Wikinews:Admin action alerts

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Requesting a block for a violation of policy? Wikinews:Blocking policy states that administrators may block users who "excessively and consistently break site policy. Admins should only do this as a last resort - efforts to educate must be made first, followed by warnings." Admins can not and will not block unless this policy is followed. Please do not raise an alert here unless efforts to educate the user have been made, and warnings have been given. If you have an ongoing problem with another user, you should consider Wikinews:Dispute resolution.


Pages requested for speedy deletion[edit]


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Contents

Edits to protected pages[edit]

To request an edit to a protected page, add the {{editprotected}} template to the talk page, with an explanation of what edit needs to be made.


Unblock requests[edit]

If you are a blocked user add {{unblock|reason}} to your talk page to request to be unblocked. Your plea will then be highlighted here automatically. These are the current requests:


Archive requests[edit]

Use this section to list pages which should be protected for archival reasons.

Please see pages which can be archived, listed at WN:TOARCHIVE. Special requests for protection/archival can be listed below.

Anything else[edit]

Use this section to request help, list pages that should be watched due to repeated vandalism, user webhosting, advertising, misleading quotes, copyvio, etc. These pages are not yet protected or its members blocked. Please archive the notices that are 3 days old or have taken admin action. When listing a vandal use: {{vandal|Type in offenders name here}}.

Disallowing post: code "new user youtube, &c"[edit]

I am trying to write an article about the company Style Fashion Week, I have made it as neutral and unbiased as I believe I can make it, but it is disallowing my post, with the code "new user youtube, &c" ...my page is CMS1019 (talk · contribs) Please help!


page move vandalism[edit]

Following page move vandalism by User:JaxPack12, I've fully move-protected all unarchived published articles. --Pi zero (talk) 23:36, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Nicole Sharp (talk · contribs)[edit]

A general note for other admins regarding this user.

  • The user was warned about their behavior some time back, including specifically a warning that a preventative block might be imposed, and some investigation and comments by brianmc. The user went away for some time.
  • The user came back and resumed problematic behavior, and also "archived" their user page in a way that concealed the existence of the earlier warnings. I imposed a preventative block. Since then, the user has claimed they weren't warned, claimed they were somehow not able to reply to comments on their en.wn user talk page (at least, I think that's what they were saying; honestly the objection didn't make much sense to me since their block does not prohibit editing own talk page and they have, in fact, edited that page since the block), and ignored requests to keep the discussion in one place where it can all be found. Lately they've been spreading their complaints to the en.wp user pages of various en.wn admins (where I've explicitly refused to engage in discussion), and also contacted me by private message on IRC, excerpts of which they subsequently made public without my permission.

I'm not inclined to spend a lot of time combing through their past statements to find other inaccuracies to correct. Afaics, they've shown no interest in anything here other than being allowed to do whatever they want. I have no idea what their motives are, but I do consider the block appropriate given their behavior. --Pi zero (talk) 18:35, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

ACE awards[edit]

There's a campaign going on to impel us to publish ACE New York Annouced 49th Annual Film Winners without reference to merit.

  • On review, the more I looked at the nature of the event and of the sources the more unsupported it looked. I not-ready'd. Rather than attempt to address reviewer concerns by any means, the author added a line on the collaboration page "For Wikimedia Foundation legal department surveillance" and resubmitted. I reverted the resubmission with a remark that resubmitting without addressing review concerns is considered disruptive.
  • A new account was created that didn't have "ACE" in its name (and didn't claim to be related), with user page content "Professional journalist with almost 30 years of experience. Testing Wikinews real 'free news' source, and why they ask for donations", which created a duplicate of the article under a different name and submitted it for review. I have indefblocked this second account.

The article refers back to an article I passed to publication in March 2015, on which I later felt I had failed to apply sufficient scrutiny to the sources (though so far concerns haven't reached the level of proposing a {{correction}}). --Pi zero (talk) 16:31, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Category:Ankara and the Wikipedia Ankara Portal[edit]

On Wikipedia, the Ankara Portal has a "current events" link that refers to this non-existent category. The non-existent page asked me to let people know here, so there you go :) Maplestrip (talk) 17:23, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Created the category; more than enough pages for it, just one of the plethora of categories we hadn't gotten around to. Thanks, Maplestrip. --Pi zero (talk) 19:37, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Have to say, getting actual "current" events would require people writing the articles. Most welcome to give it a go, Maplestrip. --Brian McNeil / talk 22:44, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Please remove my sysop rights[edit]

Bureaucrats:

Please remove my sysop rights on Wikinews.

I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to serve the community in this fashion.

Thank you,

-- Cirt (talk) 03:44, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

@Cirt: Done. --Pi zero (talk) 04:22, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Vandal[edit]

Blocked. --Pi zero (talk) 11:49, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Vandal[edit]

--Queen Laura (talk) 20:28, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

@Queen Laura: Yes, we get several of those per day now, typically. I did get a checkuser done on them a while back, which said they looked like zombies, with no fixed IP range. --Pi zero (talk) 21:25, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Brexit[edit]

Can someone administrator to put the results of brexit?--Wikijournalist (talk) 12:16, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

@Βικιδημοσιογράφος: 24 hours after the news article is published, not even the administrators can make substantial changes.
acagastya 12:49, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

But it is not essential . 4 numbers will be added. Do whatever you want .--Wikijournalist (talk) 16:18, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

.

abuse filter mismathch for Addiing email addresses to articles[edit]

I cannot create my page —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 93.91.194.83 (talk • contribs) 15:39, 23 October

There probably isn't any need for an email address in an article. If there is, describe the email address instead of actually embedding it. Like, "somebody at whatever dot com"; there's no email address there, as far as an abuse filter is concerned. --Pi zero (talk) 16:15, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Harassment of User:Sro23[edit]

Looks like someone is exploiting a feature of WMF's projects to harass and intimidate this person, who is not active on this project except to blank xyr talk page.

I would suggest the two anon IPs be temporarily blocked, and Sro23's talk page be partially protected against anon edits, as a kindness to xyr. - Amgine | t 00:39, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

@Amgine: We give 24-hour blocks to the IPs used for that childishness. There have been many new-style IPs used (and one old-style IP). We haven't bothered to dignify them with semi-protection or a range block. --Pi zero (talk) 00:57, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
Could temporary semi-protection please be added to my talk page? I'm not active here so anon IPs should have no need to leave me messages anyway. Sro23 (talk) 00:28, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
<shrug> I don't see them as worth giving in to, but I don't care greatly either way so if it is upsetting you, then sure. Done, two weeks for now since they are pretty persistent. BRS (Talk) (Contribs) 00:43, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Vandal[edit]

20px Alvaro Molina (✉ - ✔) 22:30, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Account globally locked, all edits reverted. Thanks. --Pi zero (talk) 22:56, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Vandalism by 94.25.229.21[edit]

Hello,

Could somebody do, eer... something against this IP? Thanks! Litlok (talk) 12:52, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Pi zero Smile.png Litlok (talk) 13:20, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Welcoming nonexistent users[edit]

I don't recall seeing this before, but in the past 24 hours or so we've had three different IPs each create a welcome page for some username that has no account attached to it. I didn't bother blocking the first, but gave the second and third each a 24-hour block for inserting nonsense/gibberish. Just a heads-up. --Pi zero (talk) 19:16, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

abuse filter mismathch for Addiing email addresses to articles[edit]

I was flagged for adding a contact email for a police department which has asked for the public's help solving a crime. The email address was given in the media sources I was citing, so I added it. I shouldn't have been flagged for this. MarHM (talk) 04:54, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Lightprevails (talk · contribs)[edit]

Noting my actions re this user here, for clarity. Re boundaries of acceptable behavior in trollspace comments space. The user posted on the comments page of 2006 article Four Korean women accuse JMS leader Jeong Myeong-seok of rape, about the leader of a splinter group of the Moonies, claiming all the accusations were false/slander and linking to a site revealing all. The site gives an impression of being by the splinter group; preferring minimal action, I merely arranged that the urls weren't live links (but were still visible) and pointed out some obvious points about the situation, including the lack of reputation and appearance of COI of the poster. They pivoted, acting as if they hadn't just pretended to be a disinterested party, waving the banner of right to defend oneself when slandered in a "democratic society", asserting their own trustworthiness (i.e., Trust Me), and again linking to their own site as the place to find out about what "major news companies" had said (gosh, it's a shame major news companies have no way of getting the word out for themselves when they have something to say). At that point I'd had enough. I removed the spam from the comments page, with a note acknowledging its presence, and indefinitely blocked the user. --Pi zero (talk) 16:44, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

abuse filter mismathch for new user youtube, &amp;c.[edit]

what does this means?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Aloeforever4you (talk • contribs)

Delete page - https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Sanskriti_Mahotsav[edit]

Hi,

why Deleted our page, while i had provided all links of related rashtriya sanskriti mahotsav.

Please check it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Onlineumesh (talk • contribs) 10:20, 4 April 2017

Looking at the listed reason for deletion, and comparing the deleted article text to the referenced source, it appears the page was deleted after observing that the fist several paragraphs were assembled by copying sentences from that source, with perhaps a word changed here and there. See WN:PILLARS#own; also, WN:Plagiarism. --Pi zero (talk) 11:34, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Nongoloza articles[edit]

We've recently had a series of articles on the theme 'Nongoloza cult'; so far, one of them has been deleted as abandoned, the other three are still around as of this writing. They haven't offered credible sourcing; there's been citing of Wikipedia articles, citing of other unpublished Wikinews articles in the same set, mentioning of unrelated terrorism-related incidents and citing sources for those, and in one case citing a "terror alert" site that afaics is itself unvetted. They do this stuff not only initially, but after not-ready reviews for lack of sourcing.

I've put notices on the three remaining articles that from now I'm going to treat them as abandoned, to be deleted after two days' notice, unless I see a genuine effort to source them (which I think unlikely). I also propose to treat any further unsourced articles on this theme as spam, to be speedily deleted.

The user accounts used to edit these articles keep shifting, too; I suspect meat/sock puppetry, though I'm not sure there's even any point pursuing it with a checkuser.

List of the articles:

List of the contributors:

--Pi zero (talk) 11:54, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  •  : Articles are marked as original, it is quite simple to assume that users conscientiously post news about the events they witnessed. They do not quite understand what needs to be changed. SashaFAQ (talk) 14:33, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
@SashaFAQ: We can't simply take the word of anyone on the internet who makes a claim. Original reporting has to be documented extensively, and the less of a pre-existing accumulated reputation on Wikinews the original-reporter has, the greater the demands on the documentation. It is not valid to "assume good faith" about news reporting. See Wikinews:Never assume. --Pi zero (talk) 14:59, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
@Pi zero: I am a parishioner of the New Apostolic Church. I can send you screenshots of threats as evidence. In this form will the evidence work? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SashaFAQ (talk • contribs) 09:49, 13 April 2017

Single-purpose account SashaFAQ unmarked a couple of these; I've re-flagged them as abandoned. I've also raised a sockpuppet investigation over at Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Michel_Sher) after a new account made an article about the Nongoloza cult, making the same unsourced/libellous claims about its members. --McGeddon (talk) 17:44, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

@McGeddon: GOod to know about the sockpuppet investigation; thanks for the heads-up. --Pi zero (talk) 18:11, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Looks like Marco Jovani and Kimi Afka were blocked on Wikipedia a few weeks ago as socks of Michel Sher. --McGeddon (talk) 09:14, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

User:SashaFAQ is continuing to upload potentially libellous images (a photo of a named person captioned "WATCH OUT! NONGOLOZA CULT'S LEADER!" across the bottom, an email screenshot purporting to show a terrorist bomb threat received from a particular name and email address) with no sources for the identities beyond their own claims. The images were previously uploaded to Commons by User:Marco Jovani and deleted yesterday (along with some Google Street View screenshots), and all re-uploaded at Wikinews by SashaFAQ a few hours later. --McGeddon (talk) 09:10, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

The "WATCH OUT!" image is, atm, not being hosted here. --Pi zero (talk) 12:42, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Solutionsbythirdparty (talk · contribs)[edit]

Hello. The above user, Solutionsbythirdparty, makes bad pages and is filling them up with spam. Please delete the pages, and block the user. PokestarFan (talk) 17:22, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

@PokestarFan: Thanks, got it. We've had very many of these here over the past week or so; there's an ongoing thread about it elsewhere on this page, and a similar thread at WN:CU. --Pi zero (talk) 18:18, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

List of Pages[edit]

{{Special:Contributions/Solutionsbythirdparty}}

Spambots[edit]

Update the list

Discussion[edit]

These users have massively created a lot of spam pages. I request that they be blocked and nuke their contributions. Thanks. —Alvaro Molina (✉ - ✔) 09:01, 6 April 2017 (UTC) @PokestarFan: Though this is certainly a neater list, and in a single place, I point out two irregularities.

  • You've removed the discussion that took place in this section.
  • This is just a section of a page that covers ongoing situations. It's not meant to be a permanent fixture, except to the extent of eventually being archived (which should, btw, including archiving the comments that, as I remarked, you've removed). Will it actually be useful, in future years, to have a list of spambots with no dates on them? I have doubts.--Pi zero (talk) 20:09, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
When this is over I am subst:ing the list into here and archiving. And if you want discussion I will put a subheader labeled "Discussion". PokestarFan (talk) 20:11, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
@PokestarFan: I may adjust the way you've set it up myself, after thinking about what would be most useful. Truthfully, though, I haven't got time to think it all through atm; need to get to review. --Pi zero (talk) 20:15, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

How do the owners of the spambots own so many IPs? Even if they were all IPv6, you would need an awful amount of devices in order to create the army we have right now. PokestarFan (talk) 21:22, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Hey @Pi zero:, we have another one! PokestarFan (talk) 21:47, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Editing from mobile. We have another one! PokestarFan (talk) 20:57, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Protect Template:Spambot with admin protection[edit]

Should not be updated whatsoever. PokestarFan (talk) 01:13, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Well... {{sockpuppet}} is unprotected. There are plenty of things on the project that need protection because vandalism would have serious technical consequences, but there seems no lasting harm in temporary vandalism of these userpage message templates. --Pi zero (talk) 01:53, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Nuke all of Dadagari Jeelan's pages and block user[edit]

This user creates user/user talk pages about himself. He even went as far as creating pages for a user that does not exist. Please nuke and block. PokestarFan (talk) 18:42, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Actually that other user account does exist. I think things haven't yet risen to the level of blocking. --Pi zero (talk) 19:32, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

129.63.153.72 (t · c · b)[edit]

I leaving a note here that this user posted potential personal information of some person. I've hidden those revisions and blocked the IP for a week. I don't know if anything else need to be done here. —mikemoral (talk) 22:45, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Massive spambot creation[edit]

I've created Special:AbuseFilter/25 to stop massive spambot creation --Melos (talk) 23:02, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Melos. —Alvaro Molina (✉ - ✔) 23:07, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes. --Pi zero (talk) 23:09, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Cool. And by any chance what does the abuse filter state? PokestarFan (talk) 23:47, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@PokestarFan: Well, there's this: if you can't see what it says, neither can the botmaster. --Pi zero (talk) 23:55, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
That makes sense. PokestarFan (talk) 00:44, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@PokestarFan: Sure it does. If the botmaster knew exactly what the abuse filter excluded, they could just tweak their bots to avoid the filter. If they don't know what the filter excludes, they can only guess how to evade the filter, which is a less efficient and therefore less attractive occupation, and at the very least may take longer. --Pi zero (talk) 00:52, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
I have a genius idea, @Pi zero: Let's get the FBI/CIA/NSA involved. With their resources, this should take about 5 minutes. PokestarFan (talk) 00:54, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

┌───────────────────────┘
 The filter is working good (according the log), if you want a sysop can add the "block" option in Special:AbuseFilter/25. Thank you --Melos (talk) 22:02, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

@Melos: Note, one case of phone-number spam has apparently gotten through the filter after your most recent update to it — Mack7778. It is, of course, a huge improvement on the way things had been here this past week. --Pi zero (talk) 22:31, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
I think the botmaster found his way through the filter. PokestarFan (talk) 12:04, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
@PokestarFan: I see on recent changes that Melos is continuing to tweak the filter. I think they're doing wonderfully well. --Pi zero (talk) 12:10, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

74.104.137.99 (talk • contribs (logs) • block (block log))[edit]

I request the block IP 74.104.137.99 for vandalism and edit war in User Talk:Adnim13. Thanks. —Alvaro Molina (✉ - ✔) 11:10, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

In late April they were blocked for a week, so this time I blocked them for a month. --Pi zero (talk) 16:05, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

192.73.244.121[edit]

192.73.244.121 (talk • contribs (logs) • block (block log))

May you do something about this IP? This user repeatedly vandalizes pages. --George Ho (talk) 16:00, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Blocked for a while. --Pi zero (talk) 16:10, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

abuse filter mismathch for <div class="mw-parser-output"><p>new user youtube, &amp;c.</p></div>[edit]

Dear Folks at Wikinews,

I don't know how long this will take, but I'm trying to prove that I wrote some lyrics for Sting, and its stolen intellectual property unless he agrees to give me proper credit. So before you quickly judge, please read what I have taken time out to resource and type out. Thank you. Aralia Fresia (talk) 19:55, 24 May 2017 (UTC) re: Aralia Fresia is a ghostwriter for Sting (Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner). Aralia's real name is Lara Nicole Daskivich, but she would rather be known as Aralia Fresia. She provided 80% of the lyrics for Sting's "I Can't Stop Thinking About You," the opening track on Sting's album, "57th and 9th", which was released November 11, 2016. Sting wrote the lyrics only as far as the end of the first stanza. However, Sting had accepted the challenge of finishing lyrics for this new song created from her rant-like rave for his celebrity, in a humorous and paradoxical voice. However, Aralia Fresia has not yet been given official writing credit on "57th&9th" because she had told Sting that his ghosts were being channeled in the lyrics for this new song, thru her fingers, while typing to him in a style similar to his, and making references to literature as he does, namely, a reference to Carson McCullers' novel, 'this "heart's a lonely hunter" -

Sting nods about the reference to Carson McCullers in this short little documentary, 
http://www.aboutpremiumcontent.com/programs/sting-free-man/

An article on November 11, 2016 published Sting's answers as he was asked about '57th & 9th':

http://insider.ticketmaster.com/interview-sting-new-album-57th-and-9th/ 

"I don’t make music by any formulaic, magic process. I just follow my instincts, I don’t know where it’s going… And so on this album, we’ve ended up with something that is energetic and noisy but also thoughtful."

The first single on the album is “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You”. Was that the song that triggered the rest of the songs on the album?

"Yes it was. And once you’ve got the first, everything just follows.

Lyrically, I remember having nothing written. All I had was a blank sheet of paper in front of me, which looked like a field of snow with no clues on it as to what could be revealed there. So that first song I wrote actually became the first song on the album. It’s about that obsession, that obsessive search for inspiration, for a subject, for a muse, for the music to reveal something inside itself… So the album starts with that image of somebody with a pencil waiting to write the story on a white sheet of paper without any clues about where it’s going."

And did you sense right away that it was the key to unlock the album?

"I thought it was a pretty honest statement of what it means to be a song writer. It’s a metaphor about trying to find inspiration. So once I’d found that, I was happy because I was really being true to myself and true to my profession. It’s not easy, song writing – it’s a great job, but it can be a hard job!" - http://insider.ticketmaster.com/interview-sting-new-album-57th-and-9th/

Also, in an interview in Argentina, in May 2017 Sting was asked about Aralia.

The link to that interview and  translation to what the Argentinian interviewer said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kK4X5Wd8sY&feature=youtu.be Dice que interesa mucho la politica, interesa mucho cambio grammatico, la cul tierna de l' Aralia que la el mundo comunta hoy ci ay por tu funde muy persona interesante hoy. ~~ Translation: He says that he is very interested in politics, he is interested in a great deal of grammatical change, the culture of Aralia, which the world today is commemorating because of his very interesting person. ~ /

‎177.73.233.153 (talk • contribs (logs) • block (block log))[edit]

Hello. Please notice that in his/her contributions, there is personal info. Regards, ·×ald·es 05:26, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know, I've rev-del'd those edits and blocked the IP for a week. —mikemoral (talk) 05:32, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Block Aftab Ahmed +923332267638 (t · c · b) due to personal information[edit]

If I am not mistaken, his username contains his full name and his phone number. PokestarFan (talk) 14:17, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Suspicious accounts creating spam pages[edit]

Contributions by the above accounts should be reviewed. --George Ho (talk) 06:39, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Ad-like pages created by below users[edit]

The users above created some ad-like pages. --George Ho (talk) 04:17, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho: Within the past day or so we've had many accounts creating these pages; after the first one, I've included puppetry in the blocking reasons, as they all mention granny flats sydney or some minor variation thereof. (That last one you list has disguised "granny" by modifying the "y".) If I had a bit more energy to spare I'd request a checkuser on them. --Pi zero (talk) 04:37, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
I could put "test page" if one user created just a few or little. However, I guess I'll ask next time when I see one user creating a bunch of them. Currently, we have 21 administrators, including you and eight other bureaucrats. ...Somehow, most of them are semi-active; three of them inactive. Seems that pushing off spammers is becoming a harder task than it looks. Asking for stewards' help is impossible unless the project is lacking members of permissions group or an emergency is needed. What else can be done? --George Ho (talk) 04:51, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
Special:AbuseFilter (documentation, and note especially w:Special:AbuseFilter - which allows exporting filters for local installation/tweaking.) - Amgine | t 10:18, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

66.87.151.3 (talk • contribs (logs) • block (block log))[edit]

Persistent Vandalism in User Talk:Favonian. Thanks. —Alvaro Molina (✉ - ✔) 16:44, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

It appears to be the whole 66.87.151.* range. I hate dealing with range blocks. If this keeps up, though, I may. --Pi zero (talk) 16:56, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
Blocked the range. --Pi zero (talk) 17:38, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Rarityfan[edit]

This user not only send me the false block log but has also spammed Wikinews with test pages and other contributors with "blocked" templates. --George Ho (talk) 23:43, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Spam[edit]

See User:WAVESONGS. This user posted this same spam to several Wikis, including Wikivoyage, where I am an admin. I promptly deleted it as irrelevant and posted a warning to the user's user talk page on Wikivoyage.

All the best,

Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:00, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. --RockerballAustralia contribs 10:27, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

User:Acagastya (and alternative accounts)[edit]

Historically, this user has been highly trusted, and so in the past I've never been all that diligent about, e.g., declaration of obvious alternative accounts. The ones I can think of off hand, because they've been used in the past few hours, are Agastya and Axagastya. A few hours ago I was notified (indirectly from a member of the Countervandalism Network) that a set of external links on acagastya's user page were malware/browser-hijacking. My first action was to remove the vandalistic links. (I've been consistently rather slow in my actions on all this, not just because I was reluctant to take action against a user I'd been placing a lot of trust in, but also because the whole business started at about midnight my time and my brain isn't moving quickly.) Following reversion I began applying blocks, conservatively at first; eventually it was clear that a short (24-hour) block of acagastya and alternate accounts was called for, as a preventative measure while xe had time to cool down and I had time to assess the situation (including assessing what was going on with xem). The links were apparently put up as some sort of pointy response to what I would have thought a very small disagreement, which xe appeared to have misinterpreted in an exaggerating direction (the exaggeration and misinterpretation seem characteristic of the situation, but overall I'm still not sure what's going on with them). Responding remarks have been a thorough mix of stuff ranging from plausible through wikilawyering and maybe-trolling to pretty clearly trolling — with the caveat that I've lately adjusted upward my threshold for trolling in my dealings with acagastya, as I suspect there really has been some misunderstanding going on that could be cleared up amicably if one could identify what points need clarification. --Pi zero (talk)

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