Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems/Archive 36

User:Alrofficial

This user has repeatedly uploaded images as PD without adequate justification, consistently claiming the images were originally published without copyright notices. In many cases, the sources did not provide adequate information (sometimes no information) regarding the original publication; in several cases (eg, File:Shelley Long 1987.JPG, File:Marsha Mason 1982.JPG), the images carried visible copyright notices; and in at least two cases (File:Constance McCashin.JPG and File:Constance McCashin 1981.JPG the uploader actually cropped the copyright notices off the images before uploading them. I have posted more detailed comments at enwiki [1] and in several deletion nominations here over the last two days. The user should have been alerted to even the least problematic aspects of their behaviour by this discussion last year (Commons:Deletion requests/File:Nanette Fabray.jpg). The Big Bad Wolfowitz (talk) 17:56, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I done with work in commons. No more uploads. --Alrofficial (talk) 18:24, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

No need to stop uploading or leave commons. Just find images like File:Annette Funicello on beach Frankie Avalon Dick Clark 1977.jpg. They need to be 1977 or earlier and show both sides to prove that there was no copyright notice. We could use many more if you want to look through Ebay for them. This ANI is probably not needed if admin wishes to go through and delete the ones that are copyvio. All should be forgiven as the uploader just didn't understand the finer points.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:38, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Please, help, User Jahoe nominated for deletion ALL my abay images. I'm not uploaded files to promote an eBay auction. --Alrofficial (talk) 06:01, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Given your past record of willful deception, I would favour summarily deleting everything you have ever uploaded. You have given everyone ample reason not to trust anything you claim about the copyright status of the images you contribute. —Psychonaut (talk) 10:03, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

willful deception - no! WP:AGF. I uploadet just several images with not good copyright status. --Alrofficial (talk) 11:02, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

If The Big Bad Wolfowitz's claims are true, you removed conspicuous copyright notices from several images, uploaded the images here, and then tagged them as public domain works on the grounds that they were never published with a copyright notice. That seems like willful deception to me. Do you dispute this version of events? —Psychonaut (talk) 11:47, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

It was only File:Constance McCashin.JPG and File:Constance McCashin 1981.JPG. I did not see copyright tag on ebay images, photos was in low qualitys and i thought that it was not copyright tag.--Alrofficial (talk) 11:55, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

• I just fixed 46 of the 1977 and earlier uploads by uploading both sides showing no notice. From 1978 and later it is hard to prove no copyright. The Ebay ones that expired or don't show both sides of the photos are too hard to keep without evidence of no notice.--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:31, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

2 issues with upload wizard

Moved to Commons:Upload Wizard feedback#2 issues with upload wizard –⁠moogsi (blah) 01:20, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

User:Jkane438

Could someone else check this user's contribs - specifically Jordan Kane‎? Эlcobbola _talk 18:21, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Upload and page deleted (by someone else). The user has not editted since then and was warned on his talk; so I'm taking no further action for now. Thanks. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 19:56, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

User:Roger Dantas

• Roger Dantas (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)

All contribs appear to be either copyvio, or at the least, files uploaded missing permission.

I've tagged them all with missing permission, but perhaps a speedy delete for them on possible copyvio grounds might be in order here. -- Cirt (talk) 06:29, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

All  nuked. --Túrelio (talk) 06:37, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, -- Cirt (talk) 06:51, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Look2See1 again

Look2See1's talk page is full of objections from people because of his refusal to follow our categorisation standards and his constant rearrangement of file description pages; except for one comment from a user who has engaged in trolling, everyone who's come to this talk page in the last year has made objections to Look2See1's actions. He's also been blocked for the same issue. Nevertheless, he continues disrupting pages (see also [2], [3], [4], [5], all of which add tons of parent categories to images), both mangling the description and filling the file with parent categories, and his own comments on his talk page are frequently something like "you're bullying me as I'm helping things". A quote from en:wp's disruptive editing page is appropriate here: "A disruptive editor is an editor who is tendentious: continues editing an article or group of articles in pursuit of a certain point for an extended time despite opposition from other editors...Repeatedly disregards other editors' questions or requests for explanations concerning edits or objections to edits." Someone who makes deep changes to massive numbers of articles despite objections from numerous editors is causing problems to the project; we should not continue permitting this disruption to continue. Nyttend (talk) 13:32, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Where you say 'his refusal to follow our categorisation standards' you meant to say your standards. Your standards btw, are not defined anywhere, at the time of writing there are only redlinks for talkpages for those files. What I see on Look2See1's talkpage is a clear pattern of you hounding and threatening a valuable and prolific editor, making cryptic demands, vague threats, when you should, as you were told before, put some sincere effort into dialogue. Using AN as a substitute for conversation that should be on file talkpages is not appropriate. You have to talk to the editor yourself beyond "I don't like it" and "stop it, stop it, stop it" where 'it' is never defined. People can't be expected to use ESP, this is the reason for file talkpages, so that ESP is not necessary.

• File talk:Prosser House.jpg
• File talk:City Market, Indianapolis.jpg
• File talk:Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis.jpg
• File talk:Bates-Hendricks House.jpg
• File talk:Canal House.jpg

It's not Look2See1 again, it is YOU again, annoyed that you can't communicate without words, you haven't used any of these talkpages, I don't see any improved effort to talk to other editors. "Engaged in trolling" is scant thanks for attempting to help you improve your interpersonal problems, whatever, my advice hasn't changed and your approach hasn't changed. You have to use something that is not ESP to communicate with other editors.

You give 5 diffs and claim other editors agree with you. Bullshit. Zero for five talkpages. Penyulap ☏ 16:15, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not even going to bother trying to respond to this rant.--Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:22, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Why did you remove what you call "parent categories"? For example there is Black and white photos in Indiana, which is very useful for the images. There seems to be a game on Commons for some people called "I will bring you to ANU before you will", as I see it your removal of those categories was the disruption. Can you please explain your position better? Sinnamon Girl (talk) 16:56, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Sinnamon. Nyttend is referring to COM:OVERCAT. The are, like you say, useful, but it can make a real mess of things when images are categorized in both parent and sub categories. Given the history, I am not sure it's fair to suggest Nyttend rushed to bring this to ANU. I hope that helps (unless I have completely misconstrued your comment, and sorry if I have). --Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:22, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I sort of thought that this is what was meant, but I never came up across this policy. I do agree with it generally, but I don't think that the examples show it. In the first example File:Canal House.jpg was in Category:Jack Boucher, Category:Canal House, Category:Other people's pictures by User:Nyttend and then Category:Greek Revival architecture in Indiana, Category:Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana, Category:National Register of Historic Places in Fayette County, Indiana, Category:Streets in Indiana, Category:1975 in Indiana, Category:Historic American Buildings Survey of Indiana, Category:Black and white photographs of Indiana were added. I did not look trough the entire category tree, but I cannot see any Nyttend's categories being subcats of any categories that were added. I have already stated the example Category:Black and white photographs of Indiana can you please show me the "parent-to-child" category path that leads you to Category:Jack Boucher, Category:Canal House, or Category:Other people's pictures by User:Nyttend. Sinnamon Girl (talk) 03:08, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Nyttend; Look2See1 has been reminded of Commons:Overcat#Over-categorization repeatedly.[6][7] S/he has agreed to follow editors' consensus on categorization.[8] I'm not sure what more can be done. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 17:20, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm a little puzzled, myself. I like Look2See1, and think (s)he does good work. However, the same problems come up again and again (although I would not that some of the year cats that Look2See1 added and Nyttend deleted were appropriate and ought to have remained). I'm not sure what to do. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:22, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• Not all of them are parent cats. Why do you blanket revert even the useful ones? --99of9 (talk) 22:17, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Skeezix1000. Overcategorisation is, as far as I can see, Look2See1's weak point, but in general, I am quite happy with his work. In the past, I've got several discussions with Look2See1, but never real conflicts. But as in all communities, when people start shouting and wildly reverting, things get out of hand. --Foroa (talk) 10:47, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

"uncontested deletion"

hi;

i've recently noticed that a few admins are closing deletions with "uncontested DR" as though that were a policy at commons (the way it is @ wikipedia).

"uncontested DR" IS IN FACT NOT A POLICY @ COMMONS, & it does not constitute a valid rationale for a close & delete.

this is NOT wikipedia; we have OVER 16 MILLION FILES & growing each day. we cannot WASTE our time tracking every single file against the possibility that some idiot will sumbit a meritless DR & the file will then be removed because "the DR was uncontested".

it's a stupid enough rule @ wikipedia, where "in theory" such uncontested "PROD"s can be undone "automatically" if requested by "anybody (this of course is not the way things work "in practice").

BUT THE RULES @ COMMONS INCLUDE NO SUCH PROVISIONS.

& if we are going to allow "uncontested" as a valid rationale for deletion here, then it NEEDS to go through an RFC & community approval FIRST.

it would also be an incredibly stupid move & would add an immense amount of work "policing" for stupid DRs that would ALL need to be contested, to prevent loss of the material.

Lx 121 (talk) 08:35, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Lx 121, from your use of CAPITAL letter I assume that you are quite angry at the moment. Could I nevertheless ask for 2-3 example cases for the above described problem. --Túrelio (talk) 08:52, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

 Comment Please do not write “wikipedia” when you refer to the English language Wikipedia. Other Wikipedias have different policies. --Leyo 08:54, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

i stand corrected. i'm sorry, you are of course perfectly right about that. just to be clear, i was refering to ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA throughout. i've only done minor work on other-langiuage wikip's thus far. howver, i feel that my central point remains valid; this is COMMONS, not any-language wikipedia. whatever the deletion policies @ wichever language wikipedia, it is a mistake for any commons admin to act as though (or to assume) the rules from another wmf project applied here. commons serves a fundamentally different purpose from wikipedia, & we've gone to a great deal of trouble to work out our own rules & practices accordingly. Lx 121 (talk) 09:17, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

i did not actually want to "name names" here, & was hoping to get a clear & definative statement of the "general rule", which could be cited to politely warn admins of inappropeiate actions.

BUT

this person, in particular, drew my attention to the peroblem [[9]]

the user is a rather senior-level admin & bureacrat @ wp:en, & admin @ several other projects, including here. but he(/she/they/xe?) seems to act as though the wp:en rules applied @ commons. you will see that their activity list shows an endless stream on "uncontested DR"s.

i'e found a few other cases, while searching commons for an rules related to "uncontested DR", but this person appears to be the "primary source".

the user has also shown rather bad judgement in handling at least a few of the cases, such as here: [10]

(from the context, i must assume this is a professional wrestling related photo, since i cannot check the file myself)

in this case, not only should the question of commons' scope have been handled separately from the fate of the wp:en article (the image might in fact qualify in multiple categories here @ wmc), BUT the article about en:VANESSA HARDING was in fact NOT DELETED, & the admin-user appears to have removed from commons THE ONLY IMAGE we had on file, illustrating this person. leaving us with nothing to use on the article.

i have raised the matter on their talkpage today (& yes, i'm quite upset, & increasingly so, as i gtrew to understand the scale of their activity). this was quite recent, & i've gotten no response as of yet, but i'm not going to comment @ their talk page again for at least 24 hours. i really need to cool down. i wouldnt have expected such carelessness from a senior editor.

i might or might not check back here before that; but i think i'm going to find something else to work on, right now.

thanks for the quick reply

Lx 121 (talk) 09:10, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

CORRECTION: on reviewing the file history for the above-cited example (re:poor-judgement) i find i was mistaken on a key point. the final deletion was handled by user:inevercry, & it was this user who showed poor judgement & inadequate checking, in deciding to delete the file. user:mbisanz was involved in a discussion about the file on their talk page [[11]], & i mis-read in assuming that the user was responsible for the final/latest deletion. mbisanz was apparently involved by tagging the file for "nopermission", which was a correct action at the time.

HOWEVER: this does not remove or nullify my concerns about the original problem, of their using "uncontestedDR" as a rationale for close & delete @ commons (& using it on a very; large-scale [12]).

Lx 121 (talk) 10:06, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Lx 121, I have taken the pain to browse through (really opened/viewed them) ALL the DR-requests that MBisanz had worked-on on May 12. The DRs had originally been filed in the span from April 8th to 24th and were therefore clearly overdue for closure. None of the original nominations seems to have been unjustified, many were filed by other admins, none by himself. A number of DR-discussions had 1 or 2 additional comments by different users than the DR-nominator, however, all had supported the deletion request. (The only slight mistake I found, was not about the DR-rationale but a mismatch in a dupe-deletion (File:JBs.JPG), which I have already corrected.) Therefore, I think it is justified to consider all of these DRs (nomination and deletion) uncontroversial and in accordance with our policy. The edit-summary choosen by MBisanz to close these DR discussions ("Per uncontested DR") may not correspond to the (current) letter of our written deletion rationales, but it reflects the actual course of the DR discussion and is IMO equivalent to write "per nom(inator)", whereby the del-closing admin adopts the deletion-rationale of the nominator. --Túrelio (talk) 10:58, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi; with respect, the way you very carefully qualified this statement worries me:

"The edit-summary choosen by MBisanz to close these DR discussions ("Per uncontested DR") may not correspond to the (current) letter of our written deletion rationales"

"current"? i'm not aware that "uncontested Dr" was ever a part of common's policy @ any time in the part & i certainly hope it will not be inserted into our policies at any time in the future. :/

Lx 121 (talk) 09:49, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Deletion policy is really a mess right now, with some individuals not following rules, making up rules that others must follow, or simply reading only the title of the policy and not reading the rest. It needs to be made clear that deleting a file does not increase the educational value of the project and should only be done when there is a clear community consensus that it is necessary. Sinnamon Girl (talk) 10:20, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

No. To me, "uncontested DR" is a normal rationale for deletion. Look at the current DR's and you'll see that the participation on big parts of requests is very few, many requests remain entirely uncommented. On the other hand, there are many applicable requests amongst them, for example on images uploaded in good faith but unfortunately violating COM:FOP. If we would establish a rule that only allows "consensual" DR's to be decided, many obvious copyright violations would remain on Commons which would be potentially dangerous for the project. So, it is right to close DR's with nothing more than the request itself as deleted. Let me take a RL example: if someone takes you to court, you get the invitation to the hearing but do not follow it, then the court probably will decide for the purpose of the plaintiff. Nothing different we have here with the DR's. It's not a policy, it's just common sense. --A.Savin 11:19, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

You've made the whole thing up just now, right? DR are not a court, they are not a vote, the closing admin is suppose to look at the arguments presented on their own merit. I have seen a lot of uncontested DRs with the rationale akin to "i don't like" or "need to delete" being closed as keep, and that's the correct way of dealing with the situation. Currently nominating for deletion is significantly easier than monitoring all the deletion requests, this is a problem with a user decides to nominate 517 images for deletion because something bit him/her on the ass. You are correct on one point: This (what you've described) is not a policy. Sinnamon Girl (talk) 23:22, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I never disputed the necessity to look at the argument. The closing admin is normally an experienced user so that they're able to distinguish between an applicable DR and nonsense. The fact that some admins close batches of uncontested DR's using some kind of an automatic script I find problematic as well, even though it helps to reduce the backlog a bit. --A.Savin 09:18, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there is a problem here, except, perhaps, a minor excess of verbiage. If I see a DR which has no comment other than the nom, is at least seven days old, and the problem appears to be real, I will close it as a delete. As far as I understand it, that is entirely within our rules. We cannot generate comment where no one thinks it is necessary. Under those circumstances, the comment "uncontested DR" would be true, but why bother to say it? We have better things to do than to add closing comments to obvious cases. After all, we have around 8,000 new images every day, of which around 2,000 must be deleted for one reason or another. So, if one or more of our colleagues wants to add "uncontested DR" as a closing comment, where's the problem?

I disagree strongly with this:

"It needs to be made clear that deleting a file does not increase the educational value of the project and should only be done when there is a clear community consensus that it is necessary."

Keeping files that are not useful reduces the educational value of the project because it makes it harder to find the good ones among the bad. If a file has a DR on it and after a week it has no  Keep on it, as far as I am concerned, we have a clear community consensus for deletion. That assumes, of course, that the closing Admin agrees that the file is problematic in one way or another..     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 12:34, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree there is a problem, the problem is with Commons:Deletion requests not matching custom and practice, in particular the procedure leaves the rationale implicit (under "Instructions for administrators") for DRs with no community engagement. If Admins can delete anything for which an expired DR exists, that's fine and can be justified under the DR procedure, but I would really want their duty of care for the deletion to be spelt out in written policy, specifically they are required to be able to justify the deletion (or deletion pattern) against policy on request, and this must always be more than "nobody objected". If an Administrator were to show a pattern of deletions that failed to unambiguously meet policy, it would be handy to point to their duty of care in order to consider a de-sysop justification. Note, the word "unambiguous" is mine, if a deletion request is marginal, I hope that most Admins would conservatively opt to keep rather than delete, as an obvious form of the precautionary principle.

BTW, Jim, your point about "finding the good ones among the bad" is an extremely poor justification to delete mediocre quality files. Commons does have a problem with how good images can be found, that is a wider discussion of quality ratings and the search function, not a reason to blitz millions of images based on vague justifications of "it did not appear that good a photo to me, and look, we have some better ones". A terrible rationale that puts too much responsibility on the shoulders of Admins for subjective and endlessly debatable actions. Anyway, I think we have been here before, it's time for the DR procedure to be clarified rather than leaving this to one person's subjective views against another's. --Fæ (talk) 13:22, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I have quickly reviewed a selection of these deletions, and I don't think in fact that the admin was intending to imply that he/she was deleting just because nobody had objected. The ones I looked at were correctly closed according to policy, with the reason having been made more or less clear either in the request itself or in comments that were made by others. I would have closed the DRs with some comment such as "Deleted for the reasons stated"; others might perhaps say "per nom". While I agree that the edit wording could have been better, I don't think that this is a case of an admin deleting huge numbers of files out of process. Our policies on deletions are pretty clear, and admins have to follow them. Deletions outside policy based on "no objections' or "per consensus" are never allowed. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:34, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I didnt use that summary because en.wiki permits it. I think I've closed something like 5,000 en.wiki requests and never used a summary of uncontested. I used that summary here because the DRs were eligible to be closed, the reason put forward by the nominator seemed like a reasonable statement (for example, I am not an expert on Philippines law, but a nominator's statement that a certain crest is non-free because the Philippines government has a law retaining copyright for those types of crest is a reasonable statement), and because I intended to delete under the basis stated in the nominator's statement and because I knew of nothing that would contradict their interpretation of policy. I didn't just do it because no one objected (there are a fair number of DRs I skipped even when no one else commented because they seemed like wrong interpretations of policy), but because I'm admitting I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of copyright law and was the deleting because the reasons stated sounded good to me in the absence of any other facts. I'll use "Deleted for the reasons stated" in the future if this is problematic. MBisanz ^talk 14:21, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

"finding the good ones among the bad". I think you will find that I have rarely deleted mediocre files unless they are very similar to other, much better files. My thought here is for the truly bad files -- out of focus to the point where only the person's mother would recognize him, odd angles, terrible color balance, and so forth.

I am more a supplier to Commons than a user of it, but about half the time I go looking for a file on a particular subject I find a category with several pages of files, most of which no one would ever use. Going through several hundred thumbnails to find good files is not easy. More sub-cats is not the answer, because that just spreads the subject out onto still more subpages. Sooner or later we are going to have to bite the bullet and admit that if Commons is truly going to be useful for all subjects, we need to be more selective about what we keep. Just because it is possible to imagine a good use for a file doesn't mean that it should be kept when we have ten files that are much more likely to be used for that purpose. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 16:26, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

OK since there are too many individual comments for me to do an indented comment for each one, i'll summarize here:

1. this is the example of a bad "uncontestedDR" that drew my attention to the problem in the first place [13]

this was a cartoon, by an established, professional cartoonist, who has done a great deal of work that is in our collection (there was actually a wikiproject for it). it depicted en:Ann Coultrer, a public figure & political commentator; apparently in an unflattering light. the nominator mis-used a WIKIPEDIA policy, to justify the deletion. no one else commented, & the user:MCBisanz uncritically deleted the file as "uncontestedDR".

that was a bad decision, & one that was clearly based on wikipedia policies, NOT commons policies.

& it's WORSE to use "uncontested DR" as the justification, because it allows the deleting admin to avpid taking any poisition, or ANY RESPONSIBILITY for the decision.

2. THERE IS NO WRITTEN POLICY AT COMMONS ALLOWING "UNCONTESTED DR" AS A LEGITIMATE RATIONALE FOR DELETION.

we soend so much time arguing over the rules on these project, & beating each other over the head with these same rules.

in this case, THERE IS NO POLICY TO SUPPORT "UNCONTESTED DR", therfore it needs to stop being used, and/or if it is going to become an accepted policy, there needs to be a full communitywide discussion & consensus, before it is adopted. that is how these things work.

3. ALLOWING "UNCONTESTED DR" as a rationale for deletions represents a MAJOR CHANGE in commons' deletion policies.

it would mean that ANY FILE at commons could be nominated for deletion, & REMOVED by ANY ADMIN, after a certain number of days, if nobody hapens to comment oposing the move.

THERE ARE OVER SIXTEEN MILLION FILES @ COMMONS.

how exactly are we supposed to keep track of EVERY FILE THAT GETS NOMINTED FOR DELETION, EVER!?

because if we allow "uncontested" removals, then we are going to have to do that, because ANYTHING at commons could disappear AT ANY TIME.

so editors will have to spend time "watching" EVERY SINGLE FILE ON COMMONS, & oppose-voting EVERY DELETION NOM. want to guess how much time & effort that is going to SUCK out of the community?

in my opinion, it's a stupid policy & wikipedia, BUT it would be a considerably WORSE policy on commons.

@ wp:en there is at least (in theory) a simple, easy process to "automatically" restore an article that is deleted after an uncontested prod. BUT WE DON'T HAVE SUCH AN "AUTOMATIC" UNDELETION POLICY @ COMMONS.

undeleting files @ commons is an involved, time-consuming, & difficult process, undeletions are FAR from "automatic", & IT EATS UP CONSIDERABLE TIME (for everybody involved) HANDLING UNDELETION REQUESTS.

if "uncontested DR"s become policy here, then NOBODY BUT ADMINS WILL HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON with deletion decisions BECAUSE NOBODY BUT ADMINS CAN DOUBLE-CHECK FILE DELETIONS.

at that point, there's little point in working @ commons unless you have admin-level access. so that's going to have a pretty big impact on the community; in addition to the amount of time & effort monitoring uncontested DRs would use up.

<endrant>

4. i agree that "removing files (generally) does not (significantly) improve the collection"

WIKIPEDIA IS AN ENCYCLOPEDIA,

COMMONS IS A CATALOGUE.

it matter more that we have the files sorted

it matters more that users can find whatever it is they are looking for

it matters more that we find some mechanism to make it easier to locate "the best" files for any given topic.

it does NOT matter that we extirpate every single "unworthy" file from commons, as though they were cockroaches. low-quality f8iles do not breed, they do not multiply of their own accord; if we had a decent mechanism for "putting the best/most-important files firt", then IT WOULDN'T MATTER how many low-quality files there were in a category.

THE ONLY "important" deletions, & THE ONLY "time-critical" deletions, are of files with legal issues (or "malware", but we don't seem to have much of a problem with that); ANYTHING ELSE (being considered for deletion) IS LOW-PRIORITY WORK.

--i think that's all the key points; i'll spew more, if i find i've missed anything important.

Lx 121 (talk) 07:40, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

one item i did not sufficiently clarify above: using "uncontested DR" would allow admins to SIDESTEP & avoid taking responsibility for a decision to close & delete. they could just remove a file; without taking any position, or expressing any opinion on the merits of the nom "because nobody cared enough to  Oppose"

the deleting admin would not be required to put any thought or effort in making such decisions; it would become "automatic", & we could literally write bots to handle the job...

THAT invites ABUSE of the deletion process

(i'm going back to sorting 'pankration' now)

Lx 121 (talk) 07:59, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

 Support Immediate undeletion for all files above that Lx 121 has raised concerns on or is prepared to list here (Lx 121, it would be useful for you to list as many as you wish to point out). What exactly are we waiting for, a lengthy consensus is not needed, any admin action outside of policy needs to be corrected by the admin community. The wider concerns in the discussion are tangential to taking appropriate prompt action to implement policy as stated. If the deleting admin is passionate enough about these, and feels they have a justifiable case, then they can properly raise DRs and provide that case for the community to learn from. Hopefully this AN/U request does not set a pattern or unveil one that may prompt a future de-sysop request(s). --Fæ (talk) 10:39, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

We're not communicating. In the case of an uncontested deletion, there are two people who believe that the file should be deleted -- the nom and the closing Admin. There is no one who believes that the file is worth keeping. I don't see that as a more problematic situation than one where there were five {{Vk}} comments on the file, all of them arguing for fair use or some other incorrect reason for keeping. The closing Admin is always required to use his or her experience and judgement in choosing to delete a file.

I think you are suggesting that "uncontested deletion" implies that the closing Admin has avoiding that responsibility -- has deleted the file simply because it had a DR on it and no one objected. If that's the case, then the closing Admin deserves censure -- he or she is not doing his job.

I agree that saying "uncontested deletion" as a closing comment says nothing about why the file was deleted. I read it to mean "for the reason given by the nominator, with no objection", but perhaps it would be better if we avoided it. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 10:50, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

"In the case of an uncontested deletion, there are two people who believe that the file should be deleted -- the nom and the closing Admin. There is no one who believes that the file is worth keeping." -- respectfully: THERE ARE OVER SIXTEEN MILLION FILES @ COMMONS; even if EVERY editor was to spend ALL THEIR TIME obsessively stalking the deletion noms, perhaps it just might be possible, that once in a while, a "good" file might be overlooked? ;p

& i think that in the real world, most users @ commons probably DO NOT PAY VERY MUCH ATTENTION TO THE DELETION NOMS unless they get a notice for one of their own files.

so no; it's not like "no one thought the file was worth keeping"; it's more like NO ONE NOTICED THE FILE WAS GOING TO BE REMOVED; that's why any "automatic-deletion" process @ commons is a bad idea.

'also: "I read it to mean" -- that requires an awful lot of "interpretation"; other editors might just as easily read it to mean something else. i read it to mean: 'the deleting admin is "off the hook" for any responsibility in their decision-making & doesn't even have to take a position OR provide a legitimate rationale for the close decision'.

Lx 121 (talk) 09:38, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, to clarify then, I would like to see a list where undeletion is being proposed. I agree that if the DR is more complex, there may be issues worth discussing - though I would like the DRs to be reopened if the closure was so below expectations that it was meaningless. If undeletion is plainly daft as the file is clearly against policy (such as a demonstrable copyvio) then fair enough, leave it deleted, but let's find a way of advising the admin they need to do a better job and their past practice is no longer acceptable. --Fæ (talk) 11:01, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I already said above that I'm very happy to use "Deleted for the reasons stated" going forward and the other admin, Túrelio, who hand-reviewed each of my closes didn't see anything wrong with the results of each. I reviewed each DR at the time I closed it and he's reviewed each now, so I don't see how the normal Commons:UR#Appealing a deletion procedures are insufficient if Lx121 has noted a specific problem that I and Túrelio happened to have missed. I haven't avoided any responsibility for my actions, but no one has complained about a specific action. The only DR Lx121 has cited I stand by. While the person who made the request in that case cited an en.wiki policy, there is still a commons guideline, Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people#Defamation, that could permit deletion. I don't see how requiring a user to find and cite our version of a policy when their general request was reasonable our our policies and no one was making a counterargument as to why their (and my review of their) interpretation was wrong. MBisanz ^talk 12:24, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

hi; you have covered several important points here. i'm going to knock off the "easy ones" now, & come back later if i feel i've got something more "in-depth" to add.

i) thank-you for agreeing to change your closing rationale in the future; "uncontested DR" doesn't provide any insight into the closing admin's decision-making, & it does provide a terrible "precedent" which could be cited to support bad decisions by other, less-experienced admins.

ii)the deletion/undeletion process on common is in a pretty wretched state (i'm sorry if you hadn't noticed, or disagree with me on that point; but i assure you that i am not alone in thinking this). however, my point was that IF we allowed "uncontested" deletions as policy @ commons, then the end result will be a FLOOD of bad decisions, requiring review & reversal. the undeletion process is already a horrible mess; increasing the number of files in need of this attention, by a multiplying factor, would be bad.

iii) as regards the ann coulter cartoon. with respect, the commons policy you cited is for PHOTOGRAPHS of identifiable people. this was a CARTOON. it was created & published by a PROFESSIONAL CARTOONIST. the subject is not only a public figure, but a POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, & a rather contentious/controversial one. this falls under "fair game", as protected free speech.

COMMONS IS NOT CENSORED; is one of our "foundation-policies". we do not censor political cartoons. the nominator invoked a rather questionable use of a wikipedia policy to "PROD" & you uncritically supported the "PROD" by closing & deleting the file as "uncontested". this was NOT a good decision, & it was not a good closing statement.

& with respect, the fact that you are mis-stating a commons policy to support your decision, still leaves me with the impression that you are not sufficiently aware of the differences between policy @ commons & @ wikipedia (en).

Lx 121 (talk) 10:10, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Please re-read Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people#Defamation. That section uses the term "images" not "photographs." That makes a lot of sense because a person can be equally defamed by a cartoon as they can be by a photograph. Also, Commons:Non-copyright_restrictions#Non-copyright_restrictions_that_directly_affect_Commons speaks directly to defamation being a grounds to delete any image, be it a photograph or otherwise. Now whether or not the image is defamation, protected free speech, or does not even implicate a legal right of the subject is a question for DR. In this case, the only person to comment on it thought that it was defamation of the subject and it is not plainly obvious that their comment is wrong (they didn't claim an apple was being defamed). MBisanz ^talk 01:02, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

re: list for undeletions

i hadn't anticipated this request & honestly i am more concerned about not allowing 'uncontested DR' to "creep" into policy @ commons. however; i will try to spend some time surfing for "uncontested DR" closures & list them here. i would remind readers that i am NOT an admin, & therefore am unable to check the deleted files myself. ergo, i can only assess the decision-making based on context, not on the content of the files in question.

as mentioned above, the item that caught my attention in the first place was the following:

[14]

this was a cartoon of a political public figure in the usa, it was done by a professional cartoonist who was engaged in work related to wikipedia in the past (at the time the cartoon was created). there was a wikiproject to organize his cartoons & it was from there that i noticed this one had been deleted. it was my surprise @ the deletion, the questionable nature of the nominator's rationale, & the "uncontested DR" closing statement that drew my attention to the problem.

Lx 121 (talk) 10:21, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

You may find Category:Deletion requests closed without a comment a useful category to apply. --Fæ (talk) 12:59, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate you listing DRs of concern, but wouldn't it be appropriate to use the undeletion process for such things? If you aren't alleging a systematic failure on the part of a particular admin to get the DRs correct, then it's more of a one-off issue for the DRs you happen to disagree with. MBisanz ^talk 01:04, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Sabretoothbeast, again

I reported Sabretoothbeast (talk · contribs) for uploading images under falsified licences on 4 May ([15]), and these images were deleted and the contributor warned. Despite this, they're still uploading licenses from Flickr and Airliners.net under faked CC and PD licenses. Could an admin please follow this up? I've just blocked them from editing for En-Wiki for adding these photos to articles there despite me warning them against this previously. Thanks, Nick-D (talk) 09:56, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

This person is attempting to evade their block on En-Wiki and is edit warring the copyright violating images back in through IP addresses (see [16]). I'd suggest that a block is in order here given their attitude towards copyright. Nick-D (talk) 10:31, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

We would need OTRS for the Airliners.net licensed image. The three Flickr ones I checked are full copyright and don't match the licenses added by the uploader. All Flickr uploads should have used the Flickrreview bot tag to verify but none were.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:52, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

User blocked for a month. --Denniss (talk) 21:44, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for following up on this, but that does seem a bit on the lenient side for a deliberate copyright violation only account. I have to confess to not being familiar with the standard admin responses to situations like this on Commons though. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 11:13, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

User:High Contrast

This is making a mountain out of a molehill. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:56, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

---

User is attempting to vote twice in this DR. It is clearly against the rules, and admins regularily remove or strike out attempted double votes. High Contrast seems to think they are above the rules for DRs. Fry1989 ^eh? 19:29, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

This is a typical waste of community time by Fry1989. There is no policy that forbids the use of {{vd}}-templates even if the nominator adds something to his inital nomination phrase. Fry1989 must finally learn that deletion requests are no votings. The closing admin will follow the most reasonable arguments and not the number of vd-templates. Accept it. --High Contrast (talk) 19:33, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I already explained to you I don't mean a literal "vote", but obviously you didn't read it or want to ignore it. I am aware of how DRs are processed based on the merits of arguments rather then the simple number of yays and nays. However I chose not to use the misnomer "!vote" as some others do because as far as I am concerned "!vote" and "vote" mean the same thing. Whatever you want to call it, you don't get to have your say twice. I have seen a dozen times over Admins removing or striking out double votes in DRs and other Commons processes. It is not allowed. That you want to do it so bad instead of just letting the DR proceed in it's normal way is your problem, not mine. You don't get to do this, and calling it a "waste of time" when someone calls it out is a childish attempt to get around the rules. Fry1989 ^eh? 19:37, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I added a note in order to avoid any confusion. Can we please start playing nice (i.e. stop ordering each other to "accept it")? Relax. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 19:39, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much Michaeldsuarez. I think Fry can life with it. --High Contrast (talk) 19:42, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

No, I can't live with it, and I'll tell you why. Not only are you acting like you're above the normal concept and practice of a DR, you have twice accused me of having the simple understanding that DRs are just about the number of yays and nays, the second time after I already explained I know it is not like that. Then you call this a waste of time because you don't like any criticism even though what you're doing is out of normal process. You think you know better then everyone else. Fry1989 ^eh? 19:47, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

In the contrary: I do like criticism very much. But you do not provide criticism here but nonsense. Just let it be. --High Contrast (talk) 19:51, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

•  Comment -- (Please don't close the thread, the discussion os still going on) I'm fully with Fry1989 on the substance of this one. Although decisions on DRs are not made on vote counting, the practise gives a wrong idea of what's going on and can be used to manipulate the causal reader. Alvesgaspar (talk) 19:58, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Only the thing is that DRs aren't closed/decided by "the causal reader", but by admins who do not count votes in such kind of DRs. --Túrelio (talk) 20:01, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Guys, lets continue this productive discussion on the user talk pages. And Fry, I did not see any evidence of double voting. DR are evaluated by humans on merit of the arguments, not by bots by counting templates. So to any non-bot-like human it would be clear what  Delete Delete means. Waste of community time. (2 edit conflicts) --Jarekt (talk) 20:03, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Per Túrelio, Jarekt, ... . If I am closing DRs, I only pay attention to the arguments and to the colorful eye candy around it. Every admin is working like this. --High Contrast (talk) 20:04, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

• Sorry guys, but this isn't rigth. Commons is a community of users, not of admins. DRs are open to everyone to read and to comment even if the decisions are taken by an admin. What if I vote ten times using a different argument in each vote (and a different alias of my username)? Or is the priviledge of voting more than once reserved to admins? Fair is fair even if this is a minor issue. Alvesgaspar (talk) 21:00, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

You still don't get it. Though the signs (delete/keep) may look like votes, they aren't really votes, but the essence of each individual commenters subjective conclusion. What counts in a DR discussion is the weight of the arguments. not the numbers. Do you really think, if with a high-profile image (much used), which regrettably is a copyvio, the closing admin decides for keep because 10 fly-by commenters "voted" Keep, whereas only 1 commenter presented convincing evidence for a copyvio? --Túrelio (talk) 21:11, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

• I got it perfectly and know as well as you that those aren't real votes and that decisions are taken on the basis of the arguments. But if that is indeed the case, why use those "keep" and "delete" symbols? Once again, I wonder what it would happen if the guy "voting" more than once weren't an admin. BTW, Mattbuck, even AN/U is open to everyone to comment, not only admins. Shuting someone up in the middle of the talk is bad manners. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 21:36, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

---

This is petty and pathetic and I see no point in continuing. Closing: High Contrast, please be more careful with your !votes. Now everyone go away. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:16, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

user:88.159.216.108

Wah ! tikus kecil nakal. 88.159.216.108 (talk · contribs) is not going to cause great destruction anytime soon, but, meh. Penyulap ☏ 08:02, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Could you write down your thoughts in regular English, please? odder (talk) 10:37, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

oh sure, well this one was quite funny and it makes me smile even now when I type. You see, there are big vandals and annoying vandals and there are sneaky ones and all kinds, but this one is adorable ! You see this last contribution here they changed

<!--Please mark this {{resolved|1=~~~~}} when the request is completed satisfactorily--> into

<!--Please mark this {{pinypom1=~~~~}} when the request is completed satisfactorily-->

what makes me laugh so much is it's a tiny weensy little edit, and it's even inside the comment marks, so it can't be seen, so it's like a little mouse chewing away in an unnoticeable corner of the project and in like 1 million years they might be able to destroy the project if left unaddressed. It's not annoying, it's adorable and funny. Of course, technically it's still naughty and against the rules and so forth, so of course I put it here for appropriate attention, but I wish I could give a little barnstar or a wikilove gift of cheese for the efforts except I have rules about my art and gifts so I can't do that, dang !, oh well.

does that clear things up a little ? Penyulap ☏ 11:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

It does, but your bringing this user to our attention is about two hours late—they just stopped editing. odder (talk) 11:09, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Rats !! Penyulap ☏ 11:52, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

User:Andy Dingley

Keeps categorizing Category:Paddle wheels under Category:Paddle steamers, although I made clear, referring to the image below, that there are vessels driven by paddle wheels not powered by a steam engine.

--Abderitestatos (talk) 12:08, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I guess this is the discussion that you are referring to. Hindustanilanguage (talk) 14:43, 19 May 2013 (UTC).

• See Commons:Categories for discussion/2013/05/Category:Paddle wheel propellers Andy Dingley (talk) 14:56, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

The discussion may still be ongoing and might be resolved there. Those that lose should be responsible for correcting all the files and cats when done, IMHO.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:05, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I think that discussion is somewhat misleading, as it barely even mentions the above issue and instead goes off on a bizarre tangent about the specific definition of the term "paddle wheel" (not helped by me :) -- In my opinion, Abderitestatos would do well to concede even one point before jumping around to the next, and to stop moving the goalposts on what is an acceptable authority (first a dictionary definition is gospel, then one is ignored, depending on whether it supports their argument). The confusion is exemplified by that I actually agree with them on the specific point raised above, even though a cursory glance at the CFD topic suggests that I don't agree with them about anything. –⁠moogsi (talk) 15:24, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I've reversed the heirarchy so that paddle wheel steamers is now a subcategory of paddle wheels. Although paddle steamers where the most common incarnation, there were side wheel vessels powered by man and animal treadwheels. Nor are paddles propellers, that category has been removed and the category marine propulsion substituted. The category passenger ships have been removed from paddle steamers as many early warships were of the side paddle type. Thats things fixed I think, save for maybe individual files.--KTo288 (talk) 15:29, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that is the first thing that occurred to me... if they must be related to each other, surely the relationship is the inverse (all paddle steamers have paddle wheels, not all paddle wheels are on paddle steamers) –⁠moogsi (talk) 15:36, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Making Category:Paddle steamers a subcategory to Category:Paddle wheels seems to me like reversing the usual hierarchy; should not rather a new Category:Paddle wheelers be established instead, with Category:Paddle steamers as a subcategory? --Abderitestatos (talk) 19:38, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

To me, they seem two different issues, although they involve the same two users and they partly relate to the same category. The first question was "Is the expression 'paddle wheel' restricted to devices used for (boat) propulsion?". Assuming that that first question has been settled in favor of that first restriction, the second question is "Is the expression 'paddle wheel' further restricted to (boat) propulsion wheels that are powered by steam?". If the answer is no to this second restriction, then why categorize the category "paddle wheels" in a parent category that is restricted to steamers? If the answer is yes to this second restriction, then how should be called a category for the rest of the (boat) propulsion wheels with paddles, powered by power sources other than steam, and/or a category including all (boat) propulsion wheels with paddles, powered by any power source? -- Asclepias (talk) 15:50, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

• What admin intervention is being asked for, none? --Fæ (talk) 15:56, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
• We may be able to tap the engineering and/or language projects for definitions. That may be better than everyone throwing dictionaries at each other. Once we have definitions then the files and cats can be dicussed.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

User:Andy Dingley redux

Whilst working through the above issue, I found a number of old cfds Commons:Categories for discussion/2012/09/Category:Napier Deltic, Commons:Categories for discussion/2012/11/Category:Napier Deltic in marine applications and Commons:Categories for discussion/2012/11/Category:Napier Deltic in railway applications, of which this user was the instigator. With most of the issues solved with regards Category:Napier Deltic I closed these cfd's with the removal of one inappropriate category, only for this user to revert me.

So far in my examination of his actions he appears to be totally unwilling to compromise, makes vexatious use of cfd's, is quick to call anyone who categorises contrary to his wishes trolls and accuses them of edit warring (when he does exactly the same thing). I'm choosing to refrain from reverting him and see what others of the community here think. I would also have given him a warning over his lack of civility to other users (he used a round about way of calling them stupid) and that despite his record of positive contributions to Commons such behaviour cannot be tolerated. However since I have now become involved in the issues at hand I can't do so without him accusing me of trolling and edit warring.--KTo288 (talk) 00:14, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

You removed (without explanation) the category "Napier Deltic" from the Napier Deltic. This is by far the most distinctive and significant feature of this engine. It is a unique layout amongst other engines. Can you please explain why you have decreed – using your administrator's ex cathedra powers and immediately listing this content dispute as "User problems" – that this layout is not significant for categorization, when the trivial factor of the engine's installation location in ships or trains is considered to be worth categorizing?

I have never described Asclepias as "stupid" and have charitably assumed his recent merger of paddle wheels (on boats) with waterwheels (in mills) to be a rather extreme issue of language unfamiliarity, as was his renaming of paddle wheels as "propellers". Either way, both are clearly incorrect. Or does fawning civility now trump accuracy at Commons, with an admin's boot to enforce it?

I apologise of course for my past crimes of "record of positive contributions to Commons". I know that such a record is a heavy burden that I should be ashamed of and should never be considered in the same breath as the pointless fawning cronyism that is instead the favoured mode of the Commons chatroom. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:33, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

No you did not call Asclepias stupid, I'm accusing you of calling User:MB-one that in the Napier Deltic cfd, the full Emerson quote is "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" so those who disagree with you are foolishly small minded? Just about everyone who has worked on Napier Deltic has removed Napier Deltic as a direct category. The consensus of other established users is against you-shouldn't that tell you something? Or will you insist in categorising to your own unique scheme, with none of our conventions sacred to you.--KTo288 (talk) 06:44, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I will thank you to not make edits like this, that edit my posted comments to make me look like an idiot.

Of course I do not recommend self-categorising "Napier Deltic" as "Napier Deltic". That would be silly. My point, and my statement above before you edited it, was to categorise "Napier Deltic" under "Engines by cylinder layout".

Why did you edit my comment? Is this a deliberate tactic of yours to discredit anyone you're criticising? I don't know Commons policy on this, but at en:WP it's often seen as a hostile act to even merely alter someone's whitespace for clarity, let alone to edit their substantive comments into nonsense and then sarcastically refer to such an (invented) action as "everyone who has worked on it has removed this direct category." Andy Dingley (talk) 09:08, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I would also note that I never described MB-one as "foolish", despite you placing that direct quote above. There is a problem with use of MediaWiki categorization at Commons and to a lesser extent at en:WP that is indeed a "foolish consistency". However not wishing to place the inflammatory word "foolish" into a WM debate where it might be seen as pointed at one individual editor, I edited the quote down deliberately. I do indeed see MB-one's edits there as "dogmatic" and a "slavish conformance", but I never described them as "foolish". I would ask you to not invent quotes to attribute to me, but as above, you're seemingly happen to simply edit my contributions anyway. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:14, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

With regards editing your comment. My mistake, I'm not sure how that happened, I was cloning your words to use in my reply and must have wrongly pasted. If it means anything you have my apologies for this, and it is me who is the fool and idiot of me for it. However f you saw MB-one's edits s dogmatic why not use that word, as I said you used an roundabout way-that is an indirect one to call someone names. That you used a long winded way of doing so doesn't change the fact that you did.--KTo288 (talk) 10:04, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Andy certainly has some odd ideas about what should and shouldn't go in a particular category, as I commented on at around the same time here [[17]]. At the time it seemed to me to be his way or the highway - readers who might not share his interpretation of what should be in a category can apparently get stuffed. My willingess to pursue the issue was low given my general disinterest, but it was also lessened by the farce that was his repeated edit warring over an image, as detailed in the section immediately below the one linked. Ultra7 (talk) 14:12, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I am also reminded of Commons:Categories for discussion/2012/08/Category:LNER Peppercorn Class A1 60163 Tornado in works undercoat, which he started but has apparently never been closed. I was similarly totally uninterested in the issue, but it should be noted that the concept of 'photographic grey' has very little if not nothing to do with the painting of a locomotive in 2008, and I've never seen a single source that says that's what it was anyway. I wonder how long that discussion would have lasted had I said that there (that's not an invitation to start it here btw). Ultra7 (talk) 14:19, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Involved admin protecting disputed category

Category:Andy Mabbett has just been protected - and reverted to his preferred version - by the same editor with whom I have a dispute over its categorisation. I am informed that Commons has a policy similar to en.Wikipedia's , in which case that has presumably been breached. Andy Mabbett (talk) 20:22, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

There is a difference between "men with glasses" and "men who wear glasses". I'm not entirely sure that your category should be in that anyway, simply on grounds of it being more an internal category. It being in the wikimedian categories and even the Birmingham category (you're probably as notable a person as Birmingham has ever produced), but in terms of men with glasses... But yes, Foroa should probably not have protected it themself. -mattbuck (Talk) 20:42, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I protected it until the discussion on Commons:Categories for discussion/2013/05/Category:Men with glasses was closed; most significat images of Category:Andy Mabbett are already in Category:Men with glasses and the contributor showed a rather strange behavior. --Foroa (talk) 20:52, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

So, how does the Commons community deal with admins who abuse their privileges in this manner? Andy Mabbett (talk) 21:25, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

How should Commons deal with you who is guilty of The three-revert rule? --Mjrmtg (talk) 21:31, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

What rule? First I've heard of it. Andy Mabbett (talk) 21:35, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

On English Wikipedia, there's en:WP:3RR, but things aren't always as formalized on Commons... AnonMoos (talk) 03:22, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

 Support Considering that the living person this category is about is a complainant in this "edit war", using admin tools to protect the category and then changing it to be in a state against his request, seems excessive and potentially inappropriate as a way of handling this minor or trivial cat-war. Foroa, this was a potentially inappropriate use of the admin tools in a minor spat you have allowed yourself to be drawn into. Please revert your change to avoid any doubt here. Declaration: Andy Mabbett is on my personal network as a well known Wikimedian in Residence in the UK, however I would apply these same principles to anyone and Andy has not approached me on this issue. Indeed, someone else on my personal network approached me last week inviting me to take part in an ongoing cat-war and I declined as my experience of these leads me to walk away and find something more productive to do and let these things burn out by themselves. --Fæ (talk) 02:25, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

 Comment Commons does not have many policies (we often do not agree on much) and AFAIK three-revert rule and are not Commons Policies. On one hand I agree with Andy that en:WP:INVOLVED is a good idea and Foroa should probably not have protected it himself. On the other hand, Andy Category:Andy Mabbett does not belong to you, and just as subjects of articles on Wikipedia are discouraged from editing their own articles (see en:Wikipedia:Conflict of interest), It would be the best if you allow others to maintain this category. And of course we do not have policy for that either. You can control most aspects of your pages in the user namespace, but category namespace belongs to everyone, and User:Foroa one of the most experienced maintainers of our categorization system. --Jarekt (talk) 03:40, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Some things, like hunting down and capping someone's ass in real life don't have pages saying 'don't do that', they're just taken as a given, yes, an extreme (-ly silly) example, but seriously, I would suggest the majority of people are going to consider an edit war that goes past 3 to be a bright line. That said, someone not involved can, if there is a good reason, go past 3. I have not looked into any of the pages related to this one, so I have no opinion on it. People would be comfortable if an editor was going past 3 for things like blatant vandalism. As always, put something on the talkpage, then you'll only need two people to handle it. Penyulap ☏ 03:58, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I have neither claimed nor acted as though the category belongs to me (though I do happen to have first hand knowledge ;-) ); the issue would be the same whatever the subject of the category concerned. Andy Mabbett (talk) 18:39, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Independent of who edited what, I find it very odd to place any category about a person within Category:Men with glasses. By that standard we could all be in categories about owning shoes. That category would seem useful only for individual photos or as parent category of a category for a work of art depicting a man with glasses. - Jmabel ! talk 04:28, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

However, in this special case, all (or nearly all) of the images in the person-cat show him with glasses on. Putting this person-cat into the Men-with-glasses-cat has also the advantage that the many images in the person-cat are not overflowing the Men-with-glasses-cat, which is currently the case. Overflowing of cats is a real usability-problem. --Túrelio (talk) 07:18, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree. The categories are for categorizing media, not people –⁠moogsi (talk) 15:11, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

We don't have cat:Men who own shoes. We do have cat:Men with glasses. Andy Mabbett (talk) 18:41, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I think the point is that if you are looking for pictures of men wearing glasses, then you're fine looking in Category:Men with glasses. If you're looking for a database containing such information as [which men (habitually) wear glasses], then you might be in the wrong place :) –⁠moogsi (talk) 07:56, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

No argument for "a database containing such information" has been made. Categorising cat.Andy Mabbett as cat.Men with glasses helps our visitors to find lots of pictures of a man (me) wearing glasses, without flooding cat.Men with glasses with lots of pictures of one person. We have many thousands of categories that work in this way. Andy Mabbett (talk) 08:36, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Notability

 Comment – I don't think Andy Mabbett is notable enough (outside of Commons/Wikipedia) to have a category named analogously to notable people anyway. See Commons talk:User-specific galleries, templates and categories policy#Notability and the naming of user categories for background. --Leyo 09:10, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Using en.wp definitions, fellows of national learned societies are taken as notable by default. By the way, there is a category for me (in addition to my user category), I did not create it, I certainly would not justify it, as I am not notable; you might want to get that one deleted before Andy's. --Fæ (talk) 09:14, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

When did WMUK make Andy Mabbett a "Fellow" ?! That is a title of some merit (AFAIR, it has some legal protection in much the same way as "doctor" does) and implies more than mere membership of a society, but also an honour conveyed by that society (and hence is considered to imply notability). Please, tell me that WMUK's cronyism hasn't got quite that far yet. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:20, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

(EC) @Fæ: This category should definitively be renamed to Category:User:Fæ (or similar) IMO. There are currently many of such categories around. --Leyo 09:22, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley, The use of the word "cronyism" is offensive and inappropriate when alleged against trustees of UK charities, as both Andy and I happen to be - I would guess that is intentional on your part. I mentioned that Andy was a fellow of a learned society, the only person mentioning WMUK was you. Andy is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

@Leyo, my existing user categories can be found at Category:Uploads by Fæ, there is no need to make more. --Fæ (talk) 05:09, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I am referring to the category that is currently named Category:Fæ. “Fæ” as a term does not have a (notable) meaning outside the Commons/Wikipedia community. Hence, the category's name should IMO tell a reader that it is a category about a user. --Leyo 08:17, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

This one wasn't created by Fæ himself.

@Fæ, would it be o.k. for you to have this cat renamed to cat:User:Fæ or similar? --Túrelio (talk) 08:29, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this would have been my suggestion if it has to exist. --Fæ (talk) 09:00, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

"if it has" - well, as you are WM-notable and as there are a number of images focussing on you, deletion would hardly be justifiable. --Túrelio (talk) 09:07, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, to find photos for illustration, it was fine using categories for directors of WMUK and leaving categories as photos from such-and-such conference. We do not routinely pick out "WM-notable"s, even if some of them are portraits. Anyway, I know that someone will come along and argue that I've been featured in the national tabloids, so I'm not going to get into it, as my personal preferences are not the deciding factor. --Fæ (talk) 09:17, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

O.k., so I'll leave it untouched for moment. May be it could be taken-up again somewhat later. By the way, we have the same situation with Category:Johnbod. --Túrelio (talk) 09:23, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Gah, I hadn't realized this was going on so much. Yes, perhaps a discussion on the talk page of scope about how to interpret "operational reason", would be a good idea before we start having categories which start outing Wikimedians who happen to have once served on a chapter board. A big distinction with user categories is that the user could easily rename without a fuss, ask for them to be quietly deleted if there were a privacy issue, or they just wanted to exercise a right to vanish.

Discussion now created at Commons_talk:Category_scheme_People#Wikimedians. I'm happy for this to be moved to wherever it might be effective (perhaps a pointer on the Village pump)? --Fæ (talk) 10:36, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I think the purpose of a root user category is to include sub-categories, galleries and pages. I don't know whether a category containing a person's photos need to be renamed to user:that_person. If I have my own photos, I will add them only under Category:Photos of Jkadavoor under Category:Images by Jkadavoor (Jee) -- JKadavoor Jee 13:19, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

The custom on Commons is inconsistent. Theoretically a project account name ought to be distinguished from "real life" terminology and names by using the "User:" prefix. This makes good sense as user account names can be almost anything, for example the account User:Photos is registered on Commons; were they an active uploader, it would be confusing or misleading to create Category:Photos of Photos, but Category:Photos of User:Photos instantly makes sense. --Fæ (talk) 13:42, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Good point. JKadavoor Jee 15:31, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

User:Overberg sock-puppet of User:Sendker

CU-investigation Commons:Requests for checkuser/Case/Sendker has shown that Overberg (talk · contribs) is a SP of Sendker (talk · contribs). As I had to deal with him over this weekend, I would ask a colleague to block the sock indefinitely, but rather immediately.
This is the more urgent as today he has marked most his own uploads (>250) as copyvios[19], evidently in order to get them deleted soon and to remove all his traces from Commons. Prior to that he actually asked me how to get all his edits deleted (in German), though I didn't expect he would act such unscrupulously. His claim that his own image-uploads are copyvios is rather bogus, he claimed it only, but never provided any evidence or information who might be the true rights holder. His edit-history for his upload File:Glane.JPG is a perfect example for his behaviour: on May 18 he requested its speedy-deletion per rationale "my own"[20], 8 hours later he claimed "Urheberrechtsverletzung meinerseits" (engl.: copyright violation by myself)"[21]. Also, in all cases in which I searched (GoogleImages) for external hits of his uploads, I found nothing. Though most of his original uploads are not great photography, still a lot of them is in use on Wikipedia. --Túrelio (talk) 16:27, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

The user has now been blocked by colleague A. Savin. However, I'm unsure how to deal with the SP-master User:Sendker and how to proceed with the uploads which User:Overberg claims to be copyvios. To allow for discussion about the latter, I've started to put them into mass-DRs, the first of which is Commons:Deletion requests/Uploads of User:Overberg batch1‎. --Túrelio (talk) 22:21, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I can honestly feel for Admins when stuff like this happens. I have seen them act boldly and either delete or undelete files and then get dragged to drama boards for it. We may wish to create two new categories. Boldly deleted and boldly undeleted. 99% percent of the files they act on are fast and clear backlogs. For the 1% remaining we could put them in the two new categories and review them there. This may act as a safety brake better than endless discussions about Admin actions that others don't agree with. We can discuss the files then and not the Admins. Thoughts?--Canoe1967 (talk) 02:05, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

User:Gruznov

Gruznov (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log), who is an (inactive) admin on Commons, hosts a wikipedia paid editing supply website. This fact is currently being controversially discussed in Russian WP, even an arbitration request is in progress. My basic problem, and the reason why to report it here on Commons, is the fact that some images from Commons (including a recent POTD, this one) are used on this website, just at the top - without any attribution of the authors, without indication of the license. With that said, a Commons admin violates the basic licensing policy of Commons for his own commercial purposes. So, the question is: shall we tolerate an admin colleague who seems not to be familiar with the basic purposes of Commons and other WMF projects (or - even worse - ignores it)? To me, this is even worthy a long-time block. Thanks --A.Savin 21:39, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

No reason to block. Just pull his tools. No edits on commons since late Febuary early January. If he wants to ask for tools back then he can explain why he isn't honoring CC nor active with his tools here. The CC rights holders are the only ones that can truly complain of abuse legally.--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:52, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

@A.Savin, is he still active on :ru? If yes, could you request his comment here in this thread about the license-violating image use on his website? I agree that this is not acceptable for an admin. However, I would prefer to hear from him first.

About wikify.ru: as we don't have any policy about that (as far as I know) and as even the wikipedia communities seem to be a bit divided over paid-editing so far, I don't see the need for immediate action on Commons in this regard. Clearly any advertising for this service on his userpage or anywhere on-wiki would be unacceptable. We might discuss whether a COI statement should be put on his userpage. --Túrelio (talk) 22:13, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I've now identified the other 3 images that are used in an obviously license-violating manner on wikify.ru:

• File:Clearfin lionfish (Pterois radiata).JPG is CC-BY-SA by The High Fin Sperm Whale
• File:Matanuska Glacier mouth.jpg is CC-BY-SA by Sbork; copyvio confirmed
• File:STS 135 Atlantis After RSS Roll Back Launch Pad 39A.jpg is a NASA-photo by Bill Ingalls
• File:Schwedenfeuer Detail 04.JPG is CC-BY-SA by böhringer friedrich; copyvio confirmed

--Túrelio (talk) 08:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

...and pulling tools is supposed to fix the CC problem how, by making the person angry with commons ? novel strategy, easy to gauge the chance of success. If you want to take away someone's tools, it's generally to do with misuse of the tools. Some people need little old Grandmothers to tell you that you attract more bees/flies/butterflies with honey than you do with vinegar. (the saying changes from place to place) ask someone nice who speaks Russian to bring up the issue when Gruznov is not so busy. Penyulap ☏ 22:23, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I see your points and agree that pulling the tools shouldn't be a knee-jerk reaction. CC licences should be understood by all admin though. If he can either remove them from his site or add attribution then all should be fine. As to the small weblink in his userspace there shouldn't be any problem at all unless he puts up a huge bannner that says "Eat at Joe's!" Many users have links to websites and I doubt many have been a problem if they are not huge resume/banners.--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:06, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

well, yes you are right, they do need to understand, and they do certainly need to comply on commons, but if I can see what's on your hard drive and notice you've copied a lot of copyright movies, isn't that private until it becomes an embarrassment to the project ? If someone's off-commons activities have no effect on the project, then who are we to police them ? Copyvio in Indonesia and China is the culture :D not the exception. I've sworn never to speak to some of my friends if they bought microsoft windows (they should use linux, or if not, you know..).

understand and comply on commons, what you do elsewhere is your business, until the press makes it effect ours.

That said, it does give the people effected a good topic to bring up at a discussion, as a side issue (like circumstantial evidence sort of thing). On one hand you'd have the 'you only do what is right when you have to' crowd Vs the 'doesn't matter it's off-commons' crowd and the 'you need more integrity' crowd. A side-dish at best, not a main meal. Penyulap ☏ 07:27, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

• Just a factual correction - some log entries (deletions) show up until late February. --99of9 (talk) 23:11, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
• a Commons admin violates the basic licensing policy of Commons for his own commercial purposes - I think it is only an assumption. As Canoe said above, "The CC rights holders are the only ones that can truly complain of abuse legally". So as far as no contributors have any complaint, it is not an issue at all. (The example given above is not a work of A. Savin). Further, many contributors (like me) have no complaints however their works are used. And sometimes many contributors give permission for a more generous use on request. Last: Even if the contributor has a complaint, we (The Commons) has no right to act upon; the contributor has to contact a legal authority. JKadavoor Jee 03:14, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

@ Túrelio - I already notified him here, in Russian wiki he seems not to be much more active... And my issue is not the paid editing (which everybody's free to offer offwiki, as long as there is no policy against it) but purely the license-violating usage of images. Yes, I'm not the photographer of that images, it's not my business to take legal actions. It's a disappointment about this kind of dealing with free licensed stuff just by an admin colleague. If I would make external web contents anywhere (no matter if commercial offers, or a private blog or so), it would be a matter of course to attribute the author if using a picture from Commons. --A.Savin 07:57, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

D'accord. I've notified the 3 image-contributors and asked whether they have granted him CC-deviant usage terms. --Túrelio (talk) 08:21, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. This theoretically possible constellation I hadn't taken into account. But, who knows... ;-) --A.Savin 09:08, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

The creator of File:Schwedenfeuer Detail 04.JPG has now confirmed that there had been no agreement with User:Gruznov to use this image outside of CC-BY terms. --Túrelio (talk) 20:07, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

A good move; but I still don't know whether this a reason to de-admin. A bit off-topic; but some other usage violations: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/8675579601/ It seems this user upload COM:FPs in his photo-stream which is a violation of Flickr terms. As per Flickr terms (www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne) only the original owner can host a file there. I personally inform some of my colleagues; but the only action from his side is to make them private so that no one can see it now. :( JKadavoor Jee 05:45, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Though the first posting hinted at de-admin, the current discussion is an attempt to assess of the situation.

The other issue should really be raised in a different thread. As far as I can see, the only mistake is that the Flickr-user put it under a CC-BY license, whereas it is actually under a CC-BY-SA license. This needs to be corrected. I've left a note at our image talkpage and notified the Flickr-user. --Túrelio (talk) 07:38, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

It's actually a copyvio upload, not only because of the lacking -sa restriction but also because of a license version downgrade which is impossible for CC. --Denniss (talk) 11:10, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

See https://www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne: Don’t upload anything that isn't yours. Flickr is not allowing any third-party uploads. But the stopping process is not so simple: "If you see photos or videos that you’ve created in another member’s photostream, don't panic. This is probably just a misunderstanding and not malicious. A good first step is to contact them via FlickrMail and politely ask them to remove it. If that doesn't work, please file a Notice of Infringement with the Yahoo! Copyright Team who will take it from there. Check out the “Copyright/IP Policy” link in the footer of every page for more information." JKadavoor Jee 11:47, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I have not specifically granted permission for my image to be used either, although I am not so incensed that I would make an official complaint about it. Sbork (talk) 17:55, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for commenting. --Túrelio (talk) 17:58, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

• Please can someone email Gruznov (I see he already has a talk message). If this situation is not rectified, I would support a de-admin, but hopefully it's just a mistake, and he will fix it as soon as he's aware of the problem. --99of9 (talk) 19:25, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I've left a note on his :ru talkpage. --Túrelio (talk) 11:45, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

No answer here. However, in the meantime he edited something. --A.Savin 16:02, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

And now the 4 images have been removed from the mainpage of wikify.ru. --Túrelio (talk) 16:12, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

• Hello. Unfortunately, only now I found the time to answer. I recognize the problem with the images. The reason for the situation is very simple. I have instructed my designer (I'm co-owner of a small design studio) to do an illustration for the site. He does not understand the copyright laws. I just did not check his work. That was a mistake. When I noticed the problem, I replaced the image. Gruznov (talk) 12:20, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

  It's a frequent subterfuge by copyright violators. I assume that it's rather easy to check your employee's work before finally accepting it, isn't it? --A.Savin 17:44, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

True, I've heard this too often: it was the volunteer, it was the intern, etc. However, as this was the first incident and as it has been corrected now, I think we can leave it at that, as the old saying goes Once doesn't count. --Túrelio (talk) 18:43, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

OK --A.Savin 18:55, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

The guy who came up with SOPA, remember SOPA ? was in the same situation as Gruznov regardless of believing Gruznov or not, it's still been agreed in the conversation above that it's not a problem. But I can show you the picture, the exact one that the senator got in hot water about for having on his website, here, I uploaded it to commons :D Penyulap ☏ 18:13, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Why does EVula still have admin privileges?

As far as I can tell from the logs, User:EVula had less than 30 actions of any kind (edits and other stuff) this year, and has had various previous long periods of inactivity -- before today, when he suddenly decided to run amok, committing rogue deletions of images, telling people to "fuck off", and various other unsavory behavior which you can read about on the talk page. At an absolute minimum, EVula should have to tell us why he deserves to retain admin powers, and what constructive things he intends to do with them... AnonMoos (talk) 23:05, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Good question. -mattbuck (Talk) 23:25, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

With all due respect, that's a pretty poor presentation of the situation. I told one person to fuck off, after he left me a ridiculously over-the-top (and pretty confrontational) message on my talk page about my "rogue deletions". Speaking of my rogue deletions, if you look at my logs, you'll see that I stopped once I was told to stop (was I happy about it? No, I was not, and I made my opinion clear, but I certainly stopped). And speaking of my logs, yes, I have less than 30 edits so far this year (only five and a half months in; we're not talking about a twelve-month span), but if you go further back[22], you'll find a slew of uncontested deletions of copyright violations. As for my long periods of inactivity, that would be because I have a life outside of this project (including being a bureaucrat on enwiki and Wikiquote, where I was also a CheckUser until the other CU was demoted for inactivity and so I procedurally lost my flag as well). I do a lot of cross-wiki work, and sometimes that means I'm active on Commons, and sometimes not... and sometimes I'm around without needing to make any edits; I do my best to sync up content between Commons, enwiki, Wikiquote, and Wikisource.[23][24][25] EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:39, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Let's try this the other way: why does EVula need or even "justify" these admin powers?

These deletions were wrong. Borderline cases, clearly, but in those cases they're even more clearly not suitable for a speedy deletion. If it's dubious, discuss. I have sympathy for the "objectification" issue (and &deity; knows what Kathy Sierra would make of this), although I have to admit they made me laugh and (as someone who has to teach good HTML/CSS coding practice) I think I could even find an educational use for them as a means of getting some of my (male) muppets to pay attention.

Losing their rag at an angry editor isn't on. We're just not permitted to do that. Forgivable in the heat of the moment, but it's not how this sort of issue should be handled and EVula ought to know that.

If they're so busy running the universe elsewhere, why do they need admin status at Commons? Andy Dingley (talk) 00:21, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

We may wish to adopt an 'interwiki user' similar to w:Interprovincial Standards.--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:32, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Though I'm not familiar with the process for removing the sysop bit on Commons, on a common sense level, I would support recalling admin privileges. Unilateral action overriding, and making no mention of, previous discussion is a problem. (For what it's worth, which is little, I tend to agree that the files should be deleted; but the way you go about it matters, and this way in particular seems to express a kind of contempt for how things work on Commons that isn't very compatible with having extra privileges.) -Pete F (talk) 01:02, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

If he stopped when prompted about his deletions and is willing to discuss then there's no need to go for the jugular here. Killiondude (talk) 03:05, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

There's no question of banning his account etc., but a valid question remains as to whether he meets ordinary expectations of Commons adminship, after everything is taken into consideration. If his duties elsewhere are such that he is unlikely to visit Commons for more than a few days every three months or so, then that's problematic right there. And the ratio of his controversial actions to uncontroversial actions in 2013 is unfortunately high. AnonMoos (talk) 04:56, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I can't see why EVula should be desysopped. We have an inactivity policy in place, and if EVula does not meet its criteria (ie. is active enough), then they should retain their sysop bit. The policy is very clear about who is considered an inactive administrator—and if you'd like EVula to be desysopped because you disagree with their deletions (or the way they were performed), start a de-adminship process at Commons:Administrators. odder (talk) 10:30, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

If I wanted to go that route, then I would have already done so. There's no single "smoking gun" which would require instant de-adminning, but there's a convergence of several factors which taken together are overall somewhat problematic... AnonMoos (talk) 13:48, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm somewhat concerned here. EVula is being reminded that Commons does not editorialise what other projects may or may not use. At least one of the images was in use, rightly or wrongly, at the time of his speedy "out of scope" deletion. Whilst Tm was perhaps wrong to have approached the matter in the way he did, EVula's response on an another wise legitimately asked question was below the pale, and is unbecoming of someone who holds respected positions on other projects.

Admins on Commons are given a lot of discretion on such matters, but it is now obvious that this is not a case where admin discretion was validly used; particularly as the admin feels so strongly about the subject and because files were in use. It has been explained to EVula that the correct procedure for such things is DR so that the entire community gets to opine. If such things were to re-occur, then a de-adminship request should take place, but given that the EVula has been reminded of community expected standards, and is discussing the issue (even if somewhat still emotively), then this should suffice for the time being.

It should also be noted that this is being discussed on the gendergap mailing list, so if images are taken to DR and an influx of "voting" occurs, this will be part of it. russavia (talk) 10:40, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Whoa, something needs to be clarified here: the only image I deleted that was in use on any other project was File:Pin.jpg, which was being displayed on the Indonesian Wiktionary "pin" entry. Perhaps that counts as editorializing, but seriously... the image is of the Pintrest logo; even if we disagree about whether the image should be here or not, I'd like to think we can all agree that the Pintrest logo doesn't belong on that page, and I would make a similar "this is the wrong image here" edit even if it was something more benign (like, say, an image of a tree on the Korean Wiktionary article for dogs).
I checked every single image to see if it was in use (and if it wasn't, I deleted it), I didn't haphazardly wade thru Category:Nude portrayals of computer technology and delete every file I saw (I loaded all the images in tabs and hit End to see their usage; this is how I missed the fact that they had blue talk page links, incidentally). Files like File:Bling-bling - table.jpg, File:Body painting - Videoplayer.jpg, or File:Body painting - Tweet.jpg I didn't touch, because they were being used somewhere. I wasn't looking to disrupt anything, which is why I specifically targeted unused images. It isn't accurate to say that the files were in use when they absolutely were not. (Pin.jpg was in use, but incorrectly, which is why I made an exception to my personal rule; even if the image is kept, it really needs to be renamed...) EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:47, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

It's not a personal rule; it's a rule for everyone. Commons does not delete files that are in use. Arguably, you could have deleted it from the Wiktionary page and then deleted it as out of use, but not just delete it on Commons. And as an English Wiktionary editor, if my fellow editors are fine with a picture of African-American genitalia on wikt:en:cat (definition 14), I'd really prefer that non-English speakers didn't come through and delete the image, either here or on the English Wiktionary, because they "know" it doesn't belong on that page. I don't know that "dog" isn't used to refer to a dogwood tree, which might be entirely appropriate to illustrate on the "dog" article. (Or maybe in Korean English dog got applied to GIs and then the poplar tree? It's possible.) In the case under question, whether the Pintrest "pin" sense is worth documenting in a Wiktionary is a decision left to that Wiktionary.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:49, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not a stranger to cross-wiki edits, and am very comfortable working in non-English environments (to put it mildly). I wasn't making a judgement call on the image's suitability as a Commons admin; it was being included automatically due solely to its file name, not because of any editorial decision made by an Idonesian Wiktionary editor. After I deleted the image, I refreshed the page and there was a different image of a pin in its place (a blue plastic pin; I didn't click the image, so I don't have a file name for it, sorry). Removing the image from the Wiktionary page would have been the more destructive/disruptive edit, as it would have required me to remove the gallery template (which someone else removed later; this is how I originally saw it). The gallery template has existed on the article since its creation (December 13, 2011), which predates the Commons image by almost a year (September 21, 2012). Hence, the image's use wasn't an editorial choice on their behalf, but an errant technical inclusion, which is why I made the exception. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:19, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

EVula is right about this Wiktionary thing. I've seen a lot of them and also removed a lot of them in the past years. Jcb (talk) 17:23, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

You can't be comfortable working in all non-English environments, unless you actually know all languages, or are claiming that no familiarity with the local language (and hence knowledge of the local culture) is necessary to work on a Wiki. If there's a problematic template including inappropriate images, fix the template, don't delete the image. And you didn't mention the template; you said you'd do the same thing if it were a picture of a tree on the dog page.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:07, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

The template is fully-protected; I couldn't edit it if I wanted to (that said, even if I could have edited it, no, I wouldn't have; that would have been significantly more disruptive than deleting the single image here, as the template is currently transcluded on at least 10,000 pages). And yes, I am comfortable working in all non-English environments, given that the majority of work that I do in those environments is updating interwikis or adding/removing images from Commons (or, more recently, propogating authority control data across multiple projects).[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]
As for the tree/dog example, that was a poor example on my part; I suppose a better example (as far as being able to tell that an image is a bad fit for a page) would be to find a picture of Bill Clinton at the top of Barack Obama's Korean Wikiquote page. I wouldn't need to know the language or be familiar with the project's local policies to know that it isn't appropriate. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:09, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

This is once again a very big problem with people approaching Commons in the same way that they do English Wikipedia. Commons actively encourages the use of media not only on Wikimedia projects, but also outside of them. There is no way to check if the file is used somewhere else or will be used in the future for some purpose. The truth of the matter is that these files are educational as "understood according to its broad meaning". Not in use has never been a reason for deletion (especially speedy deletion). If EVula were to delete all the images of X-rays of the head and tell the person who complained to fuck off, there would be no discussion right now, it would not only be a desysop, but probably a ban. However, there is some sort of hatred of human sex that comes from ENWP, and Commons is growing accustomed to being too multicultural for our own good. I think that it is time to say "enough is enough, if you don't want to expand the repository of free educational media, you should not be here". Sinnamon Girl (talk) 17:55, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

C'mon, EVula is just trying to increase efficency in commons by getting rid of spam, uneducational images and - I have to say it - bullshit. In contrast to others EVulva is doing the dirty but necessary work. X-rays of the head shows the problem: Tons of images, commons is abused as sole database, more a data graveyard of any kind. --Yikrazuul (talk) 22:58, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Then we admins must be ghosts. Boooooooo. I'm scary! Leave us in peaaaaaacccceeeee!!!!!!! -mattbuck (Talk) 23:29, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm a little surprised by the title of this thread. I would think that before the torches and pitchforks come out, Evula would have had to display repeated egregious misuse of the tools. Instead, we find that after the dross is removed, there is a complaint that a copyrighted logo was removed, which was being used on one page which was not about the company which owns the copyright. The correct approach to that is not to call for a desysopping, but discuss whether the deletion was appropriate. I'm not seeing any argument it wasn't (although I may have missed it in the noise above." And as Yikrazuul mentions, Evula is doing cleanup, so the site doesn't become a dumping ground of poor and illegal images. That is a Good Thing, not a Bad Thing. KillerChihuahua (talk) 13:32, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Are you implying that these studio photos, taken with willing models and which are appropriately licensed, are somehow low quality or even illegal? -mattbuck (Talk) 13:37, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Mattbuck, I think that given all of the sexually explicit images lacking consent on Commons, it was a poor choice to go after this particular set. They are of professional quality and it is highly doubtful that they are any consent issues. I understand, however, why these images are a focus on the GenderGap mailing list. They are gratuitous use of stereotypical female nudity to illustrate a subject that is wrongly associated with men. Those images would never be used to illustrate the pictured markup in a serious encyclopedia. I believe you are seeing a tension between the idea that Commons is a repository for anyone's use and a repository for use on Wikipedia projects. It may be time for those with the former view to abandon Commons and start their own fork, because it is starting to feel like something is coming... Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:45, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Damn right. As Commons:Scope says: Must be realistically useful for an educational purpose: The expression “educational” is to be understood according to its broad meaning of “providing knowledge; instructional or informative”. I would love to know in what sense File:Body painting - Videoplayer.jpg is either instructional or informative; what knowledge it contains. It is long overdue that the entirely conscious distortion and abuse of the stated goal of Commons by numerous people intent on creating a collection of various grades of pornography, titillation and exhibitionism was put to a stop. — Scott • talk 15:05, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

As I have explained elsewhere, there is a difference between "educational" and "encyclopaedic". Educational does not have to be encyclopaedic, nor does it have to be serious. I did type up a larger screed but suffice to say I think you're both talking utter bilge. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:58, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Did I use the word "encyclopaedic" even once? No. So nice straw man. — Scott • talk 18:41, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Matt, I think people here understand that "educational" and "encyclopedic" are both completely flexible terms that have no agreed definitions, so save your energy for something else. I didn't use either of those words or suggest that something was or was not "encyclopedic". I'm just pointing out that the idea of Commons as a free repository for images that are unlikely to be used on WMF projects is an idea that is getting more closely examined because of what you and others have allowed Commons to become. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:26, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

"I would love to know in what sense File:Body painting - Videoplayer.jpg is either instructional or informative" Note that you did not say "informative to me", therefore you must accept that others find different things interesting and want to gain more understanding about them. If a person were to write a book titled "Body Painting 101", this image may be in chapter "Computer Technology in Bodypaint". Sinnamon Girl (talk) 17:34, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Using that ludicrous argument, I could write a book that included every single image ever deleted from Commons. — Scott • talk 18:43, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

As Commons:Scope says, if it's in use, it's in scope. Videoplayer.jpg is in use. There is nothing on that page that says that all forms of human endeavor are acceptable to be documented except for the titillating or pornographic.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:39, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Delicious carbuncle -- as I previously said on EVula's talk page, these images could be considered somewhat questionable, but they are really not the same as those images widely considered worthless (such as endless redundant low-quality self-cell-phone snaps of penises, see {{Nopenis}}), nor those images which should be deleted on sight because they're actually in sober fact illegal. Given the outcome of the previous deletion discussion, unilateralism was really not the way to deal with these images... AnonMoos (talk) 16:59, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't disagree. I'm sure Evula thought they were doing the right thing, but in doing so went against standard Commons practices. I don't think there is any chance that these images would be deleted if put to a community discussion today. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:01, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Show me one illegal image that he deleted. There's rules about such clean up, as in it doesn't get unilaterally done by admins, that speedy deletion is only done in uncontroversial cases.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:39, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

KillerChihuahua -- This is really not about image "Pin.jpg" (whose existence I was completely unaware of when I started this thead). It's about long periods of inactivity, broken by unilateral "out of process" actions, and some poor responses when his unilateral actions were questioned by others. I also don't think my original message at the top of this thread can be characterized as "torches and pitchforks"... The title of this thread was not chosen to be inflammatory, but to indicate that the burden should really be on EVula to explain why he needs admin powers. AnonMoos (talk) 16:46, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Please don't pluralize. Infrogmation, in stark contrast to Tm's repetitive and needlessly antagonistic posts,[38][39][40] (mattbuck even told him to calm down over his posts[41]) left a pretty direct message about my deletions.[42] Given Tm's tone, I dismissed him with the oft-mentioned "pfft, fuck off" (because he was acting like a child, as far as I was concerned), but Infogmation I addressed clearly (including a crystal-clear mea culpa about the fact that they'd been involved in a previous deletion discussion that I hadn't seen).[43] When mattbuck chimed in,[44] I addressed him reasonably as well.[45]
I called the whole mess bullshit, because that's my opinion of the situation, but you're making it sound like I was lashing out at multiple editors who were making calm posts on my talk page, or that I went on a rogue spree and ignored everyone telling me to stop; neither is true.
As for my inactivity, I don't know why that keeps being brought up; even before this fracas, I exceeded the minimum threshold of of activity. In the previous six months, I had 50 admin log actions (along with two uploads and a few administrative and non-administrative edits to pages), and the minimum is 5 log actions in six months. I'm not as active as pretty much everyone else involved in this thread, but I object to being painted as having gone from absolute zero edits to a deletion spree; that isn't the case. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:35, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

EVula, surely you know how things work around here? You tried to delete the naughty pictures - now you will be punished. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 02:43, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

So it's okay for an admin to start deleting images that show the naked faces of women, or the blasphemous pictures, or the ones inconsistent with Marxist-Leninism? Why is there some special rule for the images that annoy you, but not the images that annoy other people?--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:44, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Are you asking me? Read my comments further up the thread for my answer. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:36, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

From my perspective, this is not about whether EVula's actions were, as a net effect, A Good Thing. I have ignored the arguments about this, as they very much boil down to reductive trolling (and responses to reductive trolling) about everyone's favourite issue, "porn on Commons". This is not actually the issue here, although glancing at this topic would convince you otherwise.

Before this topic began, EVula had already admitted that they did the wrong thing, and that they realized their actions were not acceptable. So there's no problem for me. Except, one thing is very conspicuous by its absence: an explanation for their actions. As I see it, it's either:

1. EVula acted out of ignorance, specifically ignorance of the fact that there is no policy supporting unilateral deletion of media like this. If this is the case, why do they have admin if they don't even know something so basic? Did they forget this?
2. EVula did this purposely

Neither of these are good. I won't elaborate on the second one because it raises a lot of other questions. I also won't discount that there is another explanation for their actions other than incompetence, or whatever reasoning motivates doing something like this on purpose –⁠moogsi (talk) 07:26, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I would like to propose another possibility assuming good faith of this admin, perhaps it was a temporary change of character, maybe EVula was under an influence of some chemicals, just broke up with a loved person, or just didn't get enough sleep. This can potentially cause somebody act out in some way. I know that I have in the past hurt people that I cared for when I was emotionally unstable, and I would not want to be the one who believes in some version of "original sin" that can never be forgiven. So I am more than happy to assume that this incident has finished and will never happen again, if EVula will at least promise that it won't. Sinnamon Girl (talk) 17:44, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps EVula was not on drugs, deprived of sleep, or in a state of emotional distress. Perhaps they were simply acting in what they felt was the best interests of the project. That may be a reason to discuss their use of the tools, but this thread would likely not be here at all if the images were of flowers or buildings, and no one would be suggesting that they should not be an admin because of it. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:36, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

If an admin ran around speedy deleting images of flowers or buildings on the grounds that they were out of scope, the only difference is that that many of his backers wouldn't be here.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:01, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

No, I can assure you this topic would definitely still be here, except it would be about a tenth of the length, and the main focus would be "what the HELL are you doing?", as opposed to some lengthy policy debate about whether deleting flowers or buildings is the right thing to do. Again, there is no policy supporting unilateral deletion of media like this. It does not matter what the media depict. "Discuss their use of the tools" is what I am trying to do, but again you think it's necessary to refer to the subject of the deletions. It's not necessary. If someone were deleting pictures of plumbing fixtures outside of process, there would be questions. It's almost as if the subject of the deletions were chosen specifically to make a point... but again, I charitably assume that EVula did not know what they were doing, or that deleting a particular kind of media would cause any particular kind of reaction. But I find myself attributing way more ignorance to them than I feel they deserve –⁠moogsi (talk) 01:52, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

As I said, there could be any number of explanations. It's the lack of a single one that bothers me –⁠moogsi (talk) 02:07, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Maybe we can take a bad situation and make it into something positive. In this particular case not much harm was done in the end. The images were restored and there seems to be no more vandalism from EVula, this does, however, give us an opportunity to setup some sort of standard policy to react to unilateral mass deletions. While block tool can potentially be used, it is not really appropriate, because (at least to me) it implies that the user adds something to the project that is not appropriate, we also do not wish to make it more difficult for a person (who was chosen by the community for what it's worth) to discuss the situation. So maybe we can have something like "temporary desysop" that takes place when somebody reports large number of deletions without any sort of discussion. This desysop would then be brought to everybody's attention and the community can discuss the situation. We can also stipulate that an administrator must provide one's rationale for deletions (not just "pfff, fuck off") or accept the permanent loss of admin bits. Sinnamon Girl (talk) 19:55, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

You can't really block admins, as they can just unblock themselves... -mattbuck (Talk) 20:07, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

User:Shikku27316

I would like to report problems and disruptive behaviour of the user:Shikku27316. The first reason I report here is a personal attack and the second reason is pushing his POV. Regarding the first point, the user attacked me personally on ethnic basis, calling me "VardarianBoy", which is highly offensive for the Macedonians and it is used by Greek nationalists. Regarding the second point, he is adding wrong information on the page linguistic flags. He claims, based on his personal view and some theories with limited support (no sources given though) that Albanian and Greek do not form their own branches of the Indo-European tree family (see en:Indo-European languages, but they are part of the Paleo-Balkan languages (which are dead languages). However, most of the serious academically accepted classifications of the IE languages state that Greek and Albanian form their own branches of this language family. This is used on EN Wikipedia and it clearly states that there are not enough linguistic proofs that would support his view (see en:Paleo-Balkan languages, en:Greek language and en:Albanian language. I gave him one source, he omitted it and reverted me again. There a thousands of books where Greek and Albanian are not classified as Paleo-Balkan. His claims are not supported with sources, and having no proofs to present, he started attacking me on ethnic basis. Best--Никола ^{Стоіаноски} 19:23, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

He still reverts without giving academic sources (his explanation can be seen on the talk page, not related to linguistics at all).--Никола ^{Стоіаноски} 19:39, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I've warned User:Shikku27316 for the personal attack. I've temporarily full-protected the Linguistic flags page to prevent edit-warring, and I've asked User:Shikku27316 to address the sourcing issue related to his changes. INeverCry 19:54, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

User:Deutz-Fahr

This user name is in violation of COM:UPOLICY as it is a group name of a firm and either some admin needs to discuss with the user about changing the username or this account needs to be blocked. Note that the user has made promotional uploads. Rahul Bott (talk) 17:20, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

This proposed policy has not (yet) been adopted as an official policy. In this case the uploader is a person, who has been identified as an authorized employee of Same Deutz-Fahr Group. IMHO there is no urgent reason in this case to block the user name. I don't see any advantage of letting them choose another user name. It will still be the same person, working for the same company. Jcb (talk) 17:41, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

They are great images. Do we have a policy about corporate uploads that don't have logos, spam, or watermarks? His are all clean.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:04, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Canoe, there is almost no problem with his contributions except there was some OTRS permission required which has been sent. It is about the username. There has been related discussion on my talk page too between User:INeverCry, User:Jcb, User:Jameslwoodward and myself. I am fully aware that "Other stuff exists" argument does not work here, but IMHO it is about fairness when blocking certain users for username alone and not blocking others. Rahul Bott (talk) 07:27, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Which of the files uploaded by Deutz-Fahr are "promotional" in your eyes? --High Contrast (talk) 09:05, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

All of them. That does not mean they are not useful. But, other users have similarly been banned e.g. Yoga Federation of Russia whose contributions were equally okay IMO. Rahul Bott (talk) 09:31, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Deutz-Fahr's photos are not promotional. They neutrally show their machines in their agricultural role. You think it is promotional because the company itself did publish those images. But promotional content is something different. --High Contrast (talk) 18:34, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

High Contrast, I've said repeatedly that there is almost no problem with his uploads but with the username. Other users have similarly been banned just for wrong username. I've given one such example above. So, I am saying either some admin should advise the user for a username change and if (s)he doesn't agree, then only go for a block. Rahul Bott (talk) 06:01, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

What does it say in ticket:2013041010007541? The user might be an employee or he might even have got the permission from the company management. --Leyo 08:15, 24 May 2013 (UTC) See the confirmation on de:Benutzer:Deutz-Fahr (in German). --Leyo 09:58, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello Rahul Bott, have you used other accounts on commons ? May I ask why you are so interested in this editor's username ? Penyulap ☏ 08:07, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Penyulap, I do not think my use (or lack, thereof) of other accounts is relevant to this discussion. Why are you taking the discussion in that direction? Do you think this discussion is a disruption? If so, please tell me and I will restrain myself. I reopened this discussion because it was simply archived by a bot and not properly closed by any admin. And, I repeat I've no particular interest in this individual user. Infact, I've only tried to organize some of the files that he uploaded and I've repeatedly said that they are nice files. I'm only saying that perhaps his/her username should be considered for renaming with his/her consent.

Reply to Leyo: User:Jameslwoodward has argued on my talk page that even if a person is an employee with a company today, (s)he might not be so tomorrow. Then, what happens if (s)he makes uploads on behalf of his/her former company with the company username? Rahul Bott (talk) 08:40, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

To answer your question, I often ask people under some circumstances. Btw, when you say "I'm only saying that perhaps[...] ", I think a better summary is you've asked more than once for the person to be blocked, rather than perhaps this or perhaps that. Penyulap ☏ 08:56, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I made the request exactly twice once by nominating his/her userpage for deletion and when User:Jcb suggested me to bring the matter here if I wish, I did so. And I also admit that I was a bit lax in not phrasing my request correctly. However, comments from User:Jkadavoor convince me that this case needs no further discussion and I'm sorry if I unintentionally wasted a few people's time.

But, before I end, I've another query regarding User:Prakash Kumar Meher who is a notable person with his own en.wiki page. Do we or do we not require an OTRS permission for his account here on Commons? Also, in this second case, the user has made uploads which were deleted due to various reasons like "No license", "Missing permission", others' works et cetera. Regards, Rahul Bott (talk) 13:17, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

• Commons:Username policy only says: "For example: a username such as "Microsoft" will be blocked unless the contributor can show they are official representatives of that company or group, via e-mail to info-commons@wikimedia.org." Further, m:Single User Login finalisation announcement restricts renaming in a single project; I afraid. JKadavoor Jee 09:04, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I think it's an idea to make proposal pages clearer, so that they aren't so incredibly confusing. As for meta, well, I figure there is no point trying to tell them the sky is blue or the earth is round, they'll just keep churning out poorly-written garbage that doesn't integrate with the standard practices on the projects. But their poorly thought out m:Single User Login finalisation announcement makes me wonder what is a better name for my supposedly soon to be only account PALZ9000, Penyulap, BittyBattyBitBotIsNotABot or Thomas Moore. hehe, maybe 'dumbass' if it's not taken, then I'll get a job on meta. Penyulap ☏ 09:13, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Dealing with image spammers

Is there an accepted way to deal with image spammers? Is there a standard welcome message that should be left on the user's talk page? By image spammer I mean people who upload their own work complete with their vanity URL/watermark? For example Tangcla (talk · contribs), who uploaded three pretty poor quality images. I removed the watermarks (and having considered the images also removed two of the images from the corresponding Wikipedia articles that he had added them to) but wonder if I should do more. --Biker Biker (talk) 21:06, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

the standard response on commons is uncoordinated idiocy. I've seen someone upload thousands of fantastic images that were quite popular and very high quality, and was indef blocked for a small watermark on the images. The images they kept, the editor they discarded. Problem is that watermarks vary considerably and some are supposed to be part of the image. Some admins and editors are unable to make meaningful decisions about the images and come up with 'all watermarks are a blockable offence' even though that is absolutely not the case. It is really unfortunate too.

If you want to take a stab at I think the page is Commons:watermarks that would be cool, but I can't so much as get morons to pull their thumb out enough to agree that some watermarks which are supposed to be on images because they have historical significance are OK and not a blockable offence. It's appalling. I would be happy to help you change the situation if I can, like if you want to work on that page or a proposal or something. I run out of energy arguing and then go and lecture the sparrows in the skies for relief from the frustration of trying to get people to think rather than be a bunch of cabbages.

If we had a nice watermarks page to show them how fast their watermarks will be removed then it would be quite discouraging for them by itself. What's the point of putting them in when it's seconds to remove them. Someone even wrote a bot to do it too. Penyulap ☏ 21:44, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

The purpose of this project is to create a repository of free media that can be used for educational purposes. This means that the correct response for a person who uploads many freely licenced (meaning that the watermark can be removed) images is to thank them. Sinnamon Girl (talk) 03:31, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Problems with User:LMDCWIKI

There are some problems here covering a couple different areas so not really knowing Commons (I'm an uncommon sort of potato...) I thought best to keep them centralized:

• Username is obviously a role account. Dunno if that's as much of a problem here as on enwiki.
• User has uploaded clear copyvios. A quick glance through their uploads shows work taken (probably internally from the marketing dept, but still) directly from the website of the company they obviously represent, La Maison du Chocolat
• User has claimed these images as 'own work' which is clearly impossible.

Like I said I don't really know how Commons works so please feel free to move this wherever it should go. If you need more input from me (although I've said everything I know I think) please go to my enwiki talkpage linked in my sig. — The Potato Hose 02:03, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

New account

TailgunnerOU812 (talk · contribs) probably needs some kind advice on his talk page about licensing policy. He is creating a BLP article on en:wp and uploaded some images for it.--Canoe1967 (talk) 10:43, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Тарасенко Вячеслав Михайлович

Тарасенко Вячеслав Михайлович (talk · contributions · Move log · block log · uploads · Abuse filter log) block user
The user goes on to upload images from other sites and social networks as his own works after warnings and the three-day block.--Evil Russian (talk) 15:46, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done Blocked. --A.Savin 16:08, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Serial plagiarist strikes again

About Special:Contributions/CRIST1968. This user has uploaded files which have been deleted as copyvio and now he uploaded again some of those files. He is a serial plagiarist who plagiarizes despite several warnings on his talk page (both at Romanian Wikipedia and at Commons). Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:29, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done Nuked and warned. Alan ^(talk) 02:44, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Philipandrew (talk · contribs)

This user is providing some useful historical imagery and early photography, as well as possibly-acceptable images of postage stamps and seals, and a few probable copyvios. However, he is flatly uploading all of it as "Source: Own work", and his talk page is a sea of warnings and deleted files. He's been warned and blocked for this before, and has had the relevant PD-Phillipines template explained to him, but is continuing to just upload everything as "own work". --McGeddon (talk) 11:05, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Last action on 19 April 2013 by this user. Since the no activities. I have just warned him for his likely copyvio-uploads. Please nominate all problematic files for deletion. Thanks for notifying. --High Contrast (talk) 22:47, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Lbk199 (talk · contribs)

Lbk199 (talk · contributions · Move log · block log · uploads · Abuse filter log) block user
This user and his suspected sockpuppet Shes192 and confirmed socks (see ru:Википедия:Проверка участников/Sanjok223, ru:Википедия:Проверка участников/Demka123) Sanjok223 and Demka123 uploading copyvios after warnings (see talk pages of both users). Please block this users. — Stas1995 (talk) 15:22, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done INeverCry 18:49, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

User:Takabeg

Repeated nominations of the same files, although keep-closed by different administrators. See Commons:Deletion requests/File:Gazne-devleti-bayragi.png, where he nominates the files for the fourth (!) time in two years. He is also the user who unlinks the files, so that they seem to be unused. Jcb (talk) 19:57, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

And yet, when he nominated a file twice in a very short period of time, then engaged in meat-puppetry to get a "friend" to nominate it a third time, my cries were left unanswered. The user is extremely problematic when it comes to these things. If he thinks an image is a violation he will nominate it as many times as it takes, or get others to do it for him. Fry1989 ^eh? 20:04, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

 Comment Jcb, you must inform User:Takabeg on his talk page about your post here. --High Contrast (talk) 21:28, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Done - Jcb (talk) 21:34, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, some users don't known the fact that these flags were not historical. Users who read and understand Turkish language can easily know the fact that these flags were forged and published by the Turkish Radio and Television in 1969. For example, users who know Turkish language such as User:Cplakidas, User:Future Perfect at Sunrise have a proper understanding of this fact in this DR.
• I've removed that flag because the flag is fictional one. Takabeg (talk) 00:29, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
• @Jcb, User:Fry1989: Do you known en:Wikipedia:No personal attacks ? The policy says that "Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor." Takabeg (talk) 00:34, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Just like last time I encountered Takabeg, the moment anybody criticizes his actions, it's "personal attacks". This is a noticeboard report about you Takabeg, the entire point is to take note of your actions, and where applicable criticize their faults. Your actions are things you have done, they are facts, and facts are not personal attacks. It is a fact that you often repeatedly nominate files you think are violations, and after they are kept you nominate them again. You are problematic in this regard, because you refuse to accept community decisions that files are in fact Commons compatible. You also, at least in once case, have manipulated another user to nominate a file for deletion that you had previously nominated twice yourself. Fry1989 ^eh? 01:19, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I do find Takabeg problematic from time to time, but I have worked with him on many DRs and I generally agree with him. He has more than 50,000 edits on Commons and almost 350,000 on all WMF projects, which makes him an important resource for us all. Although we have two Admins who have TR-2, he is certainly our most active user who reads Turkish.

I can understand his frustration here -- he has offered a perfectly good cite (in Turkish, but we claim to be a multi-lingual project) for the recent creation and copyright status of this flag -- and several of our colleagues have ignored the cite and asked him to prove his position. Last time I looked, the burden of proof was on those who wanted to keep an image. I also note that it is perfectly valid -- not an abuse -- to renominate a file for deletion. Arguing that that is an abuse suggests that we should stop using Commons:Undeletion requests which does the same thing on the other side of the decision.

I suggest that everyone calm down a little. Although the burden or proof is not on him, perhaps Takabeg could provide a translation of the cite for us all at the DR. Those who would like to keep the flag could read the cite in English and we can all make an informed decision. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 12:59, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Jim, if you read my response to the first DR where Takabeg linked the article, I used a translator to find out what it says. It may not be perfect, but it worked well enough for me to see that the article didn't directly call the flags "fakes" by the TRT, but instead it went on some diatribe attacking TRT and calling it a "left-wing broadcaster". I would hardly trust such an article with a clear bias. Also I think you are mistaken. While it is not an abuse to renominate an image, it is an abuse to renominate it over and over and over and over, and to manipulate others into doing it for you, a clear-cut case of meat-puppetry. Fry1989 ^eh? 17:52, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

• I translated the related section of the source on the subject. This article has been written by Nihal Atsız who has been an ideologue of en:Turanism. --Mskyrider (talk) 13:33, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

...Bu yanlışlıkları birer birer saymağa ne imkân, ne de lüzum var. Fakat bayraklar hakkından konuşmak yerinde olacaktır .

16 muhayyel Türk devletinin l6 bayrağı da tamamen hayalî, uydurma ve yakıştırmadır. Bir kere , eski Türkler`de bayrak yok, tuğ vardır. Bayrak, tuğun gelişmesiyle daha sonraki yüzyıllarda doğmuştur. Yine bilindiği gibi eski Türklerde bir tek millî bayrak değil, türlü türlü bayraklar vardır. Osmanlı Türkleri`nin bayraklarından çoğu bilinmektedir. Her askerî birliğin, her korsanın, her kumandanın ayrı bayrağı olduğu malûmdur. Tek millî bayrak fikri yavaş yavaş gelişmiş ve bizim bugünkü bayrağımız bu son şeklini Sultan Abdülmecid zamanında almıştır.

Uydurma bayraklar arasındaki Hun bayrağında ejder mi, semender mi, kertenkele veya dinozor mu olduğu belli olmayan acayip yaratık şeklinin yer alması Türk tarihi hakkında hiçbir bilgiye malik olmamak demektir. Ejder, Çinlilerin sembolüdür. Türkler’de ise kurt, doğan ve koyun kullanılmıştır.

Yine bu takvimde Batı Hunlarının (Orta Asya Hunları`nın son çağı demek istiyorlar) sapsarı, Harzemşahların kapkara bayraklarının hangi muhayyileden doğup uydurulduğu da cidden meraka değer. ...

— Nihal Atsız, in: Ötüken, #65. 1969

No need to list all the fallacies one by one nor I have the possibility. But it should be better to talk about flags.

16 flags of 16 imaginary Turkish states are also totally imaginary, fabricated and faked up. First of all, ancient Turks had no flags but "tuğ" (horsetail on a pole used instead of flag). Flag has been arised later centuries after the development of "tuğ". And also as it is known ancient Turks didn't have one national flag but a diversity of them. Most of the Ottoman Turks flags are known. It is common knowledge that every military unit, every corsair, every commander had their own different flag. A unique national flag idea has been developed rather slowly and our modern flag took its form in time of Sultan Abdülmecid.

To picture a bizarre creature like a dragon, salamander, lizard or dinosaur on the Hun (en:Xiognu) flag between the fabricated flags means that (the ones who faked them up) has no knowledge about Turks' history. Dragon is a Chinese symbol. Turks used wolf, falcon and sheep.

Also in this calendar,it is seriously to be known what kind of imaginary mind has faked up the all-yellow flag of Western Xiognu (they mean the last period of Middle East Xiognu) and all-black flag of Khwarazmid...

translator: --Mskyrider (talk) 13:33, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Those 16 flags are fabricated flags by a governmental institution and which have been imprinted on a calendar at 1969 in Turkey. I have no idea about the copyright issue of those flags, but they are not the historical "flags" that's for sure. Other than this issue, they are widely known and used in Turkey. For example you can check on the site of Turkish Presidency all those 16 flags and attributed Turkish states. --Mskyrider (talk) 13:33, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Hard to prove something didn't exist without an admission. If the government fabricated the flags, where is the proof ? Is there a confession, or is it not liking the government back then and so not trusting them, but today trusting the government all over again and what their website says can be trusted but their calendar cannot ? sounds more like a political game, liking one government and not liking another. An admission would be a nice way to clear that up. There is the statement "ancient Turks didn't have one national flag but a diversity of them.[....] common knowledge that every military unit, every corsair, every commander had their own different flag." which lends itself to the idea that the calendar was based on a collection of flags which existed at the time. Government artists don't have much imagination generally, look at that Korean Olympic emblem, it defines 'no imagination' or 'originality' as it is called. Penyulap ☏ 14:14, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

The article clearly attacks the TRT on ideological grounds. That's hardly trustworthy. Fry1989 ^eh? 16:18, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

@Penyulap. I just translated the argument of an extreme right-wing ideologue on the "fabrication" of Turkish states "flags" by a governmental institution which he considers as "left-wing" although at the time the party in power was centre-right and had no "left-wing" ideas whatsoever. If we look at the facts of this subject, there are no historical proofs about the use of national flags by those 16 Turkic states. After those flags came into as some artist's creations they are accepted widely and they are still in use as historical flags almost by everybody. Even by the same people whose ideologue had refuted them at the time. This event itself requires an article. As for your inference that the calendar was based on a collection of flags used is not logically correct without having more arguments on the subject. The author of the article was mentioning the different flags used by a multitude of powerful people at the time of Ottomans likewise the banners of different vassals in middle Ages. But the Turkic states in question encompass a larger time reference than that. So it is not possible they have used Ottoman flag collections for ancient Turkic states. The real argument is the copyright status of those flags. As I explained, although this is a creation of 1969 I have doubt about the copyright of those flags. It should be possible they have copyleft because they are treated today as the "real historical" flags. But I have no proof for this so what Takabeg proposed i that they should have copyright so they can not be in Commons. I think in order to keep them someone has to prove that their copyright doesn't exist if my understanding is correct. Other than that they are being "fake", the fact is that they are considered as "real" today in Turkey by most.--Mskyrider (talk) 16:33, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

@Fry1989. Yes the article itself is an attack in totally not only to refute the idea of flags but also the oversimplification of the number of Turkic states to 16. It discusses also the other historical fallacies according to the author's ideological views on history. But what is undeniable are the historical facts. There is no evidence that those flags were used by those states.--Mskyrider (talk) 16:33, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

And there is no evidence they weren't, except by an ideologue. Fry1989 ^eh? 16:39, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't have any problem believing that. So what? The idea that these exist seems notable enough, and they're in use on the Azerbaijani Wikipedia.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:03, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, as you've said,

• 'It should be possible they have copyleft because they are treated today as the "real historical" flags.'
• '[...]the fact is that they are considered as "real" today in Turkey by most'
• '[...]they are widely known and used in Turkey. For example you can check on the site of Turkish Presidency all those 16 flags and attributed Turkish states.'

If historic flags are treated as ok by the turkish government as you say, and most people there are happy with that as well, plus the TV company hasn't gone and got itself a courtcase saying it owns the flags like that australian who owns the native australian's flag, then we're good to go. You can point out all of this in an article on the local wiki, as you say "This event itself requires an article." and put the 16 flags into it along with your reasoning and references. I have no idea what that local wiki would say about OR or SYN, I guess with good writing it is easy to avoid issues like that. In the meantime, the Turkish Government saying old flags are OK, plus suggesting these are old flags is probably good enough for commons, as that is how we determine things.

I would think that all of this belongs on the DR page, and that repeated DR's should not be made without a significant amount of new reasoning. The other files deleted as part of the 'domino effect', where one dr points to another dr, should be examined. If the Turkish Gov. is ok with one of these similar files, then they'd be ok with all of them. What is required to delete them is so simple, some statement by the media outlet claiming copyright, and nothing to refute their claim. unfortunately, we have none of that, and plenty of the opposite.

If this is simply the ongoing 'pounding away at legit files' using the same-old same-old arguments which get overturned, then it has to stop. People have to present their case rather than repeat their case. One is welcome, one is not. Penyulap ☏ 18:47, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

LAME alert

The smaller the issue, the more attractive it is classic involved misuse of tools. Too lame to de-sysop, would someone point out that this is seriously LAME and INVOLVED ? It's an artwork, who the fuck knows better than the artist how an artwork should be described, example, why is it 'stolen' Goo ? Durr. What is the Goo for ? hello. Someone unprotect the page and find another admin who loves lame issues to protect it. Penyulap ☏ 21:00, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Booo frickedy hooo. --Dschwen (talk) 21:07, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Uploaders have a right to describe their uploads however they wish, it is retarded to fully protect the image because you don't like how Penyulap has chosen to do so. Fry1989 ^eh? 21:08, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

If you look at the history of the file you will notice that Penyulap incorrectly licensed the file. The whole thing is of course just another Penyulap timewasting show. Nothing of value would be los if that file would just have been deleted right away. And uploaders do not own the file description pages. --Dschwen (talk) 21:10, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Where did I say anybody owns anything??? And it can be turned around easily; do you own other people's uploads because you're an Admin? What gives you the over-riding right to protect a file because you don't like the way an uploader has chosen to describe and license it? Fry1989 ^eh? 21:15, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

It is not about liking (and I'm sure you know that Fry). It is about making sure the information on the image page is as accurate as possible. That includes correct licensing, source, and permission. If my corrections are reverted back to their incorrect state protection is an option to consider. --Dschwen (talk) 21:22, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

But I believe it is. Why? Because you kept changing the description box as well. If you simply cared about it being as accurate as possible, you would change the license to do the attribution or whatever else you felt was missing. But I see no reason to change the description other then because you don't like it and see it as posturing, which really isn't a reason to fully protect an image. Fry1989 ^eh? 21:31, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

If I had believed that the image was stolen and that the user is unrepentant I should have deleted the file and blocked the user. Think about that ;-) --Dschwen (talk) 21:32, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Unprotected. --Dschwen (talk) 21:15, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

User:85.138.116.14 & User:Linoavac

These users delete problem tags from pages, delete information from deletion discussions and similar things. A few images by User:Linoavac were deleted as "out of scope" and it is possible that the new files might be reposts of some of those files. --Stefan4 (talk) 21:13, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I've blocked the IP and warned the user not to continue removing tags, etc. INeverCry 22:06, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

The user continues by removing {{No permission since}}[46] and by removing discussions from the daily log.[47] --Stefan4 (talk) 22:14, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Fixed - Jcb (talk) 22:18, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

User:Gustavo neto

The user has uploaded several football kits with club and sponsorship logos. I found this to be in contradiction to the guidelines from the football kit template page: "Club badges, sponsor logos, and manufacturer logos should never be included." I therefore removed these logos from several files (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), all of which he has reverted. I have asked him for an explanation on his talk page, to which he has not replied in spite of the fact that he has been active on Wikipedia every day since. He did however write a comment on one of his reversions: "This kit is my, and i do what i think!"

I have also noticed that this is not the first time this has been brought up to him and his actions have previously been discussed on the Administrators' noticeboard, and the resolution was: [...] The logos do have to be removed. I explain the reason for this in more detail at user conduct thread, but in short, it's a violation of de minimis. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:10, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Yet the user keeps creating new templates with sponsorship logos and reverting edits to remove them. Has there been any changes in the above policy since then? Merrrlo (talk) 12:41, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

User:Nickaang

User:Nickaang (talk/contributions) has a history of uploading files without proper permissions even though he knows better. See Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Nickaang opened December 18, 2012, his declaration that he understands copyright issues diff dated January 5, 2013, and Commons:Deletion requests/Even more images from Nickaang opened May 27, 2013, as well as his deleted contributions. He is also a known sock-puppeteer on the English Wikipedia (see en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Nickaang). I recommend that he be banned from editing under any alternate account unless that account is known to all Commons administrators (or to a Commons functionary who is responsible for receiving such information), and that he be "put on a short leash" regarding uploads, i.e. if he uploads anything again he must either provide rock-solid evidence of a Commons-compatible license or lack copyright ineligibility OR he must immediately tag the upload as "OTRS pending" and within a reasonable time (7 days seems reasonable) the actual copyright owner must initiate contact with OTRS or, failing that, Nickaang must himself request that the image be deleted. Enforcement would be in the form of having the files summarily deleted until the copyright issues are sorted out and, if the behavior is repeated, with technical means to prevent uploading of files (including blocks).

I will also make a less strong recommendation that he not upload anything unless 1) there is already an article (not a draft or "articles for creation submission) on the subject in a Wikipedia project and they are used in that article within 24 hours of being uploaded, OR that the image has clear educational value (this would exclude almost all modern corporate logos and other items that are more promotional than educational unless they were used in an article). Enforcement would be with a warning and summarily sending the files to "files for deletion" for discussion, with repeated violations enforced with technical means.

I was referred to COM:AN by the closing administrator's remark in Commons:Deletion requests/Even more images from Nickaang posted earlier today. Davidwr (talk) 16:06, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Notification sent (diff). Davidwr (talk) 16:14, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Shlapunou.ivan

Shlapunou.ivan (talk · contributions · Statistics)
The user is systematically uploading unfree images as his own works. --Evil Russian (talk) 09:30, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

 Done - All deleted except for File:Pragueolgrav.jpg, which is PD-Old. User has been warned.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 21:30, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Ongoing harassment and poor behaviour by Nyttend

Nyttend is continuing to use the revert button rather than the talkpage, continuing to war rather than discuss. Some All of these pages have talkpages, and he is going against an existing consensus.

I notice that other editors are becoming concerned by his behaviour as well as Look2See1 and I. Today I saw this

Hi, Look2See1 (talk · contribs) and Nyttend (talk · contribs). I've noticed you two have been repeatedly reverting each other on numerous image pages (one example of many). I don't consider myself a novice about Wikipedia categories, but I'm not sure what the disagreement is about. I have no particular opinion about who is more correct, but I am getting increasingly annoyed at seeing so many counter edits back and forth on my watchlist. Let me suggest that you please take your disagreement to a forum here where other Commons regulars can comment, or submit the matter to third party arbitration. I think both of you are well capable of making better contributions to Commons than spending your time reverting each other. Thanks for your attention. (Same notice put on talk pages of both users.) -- Infrogmation (talk) 4 June 2013 (UTC)

The mass reverts only seem to occur because of ownership issues. The files are files that Nyttend has uploaded, and protects against editing by any other editor it would seem, Look2See1 is not the only person he'll revert in this way when it comes to 'his' files. example

He cites his ongoing harassment campaign, where he managed to get the sainty Look2See1 blocked (seriously saintly is a strong word, but Look2See1 has more than 100k edits and not shitty little one cat at a time edits, they are all well thought out multiple cats at a time, and he's never had trouble before he dared infringe on Nyttends territory) as his reasoning for his dislike of Look2See1's editing, he cites his whole campaign as the problem Look2See1 is causing ? that's fucked up right there. Tricking someone into blocking a good editor, preying upon admins who are in too much of a hurry, and then capitalising on that exact strategy to do it all over again, justifying further blocks on your own bullshit inspired trick. Plus the much loved ad-hominem 'troll' comment, which the community expressed it's love for (ad-hom's) at someone's recent second failed RfA, I would think that the blocking campaign, button responses, and the attacks are fucking up the community and using the God-damn talkpages is long overdue, pardon my language.

Or, like an alternative, I'd love to see Nyttend use the revert button for some reason other than 'someone touched my file' because I'm not seeing it. Doesn't matter how reasonable or logical an edit is, or the existing consensus in writing on the talkpages, he just uses the button instead, and moves to attack anyone in his way. Penyulap ☏ 01:11, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

First off, I have reverted Look2See1's mangling of many other pages in past weeks; it's simply that I'm sick of removing his changes on pages that aren't on my watchlist and don't particularly have time to fuss with it now. Second, I do not pardon your language: why do you characterise me as fucking up the community and my actions as a bullshit inspired trick, soon after describing my actions as an ad-hominem? Moreover, why do you say that I'm attempting to trick admins when you're doing it yourself with your "example" link? Kindly look at the edit that immediately followed it — I hit the wrong button and immediately self-reverted. You also describe Look2See1 as saintly, despite the fact that virtually everyone who goes to his talk page has done it to object to his actions; you're defending someone whose edits routinely violate a very basic principle and whose formatting changes have been opposed by virtually everyone who's addressed them on his talk page. On top of all of those things, you have not shown an existing consensus at any of these pages, but you've restored without explanation a parent category. Kindly reread this discussion; the actions widely characterised there as problematic continue to be evident; you would do well to avoid the actions that led to the previous ban. Nyttend (talk) 02:13, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

well, to answer your question, you're 'fucking up the community' by cyber-bullying, because you don't have time to 'fuss with' established consensus.

• Thank you for illustrating here and now the ad-hominem characteristic responses I'm talking about. The ANU discussion you point to was kicked off as an ad-hominem attack, and the community spelled out they do not consider that editor to be suitable as an admin in no small part because of ad-hominem attacks.

Now if you can depart from the second to basest form of personal attack and actually start addressing the problem,

• You've been reverting Look2See1's categorising, rather than discussing your ideas on files you've uploaded.
• OVERCAT is not policy, so in cases where there is a dispute then talk-pages are used to gather ideas and form a consensus.
• You cite OVERCAT as though it was policy rather than a help page, even though you know it is not accepted as policy by the community.
• (I mentioned rollback before, but I meant revert, I've corrected that) Instead of using the talkpages which exist, you just keep using the 'button in your watchlist' to revert changes based not upon reason, not upon discussion, not upon policy, but solely upon who made the change, and who uploaded the file.

Penyulap ☏ 03:22, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you administrators for reviewing this matter here. I have tried to answer Nyttend’s concerns and examples posted on my Look2See1 talk page. Nyttend has never chosen to respond to my responses there, in a good faith discussion or otherwise. Please see my responses to Nyttend’s postings on my talk page (Look2See1), under the headings of:

1. Due notice (my response: 23 Jan. 2013)

2. You have been blocked for a duration of 3 days (my response: 11 Feb. 2013)

3. Yet another warning - & for no reason ? (my response: 11 Feb 2013)

4. Once again — illogical Ny (my ‘too sharp’ response: 15 May 2013)

I do make mistakes of course, but Nyttend’s total reverts of an edit wiping out: my more focused categories (opposite of overcat); added ‘fact-based’ categories (non-subjective); and en + other wikipedia links — are ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’ and a disservice to Wikimedia users. However, predominantly when Nyttend does all this I’ve made no objective mistakes, and a compulsive harassment and destructiveness seems at play. In my understanding that is: information vandalism; non-consensus sovereign exceptionality; and illogical, reflexive, temper motivated acting out. In my opinion this is cyberbullying.

Nyttend does revert in ‘multiple blocks’ of my edits with the same time indicated, such as nine done on June 4, 2013 at 22:50. Can Nyttend be looking at each image, and making rational decisions? Seeing my name seems to be enough for impulsive destruction. Since I do not value unreviewed reverts, it takes much time to check all of Nyttend’s and restore information — sometimes repeatedly per image.

From a Jimmy Wales interview: courage to risk making mistakes and then learn is encouraged in the wiki projects to broaden the diversity of editors. I may be on the editors’ bell curve fringe, but do value ongoing learning so my efforts to assist Wikimedia become ever more accurate. Sometimes I’ve been slow, however patient editors logically explaining ‘why’ does work. If there is anything to learn from Nyttend now, amidst the abuse, I’m missing it. Snarky edit summary depreciations are not teachable moments. Nyttend's initiated 3 day block feels like an insider power trip was executed, I do not understand.

I just do not have ‘edit warring’ in me — my intentions, values, and life experiences preclude that. Also, I am not a doormat for Nyttend’s cyberbullying. I’m asking for administrative assistance and/or arbitration on this ongoing matter please. Thank you—Look2See1 (talk) 06:28, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I've placed a great many of the files which Nyttend has uploaded and Look2See1 has edited recently onto my watchlist in the last half hour, I would ask everyone who is not snowed under to do the same, or at least a few. I'll be doing what I did before with a few files, as people can see I haven't simply reverted the reverts based on who did them, I've had a look at each category and done my best to give an informed opinion in restoring some of them (some are complete and utter no-brainers). Doesn't worry me which way a consensus goes, its not important, simply needs to be at least 3 people in order to prevent serious problems like this where one person (Nyttend in this case) is misbehaving. I will be quite vigilant and where a clear majority exists I'll revert to protect the consensus, whatever it is. I had hoped that Nyttend would revert his own reverts that were against consensus, but it's been more than a day and I don't think it will happen.

I was amazed to see that even after the whole trip to AN/U, and the previous trips here for the same attacks Look2See1 has endured, Look2See1 has only made 15 edits to the Commons namespace according to the edit counter, against over 104 thousand "not chasing an edit count" contributions. Take a random sample and you won't find a lot of small edits, they are larger combined edits made in one go. How you do that without causing any trouble at all, or getting attacked like this I don't know. Obviously it's a monument to Look2See1, but it also says a lot about Commons being a more mellow place than say en.wiki overall. I can't go for 10 uploads without running into drama some days it seems (facepalm) but why do I mention this ? well, it is very important to know that while Look2See1 is experienced, he or she is not 'up on the lingo' and is not experienced with edit warring or drama boards, so that should be taken into account, and we should help Look2See1 wherever possible. Far too valuable a contributor for us to disgrace ourselves by standing by idly and watching them be hounded off the project. I understand that in the USA, it is the culture to watch someone being murdered or robbed or whatever on the other side of the road and look the other way and cross the street, but that bullshit doesn't work in a proper online volunteer community. It's not brain-surgery to help two people get along better. Penyulap ☏ 12:02, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

• Please note vandalism and illogical destructiveness of Nyttend in [53]. Clearly a 'no look edit' as Nyttend reverted image back to {Uncategorized|year=2013|month=March|day=27}. Thank you—Look2See1 (talk) 12:28, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

• Please note: This is the only example I have seen of Nyttend doing a ‘no look edit’ and then reverting that mistake, alas with an inappropriate edit note. This regards File:Cannelton Cotton Mill 570906cr.jpg. The 1st edit was destructive vandalism, removing Category:Historic American Buildings Survey of Indiana (no edit notes on why), and while the 2nd edit restored the category, accompaniment was the ignorant, insulting, and self-aggrandizing edit note saying “That's the first productive change I've ever seen from this editor” — Really ? — 1st after 100K edits, really?

This new HABS category for Indiana is the 35th state that I have created and populated under Category:Historic American Buildings Survey images by state (that I also created and recreated). It averages out to ~3 dozen images per state (~1,260 total). Nyttend uploads most of the wonderful HABS images, so is likely well aware of this. Therefore, the edit note saying “the first productive change I've ever seen from this editor” is absurd, stupid, and of unacceptably abusive intent.

There are also the many 1,000s of {uncategorized template} images (eg: British geography, NARA) I’ve non-controversially remedied that utterly ridicule the edit note. Though, if Nyttend’s seeing only ‘Look2See1’ is enough to prompt auto-revert compulsiveness, perhaps this really is the “first productive change” Nyttend has actually seen.

Perhaps a 3 day or longer edit block would get Nyttend’s attention to stop nonconstructive edit notes and derisive cyber-bullying, and to consider trying group mindedness for Wikimedia’s benefit ? This senseless and disgusting harassment needs to be stopped please. Thank you—Look2See1 (talk) 21:04, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about a block at the moment, I'd just continue working. The case has been properly laid out and if more transparently bad behaviour follows, then we can simply revert, and if admins want to be involved again, they should have a better idea of what has been going on, rather than making another block they can't live down. Bad blocks raise questions, questions that some admins really do not want to face. Don't worry about it, just try to return to work, or have a rest as you please Look2See1, the discussion is complete. Penyulap ☏ 21:51, 6 June 2013 (UTC)