User talk:Δ
Nomination of Ashley Zais for deletion
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5f/Ambox_warning_orange.svg/48px-Ambox_warning_orange.svg.png)
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Ashley Zais is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ashley Zais (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnpacklambert (talk • contribs)
DRAFT RfC: Advisory RfC concerning Betacommand
The RfC has been posted. Please comment at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#RfC: Advisory RfC concerning Betacommand.
Discussion about the draft RfC
THIS IS A DRAFT! PLEASE COMMENT SO WE CAN IMPROVE IT! --Guy Macon (talk) 07:01, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
- @Guy Macon: looks like a good start, lets see if there is any more feedback. ΔT The only constant 12:34, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
- First thing is make the links point to their intended targets. Right now they're pointing to generic pages that give no insight on anything. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:49, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
- There is nothing to point to. For example, Proposal #1 is a proposal that at some time in the future a motion lifting the ban be posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions. There won't be anything to point to until the Arbitration Committee decides to do that. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:46, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
- that confused me too. We need to simplify this amd remove all the arbcomm speak. Make it easy for the casual editor to understand. Say why Delta is a valued contributor and say he served his time. Legacypac (talk) 20:02, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
- I am all for simplification, but perhaps not a good person to do the simplifying. Please feel free to edit the draft RfC as as you see fit.
- I am hesitant to "Say why Delta is a valued contributor and say he served his time" in the proposals, which should be as neutral as possible. I expect one of the first support !votes to make those points, and I suspect that others will strongly agree. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:46, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
- I just made a few changes. Better? --Guy Macon (talk) 21:58, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
- that confused me too. We need to simplify this amd remove all the arbcomm speak. Make it easy for the casual editor to understand. Say why Delta is a valued contributor and say he served his time. Legacypac (talk) 20:02, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
- There is nothing to point to. For example, Proposal #1 is a proposal that at some time in the future a motion lifting the ban be posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions. There won't be anything to point to until the Arbitration Committee decides to do that. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:46, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
- First thing is make the links point to their intended targets. Right now they're pointing to generic pages that give no insight on anything. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:49, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
- Seems to be limited feedback, might as well go live. ΔT The only constant 20:22, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
- @Legacypac: It would help if someone explained the reason why Δ was blocked. If things are as they seem to be from the discussions that I have waded through, give him a chance to re-start editing. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:31, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
I am about to give you the exact words from Arbcom, but before your read them, please read Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Betacommand 3/Evidence for the other side of the story. A significant percentage of the community thought that it was Arbcom who was in the wrong. (You see a lot less of this since Arbcom statrted sanctioning users for presenting evidence that they don't want to hear. [1])
Here are the exact words from the Arbcom case:
- "a substantial portion of his editing has consisted of repetitive minor edits, some or all of which have been performed via the use of automated or semi-automated editing tools."
- "Numerous concerns have been raised in regards to Betacommand's editing, including both concerns with the substantive content of the edits as well as concerns with Betacommand's ability and willingness to communicate the purpose and nature of the edits to other users. In light of these concerns, the community has determined that some of Betacommand's editing is detrimental to the encyclopedia, and has imposed a series of sanctions on Betacommand's editing."
Here is a list of the restrictions, again quoting Arbcom:
- "Before undertaking any pattern of edits (such as a single task carried out on multiple pages) that affects more than 25 pages, Betacommand must propose the task on WP:VPR and wait at least 24 hours for community discussion. If there is any opposition, Betacommand must wait for a consensus supporting the request before he may begin.
- "Betacommand must manually, carefully, individually review the changed content of each edit before it is made. Such review requires checking the actual content that will be saved, and verifying that the changes have not created any problems that a careful editor would be expected to detect."
- "Betacommand must not average more than four edits per minute in any ten minute period of time."
- "Betacommand is placed under community enforced civility parole. If any edits are judged to be uncivil, personal attacks, or assumptions of bad faith, he may be blocked by an uninvolved administrator. If not a blatant violation, discussion should take place on the appropriate noticeboard prior to blocking."
- "(Modified by motion) Pursuant to the provisions of Remedy 5.1, and mindful of the recent and current disputes surrounding this user in many fora, the committee by motion indefinitely topic-bans Δ (formerly known as Betacommand) from making any edit enforcing the non-free content criteria, broadly construed. User:Δ is also formally reminded of the civility restriction and other terms to which they are still subject as a condition of the provisional suspension of their community ban."
Then, in the 2012 decision, Arbcom said
- "In 2011, Betacommand has violated all of the community imposed sanctions. During the year Betacommand has:
- often performed tasks without approval from the community *
- often saved edits without reviewing them for problems *
- often performed tasks at edit-rates exceeding four edits per minute in any ten minute period of time *
- been blocked for incivility once (another block for incivility was overruled)"
...leading to the block and the promise (not kept, as far as I can tell) to "present this plan to the community for review and comment prior to any modification of Betacommand's ban" after a year. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:03, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
- @Guy Macon: There was no such promise. Arbcom only said they would present a plan to the community "prior to any modification of Betacommand's ban". This leaves them the option of not modifying the ban, in which case they have not promised to present anything to the community. There is nothing in the language of the arbcom remedy which requires them to modify the ban any particular point in time. They have only promised that Betacommand could request a modification after one year. According to [2] it is not clear that any actual appeal was presented, at least not in 2016 or 2017. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:20, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
RfC
@SnowFire: if you are going to make personal attacks directed at myself, please at least get your facts correct. In regards to this edit: 1) the bot tagged images as not having a valid non-free use rationale, it did not remove them. (It used the standard {{Di-no fair use rationale}} to tag them as F6) Second you stated that the bot was case sensitive, it wasn't it ignored case for the most part (there where a few oddball cases with Unicode characters such as ΜTorrent where it got confused, but those issues where addressed) You stated that it ignored redirects, which is also false, it looked for the title, and anything that redirected to it. Most of the "bugs" that you are claiming with that statement are actually human error. If a page is moved and a redirect is left behind, users often re-use the redirect for other uses (different article, or disambiguation page) and then fail to update the non-free media rationales associated with the page. The end result is that the rationale that was on the file is for a different page than where the file was actually being used. A example of this is that Candela is created the logo for the town is added, and then is moved to Candela, Apulia because the file description page references Candela and not Candela, Apulia it would be tagged. That is correct per policy, if you look at NFCC#10c it requires the either the exact name of the article or a redirect to it. It also tagged the talk page of the uploader and the article talk page where the file was being used that an issue needed fixed. Before anything got deleted it required an administrator (at least one human) to review the case and address those easily fixable cases that you are calling bugs. I'm not going to be getting back into that field because its too contentious of an area. But still if you are going to cast aspirations at me please use accurate statements. ΔT The only constant 23:35, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
- Sure, the redirect problem was eventually fixed. I'm glad you did. But I do recall it being a problem at first, which it never ever should have been.
- Also, I'd really rather that if you came back, you stayed out of any field involving bots. I seem to recall you demonstrating bad judgment in more than just copyright enforcement with your bot actions. See this for an example. SnowFire (talk) 00:03, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)@SnowFire: the bot did leave notes on the talk pages of articles [3], and it did not leave nastygrams. It left the standard {{di-no fair use rationale-notice}} I also had asked multiple times for improvements to the wording of both messages for those who thought it could be improved, very little was ever changed. As for future work, the only thing that might be on the horizon are reports similar to WP:DBR which would be within a limited userspace. However that's just an idea with no actual plans for implementation. Beyond that my future plans, as I have stated are to document the tools that I have on the Toolforge, address any outstanding issues with those, and do basic gnomish cleanup/maintenance tasks. Nothing major. I don't recall the details of that incident (its been over 10 years) but back in those days I was just starting, bot polices and practices where a lot different. As the community evolved BAG and BRFA came into existence. Things where later codified and clarified, I was also just starting to get involved with bots on wiki so there where some growing pains too. However because of the age recalling specifics is difficult. ΔT The only constant 00:23, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
- This conversation is ludicrous, because it is clear we are talking about separate things.
- If your bot never tagged images that included a link to a redirect to the article they were used in, not even at first, say that and say that my recollection is faulty.
- If your bot DID used to tag images improperly, then the wording on the talk page notice is irrelevant, because it is imposing on others some form of free labor to go fix your bot's mistakes. The uploader shouldn't have had to do anything in such a situation. (If this is some reference to "nastygram", you are taking me too literally. This means "any sort of notification that something bad is about to happen.") SnowFire (talk) 00:33, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
- I guess I'm trying to be too diplomatic/nice with my wording. I think your memory is faulty. I know I added the talk page notices after the fact, but I am fairly sure that it always followed redirects. ΔT The only constant 00:56, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
I don't think that rehashing what did or did not happen years ago is helpful, and the consensus of the RfC is moving towards unblock but no bots for six months. The important thing is that Δ makes a commitment that once he is allowed to run bots he will do test runs, test carefully for the bots adding unintended errors while fixing other errors, and being responsive to criticism of the bot actions, undoing them himself if needed. Realistically, there will be dozens of people watching, and no second chances if Δ screws up. He would be stupid to be anything other than careful going forward, and I do not think he is stupid. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:10, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
@Ivanvector: Opabinia regalis's comment is only partially accurate. About a year ago I filed an appeal where the result was effectively a pocket veto. I was having to track down ArbCom members on IRC every 2-3 weeks and request a response. After a period I raised the issue on my talk page, and arbcom again failed to participate. (I think a couple members made passing comments, but there was never a final decision by the committee) Life got hectic and I dropped the issue, until this most recent appeal. I wanted to be able to document the appeal in case it happened again, and to do it in an open forum where others could comment/discuss the issues if they so choose to do so. In regard to the current appeal Opabinia's comments are accurate, I have not gone to ArbCom yet, since I posted here and it was suggested that an RfC might be the best route, I am letting things play out. If anyone has direct questions my talk page is open. I have tried to not sick my nose in it too much, rather letting the discussion work itself out. ΔT The only constant 13:43, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
- Last year's discussion took place on-wiki and is now located here (where at least DQ, Drmies, and I participated in the discussion). To the best of my recollection, there was no appeal, only discussion about doing so. There was nothing to make a final decision about. I can't find any emails from you to the arbcom list in 2016. In the course of that talk page discussion, some missing emails from 2015 were mentioned, but as far as I can tell from the archives, that was a case of disorganization, not deliberate non-response. I didn't go any further back in the archives, so I can't speak to what may have been discussed earlier than mid-2015. Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:45, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
- Looks like my memory has things bleeding together. ΔT The only constant 14:01, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
@Ivanvector: I have made several fairly basic proposals on moving forward and avoiding issues. I really would prefer not to re-hash the past, but rather look forward and focus on re-integration, getting back to my roots as a gnome and putting the drama behind me. Users have claimed that my comment above about personal attacks and stalking is just denial of my past, but if you look at the current RfC you will see several cases of users casting aspersions without evidence which per ArbCom are considered personal attacks, which I predicted. Given how closely NPA is an issue, I am surprised edits such as this haven't caused an immediate block for violating NPA. ΔT The only constant 14:01, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
- That's just uncivil, not a personal attack. Still uncalled for, but it's a 5 on the civility Richter scale, not a ten. Use of swear words doesn't automagically make it a PA. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 08:01, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
- While technically "asshole" is more personal attack than incivility, I considered it to be minor -- barely worth a caution, not even close to being worth a block. I give it a 3 on the civility Richter scale.
- While still not rising to the point of requiring any sort of administrative action, I consider accusing me of bad faith[4] to be much worse than calling me as asshole, and purposely disrupting an ongoing RfC by inserting comments in the head (and reverting when an uninvolved editor tries to put them in the comment section where they belong) to be far worse than either. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:35, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
- Please, can this request to unblock Δ be brought to a decision? Δ has been waiting for years. To inform everybody discussing here, please, in detail, what did he do (and when?) that led to him being blocked? Even if he must accept restrictions about writing bots, as seems from discussion hereinabove. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:47, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Opabinia regalis and Guy Macon: Again, please, can this request to unblock Δ be brought to a decision? Δ has been waiting for years. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:24, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
- I just closed it. Now waiting for an uninvolved closer to write up a closing summary (I usually give them at least three days beforecomplaining). Arbcom can, of course, make a decision without the closing summary; they are perfectly capable of judging the consensus, and of course the consensus is only one aspect that they must consider. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:55, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
- The RfC wasn't really a request, Anthony Appleyard - we've been in touch with Δ and to my understanding are waiting for him to confirm a few things before going ahead with posting his plan for community review, as in the original remedy. (While I'm here, Δ, you have mail.) As I've said several times about this issue, the whole point of the remedy is that Δ comes up with a plan himself, hopefully making it clear that he understands what behaviors he needs to avoid in order to make a successful return. Third-party requests don't really serve that purpose. Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:16, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
- I just wanted to post a quick note, I have a had a large amount of personal business eat up my time recently. It will probably take a bit of time for me to review/revise the appeal before moving on. I just haven't had the time to dedicate to this issue due to more pressing real life commitments. However I did not want to appear to be ignoring this issue either. Knowing what I am juggling is why the outlined activities where limited. Hopefully the week of the 13th should be calmer and give me a chance to review the necessary paperwork. ΔT The only constant 19:34, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Bibcode bot update
Some citations have old/outdated bibcodes, e.g.
- Johansen, A.; Jacquet, E.; Cuzzi, J. N.; Morbidelli, A.; Gounelle, M. (2015). "New Paradigms For Asteroid Formation". In Michel, P.; DeMeo, F.; Bottke, W. (eds.). Asteroids IV. Space Science Series. University of Arizona Press. p. 471. arXiv:1505.02941. Bibcode:2015arXiv150502941J. doi:10.2458/azu_uapress_9780816532131-ch025. ISBN 978-0-8165-3213-1.
The bot should query the ADSABS database with the listed bibcode (Bibcode:2015arXiv150502941J) and compare with the bibcode listed on ADSABS (Bibcode:2015aste.book..471J). If there's the bibcodes are different, carry on. If they are different, then it should update the bibcode to the one found on the ADSABS database.
- Johansen, A.; Jacquet, E.; Cuzzi, J. N.; Morbidelli, A.; Gounelle, M. (2015). "New Paradigms For Asteroid Formation". In Michel, P.; DeMeo, F.; Bottke, W. (eds.). Asteroids IV. Space Science Series. University of Arizona Press. p. 471. arXiv:1505.02941. Bibcode:2015aste.book..471J. doi:10.2458/azu_uapress_9780816532131-ch025. ISBN 978-0-8165-3213-1.
Line 338+ will need an update, since before the bot skipped looking up anything if all three of arxiv/bibcode/doi were present before, and skipped looking up bibcodes if they were already present.
The new edit summaries should read
- Adding # arxiv eprint(s), # bibcode(s), # doi(s), and updating # bibcode(s). Did it miss something? Report bugs, errors, and suggestions at User talk:Bibcode Bot.
This might require a new variable 'bibcode_update_count += 1', similar to 'bibcode_count += 1' when the bot finds new bibcodes.
The most recent version of the bot code is : https://pastebin.com/kJ8Nu37M
Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:41, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
Formal Appeal
As I have stated previously I have made mistakes in the past (CIVIL, socking) I would like to put these behind me and move on and make progress for the future. The proposal for unblock is:
- ) Limited to one account (except for approved bot account(s))
- ) Prohibited from making edits that enforce NFC. (This will allow me to participate in discussions, while avoiding past issues)
- ) Prohibited from making automated edits on my main account
- ) Prohibited from running bots for 6 months, after which the prohibition may be appealed at ARCA.
I have previously outlined a limited editing plan, beyond that I really cannot commit to much more since I already have a lot of stuff on my real world plate. ΔT The only constant 00:43, 16 November 2017 (UTC)