed off for the night. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:59, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I think he meant me, but either had the two of us confused by accident, or thinks we're the same person and using two different accounts. Either way, his calling me/you a thief is very poor choice of words, and needs to stop. Fry1989 (talk) 03:26, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
It will stop, once the admins take appropriate action. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Oh, did I mix you guys up? Sorry. Oh, and what are you doing bringing that here? This is Commons, not Wikipedia. You are getting a bit annoying wasting my time and everyone else. [talk] XANDERLIPTAK 03:52, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
You need to turn the snark down. Lar: t/c 04:10, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
He was talking at Wikipedia about a Commons-related accusation,[3] so it touches both sites. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:37, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
And he has still not retracted it, so it remains directed at me, and I will not stand for being lied about. Xander needs to have the brakes put on him until he retracts it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:00, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit warring

I request an immediate block for edit warring. I will not apply it since I am involved. This user has reverted 3 different editors linking his accounts 7 times in the last couple of days [4]. One of those was mine, and I stand by the need to link alternate accounts, especially when they are both used to edit the same files. As noted above, this user appears to have other difficulties listening to other editors, and may warrant other sanctions, but my request is simply related to the need to stop edit warring. --99of9 (talk) 03:54, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't have all the context here but noting a linkage on talk (which gets archive) is insufficient. Why is this user trying to remove the linkage? I think we need a clear explanation of that, which we have not gotten yet. Absent that, the user should not be edit warring to remove it. Lar: t/c 04:10, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Why not just let him clear his user page? We got the information here already, better yet more than just a link. ZooFari 04:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
This page gets archived... those coming along later won't know. Multiple accounts participating in the same area controlled by the same user need to be crosslinked, or they are in violation of the socking policy here and subject to blocking. That's not really a debatable point. There are certain very limited exceptions which need to be clearly justified. I see no such yet. Lar: t/c 04:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Ok, I see what's going on. Not really interested in it, maybe later. ZooFari 04:20, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Lar's comment brings up an interesting question: do we have a sockpuppet policy here on Commons? The closest thing I could find is the sentence "User accounts or IP addresses used to evade a block may and should also be blocked." on COM:BP, which doesn't really apply in this case. I suppose it could be considered an "unwritten policy", but one really should try to exercise a certain amount of flexibility in enforcing those. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 07:09, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
His stated reasons for removing the link are that he prefers to leave his user page blank, and that he doesn't want users from Wikipedia to be able to "follow" him. --99of9 (talk) 05:51, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
If they feel that editors are abusively "stalking" them, they have means to raise the issue but it doesn't mean you can create another account and hide. Bidgee (talk) 06:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
✓ Done Thanks Bidgee. --99of9 (talk) 06:04, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Up to old licensing tricks again

Trying to withdraw rights which he had previously granted under CC-BY-SA3.0 license: [5] -- AnonMoos (talk) 07:06, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Whilst drawing together the RfC on En Wiki, I noticed that Xander has relicensed several images he originally released into Public Domain. These are still mistagged.
There may be more. I only looked at a few from early January, but of the five I looked at it, I found this behavior in four of them. Having explicitly forfeited his copyright, he cannot now reclaim it. I'll leave addressing this one to the Commons community, since I primarily come here for copyright problems of a different nature. :) But I thought you should know. Other uploads may bear scrutiny to see if similar actions have been taken there as well. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:54, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
I've reverted File:Alexander Liptak—Coat of arms of Ghana 1957.png and File:Alexander Liptak—Coat of arms of Ghana 1957 (small).png and protected them due to the on going edit warring. Also stated why you can't make the license strict (goes against the cc-by and cc-by-sa licensing since you release most of your rights). Bidgee (talk) 12:08, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Moonriddengirl, I've reverted your four examples to their PD status, and put them on my watchlist. I don't have time to go through all his uploads at this point. --99of9 (talk) 12:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
These files were all also uploaded as PD and later "reclaimed": File:Escutcheon of the O'Neills, Princes and Counts of Clanaboy by Alexander Liptak.png, File:Escutcheon of Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone by Alexander Liptak.png, File:Escutcheon of the MacLeods of Harris and Dunvegan by Alexander Liptak.png, File:Heraldic achievement of the O'Kennedys of Ormonde by Alexander Liptak.png. I've reverted to the PD tags. That may be it. He had indicated in December on English Wikipedia's ANI that he would donate some content PD, and that impulse may have blown over after this. (Certainly, he seems to have regretted it.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
I'd also like to point out [16] or [17]. Both files, BTW, have again the problem of being signed within the graphics... Lupo 12:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
It's now been 5 days since he edited under any of his known handles, so he might have left or he might be hoping that time will let the issue fizzle. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:11, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

RfC on En

Xander's RfC on En has now been made available at en:Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Xanderliptak. I invite anyone who has interacted with Xander to read over it, provide feedback, and describe your experiences with him there. Even if you're not active on En, behavior on Commons may speak to a wider pattern of user behavior. Dcoetzee (talk) 10:10, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Tight restrictions are being proposed on Xander's behavior there. Can a similar discussion take place here, for the sake of uniformity? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
No. We don't punish people here for what they do on en.WP. If an investigation is going to start here, it should start based on what he did here.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:47, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. Here is here. But we do need to wrap this up soon I think. Based on what we have seen and said here, not on what happened on en. Lar: t/c 13:27, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Per Lar. Commons is not bound by en wp nor necessarily influenced by it.
Personally I consider the behaviour to be pretty borderline verging on disruptive. Use of two accounts and not that happy to acknowledge the fact (if the pages were not protected would the links still be there?). Throw in edit warring and licensing issues and I would say that a final warning was required at the very least. --Herby talk thyme 13:42, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
This involves commons as much as wikipedia, and it's been going on for like a year now. He seems to have disappeared from both sites (for now), but just in case, severe restrictions were listed on his wikipedia talk page. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:24, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
And now indef'd pending a response, if any. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:25, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Whatever

What I am going to write is probably will be written in the violation of my interaction ban, so I guess I should be blocked for this, but whatever... I have to do it. I would not like lycaon to leave Commons like that. I believe he's wrong, but it probably does not matter. He's way too valued and too knowledgeable contributor to let him go like that, and besides he's a person, whose well-being is much more important than all FP and QI nominations combined. If he cannot live without commenting and voting on my images, then please lift his interaction ban with me, please let him do it. I will respect my interaction ban with him, and will never respond to his comments/voting on my nominations. This way there will be no more disruption for the community. Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 20:43, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi Mila. I agree with you that (if) Hans is saying goodbye to Commons permanently, it will be a significant loss for the community with respect to knowledge and valuable contributions. But that value has to be balanced by the time and resources spend by the Community to handle conflicts between you and him. The Community is worn by the conflict, and albeit you say now, that you would be able to respect a one-sided interaction ban, it is my feeling from knowing both of you for three years or so, that although this is how you feel right now, it will not be possible for you to comply with that if a review is perceived by you as a personal attack. The Community has taken a quite clear stance on this case, and I think you should leave it be that way. I am confident that Hans knows what he is doing. It is normal in online communities that users drift in and out. I respect his decision for now, wish him well with the time he has now available for exploring other venues in life. And, if, at some stage, he feels like coming back, I would be happy to see him here again. --Slaunger (talk) 22:41, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
Kim, and everybody, I am 100% sure I will be able to respect my own ban, no matter what his reviews are going to be. Besides, if I do not respect my own ban, I will be blocked for the ban violation. It is as simple as that, but this will not happen. The community will never get any disruptions because of me. That's a promise. --Mbz1 (talk) 22:50, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree with each of Slaunger's points and I will welcome Lycaon's return if and when he feels able to do so. Walter Siegmund (talk) 23:28, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
As do I. I would like to repeat my call, above, for a formal close to the discussions and implementation of the consensus found, by an admin who is perceived as not very involved. Thanks. Lar: t/c 14:21, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

All done yesterday by 99of9. --Herby talk thyme 14:34, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Should have signed the hatting... :) Lar: t/c 14:38, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Uploads of User:Arizias

Hi, could s.o. could have a look at the uploads of Arizias (talk · contribs). I just noticed the user because he has overwritten 2 images outof my watchlist. I've reverted that and left him a note, but the other uploads left me back in concern. He is claiming authorship for just every upload, even for i.e. old paintings or panoramio images of other people stating "all rights reserved". Some of his uploads may be realy his own work; some may be OK with PD-old, but which? Could s.o. pls investigate. Tĥx. --JuTa (talk) 05:50, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Panoramio image has been deleted, I feel think that this image is usable or in-scope since it is blurred and and really doesn't show anything of interest, not sure what others here think. The author and year of the painting for File:Andtaz.jpg could be found on here but I can't translate it. Bidgee (talk) 06:52, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Comment: This user has the same name and editing interests as Spanish wikipedia user es:Usuario:Arizias (contributions). -84user (talk) 13:35, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Foto

Ciao, ho trovato questa foto in wikipedia, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Aeropuerto-Treviso-Sant'Angelo.jpg, è la stessa che ho trovato qua, https://www.panoramio.com/photo/22158552, dimmi che ne pensi? Pio essere una violazione copyright? Grazie --MarcoS31 (talk) 18:25, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Sì--Mbz1 (talk) 18:33, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

FearlesslyBeautiful's uploads

FearlesslyBeautiful (talk · contribs) is continuing to upload copyrighted product imagery from a Procter & Gamble website despite all warnings. BrokenSphere (Talk) 20:17, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Blocked 1 week. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:02, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

harassment blocks

I have blocked two IPs, 79.224.124.202 (talk · contribs) and 137.226.39.166 (talk · contribs), for 3 days for harassing and threatening[18],[19] user EvaK (talk · contribs) over her comment (perceived as vote by them and by the uploader Boris Karloff II (talk · contribs)) in a DR discussion for File:UFO.jpg. In addition, both IPs added signatures of :de users and may thereby impersonate these users. EvaK notified the two :de users about the incident. --Túrelio (talk) 17:47, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Druidhills (talk · contribs) has been serially violating copyright for the duration of his or her time here. A number of this user's upload have been caught and deleted, but even right up to today (File:Disneyland Monorail Poster.png), this user is uploading blatantly copyrighted material and claiming it as their own. (a) Considering all the deletion and other notices given the user, do they warrant an immediate block, or more patience and time? (b) What is to be done about their entire catalogue of uploads, the whole of which I feel safe in assuming are copyright violations, some obvious, some less so.

I am not a Commons regular, so my apologies if this is not the proper venue. — pd_THOR | =/\= | 21:40, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Argh. User has a few decent uploads but there are a lot of probable and certain copyvios in his/her gallery. User is completely non-communicative. Fortunately, the volume of uploads is relatively low; maybe we can afford to just watch for and tag violations rather than resorting to a block? Powers (talk) 21:58, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
Their understanding of copyright is seriously adrift here. I just checked three websites that they declared as "source" and they all retain copyright. I have serious doubts about a number of their other uploads too. I've deleted the very obvious copyvios and tagged some others. I've also blocked the user for a while. I understand the comments above but licensing is not something that it would be nice to get right - it is an absolute I'm afraid. --Herby talk thyme 16:03, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Multiple copyvio uploads

Hahndyto (talk · contribs) has uploaded a number of blatant copyvio images. Anyone looking at them can tell they were clipped and scanned from a newspaper or some other printed media, but the uploader claims himself as creator and tags them as GFDL. An article he wrote on en-wiki is also currently tagged as a copyvio. Burpelson AFB (talk) 15:42, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Newspaper scans are gone and thanks for letting us know. I understand your logic on the remaining one but frankly the quality is so bad I have doubts it is a scan so I've left it for now. Cheers --Herby talk thyme 15:46, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
Confirmed it is a copyvio. Have a look [20]. Burpelson AFB (talk) 18:32, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
Agreed and gone - thanks --Herby talk thyme 18:56, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

User:Ksaine

Ksaine (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)

I ask to review mass actions/edits of User:Ksaine on conformity with Wikicommons rules/standards/traditions. I ask also to take into consideration his deleted contributions (I don't have access to it, but I know (I have seen deletion log) that some of his actions have been deleted already).

  1. Mass creations of redirects in form from Категория (Ru-translate for Category) to Category. Examples can be found here
    Additional note: not only Ru-translation is used, Катэгорыя, Categoria, Kategorie, 分類, and etc. are also used.
  2. Mass creations of redirects in Category-namespace. Examples can be found here. As I know redirects in Category-namespace (in form of soft redirs) are very rare-used.
  3. Mass creations of redirects in other form. Examples: [21] and [22] (difference is types of quotation marks only), and others
  4. Mass "renaming" of categories and respective recategoritaions of files. Examples can be found here.
  5. Mass creations of superfluous wikilinks to other projects. For examples - [23] or [24]. (а) What is necessity to link from device to type of organisation or city/country? (б) Some links are broken, because there are not respective articles. (for example Wikipedia:en:Research and Production Company, Wikipedia:en:Closed joint-stock company, Wikipedia:ru:Научно-производственная компания, Wikipedia:ru:Яламов, Эдуард Спиридонович, Wikipedia:en:Edward Yalamov, Wikipedia:en:Production Association).
  6. Mass replacements of short prefix to full prefix (from w: to Wikipedia:). For example - [25].
  • The list can be continued.

All of these actions are made without any prior discussions. Very similar mass actions without any prior discussions he had made in Ru-Wiki (he is indef blocked in Ru-Wiki now, see w:ru:User:Ksaine) and are making in En-Wiki. I define, that his actions are very close to vandalism or are vandalism (desire to test wikicommons for his own principles and/or "errors"). He has stopped some of his incorrect actions in some cases, if he is informed about them, but in other cases he hasn't stopped and/or he is starting to make new and new his own principles and/or "errors".

I suggest, there is also some form of harassment of my global account. He has especially paid attention to my files [26] and my user space [27] and [28]. Alex Spade (talk) 12:11, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I also can mix Wikipedia:ru:Научно-производственная компания and Wikipedia:ru:Научно-производственная фирма in construction [[Wikipedia:ru:Научно-производственная компания|Научно-производственная фирма]]. Alex Spade (talk) 21:18, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
Thank You. Let me understand please...again is isn't this Wikipedia:en:Closed joint-stock company page exists????? O_O --Ksaine (talk) 23:31, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
Can be easily replaced by other examples of non-existed articles. Alex Spade (talk) 00:02, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
I think categories redirect from localized categories namespaces should be deleted en mass, since the add mess into main namespace. Same should apply to People in categories, since Commons follow People of naming. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 16:21, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree for pages like Категория:МИЭТ in the Gallerie namespace, that is very unecessary. We cant host a pseudo namespace in gallerie namespace for any language version of the word Category. --Martin H. (talk) 16:33, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Only one comment about note (1): As I know, in Wikipedia Commons it's recommended to create much and much redirects in different language namespaces. It's shown in rules.
For example: "Belgorod" Article. In Wikipedia there are 40 Articles: Russian, English, Deutch, French, etc. It is logical to create redirect for example in japan lang, in french language, in russian language especially if the speach is about smth. russian object. I understand that there are too much redirects I created but after this nobody say me that is incorrect.

[User:EugeneZelenko|EugeneZelenko]] (talk), "Same should apply to People in categories, since Commons follow People of naming" - it has long been corrected me, it was my mistake: only buildings and some inanimate could used with "in", what about people - for example, in category "People of Saint-Petersburg" not all people living in St.-Petersburg now.
Alex Spade (talk), I'm sorry about apologize for invading your personal space and making changes there. But in so doing, I would like to emphasize that there really had to make several more substantive changes, apart changing "w" to "Wikipedia" --Ksaine (talk) 17:04, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but (for what was touched here) Commons only has the namespaces (Gallery) - without prefix - and Category with a Category: prefix. In English. We dont have namespaces with تصنيف: , 分類:, رج , :קטגוריה:, Luokka:, Catégorie:, Kategooria:, Categoría:, Κατηγορία:, ... prefixes. Such pages are created in our gallerie namespace. If a user from Finnland will look up Arkhangelsk in Wikimedia Commons, why should he search for a gallery called "Luokka:Arkangeli"? He will either search for a gallery called Arkangeli or he will restrict the search to the category namespace. You created a Gallerie page called "Luokka:Arkangeli", thats not the proper name of anything in any language. Messing up our gallerie namespace with nonexisting words is very unecessary. --Martin H. (talk) 17:22, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand one main,in my opinion, moment: There are cegories and pages here personal space of users - galleries...So, there are many situations (for what was touched here - for cities that I creaed redirects) when there is categotry and page - for Example - Белгород (Belgorod) and Category:Belgorod - is different. So, what means, for example for russiam people "Category:Belgorod"? - Right, "Категория:Белгород" So, in these situations page and category - not similar. How can I redirect "Belgorod" in arabic, for example to forward to Category, not main page. So, I put all to similar-language words - Category(in different languages):Article(in different languages).

In general, I've already grateful that I have explained the principles of Commons which I did not know. Thank You very much, Martin H. (talk) --Ksaine (talk) 18:02, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

About "Luokka:Arkangeli" etc.:firstly I created redirects for names of Archangelsk(for example) in each language, then I think that it is little and decide to create plus for all redirects in each language spaces. So, for example, in Finland article about Archangelsk main state called "Archangelsk"...plus there are redirects to this main article - obviously, one of them - Arkhangeli :):):):):):):):) xDDDD --Ksaine (talk) 18:09, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
See Commons:Category redirects suck and are the cause of bad training and habits. Some people take the habits from wikipedia and really exagerate, such as in this example: Special:WhatLinksHere/Category:V._La_Rosa_and_Sons_Macaroni_Company. --Foroa (talk) 22:47, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
No, I'm not so habits...I think so. But I don't uderstand about categories....by the way..about Templates too :( --Ksaine (talk) 00:56, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

User:Fark and User:Fark333333

Resolved

The first user is temp blocked for uploading unfree files but today I saw the second user re-uplading some images of the first user. Smells like sockpuppet. --Denniss (talk) 13:52, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, User:Fark333333 indef blocked and uploads deleted. Thanks for spotting this. Adambro (talk) 14:00, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
For what it is worth, it is CU Confirmed that the above two users are one in the same. Tiptoety talk 17:55, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

User:Reinhardhauke

Reinhardhauke (talk · contribs) is making DRs at a rate of about one per minute, going by the alphabet through uncategorized images. His single-syllable reasons for deletion are mostly cryptic. This is just wasting everybody's time. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 01:10, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I think we should simply close as keep all his DRs without other users input. Tons of the user's bot-like DRs disrupt Commons normal functioning. Trycatch (talk) 01:38, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
Or just leave them open and tell him/her to cease the bot-like mass DRs. A lot of them I have to agree. ZooFari 01:42, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
If you create a bot to run through uncategorised pictures and to nominate all of them with random reasons such as "vandalism", "fake" or "useless", there also would be a lot true positives, because there are in fact a lot of useless uncategorised pictures. It's not a reason to tolerate such DRs. Btw the user already was asked to cease these actions, but continued his noms. Trycatch (talk) 01:53, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
Heh, it looks like this got people to categorize images... ZooFari 02:56, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Für jeden meiner Löschanträge habe ich mir angeschaut, welche Informationen gibt es zum Foto und welchen Zweck könnte es erfüllen. Damit habe ich sehr viel Zeit verbracht! Leider wird commons als riesiger Mülleimer für Fotos verwendet und man sieht durch fehlende Kategorien und Beschreibungen, dass derjenige der die Fotos hochlädt keine Interesse an einer sinnvollen Zusammenarbeit hat. Was soll denn mit all diesen Fotos (Selbstdarstellung/Vandalismus etc.) in Zukunft geschehen?--Reinhardhauke (talk) 06:39, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Eine Minute ist nicht "sehr viel Zeit". Und deine Löschantragen geben überhaupt kein Information, sind nur rätselhafte Syllaben wie "Pub" und so weiter. Man sieht durch fehlende Motivierungen dass du keine Interesse an einer sinnvollen Zusammenarbeit hast. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 07:21, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
next time just leave the personal attacks and the 'assuming bad faith' away. Comments like this are not helpful for 'sinnvollen Zusammenarbeit' especially not for 'friendly Zusammenarbeit'. Amada44  talk to me 09:08, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
@Reinhardhauke, auch wenn du eine gute Absicht mit deiner Meta-Arbeit verfolgst, bereiten deine minimalistischen Begründungen den die DRs abarbeitenden admins (oder anderen Metaarbeit-Usern) unnötigerweise zusätzliche Arbeit, weil sie herumrätseln müssen, was eigentlich gemeint ist. Wenn du ein Problem hast, ausführliche Begründungen auf englisch zu schreiben, dann schreib sie einfach auf deutsch oder französisch, weil das auch viele Leute hier verstehen. --Túrelio (talk) 07:29, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
dito: einfach etwas ausfühtlichere Begründungen (ca ein Satz) und dann wärs schon i.O.. --High Contrast (talk) 17:41, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
And now he writes "out of scope" on all his DRs. Still at a rate of one per minute. Waste of time. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 14:33, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Well, I've checked a series of Reinhardhauke's latest DRs and found them quite justified. For example, File:WilliamThrilliam.jpg, File:VTF in NYC.jpg, File:The-Bobnics-Pistol-Skull.jpg, File:Sleaze.jpg, File:Longshot band.jpg, and File:ValorizationI.jpg are unused and out of scope. Though some experienced users might even have speedied some of them, as per our policy, filing a regular DR is the correct standard procedure. Therefore, I find this accusation largely unjustified and unfair against a user doing this kind of unpleasant work. Besides, if others disagree about the oos-assessment of an image, they can easily voice their opinion and the file will likely be kept. So, where's your problem? --Túrelio (talk) 15:18, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
The problem is that he is just going like a bot through uncategorized images, at a rate of over one per minute. Anything that he does not understand he lists as "out of scope". Which is totally meaningless. He includes images that are already tagged with "no-permission". And what is out of scope of File:Accessories-calculator-2.png, File:Altunnar.jpg, File:Avianense fabrica.jpg, File:Catama.jpg, etcetera, etcetera. It is a wate of time. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 15:25, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
I'll not join in because I do not understand the language but "out of scope" as a DR on such varied images is really unhelpful. In the examples given above one is a speedy copyright violation, one I have kept as I can see no reason why it is out of scope and another needs far more explanation for me to understand what is out of scope about it. Not productive I'm afraid. --Herby talk thyme 15:39, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Pieter Kuiper schreibt: "on all his DRs". Und Peter Kuiper schreibt hier bewußt die Unwahrheit und beleidigt mich! Kann dies so ohne Konsequenzen weitergehen?--Reinhardhauke (talk) 14:56, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Die "Wahrheit" liegt etwas mittig. Du solltest bei deinen oos-Nominierungen bzw. generell beim Stellen eines LA/DR, weniger pauschal, sondern sorgfältiger vorgehen und immer dann, wenn du selbst schon ein bißchen zweifelst, nicht nominieren. Da "oos" der schwächste Löschgrund ist, solltest du keine oos-Löschung von Dateien beantragen, die bereits wegen fehlender Lizenz/Quelle/Genehmigung markiert sind, weil das alles viel stärkere Löschgründe sind, die zudem keine langwierige DR-Diskussion erfordern. --Túrelio (talk) 15:49, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Und warum sind alle diese Fotos "mit viel stärkeren Löschgründen" noch nicht bearbeitet? Und weshalb soll ich mir weiterhin die Unverschämtheiten von Pieter Kuiper gefallen lassen?--Reinhardhauke (talk) 16:01, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

A number of the files are speedily deletable but something better than "out of scope" would be far more helpful for DRs. Equally tag the obvious ones as speedy and you will save folk time and effort. Thanks --Herby talk thyme 16:05, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
@Reinhardhauke, ich weiß nicht, was deine 1. Frage mit dem zu tun hat, was hier angesprochen wurde bzw. was ich dir geraten habe. Dennoch eine kurze Antwort: Commons hat für seine Größe sehr wenige Admins und von diesen sind nochmals deutlich weniger im Abarbeiten von LAs nennenswert aktiv (es gibt ja auch andere Arbeitsbereiche). Andererseits werden laut Harris-Report täglich 7000 neue Bilder auf Commons hochgeladen. Alles klar? --Túrelio (talk) 16:14, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Und genau diese große Anzahl von 7000 Fotos, von denen viele ohne Sinn und Verstand hochgeladen (z.B. letzte Woche 7 oder 8 Mal der gleiche Penis) werden, die oft nicht die Grundinformationen und keine Kategorien besitzen sollten sehr schnell gesichtet werden und nicht als riesige Müllhalde die Arbeit aller ernstzunehmenden Mitarbeiter erschweren.--Reinhardhauke (talk) 16:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

User:Matarazzo

The uploads of Matarazzo (talk · contribs) have in many cases been shown to be copyright violations. He is probably a sockpuppet of Raphael Barros (talk · contribs) - his uploads of photos of Brazil are used in pt:User:Raphael Barros/Coleção de imagens. I think all should be nuked. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 02:26, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

He is also inventing stories about photos that may be PD-Old, see Commons:Deletion requests/File:Avenida Rio Branco em 1935.jpg. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 09:30, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
I will soon nuke all recent photographs uploaded by Matarazzo (talk · contribs), although many of them have just a tag {{Copyvio}} on them without a reason they are easily to identify as copyvios, eg File:1970's LowerLeblon.jpg - in google. File:Porto.Alegre.Iguatemi.jpg - google (2nd image, larger). And so on. The montage File:MontagemRJ.jpg will also go, it uses unfree images he uploaded. Then we can have a look at the sockpuppet idea, I agree with Pieter, for a checkuser the account is stale however. --Martin H. (talk) 13:34, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

✓ Done deleted per the search work by Pieter and his copyvio tags, the second view by other users with copyvio tags and my own review, blocked as suspected sockpuppet and copyviouploader. For the old photo see the discussion to get the information (date, author, source) corrected. --Martin H. (talk) 15:51, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

desysop request

User:Gerardo conti

Gerardo conti (talk · contribs) has a few of their uploaded images deleted, and some outstanding. Looking broader through the images they could all be suspect found and uploaded, not their own work.  — billinghurst sDrewth 16:25, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

✓ Done all have now been deleted Gnangarra 14:27, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

User:Rrohdin

I do not know whether this is the right forum or chain of action, but we certainly have a problem here. This user "removed" a category as show here by just emptying it and created a new category in another (native) name format. Please see both category pages and their brief histories! The old category is still there, as are all its categories, but it is empty. I see this change as frivolous and confusing, and above all incomplete, dumping folow-up on some-potential-body else. Inconsiderate, to say the least. SergeWoodzing (talk) 16:25, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Not a user problem (unless it is Woodzing who is the problem). Rrohdin's change made naming in Category:Monarchs of Norway more consistent. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 17:50, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Well well. I'm a problem? The primary task of Mr SergeWoodzing here at commons seems to be to organize the Family album of Mr Jacob Truedson Demitz. The connection to royalty seems to be important, as we ca see in this edit.[29] But it seems like he also tries to conserve the strange names of swedish kings in english used in Mr Tuedson Demitz book Throne of a Thousand Years. I can not belive that the small amount of organizing the categorys of norwegian kings i did the other day shoud be considered a problem. Maybe it's time to have a deeper look into the actions of SergeWoodzing? Best regards. /Rrohdin (talk) 12:25, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Very constructive. Thank you! Why not address the issue rather than try to insult me and cast defaming doubt on my "actions"? What a personal attack! The fact is that you emptied a category without doing what needs to be done in such cases. That was an error on your part, to which I reacted with frustration. Never saw that kind of behavior on Commons before and found it inconsiderate. My opinion. No need for you to try to insult me just because I pointed your error out to you. I'm sorry I posted this as an issue here, since that apparently isn't done in cases like this. I was not sure it was the right way to go, as you can see by my first wording. Try to be constructive! Don't do this kind of blatantly sinister mudslinging! We have on file where you thought all our photos were just "wonderful" at one time, before you changed with your friend Kuiper in your double Dr. Jekyll - Mr. Hyde act a year or so ago. That's a fact, not an attack. I welcome any facts you may have, but not this kind of personal attack. SergeWoodzing (talk) 19:03, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
PS My upload and editing records here at Commons and at sv.WP and en:WP speak for themselves. Very easy to check them and see how untruthful and malicious you were in you assessment above. Horrendously so. SergeWoodzing (talk) 19:06, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

User:Dux86

This user, now blocked on it.wiki, has uploaded promotional images that cannot be used on WP. --M7 (talk) 22:41, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Blocked. Spam deleted. Thanks for info --George Chernilevsky talk 07:46, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
I fail to see why these pictures were speedily deleted, likewise I fail to see why the user was indefblocked with removing of the talk page access w/o any warning (or any other communication at all). Trycatch (talk) 10:06, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
The images were clearly advertising a website - I certainly would have deleted them speedily. I would have placed a "project scope" note on the user talk page. Not got time to look further though it would appear they were using the images to spam another project (where they are also blocked). --Herby talk thyme 10:14, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Advertising is hardly a reason for speedy deletion, generally out of scope pictures should listed for regular deletion. What about it-wiki, they are free to block whoever they want, I don't know how this is related to Commons. Trycatch (talk) 11:39, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
You probably should review a number of my deletions then. I have regularly deleted promotional images speedily. To me spamming is spamming and taking advantage of Foundation sites to promote products/services etc is plain wrong. --Herby talk thyme 12:23, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Nominate them for regular deletion, it's not terribly hard. Speedy deletion was created only for obvious cases, "out of scope" cases are rarely that obvious. Trycatch (talk) 05:45, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
If nobody would oppose, I'm going to unblock this user, because the block seems entirely unjustified. Trycatch (talk) 05:45, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
I am  Oppose. I have deleted images and I have blocked this User.
All images had the logo, the promotional text, the address of a site and the factory name. You can undelete any picture to verify it.
Have a look, please it:Discussioniv utente:Dux86. This User continued to create advertising articles after two preventions in his native Italian language. I believe my decision the correct. Unblock this user is opened door for advertising junk. There are no useful contributions to Wiki or Commons --George Chernilevsky talk 07:37, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
To Trycatch - Disagree with your comments on "out of scope" stuff. A fair bit of what I delete is out of scope. It is rarely anything but obvious. If folk disagree I'll hand back the tools happily. These days working here is anything but a pleasure I'm afraid. I would strongly disagree with the undeletion of the images referred to here. --Herby talk thyme 09:09, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
It's simply not true. It's not so easy to determine on speedy deletion if a promotional picture covers a notable topic (e.g. this screenshot of the notable soft seems to be misidentified as a useless advert), and good quality promotional content (like this) can be used for other purposes. That's why promotional pictures should go through community review. And that's why we don't have "out of scope" as a speedy deletion reason, but a reason for regular deletion (COM:DR#Regular deletion). Trycatch (talk) 10:56, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
@George Chernilevsky. What I see that the user uploaded the number of photos of different buildings from Formello industrial zone with the watermark that can be easily removed in the most of cases. Photos of a building are generally not out of scope, the watermarks (easily removable) make them hard to use, but it's a reason to place {{Watermark}} template, not a reason for speedy deletion. What about the block, the user didn't do anything that severe to justify the indefblock without a warning, it's a way off. Trycatch (talk) 10:56, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Well, I've unblocked the user, two weeks is more than enough for this kind of "offense". Trycatch (talk) 07:40, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Support the unblock. Wikipedia has rules against advertisments and not writing about yourself. We should not have the same rules here. In many cases there is no other way of getting images of protected works that having the copyright holder to donate it to us. We host free images for the whole world - not just Wikipedia by the way.
If the work donated to us is not good we should leave a nice note telling the uploader what the problem is. If that does not help we should give a warning before we block. Users that only upload junk will probably be blocked faster that users that also upload good files. So I do not think that a unblock will be the same as allowing spam.
Also I agree that scope and advertisment is not a good reason to speedy delete. Unless it is illegal or vandalism it can easily wait 7 days for deletion. --MGA73 (talk) 09:35, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Can we be mutually banned?

Resolved

I took a month off after getting very frustrated. Just as I was busy now uploading a large amount of new images, in good faith, most of which were taken by the Southerly Clubs chairman on a recent trip around Europe, user Pieter Kuiper pounces on me again, as always, with unnecessary sarcasm and ridicule, as seen here. He could have chosen not to do that. I know that this long-running problem is very annoying to some other users on both sides of it. It needs to be solved. Please help! I would like a permamant mutual ban on any interaction between Pieter Kuiper on one side and myself and the work of retired user EmilEikS on the other. SergeWoodzing (talk) 00:07, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps that could be considered unnecessary sarcasm, but he has a point; you posted to a user's talk page to discuss a problem and then, without waiting for an answer, in fact before you posted it, you brought it to this board.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:17, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Woodzing had not even notified Rrohdin. So I did that. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 06:37, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Kuiper is not being truthful about that. SergeWoodzing (talk) 07:44, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
This one looks like a miscommunication. Serge, usually a statement like "frustrated by your work HERE" would link to a diff which was the source of your frustration. Instead you linked to an admin-board discussion of it. That does indeed count as notification. I guess PK didn't notice that you didn't follow typical convention about what to link, and thought you hadn't notified. Even still, inflating something this trivial to the administrators board without first discussing it with the user is not mellow behaviour. --99of9 (talk) 08:14, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
I apologize for not noticing, but I had assumed that the link that Woodzing gave was a diff to Rrohdin's work. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 08:14, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

And more now here. The people depicted at the site are considered notable (by everyone else but PK?). I expect a devastatiing bombardment now. SergeWoodzing (talk) 00:25, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

One of them doesn't have a Wikipedia article anywhere, and the other isn't exactly extremely well-known. And they have 55 and 236 images respectively, so there's not exactly the huge need for another picture of them, no matter how low-quality.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:17, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
If any of the images of the locations, in that weather or setting, are not considered interesting on their own, notwitstanding who's in them, by all means please delete them! I don't care much about that. Or remove the personal categories! Nobody cares about that either. It's the consistent sarcasm and ridicule from Dr. Kuiper that are insulting and repulsive, for years now, and that rob me of my desire to contribute and make me want to avoid this. That's why I am requesting this. Administrators! Please consider this solution and reply! SergeWoodzing (talk) 05:25, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
  • back to the original question , yes you both can agree not to interact with each other likewise you each can choose to not bite and ignore the actions of the other person. Enforcable sanctions though should be decided by the community after discussion as it would be questionable for an admin to sanction an account just for posting a message, expressing an opinion or notice that was done in good faith. Gnangarra
    I agree with Gnangarra. A voluntary agreement is a more desirable approach. If the the problems reoccur, I recommend the two parties be asked to voluntarily agree to avoid each other. John Vandenberg (chat) 10:58, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Before this goes to archive, I would like to make a note that this discussion contains something very rare: the only apology I have ever seen by Pieter Kuiper. I accept that apology with sincere gratitude and hope to see us both continuing to apologize if and when we err. SergeWoodzing (talk) 16:40, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

 Not done It looks like a happy end. It shows that if users talk to each other they can sometimes solve the problems without assistance of admins. No need for a block or a ban. --MGA73 (talk) 09:13, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Hgetnet

This user has uploaded a good deal of images, many of which don't appear to be his. I found at least one that he marked but which he ripped off en.wp and used the wrong license [30]. Is there a commons equivalent of w:WP:CCI? Magog the Ogre (talk) 08:30, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I share the impression. The appropriate place is to find some sources and note it here or to start a Commons:Mass deletion request on the photos. --Martin H. (talk) 12:29, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Racist personal attacks by Pieter Kuiper

Reason for one month:

Pieter has a consistent pattern of blocks for harassment and other problematic behaviour, and continued to attack and make racist comments after the warning. He was nearly indeffed for harassment a while ago, and is, I believe, forbidden from communicating with Mbz1 over, among other things, attempts to use anti-Semitic cartoons to harass her. I don't see how a someone with a long history of warnings and blocks for this behaviour, who still persists in the behaviour, does not justify a one month block. I'll remind you that Mbz1 got blocked for well over one month for complaining about Pieter's anti-Semitism, as I recall, and that many of the people saying that Pieter's block is too long agreed that complaining about (more-or-less) anti-Semitic attacks was worth indef blocking of Mbz1 - remember this POINTy nomination? Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/File:Latuff_nazi_camp_2.png.

This is part of a long history. I will summarise the history if anyone is genuinely unware, but, suffice to say, this is hardly the first time Pieter has been blocked for harassment. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:57, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Kevorkmail

Before I get Carpal tunnel syndrome, I wanted to alert the admin core to Kevorkmail (talk · contribs). For the last year or more, he has been uploading over a hundred photos with a wide variety of sources and no mention of permission. I've already tagged several dozen. In September, he apparently realized his files would be deleted, so he replaced some of the sources with his own name (Varty Kouyoumdjian→Kevorkmail, Salah Ayoub→Kevorkmail, some website→Kevorkmail... Now he is removing the warnings on his page. Does anyone else support a mass speedy delete (of the non-Flickr ones of course)? I'm not sure how he escaped detection for this long - maybe I am missing something. Thanks. Wknight94 talk 16:28, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Seems mostly {{PD-Syria}}. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 16:33, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Huh? That's possible for the one DR you commented on (one of the few questionable enough for me to start DR). How about the others I have tagged so far? How are File:Queik in Aleppo.JPG, File:University square Alp.jpg, and File:Brad Church in Aleppo.JPG {{PD-Syria}}? Wknight94 talk 16:35, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
And now he is changing sources for others I have tagged: Dr. Havic Atokian he claims is his brother, but how about Rabea Kalawand? Wknight94 talk 16:38, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
It gets better. File:Meydanki lake Aleppo.jpg is another photo by Dr. Havic Atokian - but it was uploaded by Salah Mara1978 (talk · contribs). I wonder if that is a sockpuppet? I discovered that because Salah Mara1978 and Kevorkmail were the only users to have uploaded images from apparently-unfree web site http://www.gyumri.am - File:Holy Saviour recon Gyumri1.jpg, File:Gyumri general view.jpg, etc. Wknight94 talk 16:55, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Thank you for your good work here. If Kevorkmail is the author it should be possible to upload the originals with good Metadata. If not, this does not look good at all to me. If we have good reason to doubt that the files belong to the uploader then a mass deletion would be the best solution. --MGA73 (talk) 07:51, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Kameraad Pjotr

The user's comment above, under the latest discussion of Pieter Kuiper's behavior, where it is deemed as a "useless" discussion to debate whether or not a user should be allowed to continue to insult other users with ethnic slurs, is highly questionable in my opinion. Especially the behavior of a Commons administrator, who writes something like that, needs to be questioned. Statements like that, along with telling an amount of us to " grow up", would seem to undermine whatever respect we need to have for administrators here, whom we need to be able to ask for constructive help and rely on to behave ethically. SergeWoodzing (talk) 19:25, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

It is not Kameraad Pjotr that is the problem. Please check the edits of SergeWoodzing and you will find that of the recent 50 edits almost half of them are spend to tell how bad other users is. SergeWoodzing has been reporting more users here on AN/UP than any other user I know (3 of the ones currently active). I think that tells us all we need to know.
I have seldom seen a user more dedicated to attack and hunt down other users than SergeWoodzing. I think it is bad when users spend more time spreading negative "vibrations" than to do usefull work. Someone suggested to block and ban Pieter Kupiter because he makes the working climate bad. Well Pieter may light a fire from time to time but everytime there is a fire it seems that SergeWoodzing is ready with some gasoline.
I give my full support to Kameraad Pjotr who is just the recent victim in SergeWoodzing long list of attacks. --MGA73 (talk) 07:28, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Just a note to tell that it was not me that closed this one. It was Gnangarra. The only reason I add this note to a closed discussion is to avoid that someone thinks that I closed it. --MGA73 (talk) 20:23, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

MGA73

closed nothing more in furthering this discussion as well that will be beneficial to Commons Community, many people should take a moment to reflect on their actions/words of the last few days. Gnangarra 04:19, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I certainly hope MGA73 doesn't expect me not to report him/her for the very serious personal attack leveled against me in the previous discussion about Kameraad Pjotr, which was closed so fast I never was allowed to defend myself against all those falisfied statistics. Anyone interested can easily check my history and judge for themselves how many outright lies there are or are not in MGA73's attack.

I have actually only complained about one single user here, and, in reaction to replies to those complaints, about the similar behavior of other users who have defended him in ways I have found shameful, encouraging him to go on being sarcastic and cruel to other Commons users ad infinitum. The complaint I registered against Rrohdin was put here in error and I have apologized for that.

This new outrageous attack against me is meant to shut me up or drive me away, I'm sure. Any administrator neutral to these discussions is welcome to tell me whether or not I should shut up and/or leave. SergeWoodzing (talk) 17:04, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Well... I wouldn't use the words "shut up and leave", but I urge you to reconsider your recent behavior, as i do not think it adds credibility to those of your complaints which have merit to them. --Dschwen (talk) 17:24, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Please specify! That might be helpful. SergeWoodzing (talk) 17:29, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
You ask me to state the obvious? Ok, you seem to be a little agitated lately. Not every disagreement is a personal attack. Reporting MGA73 and Kameraad Pjotr to the "User problems" page is picking an unnecessary fights and essentially making mountains out of mole hills. PKs recent slurs are much more grave than that. You are diluting this page by making those things into incidents. That is tactically very ill advised. --Dschwen (talk) 17:57, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I am not a tactician. My straight candor can either be appreciated or despised. We disagree about mole hills. When one administratror says that
  • it is a "useless" discussion to debate whether or not a user should be allowed to continue to insult other users with ethnic slurs
and another user calls me
  • a user more dedicated to attack and hunt down other user ... users spend more time spreading negative "vibrations" than to do usefull work ... Kameraad Pjotr is just the recent victim in SergeWoodzing long list of attacks.
I fail to understand how we are discussing mole hills. Dangerously alienating administrator arrogance (as I see it) and vicious truthless personal attacks (as I see them) can only be mole hills to those of us who condone such behvaior by accepting it (as I see it). Please don't! Please reprimand the actual offenders, not the victims of these offences! SergeWoodzing (talk) 18:16, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
It does seem a bit superfluous to put "report" such "incidents" on the same Administrators' noticeboard where they occurred. I'm sure those who read the noticeboard noticed anyway. Hence the name. As I have remarked before, I'd really like to see more constructive suggestions for resolutions on this noticeboard. Before creating a section on a user with whom you have a disagreement, ask yourself what result you wish to achieve. Kameraad Pjotr's remarks that others should "grow up" was unhelpful and, frankly, unbecoming of an administrator, but we can't revoke privileges every time someone missteps. I think Elekhh's rebuke was illuminating, balanced and appropriate. "Reporting" those who disagree with you, or fail to see the importance of issues that you care about, only draws attention away from the original issue and makes your original position harder to sympathize with, regardless of its merits. —LX (talk, contribs) 18:41, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I've blocked MGA for one week. Theier behaviour is clearly unacceptable, and it's far time someone did somethoing about the problematic behaviour of some people here, who abuse their administrative position. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:32, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Adam Cuerden had resigned as admin, I believed... /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 18:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
That is incorrect. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:38, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Pieter Kuiper had resigned as Commons user, I believed... --High Contrast (talk) 18:53, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure this block of MGA is appropriate. In general they behave as a reasonable admin here. I think this requires more consideration. --Herby talk thyme 18:59, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Is the block based on this posting above or something else. --Herby talk thyme 19:00, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
It's based on that partially, but also because the behavious of attacks is part of a long pattern. MGA73 has acted as they do here for at least a year now, attacking Serge Woodzing practically every time he posts. On its own, it wouldn't be worth a block. However, as it's part of a longstanding and consistent pattern, it was time someone stepped in. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:06, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Where are the warnings to him about his behaviour please? --Herby talk thyme 19:08, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Commons is proverbially mellow, but unchecked uncivil behaviour has caused a definite regression, to the point where the victims are attacked for politely expressing a problem, and their frustration at these attacks is used to justify further insistence that they should shut up. It makes Commons very, very hostile to anyone not considered part of the elite, or who fails to explain the problems they're facing well enough. I do think that we need to have minimum civility, and must not dismiss frustrated users out of hand, particularly when, from all I can tell, they are pretty much right. Commons can only work if we are friendly and open. If the complaint is valid, but not worthy of a block, we can say that politely. There is no need to attack the user for making the complaint, particularly when several admins have spoken up and said that the behaviour being discussed is problematic. I do think that we need to have minimum civility, and must not dismiss frustrated users out of hand, particularly when, from all I can tell, they are pretty much right. Commons can only work if we are friendly and open. If the complaint is valid, but not worthy of a block, we can say that politely. There is no need to attack the user for making the complaint, particularly when several admins have spoken up and said that the behaviour being discussed is problematic. MGA's behaviour has been going on for at least a year. There have been multiple threads here complaining about their behaviour. Do we really think that an official warning is enough for a year of behaviour which has only served to make commons look capricious and hostile? No, the many threads about them were sufficient warning that their behaviour was problematic. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:19, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

In a word "yes". It would take exceptional circumstances for an unwarned block. Equally it would be to prevent further disruption and quite short. I do not think your block appropriate here. --Herby talk thyme 19:21, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Do you really think that MGA73 hasn't had due warning, in a year of official complaints about their behaviour? Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:23, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
The block of MGA73 (and probably Pieter Kuiper) is certainly inappropriate and should be undone immediately. Further, MGA was not warned, and there is clearly no consensus for him being blocked. Please unblock him. Kameraad Pjotr 19:24, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
MGA73 is an admin; it possible to unblock himself on his own anyway. --High Contrast (talk) 19:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
As a show of good faith, I've unblocked MGA, changing it to a warning. I do think a block was appropriate, but if a warning is preferred first, that could work.
However, I would like to note three policy points: COM:BLOCK only requires warnings in the case of copyvio; if it's desired for them to be more widespread, admins should be appropriately guided.
Secondly, unblocking yourself is generally considered an abuse of admin tools.
Thirdly, I think we've forgotten one of the key foundations of Commons. COM:BLOCK says blocks are appropriate "for behaviour that has the potential to damage the Commons or disrupt its collegial atmosphere." I do think Commons' collegial atmosphere has been allowed to fall to pieces over the last couple years, with the formation of cliques, treating gross incivility as unproblematic, and occasional attacks on victims. We need to restore those values, if we're serious about making commons a place where users can feel comfortable. This is one of Commons' key values, and if we continue to ignore it, we're going to lose any and all sense of community. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:43, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Yeah right, distributing blocks without warning or discussion is improving the "collegial atmosphere". –Tryphon☂ 19:50, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Admins have the freedom to decide in which behavior to block. But this freedom is also limited. All Admin decisions have to be consistency to other Admins decisions. Admin should consider, especially in the case of a block, whether another admin would get the same decision. If the answer is no or there is a doubt in the answer, you have to discuss it and reach consensus. I am of course opposed to the block. Geagea (talk) 23:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

This whole three ring circus is far too much for me to remain silent any longer. I've watched this whole situation evolve for literally years and I am so disgusted at the actions (and inactions) of some of the admins here I have to speak up and I don't care about the reprisals. I can't believe four admins (one of them a CU who I used to respect) have replied to the sections above on this page and not one of them speedy unblocked MGA73 and Pieter Kuiper. I also cannot believe not one single person pointed out the elephant duck in the room when Russkie turned up complaining about Pieter Kuiper. A user who has no cross wiki contributions, whose first Commons contrib was to start a delist for an FP, who stalks PK's contributions/talk page, takes repeated multiple edits to a page to get a single reply right and uses hyperbole in excess. And now "out of the blue" Adam Cuerden turns up and issues blocks to two people who he has previously been in conflict with (something he has been warned about before), and that strikes no-one as suspicious.

The last two times AN/U discussions weren't going Cuerden's way he flounced off in a hissy fit vowing never to return to Commons, because of that de-sysop procedures were put on hold, I suggest that not be the case this time. Please speedy unblock both MGA73 and Pieter Kuiper and de-sysop Adam Cuerden. This whole situation should have been closed a day ago, it does not make Commons and its admins look good to the rest of us at all. Cpt Helia (talk) 19:46, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I hate to say this, but I wholeheartedly agree with what you say. Kameraad Pjotr 19:48, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Me too, both are now unblocked. Multichill (talk) 19:56, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Let me get this straight

Pieter, who has nearly been indef blocked, who is forbidden from communicating with Mbz1 because of his use of Latuff cartoons to harass her - and for complaining about which, she was blocked for a couple months, who has a consistent pattern of harassment, and who is the subject of endless discussions on this board, does not deserve ANY block? That's ridiculous. I am so glad I haven't uploaded any of the work I have done to Commons, because all of you disgust me. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:14, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Blocking Kuiper may have stuck for a bit. But blocking MGA73 was way over-the-top. I think you sabotaged yourself with that one. Wknight94 talk 20:25, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
  •  Comment -- What we have here is a child with a gun. It defies reason why that gun wasn't taken from him yet. Alvesgaspar (talk) 20:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
    •  Comment Alvesgaspar, your metaphor is unlikely to be helpful, in my judgment. I considered blocking Peter Kuiper around 03:00 (UTC), but decided that it would serve little purpose. Instead, I endorsed Herby's warning. If the purpose of blocks is preventative, the much later block by Adam Cuerden was ill-advised because it served to inflame, not to calm matters. Walter Siegmund (talk) 22:23, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
      •  Comment I agree completely with Wknight94 and Walter. --Avenue (talk) 23:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
        •  Comment - In my opinion, such metaphor describes the current situation accurately and it is useful exactly for that reason. Sometimes it is necessary to abandon the mellow and politically correct speech and call things by their proper names. Again and again this user has disrupted the project with his loud voice and bad manners (to say the leas), and abused the patience of the community. Maybe it is time now to solve the problems once and for all. I agree with Slaunger on a speedy desysop. For the reasons he explained, and also to give a strong sign that this kind of beahaviour is not to be tolerated. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 00:13, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

@ SergeWoodzing I expected you to report me. As I said in discussion above: "SergeWoodzing has been reporting more users here on AN/UP than any other user I know (3 of the ones currently active). I think that tells us all we need to know.". Now it is 4. I think there is no need to say more.

@ To the rest perhaps this link may help you judge if Adam was the right admin to block and warn me Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archives/User_problems_16#Topic_ban_on_.22Pieter_Kuiper.22_for_Adam_Cuerden.3F. --MGA73 (talk) 20:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


user:Adam Cuerden

Subsequent reblock, interaction with Mattbuck, unblock, and reblock

desysop request

As a desysop of Adam has been discussed several times now, I think it is time to go through the process, in accordance to the offical process. I have therefore opened Commons:Administrators/Requests/Adam Cuerden desysop. --Slaunger (talk) 22:46, 7 December 2010 (UTC)


That I ever contributerd to this site makes me physically ill. Go ahead and desysop me. The racism, the evil, the manipulation, everything about this site is broken, and a thousand messages saying how much I was appreciated, and how I must come back and keep uploading images? The last two words of that were all you cared about.

Go die in a fire, all of you.

Oh, wait, now that I'm attacking pewople, I'm completely protected from any consequences, right? I mean, look at Pieter Kuiper, MGA73, all the other trolls Commons LOVES?! Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

You can go to m:SRP to forego the process. Wknight94 talk 01:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steward_requests/Permissions&action=historysubmit&diff=2235870&oldid=2235280 <- Done. Right. Think I can safely leave all of you to go fuck yourselves now. I hope you all die in a fire. No love. Goodbye.

and if you wanted me to go quietly, people shouldn't have sent me harassing emails. Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:16, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

If the page is reinstated (it was deleted while I was commenting), please move this comment there:
  • Continue adminship, apologize to Cuerden for not appreciating all his efforts to stop persecution and cruelty on this project; ask him thereafter to apologize for his angry remarks lately toward all of us; stop harassing the victims of the offenses Cuerden very rightly has honestly and productively done more that his share in trying to curtail. People like Cuerden make some others, with certain standards of ethics, stick around here. It is a shame, but not incomprehensible, that he is driven to such anger that he makes unsuitable comments that are beneath his dignity. The treatment he gets here is quite a few floors even lower. SergeWoodzing (talk) 02:17, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
  • This is bullshit - someone does a good thing by banning someone for racist comments and being unapologetic about it, and our response is to desysop him? Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. -mattbuck (Talk) 02:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
    • It should be damn obvious that the desysop was not requested because Kuiper is such a good person. Do not make the mistake of making this about PK. It isn't. It is about Adam, and no, he is not a martyr. --Dschwen (talk) 02:44, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
      • I think that Adam Cuerden does qualify as a martyr under the most common understandings of the term. Pretty much as User:Lycaon and others, who should be counted and remembered. And maybe reflected upon. Rama (talk) 12:44, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
The loss of Lycaon is really, really a heavy loss. I mean, hey: Thats all we are here for: for People who want to contribute with great images. And what do we do, we chase them away and spend most of the time deleting some rubbish harvested from the net and argue if we should tag that rubbish with NS or not an fight wars about that. We should think of how we get Lycaon back into the boat, really! That would do something good. I have given it a try. Amada44  talk to me 16:21, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
  • This thread was closed too soon. There are still a couple of things I (we?) still don't understand: i) why this desysop request was not restored (do we have anything to hide?); ii) why was PK blocked again for one month (for calling a dick to someone who called him the same before?); why is Adam Cuerden not blocked for the serious accusations he made here? -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 13:05, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I restored it.. ...and redeleted it after I saw that the a steward had already removed Adam's bit on his own request. I saw no need to antagonize Adam out of spite. He clearly wanted to disappear and not have an embarrassing desysop request haunt him. Those who need to know the page existed do know. --Dschwen (talk) 16:24, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Deleting it gives the impression we have something to hide. If Adam comes back in a year, and things blow up again, you and I may remember what happened there, but leaving it deleted would put new users at a disadvantage. We should restore it (and close it, if it hasn't been closed already). I believe my motive for making this argument is a desire for transparency, not spite. I feel leaving it deleted would set a very bad precedent; the same goes for his talk page. --Avenue (talk) 17:05, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Or, alternatively, why any of these things should be even considered in the absence of strict texts defining what is or is not permissible. Or why a minority of people with no particular authority are in a position of shaping what happens on Commons simply because they spend lots of time on this noticeboard. And why those who fail to protect users from aggression, to the cost of contributors of great merit to the project, posture as morally superior to those who try to police the project.
We do not have strict policies, we do not have precise definitions for concepts that people use systematically in their argumentations ("Community", "involved", ...), and we do not have a body of people to arbitrate conflicts. In the present state of affairs, Commons is a chaos similar to the French National Convention -- everything goes, and you simply have to gather enough of your friends and win popularity contests to beat your opponents, irrespective of a higher law or of the effect of your actions.
In the absence of written, usable rules, the only norms are moral (and thus irrelevant since everybody has his) or pragmatic (what happens to the project if you do something). And in terms of concrete consequences, the advocates of inaction like MGA73 are the objective allies of provocateurs like Pieter Kuiper, and they concur to the unease and eventual departure of very valuable contributors who do not cause problems if left alone (the names of Adam Cuerden or Lycaon spring to my mind but I'd be interested in a list of the high-value victims of this sorry state of affairs).
Adam Cuerden has sinned, yes, in the sense that he has been noisy and that has disturbed people. He was clumsy in his attempt to gather popular support for his lynching party, and he is now being lynched himself. Does that make him morally inferior to others ? At least, Adam Cuerden tried to do what he though right without being toxic and manipulative, or pathologically coward. Those who wish to lynch Adam Cuerden should do so, since it is the custom of this sorry land, but they could spare us their posturing as guardians of a law or paragons of virtue. They are neither. The others would do well to reflect on a profound reform of Commons that would not let working contributors exposed to the personal vendettas of provocateurs. Rama (talk) 15:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
No, Adam has not "sinned". He was not desysoped for just being "noisy" or "disturbing" people. He just did not make productive use of his admin bits so he should not have them. That's all there is to it. He stormed off, multiple times. He was not chased away. He just could not accept being a regular contributor. If he makes further contributions depend on having admin bits and being allowed to ignore consensus than that is solely his problem. He was not able to deal with the community in a rational non emotional manner. And I see that as a fundamental prerequisite to having the admin bit. --Dschwen (talk) 16:30, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Don't you, I mean everybody, who commented here after I archived it last night, understand that right now it does not matter who is right and who is wrong in what happened here last night? Right now we all simply have to back up and stop the drama. Please. If somebody wants to start a discussion about a different user mentioned here, please do, but this particular discussion should be closed and archived. If nobody minds, I will try to archive it again in 10 minutes.--Mbz1 (talk) 16:52, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
No, I don't. for me its not about right or wrong. Rama posted something that we should think about/contemplate about just a few minutes ago and you can't just stuff it into the archive. I think that we need to look at what happened any why. Amada44  talk to me 17:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Excuse me, but not using one's administrative rights is not a reason for an emergency desysopping. Neither is a statement of departure. Neither is "not accepting being a regular contributor" -- besides, I'd advise caution before comparing one's achievements as a contributor to those of Adam. And "The Community" does not exist, please keep that out of the discussion until it's been properly defined. The fact is that there are no articles of law and now Arbcom decision to desysop Adam; moral consideration are moot; and on a concrete level, Adam is merely an exceptional contributor and an admin who tried to act. What forced Adam was neither a para-legal nor a moral reason, but a numerical inferiority in a popularity contest. Now that we have lost yet another invaluable contributor to petty politics and lynching, does anybody fancy doing something about the institutions of Commons to stop this haemorrhage? Rama (talk) 17:03, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
It wasn't about Adam failing to use his admin tools; it was about his ongoing misuse of them. But let's leave that aside. Do you think Commons needs something like w:Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee? --Avenue (talk) 17:14, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) With all due respect, Adam has a long history of taking his ball and going home. How many times has he said GoodBye, on this and other projects? He is not a good representative of a "haemorrhage". Wknight94 talk 17:23, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
@Avenue: Yes, I think that in spite of the inherent sparseness of Commons, it has growth to the point where some problems require a formal procedure and enquiries to solve. An anarchist system has long been sufficient, but it is now degenerating into a Wild Wide West chaos of populism and demagogy.
@Wknight94: Lycaon is, and I remember several other such occurrences where the administrative corps, by its characteristic failure at enforcing order, left Commons with the most aggressive rather than the most useful contributor. That problem cannot be dismissed by the invoking the particularities of Adam (who is an invaluable contributor in any case). The recurrent failure at protecting the users who have elected us for adminship constitutes an offence on the dignity of the administrative status at least as problematic as blocking an user with whom one is "involved".
Rama (talk)
Adam deleted his own desysop page. There are few things I can imagine as damning as that; if you are unwilling to let the desysop process complete, then you're welcome to ask for their removal and ask for the desysop page to be deleted. Or he could have stood up and made his case in a reasonable manner.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:53, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Again, by what book? You might think that deleting one's own desysopping request is "damning", and I might very well agree with you, but I've not seen that written as forbidden. It strikes me as quite odd that Adam could not block Peiter because there is no book explicitely forbidding the precise offence that Pieter commited, but could still be blamed for not behaving by this non-existent book.
Since you cannot invoke rules because they do not exist, and since your moral is as good as mine, we are left with assessing the long-term effects of people's respective actions. By that standard, it would seem that Adam's periodic departures and and other displays of annoyance cause much less problems to Commons as a project than the regular provocations of known trolls, and even than the obstructionnism of timid administrators. Rama (talk)
The rules don't exist? What about Commons:Deletion policy, which sets forth specific reasons for speedy deleting a page, none of which that page fell under? What about Commons:Administrators, which says that "administrators have no special editorial authority by virtue of their position, and in discussions and public votes their contributions are treated in the same way as any ordinary editor", a rule violated by any administrator who unilaterally deletes a public vote?
And, no, even if the rules weren't written down, doesn't mean we have to assess the long-term effects of actions; there is the common law of what has been done and found general consensus before, for one. Beyond that, we can judge actions; if it is wrong for one users to verbally abuse other editors, it is wrong for all users to do so, and handle it similarly, even if some think that one user's abuse is somehow less harmful than others; to do otherwise tends to violate people's understanding of fairness.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Ah but we have rules like this for lots of things, including civility and trolling. But we do not have a corpus of procedures and penalties for such or such offence. Adam's attempts at policing trolling have been canceled as out of procedure, so why should the enforcement of the "rules" on administrators be any less null? The only possible answer is that Adam's position is less popular. Talking in para-legal terms of "procedures" and such is a red herring: policing on Commons is currently performed by a form of virtual lynching, and nothing else.
As for "common law" (ah ah, legalism...), one fundamental principle of law is that penalties are in proportion of offences. So, yes, we do have to assess long-term effects. I will happily concede that we currently do not, but that is one of the failures that make the policing of Commons dysfunctionnal. Rama (talk) 08:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Rama, as we al know there are no "penalties" in Commons. Editors are blocked to protect the project and/or the other users and admins are desysoped when they abuse their tools and can no longer be trusted. Adam was not "punished" for being impopular, only deprived oh his admin tools because he grossly misused them. I fail to see him as a martyr either. Because he was not blocked (I can't still understand why) he may come back and resume his work anytime he wishes to. Alvesgaspar (talk) 09:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Of course, but regardless of the terminology, the "protection of the project" must be commensurable to the danger. Adam is being desysopped while he has announced his departure, something which is quite debatably a useless "protection", while Pieter Kuiper, for instance, is pursuing his long-term militancy on Commons with the same means as always.
As for Adam's "gross" misuse of admin tools, by what standards do you judge this? There is no clear definition of what "involved" means in this context. Your guess is as good as mine or Adam's , and the only thing that distinguishes them objectively is the amount of support that they gather amongst the people who hang here. So yes, Adam was subject to "precautions" of debatable necessity, and had his actions repeatedly cancelles before, on nothing more than a popularity contest.
For this, he is a martyr -- a symbolic victim. Maybe not a wise one, maybe not an elightened one, but he is a typical case of an invaluable contributor, trusted with administrative tools, whose legitimate efforts at policing where nullified, and who became so frustrated that he left the project. I would add that stressing his last displays of understandable frustration to equate him with a menace to the project (especially when examples of real menaces, who caused actual and grievious damage to the project, remain esentially unchecked) is unfair and sadly typical of a certain loss of purpose of the administrative corps.
I do not mean to support Adam (nor blame him, for that matters), but I think that we should stop fooling ourselves as to the extend to which policing is dysfonctionnal on Commons. Rama (talk) 11:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
There's no evidence that he was leaving; he had stormed out before and came back, and the last time he immediately started up where he left off. Nothing happened to Adam that wouldn't have happened to Pieter Kuiper if he somehow got his hands on the admin bits. Pieter Kuiper constantly gets his "actions cancelled, on nothing more than a popularity contest"; category changes, RfDs don't go his way, undeletes don't go his way.
Who will police the police? is one of the oldest questions in the book. It is inherent in a just system that the police--the admins, in this case--get held to the highest, most strict standards. If you want to ignore "his last displays of understandable frustration", I don't see where you have the right to block any frustrated user at all.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I think that taking into account Adam's deletion of his own Request For Desysopping (RfD ?) is a reversal of logic. The turning point is that blocking Kuiper triggered a backlash in the form of this Request For Desysopping. My point is that this Request For Desysopping is in itself no more legitimate than the block of Kuiper that had triggered it. If the administrative corps was able to act as one for the purpose for which its members where elected, there would be sort degree of legitimacy in its actions (giving the "right to block any frustrated user", as you put it). Split as it is, no action can pretend to be more legitimate than another; only sheer brute force makes one a winner or a loser. Sheer brute force has made Adam a loser this time, and he was clumsy in seeking a predictable outcome, but we should not fool ourselves with notions that some sort of right has prevailed.
As for Kuiper, indeed the tides of popularity sometimes turn against him. It so happens that he is especially resilient, even coming back after his quasi-ban (from which he escaped purely on a technicality). That is what makes me say that the dynamics of Commons presently tend to select and breed trolls that are more and more cunning and resilient, and discourage users who are on Commons to contribute images rather than to exercise mental violence on others -- sometimes despairing them into engaging in problematic behaviour themselves before leaving, as in Adam's case. This is not a desirable state of things. Rama (talk) 21:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
That is bullshit. You're equating forcibly stopping a user from editing with opening a forum to discuss whether an admin should continue to have superuser powers? Not blocking Adam, not even desysopping Admin, but merely discussing the issue is now illegitimate? You aren't gods, Rama; if you reread Commons:Administrators, you have no more rights then I do, and surely not the right to avoid discussion of whether you're handling the admin bit correctly.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
You are making an important point here. It puzzles me how some people fail to see the difference between blocking or banning a user from contributing at all, and discussing whether he should have admin rights. If you make continued contribution depend on having admin rights then you are essentially in a way extorting the community. --Dschwen (talk) 21:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Adam blocking Pieter did not trigger the desysop request. People disagreed with the block, but no one called for desysopping until Adam started a wheel war over the block. --Avenue (talk) 23:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I am not saying that anyone is entitled to having administrative priviledges. I am merely observing that Adam was essentially put on a sort of trial for using these privileges in a manner that is not clearly absurd -- it has received support from other people. As such, what we are witnessing is one faction of administrators having the ability to put people on accusation for political reasons (again, my comparison with the French Convention). The consequences of this are a lack of legitimacy, the apparent total loss of Adam as a contributor, and another signal to Pieter Kuiper that his behaviour is adequate (his provocations do not result in a ban and only seldom in a black, some of the people that he targets leave the project, and the administrators who try to police him are marginalised in the ensuing discussions). I believe that an Arbcom would be a much more efficient process to solve this sort of issues.
@Avenue: there are always several parties to a war. I fail to see where Kameraad Pjotr, for instance, had his adminship revoked, questioned or even any warning at all. This asymetry suggests that it is not the nature of the deed that triggers a backlash, but indeed its direction. Rama (talk) 17:01, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
  •  Comment We should undelete the desysop request. We do not allow users to remove discussions they do not like. Do we perhaps allow users to delete discussions on AN/U or clean up the blocklog to make it look nicer? Adam did not only delete his own contributions but also contributions made by other users and it helps others to evaluate his actions and his reason to leave Commons. If he wanted the page deleted he should have started a DR and hoped for support.
I think the page could also be a clear signal to admins what happen if they abuse their tools. And blocking users you have a dispute with is abuse and is one of the reasons why Adam faced a desysop. We have other admins that have done the same thing and if they read it and learn we can hopefully avoid further desysop request. --MGA73 (talk) 18:49, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
    • I support an undeletion as well. IMO the request I opened was mellow, balanced and factual, and in full accordance with COM:DESYSOP. I get the impression, that some users consider it an aggressive one, but I think they should be able to see for themselves. It can be closed as soon as it is undeleted as Adam volunteerly requested for a removal of rights. Now, I have no idea what is in there, as I only created the initial revision. As I have been critizised for opening I think it would be fair to see what happened in there, such that I can also learn from it. --Slaunger (talk) 19:00, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
      • Just a quick comment, as I was the last one to delete it. The request was indeed mellow and factual (I supported it). It was not aggressive at all, and after your initial revision nothing noteworthy happened (except for a couple of users giving their opinion). There is nothing to see or learn here. --Dschwen (talk) 19:19, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
        • OK, that is sufficient for me. Thanks for telling. --Slaunger (talk) 19:28, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
        • While I still feel that the project would benefit from undeleting the desysop request eventually, on reflection I think doing so now could be perceived as vindictive, even if it isn't meant that way. How about we leave things as they are for now, and revisit this in a month's time? Hopefully feelings will have cooled down by then. Perhaps we should consider having formal guidelines like w:WP:RTV for such situations too. --Avenue (talk) 03:25, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
        • Umm, Dschwen, did you look at the revision history? At one stage there was "something interesting" (that later got reverted), a statement from Adam about why he now dislikes Commons, including an attack on Slaunger, with plenty of expletives thrown in. 99of9 (talk) 07:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
        • I do not need to know those expletives personally and I do not wish that further "fuss" is made out of the matter. I perceive it as a singularity, which cannot overshadow some very memorable moments of very good interactions I have had on-wiki with Adam. I agree with Avenue above that undeleting could be considered vindictive. --Slaunger (talk) 07:35, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
        • I really do not think that things should be left as they are. That will pass a wrong message to the editors, about what can and cannot be done (deleting a desysop request is not certainly one of the first), and will blank the memory of what really happened for everyone's eyes but a few. Adam's admin powers were removed not because he asked for but because he grossly misused them. Please understand that this is no longer about Adam but about Commons' policy. Alvesgaspar (talk) 08:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
          • Adam's admin powers were not removed. He resigned from the project completely (to which he's entirely entitled, an action which carries no implication of guilt) and so the desysop request became moot. Accordingly, and following our usual courtesy and right to vanish, the desysop request was removed. There was no longer any purpose to such a request, other than to amuse those who enjoy wikidrama. That is no reason to keep it.
I would also note that this was only a request, not a verdict, and that at least two editors had called for him to keep admin powers and criticized the attacks upon him, the desysop request and the timing of the desysop request. It's far from a clear verdict whether finally he would have been desysoped, or whether his main provocation might instead have seen a block. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I would also see it that way. Although I think that Adam needs to go through RfA again should he want the bits back one day like Nilfanion suggested below. Amada44  talk to me 11:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Please bear in mind that a voluntary request done under controversial circumstances (which this clearly is), means the user should not automatically get the bit back on request but go through RFA again. Therefore, enough information should be logged so that the bureaucrats know to do this.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Wow, a whole new way of wikilynching. When someone is on the edge and about to resign, throw up a totally spurious desysop request (which they'll hardly stick around to defend, but nor does the lynch party have to prove their case) and then they'll automatically lose their bit, even if they should return later. Neat. 8-( Andy Dingley (talk) 11:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Not really, that's always been de facto standard - Otherwise it negates the whole point of a de-sysop request (wait until its about to be closed and resign, you can get the bit back the next month without recourse). What this does is return the matter to the community: Adam pre-empted the community by resigning, if he wants it back, the community would have to approve it. Bear if he does re-request the bit it will be after a spell of "good behaviour" and the community will likely approve the bit. Oh and I said "resigned under controversial circumstances, not "resigned whilst a desysop is open" - a spurious desysop would be ignored, a resignation in a very controversial case without a desysop started would matter.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't think it is accurate to use the words "totally spurious desysop request" to describe that for Adam Cuerden. To quote Dschwen above, "The request was indeed mellow and factual (I supported it)." I endorse that description. We can discuss the process going forward, but that discussion may best proceed without the use of hyperbole like "lynching" and "totally spurious". On the substance of this discussion, I think it must be agreed that an editor who resigns under controversial circumstances may not have his/her status restored upon request. Otherwise, it may be necessary to allow the de-sysop discussion to proceed, as unpleasant and divisive as that may be. Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I agree this is a controversial circumstance, and therefore the bit should not be speedy restored. Wknight94 talk 16:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • My two pence: with Adam departing Commons while professing to have lost interest in the project and backing this by language (a variety of insults) and symbolic acts (his deletion of his own desysop request), my opinion is that we have serious practical reasons to remove his sysop status and require him to proceed through a fresh RfA should he consider joining back (be it only to provide a place for clarifications to be posted on his hypothetical return after such a departure).
Nevertheless, I would like to repeat my impression that the original request for desysoping suffers from a serious lack of legitimacy. The accusations to which Adam has been subject are exactly as legitimate as his own block of MGA73. The only thing that makes one more potent than the other is a difference in popularity. In other terms, it was entirely political. I am not taking position on whether it was wise or opportune, but this fundamental lack of legitimacy is what opens the door to accusations of lynching.
We are suffering an institutional crisis. The risks in letting administrators block people for personal advantage are self-evident. But the risks of letting vague understanding of undefined terms like "involved" entirely stall policing actions have clearly been underestimated. Commons is suffering a hemorrhage of its most valuable contributors who come under personal attacks by a handful of provocateurs. The lack of administrative action is effectively giving these provocateurs the power to ban people (not merely block them) by destroying their dedication to the project.
I believe that the present crisis revolves around a lack of arbitration body able to investigate cases, document them for further easy reference, and possibly to issue penalties. Lest we do this, it will always be too easy for a recidivist to disqualify policing admins simply by retaliating. I think we need such a body to issue clear and written orders; only this will empower admins to act when needed, will protect them from counter-attacks by provocateurs or even by admins supporting them, and will keep over-eager admins in check. I call for a serious reflection on the creation of an arbcom on Commons.
Rama (talk) 17:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Rama, you are making this case political. To who's personal advantage would it be to remove Adam's admin flag? Repeating emotionally charges terms like lynching or hemorrhage is counter productive, and does not make them anymore true. Making this a by proxy war on Pieter Kuiper is dangerous and trivializes Adams administrative misconduct. The two should be treated as separate subjects. Commons really does not need the drama and cassandra cries about a crisis. IMO commons does not even need an ArbCom. This seems like knee-jerk reaction or doing something just for the sake of doing it. What would really help more than any new beurocratic institution is if people would just calm down a bit and realize that we all want the same thing. In theory there are no two camps here. Nobody wants to give certain contributors a carte blanche, nobody wants to promote hostility towards contributors or repeated provocations. In my opinion the disagreement is only gradual. Whether a case can be built based on a long history of disturbances, or whether a singular big event must happen for a block to stick. And in the heated emotional atmosphere of the last weeks no rational discourse on that matter has happened. --Dschwen (talk) 18:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
There is far more heat than light being generated here so generally I am staying away however I confess I agree with Dschwen's post. --Herby talk thyme 18:35, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Me as well. It's ironic that Adam's exit makes you want an arbitration board when an arbitration board is what (originally) caused Adam to leave en.wp. If anything, arbitration would result in more people leaving, not less. If anyone wants a general discussion regarding recent events, just start a new section here. Wknight94 talk 18:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
@Dschwen: Again, what you call "Adams administrative misconduct" has not been sanctioned as such by a higher authority. It is your opinion, it is the opinion of a number of people that overwhelms Adam, but it is only that. Missing the legitimacy of a higher body, that opinion is only political and has the exact same legitimacy than Adam's own opinions. It is regrettable that a purely political process could lead to the departure of a user who once had such a dedication to our project.
I am afraid that I have to disagree with you when you say that we all want the same thing. There are provocateurs that are beyond suspicion of acting in good faith, and their presence exacerbates disagreements about policing to the point where we effectively have different camps amongst Commons admins, in practice if not in form. Without a higher body like an ArbCom, I doubt that these camps, if faced with subtle threats (of which Pieter Kuiper is just one example), would ever be able to agree on anything else the inaction that harms us so much.
It is high time to face the reality that the current dynamics of Commons effectively select the most tenaciously aggressive users, and marginalise or even eliminate the most useful. I believe that the term "hemorrhage" is quite adapted to qualify the recurring losses that we concede to this phenomenon (Lycaon, Adam, ...), and I'd be happy to see statistics to quantify it more precisely. I share your belief that nobody wants to promote aggressiveness, but promotion of aggressiveness keeps happening nevertheless. Policies are worthless if not grounded in reality. The days when anarchy was a working seem to be gone, and since admins have been elected in part to protect contributors against nuisances, I believe it their duty to change the dynamics and break the stall.
@Wknight94: I think that we have been in need of an Arbcom for some time. Adam's departure makes me express this point, it does not inspire it. Rama (talk) 19:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Rama, what you express here is basically just moral relativism. There is no higher authority. Creating an ArbCom would only create the bureaucratic illusion of a higher authority. There is no reason to use the term opinion in a derogatory way. Yes, quite a few people seem to share the opinion that the desysop was necessary. What does it even mean that it overwhelms Adam? It probably touches the root of the problem. Adam was overwhelmed by the admin bits. It led to an emotional involvement and an all or nothing attitude that was ultimately destructive. I still think it would have been better for all involved parties if Adam had remained a regular contributor without bits, i.e. if he had never gotten them in the first place. The community did not do him a favor by approving the admin nomination. And again, the use of the term "hemorrhage" is inappropriate name-calling. We are talking about what is anecdotal evidence at best. In every project you will have a turn-over of users. It is only natural for people to loose interest, to switch focus in their lives. Maybe unpleasant experiences can trigger such decisions, and we should try minimizing them. But that starts here, by being more mellow. Just because two out of thousands of users had quite a bit of drama around their departure does not mean that we are "hemorrhaging" users or that the end of commons is near. Sorry, but I find that notion fairly alarmist. I found the unbureaucratic way of commons and the absence of wikilawyering to be one of the communities strengths. Granted, the influx of complaints on AN/U in the last few months has put that attitude to a test. But please keep in mind, that we are dealing with a very small group of people here. I would find it sad if commons would bend just because of that. Some people ought to spend less time on AN/U. There is way more to commons than this page. I can understand that one could get a pretty biassed picture of how broken commons is by looking at this page. --Dschwen (talk) 19:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. This "hemhorrage" is 1.) Adam: he has left several projects several times, 2.) Lycaon, although s/he actually seems to be fairly active, and was last an admin more than a year ago. Is that really all we're talking about? Two people in two years? That sounds like a relatively good record to me. Wknight94 talk 19:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
@Dschwen: Moral is inherently relative. What makes higher values objective are laws and rules. But we do not have workable rules in this case, so what happens is that you and some others label Adam's actions "administrative misconduct", while he states that lack of action "disgust[s him]". These have absolutely the same value. What makes Adam depart rather than you or me is that Adam has suffered a backlash. Some call that "consensus" and even "community", others call it "lynching"; it objectively comes down to a handful of people invested with executive power assuming a judiciary role for which we have no institution. I, for one, find it very disturbing that a few people should in effect take such decisions simply by hanging on this noticeboard a lot. Nobody has elected them for this, and they are accountable to nobody, which make them lack legitimacy. An Arbcom, dedicated to the judiciary role and whose members would be elected on a regular basis by a large number of users, would be much more legitimate.
The lack of bureaucracy of Commons does not make things efficient. It essentially promotes inaction, and leaves valuable users defenceless. I agree that one can find solace in the more glorious parts of Commons; I do that a lot myself, by focusing on uploading promotable photographs; but as of now, I have the impression that I will be allowed to do that only as long as I do not get targeted by some troll, and that when I do I will find no support whatsoever from other admins. I do not think that sitting on our hands will remain a viable strategy indefinitely.
@Wknight94: there have been many other such incidents in the past, Adam and Lycaon are but the latest examples. I am not sure that I understand your point on Lycaon, I am talking about very valuable users leaving Commons, being an admin has nothing to do with it. Rama (talk) 20:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
PS: Dschwen, you seem to associate bureaucracy with bloated inertia and ineffectiveness; I believe that in the present state of affairs, the only thing that admins of different sensitivities can agree upon is inaction, and many of the recent incidents were in my opinion aggravated by the disproportion between a worry for absolute administrative orthodoxy and the attention (lack thereof, I would say) to provocations and their consequences. In my view, the shortcomings that you attribute to a hypothetical bureaucracy are precisely those that we presently suffer, and introducing a new institution would reduce the current randomness and inertia in policing. Rama (talk) 21:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
All I am saying is you are going to have to give more than two borderline examples for your arbcom idea to gain traction. At least with me. Wknight94 talk 21:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
You are welcome to investigate along and document occurrences. How about Bastique? Rama (talk) 17:03, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Some people ought to spend less time on AN/U. ... --Dschwen (talk) 19:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

This is one of the best comments here. I think Commons would be a better place if we all tried to follow those wise words. Next time you see someone make a mistake then fix it and leave a nice and friendly note on the users talk page if you think it will help. If someone is fighting over something then try to fix that something. Do not spend your time telling how bad and evil other users are - spend your time telling users how good their work is. A barnstar is so much better than a new report here on AN/U. I hope you will try. I know I will. --MGA73 (talk) 22:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

User:23prootie edit warring on Burma topics

User:23prootie, who was banned at the English Wikipedia, is editwarring and point-pushing anachronisms on Burma-related Scout topics to fit his particular bias. I have explained repeatedly why his edits are not warranted, yet he continues to devise new ways to shoehorn what he wants into categories that do not belong, and about which he has no knowledge, just to push a point. Please see Commons:Deletion requests/Category talk:Scouting in Myanmar and en:User:Elockid/Long-term abuse/23prootie for more information.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 02:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Likely sock

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

User:Turnsearth appears to be a likely sock of a prolific and persistent sockpuppeteer User:Amir.Hossein.7055. See Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Archives/User problems 16#Cross-wiki sockpuppeteer and . The user has just uploaded a transparent copyvio picture of Afshin Ghotbi, File:Ghotbi0172.jpg. The various socks of Amir.Hossein.7055 have been extraordinarily persistent in trying to re-add various images with false licensing info to article. Nsk92 (talk) 15:54, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Confirmed, 2 other. I was surprised to find Amir uploading copyvios of soccer and the Quatari worldcup stadiums, but there is a clear chain of sockpuppets between his old politics focused contributions and his new soccer focused vandalism. --Martin H. (talk) 16:23, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Kuiper news (sorry!)

This is how Pieter Kuiper appreciated the second chance (3rd... 4th... 5th... etc) given him here at Commons by his being blocked for a month and not banned for good. It's sad to see his retaliatory urge never being able to be resisted. It's also sad to see his utter lack of respect for my having asked for him and me to avoid each other - remember this?

I think I saw where a friend of his threatened us somewhere to block "anyone who writes anything negative". I am writing this in the positive idea to clean up user behavior. Facts can be very constructive. The truth often is. Hope eventually it will succeed. Couldn't Kuiper's friends just ask him to stay away from me? I would love not to have to deal with him at all. Please! Sincerely, SergeWoodzing (talk) 00:42, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I think you have enough strength to tolerate him. I don't see any legitimate reason why we should put an interaction ban on him. Come back when something severe happens (not something chronic, where almost any action from him seems sensitive to you). ZooFari 01:08, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
In my opinion (correct me someone neutral if I'm wrong!) vindictive inter-wiki stalking of this kind is rather "severe" (your word), given the circumstances and regardless of me personally. What he did now on en.WP is a product of his situation here at Commons. Perhaps you missed the facts? That he only did two things on en.WP in the last 2 weeks, both of which are little pieces unnecessary and non-constructive (to that project) harrassment of one certain user whom he has stalked this way many times before (and who never has stalked him). SergeWoodzing (talk) 01:49, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
  • the Commons Communities policies is that whats happened elsewhere stays elsewhere. We cant block the user on the other wiki thats up that community to decide on whats acceptable behavior though, like us the admins there wouldnt be all that tolerant of cross wiki stalking to edit war. If we were to block the user here it would be a purely punative action and the only effect at the other wiki would be to inflame the situation there. All I can suggest is that if its a concern report it there and note the cross wiki concerns and they'll make their own decisions. Gnangarra 02:19, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Thank you! I have done so there. The user is already blocked here. There has been a discussion here whether or not that one-month block (again) is enough or if Commons should go permanent this time. As long as that is not cleared up, I will provide any evidence I can of continued inappropriate behavior. SergeWoodzing (talk) 02:28, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Ok, sorry, but I fail to see where the inappropriate behaviour is. Enlighten me, please. --Dschwen (talk) 16:21, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Vindictive retaliatory inter-wiki stalking. SergeWoodzing (talk) 20:54, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Sorry but this has nothing to do with Commons but I suggest that you stop making accusations about an editor who can't respond against them. Bidgee (talk) 00:22, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Of course, I respect your opnion as an administrator, but I continue to disagree. Kuiper's current behavior on English WP is a direct result of the his block here and my previous factual contributions to discussions about that. It is in the best interest of Commons and its administrators to be made aware of how he is circumventing his block here to continue to stalk Wikimedia project users and retaliate against them during his block here. The block here (correct me if I'm wrong!) is to meant curtail such behavior, not to cause it to continue. Why doesn't somebody remind him of that? Please do not attack the victims of his abuse by reprimaning me! He can defend himself by commenting on his talk page if he desires. Even (especially?) if that were blocked, the facts above should be of interest to Commons administrators, in my opinion, especially since several of them have been trying to decide whether or not to ban Kuiper permanently. SergeWoodzing (talk) 01:55, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry but the issue belongs on Wikipedia (which is what WP:ANI is for), his alleged behaviour doesn't have anything to do with Commons as he isn't circumventing his block on Commons nor is he disrupting Commons. I fail to see why his block should be extended nor do I see it necessary for actions which he is alleged to have done on another outside project. Bidgee (talk) 07:31, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


Copyvio by User:THOMAS

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Hello, I want to draw the attention to the contributions of this user. We received an OTRS ticket 2010121610032635 claiming that several pictures that he uploaded "with permission of the author" he did not have this permission. The author asked to remove the pictures.

Since other pictures of the user seem to lack proper licencing (e.g. File:Loew mittagsmagazin.JPG) I ask to check the situation.

Best regards Neozoon (talk) 00:28, 17 December 2010 (UTC) (Member of OTRS support team)

I deleted the five Giga pictures. I'm leaving the dirty work to commons delinker. --Dschwen (talk) 01:15, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


User:Johnbod

Would someone so kind to talk to User:Johnbod about the missing source information of File:VA23Oct10 159.jpg. He does not understand me. Thanks. --GeorgHH • talk   06:32, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Marcus Qwertyus

Marcus Qwertyus has been deleting my comments on a talk page. I have warned him about this several times. See the edit comments in the revision history of this page:

See also:

Timeshifter has been inserting copyrighted text despite the fact that it is incorrectly attributed and fair-use is not allowed on commons. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 01:28, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Well, as always there is a little more to it. Marcus thought that timeshifters comments, which contain brief quotes from two news websites are fair use, and thus not permitted on commons. I left Marcus a short note, stating that in my opinion he is stretching it a bit much. A short quote with source should be ok to use, if it is a productive addition to a working discussion. But I would love to hear other opinions. --Dschwen (talk) 01:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
That being said, it usually takes more than one person to edit war, and timeshifter could have chosen to briefly describe the content and just add the links as citations. --Dschwen (talk) 01:33, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
It's a talk page. Also, short quotes are allowed anywhere on the web under Fair Use. This is commonly done throughout all Wikimedia Projects. The quotes link to the source, too. People don't have time to read all of an article when only one small part is relevant to the discussion. Also, it is not up to others to edit my comments. People present their point the way they choose. See en:WP:TALK. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:40, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Marcus just deleted part of another comment of mine. See this diff. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:55, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I returned the quotes. Without them it seems as if the media articles that are linked are examples of rubber-bullet deaths. They are not. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:01, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I endorse Dschen's comments. I think short quotations are fine on category and file talk pages. Our rules on fair use are for content that may be reused. Timeshifter's last edit should certainly be allowed to stand.[36] My suggestion is to use en:Google Scholar as a guide to the terminology used by scholarly sources. Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Reworded Commons:Fair-use. What about fair use captions. Are they allowed? Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 15:43, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Text is a medium, too. So that change was completely unnecessary. The issue was that wheel warring about a 4 sentence quote on a talk page is inappropriate. --Dschwen (talk) 16:17, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Medium? I think you meant media. Would you define text as media? Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 16:35, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Uhm, isn't media just the plural of medium? I certainly don't mean the esoteric meaning ;-). And yes, of course text is one of the many media. --Dschwen (talk) 18:31, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
This has far less to do with the copyright status of Timeshifter's quotes (which I'd suppport), and far more to do with the fact he disagrees with you. You are edit-warring, pure and simple.
Your simplistic view "Everything on Google Books is perfect" / "Nothing outside Google Books is credible" is once again (several times this week) making you blinkered. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:59, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Signed images in wikimedia files

I have an issue regarding people signing their own images for personal promotion purposes.

I personally think this behavior is not acceptable in this site. I would like to ask you if this way of doing things is correct and, if not, if an administrator is able to remove these files from the site.

Here are some of the links, all committed by the ComuneMalgrate user. 

You'll find more of this links writing in google the following strings:
site:wikipedia.org giacomo augugliaro malgrate
site:wikimedia.org giacomo augugliaro malgrate

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.48.67.33 (talk • contribs) 09:03, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I see no reason to delete the photographs unless someone can prove that these a copyright violations, all the photos need is to have the watermark cropped (just add {{Watermark}} to the file pages). Bidgee (talk) 09:55, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Francabpirata continuing to upload copyvios

Francabpirata (talk · contribs) has uploaded numerous copyvios, mostly dealing with the band Tru-la-lá. I've issued a final warning, which seems to have gone ignored. BrokenSphere (Talk) 21:29, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Blocked and uploads deleted. --Dschwen (talk) 21:46, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

User_talk:RaffiKojian#File:Gardenology.org-IMG_2599_ucla09.jpg

Please have a look there and on the discussion side of RaffiKojian. My english is very poor indeed, perhaps you might help? Thousands of photos with Category:Unidentified plants or Category:Unidentified plants at Huntington Gardens seems to me against the fundamental rule "Don´t be a dick". --4028mdk09 (talk) 23:56, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Despite already having had copyright violation warnings before, User:Drtony999 has uploaded further copyright-violating images, including File:UpsAndc.jpg and File:SceneuAndc.jpg. This user's inability or unwillingness to respect copyrights is getting problematic. Icalanise (talk) 18:51, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Blocked for a week and deleted four copyvios.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 23:00, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I have a collection of Ebooks

I have a collection of around a 1500 ebooks on certain topics which include novels as well. I need help to upload them. Is there some way i could send them all to you and you select the best. I am a student in INDIA and though i cannot make a contribution by money,but i can share the knowledge database i have. please help me further.

Yours sincerely, Aman Jain

Are those 1500 ebooks freely licensed, or did you steal them somewhere on the internet? --Dschwen (talk) 18:12, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Returning sock (yet again)

A new sock of a prolific cross-wiki sockpuppeteer has just popped up, User:Ninatehran2011. See Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Archives/User problems 16#Cross-wiki sockpuppeteer and en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Amir.Hossein.7055 for background. The new sock re-uploaded a copyvio image of Afshin Ghotbi deleted several times previously, and again with obviously bogus licensing info, File:Afshin Ghotbi 1980.jpg. Somebody please block the sock and delete the image. Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 16:32, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

✓ Done by Martin H.. Happy new year, Tiptoety talk 18:19, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
OK, thanks. Nsk92 (talk) 21:10, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Urban

As far as I can tell, near every upload Urban (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) has done has been a copyright violation of some sort. His talk page is just littered with notes on bad uploads. For example, I had to give proper attribution here. This was not the first of the images belonging to Urban that I've had to fix. As far as I'm concern, we can't trust any of his uploads not to be copyright violations. Should I open up a deletion discussion? If I did, I don't see how I could possibly tag each image with the deletion tag (maybe someone with AWB access could do it?). Magog the Ogre (talk) 04:30, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I took a quick look and don't see enough of a pattern to warrant a mass-delete. There have been some ancient bad Flickr uploads, before we had good Flickr review practices. The example you give doesn't warrant delete at all - just a fix to the description. His last few remaining uploads are from a museum - are you saying he didn't take those? Delete or fix the description? Maybe you or someone can group them into mass DRs? I'd rather see some lists before bothering to tag any files individually. Wknight94 talk 05:37, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

You're right, I only provided one example. First, I was thinking the talk page with approximately 150 warnings was a bit of a clue. However, I can also point to the acerbic message at the top of his talk page by Maveric149 (which he subsequently ignored or didn't understand). There's also this attribution problem. However, on second though, perhaps it's not an issue because he provided a backlink to the original en image, where attribution could be obtained (albeit, this was a poor way of going about it). I'll let you know if I continue to see anything that looks bad from this user. Magog the Ogre (talk) 09:00, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, a few more examples: File:Serpentine wall.jpg is attributed to Uris only because Uris added it: [37], and it's still missing that the main upload is actually by Omnibus: [38] (shame on w:User:Maxim for deleting that image, especially as w:User:MetsBot put a huge DO NOT DELETE red X on the screen). This example was PD, so we're OK, but it shows a poor pattern of attribution during his early days (marking it as PD-self, not just PD). And this poor form of attribution can be a problem: for example, we don't know who created File:BerkeleyA.jpg, only that it was once at French Wikipedia (any French WP admins here?) Magog the Ogre (talk) 09:12, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately all your examples show that a lot of sourcing work is needed - not that a lot of the images need to be deleted. As for French Wikipedia admins, Commons:List of administrators by adminship status in other Wikimedia projects has a list of admins in both Commons and fr.wp, and I also found the following active fr.wp admins who have edited here: Pymouss (talk · contribs), Kyro (talk · contribs), Mikani (talk · contribs), Gz260 (talk · contribs). I'm happy to mass-delete if you find a batch of clear problems. Wknight94 talk 12:02, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Delete Account

How can I delete my Wikimedia Commons user account? Thank you. David July (talk) 20:55, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

You can't. What you can do is ask for your account to be renamed. Any signatures that you have already placed (like above) will remain unchanged though. Regards, Guido den Broeder (talk) 00:51, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Ok, thank you for the information. I'll simply leave things as is. David July (talk) 19:55, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Unable to upload image for author Nicholas Hagger

I am the P.A. for Nicholas Hagger. Whilst editing the page for Nicholas Hagger I was unable to upload an image for him. The following error occurred:

"The page title or edit you have tried to create cannot be created or edited by you at this time. It matches an entry on the local or global blacklists, used to prevent vandalism."

Nicholas would like this image to be part of the public domain, but we lack the permission to upload it. Please advise how to proceed.

Many thanks

(Sanrac1959 (talk) 21:48, 2 January 2011 (UTC))

You possibly tried to upload a file with a name DSC_1234 or some similar generic camera filename? That will not work, please give the file a descriptive filename such as Nicholas_Hagger.jpg or another suitable name. See Commons:File naming, files with meaningles filenames can not be uploaded due to our MediaWiki:Titleblacklist.
Another possible reason is that you tried to include an external weblink to our pages that leads to a website that is listed in the global meta:Spam_blacklist or the local MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. Such weblinks can not be added to our pages. I dont know what of the two reason it is. --Martin H. (talk) 22:08, 2 January 2011 (UTC)


The filename I used was nicholas_hagger_ithaca.png, and I included no links to any external or internal webpages in any of the descriptive fields. I tried changing the name to nicholasHagger.png, but this didn't solve the problem.

The field entries were as follows:

Local Filename:#####\nicholasHagger.png

Destination Filename: nicholasHagger.png

Original Source: Own work

Authors:Sanrac1959

Date: 02/01/2011

Description: Nicholas Hagger looking at Ithaca

Licensing: Public Domain

Categories: Ithaka


Once again, thank you for you help. (Sanrac1959 (talk) 22:53, 2 January 2011 (UTC))

Hi Sanrac. You fell afoul of a global blacklist caused by an infamous vandal on wikipedia who goes by the name "Hagger". I'm not entirely sure how to circumvent this - possibly an admin can upload it. -mattbuck (Talk) 23:38, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks mattbuck, I suggest you reupload it under a name like NicholasH.png and I will quickly rename it to NicholasHagger.png for you. That by the way also explains the tags of Special:Contributions/Sanrac1959 as possible vandalism, please excuse that tagging. --Martin H. (talk) 23:48, 2 January 2011 (UTC)


Taking the keyword 'Hagger' out of the image name has solved the problem. The image has been uploaded successfully and is called NicholasH_ithaca.png‎. This name might be specific enough to not need a rename. Thank you for your swift and efficient help! (Sanrac1959 (talk) 11:21, 3 January 2011 (UTC))

Renamed it anyhow. Nicholas_Hagger is better than NicholasH, as for <name><ithaca> it sounds like an adjective to the person (at least to me) and may be misinterpreted, renamed to File:Nicholas Hagger looking at Ithaca.png. --Martin H. (talk) 12:26, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


Dear Martin H.

VANDALISM

Thank you again for your help with the picture and in taking the vandalism tag off. The latest attempt at vandalism relating to this entry has been to nominate the entry for deletion (see top of Nicholas Hagger Wiki page). There is no merit in the nomination. All Nicholas Hagger’s books have been published by reputable publishers and all the material in the entry is verifiable. None of the bullet points apply, and there is no improper reference to self-published sources. Hagger entries can be found in the current World Who’s Who, International Who’s Who in Poetry, International Who’s Who of Authors and Writers, Dictionary of International Biography, The Cambridge Blue Book, Writers Directory and other similar publications. In view of past vandalism, please look at the credibility of the nominator. Thank you very much for your help in what seems to be the latest example of ongoing vandalism relating to the name Hagger.

--Sanrac1959 (talk) 15:04, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Thats not vandalism but colaborative review and improvement of the Wikipedia content. See en:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nicholas Hagger at en.wikipedia.org for the discussion. This is Wikimedia Commons, we have nothing to do with that, we are only media files here. --Martin H. (talk) 15:14, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

User:Jonny French

Jonny French (talk · contribs) has already had a number of their uploads deleted as copyright violations, and appears now to be trying to release other people's copyrighted photos (eg. movie posters, a magazine photo) into the public domain. I believe some kind of administrative intervention is needed. --88.104.41.171 10:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

All their images seems to be already deleted, and the account seems idle now. Let me know if anything comes up again, and I shall see what I can do. Kind regards. Rehman 14:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Yet another sock

A CU at en-wiki confirmed that User:IranRussia is a sock of User:Amir.Hossein.7055, see Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Archives/User problems 16#Cross-wiki sockpuppeteer and en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Amir.Hossein.7055 for background. I'd appreciate if somebody block User:IranRussia and delete the images that he has uploaded here at Commons today (I've already tagged most of them for deletion even before the CU was completed). Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 22:26, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

yet another sock, confirmed for IranRussia and User:Ernas.2007, User:QATS.1001 and User:Yearsvital. Would be great if this guy can stop the abuse of this project finally :(( --Martin H. (talk) 22:46, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

User:Max Rebo Band

The user has a strong opinion on me:

I would appreciate that this user ceases to publish his opinion about others. --Yikrazuul (talk) 16:30, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Max Rebo Band is admonished to discuss the substance of deletion requests and not other editors or their putative motivations.
Max Rebo Band (talk · contribs) invoked his right to vanish in September, but appears to have revoked that request.[39] Is there any objection to restoring his/her user and talk pages? Walter Siegmund (talk) 18:15, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
I have checked the a number of the comments you have made in deletion requests. Many of your comments are related to images with sexual/nude content and so far I have not seen a single "keep". You also said something like "we have to many penises on Commons" somewhere. So I can understand why Max Rebo Band may think you have a personal agenda to delete such images on Commons. Commons is not censored and penises is within scope so we should not delete images just because we do not like images of nude persons or penises.
Copyvios should be deleted and users that look for copyvios do a great work. So don't stop looking for copyvios. But when you/we start a DR with the argument "copyvio" we are also saying that someone is lying (or at least now aware how copyrights work). Personally I think we should try to give some additional arguments why we think it is a copyvio. To me Max Rebo Band comments looks more an "attack" on DR's with the only arguments "Copyvio Flick washing". He asked if you have any proof. So I suggest that you in future do not start deletion requests with "copyvio" but try to give some arguments that can back up your nomination.
I'm sure that Max Rebo Band is not interessted in having copyvios on Commons. I asume that his intentions is that images is only deleted if they are copyvios and not "just" because someone does not like photos of penises or nude people.
Also I think that it would be good if deleting admin would tell why a file is deleted. It only take 10 seconds to add a reason. --MGA73 (talk) 19:56, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure everybody here knows that commons is not censored. We do not need a user reminding us of that fact by uploading tons of useless nude pictures from dubious sources. MRB does not do anything else. His whole reason for being here is to make a POINT. Just take a look at his deleted userpage revisions... --Dschwen (talk) 20:16, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Going back a month on his contributions shows me a lot of contributions of fine art, and a lot of work done in making sure that his files and uploads by others are properly categorized. He is monofocused, and a number of his images are out of scope, but he does a lot of good work in scope.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:47, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Lots of us have strong opinions on you. And you don't hold back on us: e.g. Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Playas_del_Caribe.jpg. Nor do you avoid openly laughing at us: e.g. Commons:Deletion requests/File:Egyptische vrouw op de pot.jpg. Perhaps it's time to take a look at the plank in your own eye.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:30, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
I have thousands of uploads, of works by historical artists, as well as works by modern "Flickr" users - almost all of them are in use on various Wikimedia projects. To complain that my images are 'tons of useless nude pictures from dubious sources" seems to miss about 99% of my uploads in favour of the two uploads that are currently being debated (which, interestingly enough, were in use on WP, so clearly useful - we are merely arguing about copyright) Max Rebo Band"almost suspiciously excellent" 03:38, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Sure, very useful images like here, here, here, here...Should I continue? --Yikrazuul (talk) 20:14, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
  •  Comment, as a note, I have voted both "Keep" and "Delete" on many (sexuality) images, including to vote "Delete" on my own uploads where I agreed that copyright looked suspect on closer inspection. However, as MGH73 says, your DRs fall far short of making me doubt my own eyes and logic - and the fact that you focus on just deleting as many sexuality images as you can. When I ask you for evidence of your claims of copyVio (for example pointing out that a Flickr user has dozens of images of the same amateur model, credits them as herself, and encouages people to use the photos without copyright and you say only "Copyvio COM:PEOPLE" and then appear to get angry when I ask for evidence, it tells me that you either don't understand WMC, or you ignore WMC and focus on how you wish it was. (As a sidenote to W, I invoked my right to vanish conditional on my uploads being handled, as an admin promised ot handle them. He has started the process, and I have reminded him of the process - you will notice I have not uploaded a single file since invoking my Right to Vanish - I have merely improved the sourcing and categorisation of existing files. Not that any of it matters, you couldn't undelete my userpage anyways...) Max Rebo Band"almost suspiciously excellent" 03:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
  •  Info We are not takling about me, or have I ever categorized MRB or Prosfilaes to devolve to anything or have a special agenda? If those users have any problem that I have a certain opinion about questionable pictures grabbed from FlickR, they have to accept this. If I cannot see any educational purpose of some pictures, they have to accept this. And not I have to proove why a picture without any EXIF/META-data is suspecious, the uploader has to demonstrate the validity! Sad but true: most pictures with sexual/nude content (from FlickR) ARE copyvios (e. g. this one). --Yikrazuul (talk) 14:16, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
And as I've already explained to you, we have demonstrated the validity of the files - often daministrators have also confirmed it. The simple fact that somebody is no longer active on Flickr (as I explained patiently to you, due to not tagging nude photos as "Age-restricted") or that there is no EXIF data (which I patiently explained to you there is on the photo you said didn't, and as a photographer myself, I explained to you that we often purposely remove EXIF data for privacy reasons) - so in fact the onus is on you to demonstrate that there is a reasonable belief that an image is a copyright violation - typically providing a link to other places it can be found online, or pointing out that the Flickr account uploaded pictures of 30 different people (in this case they uploaded 30 images of the same person, so it is likely it truly is themselves), etc. Max Rebo Band"almost suspiciously excellent" 16:02, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Well, you have about 300 deleted uploads and a very short while ago you didn't know much about flickrwashing which basically means, that there still could be loads of copyvios within your uploads. The problem with offline flickr acounts is, that ther is no way to proof that anymore. Also these uploads where just plain copyvios. Amada44  talk to me 16:20, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
@MRB: You didn't even know what exactly those EXIF-data are and why they are so important...--Yikrazuul (talk) 21:02, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
PS: And as I've already explained to you, we have demonstrated the validity of the files. How can you demonstrate a valid license from a Flickr account that does not exist anymore? You have demonstrated NOTHING! --Yikrazuul (talk) 21:17, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
In the very link I provided, you accused TwoWings of having an agenda to "use commons as personal web host." It is nowhere written that a picture without EXIF data is inherently suspicious; it is a case you must make on the DR. And when an issue is primarily localized around a couple of users, I think it better to treat those users as a whole; punishing one side and not the other breeds disharmony, and it rarely gets at the deep reasons for the problem.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:45, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
It is nowhere written that a picture without EXIF data is inherently suspicious
Surprise, suprise, mostly those are copyvios!
and it rarely gets at the deep reasons for the problem
I see two main problems: Doubtful licenses noon can proove/validate; and questionable scope. By the way, how many DRs (about sex content) I have opened (5?)?
→ Obviously it is not allowed to poll with "delete" - but some claim commons is not censored. Suprise, suprise... --Yikrazuul (talk) 21:02, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Surprise, surprise, you completely failed to include your inability to carry on a civil discussion. Laughing out loud (with you, not at you, of course.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:13, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Well, well, my "inability"...Anything to add? --Yikrazuul (talk) 21:21, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

User:Max Rebo Band — right to vanish

As I pointed out in the discussion above, Max Rebo Band (talk · contribs) invoked Right to Vanish in September and his/her talk and user page histories were deleted.[40] Herby says that the user page may be deleted upon request by anyone at any time, but doesn't comment on the talk page.[41] Since this editor is participating in deletion and undeletion requests and his/her behavior is being discussed, it may be helpful to restore his/her talk page. m:Right to Vanish is "a courtesy extended to valued contributors who wish to leave". It is not a way for an active editor to avoid scrutiny. Is there any objection to restoring his/her talk page pending fulfillment of the RTV request? Walter Siegmund (talk) 18:31, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I have no objection BUT any user can always request the deletion of their user page regardless of the right to vanish. I often delete user pages or sub pages as a result of such requests. People often realise that privacy is an issue after they have filled out a user page...
However I'm not sure this user is using RTV in the acknowledged way and that is another matter. --Herby talk thyme 18:36, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm suggesting only that the user's talk page history be restored. Walter Siegmund (talk) 19:43, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Apologies - I agree with that strongly. I've not time to do it now but it can/should be done. --Herby talk thyme 09:03, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

✓ Done: I've just restored the talk page history. --AFBorchert (talk) 13:19, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

User:Docu and User:Rehman

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Copied from Commons:Disputes_noticeboard/Archive_4#Docu

Hi. I'd like to report the above user who inappropriately reverted my edits without consensus, twice. In the first revert on July 24th, he undid a small portion which was later restored. Then, after disappearing from the discussion for a week, he returned today by directly reverting the entire bulk of work I did; with a ridiculous "restore per talk" edit summary, when clearly no consensus was ever reached. Please see this discussion for the original details. You may notice that the discussion is not that of a controversial topic, rather the user, without knowing the real facts, wants to stick to his own preferable format of categorization. I am looking forward to third-party comments so that a proper consensus can be reached to revert Docu's work. Rehman 13:34, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Update: I did a little research on the topic; the "entire scheme" is sometimes also called the Cleuson-Dixence Complex (which includes the Cleuson Dam and its reservoir). User:Docu has the option of agreeing with moving Category:Grande Dixence to Category:Cleuson-Dixence Complex, or agree to the above fact. Either way, what this user is enforcing is clearly wrong. Rehman 15:09, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Update: If no one (including User:Docu) shows no further objections here in the next few days, I will carry out the above plan; structuring the the following categorizing format:

--Rehman 08:24, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Looks like a good plan! Amada44  talk to me 08:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Please continue on the relevant talk page (Category talk:Grande Dixence).
For the purpose of this noticeboard, one should just mention that Rehman, once again, restored the disputed structure without prior discussion. Thus I requested to reverse his unilateral actions.  Docu  at 11:11, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
No, if you want to keep your personal preference, discuss it here, at the disputes board so others may see. You had your chance of replying here before the move was made, but you simply removed without comment. Rehman 12:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I responded to your comment at Category talk:Grande Dixence. 99of9 replied to your earlier when you posted the same thing elsewhere. No forum shopping here, sorry.  Docu  at 19:17, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Re: 99of9 was simply commenting on the wrongful venue I posted the comment on, and the view from both sides. He does not comment on the categorization. And for your information, I did respond to him, contrary to your "you didn't even bothered to respond to 99of9". Also, didn't you notice the blue "moved from the Administrators Noticeboard" on top of this section? Stop deviating from the subject.
For your "accusing people of "vandalist behaviour"", I have already explained to you in good faith that it was very wrong of me to say that; you don't have to bring that up over and over again. Rehman 03:58, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


The above user is edit warring and has repeatedly reverting edits again (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) despite being offered a chance of discussing it at a more public area. He also seem to object discussing this issue outside Category talk:Cleuson-Dixence Complex. I would be glad to step down if anyone thinks the categorization structure I mentioned above is incorrect. So far non has, except for Docu, contarty to the "us" mentioned here. I look forward to third party opinions... Rehman 07:09, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

 Support complete scheme and system hierarchy from User:Rehman. --Foroa (talk) 08:14, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

There is thread about the topic at Commons:Categories for discussion/2011/01/Category:Grande Dixence.

As far as Rehman is personally concerned, I agree with 99of9. --  Docu  at 11:29, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can tell there is (was) no clear concensus. So both users can move and claim "This is concensus". However, this will take us no further. Also the discussion is made in several places now. That makes it hard to follow. I suggest that all discussions regarding the best name is taken at Commons:Categories for discussion/2011/01/Category:Grande Dixence. This place should be reserved for discussions about the way the users edit. Given the lack of a clear concensus (when edits was made at least) I suggest that we let the users try one last time to settle this without using the admin tools.
User:Rehman could you please make your comments at CFD? Even if you have made them elsewhere? The discussion is not easy to follow for new users so I think it would be nice to start again. --MGA73 (talk) 13:10, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
OK, in the mean time I completed the two positions. Please have a look at it and voice your opinion so that we can close this unfortunate discussion that has been spread out too much in places and in time. --Foroa (talk) 13:33, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Seems like User:Foroa has done it (thanks!). Thanks for your input, MGA73. :) Rehman 13:36, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
I think we still need to review Rehman's approach in this issue. Above he states that I "[..] also seem to object discussing this issue outside Category talk:Cleuson-Dixence Complex". He wrote that on 07:09 while I opened the thread on CfD on 02:41. He was clearly aware of my comment as he linked the page where I referenced it. I don't think such misrepresentations are acceptable.
Further, he links a discussion on Commons:Disputes_noticeboard/Archive_4#Docu on my conduct from 26 August which was previously answered by 9of99 on WP:AN. There wasn't much I could add.
On Sept 6, he added a proposal to that page and had it moved on Sept 8 already. Clearly, there was no way that this was visible to any person interested in the topic covered by the categories.
As an administrator, he should refrain from representing his approach as a one of determining "consensus". His rhetoric in this matter doesn't really help either. --  Docu  at 18:07, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Xanderliptak / Alexander Liptak again

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Xanderliptak (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
Alexander Liptak (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)

Some of you may remember Xander from the edit-warring he got into during 2010 over his attempts to own the images he had uploaded. He went away in late October following an edit-war over the cross-linking of his two accounts. He reappeared a few days ago and resumed that edit war, and before being issued a short block he started this discussion on the vandalism noticeboard:[42] I bring this up here because this seems like the right place for it to be, but you all can decide that. I have notified Xander of this post, but he cannot reply here as he is currently blocked. If someone wants to respond, maybe they could do so directly on one of his talk pages? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:52, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, I attempted several times to retire my old account only to have the retirement undone by other editors who would then go and complain that my old account was not marked as retired. Baseball Bugs is one of those editors,actually. These "disruptive edits" and "edit-warring" are my attempts to restore my old profile's retirement. I really don't think it is up to other editors to decide when I can and can't retire an old inactive account, nor is it edit-warring nor disruptive to insist that my old account remain retired. So, can we call this over with yet? It has been something like 4 months since I tried to retire my old account, and I would like to end it now for good. Alexander Liptak (talk) 10:56, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
The usual from Xander. One good thing came out of this: In speaking to an admin, he gave away his IP address,[43] which helps to confirm that he's been evading his indefinite block at wikipedia. I've reported that fact there, and we'll see if they decide to do anything about it beyond the current indefinite block. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:34, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Ok. This is over now. Multichill (talk)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
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