Wikinews:Admin action alerts/Archive 5

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This page is intended for historical purposes only. Please do not alter it.

Reporter[edit]

I noticed this Hmwith (talk · contribs) page which has a template which looks very similar to that of accredited reporters, yet the user is not one. Is the appearance of this user's page a misrepresentation? It doesn't say "accredited" but just "reporter". --SVTCobra 00:37, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here is an example of what a real accredited user page looks like. --SVTCobra 00:40, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's a concern personally, since the icon doesn't have the "Wikinews Accredited Reporter" thing. –Juliancolton | Talk 01:08, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I ran into this thread on my own (and I'm glad that I did), because I never would have thought that using a similar table would cause any issues. I just wanted to make information readily available and easy to find, following a format that people recognize and can read quickly. I was never trying to appear to be someone that I am not. I never wanted to cause confusion. To avoid problems, I removed the entire table from my userpage. Cheers, hmwithτ 16:42, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's understandable - it's a fairly simple template to copy and modify. We could probably do with something that is distinct enough but for regular users. Have a look around other talk pages and see if you can find something else to "steal" ;-) --Brian McNeil / talk 16:57, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

YouTube link[edit]

The page at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxgdzOdaNtM links to a missing story here. --68.50.153.95 (talk) 03:15, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for reporting this! The link on YouTube is not working properly, I think because of the comma. However, I created a redirect, so the wrong link should work as well. See Dance party broken up by police in Utah. If you happen to come across other not-working links, please let us know! Cheers, Van der Hoorn (talk) 12:35, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WN:DR#Category:Association football[edit]

This DR was closed, but the appropriate category moves where not made. I tried to see if I could do it with AWB, but it is Windows-based and I am not running Windows any longer. Therefore, I appeal for someone to replace all instances of Category:Association football with Category:Football (soccer) with AWB or some other tool. We need to clean this up, ASAP. Cheers, --SVTCobra 01:16, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could a bot do this? Cirt (talk) 02:11, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I did a lot of them manually and did a general cleanup of the articles at the same time. Someone should contact the author of the SportsBot, as the generated templates, such as Template:CCC, are generated with the wrong category. Cheers, Van der Hoorn (talk) 20:59, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
AWB (or Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser) is semi-automatic and should do the job fine, if one has Windows. As far as SportsBot is concerned, User:Zachary is on vacation, reportedly. --SVTCobra 22:45, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Van der Hoorn, it is very ambitious of you to continue doing these manually. Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:34, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Zach should be back by now and recovering from jetlag. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:15, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Done There were rather a lot of articles in there. Incidentally, one of the recent AWB updates breaks the preferences. I put in the updates and it 'forgot' it was supposed to be pointed at en.wikinews. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:43, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Vandal user[edit]

Would an administrator please block the following account and his IP address, and delete all the nonsense pages he has created?

Thank you, --William Saturn (talk) 05:00, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I blocked the accounts and I think i got all the pages. Let me know if i didn't. Thanks for undoing some of his vandalism. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 05:02, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I extended the block on the IP to 24 hours. Deleted talk page of Bobfhuck for obscenities and because likely to annoy as {{unblock}} was removed. Checkuser reveals a couple of possible socks, I'm watching them. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:14, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WN:ARBCOM[edit]

As recently pointed out on IRC, the Arbitration Committee's terms are expiring on July 31, 2009. We have 5 current members and one vacancy. As I see it, we have three main options:

  1. We abolish ArbCom by letting the terms expire. The ArbCom has not had anything to do in recent memory.
  2. We do a snap election to reconfirm the current members and extend their terms, and run an election to fill the vacancy.
  3. We hold full elections per current policy, which is that all the seats are up for grabs.

Computerjoe has also started a discussion at the water cooler. We ought to get a general consensus before the terms expire. Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:20, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

user abuse of sighting privilege[edit]

Please see here. User added publish template and self-reviewed an article citing original reporting with no original reporting notes, and no independent peer review. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:16, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done. See [1]. Cirt (talk) 15:28, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unprotect?[edit]

I'm normally more of a Wikipedia editor, so I'm probably missing something obvious here (although, as much as I watch the news I should be a wikinews "reporter", but that's a different subject...). I wanted to request unprotection for Comedian Stephen Colbert wins NASA space station name contest, is all, because I notices a couple of minor grammatical errors. I don't see why it's been protected in the first place, but I don't have much editorial experience on this project so I'm not really overly concerned about that issue. If anyone can provide some direction here, I would appreciate it. Thanks!Ohms law (talk) 03:22, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We normally archive/protect articles after 7 days. You can suggest changes to the article by using {{editprotected}} and listing the changes on the talk page. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 04:54, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see... thank you. Ohms law (talk) 11:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

abuse filter mismatch for Page blanking[edit]

I'm trying to remove the "visit my blog!" section on User:Deathgleaner's user page, but I keep receiving this page blanking filter. Deathgleaner has been spamming this blog link (which includes attacks on Wikipedia administrators) across at least a dozen different Wikimedia projects. It's being removed across wikis for soapboxing, especially because he is adding this to projects where he has never edited before (or barely edited, as in the case here). Any assistance would be appreciated. I'm a sysop at En. and Simple Wikipedias, so it's not my intention to vandalize or anything, just curtail this cross-wiki soapboxing. Thanks, Either way (talk) 12:22, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done –Juliancolton | Talk 12:30, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I was about to leave you a note on your talk page actually since I saw you were around here. Do you think you can also take a look at MediaWiki talk:Abusefilter-warning and fix the template? Much appreciated! Either way (talk) 12:32, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Templates and template documentation[edit]

Having had cause to look at a few templates earlier, I had to recreate a documentation template to fix {{source}} and {{develop}}.

All templates should be documented with the {{documentation}} template, if a template already has documentation and categories/interwiki embedded in it, these should be moved to the sub-page the template will create - unless they are categories that should be included in articles where the template is used.

This is listed here at AAA because many - if not most - templates should be semi-protected. In addition, they should be sighted. Most templates predate FlaggedRevisions and are not currently sighted. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:31, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just so I'm clear: you want the template itself full-protected and the documentation semi-protected? Gopher65talk 20:05, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'll note that {{documentation}} appears to have been copied straight from Wikipedia. Since the anal-retentive Wikinewsies in 2005 decided that our license shouldn't be compatible with Wikipedia, this template cannot be used and must be deleted... unless of course you want to change our license to by-sa. Gopher65talk 20:05, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is listed here because many of the templates are protected - whether we should protect more is up for debate. I did semi-protect the /doc pages I did because they're on very high-vis templates and it was a precaution. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:09, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if we're not going to full-protect all templates, then I'd say that we need to decide what general types of templates we're going to full protect. Infoboxes, language templates, source templates, commentary templates, etc need to be full protected because they are included in every (or nearly every) article in un-substituted form. Vandalism of any one of those templates would result in a large disruption to Wikinews. Lesser templates like talk page templates could probably be only semi-protected without any significant danger. (though I'd protect {{Welcome}} and {{Howdy}} just to be on the safe side). I'd also think that all doc pages, if that feature gets used, should be semi-protected. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gopher65 (talk • contribs)
The Template: namespace is covered by FlaggedRevisions. On that basis I would tend more towards favouring semi-protect for a lot of templates. --Brian McNeil / talk 08:56, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Death threats on comments page[edit]

Not sure whether to take this threat seriously? Open to thoughts. Tempodivalse [talk] 23:00, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Joe deleted this, but we should probably decide whether we should delete threats on sight, regardless of whether they are credible or not. --SVTCobra 23:09, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What I find a bit concerning about this particular instance is that the IP is from the immediate vicinity where the persons the threats were made against live (see the WHOIS results). Tempodivalse [talk] 23:39, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly do you mean by 'take seriously'? --78.146.215.12 (talk) 23:59, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What I meant was whether this threat seemed credible enough for us to consider notifying local authorities to the situation. Tempodivalse [talk] 02:57, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's not out job. You could tell the authorities, but they would most likely not do anything about this. Then you'd have to spend an hour explaining to them who you are and why you're involved. If you want to, feel free, but I think it is a waste of time. There are only 2 things we can do. #1 - Block the IP (Which I did, which I wonder why it wasn't already) and #2 - Possible request the edit be oversighted. --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 03:33, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • death threats should be deleted on sight, but I'd say not oversighted. If they are oversighted then local admins cannot see if there is any pattern to threats or indications of someone obsessing about this. Where someone is persistently threatened I would strongly advise another discussion on the topic of contacting local law enforcement. A caveat to that is that data available under the WMF privacy policy should not be disclosed without a valid supoena - but this is pretty much only going to apply to checkusers. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:30, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, because Wikinews is hosted in Florida death threats here are all crimes, regardless of their veracity. US federal law makes this something that (the FBI?) supposedly investigate. Wether they actually bother is another matter, of course. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 11:35, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, there's such a temptation there to abuse that. Start a website http://www.howillkillosama.com and make it forward every post someone puts on it to the FBI. :P --Brian McNeil / talk 17:11, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement[edit]

I'd just like to draw attention to the announcement on my userpage. I think people should be made aware of it. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 21:13, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hope everything works out for you IRL. Let me know if there's anything I can help with. –Juliancolton | Talk 04:57, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good luck.    Tris   07:14, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Same here. I hope things get better for you soon. Tempodivalse [talk] 12:45, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Associated Press[edit]

I felt it appropriate to create a redirect and category for the AP; this was a case where key details on the story came exclusively from them. Before I go archive trawling to see which other articles really belong in this category (if, in fact, any) I'd like some sort of agreed-on criteria. Blanket adding it based on searches could just add every story that uses them as a source; I think that's wrong, I think we should err on the side of caution, so add to/discuss the criteria below:

  1. AP is a critical source, possibly even originator of the story
  2. AP is the actual subject of our story
  3. AP is a major player in the story; such as responsible for widespread distribution of a hoax

Are there others to add to this? Any search tips for weeding out articles that don't need checked against these criteria? --Brian McNeil / talk 15:02, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm... this seems like an unusual use of categories, but I can't really see any problem with it. The criteria given sound reasonable, but I think the first should be applied very carefully - or it will end up with far too many members. In fact I'm not sure about the first article you added (Failed bomb aboard Delta flight), but I admit I didn't follow that story very closely so will defer to others' judgement.
If this is successful would we have similar categories for other major outlets? the wub "?!" 22:59, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have absolutely no problem with citing sources as a category where they're integral to the piece of news. I don't think Wikinews covered it, but the recent Northern Ireland debacle - with the First Minister's wife setting her toy-boy up in business - would be a classic example. The BBC, through an investigative piece, broke the story. This was what we'd normally have as a source actually making the news. In such circumstances I'm fully in favour of the news source being a category where the circumstances are like that. For AP? Very, very tricky. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Got a few minutes?[edit]

Does anyone have a couple of minutes to undo this [idiot]. I've got to run, but just so noone misses it. Cheers guys!    Tris   08:22, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just spotted this, all cleaned up now. Special:Nuke is amazing, I've never had chance to use it before! the wub "?!" 10:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh wow! I left the message here because I thought I'd have to go through everyone and didn't have time for that! That could be fun-any idea what would happen if we did it to a proper contributor?    Tris   11:14, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is a cool tool! But what a mess a rogue admin could cause ... Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:38, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
/me is jealous, has wanted to try nuke, but hasn't had an opportunity. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:40, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since it is such a powerful tool, I just wanted to make a note that I used it on Opa234 (talk · contribs). Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

abuse filter mismathch for Page blanking[edit]

Im Trying to Blank a spam page, someone delete it right pl0x 164.116.47.180 (talk) 17:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Thanks fr pointing it out! Δενδοδγε τ\c 18:04, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
note: In future, you can add {{Delete|spam}} to top of the page to mark it as needing deletion. Cheers. Bawolff ☺☻ 18:14, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is the Nuke Primed? i think we mght need to use it. 164.116.47.180 (talk) 18:20, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism[edit]

Concern - assistance / meditation requested[edit]

I'm not sure where's the best place for this, so I decided to put it here for a larger audience. Basically, I'm concerned about some of the behaviour by ShakataGaNai (talk · contribs). There have been several times where I thought he wasn't doing enough copyedit before publishing articles, and was publishing stories that were not up to our standards. I approached him with my concerns, mainly on IRC, asking him to perhaps edit articles a bit more if they needed improvement. I tried to phrase it gently, but instead I was rebuffed with things like "it's not my problem", and comments to the effect of "why couldn't you have fixed it? it was in the review queue for days", which I didn't agree with. I pointed out that it's the reviewer's responsibility to make sure articles are up to par. For instance, I pointed to Chilean President Piñera discontinues "catastrophe state" in O'Higgins, Maule and Bío Bío regions, which was published by SGN with a grammatical error in the title and considerably choppy text that still reads a bit awkwardly after a heavy copyedit. Shaka says "you're just purely criticising me", although I'm not sure how I can express my concerns without there being some element of criticism - and i did try my best to put things gently. I'm very uncomfortable with this general attitude, and worry that it might reflect onto the quality of our work as well.

I know that generally things on IRC don't spill over onto wiki, but this is sort of related to on-wiki matters, and I really am concerned by it, so I felt getting community input into the matter was the next step - i don't know where else I can go with this. Please, I'm not trying to stir up drama, nor do I have any sort of personal vendetta against SGN. I'm just genuinely concerned about this. Tempodivalse [talk] 03:55, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure tempo doesn't have a personal vendetta against me, just against {{sofixit}}. I agree that I missed things, but all I ever hear is about this shit that I missed, the mistakes, the problems. What about the other 50 some articles I reviewed? You guys have your little games and awards and contests for writers...what about those that review this? I've said time and time again that I'm not an grammar/spelling nazi. Yea, I might see some issues once in a while, but more often than not I don't. That is why when ever I write I get someone to come in and copy edit MY work.
PS. It isn't the reviewers responsibility for every god damn letter of every god damn article we look over. IT IS EVERYONES GOD DAMN RESPONSIBILITY. And totally honest, you show me where in the policies it says the reviewer is responsible and I will quit, right here and right now. I'm not trying to make threats or anything like that, I'm simply sick of catching shit CONSTANTLY. Almost never a "Hey, thanks for your hard work reviewing" and almost not a day goes by without bitching about something I missed. --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 04:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully disagree with your second point. An article in bad shape shouldn't be published just because "oh, nobody fixed it, but out it goes anyway". We don't have that many contributors around here, and most of them prefer writing articles themselves, rather than fix those of others. It's ultimately up to whoever's going to be reviewing an article to detect if it's not up to our standards, and fail it accordingly. If the reviewer doesn't check anything, then what's the point of even having a reviewing policy? Why not allow self-publish under the principle that "everyone is responsible for every article" ? Sure, there's no place in the policies that explicitly says reviewers are "responsible", that seems like it should be taken for granted to me, and implicitly understood in the policy text. And i'm certainly not ungrateful for your efforts - i applaud them, and wish i could have thought to give you a barnstar for it - but I do believe if one has concerns, they need to be addressed. Apologies if i've unduly angered you. Tempodivalse [talk] 04:16, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The editors, or should I say arbitors of wikinews need to decide if they should be one.
Nobody will be living up to your standards if they are reporting citizen news.
They will be saying what is on their minds. It's more opinion than fact. Yet, you don't allow for that, and the repercussions suppress, rather than encourage input.24.125.55.90 (talk) 07:59, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(I'm not sure how exactly this is related to the discussion at hand, but decided i'd may as well respond anyway) Well, I was under the impression that one of the main selling points of Wikinews was its neutrality policy. Sure, that might discourage some people from posting rants or otherwise biased comments in articles, but isn't that what blogs are for? If we allow people to "speak their minds" in articles, we'd just become another blog. Neutrality policies are what make us stand out from other news sources. Just imho. Tempodivalse [talk] 13:18, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I checked User talk:ShakataGaNai and User talk:Tempodivalse, but failed to find prior on-wiki discussion about this matter. Was there any discussion or attempts to resolve this issue, excluding IRC chat? -- Cirt (talk) 13:22, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Aside from this thread, no; this is the first on-wiki discussion. I figured this would be a more appropriate venue than a talk page - and previous experience has suggested that SGN is frequently unwilling to address concerns about himself on the talk page. Tempodivalse [talk]
It is appropriate to try some form of on-wiki attempt to resolve the conflict through discussion, prior to escalating things further by bringing it here. (Not yet voicing a comment one way or the other about the matter itself.) -- Cirt (talk) 17:22, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is precisely what I'm doing here, attempting to resolve the conflict on-wiki. I don't think this is really much more of an "escalation" than a post at a talk page. Tempodivalse [talk] 17:40, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is at the very least worth the attempt to engage the other party in a conflict at their user talk page, to first try to amicably resolve the issue that way. That is all I am suggesting. :) -- Cirt (talk) 17:41, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Shaka has placed me on the ignore list on IRC, and even muted me on the channel. It thus did not seem at all likely that he'd would reply to any comment I would leave at his talk page. Tempodivalse [talk] 17:43, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot speak to what may have happened on IRC, as I was not there at the time. However, I think it is at least worth a try, to attempt to reach out via user talk page. -- Cirt (talk) 17:52, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I could try, if it makes me look any better, although I'm reasonably sure that it won't help much, plus it would just be unnecessarily fragmenting the discussion at this point, imo. Tempodivalse [talk] 17:56, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh Oh, my favorite line "previous experience has suggested that SGN is frequently unwilling to address concerns about himself on the talk page". Lets scroll up in the logs and look for the conversation that took place before I was put up for deadmin. Oh wait, there wasn't any. Let's look for commentary on my talk page about this issue before it hit AAA... oh wait... there wasn't any.
Everyone want to know the real issue behind the disagreement? Tempo is a perfectionist and his views for the project is that we should be as perfect/upstanding/high quality as possible. Great! More power to him (and I'm being serious here). I... am not. I'm not a perfectionist, my view of the project is that it doesn't need to be perfect or anything of the like. So he gets unhappy when I let less than perfect stuff go. Could I do a better job? You becha. Is there a reason behind my less than stellar work? You becha, I'm _trying_ to help prevent the massive review back log that constantly plagues us. As for tempo, he's right, I'm an ass. But I'm doing better at controlling my anger these days. I've told him on most of the occasions that he's harassed me about issues to simple go fix it himself, and in many cases he hasn't. If someone sent me a link to a diff saying "Hey, I saw these issues after you publish, You might want to pay more attention to X during your reviews". Ok, fine. I might not do so, but at least I know. With Tempo it has always been "You missed X,Y&Z" but yet...they aren't fixed. His view is that these articles are all my responsibility.
I'm sorry, but I'm not going to take responsibility for the articles themselves. I'll take responsibility for my edits, for my reviews. I even fully agree to those bits that I miss in my reviews... but that doesn't make it my responsibility. Why is it not the writers responsibility? Someone else wrote the damn article, blame them if something is wrong. So, really the crux is this: Am I, the reviewer responsible for every word of every article I reviewed? --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 18:05, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like this actually really should have been first discussed on the talkpage of the relevant article. Primarily, seems more like a content issue. -- Cirt (talk) 18:18, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As a somewhat sidenote to this dispute, I think it would be beneficial to better define the role/responsibility of reviewers. We have no policy on what a reviewer is required to do, or even what they are supposed to do, beyond a very broad "check to make sure this article doesn't suck". If we're going to expect reviewers to do something to some standard, we should actually have a page on what that standard is. Bawolff ☺☻ 18:30, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent idea by Bawolff (talk · contribs), but best discussed at the talk page for WN:REVIEW. -- Cirt (talk) 18:32, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cirt: Well, it was discussed somewhat, although SGN didn't participate [2]. This really spread out over several articles though, not just that one. Perhaps I should have considered using the wiki talk page, but a IRC seemed a much more convenient venue, and when SGN didn't address/ignored the concerns there, it didn't seem likely a talk page post would do much better.
Yes, I am a perfectionist. I want to show everyone that we can be as good as or better than the MSM, and I am always frustrated whenever something of poor quality goes published, which does nothing to disspell the stigma of "eh, anyone can edit this news source, and it really shows" which we frequently have. I strongly believe in quality over quantity. We could have a hundred mediocre-to-bad-quality articles published, and it would not gain us any more respectability or make us look any better than ten articles of excellent quality that surpass the MSM. The former would make readers think "eh, sorta ok news source", but the latter "wow, this is just as good as/better than anything i've read in the mainstream, i'll come back for more". That's what we should be striving for, imo. That is what will garner us respectability in the long run. TBH, I would much rather see a few articles go stale due to lack of review, but have very high quality of writing. And, honestly, how difficult or time-consuming is it to simply click "edit this page" during a review and fix any minor issues like grammars or typos you see? {{sofixit}} applies here too.
And I'd once again like to repeat my stance that the reviewer is equally responsible for the quality of the articles that he publishes as the writer is for writing them. If a bad story goes live, the reviewer is, almost always, as equally berated for letting it through as the author is for writing it up in such a state. That, to me, clearly indicates the reviewer has at least some responsibility for the quality of stuff he reviews. If everyone had the mindset of "well, it was up for review for days, and nobody came in to correct it, so may as well publish anyways!", our overall article quality would go down the toilet. Reviewing is not a rubber-stamp. It's the reviewer's job to make sure an article is ok before it goes live. Don't do that? Expect to get upset comments from other editors, or perhaps even a de-editor request (remember rockerball). We simply don't have enough of a userbase to have copyeditors swarming around each article. Yes, perhaps I should follow the principle of {{sofixit}} more, but remember I have other things I do, such as writing - which takes up a good deal of my available time and i frequently don't have the desire or energy to perform major copyedits or even total rewrites of others' articles.
Anyways, sorry if that was overtly rambling, but had to get that out. Tempodivalse [talk] 18:45, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
None of this rises to the level of WN:AAA. Reviewer policy type issues can be discussed on the talk page of WN:REVIEW. Concerns about specific articles can be discussed at those article talk pages. Conflicts with users should be at the very least have a first stage of an attempt to resolve those issues, on-wiki, via user talk page. -- Cirt (talk) 19:16, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps, although I'd like to reiterate that, under the circumstances, a talk page post would not have likely helped much. Maybe it still would have been better, i dunno. I didn't know where else to go with this. WN:Dispute resolution seemed too drastic, so I thought this would be a good "intermediate" venue for community consideration (like, Step 3 of the dispute resolution process, except that WN:MA is no longer used). And, this issue isn't just about reviewing policies, so it didn't seem appropriate to discuss it there. Tempodivalse [talk] 19:25, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Best not to assume what "would have" worked or not, instead rather to actually try, first. See my suggestions, above. -- Cirt (talk) 20:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
-shrugs- Okay, I suppose can try contacting shaka at his talk page, if you insist.... Tempodivalse [talk] 20:13, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

<unindent> I've decided to approach him at User talk:ShakataGaNai. Maybe that would have been indeed a better venue; I was rather tired when posting this yesterday, perhaps my judgment was a bit fuzzy. Although I don't think it makes much difference either way. Tempodivalse [talk] 20:26, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As I've feared, Shaka now seems to be ignoring me altogether, although I know he is online and has seen the "new messages" bar. Reading over this discussion with a fresh pair of eyes, it appears one of the root causes of this little argument is that we have radically different viewpoints on what we want for Wikinews. I want us to always do our best and focus on quality - he, on quantity. I can understand you're viewpoint, although i still don't totally agree with it, nor with your overall attitude. I'd like some community input into this, although I realise that the above drama-infested discussion likely has deterred everyone who would have otherwise participated. Tempodivalse [talk] 23:26, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(Side issue: AAA might not have been the ideal choice, as it does feel kind of escalation-y to start with; I realize ShakataGaNai has a reputation, deserved or not, for ignoring such posts on his talk page, but perhaps a watercooler might have been a somewhat gentler-feeling initial public forum. The atmosphere here is such that, as a non-admin, I feel a bit like I've wandered into the smoking room of an exclusive club that I don't belong to. Wearning a T-shirt and jogging shorts.)
It does bother me, rather a lot to be honest, to hear a reviewer dismissing the importance of mechanical quality control during review — the future of the project depends even more on consistently high quality than quantity, IMHO, not that quantity isn't hugely important on an absolute scale. I agree that glaring problems not fixed in an article before publication reflect badly on the reviewer as well as the project. However, I'd add to that that within quality control, an even higher priority than mechanics is surely checking against the sources, for inaccuracies and copyvios. (I haven't heard anything said against ShakataGaNai in that regard.) The reviewer is the project's main, and one suspects sometimes only, line of defense against major problems of these kinds; I certainly don't often have, or take, time to do much checking of someone else's article against its sources if I'm not the reviewer. (Re accuracy — nothing to do with ShakataGaNai — I still vividly recall this.) --Pi zero (talk) 03:35, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I'm online, I'm _ALWAYS ONLINE_. I saw your message Tempo, yes. I also have been reading this thread as it continues on. Yes, I've seen you on in IRC. I work a 9-5 job, while it might not seem like it from the fact that I hang out in IRC and chat a lot of the days, I still have work to do. There is a difference between BS'ing in IRC and trying to post a serious and well thought out reply. Give me 12 god damn hours at least. Plus, I've not reviewed anything today (At least not that I remember). In the mean time, enjoy some pretty pictures of the Android Wikinews Reader application. Version 0.1 (or something like that). Yes, it is fully functional (in the fact that you can download the headlines and read the news). --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 03:51, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, Shaka, sorry if I incorrectly assumed you were ignoring me; I understand that it might be difficult to write out a good message while at work, but i sort of automatically thought that you had, since you seem to have had /ignore on in IRC. Perhaps you could consider merging my thread at your talk over here, to avoid unnecessarily fragmenting discussion?
Btw, Pi zero, I'm beginning to think too that perhaps this would have been more appropriate elsewhere. I wrote the initial thread while i was somewhat tired/it was late, I might not have been thinking my clearest. I didn't know where else to do it - both WN:MA and WN:DR have fallen into disuse, and WN:Water cooler/assistance doesn't get as much traffic as this page, I don't think. Please feel free to move this thread if you think there's a more appropriate place for it though. Tempodivalse [talk] 04:05, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, ya didn't start at de-sysop or arbcom - so I think you are doing purdy good. --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 04:07, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Look.

  • If you're reviewing, have an inline spellchecker, you can fail for lots of spelling errors.
  • Please keep standards high.
  • Don't complain overly about reviewing - it is hard work.

-- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /alt-talk • main talk' 09:33, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Global ban enforcement[edit]

Hi. Please enforce the global ban on Thekohser (talk | contribs) declared by Jimbo Wales in this edit. Thanks!   — Jeff G. ツ 02:31, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A ban is different from a block, and as long as Mr. Kohser isn't actively editing, it's not an issue. If he does commence editing here, we can revisit then if necessary. –Juliancolton | Talk 02:35, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your quick response.   — Jeff G. ツ 03:08, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Administrators'_noticeboard#Global_ban_enforcement is a stronger thread than the original I was working with.   — Jeff G. ツ 05:16, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unblock?[edit]

  • Comment, appears Thekohser has been globally unbanned and instead indefblocked locally across all wikis so that the individual communities can decide themselves where to go with this. We'll be keeping an eye on the situation, thanks Jeff G. Tempodivalse [talk] 22:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think he should have been indefblocked there. He hasn't done anything bad there. --Diego Grez return fire 22:48, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, I'm certainly not opposed to having an unblock discussion about this, and don't have strong feelings either way. His being blocked on practically all other English projects would suggest he's not going to be very constructive, but you do have a point that he hasn't actually been disruptive here ... Open to thoughts. Tempodivalse [talk] 22:54, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I support an unblock as far as he doesn't do anything stupid. --Diego Grez return fire 23:02, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm...tough call. I'd support keeping him blocked; there's nothing to indicate he's going to do anything useful, and if we prevent even one unconstructive edit by keeping him blocked, I think it'll have been worth it. Cheers, C628 (talk) 23:08, 5 May 2010 (UTC)See comments below. C628 (talk) 14:33, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is that normal WN MO? --Kim Bruning (talk) 23:11, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not quite sure what you mean. Generally, we try to be accommodating to users unless it's obvious they are up to no good, sort of on the lines of Wikipedia's AGF policy. Tempodivalse [talk] 23:15, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) A simple solution: Unblock and any vandalism, trolling, etc., indef block. --Mikemoral♪♫ 23:09, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't we wait until Thekohser actually requests him to be unblocked? Drini (talk) 23:10, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

After reviewing his edits cross-wikily, I think he should stay blocked. --Diego Grez return fire 23:14, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment — I'm of split mind on this. He hasn't actually done anything wrong here, but as Brianmc says, he has proven to be a disruptive editor on other wikis. I wouldn't oppose a decision in either direction... but if he comes here and so much as blinks at someone the wrong way I'd support a permanent instoban. Gopher65talk 23:10, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like Drini's idea. If kohser comes up with a good reason to be unblocked, we can do it. Griffinofwales (talk) 23:14, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at their edits, they don't seem bad on Wikinews. --Mikemoral♪♫ 23:17, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I agree with Mikemoral, Thekohser's only two edits to the project [4] [5] don't seem to have been particularly bad. I'm leaning towards an unblock, as he isn't a blatant vandal and hasn't done anything wrong here, although not really enthusiastic either way. Tempodivalse [talk] 23:21, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment again. if he trolls there, block. --Diego Grez return fire 00:17, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm leaning towards that point of view now--I'm not thrilled by the prospect of unblocking him, but I don't really see what the harm would be, as long as we're unanimous that he'll be instantly blocked if steps out line. C628 (talk) 14:33, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just an update, I've unblocked Thekohser per the comments above - nobody appears to be flatly against it. Please keep an eye on contributions and feel free to reblock if you see something troublesome. Tempodivalse [talk] 17:54, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WN:COE issues[edit]

An intervewee's name was revealed on an OR piece without his consent. Please see here and here and review my actions. I know we don't have a policy on this; WN:IAR seemed to apply. Benny the mascot (talk) 03:54, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I took a look at the deleted page. Seems like the correct thing to do, given that the user didn't want to be revealed. Tempodivalse [talk] 04:15, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 05:58, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

String of "User:The Thing That..." accounts[edit]

Can we get a checkuser for the buffoon creating these accounts? He's obviously running on OPs but would be nice to see which ones so as to block them and make sure he doesn't use them again. Tempodivalse [talk] 15:01, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Quick update, I remembered that we have a blacklist for this sort of thing. Still might not be a bad idea to checkuser-block the open proxies. Tempodivalse [talk] 15:11, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Poke Brian. That's his expert area. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 17:36, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, but I know he'll be tied up with his job at this time of the day. Maybe Cirt? But i'd have to ping him at en.wikipedia as he doesn't check in here a lot. Tempodivalse [talk] 18:37, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think he gets a day off today. Something bout him doing a weekend shift. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 18:45, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mm, well he's listed as /away in IRC and doesn't seem to be responding to pings. Tempodivalse [talk] 19:31, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

??? Benny the mascot (talk) 19:01, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to go ahead and re-block and add a tp message. —Mikemoral♪♫ 19:26, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
User is a regular at en.wiki and likely not a problem. [6] —Mikemoral♪♫ 19:29, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that's the legitimate user and shouldn't have been blocked. Also see this notice at his en.wp talk page. What a mess. Tempodivalse [talk] 19:30, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
4 IPs blocked. --Skenmy talk 19:52, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, appears as though this has been resolved. Thanks Skenmy. Tempodivalse [talk] 20:35, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the future, you can leave a message at my user talk page locally. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 04:18, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Matthewedwards (talk · contribs) indef blocked[edit]

Was this really appropriate? More specifically, I'm bothered that BRS said "You are no longer welcome on Wikinews" without community input. Personally, I too am leaning towards supporting a community ban on Matthewedwards, but feel that this should be discussed first by other concerned editors. Besides, a community decision is stronger than a unilateral decision. Benny the mascot (talk) 16:41, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The blocking policy does give admins the right to block troublemakers at discretion. Realistically, blocked users aren't welcome. If you really feel strongly about it, reblock without the not welcome bit. *Shrugs* Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 16:44, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Our blocking policy does give lots of leeway to admins (although, for serious things like an indefblock, I'd think some community discussion wouldn't hurt). I do agree with Benny, though, that community consensus is stronger than individual action - in this case, though, I won't dispute BRS' action. Tempodivalse [talk] 16:49, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not disputing the action that much either... but blocks are primarily used regular vandals, not editors that happen to piss us off. Has another user been blocked under similar circumstances before? Benny the mascot (talk) 17:14, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────┘
 Ideally, wouldn't a 12, 24 hour block work for a first-time annoyance? —Mikemoral♪♫ 17:46, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, a 24 hour block is too short. Perhaps a 1-6 month block should suffice? By then this whole thing should blow over. Benny the mascot (talk) 17:51, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Furthermore, I went ahead and changed the block to 24 hours in hopes for a story. Feel free to revert me, but I want a story. In my opinion, since they failed to create a story that they promised, then the ideal block time should be 1-2 weeks, not forever. —Mikemoral♪♫ 17:52, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Per our {{stale}}ness policy, it's unlikely that a story, even if forthcoming, would ever be published. The event happened some time ago. Tempodivalse [talk] 19:46, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted. There may be a consensus emerge to block for a shorter time, but 24 hours is certainly too short. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 17:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A 12 or 24-hour block? What are you on Mike? He hasn't edited since he got the goddamned credentials! That is a total waste of time; equally so a 6 month block. This has to be totally permanent. That username is persona-non-grata on this wiki. If he ever wants to edit here again, then as far as I am concerned it will be under a new username; the black mark of a made, and obscenely broken, promise stays on his unified account. You can bet your ass he's put plenty of pictures on Commons, likely even contributed to Wikipedia from his privileged access, but he made a promise to contribute here to get credentials and people working to improve his access. Were I an employer, this is what I would characterise as gross misconduct. Yes, yes, ... "volunteers" and all that, but I think my point should be quite clear. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:52, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My vote below shows I changed my mind. I just forgot to strike my comments. —Mikemoral♪♫ 21:01, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Community ban[edit]

I personally agree with Blood Red Sandman, this guy wasted time of all of us, he deceived us, and we didn't receive anything back.

Support[edit]

Oppose[edit]

  • Oppose — I support the sentiment that led to this block, I really do. The actions that led to this block are not acceptable from an accredited reporter. But I don't think that something like this merits a block. In my opinion blocks are reserved for advertising, spam, vandalism, stalking, and other such abuses; they are here to protect the wiki in a physical sense. They are not intended to be used to resolve content disputes or hurt feelings (justifiably hurt or not), which is what this ultimately boils down to. In my opinion this user's actions (apparently lying, misrepresenting Wikinews, wasting user's time, etc) should have led to their accreditation being stripped, reviewer privileges revoked (if received in the first place), and the user being given a thorough dressing down by affected members of the community (especially Brian, who put a lot of work into this). He should have been perma-banned from reapplying for stripped privileges as well. But account blocking? What purpose does that serve except for petty, childish revenge? It's pointless. Gopher65talk 23:41, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

┌────────────────┘
Well, I doubt he will vandalize or contribute crap to the project. —Mikemoral♪♫ 00:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What Mike said. Griffinofwales (talk) 00:05, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Gopher does have a point; in the strict sense, he didn't vandalise, disrupt, etc., on the wiki itself, and I don't think he ever would have. However, I have to disagree with the opinion that off-wiki actions should never have on-wiki repercussions. The user damaged our reputation; that, to me, is the equivalent of knowingly posting/publishing a false article. Both should result in a block, or at least consideration of a block. In any case, we need to set an example for the future: you don't try to take advantage of Wikinews. Tempodivalse [talk] 00:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So what's the consensus here?[edit]

That. --Diego Grez return fire 22:13, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I blocked for a billion and one years, but although the system registered it, the user no longer shows up as blocked. You'll have to make do with indef. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 22:20, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hehe. It's ok with indef. He should be able to ask for unblock in between 6 months and a year, though. --Diego Grez return fire 22:31, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No. If he wants to contribute, he can create a new account.; obviously, that'd be after the IP block expires. --Brian McNeil / talk 22:37, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't that block evasion? --Diego Grez return fire 22:37, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
From what I understand, it's okay if he doesn't sock, ever use his old account again, follows rules, and has a completely "fresh start". Tempodivalse [talk] 23:02, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Untrue, block evasion is using another account to get around the block. He has to successfully appeal his block first, and then he can create an account. Griffinofwales (talk) 23:16, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, perhaps I'm wrong. We don't have "community bans" like this very frequently, so I haven't a lot of experience with it. So I guess the question here is whether we are banning the user or the person behind the account. Tempodivalse [talk] 23:19, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Both. --Diego Grez return fire 23:23, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Both. --Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 23:24, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh come now, was this ugly thing really necessary? Haven't we already kicked him around and rubbed it in his face enough? Tempodivalse [talk] 23:00, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No. Please come up with something more humane. Benny the mascot (talk) 23:40, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone viewing must be informed of the exact circumstances in question. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 23:50, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Are we Muslims or what? --Diego Grez return fire 23:51, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The wording is too strong and reeks of childish revenge. And what do Muslims have to do with anything? Benny the mascot (talk) 23:54, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The images of Mohammed is offensive for them. This one 'is offensive for him'. --Diego Grez return fire 23:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The wording looks ok to me, now it's been edited around and toned down. Everything it says is accurate. It looks bad because, well, it is. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 23:57, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Folks, please stop this fooling around. The hanging image is vindictive, childish, and overall inappropriate; regardless of how much you abhor him, there is no reason why a simple red-hand image shouldn't suffice. Tempodivalse [talk] 00:40, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As an outside commenter:
oh my god are some of you seriously punishing him out of anger and vindictiveness what is wrong with you
That is all. Also, I'll be looking for a way to bring this up on Meta. This is incredibly embarrassing. You gave him privileges, and he apparently abused them. It happens; you don't start thinking up every possible way to embarrass him. In fact, it happens in other forms. What would you do with a rogue admin? I'm sure, or at least I hope, that you wouldn't say, "Don't fuck with Wikinews". I'm sure, or at least I hope, you wouldn't have responsible admins vandalize his user page. --68.161.169.110 (talk) 01:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, some people were petty, and I'm quite disappointed about it; however, you'll find that we're generally hot-headed when it comes to things like this. We try to keep the standards of a professional news source, and are very sensitive to when someone does their job irresponsibly or results in the project losing credibility. Tempodivalse [talk] 01:13, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And I just thought of something that makes this even worse: No matter how bad things look, you have no proof of wrongdoing. These are the admins that are supposed to make sure that an article conforms to NPOV? That an article does not say anything for certain until it's confirmed, only that some news organization reported it as such? In news, there's always multiple sides to the story, and no matter how bad things look on one side, you do not draw your own conclusions and put them in the article, no? Incredibly embarrassing. --68.161.169.110 (talk) 01:08, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

┌────────────────┘
 Get knotted, or I'll block the entire /20 you've been sniping from. We have "cheap seats"; better known as the Comments: namespace. You've ranted about the Israel/Gaza story, and now further disrupt a small project that you know nothing about process and procedure on.

I will not tolerate such. I can, quite easily, get cross-project CheckUser run on your netblock. --Brian McNeil / talk 01:24, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Brian, please cool down. The IP is expressing a legitimate argument, and it's not appropriate to use checkuser as a threat against people you disagree with. Maybe we should all take a nice, long break from this? Tempodivalse [talk] 01:32, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why would I mind if you block me? It's worse for you than it is for me. What have I done except express an opinion, regardless of how ignorant it is? "Get knotted"? Despite all my rage, I seem to be calmer than you.
The comments namespace? That's to comment on the subject of articles, not on the articles themselves. Yes, I picked that up quickly.
Run CheckUser on my netblock. I'm not entirely sure what that would entail, but if blind threats (no, I don't mean "empty threats") are how you want to end such a discussion, that only makes it more embarrassing for you and Wikinews. I have nothing to hide. If I've done anything wrong, it's to have treated you with less respect than required by WN:E, and that's out in the open.
Maybe you should go cool off for a bit. --68.161.169.110 (talk) 01:39, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe you should start from a little education: This is not Wikipedia. You are, by pouring oil on the flames, wasting a great deal of the small contributor base's time. Up the trolling stakes, if that floats your boat; but, you might not like the outcome – I've been on the net for 20+ years, and am quite capable of dealing with those who think they can politely disrupt a group or project, waste enormous amounts of good contributors' time, and drive off those without the stomach for fierce debate. I don't give a damn if you've learned how to game Wikipedia's "be nice" stupidity. That cuts no mustard here. --Brian McNeil / talk 01:53, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wrongdoing has been demonstrated. A block notice is hardly vandalism. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 01:16, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions, but it seems fairly obvious that the user was simply negligentdoing it for his own profit (EDIT: sorry, used a wrong word). There doesn't seem to be any other explanation: the event he was supposed to cover happened more than a week ago, and not a peep from him at Wikinews since; he has actively edited Wikipedia, so it couldn't have been a personal emergency/accident/etc. that would have forcibly prevented him from writing. *shrug* (after edit conflict: And yes, I would consider the hanging image, if not a form of pseudo-vandalism, to be petty at the least. You've already blocked the user, no need to humiliate him like that.) Tempodivalse [talk] 01:17, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Meh. We can discuss if it was the best option or not, but it serves a serious purpose as well. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 01:19, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

┌───────────────────┘
 No, there was no bloody negligence. I've copies of emails from Edwards seeking to use the issued credentials for a second day. No contributions here, no pictures on Commons, not a single edit to the Wikipedia article. I do not like people thinking they can take me for a ride and exploit my concern for this project doing well. Edwards has done a great deal of damage in terms of how prospective contributors from other projects might be viewed. --Brian McNeil / talk 01:24, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WRT the "negligence" bit, I think i mis-communicated. What I was meaning to say is that the user didn't care about WN at all, just doing it for his own profit. Tempodivalse [talk] 03:40, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's something that could've been brought up before, but regardless, you should state facts, not conclusions as facts. And do so calmly.
There have been arguments against blocking. There does not seem to be danger of harm through his editing the wiki (seeing as he has no history of that here or, apparently, at Wikipedia), and his blocking has nothing to do with his editing the wiki, only his deception. "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.'" While there's always room for exceptions, the spirit of the law is that blocking is meant to protect the Wiki, not to punish people. And it's almost as if you're blocking him because you can't do anything else, because you want to lash out.
If he claimed to be a journalist to get in, and didn't act as a journalist (i.e. writing articles), you have a much more relevant and fitting punishment for him. Didn't you get his personal information? Weren't you supposed to have confirmed it? He apparently went to the event as a journalist and was not actually planning to be a journalist. I may be wrong, but I think that is a form of fraud. Report this to the higher-ups of Wikimedia, and something might be done legally. --68.161.169.110 (talk) 01:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Don't you understand? This is a community ban. Now shut up. --Diego Grez return fire 02:00, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Everybody needs to calm down. Now. Benny the mascot (talk) 02:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seriously, let's all retain out last bit of professionalism. At least listen to the last user (here the anon) with some sense left in them. —Mikemoral♪♫ 02:05, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hear hear, Mikemoral! While everyone seems to be blasting the IP, I actually think he is the most logical of any of us (even though I don't completely agree with his viewpoint). Now let's cool it. Everyone. Tempodivalse [talk] 02:29, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Section break[edit]

I still think we should reduce the indef ban to six months; we have been WAAAAY too hard on this user. After all, this is a first time offense. Furthermore, I am not happy with the wording and image previously posted on his userpage. WN:E applies to all situations, no matter how frustrating it may be. Just my two cents... Benny the mascot (talk) 02:19, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, the only thing that was about was the image? I can take either side of that argument. Had you removed only the image, I may not have used a second revert. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 09:52, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Benny, you just don't seem to see the seriousness of this. I'm inclined to give up on you altogether. You are obviously suffering from the cultural divide known as the Atlantic Ocean. In any case, this has gone on long enough, and produced more verbiage than most Wikinews articles. Unless particularly provoked, I'm done here. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:04, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not done here. If you want to discuss the image, attack the serious reasons it was inapporpriate instead of baldly saying so and trying to call it vindictive. It served a serious purpose; I am not strongly in favour of it, but I am certainly strongly opposed to any suggestion it was purely for fun. Now I'm done here. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 11:41, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree it [the image not the block] was mildly inappropriate. Somewhat adding insult to injury - Not only are we going to block, we're going to put a picture of a hanging guy on your user page. With that said, it was quite funny, I'd support working it into an indef blocked template. I only think its inappropriate in this situation as the user was singled out. If all indef blocked people got that template, I'd be fine with it. Bawolff ☺☻ 11:53, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The IP address contributor is not talking sense; xe is trolling. Quoting policy? Then suggesting we report someone to the Foundation? C'mon. Ignore the demotivating idiocy.

Edwards represented himself to Wikinews on the basis of being an enWP administrator, keen to contribute here. He did not. Yet, he got at least two days of free, privileged access to a major sporting event. I, personally, feel deeply insulted by this. Benny, one day you might want a letter of introduction for reporting purposes, give me an email address and I will send you copies of the correspondence I put together for Edwards. Then, if you consider the effort in crafting such, you might better understand why his behaviour is utterly unacceptable.

As to the anonymous contributor; his other contributions have been to criticise the handling of the Israel/Gaza aid story and asked why we can't just drop back to the lack-of-standards that saw us, repeatedly, refused listing in the Google News index as a credible and trustworthy source.

What needed said, by the community, has been said. What needed done, by the community, has been done. That does include a lifetime ban; you don't see Dan Rather getting a new job six months after his lapses, and those may have been stupidity-based; this was not. --Brian McNeil / talk 02:28, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The only thing Matthewedwards did was piss us off. Once. What ever happened to "turn the other cheek" or "forgive and forget"? He isn't openly engaging in vandalism, nor is he trying to impede the further development of Wikinews in any way. What benefit do we receive from an indef block other than the sadism of revenge? I say we should give him six months to think about what he did, and after that allow him to try to redeem himself if he sincerely wants to do good for all Wikimedia projects. By then, this whole situation will have blown over. Benny the mascot (talk) 02:40, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My thoughts[edit]

This will most likely be one post, as I'll soon be going to sleep, but I wanted to get my thoughts out on this before it blows over.

Nearly every comment above has been disgraceful. This is unacceptable for any site, particularly one that is trying to market itself as a legitimate and professional news site. I have seen no evidence beyond BRS's initial block and some of the IP's comments that show the slightest evidence of thought or reasoning. A picture of a noose on his user page? Are you serious? Is there any possible way to escalate the situation more? Brian, I realize you've spent a great deal of time on this project, but some of your comments are flat-out wrong. When did it become acceptable to threaten a checkuser on someone for expressing an opinion? Same for Diego, telling someone to shut up for having the guts to disagree. This whole thing has made me ashamed, deeply ashamed, to be a part of this community, and if that's the way we operate, than I will have to take serious thought about whether I wish to contribute here. C628 (talk) 05:15, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well said; I couldn't have phrased it better. I suppose I should apologise for my actions yesterday as well; although I didn't condone the hanging image, I got carried away and sort-of participated in the mockery of Matthewedwards (in IRC) as well. Tempodivalse [talk] 12:52, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, I was too mean with that guy. --Diego Grez return fire 13:00, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Some of you may not like an "outsider's" opinion, but after reading most of this thread, I've come to the same conclusion that C626 came to, above. It seems quite outlandish to threaten to rangeblock an IP, put a picture of a person hanged from a noose, tell people to "shut up", etc. Not to say that what Matthew did was okay (I wish I knew his side of the story) but what I've seen here is almost just as bad. Killiondude (talk) 06:17, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • At issue is a serious breach of trust. Yes, this is a small project, and a small community therein. It is also known as a community with a somewhat warped sense of humour (well, there are several others who share that attribute with myself). I will bang the tired, old, drum one more time; This is not Wikipedia.
The anonymous user was not threatened with use of CheckUser; it was, at an established contributor's request, carried out. Now, since some people fail to see that neither images, nor words, on a webpage can harm someone who has so little care for this project, I shall appropriately hide revisions of a particular page.
Killiondude, what Matthew did was most definitely not okay. It was utterly unacceptable. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:49, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, we know this isn't Wikipedia. But that doesn't give one free reign to be needlessly rude or threaten people with CU (I don't know how else to interpret this other than it being a threat, even if there was some other non-personal reason for carrying it out; that in itself is inappropriate). I'm very disappointed in some of our actions. This isn't befitting of admins or Wikinewsies, what happened to professionalism? Our online lynching and humiliation of Matthew Edwards was something I doubt we'd have done even to Willy on Wheels. What's the point of a putting hanging image up there? Why can't just blocking the user for being a "troublemaker" be enough? Sorry if this is rambling or overtly inflammatory, but after rereading this discussion after some sleep and with a pair of fresh eyes, I'm realising that we were all a bunch of children yesterday. Tempodivalse [talk] 12:49, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
edit conflict My point is not that that he did was acceptable or not, it's that our response to it was entirely unacceptable as well. We're better than this. Warped sense of humor or not, it is simply wrong to do things like put a picture of a noose on someone's page. That is utterly senseless, thoughtless, and petty on so many levels it's incredible. Our whole response has been the same way. There is no indication that any of this was anything other than a knee-jerk reaction about getting revenge. How is it so hard to just block someone and move on? Why do we have to react in a senseless way? Based on this thread, I'm starting to think that Wikinews is different than Wikipedia for the worse, not the better. C628 (talk) 12:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've thought about this too. What I like about Wikinews is the openness and overall lack of wiki-political-correctness we have; if we don't like something or someone, we say it in straight words and don't use euphemisms or beat round the bush. But that's also our problem: frequently we go too far, and are so brusque/flat-out rude with people so that they are deterred from contributing (although, in my entire Wikinews career, I've never seen such an angry or violent backlash as this). This is something that I think needs addressed if we're going to improve our reputation with other WMF projects. Tempodivalse [talk] 16:29, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In response to "Our online lynching and humiliation of Matthew Edwards was something I doubt we'd have done even to Willy on Wheels" Well perhaps our response was a bit reactionary, I would point out I consider his actions (assuming there isn't some sort of explanation, we havn't even let him respond to the accusations) are much worst than anything Willey on Wheels has ever done. Bawolff ☺☻ 13:02, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Do we even know exactly what happened btw? Did anyone even try to contact him elsewhere (WP, Commons, or email) before this block was imposed? Benny the mascot (talk) 13:07, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think Tempo left a note at his en-wp talk page after he was blocked, I son't don't know of anything else. C628 (talk) 13:10, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
[edit conflict]There's messages on his wikinews and wikipedia talk. No response so far. I feel we should of waited a couple days for a response before blocking him (unless there is something i'm not aware of). Supposedly he hangs out on irc too, so I'm seeing if I can catch him there and (politely) ask wtf happened. I am very curious as to his side of all this. Bawolff ☺☻ 13:12, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If for some reason it turns out we're wrong (and there really was a legitimate reason for Matthewedwards' abscense), I doubt he'd have much desire to return to the project even if we begged him, given with what anger and abhorrence we treated him. None of this is going to reflect well on the project. In fact, I'm considering posting a request for comment on Meta about this; we need fresh eyes on the situation. I don't even know what to think anymore. Tempodivalse [talk] 16:37, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I, too, am starting to think that we acted a bit too prematurely and harshly. I hope we find out what really happened soon. If it turns out that we were, in fact, wrong, then I wouldn't be opposed to posting on Meta. Benny the mascot (talk) 17:18, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My thoughts (bawolff)[edit]

Did we ask the user wtf was going on? He should have a chance to defend himself. Well he better have one heck of an excuse, if he for example got in a car accident, almost died, could not move let alone write, that would be a valid excuse. However if he does not have an excuse, and simply got the accreditation to use wikinews' name to get closer to the concert, I support an indef block. I would also note, I do not support less then an indef block. If we block him we should block him indefinitely, or not at all. six months from now he would have violated the communities trust just as much as he did now, the block is not a punishment, it is not jail. Blocked people do not repay any slights made to wikinews by serving out their block. The block is to designate that his actions have made him no longer welcome here. If we can't agree on an indef block, I support not blocking at all, I do not think a timed block sends the right message. (note, I do support allowing him to appeal his block at some later time, but he would have to demonstrate good faith effort to try to win back the trust of the Wikinews community, and by that I mean like writing articles from his talk page well blocked, and asking other users to take them to the main namespace when done). Bawolff ☺☻ 11:31, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, not to get the blame off mathew, assuming there is no unknown circumstances, or something to explain what happened, what he did was unacceptable. However we should also take this time to re-evaluate how we issue temporary accreditation. The user was trusted on wikipedia (admin there), so thats a good sign, but perhaps we should make temporary accred candidates write at least one article before granting it? We should perhaps be giving them clear guidelines of by this time on this day utc the article has to be written and up for review, or we will all be very mad at you. thoughts? Bawolff ☺☻ 11:47, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I feel inclined to agree that the granting of acceditation, temporary or otherwise, should be on the basis of reporting on Wikinews. If someone wants accreditation in two days' time, well, they have two days in which to write a couple of articles. If they can't do that, then they don't inspire me with confidence. I'm not sure if I'd include contributions to Wikinews in another language or not. --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 12:14, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm inclined to think if other langs want accreditation, they should develop it themselves. EN wikinews accreditation is for EN Wikinews. If as a result of someone's accreditation they benefit commons or another language, thats swell, but there should be some benefit for us. After all, its our name on the line. Bawolff ☺☻ 12:17, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Also, we are somewhat different than many others due to our FlaggedRevs, our review system and the need to satisfy GNews etc. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 12:19, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What is accreditation? It is us saying to someone, "you are trusted by the community". Either you are trusted or you aren't. There is no halfway point, and thus there should be no temporary accreditation. I've been arguing for years that we need to change both our accreditation policy and our OR policy in order to keep people from publishing false stories (how hard would it be to publish a fake interview right now? Eaaaasssssy.). I hope that incidents like this one drive my point home before something serious happens, like someone publishing a fake (and libelous) interview with someone who is famous enough to have some serious legal power behind them. Gopher65talk 13:29, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Our Accreditation and OR policies are waaaaay too free. --Diego Grez (alternate account) alt. talk 16:40, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This discussion has been done to death. It is now shifting to policy issues that should be discussed on the Water Cooler. There were discussions on IRC around the actions some find unacceptable; I will not be divulging logs of such, and should any established contributor wish to bring up specific points with me, then do so on my talk page or via email. This page is supposed to be for items needing immediate attention from administrators, not a mass talking shop. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:54, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fallout[edit]

  • As a result of our brilliant handling of this whole affair, one user has already left Wikinews, and at least one other is seriously considering doing so. We should all be ashamed of ourselves for behaving like such children. Maybe it's time for us to sit down and seriously think about whether our lax attitude to rudeness and etiquette is a good think or not. Tempodivalse [talk] 13:32, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't blame him. Our overall conduct has been shameful, and we should reexamine whether our decision to ban this user was even correct. To this day, we still don't know exactly what happened during the Tour of California, and we were wrong to have jumped to conclusions. Benny the mascot (talk) 14:08, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Benny; I will publish and be damned when I get in from work tonight. No, not IRC logs – which would show those who were harassing me to put worse images on Edward's talk page, but the emails I sent to get him access, and his request to re-use event-issued credentials having put not-one-word on any WMF project.
It does not surprise me in the least that Julian has thrown in the towel, but I will not go into why.
However, I will caution that if the fall-out from this makes it as anally-retentive and prudishly prim and proper as Wikipedia, then I will be outtahere. --Brian McNeil / talk 14:28, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At the risk of sounding rude, I'm going to say honestly what I think here. You don't seem to understand the concept of diplomacy. You seem to think that anyone disagreeing with you is either plotting the downfall of the project/disruptive, and can be brusque with them until they shut up or agree with you. I myself prefer a straightforward, direct approach with people, but the point here is that not everybody likes to be slapped around. We have to be more accommodating to how other people like to be treated and their feelings; our saying things like "Your article is shit" has deterred a lot of constructive users who would have otherwise gone on to be good contributors. Not everybody wishes to be treated the same way, and I feel we should respect that wherever reasonable. Now I'm not even talking about Wikipedia's AGF policy; I find that too much in the other direction to the point of ridiculousness. But, there needs to be some via media. WN:E itself says: "Treating others with respect is key to collaborating effectively in building a news team." Tempodivalse [talk] 16:47, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm going to put it bluntly: Yes, it was fun. Yes, the fun was derived from something vindictive. But. Everything had a serious purpose to it. Everything served a legitimate function. That it is satisfying to see the user struck back at is merely a happy coincidence, and a side-point to the objectives that were needing fulfilled. There is a great move to characterise the entire thing as driven by vindictiveness; the reality is that there were real and serious reasons behind each and every decision. Give good reasons instead of blind yellings. Back your viewpoint up. Don't throw accusations that this was simply and exercise in having a good time at another's expense. The only thing I can see as really being arguable is the image; it isn't particuarly important. It did send a strong message; it also hammers home the metaphor of just what a permanent block/ban entails. It was not pointless. Exact wording can also be argued over as harsh or otherwise; again, though - all of it was a) accurate and b) part of the reasoning behind any block or ban. Frankly, contributers are leaving because of the hysteria from their own side of this. They are believing the vindicism screams without the slightest consideration of what good reasons there may be behind the moves. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 15:36, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You're asking what the reasons are for it being petty; I'm asking what the motivations behind putting the image up in the first place was; such haven't really been provided aside from "that it sends a strong message". So why couldn't a simple block-hand image have sufficed? Wouldn't it, as well as a scathing {{ambox}} headline, have done the same thing? Based on the userpage edit summaries, I can't help but think that some people just wanted to satisfy a vengeance a regular block couldn't do. Tempodivalse [talk] 17:38, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
[edit conflict w/ tempo] I don't feel the fallout is necessarily undesirable. MatthewEdwards did a bad thing, which should have (severe) consequences. I stand by the actions of our community in that regard. However, I somewhat feel our treatment of 68.161.169.110 was less than exemplary. Yes he was quite possibly a troll, but all he got was ad hominem responses, even when some of his questions may have been relevant. Reading it over gives an impression of a mob mentality on our part, which I feel is not a good thing. Bawolff ☺☻ 17:41, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I looked at the talk page of the Gaza story; maybe I'm imagining something, but I thought his comments over there, although perhaps poorly thought out, were more-or-less constructive and not really intentionally disruptive or trollish. Tempodivalse [talk] 18:59, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tempo: That is exactly why I am not particularly strongly in favour of it. I'm quite happy for it to go. The reasons: It sends a strong message, and it serves to provide the metaphor: this is more than just a simple block, it is a user who has been condemned by the community. Reasons against: There is an argument that it is too strong a message. Consensus is strongly against the user, and rightly so, but many of the users against him may not have been that strongly against him. So, overall: it was never all that important, but I am mildly in favour of it - that said, I am not in favour of it on the basis that it has created such a polarised response. It isn't worth it. I can also see that consensus certainly does not support it, which vindicates one of the arguments I have just given against it.
  • To also add a reply to my own comment: On reflection, those who left may also have been put off by the fights within the community on this page, and not just by the allegations being bandied about. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 18:51, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another point that is coming up is that IP. I am not going to comment on wether the treatment of the IP was appropriate or not; I am going to stay out of that one. However, I am going to stand up for the use of CheckUser. When the IP appeared, several established users who shall remain nameless unless they choose to indentify themselves had difficulty deciding wether this was a legit comment from a well-versed lurker, or just a clever troll. Much concern was expressed that we were looking at a user who had logged out on purpose or a similar situation. It was me who asked for a quiet CheckUser to confirm or vindicate the user, but I was not the only one seriously concerned about them. I won't get drawn into wether the results showed a troll or not etc; there are enough people keen to discuss that and I can realistically offer nothing fresh to such a debate; neither do I desire to. But I do believe that CU was an appropriate move to make. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 18:59, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Without actually judging whether the checkuser itself was inappropriate, IMHO it is wholly inappropriate to use the tool as a threat against a user one disagrees with, regardless of what the reasoning for performing the check itself was. There is nothing to suggest the IP is a persistent troller; to the contrary, his remarks, at least on this page, appear relevant. Tempodivalse [talk] 19:05, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    That is a debate I shall be keeping back from. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 19:08, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • If any of those shouting the loudest about this had a damn brain in their head they would stop prolonging this, driving off additional contributors, and archive this entire discussion. NOW. What is done, is done. You cannot turn back time, you cannot undo whatever damage you feel has been done; You can only keep digging a deeper hole. --Brian McNeil / talk 06:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I disagree, Brian. This thread needs to stay open so that we can continue to discuss what we did wrong and try to correct it as quickly as possible. Benny the mascot (talk) 15:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I concur with Benny; this thing has shown that we have flaws in our modus operandii and they need to be discussed. Trying to grin and sweep all of this under the rug isn't going to address the underlying problems here. Tempodivalse [talk] 17:00, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a question. Did we do anything wrong? I get the impression there is disagreement on that point. Bawolff ☺☻ 17:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Publication of correspondence[edit]

Since so many people seem to be desirous of pinning this on me, I am not bloody well taking it.

Read the following, and you tell me if a noose was appropriate or not.

User_talk:Brian_McNeil/Tour_of_California.

Most of my emails were sent at 3-4am my time following working a full shift. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:38, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the emails remove any remaining possibility in my mind that there was a legitimate reason for this absence. No, you haven't explained what additional benefits the hanging image have over a standard block notice, other than apparently to satisfy a desire for revenge that a block by itself couldn't do. Tempodivalse [talk] 00:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At most, I see that image as simply childish payback. What more can you do to Matthew Edwards besides give an indef block and post a message. Not much more you can do that remains in the realm of professionalism. What's the point of drawing out all this humiliation? —Mikemoral♪♫ 01:09, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This just doesn't make sense though! Matthewedwards is very much well respected on Wikipedia, and I just don't see any plausible explanation for why this all happened! It would really be great if we had a statement from him before we imposed the community ban; did anyone attempt to contact him via WP, Commons, email, phone, etc beforehand? Benny the mascot (talk) 01:16, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. --Diego Grez return fire 01:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────┘
Just to note, Matthew Edwards has not edited on Wikipedia since the 31st. —Mikemoral♪♫ 01:21, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Diego: I meant beforehand. Mikemoral: Yes, I've noticed. Looks like he might be leaving Wikimedia for good. Benny the mascot (talk) 01:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For the good of everyone. --Diego Grez return fire 01:24, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

<-I would like to point out that he recently (last month) stopped editing for a week. This may be something real-life related. Griffinofwales (talk) 03:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sending Matthew an email so maybe he'll reply to that. —Mikemoral♪♫ 04:31, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • So why was it, when he came back after that week, he didn't come and give us a line? Not one edit has he made here, not one. He has ignored comments on his talk page too. He simply doesn't give a stuff about this project, or the fact that he has damaged it. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 09:36, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
He is well respected on Wikipedia, though. I really would have liked to hear what he had to say before we imposed the community ban. I probably should have requested that first when I began this thread. Benny the mascot (talk) 15:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────┘
 I recent contacted Matthew Edwards. He appears to be without proper Internet access and he is out of the country now. —Mikemoral♪♫ 20:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please revoke my administrator privileges[edit]

Title says it all. As I don't plan on being active here for some time, I'd rather my account had minimal privileges associated with it; I obviously won't use it, and it lessens the risk of unfortunate events if my account were to be compromised. Thank you. C628 (talk) 00:36, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done, with a heavy heart. It's always sad when Wikinewsies leave, especially over something like this. Please do consider returning eventually; our door will always be open to you. Tempodivalse [talk] 00:40, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Side note, do you want reviewer privs taken away as well, or are you okay with keeping them? Tempodivalse [talk] 00:40, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Remove them as well, please. Thanks. C628 (talk) 00:42, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Removed as well. Tempodivalse [talk] 00:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unblock of Matthewedwards (talk · contribs)[edit]

Per recent goings-on at user talk:Matthewedwards, I'd like to propose that we repeal the permanent block on Matthew Edwads. He's obviously not going to contribute here anymore after what we've done to him, but still he has not done anything worth blocking. Tempodivalse [talk] 18:20, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support I agree. We all went mad at these times. This needs to go for good. --Diego Grez return fire 18:21, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Ill-advised block in the first place. C628 (talk) 18:23, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • (edit conflict) Support an unblock and full apology. I kept a back seat through this whole thing because I thought everybody was overreacting and didn't want to throw another log on the fire. Unblock, issue an apology (from the project as a whole, but I can think of some users that might want to apologise personally) and leave this whole nasty escapade behind us. Hopefully we can stop anythign like this from ever happening again. Δενδοδγε τ\c 18:25, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Well someone entrusted with temp accreditation is expected to file a story about their event in ~48 hours, this was arguably not explained to him. Furthermore he had a valid reason to be elsewhere. Unlike what was claimed elsewhere, he did not use the accreditation solely to get access to some concert. Thus, to put it mildly, our response was extreme. (Not to mention we should have waited for him to respond to the accusations before making any response at all, but that is beside the current point). Anyways, I feel at the very least he should be unblocked. Bawolff ☺☻ 18:25, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unblocked per above. Meanwhile, I'd like to suggest that we all get together and write up a formal apology for the idiocy we've committed. It won't return Matthew to the community, but at least we might retain some shred of dignity. Tempodivalse [talk] 18:28, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Guilty plea (BRS)[edit]

I maintain that by failing to respond to contact made, he frankly set up circumstances for it to appear as it was read. However, I can aslo accept that we (I) got it wrong and what Matthew was actually guilty of was poor judgement and a dash of stupidity - which, given the circumstances, are perhaps to be expected. We have all done stupid things in our time. Whilst I did believe that it was in the good of the project, the noose was a step too far. I apologise for it. I also reject claims of vindicism; however, as said before, I did enjoy it as well. I should not have openly enjoyed it, regardless of how I had read the situation. That is for common vandals. Therefore, I also apologise for that. Now, the original block... I should point out that, when I made it, as far as I was concerned that was that. I had no desire for an escalation onto the userpage, or whatever; although I did support thus when it happened. Therefore, I am as responsible as anyone for what was on it.

Why Matthew chose to ignore the contact that was made we may never know. However, I think I have a pretty decent idea: It never occurred to him to check. Now, while I think people should understand why that appeared as it did - after all, the community supported a ban - we should have discussed a ban, yes, but we should have saved sticking the head on the spike. The evidence pointed in the direction we went - but it was not conclusive. I thought it was, and upon reflection it wasn't. We don't do AGF beyond common sense and I hope we never do, but we did support the accreditation in the first place because he was an enwp Admin.

The key moment was when it was raised that there may be an innocent explanation. I was among those to dismiss this with the obvious reason: Matthew had edited for a while on enwp, but ignored us. There is one problem with this logic, which did not occur to me at the time and should have done. It is the one I already mentioned in this lengthy comment; namely, that if something major happened he may simply have failed to consider it. This is not something we should be assuming in almost any situation; such would be wrong in the extreme; it would be taking AGF to the absurd levels on Wikipedia. However, this was not some random person - this was the same person we were willing to support for temp AR as a WP admin. If ever there was a situation to apply caution - which is not something I do, either on or off-wiki - it was here.

So... the long and the short of it is - yes, I honestly thought I was acting in the best interests of the project. Yes, there were real and serious reasons behind each and every action I made. Yes, I believed that Matthew had deceived us and responded accordingly. Yes, had this been properly backed up there would have been nothing wrong with it.

Yes, I fucked it up. Badly. Matthew, I am sorry for my role in this. All I can offer in mitigation was that I believed I was correct; however, per my own reasoning on past occasions (I forget if any are on-wiki) - that is not an excuse. There may have been no intent, but the fact remains that I was grossly negligent. I hereby retract everything said previously on this subject.

Once more: Matthew, I am sorry. Community, I am sorry. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 19:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Why Matthew chose to ignore the contact that was made we may never know. However, I think I have a pretty decent idea: It never occurred to him to check." no, perhaps say "Why Matthew didn't respond? Because one of his family members was seriously ill and we shouldn't have assumed bad faith for a member of the community who has demonstrated a clear dedication to the various Wikimedia projects since May 2007". The Rambling Man (talk) 19:27, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you read the whole thing, I alluded to 'circumstances' and stated that Matthew's mistakes were to be expected. I have already vindicated him entirely. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 19:28, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I read the whole thing. The headline was that it because "it never occurred to him to check" whereas it should have been "we're sorry that we've caused Matthew such personal distress in such a difficult time for him". The Rambling Man (talk) 19:31, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, I have to state where I was coming from - and the fact that it simply never occured to him at this difficult time is exactly why I was wrong. Matthew deserves an explanation of where I was coming from, does he not?
Meantime, I have struck one word that should never have been there. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 19:34, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate (as I'm sure Matthew will) the striking of said word. Really guys, we're all volunteers here. People needed to realise that Matthew's been, as far as I know, doing his best (and I mean, his best) for Wikipedia since mid-2007. Within a few days of this "accreditation" here, he gets an indefinite block. I think Wikinews needs to take a long, hard, honest look at itself. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:41, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've read right through my own comment once more; frankly, it sucks, but I can offer no better explanation than what is there already. I rather doubt Matthew will be particularly forgiving and I don't blame him. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 19:49, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think the other issue here, after the obvious character-assassination of Matthew, is the "reputation" of Wikinews, and the way it treats long-term Wikimedia editors. I, for one, would not advocate anyone spend their valuable time here, only to risk being indef blocked for something like this. Nor would I want resources removed from Wikipedia (e.g. the Cumbria shootings, the Wikipedia article was up on the main page within a few hours, with a dozen reliable sources, while here, editors couldn't even spell Sca[r]fell Pike, but yet it was still "published". Trouble brewing. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:53, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Taking a wikibreak[edit]

I'll be taking a wikibreak. All of this drama has went out of control, and I don't think I want to edit here, at least for some time. The friendly atmosphere that was here when I came for the first time, disappeared completely. Please remove my editor rights, for my main and alternate account (Fire in the Hole). Thanks. --Diego Grez return fire 18:59, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done with a heavy heart. Δενδοδγε τ\c 19:15, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize for my idiotic actions with the Edwards and Brian's incident. This shouldn't have happened never and some of this drama is my fault, but, after talking with people, that I trust and respect, I've decided that taking a wikibreak doesn't helps me. In addition that I don't feel capable to stay away from the wiki for more than a day, I feel it doesn't do much than to helping on this drama. Please again, my apologies for this stupid action. After all of this rationale, please restore the reviewer rights if it doesn't bothers you. --Diego Grez return fire 02:09, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Restored. I think it should be uncontroversial, tempers got flared and we all did some stuff we later wished we hadn't. Glad to see you'll be back and editing :-) Tempodivalse [talk] 02:33, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It wasn't a wikibreak at all, just a rushed decision. Thanks :-) --Diego Grez return fire 02:35, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Restore reviewer status[edit]

Wondering if a kind admin would care to restore reviewer privileges to my account, since I've now returned after a shorter-than-expected break. I intend to stand for adminship again at WN:RFP; I don't feel comfortable getting those rights restored without discussion, as I've made some somewhat controversial edits over the past eight hours or so. Cheers, C628 (talk) 01:43, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done, should be uncontroversial as you resigned in good standing. I'm very happy you decided to think things over and return. I think this project has received a much-needed slap in the face, and we're starting to take a turn for the better. Tempodivalse [talk] 01:45, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Tempo beat me to it. I agree with generally letting people get back their review rights no questions asked. I also agree with you that people should not get admin rights back willy nilly. Welcome back. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:46, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to both of you. C628 (talk) 01:51, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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