This is an archive of past discussions with User:AlexiusHoratius. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I know you haven't edited the article in a bit, and you've mostly just fought off vandalism, but I wanted to let you know that I was going to put Virginia back up for Featured Article Candidate, and hope that the third time's the charm. I wanted to get in touch with you before I do so in case you remember needing fixing or what not. I was aiming for the end of next week, so just give me a nod before then if there's anything. Thanks for your help!-- Patrick {oѺ∞} 19:09, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I've re-watchlisted it for now (not really sure why I unwatched it) and I'll try to keep an eye on the FAC when it's made. I don't really have any experience with either FA's or, as you said, major editing on the Virginia article, but for what it's worth I've always found the Virginia article to be the best non-FA state article (actually, in my opinion it's better than Minnesota). Hopefully it will pass this time. AlexiusHoratius20:45, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I understand, and thanks for saying its better than Minnesota, I wonder if that would pass muster today, but yes, hopefully this will pass.-- Patrick {oѺ∞} 21:21, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
FYI
I'm not quite sure how this could happen, but when you reverted some vandalism at Francis Drake to the last good version, one of the intermediate vandal-revisions was left somehow [1]. I'm just leaving a note here for your information, in case you used a malfunctioning edit-/ patroltool or something like that. Best regards, Finn Rindahl (talk) 23:23, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
Crap, thanks for catching that. I'm not sure how it happened exactly, although I vaguely remember seeing the same thing happen once or twice before. I was trying to manually revert to delanoy's version, and the vandal looks like he made the edit at the same time. I'm not really sure why my rvv looks like it added the vandalism back, but I guess I should be more careful in the future. Again, thanks for seeing that. AlexiusHoratius23:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
No problem, it gave me the suprise of actually finding vandalism while actually reading an article, that doesn't happen very often anymore :) Your rvv didn't add the vandalism back though, you removed all the vandal-edits except the last one. Since you did it manually you should have gotten an "edit-conflict" message - no idea why that didn't happen. Regards, Finn Rindahl (talk) 23:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
It's really gotten to be kind of a hobby for me - when I first saw the list, I just added a few pictures that I had already taken, then there were the buildings that I knew exactly where they were, and this last time I actually printed out the list and went driving around for a few afternoons. It's kind of cool- I'll bet I've driven by that Rock Island depot about 200 times without noticing the actual building. I'll try to take some more this winter - in many cases it seems to work out better when there are no leaves on the trees. AlexiusHoratius18:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Next time you make it back to Sioux Falls you should throw me a line. I really enjoy taking pictures for Wikipedia but I always find it hard to make the time to just go out and do it. Having someone to go with would make a perfect excuse. Plus your a Sioux Falls native and probably know the area better than I do. --sdgjake (talk) 21:18, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Right on - it'd be like a mini-meetup or something. There are still some places in Sioux Falls that need photos, mostly outside of the downtown area, and there are some like the Washington Pavillion that have pics but could be improved. It would be great to get someone else in Sioux Falls (or anywhere in South Dakota, for that matter) to get into taking Wikipedia photos. Hardly anyone else takes photos, and a lot of articles for areas in the state are lacking. One of the things I've gotten into in the last few months in addition to the NRHP lists is taking pictures for small town main streets, like I did with Garretson, South Dakota. I've done a few of these - I think Dell Rapids, Baltic, Garretson and Corson, but a lot more need photos. I've also been meaning to go up to Brookings some time and take care of more of those photos, at least an infobox picture and maybe something at SDSU for the South Dakota article's education section. AlexiusHoratius22:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Nice job reverting this so quickly, it undoubtedly sent a positive message about Wikipedia's ability to revert junk that gets added. I'll be sending a message to the relevant college and instructor about messing around with pages, even as a test. GlassCobra14:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I had just stumbled out of bed for a few minutes and the edit summary tipped me off on that one. Hopefully it sends a message - I've actually witnessed a few off-Wikipedia conversations that lead me to think that while we certainly have the reputation of "The encyclopedia that anyone can vandalize" we also have a secondary reputation of "The encyclopedia that reverts your vandalism really quickly", so reverting those is always kind of nice. AlexiusHoratius16:10, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
The IP resolved to National University of Ireland, Galway, as I noted on the IP's talk page. After doing some digging on the school's site, I figured out that the "dm" referred to in the edit summary was probably the Digital Media school. I sent a quick email to the two head people of that department, asking them to please tell their instructors to not use Wikipedia for test edits anymore. Hopefully we won't see any further disruption from them. GlassCobra17:07, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Followup: The head of the department sent me back a reply saying that she has spoken to the professor who made the edits, and it will not happen again. Problem solved. :) GlassCobra16:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks again for that - I had written out some sort of rant about academia-inspired vandalism to put here, but deleted as preaching to the choir or whatever... AlexiusHoratius17:51, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Affiliate link and product that gives NO information to Wiki page
While at first that certainly doesn't look like reliable source, it is only being used to support the point that advocates of teaching sign language to babies think this or that, so it could be argued that in this instance, it might be okay. I would advise starting a thread on the article's talk page about the issue to see what other editors think. If no-one objects to its removal, then I suppose it could be removed and replaced with a better source if one is found. AlexiusHoratius20:06, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Colorado
Hello! If you continue to provide incorrect information, like you did for Mt. Elbrus being the highest mountain in Colorado, you will be blocked!
Left a note over there too...my fault for not checking the main page before nominating it! No argument from me about not protecting it! Please accept my apologies for your wasted time, and my thanks for not making me look too silly! Frmatt (talk) 06:46, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
Not a problem, and nothing to apologize for - it actually has been getting hit pretty hard over the last 20 minutes or so - I'll keep my eye on it; I may end up protecting it for a short time if it keeps going. AlexiusHoratius06:50, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
Sorry for my late reply - it looks like I went offline just as you wrote this. Looking back at the article since last night, the vandalism hasn't been too bad since the article was unprotected - the featured article that gets on the mainpage always gets some vandalism. I was mostly concerned with the vandalism-a-minute stuff, which was being coordinated from another site and usually only lasts a little while. AlexiusHoratius18:16, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
Thank you-
Many thanks for your patience and help concerning the Roman Catholic diocesan bishops in the South Dakota RC dioceses. One note you may want to keep an eye out for St. Patrick's parish in Lead, South Dakota. The parish was the cathedral for the Lead Diocese and I am not sure if it has a national, state, or local historical designation-again my thanks-RFD (talk) 14:40, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
Merely changed the spelling from the noun, practice, to the verb practise. As far as I was aware, there was no change to the variety of English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.253.103 (talk) 18:31, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
US English uses the same spelling for both noun and verb, generally, as in Dr. so-and-so practices in Los Angeles. From the Wiktionary entry on the word, it looks like only British/Commonwealth spelling uses two forms. You didn't do anything wrong - it's not like you were vandalizing the article or anything - and I've done sort of the same thing in the past. AlexiusHoratius18:42, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
(ec)In American usage the noun and verb are spelled/spelt with -ice, so it does change the variety. Something I'd never really considered before, an interesting subtlety. Acroterion(talk)18:45, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, one time I changed an '-ize' to an '-ise' spelling on James Cook as I thought it was an obvious Americanism on a British article, only to be told that sometimes, as is the case in Oxford spelling, '-ize' is okay. I had never known this before, but makes sense as I've read a number of papers/articles that seemed to use British spelling except for the '-ize' thing. You do learn a lot by spending time on Wikipedia. AlexiusHoratius18:52, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Please refrain from introducing inappropriate pages, such as User talk:Floomert, to Wikipedia. Doing so is not in accordance with our policies. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox.
If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. MuffledThud (talk) 15:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
the vandalizing IP changes every so often, as you can see in the history. how would blocking one stop the others? wouldn't semi prot make more sense? Theserialcomma (talk) 06:06, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
I just don't think the disruption is heavy enough to warrant protection at this time. Within the last month, only two IPs have edited the article - 37..., which doesn't look related to the guy we're talking about, and the 99... editor. The disruption and vandalism would have to be more severe than an edit from one IP every few days or so. The only way to stop this through protection would be to protect the article for a fairly long period, like three or six months, and as semi-protection locks out all IPs, this to me seems like too drastic of a step to take over a few edits. Also, although it appears, as you point out, that the editor has used several IPs, these edits seem to be spread out over several months. You can ask for a second opinion from another admin if you like, but for now, I'm sticking with my original assessment. AlexiusHoratius06:46, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
This is the edit I warned your IP about, and yes, there are problems with that edit on several levels. You may not have made the edit, but someone using the same IP as you did, and that is what your IP was warned for. If you didn't make the edit, and want to avoid getting warned for vandalism made by others, you should consider registering an account. AlexiusHoratius17:50, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Help
Hi! I beg your pardon for disturbing you and i beg your pardon for my bad english too, as i'm not a native english speaker. However, i decided, in order to prevent an edit war, to ask to an admin about the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josip_Broz_Tito. I start editing the article one day ago and two users (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DIREKTOR, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AlasdairGreen27) deleted my addings to the article, stating they were pov. I imagined that they considered them pov because they were unsourced, so i insert (instead of my previous addings) a new section, which i heavily sourced recurring to books and articles from historians and scholars. But AlasdairGreen27 deleted it again. I noticed (from the talk of the article:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Josip_Broz_Tito and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Josip_Broz_Tito/Archive_2) that both users had keep deleting any new section of the article that may be perceived as critic towards tito, supporting each others in doing so against a lot of different users. I also noticed, as i can see from their user pages, they both come from ex-yugoslavia and (from what i can see from direktor's page) that direktor even supports titoist yugoslavia. I tell you this, because i'm starting to think that they may have delete my passage, because of their personal view of tito, not because it was pov. The situation is getting worse because they refuse to discuss the delation and they keep talking agressive to me (even insulting me and in general any users from other wikipedias), so i really don't know what to do and i ask you to please, if you can, express your opinion on the matter, in order to prevent this situation to became an edit war. Thanks. --AndreaFox (talk) 22:27, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't know - it seems like a content dispute for the most part, and as an admin there is only so much I can do. Try dispute resolution, the content noticeboard, or contact some of the wikiprojects involved to get more eyes on the issue. As for me, I don't know all that much about Yugoslavian history, and my real world POV concerning communism and its apologists is probably too strong for me to be much help as a mediator. AlexiusHoratius18:58, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Hi Alexius... there is a ton of vandalism going on over at the ND page. Mainly Cincinatti fans wishing ill will on the new head coach. Can you semi-protect? Thanks. Tedmoseby (talk) 06:11, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Hi AlexiusHoratius. Regarding your semiprotection of Best of Microsoft Entertainment Pack, I just wanted to drop a note asking you to reconsider it briefly. I have no concerns if you want to leave it protected, and that's your decision to make not mine, I just think you may not have had all the details. On the 16th, the last time the page was disrupted, I began work on abuse filter 278 which is designed to block that particular issue. The issue was not only on that page, and it had not happened for two days because of that filter. It should not persist because of the filter that is in place now. If you choose to leave it protected, that's certainly fine, but I just wanted to drop a note letting you know that filter 278 should be properly handling that issue. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 06:32, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
(As a note, you'll see the filter existed long before that, but was only recently finalized and pushed to warn/disallow, which is why the problem persisted until the 16th.) --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 06:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I've unprotected the article. (I don't know much about filters, but I'll take your word for it.) I had originally protected as it seemed like a lot of disruption between the 14th and 16th, but you're right that the article had been pretty quiet for a day before my protection. Anyway, re-list it at WP:RFPP if the issues resume. AlexiusHoratius06:46, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Good day! I'm Mr. Chan from Philippine Cultural College. Can you help us regarding the drastic change happening in the article of Philippine Cultural College in wikipedia. I'm looking forward to hear from you. Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pcc itc (talk • contribs) 02:12, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
Hi, I'll welcome further comments if there are still issues with that article that need to be dealt with, but I unfortunately don't know too much about the College to be of much help here - I only temporarily semiprotected the article as there had been too much unexplained major changes and edit warring (editors quickly reverting each other to a specific version). Most of what goes into articles on Wikipedia is determined by gaining a consensus with other editors, and the best place to do that is the article's talk page. Again, feel free to ask if you have other specific concerns about the article, but my lack of general knowledge about the subject sort of hampers my ability to do much as far as editing on specific issues on that article. AlexiusHoratius21:28, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
We are thankful to revert the article and protect it from other user to edit the article. Recently we have our attention happening to the article of Phillipine Cultural College and we are very thankful for reverting the article. Can we update the article and protect it from anyone to avoid false information? Is it possible that only our College or this user can edit and update the article? We are looking forward to hear from you. You may visit and contact us in our website: www.pchsonline.org . Thank you very much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pcc itc (talk • contribs) 02:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Our conflict of interest guidelines state that editors should avoid editing articles with which they have a strong personal connection, such as articles about themselves or their organizations, and that would probably apply to this situation. Also, although articles can be protected for various reasons such as simple vandalism or serious content disputes, Wikipedia is based on the principle that everyone (or nearly everyone) should be able to edit an article, so permanent protection against any further editing isn't going to work on this one. If there are issues with an article or incorrect statements in it which you wish to correct, the best place to discuss that is the article's talk page. AlexiusHoratius05:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Hey, there, was just going to block this user but saw you beat me to the punch. Although it does appear to be a shared IP, looking over their contribs for the past month or so seems to show nothing but vandalism; would you object to a longer block (a month?), anon-only, allowing account creation? – Luna Santin (talk) 21:35, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
You're probably right, a longer block with creation unblocked makes sense in that situation. I had always made a habit of having the first IP block be for 24 hours no matter what, but I can see your point and have (I think) amended the block settings. AlexiusHoratius21:41, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Protection without responsibility is obstructionism
If you are putting an article in protected mode you have to accept the resulting responsibility.
Among the responsibilities are obviously watching for input on the discussion page and updating the article as needed.
Otherwise the whole wiki concept is broken and we end up with centralized censorship according to some semiofficial power structure, which really is not what wikipedia started out to achieve.
An example where you, according to the article history, have put an article in proteced mode and then not participated in the further maintenance of the article would be the one about Emilie Autumn.
If you do put restrictions on so many articles that you can not take this responsibility afterwards, you should not set them to protected mode but either let someone who has the time to take the required responsibility do it or let the article maintain itself without your obstruction.
So please, either accept the responsibilities of your actions or reverse it. 85.225.176.50 (talk) 03:31, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
If you would like an edit to be made to a semiprotected page, you may use the {{editsemiprotected}} template on the article's talk page. If you would like to request that an article be unprotected, you may do so at WP:Request for page protection#Requests for unprotection. A third option would be to register an account. As to my "responsibility" to hang around every talk page of every article I protect or every user talk page of every user I block, I simply don't have time, nor am I expected to, as it doesn't say anywhere in Wikipedia's protection policy about an admin having to watch over an article they protect. I have protected or altered the protection level on several hundred articles, and my watchlist is already pretty full. Sometimes I will keep an eye on a particular article, but only if I feel like it. Expecting me to take part in all of the talk page discussions, especially in a case like Emilie Autumn, a person I've never heard of, simply isn't feasible. AlexiusHoratius06:59, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
So if you dont know what youre talking about dont touch it. We do know what we are talking about but you block us. That is not how user generated content works! Just lift the protects that you cant keep up with and let the people who know about those things take care of what they know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.23.3.126 (talk) 15:26, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
My protection has expired, the new protection was put in place by Caknuck. You could ask them to lift it, but I doubt you'll have much luck - every time that article is unprotected, vandalism and BLP violations abound to the degree that keeping the article clear of them gets troublesome. Like I said earlier, your best option in this case would be to find a reliable source for what you want to add, get a consensus for it on the talk page, and then put an {{editsemiprotected}} template on the article's talk page, while at the same time explaining the edit you wish to be made and giving the source of the information. AlexiusHoratius17:48, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Now protected indef. The reason I declined at first is that some users like to keep their userpages unprotected, so I prefer to have requests come from the users themselves, unless the vandalism is really out of hand and disruptive. However, if a user requests it for their own userspace, I'll do it pretty much every time for non-talk pages. AlexiusHoratius00:16, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Many thanks for your prompt attention to the request for semi-PP on Hepatitis B. Hopefully that will calm down the page for a while. Can I ask your opinion on what is the best course of action should the problem recur? Is it best to just RFPP-semi for a few days each time or would it be better to pursue a request to blacklist the external site that IPs are so keen to promote? Thanks in advance for any guidance you can give. --RexxS (talk) 18:54, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
For now, I'm thinking that short-term protection may be the route to go; although the article has a bit of a history, I'm not sure that it's active enough to warrant longer protection - just re-report it there if the problem pops up again, perhaps mentioning that my previous shorter protection didn't stop it, and an admin could protect the article for a longer period. On the blacklist, I personally don't have any experience with this, although that link may qualify as it looks like it was being shoved in by some sort of spambot over the last few days. You can request a blacklisting at this page. (It looks like User:Hu12 is very experienced in this area, and you could talk to them about the blacklist.) In short, maybe see about getting the link blacklisted and then re-report at RFPP if it's declined at the blacklist and if the spam problems keep up. AlexiusHoratius19:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for that sound advice. The spam blacklist does suggest it is a last resort, so it looks like trying RFPP for a while is appropriate. We do seem to be getting a spate of EL spamming across medical articles at present, some from IPs, some from what look like 'throw-away' registered accounts. I guess it's always best to AGF with new editors, so I'll continue with trying to explain to them as a first response. --RexxS (talk) 20:15, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Sound good. Like I said earlier, if the problem crops up again, just report it at RFPP with a brief explanation of the situation, or I guess you could just let me know and I'll protect it for a longer period, like two weeks or a month or something. AlexiusHoratius20:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Christina Hendricks
Thanks. I had been considering requesting some sort of protection due to all of the recent vandalism and I think that was a very good call. Regards, • CinchBug • 02:12, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Not a problem; I guess the editors who seem to have a boob obsession will have to satisfy that elsewhere on the internet... which is going to be a real challenge... AlexiusHoratius02:15, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Lol! Yep, given the dearth of boobs on the internet, it'll be difficult for those folks to find something else to focus on, aside from this article... :) Anyway, I didn't know if the level of vandalism on this article had "crossed the line" or not, so I decided to wait--but I suspect that I can be a bit more bold in the future. I'm thinking about doing that with the article on Electric current, which seems to have been consistently attracting (no electromagnetic pun intended) a fair number of vandals lately. I'll take up the issue again in the morning. Thanks again! Regards, • CinchBug • 02:36, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
You're right that the nature of the vandalism wasn't too horrible and it wasn't hugely frequent; most of the reason I protected it was that it's a WP:BLP. I don't know if you've seen it or not, but lately there has been a bit of a war going on concerning admin tool use and BLPs, a war which I don't really want to be a soldier in... but I'm just tired of seeing that crap on BLPs, especially in light of the fact that flagged revisions still haven't come out. The last straw for me was a month or two ago, when I saw (on a major news site) Wikipedia reports Rush Limbaugh dead. AlexiusHoratius02:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
PS - I just went ahead and semiprotected electric current for a month - a non-BLP but the vandalism was looking like it was reaching a level where it would be annoying to have it on one's watchlist. AlexiusHoratius03:03, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Actually, I hadn't realized there was a conflict among admins about BLPs (although I suppose there's probably a conflict somewhere on Wikipedia about nearly anyhing...). I'll look around and read up on it so that I know what's going on. Thanks also for protecting the electric current article--I don't know why it gets hit so frequently, although it could be that it's a fairly common topic of study in many levels of science, shop, etc. in schools, so perhaps lots of kids visit the page. Anyway, thanks! Regards, • CinchBug • 11:50, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
I know it was just a comment, but if you take a look at the numbering as it stands without a "#" in front of your comment, it starts over again at 1 after oppose #11. Indented comments still need number signs in front of them; otherwise they'll mess up the rest of the numbering. AlexiusHoratius03:24, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
For deleting my mis-named page that I moved, I am giving you this, fresh from the WikiOven:
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AlexiusHoratius/Archive 4 - Thanks for your participation and support in my recent successful RfA. Your confidence and trust in me is much appreciated. As a new admin I will try hard to keep from wading in too deep over the tops of my waders, nor shall I let the Buffalo intimidate me.--Mike Cline (talk) 09:13, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
97.80.174.36 on ANI
I noticed you were a main editor on clearing the latest backlog on AIV. Could you take a moment and look at the entry about IP editor 97.80.174.36 which has been sitting since 17:17 (almost an hour). Please take a look at the history of WXIA-TV and WAGA-TV for more information on the previous vandal edits from this IP jumping vandal. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 18:17, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
mmmmm, I don't know. He hasn't edited in like three hours and I'm not seeing any of the usual warning signs on some of the articles he has edited that I like to see for smelly sock behavior - I'd rather wait till he edits again. I mean, that last edit was no great shakes but I'm not going to block him for like three months based on that. Yet. I guess another admin can do what they want with it at AIV, maybe they'll block him, or re-report it if they start up again. AlexiusHoratius18:33, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Woah, I had seen that topic pop up on my watchlist on ANI, but had forgotten that I had been the one who protected it...oh well, I think it's safe to say that article is better off with at least semiprot for now, at least through the olympics. AlexiusHoratius22:40, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
DJIA
Hi, I earlier requested semi-protection for the Dow Jones Industrial Average article; and there are just few things I'd like to explain. When you mentioned that are some good edits from random IP addresses; almost all those edits came from me. I have a rotating IP address and sometimes I occasionally forget to sign in. All helpful contributions to the page are mostly submitted by registered account users. From what I've seen over the course of the last year, a very small percentage of helpful edits came from random IPs. And I'm the one responsible for most of those. Only recently, a few days ago, a random IP user executed a flood of vandalism. There was no way to fix it. I had to manually revert the page to an earlier edition just to restore the article. The page is of a noteworthy subject and gets enough traffic for this type of behavior. It's getting tiresome and annoying for me and other contributors who have to waste our time reverting vandalism at least once every week (sometimes twice a week). I came requesting the semi-protection a second time because the vandalism continues at the same pace. As I said, most of those helpful edits from anonymous IPs, came from me. 98% of the rest, were vandalism. I don't believe a 5% or less amount of helpful edits from random IPs is justified in keeping the security level the way it currently is. I'm hoping you'll please reconsider. RT6543 (talk) 02:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
You're correct that most of the IP edits on that article look like vandalism (although one could probably say the same for most articles), and that is one of the things an admin will consider when deciding whether or not to protect an article. However, one of the most important factors, at least for me, is whether or not the level of anon vandalism could be described as disruptive - that is, would it be a major headache/time sink to have the article on one's watchlist, or is there a great possibility of an average reader finding a vandalized version instead of a clean one. Honestly, with that article getting on average about one rvv a day, I wouldn't really call that too disruptive. I mean, if it's on your watchlist, revert it, maybe warn them, and move on. As a high profile article, it's true that it probably attracts a bit more vandalism than something more obscure would, but it is also probably watchlisted by more editors as well. The bottom line, for me, is that we're a wiki, and we are supposed to allow (almost) anybody to edit (almost) any article. Yeah, there's going to be vandalism to deal with, but that's just the way it works I guess. I know where you're coming from, having been a non-admin vandal fighter myself for around a year and a half...but an average of one vandal edit a day to a non-BLP is a bit low on the protection scale, at least it's a bit low on my protection scale. If you want, you can re-list it at RFPP and someone else will take a look; I'll let another admin deal with it as they see fit. But for now, I'm sticking with my original decision. AlexiusHoratius03:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
I accept your decision, and I now understand your reasoning. Its not necessarily the volume of the vandalism but more to whats considered disruptive vandalism to require sem-protection. But I must say, I do see a double standard with that rule. There are a number of notable articles on Wikipedia that seem to contradict that view. Articles such as the United Nations, the Vietnam War or the Soviet Union. Why do those articles have semi-protection? .... Is it because of the volume of vandalism or the disruptive nature of it? ....And if its the disruptive nature, how do you prove that? ........ I might be wrong, but I believe that each of those 3 pages are protected because of the volume of vandalism. Not the disruptive part. Going by what you said, "we're a wiki, and we are supposed to allow (almost) anybody to edit (almost) any article." it doesn't sound fair. I just wish the DJIA article was included in that elite bunch. RT6543 (talk) 03:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
I realize it probably looks like a double standard when x article is protected when y article isn't. There is often a wide gray area when checking RFPP requests; many times it depends on, among a number of factors, what admin is looking at it and what mood they're in. It's not perfect, but that's what happens when humans are deciding these things. Usually the really obvious cases get handled the same, it's the stuff in between, including probably the DJIA article, that's trickier and depends on more subtle factors. It's, in a way at least, like how a driver might get a ticket for speeding by 6 mph one day and a warning for going 8 mph over the limit another day. Depends on the cop, city, how the driver is dressed, time of day, etc... (Not that I'm comparing myself to a cop, just an illustration or whatever.) I understand that my standards for non-BLP articles are probably a bit higher than some other admins, but that's me I guess. (PS - I'll watchlist the DJIA article as well and probably will take another look in a week or two, who knows, I may end up protecting it in the end...) AlexiusHoratius04:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Hey. Its been around 3 weeks since we last spoke. As you can see, what I said would happen, actually happened. Since about February 23, there has been around 7 or 8 vandalized edits. That works out to an issue once every 3-4 days as I pointed out earlier. I wasted my time reverting 1, and you wasted your time reverting a few of them. And a bunch of other people spent there time cleaning up too. I hope you've had time to think over the situation. Do you think we can get that UN or Vietnam War type security????? RT6543 (talk) 4:05, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
From my point of view, that isn't enough to justify a long period of protection. One undo or revert takes about two seconds. But if you want, go ahead and re-list it at WP:RFPP; I'll leave it to another admin to decide and won't have a problem either way. AlexiusHoratius08:42, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
I vaguely remember seeing a generalized one, but couldn't remember where it was, so I just made my own. The code can be found at User:AlexiusHoratius/Userboxes/Commons; go ahead and steal the code (while changing the links, etc.) if you want to use it. You could either paste it right to your userpage or put it on a user subpage like I did and then translude it to your userpage or whatever. AlexiusHoratius21:57, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Not a problem. I was in a few of those situations myself when I was a non-admin, watching a request at RFPP stew for like an hour while I was getting overrun by vandals... I was like come on... I know how it goes. AlexiusHoratius00:33, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Topeka
Where is this most random assortment of IP's getting the idea that Topeka, Kansas = Google, Kansas? I mean...I live in the state and I haven't even heard this. It's like it popped out of nowhere. Ks0stmIf you reply here, please leave me a {{Talkback}} message on my talk page.04:38, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
One of the IPs linked to an article on PC World, wouldn't be surprised if things like Yahoo News and the Drudge Report picked up on it as well. Seems Hizzoner unofficially changed the name for a month, and this hasn't been the first time - article says that in the 90s they renamed it Pikachu or some such. Oh well - this is better than the Chad Johnson→Chad Ochocinco thing, that was a real mess for a while. AlexiusHoratius04:48, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Wow...well, this event earns my "glorious eyeroll of the day" by far...I'll keep an eye for people changing it. Thanks. Ks0stmIf you reply here, please leave me a {{Talkback}} message on my talk page.04:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
I'll take a look at the Kansas article in a day or two to see if it has quieted down any. Maybe the note I added will help. If not, I may just semiprotect the beast for a month if people are unable to contain themselves. AlexiusHoratius04:58, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
I went ahead and requested protection for both Kansas and Topeka, Kansas after an IP not only ignored the notice on the Topeka page, but changed the notice to say to change the name to Google. Ks0stmIf you reply here, please leave me a {{Talkback}} message on my talk page.05:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
After your block expired, the above user again vandalised WellPoint. Just thought you should know this account is being used only for vandalism. Triste Tierra (cannot log in at work) 24.176.191.234 (talk) 20:00, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Hi, I was wondering if you could make a map for me on Davenport, Iowa similar to your Sioux Falls map? It will (hopefully) be FAC ready (again) soon, and it would add to the page to have a map. CTJF83chat08:34, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Would you please remove protection on the beatles? I need to add a true part about a meet with the band about in 1975 that they met together on Saturday Night Live for their last meet before protection expires. Would you please unlock protection and then lock protection quickly after, please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.236.189.76 (talk) 16:34, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
That article just gets too much vandalism when unprotected, so I'm not going to lift the protection. However, you can request that an edit be made to it by placing an {{editsemiprotected}} template on the article's talk page, and request that another user make the edit you want to make. You'll probably also want to provide a source from where the information came from on the talk page. AlexiusHoratius17:54, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Question
Hello
I would like you to ask you to express your opinion about the format that should be used for the localities from Romania where Hungarian has co-official status (where at least 20% of the population speaks Hungarian)
If you're talking about the opening line of the article (not the title) option 2 seems like the option most used in articles with similar situations (for instance, Geneva). That's mostly just my opinion, though, and I don't know too much about the particular issues involved with this matter. It may be a good idea to discuss it at WP:WikiProject Romania and see what other editors involved with Romanian articles want to do as far as getting a uniform standard. AlexiusHoratius16:51, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions with User:AlexiusHoratius. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
