Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

This is a message board for talking about tasks on Wikipedia that only administrators can do. Please put new messages at the bottom of the talk page or click here to start a new discussion.

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Import

Its been a while since I've done this and didn't want to break anything; could a fellow admin please import [1] into my sandbox where I'll do some tidying before moving to article-space? Been a while and wasn't sure of the 'rules' of the import function. Thanks Kennedy ^(talk) 12:54, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Just got an error when trying to import the page. I just asked for help in #wikimedia-tech... -Barras talk 13:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

 Done -Barras talk 13:10, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Error was probably just the normal too many revisions to import error. Just have to keep hitting import until it grabs them all to solve it. -DJSasso (talk) 13:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Nope, that wasn't the problem. The page has only about 120 revisions, that shouldn't be a problem for the tool. It was because I wanted the import to directly go into the userspace which is probably why it didn't work the first time. But moving the page is easier then getting one of those nice tech people looking at the problem... -Barras talk 13:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Ahh. Yeah. I have had the revisions problem happen with small pages too. The real issue is lag usually I think moreso than the number of revisions. But yeah sounds like completely different issue in your case. -DJSasso (talk) 13:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Barras! Kennedy ^(talk) 13:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/71.198.205.234

Special:Contributions/71.198.205.234 has made changes to the Tom and Jerry article since December that look like vandalism. I'll look through other contributions to see if these type of changes are happening on other articles. Just wanted to bring a few more people's attention to this IP since these are small but persistent changes. Thanks!--Tbennert (talk) 16:33, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Username violation?

Is this username against the policy? --Mr Wiki Pro (talk) 19:47, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Not unless it contains something offensive... Osiris (talk) 19:54, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

User:September 1988

September 1988 (talk · contribs)

I have replied to this user's latest outburst giving what I would call a firm-but-polite warning. The user is learning, but making mistakes. Several users, including me, have tried to suggest ways to improve. However the user replies in a way which I would call emotional blackmail where they claim they are very upset, embarrassed and the insults have caused them to become ill. This is not acceptable and I have placed a warning. Any other thoughts on this matter? Kennedy ^(talk) 10:58, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Now that isn't exactly blackmail: I was upset (for real). And my embarrassing feelings aren't false. Sometimes, I don't always know how to respond. Under no circumstance would I blackmail, troll or use personal attacks — those things are really childish and detrimental here. I'm just an ordinary good editor who needs help due to emotional issues and learning conditions. Is anyone willing to help me react better when the editing and or/environment gets too tense? My feeling upset was not fake.

And someday around 2022 or later, I'd like to become an administrator myself; I really need help though. Angela Maureen (talk) 11:15, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I have been following the exchanges, but I will try to stay out of them unless specifically asked to participate. For what it's worth, I do not feel personally attacked, and I do believe this user is doing her best. I just feel that a user's personal problems are not a reason to allow problems in the articles. I don't know how to point out the problems in a way she would be receptive to. If anyone knows how to do that, I'd appreciate them letting me know. --Auntof6 (talk) 11:20, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Angela isn't trolling, being dishonest or fake, nor is she using emotional blackmail. Her mental disorders impair her judgement, communication skills, emotions and perception. Don't assume she has any bad intent; she's doesn't. She is honestly trying her best to do her best. She is not intending to offend anyone, nor does she want to cause any problems. Jim Michael (talk) 11:29, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

That is how I see it. I'm sorry if I gave any other impression. --Auntof6 (talk)

My reply was to the OP, Kennedy, as well as to anyone else joining the discussion. Angela is taking the criticism and suggestions personally, which she feels frustrated with and hurt by. She can't deal with these things in the way that an average person could. Jim Michael (talk) 11:36, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, I think Kennedy's warning was appropriate. The criticisms of her work were objective, based on defects seen in the articles, not upon the editor personally. The criticisms were: lack of citations for biogs of living people, lack of appropriate simplification, and changing the meaning of key statements so that the text was inaccurate. The user has put up many new pages, which is something we do want. But it's all pointless if the pages do not meet minimum requirements. The user could, and IMO should, have done much less much more carefully. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:50, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Kennedy misinterpreted Angela as trolling and using emotional blackmail. I agree that the criticisms of the faults in the articles she wrote are correct and fair. However, it needs to be understood that Angela is trying to do her best and does not have any bad intent. If she's sanctioned in any way, it would be for incompetence. She doesn't have any hidden agenda or bias. I agree that she should do less more carefully. She has ADHD, which causes typically causes impulsivity, inattentiveness and often emotionally blurting out one's thoughts without appropriate restraint. She also appears to be autistic, which partially explains her unusual, and sometimes incorrect, use of language as well as impaired communication skills. She also has suffers depression and GAD, which partly explain why she feels so hurt by criticism, on top of all the other problems she has in her life. I'm not outing her in regard to her mental state; she has chosen to talk about her mental disorders on several occasions on this site. Jim Michael (talk) 12:07, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I just want to say that I find this quite inappropriate. It's great that you're trying to help, and you probably are, but I'd personally prefer that you didn't announce your surmisations about another editor's mental state. Osiris (talk) 12:24, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Obviously Angela is a good-faith editor. The content creation just needs some practice. Proof-reading and taking a bit more time to make sure everything is exactly as you want it would be a start. There was also the idea of building up the articles in userspace. I did offer to help quite recently, and that offer still stands. Perhaps Jim Michael might be willing to work with her on content creation? Osiris (talk) 12:29, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

As I said, I'm not outing personal info about her. She has chosen to raise the subject of her mental disorders on several occasions. Had she not sone so, I would not have mentioned it. My point is to prevent people from wrongly believing that she is trolling, deliberately doing things wrongly etc, by pointing out the nature of the difficulties she has. Some people don't seem to be acknowledging or taking account of that in their perceptions of her and in their communications with her. On her talk page, it has been suggested that she is faking being upset and that she is trolling, both of which are untrue. Jim Michael (talk) 13:40, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Undoubtedly. I'm sure Angela will appreciate your intentions, and whatever she has stated openly is fine to repeat. However, unless she has openly shared with us that she is autistic, et cetera, then it is really not something that you should be talking about. Osiris (talk) 14:25, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd definitely +1 Osiris on that one. Making (even educated) guesses at someone's mental health is inappropriate. Anyway, back on topic; if other users believe that the user is not trolling then fine, I'll go with that. I did look at the users contribs and realised then that it goes back to 2010 therefore not as likely as I initially imagined to be trolling. As mentioned by Macdonald-ross; quality, not quantity - the problem happens here rather often... I wonder if there is some kind of 'spam filter' that can be adapted to a flag to be assigned to 'problem users' where quantity is their ambition instead of quality... Kennedy ^(talk) 10:16, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

What would be useful is if there could be something that would flag up articles that are unsourced or of poor quality. I don't know how that could be done or even if it is possible. There is a flag of 'all in lower-case or all in upper-case' which is useful as such articles are always badly written. Could that kind of flag be extended to articles that are of unsatisfactory quality? Jim Michael (talk) 12:40, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Changes that will change some archive (and other) pages

Your excellencies:

I've been looking at Special:WantedPages to see what could be cleaned up. The top item there is the nonexistent article "Telecommunications of Nasal Sprays from Venus (9*6=42)". It has 698 links. The links come from a signature previously used by User:TeleComNasSprVen. I'm not linking it here to avoid making it 699 links, but you can see it at the top of Special:WantedPages. I'd like to unlink these to help clean up the list. I told the user I wanted to unlink them, and he/she did not object. I am letting you know because a lot of the links are on archive pages, which we normally don't change. Most of the links are on user talk pages, but there are also links on user talk page archives, other talk pages and archives, old RfDs, requests for permission pages, and possibly others. You can take a look at Special:WhatLinksHere/Telecommunications_of_Nasal_Sprays_from_Venus_(9*6=42) to see everything that links to it. Does anyone have a problem with me unlink this item on all these pages? --Auntof6 (talk) 02:30, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't mind, as long as each archive page is not edited excessively to delink them (aka not more than a couple of edits related to this) - AWB or a particular pywikibot script should work fine, I guess? Chenzw  Talk  02:40, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

It would be only one edit per page. I'd use AWB, since that's the only (semi-)automated tool I use. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:49, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

That's cool, I'd imagine some regex trick like removing [[Telecommunications of Nasal Sprays from Venus (9*6=42)|...]] or something similar where the ellipsis is a placeholder. I'm not exactly sure why this needs to be on the administrators' noticeboard and not Simple Talk though... TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 10:31, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Just out of interest, why was the link there in the first place? Kennedy ^(talk) 10:55, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Idk, maybe I was stupid back then and favored fancy sigs... (Oh and try using any sort of colorful sigs on English Wiktionary, my home wiki, and you'll have a mob chasing after you) TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 11:51, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I posted here instead of at Simple Talk because I was first most concerned about the issue of changing archives, which are not supposed to be changed. If people think I should also post at Simple Talk because I would be changing user pages, I can do that, too. I imagine that many of the affected users don't watch Simple Talk, but at least some would see it.

I wonder if I should do the change under my bot account, to try to avoid all the "your talk page has been updated" notifications. Would anyone have an issue with that if I visually check each edit? --Auntof6 (talk) 18:38, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

The vast majority are talk page archives which won't trigger the notice or are IPs who are likely not to care. I would say go ahead with doing it on either. But if you want to do it on your bot just to be safe I approve that task since you are well experienced with running such things. -DJSasso (talk) 13:07, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Djsasso. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:35, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Seeing no objections, I'm going ahead with this. Thanks to all who commented. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:35, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

OK, it's done. There are four links left -- three to protected user talk archives that I couldn't change, and one on a Simple talk archive that I decided to leave because it wasn't in a signature. I'll leave it to User:Gordonrox24 or User:Barras to change their protected talk archives if they want to. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:39, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Feel free to adjust my talk page archives, Auntof6. :-) -Barras talk 11:11, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Barras. I've taken care of it, and of the other user talk pages. I consider this done now. --Auntof6 (talk) 03:08, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Centaur

I believe that User:Centaur is a sockpuppet of User:DeFacto. DeFacto made a few edits on SimpleWP in January 2007 to the article Speed limit. In April 2012 he was been banned from enWP indefinitely. The discussion leading up to his enWP ban can be seen here. In particular may I draw to attention Ron Ritzman's comment about DeFacto's filibustering.

Since then has launched many sockpuppets on enWP - the archive is here. Most of those sockpuppet have been directed against me, usually in articles concerning the metric system. (I have taken four such articles to GA status in enWP). As an IP editor he tried to sabotage an article for which I was largely responsible - even though this article has been commended by other editors here and the article was on the topic of imperial and customary units of measure, not metric units.

A sockpuppet investigation was published against his incarnation as Passy2 on 19 February 2014 and he was blocked on 21 February 2014. Unusually for him, he did not contest the accusation. On 20 February though, Centaur created an account on SimpleWP. One of his first changes was to add an image to the article Kilometres per hour. I believe that his interest in Speed limit in 2007 coupled with my interaction with DeFacto on enWP and the timing of his account creation backs up my suspicion that Centaur and DeFacto are one and the same person.

His comments regarding the article Metric system that were made here and the text changes here suggest to me that he is looking to sabotage this article. This is very much in line with the style that he used on enWP under the identity User:Bill le Conquérant (ANI here) in which he made a number of useful additions to Wikipedia as a cover to his strong anti-metric stance.

I realise that the indefinite banning order applied at enWP does not apply here, but I feel that the disruption he is dragging in from enWP into SimpleWP should be nipped in the bud. Please take whatever action is appropriate. Martinvl (talk) 22:15, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Wow! What?! Talk about over reaction! I admit that I messed up slightly in the wording of my change to Metric System, and have since reverted it and had a second attempt at putting it right. However, the attack and accusations made above, and the defensive and outrageous utterings are, in my book, indefensible. I think Martinvl needs a stern warning, and a reminder, that no one editor owns or has any claim over any of the articles, or their content, here. Centaur (talk) 20:21, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Probably best you two just stay away from each other. Theres obviously bad blood between you from enWP, we don't want your arguing to cause disruption here. Something someone did or did not do at enWP has no automatic impact here. We'll deal with things on a case-by-case basis. So just try to ignore each other eh? Kennedy ^(talk) 13:00, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Comedy Kids and 208.36.136.5

The user 208.36.136.5 (talk) has been removing the placement of a Quick Deletion template on the article "Comedy Kids". The article has been previously deleted before the page was recreated and I added a Quick Delete template to the article. I don't believe the user understands the Deletion notice I've placed on the page or the notices on their talk page, as they have not contested the deletion of the page on the article's talk page like suggested in the template. I figured I best inform the administrators of this so that it doesn't turn into an edit war over the Quick Deletion template. --GeorgeBarnick (talk) 05:37, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I've semi-SALTed it (is that even accepted vernacular? :P) for a week, probably overkill but saves us a small job later down the line. Maybe if he can't edit it he might get the jiist. Kennedy ^(talk) 10:19, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Old RfD needs closing

Would an admin be willing to close Wikipedia:Requests_for_deletion#LGBT-occupation_categories? As I mentioned in my note there, if you're reluctant to close the request because it's more work than usual to process, I'm willing to help with that work. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:14, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Closing this as suggested would be consistent with our other recent decisions to keep the proliferation of categories under control. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:10, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Will take care of it and close it now. @Auntof6, I will probably come back to you for help later, but I think I've enough time to get everything sorted myself. -Barras talk 11:18, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

 Done -Barras talk 13:29, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks for doing all that work. --Auntof6 (talk) 17:41, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Disruption by User:Centaur (aka DeFacto)

Please do something about User:Centaur disrupting the articles Metric system, Litre and System of units. I believe that Centaur is a sockpuppet of User:DeFacto. DeFacto made a few legitimate changes on siWiki in 2007 but worked mainly on enWiki.He has now been banned from enWiki, but has created many sockpuppet accounts. He is continually trying to discredit anything to do with metrication and also trying to undermine my activities. He has recently followed me onto siWiki and is acting in the same way as he acted on enWiki. In particular, he is now trying to sabotage my efforts to get the article Metric system accepted as a good article.

System of units

Using Keynes as an example of units Centaur has asserted that just because John Maynard Keyne's had a chapter entitled "Units" that the book is a useful addition to this article. If anybody reads chapters 4, 5 and 6 they will see that Keynes argues that the absence of meaningful units of measure in economics makes it difficult to verify his arguments experimentally. Centaur refuses to accept this fact. I believe that he is trying to antagonise me by his continual refusal to acknowledge that Keynes' book has no place in this article. I find it significant that in his incarnation as en: User:Bill le Conquérant he worked on the article en:OIML yet he failed to see that OIML was one of the publishers of International vocabulary of metrology (VIM), the publication on which the article System of units is based. Merger proposal Centaur has proposed that this article should be merged with the article System of measurement on grounds that the two cover the same topic. Systems of units deal with units of measure – metres, feet, inches, kilograms etc. Systems of measurement deal with data gathering systems and includes not only units of measure, but also inherent errors, measurement devices, data recording etc. Systems of measurement also deals with area where systems of units are not applicable such as economics, phycology etc. I believe that his merger proposal is a device to cause disruption. Centaur has a track record of trying to merge articles in order to destroy them. Examples include this proposal while hiding behind an IP address. This action of his caused the delay of a DYK nomination for several days. Another attempt was here here in his dual incarnations as en:User:Pother and en:User:Ornaith.

Litre

I believe that Centaur is trying to goad me by persisting in making inappropriate references to the "1791 metric system". While it might be true that many books make reference to the metric system having been introduced into France in 1791, they do not define what they mean by "having been introduced" (or similar such phrases). Books that give more detail outline the following chronology:

• 1791 – Design of the metric system given a go-ahead. Committees seet up to examine various aspects of the system. Go-ahead given for the Dunkirk-Barcelona survey to accurately determine the distance between the North Pole and the equator.
• 1793 – First draft of the metric system was published.
• 1795 – Final draft of the metric system published – subject to results of the Dunkirk-Barcelona survey.
• 1798 – Dunkirk – Barcelona survey completed.
• 1799 – Definitive copies of the metre and kilogram manufactured.

Centaur is persisting in writing as though metric system was an established fact in 1791. I believe that he is doing this out of sheer bloody-mindedness..

Metric system

I believe that Centaur is trying to sabotage this article in order to wind me up and to prevent it from being classed as a "good article". "System of measurement" or "system of units" When I changed the text "The metric system is a system of measurement" to "The metric system is a system of units of measurement", he reverted. (See System of units) Blatant POV in his opposition to metrication Centaur has taken every opportunity to run the metric system down. In this version of the article, the degree of POV by Centaur is excessive as is the use of unverified sensational language ("…the police…."). It is unnecessary to detail the opposition to the degree that he has done – the article is about the metric system as a whole: the problems that French had two hundred years ago warrants a passing mention but nothing more. For the record, the section on the problems in France after the metric system was introduced runs to 328 words while 173 words are devoted to metrication in the United Kingdom and 286 to metrication in the United States. (Since I made these measurements, he has reduced the UK and US sections further. )

Centaur has a track record of disruption

When I first crossed swords with DeFacto, I tried to explain to him that this addition was not very helpful – the survey to which he referred was an in-house survey while the strawberry promotion was a promotion for a single item by a single chain store. The material was hardly relevant. The discussion, or rather DeFacto gaming the system covered the following items (no need to read them, just measure them with a ruler):

• en:Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources/Archive_34#Polls and surveys
• en:Talk:Metrication in the United Kingdom/Archive 2#ASDA
• en:Talk:Metrication in the United Kingdom/Archive 3#Asda report - 12 October update
• en:Talk:Metrication_in_the_United_Kingdom/Archive_5#Before this gets out of hand...
• en:Talk:Metrication_in_the_United_Kingdom/Archive_4#Proposed_removal_of_the_whole_Asda_story
• en:Talk:Metrication_in_the_United_Kingdom/Archive_4#Proposed compromise over the Asda story
• en:Talk:Metrication_in_the_United_Kingdom/Archive_4#The totally true reason why the Asda story is so important to some
• en:Talk:Metrication_in_the_United_Kingdom/Archive_4#ANI notification
• en:Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 107#Using reports of market research surveys
• en:Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/17 October 2011/Metrication in the United Kingdom

The result was DeFacto being banned from enWiki.

I do not want to go through this tedious argument with him on every point that he tried to make.

Sockpuppet history

After he was banned, he created a series of sockpuppets. I have been the main target of his disruption.

Martinvl (talk) 03:39, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Martinvl, I'll happily discuss any point you dispute, and supply supporting quotes from the cited references, including those from Alder describing the role of the police. But this the wrong place for a content dispute, which is basically the essence of what you posted, albeit disguised as something else. --Centaur (talk) 10:28, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Centaur/DeFacto - Your past form has been to refuse to discuss anything until your preferred version is the current version. You then present facile arguments and wear everybody else down. This is not a content dispute. This is about you causing disruption by persistent presentation of facile arguments. Martinvl (talk) 10:36, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Please stop conflating what I have done here with what some other editor has done elsewhere. All that I have done here is try to add relevant detail to, and improve the verifiability of content in, some measurement related articles. I'm sorry if that conflicts with your agenda here. I note that you were banned from editing measurement related articles in English Wikipedia and subsequently blocked indefinitely for disruption there. I suspect you risk similar sanctions here if you carry on like this. --Centaur (talk) 11:39, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Are Centaur and DeFacto the same person?

This subsection is written in response to the question posed by Auntof6 in subsection "Administrator response" (below).

There are a number of indicators suggesting that DeFacto and Centaur are one and the same.

1. DeFacto made three edits in siWiki on the topic of Speed limits in 2007. He made an edit two weeks earlier on enWiki on the same topic and another a week later. Two of Centaur's earliest edits were to the same subject. Another DeFacto sockpuppet, en:User:Ornaith, was a major "contributer" (for sake of a better word) to the article en: Kilometres per hour. A lot of different people interested in speed limits and kilometres per hour. Are they all the same person?
2. DeFacto's favourite stomping ground as far as I was concerned were articles associated with metrication. His other interest was motor cars and motor-racing. This was brought out in the discussion section of this sockpuppet investigation (in which I was not involved). An examination of Centaur's interests in siWiki shows his interest in metric units (including Metric system and kilometres per hour), the latter being a link between his motoring and metrication interests. Are they the same person?
3. A total of 23 sockpuppet investigations have been made against DeFacto Sockpuppets on enWiki. 17 of these were instigated by me in response to disruption by DeFacto of work I had done. The majority of my complaints were upheld. This demonstrates that Defacto has launched Sockpuppets in the past so the possibility of Centaur being a sockpuppet of DeFacto should be investigated. This also shows that DeFacto was harassing me on enWiki. Centaur started work on two articles in siWiki where somebody else was already working – both were articles on which I was working. These both show a similarity in interests. Are they the same person?
4. Neither DeFacto nor Centaur have a sense of notability. The ASDA incident on enWiki shows that he was incapable of realising that a single promotion of a single product by a single supermarket chain was not notable. Likewise devoting over 10% (392 words out of 3689) of the article Metric system to problems that France had over 200 years ago shows no sense of proportion. In my view it is appropriate to devote 10% of the article discussing the development of the metric system in France with no more than a quarter of that to French PR problems in selling the system to their own people.
5. DeFacto's puppets refused to abide by the en:WP:BRD (bold-revert-discuss) principal. He would engage in brinkmanship forcing me to risk a 3RR ban when I tried to revert to the last stable version prior to having a meaningful discussion. It was easy for him – if the sockpuppet was exposed and banned, he would create another one. In this series of edits on enWiki DeFacto (in his incarnation as EzEdit) refused to base discussions on the last stable version of the article. In this series of changes Centaur likewise refused to follow the BRD principle.
6. DeFacto, in his incarnation as Bill le Conquérant started writing the article Legal metrology as a spin-of from en:Metrology. There was no real need for a spin-off, nor did Bill le Conquérant demonstrate any real knowledge of the subject. Most of the article was waffle. After Bill le Conquérant was exposed as a sockpuppet, I salvaged what was worthwhile from the article and merged it back into en:Metrology. Centaur started writing the article System of measurement. What has been written to date shows that he does not really understand the scope of the subject. The article itself would be much better off as a subsection of the article Measurement . I notice that both these editors attempted to write articles on similar topics and that they were ill-equipped to write them.
7. DeFacto's sockpuppet Passy2 was exposed as a sockpuppet on enWiki on 19 February 2014 and banned on 21 February 2014 (See here). Centaur opened his account on siWiki on 20 February 2014. Were the two actions related? When Passy2 realized that he had been rumbled, did he decide to go and cause trouble elsewhere and seeing that I was working on siWiki decided to go there?

Each of the above on its own could be put down to coincidence, but when viewed together, I believe that they present overwhelming evidence that DeFacto and Centaur are one and the same person. Finally, why is Centaur using a new account when he already has a valid account on siWiki? Is he trying to hide something?--Martinvl (talk) 14:10 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Additionally, Centaur's first few days on Wikipeida appeared to be quite productive. Within 24 hours of creating an account, he spotted that I had overlooked a copyright issue. On the same day he inserted an image into the article kilometre. Quite remarkable for a beginner, unless of course he had been previously been editing on either simpleWiki or enWiki. If he had been editing previously, what was his username? Was it DeFacto (or one of his sockpuppets)? Martinvl (talk) 22:40, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Who said that I was a beginner here? I never did. I've been doing it for years elsewhere. Centaur (talk) 22:45, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Administrator response

First of all, you have both been edit warring. Because of that, effective immediately, I am imposing a topic ban on both of you: you are both forbidden to make any content edits related to measurement until I (and/or any other admins who want to help) have time to analyze the edits that you both have made. I will leave a message to this effect on both of your talk pages. If either of you violate this restriction, you will be blocked from all editing until an admin has evaluated the issues mentioned in this complaint. It might take some time for that evaluation to be done, given the number of edits made.

As far as Centaur being the same person as DeFacto: I do not see anything at the "series of sockpuppets" link provided by Martinvl that says they were determined to be the same. If I am missing that, please point out where it was stated. Unless I see evidence of that, I am not going to consider anything related to DeFacto on other Wikipedias.

As for the nomination of Metric system as a good article, I am putting that on hold. With the article changing so much, it is impossible for editors to evaluate it for possible good article status.

The one thing I have noticed so far is that some of the references given for disputed information in these articles are not sufficient. When there are disputes as there are in this case, it is not enough to give just a book name and author. More specific information is needed, such as a page number or chapter, so that people who want to look up the information or verify something can find the referenced information.

That's all for now. I will get back to you as I evaluate each article. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:03, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Auntof6, I'm sorry it has come to this, and that you will now have to waste your valuable editing time on it. If you have any questions, I'l happily answer them.

You mention above that supporting references might need more qualification. If there are any specific instances you want clarification on please mention them here, and I'll look up the details.

In the meantime, further up here, Martinvl questions the use of 'unverified sensational language ("…the police….")' This is the language used in Ken Alder's book, The Measure of all Things (I have the 2002 Paperback, isbn 0-349-11507-9, version). There's a later, searchable, version on Google books here. In that we find the word "police" used in several places. Particularly in support of my addition is this - page 270 (cited in the article with page number from my paperback edition): "Police inspectors insisted on the new measures [the new metric unit measures]; customers preferred the old measures; and shopkeepers stocked both". Centaur (talk) 07:41, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and in case you haven't already noticed, Martinvl has also opened another attack on me at WP:VIP which you might want to take a look at too. --Centaur (talk) 08:24, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I see that report has now been deleted by another administrator with the comment: "... removed in appropriate reporting." --Centaur (talk) 18:00, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Just a quick comment on the big new section just recently added by Martinvl... Apart from the flaky and fallacious reasoning being used in relation to my addition of the speed limit picture and the equating of a disagreement with Martinvl's POV to must therefore be DeFacto, the giveaways seem to be: a/ even if I was DeFacto no rules would have been broken here, 2/ DeFacto does not appear to be blocked or banned here so he wouldn't need a new account anyway. I could address each point in detail, but don't forsee any need for that, unless asked.

Hence the answer to Martinvl's "finally" question is self evidently that we are indeed unrelated. --Centaur (talk) 16:38, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Both of you need to behave yourselves. No more bickering, no more attacking each other, no more complaining about each other, no more accusing each other of vandalism or anything else. The more you do that, the more I have to review before I can get back to looking at the actual articles, and the longer your topic ban will stay in effect. Consider this a warning that the scope of your ban might be extended if you can't control yourselves. I don't have unlimited time to spend on Wikipedia, y'know, and I'm not spending all of my Wikipedia time on this issue.

As far as whether Centaur and DeFacto are the same person, I am not convinced by either of your arguments. In any case, I don't really care: I am only looking at the changes to the three articles listed. Now please clean up your acts and let me get back to that. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:28, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

CheckUser indicates they are the same person. He is doing the same sorts of editing as on English Wikipedia, where he is banned. --Bsadowski1 08:51, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

user name and actions

May I draw attention to user:SemenStain, whose handle and actions deserve appropriate treatment. Thanks, Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:22, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

No don't draw attention to it! Bsadowksi has blocked it.--Peterdownunder (talk) 22:33, 13 March 2014 (UTC)