UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archive 13

Dapel Namespace

I've copied all the articles in the Dapel namespace to a separate Wiki (dave.uesp.net) so you may delete them as you see fit. There are a few pages with some Oblivion related content which might be useful in the Tes4mod namespace. . -- Daveh 23:17, 6 April 2009 (EDT)

Site Traffic

Just a quick note on recent site traffic. The last two weekends have seen the highest traffic the site has ever seen. Still trying to get stats working correctly on squid1 but Google shows over 596,000 ads shown last Sunday alone, the highest traffic day so far. Actual page views will be higher as that doesn't include any map views or people with ads disabled. 

I'm trying to update the statistic tables and graphs with more recent versions if I can get the numbers wrangled up. -- Daveh 23:46, 6 April 2009 (EDT)

 

Blocked Roleplayer4life

Seemed like an obvious personal attack (wiping Nephele's pages) with promises to re-attack from new accounts. So I did an infinite block. Not sure how that fits with blocking policy, but I didn't see other admins active, and figured at least some block was desirable. Please revise as needed. --Wrye 23:20, 2 May 2009 (EDT)
:Thanks, Wrye.  I'd say it falls under "An editor that personally attacks any member of the community will immediately be permanently blocked." -- especially having just read wikipedia's definition of personal attacks.  Or maybe I'm just biased ;)
:It might be worth considering blocking the user's IP address, given that all four accounts have used the same IP address.  But given his personal animosity towards me, I don't think I should be the admin to make that decision. --Nephele  00:13, 3 May 2009 (EDT)
::Agreed. But GuildKnight beat me to it. :) --Wrye 00:48, 3 May 2009 (EDT)
:::FWIW I think an indefinite block is completely appropriate for this user (and his IP). I don't think any revision is necessary. –Rpeh  01:02, 3 May 2009 (EDT)

 

I volunteer

to making pages for numbers 12, 14, 15, 19, and 21 (On the  Wanted Categories list if my definition and the sites definition of "User" is the same. Mine is of course in-game users (Vendors, Quest Givers, misc members)

Notes:I have never done the Temple quests, but I think it would be incredibly easy for me to make the page as I go through it. Telvaani is my chosen house, always has, so I believe I would be the best candidate for making the User page.

:Actually, "users" in this context refers to UESP editors/readers who wish to identify themselves with one of these categories.  --GuildKnight  10:39, 18 May 2009 (EDT)

Sorry to ask, but isn't a category such as that really necessary?  

 
 

Morrowind vs Oblivion Parallelism  (MOPP)

I was wanting to know if I can an edit on a rather large scale. It wuld consist of matching the Morrowind Quest Boxes with the Oblivion Quest Boxes. Currently, the MW quest titles for the boxes are just floating text, while OB quest titles are represented in a header. I am willing to go though and edit them all so there is consistency on the site. Thanks for the heads up! 

P.S.: I moved this here due to recent inactivity of the admins. I wish to start on this as soon as I finish the template page (mentioned above). Thanks. --Mr. Oblivion  16:53, 29 May 2009 (EDT)

 
 

Missing Oblivion Easter Egg

Discussion moved to Easter Eggs.

 

Mods Map request
I've made a request for some help in developing a mods map for , that conversation can be found here. It was recommended to bring the discussion here, hopefully to catch the attention of some of the admins who are not actively monitoring the UESP map's talk page. We'd like permission to use images and possibly code from your map in the creation of a mods map. Thanks :) --75.70.19.85 14:55, 18 June 2009 (EDT)
: I'm more than happy for tiles I've created to be used elsewhere as long as it fits in with the standard UESP licensing conditions, but the tiles I've made so far won't be of much use to you. If you look at our map, you'll see a big blank space where   should be. The same will happen with any of your mods. To get around that you'll need to do the tiles yourself and run the artifact remover over the tiles. At the moment, I'm not prepared to release the code into the public domain for the simple reason that's it far too ad-hoc and hackish. The version of the code I used for the Shivering Isles map killed the OB map and vice-versa - the colours are too different. I spent two solid days trying to get rid of everything on the OB map a couple of weeks ago and it turns out there's still more work to do. I will release the source at some point, but not until it's in a more usable state. –Rpeh  18:11, 19 June 2009 (EDT)
:: If by "big blank space" you mean the lack of an actual spire on the tile as opposed to a ruin where the actual ruin itself is visible and not just a marker - I don't think we're too worried about that. The primary purpose is to help players find mods based on location and to help modders find some empty space to place their mods. As far as licensing goes, if you're referring to the section in Copyright and Ownership regarding using materials from UESP, I'm quite certain we can agree to those terms, but I'll redirect the other ORE members involved to that page so that we're all aware of it. Having the tiles would be the biggest help, I believe, since as you say it's taken quite a bit of time and work to get them to where they are and I don't see any reason to make a duplicate effort if it can be avoided. Thanks for the response :)  
::: That's fine then. You might want to look at doing your own tiles for places with mods though. Since you're all modders, the thought occurs that you wouldn't need my program anyway as you can just temporarily remove collision boxes, monsters and other items that make a mark, then resize by hand. Including modded content makes quite a difference - Frostcrag Spire is pretty from above! –Rpeh  01:01, 24 June 2009 (EDT)
:::: I have an e-mail address where things can be sent, it's ore (at) oblivionsrealestate.com. We really appreciate all the help and resources you guys can give us :)  

External Editor

I'm looking at a link to Edit this file using an external application, but the setup instructions are confusing.

"Associate the MIME type application/external-editor in your web browser with ee.pl" I understand now, I don't like it. How come the PHP file is supposed to be associated with that local perl script? This seems like an complicated and unnecessary hack.    Lukish    00:00, 24 June 2009 (EDT)

:I moved this question here (from ) because it's unrelated to the MW1.14 upgrade -- when you posted the question, the site had not yet been upgraded, and was behaving the exact same way as it has for the last three years (at least).
:As for the actual question, that's simply how external editing works.  I've never used it, and honestly if you want help with how to use an external editor or complaints about why it works that way, somewhere like [ MediaWiki is probably a better place to start.  Other than that, I can't provide much feedback, especially not right now. --Nephele  17:06, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Rename Request

The information about the MediaWiki Upgrade says "Admins can rename users. Not that renaming users is a frequent occurrence, but it seems like a task that can be entrusted to admins." Would it be possible to have my username changed from Rayjquinn to Viroconium? It's something I've wanted for a long time and is a better option than starting a new account (which I should have done a year ago).   23:46, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
:I'll see what I can do.  Just so you know, you may "lose" your past contributions to the site, but I'm not sure.  If you're okay with that, I'll go ahead and give it a shot.  New buttons, ahoy! –Eshe  01:15, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
::Yeah, that's fine if it happens. I don't have 10,000 edits (or even 30), so it's okay. Thanks Eshe.   03:46, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
:::Thanks (in advance!) for following up on this, Eshe.  I considered trying to do it myself, then realized it wouldn't be a good test of the new admin capabilities, given that Daveh bureaucrat-ized me a few days ago.  Plus, it would be best to give the rename user feature a full test right now while I'm actively focussed on the site's code ;) --Nephele  03:58, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
::::No problem :).  Looks like it worked!  It moved the user and talk pages in one fell swoop.  Also, it looks like all the past contributions have been reattributed as well!  That was fun :D. –Eshe  04:05, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::Awesome! Thanks again. :D   12:23, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Request for Adminship

(moved to )

 

Patroller Policy Change

I've just updated the policy page on Patrollers. Since administrators have been given the ability to make these changes it seems perverse not to make the change, but if anybody disagrees, this is the place to express that disagreement. –rpeh  17:36, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Request Block for 90.220.242.186

This anonymous user has already been warned and after the fact decided to spam an external link. If you look at his minor contributions and current talk page, you will understand why. Thanks. --Elliot  15:27, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Deleting to Restore

You may have noticed I deleted User:Elliot and restored it without the various obnoxious comments left by idiots from Encyclopedia Dramatica (that's a tautology, I know). As this isn't really covered by the deletion policy I thought I ought to post a brief explanation and perhaps start a debate.

Firstly, some of the comments were extremely offensive, and secondly, the large diffs were hurting the server - at one point about half the connections to content2 were getting the recent changes RSS feed. If anybody feels I shouldn't have done this, feel free to restore the deleted edits.

I don't want to start regularly censoring pages, as it's usually better to see the edits vandals made to judge future sanctions. Do we want to use this mechanism for extreme cases? What about special cases such as edits that damage the ability of others to access the site? Do we want to modify the policy or leave it up to the judgment of admins to act accordingly? –rpeh  09:29, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

: Update - several hours later there are still a lot of people downloading the recent changes RSS, so it seems this was a deliberate attempt to slow down the site. –rpeh  10:20, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

::Yes, delete/restore was probably the best course of action in this particular case.  Long-term, I'd like to find a way to fix these problem diffs, instead of adding a policy just to cover a software bug.  I'd been hoping the bug might have been fixed by the last upgrade, but obviously not.  Unfortunately, debugging the problem without again messing up the site might be tricky.
::As for the RSS/atom connections, it's unlikely there was anything malicious behind the connections.  It's simply the primary symptom of the problem diffs: any attempt to view the diff permanently locks up a connection on the server. The connections you saw several hours later were the same ones you had seen originally (which can be confirmed via the SS column, which ended up reaching values above 56000).  The only ways to get rid of the connections are to restart apache or otherwise kill the process on the server, which I did a few hours ago. --Nephele  23:39, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
:::I believe that if it compromises the server and people's ability to use the site, it should be gone (barring extreme cases). Also, I happened to stumble upon something Wikipedia uses called Oversight. Here is part of  the intro paragraph explaining it:
::::Suppression on Wikipedia (in the past also known as Oversighting) is a form of enhanced deletion which, unlike normal deletion, expunges information from any form of usual access even by administrators. It is used within strict limits to hide the username, revision content, and/or edit summary in order to remove defamatory material, to protect privacy, and sometimes to remove serious copyright violations. When using the suppression function on an edit, it is possible to suppress the text of a revision, the username or IP address of a contributor, and the edit summary of a contribution, or any combination thereof...
:::It sounds like possibly something we could use for this type of vandalism. The page explains their policies more with MediaWiki holding the extension. I am just throwing it out there, in-case you guys have not seen this. --Elliot   20:29, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

:::: I wasn't going to mention Oversight as I've never liked it. The difference between oversight and what I did is that other admins can still see what I deleted, and indeed those edits show up in a "Deleted user contributions" link on the IPs concerned. With Oversighting... it's gone - you have to go into the database to recover the information. In this particular case, I mentioned it here because although I could stretch the deletion policy under the "site disruption" clause, it's still an unconventional use. I also stated that if any other admin had a problem with my action they could restore the deleted edits, in case anybody wanted a site-wide debate. With Oversight, that wouldn't be an option.
:::: The difference is between "I've done this, and I'm telling you so other admins can check and tell me what they think" and "I've done something, but you can't see what so just trust me". Unlike Wikipedia, we have a very small number of admins, which means that even if sensitive information is posted, it can be deleted and only those few people - as opposed to the thousands on WP - can see it.
:::: In other words, I'd prefer to steer clear of Oversight for now. –rpeh 
:::::Ah, I see. Perhaps it should just be given to Daveh and Nephele? In any case, I was just making sure you knew about it! :) --Elliot   21:48, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we do need Oversight after all. This is getting tiresome. –rpeh  11:14, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

:I looked into Oversight just now, but it didn't look like it provided the one feature I was looking for right now (namely the ability to erase user accounts from all logs).  However, I'm willing to install it to make it easier to erase revisions from the logs, especially if continued problems warrant it.  Given the lack of any type of undo feature with Oversight (short of manually altering the database), I'm not sure whether anyone other Daveh and I should have access to it (since we are the only two people who could fix any mistakes made while using the feature).  But I'm open to feedback on that point. --Nephele  05:30, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

 
 

Patrolling Style - Elliot

Over the past few weeks I have been concerned at the style of Elliot's patrolling of the wiki. The latest series of edits have brought me to the point where I feel I have to ask the community to consider removal of Elliot's patroller status for a short period.

The latest discussion isn't the only example of style that isn't really appropriate for a patroller.
This discussion highlights the difference between Elliot's style and that of a non-patroller (Wolok_gro-Barok). Elliot's replies don't really explain anything to the user but Wolok's immediately give a clear explanation.
In this case the poster admits that the information s/he added may not be including; Elliot's response is harsh and dismissive.
This is such a horrible post I almost removed it before posting my own response, which solved the problem.
This removal of an editor's suggestion was reverted by Ratwar. We both found it an ingenious use of one glitch to fix another.
This edit removed potentially useful information. An editor of Elliot's authority should have spotted that the information wasn't included anywhere else on the page and either improved the original edit or linked to the correct page.
This reply is just wrong, as a very brief search would have confirmed.
(I could supply others but this will do for now)

His style and terse edit summaries have already been discussed on his talk page (here and here), and I know other editors (including myself) have tried to discuss his style with him on IRC.

I should say here that well over 95% of Elliot's edits have been fine, and it's just a few that cause a problem. None of these are bad on their own, but the overall pattern is not good. The net result is that I find myself having to double-check both edits that he makes and ones that he patrols: this is usually used as a criterion to reject a patroller nomination.

I should say here that I'm fully aware my own edit history has sometimes caused... raised eyebrows... from others. The difference is that I have learned from what other people have told me and have changed my style accordingly. Elliot shows no signs of doing this.

Since we have no defined policy, I'm going to suggest a temporary measure with a view to formalising a process in due course. I suggest that Elliot's patroller status be removed for a period of two weeks. After this period his status would be reinstated automatically, hopefully with a better perspective gained.

I'm not calling for a vote at this point. Ideally I'd like to hear other editors' opinions including, obviously, Elliot's. Any actions can be voted on later, should that be necessary. –rpeh  20:02, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
:I can't say I pay that much attention to Elliot's (or anyone else's) edits, but what I have read of his summaries is often abbrassive and confrontational---two qualities wholely undesirable in anyone in a position of any authority at UESP: it runs the risk of casual visitors and contributors getting a bad impression not only of Elliot, who does indeed contribute many good edits, but of UESP in general.  If only for the sake of UESP's image I agree that the pattern you've outlined, rpeh, cannot continue without intervention.  As for hat to do about it, a fortnight's revokation seems sensible to me as an emergency measure.  Anything else should, I think, be dependent on Elliot's own input. JKing 00:27, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

::While some of it doesn't speak well of his diplomatic skill, I've certainly seen as bad out of other Admins and Patrollers alike.  As you say, it doesn't reflect well on UESP at large when we're a bit snarky, but it happens.  Given that he's only been here for a little over 2 months, I'm not sure he's had time to really absorb the level of diplomacy expected from someone "on staff", so to speak (which may be a good reason to put a minimum time limit in for Patrollers, etc., but that's another discussion).  If possible, I'd like to see it taken up with him directly by someone (yeah, okay, so I guess that's probably me) whom he gets along with and is likely to have a productive discussion with, rather than feeling like a bunch of people are jumping on his back about it (as would probably have been the case if there was an IRC discussion, where it may have seemed like one vs. many).

::I'm not sure what two weeks would really accomplish.  To me, that seems punitive, which is only likely to aggravate the situation.  I think an informal agreement for him to only patrol non-controversial edits for a while until he gets the hang of a more diplomatic approach might be more constructive.

::Oh and I don't see mention of this on his talk page...I assume you e-mailed him privately about it, to make sure he has a chance to respond? --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 04:14, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

::: Last question first: he was told about it in IRC so is definitely aware.
::: I ought to make clear that the post was not a spur-of-the-moment response to one series of posts. I'm going to go through a bit of the history to make clear that there has been a lot of effort from several people to resolve this in other ways. I'm not going into full detail because some of the communication was private.
::: Elliot was given patroller status on 21 June. Almost immediately, I noticed that his style changed from being helpful and friendly to being rather forceful and opinionated. Take these two edit summaries, for instance. The first undo was correct, the second wasn't, but in both cases the edit summary was worrying. A couple of days later I got my first email from another editor expressing their concern. I have had others since.
::: On 6 July, two weeks after his election, came the Protect Tags incident. This was when I started having serious doubts about Elliot's status. I had a long discussion about it with him in IRC, not just about the policy violation, but about the principal of using special abilities to lock a discussion in which one is a participant. When the discussion ended I was still unsure whether Elliot had understood that point, one that you (RobinHood) picked up on immediately (from your response to Elliot and Nephele on his talk page).
::: By now, more people were expressing doubts and there were several informal discussions in IRC about how to proceed. Eventually, on 14 July, all the active admins were consulted through email or using IRC, about their thoughts on the matter. This was not, it's important to note, circumventing the site. It was simply a way to canvass opinion and discuss ideas. Any formal discussion would have taken place - like this - on the site. The end result was that one of the admins agreed to discuss the problems with Elliot. In any case, two days later Elliot made this post to his user page and the issue seemed moot. His retraction, less than 24 hours later, re-opened the matter. I decided to see if events had impressed themselves on him and whether this would make a difference.
::: It didn't. The same style has continued and the same complaints keep coming. Since at least four different people have tried discussing Elliot's style with him, all to no avail, there is a need to try something else. The purpose of a two week removal of status isn't to punish, it's to help the site. Other patrollers will no longer need to check every edit in case it's one that Elliot has patrolled. His own edits will not be automatically patrolled and so will stand out more easily. And hopefully, since all the problems seemed to start when he was made a patroller, the removal might cure the bad style and remind everybody why he was a unanimous choice for patroller in the first place. I'm open to any other suggestions for remedies, but I believe the time for simply talking has long passed. –rpeh  07:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

What exactly do you want me to say? It was made aware to me through GK, that I was improving and that she was glad that I was trying. And then this states I haven't been improving, so I am rather confused. Again, I never intended to take a malicious tone when I reply, it is just who I am naturally. A month is not enough time to change such behavior (and like I said, GK said I was improving). I could possible dig up everything wrong that other patrollers or admins have done, but I don't feel that is necessary. And with the protect incident. As I said before, I said it was a mix-up of different site policies, to which you replied "Oh rubbish". Within that same conversation, you accused me of lying more. I don't see how that is proactive in any sense of the word. Are we perfect? No. And that seems to be something easily forgotten.

Then we come to the edits which you have dug up. I believe the only reason I stick out is because I am the most active patroller. I make plenty of edits, which allows itself a higher chance to "slip up" or do something wrong. I stick out like a sore thumb due the amount of edits, replies, patrols I make. Yeah, I'm sorry for messing up, but we all do it. Sometimes you are pretty sure you are right about something when you are completely wrong. Guilty. I never said I was perfect, and I don't claim to be. 
Like I said before, in the real world, I am known for being a smart-ass with a quick whit and silver tongue with an ego to match. Frankly, I find myself doing rather well considering how I am IRL. Am I working on it? Yes, but it is pretty hard changing who you are (and with all the drama the real world carries with it, fighting parents, medical bills racking up, etc.). 

I usually come to the wiki for a solace, but as of late, it has become nightmarish. So I actually agree with the two week step-down (or however you want to put it). I think it would be best for me (since I haven't been able to receive any antidepressants as of late). But I won't promise to be as active as ever within that period (or even after, for that matter). Sometimes you have to answer the call of real life, and sometimes it becomes hard to salvage after so much has gone on. The me in real life is actually doing a lot of soul searching (especially with college on the horizon), so perhaps a two week period would be good for me to self-analyze and self-correct. 
I'm am actually a compromising and understanding person, but it hardly comes across that way unless you really know me, which, unfortunately, none of you have had the chance to do; ergo, I come across as this monster (just ask my teachers in high school, I made people cry with anger by just talking about welfare). But I mean no harm, and I never have. 

So, like I said, I am all for the two week time frame. However, I believe Nephele should do the actual action, as she is the most neutral person to possibly do it. Also, I ask that my name be left on the patroller page and the userbox left on my page, since this isn't a removal of my rights but rather a variant of a curb checking (which I am agreeing to). Again, I am sorry for all of the nonsense I have created and hope this can all be resolved, eventually. And I hope I get better in both instances. Thanks. –Elliot&#32;  10:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

:Edit conflict...
:Though I'm one as the supporters for the "talk first, act later" approach, I have been absent the past week, so I can't see well enough if that time has already passed. I do think the examples rpeh posted say enough, giving more would only be admonishing as Elliot is still a respectable editor. It's more that we try to find the precise point that is troubling us. For me it is the attitude towards newer editors, and the dismissal of potentially helpful additions. Let me adress the attitude issue first:

:From out point of view it looks like some question are asked over and over again, but from the person who asks the question again it may be his/her first time posting something like that. Does he really ask because he is too lazy to search? I can think of more good reasons: The reader is still uncomfortable with English sites which so much content (i.e. text to read), the reader is not adept at searching (not everyone is adept at that) or the reader did search extensivily, but only encountered dismissals from other editors. I can remember from my days of searching for answer on working with the Warcraft III Map Editor the frustation with finally finding a topic on a message board somewhere with a similar question, on to have the topic started be dismissed with the advice to search the message board for a similar question asked earlier. A regular visitor of the site, who has its posting history in his memory, often forgets how overwhelming the content can be to newcomers.
:In other words, I understand the need to blow off steam at IRC from time to time, but don't do it posting it here on talk pages or edit summaries.

:The second issue is also worrysome. The challenge of patrolling is judging whether a new addition or modification is sound or not. The problem is that if you take to much time researching every edit, it won't leave you time to do your own work, but sometimes it just comes with the job. It's better to waste too much time, than to dismiss what could have been a brilliant idea only badly worded. --Timenn-  11:14, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

:Now adding my reply to Elliot
:I understand how you feel most of the patrolling has come down to you, but let me add that this doesn't necessarily mean there are no other patrollers standing by. The fact that a long list is gathering just means that there isn't a patroller standing by at that time. Myself, for example, usually work from the list in one go. If I miss a day, I make up for it the next day. 

:As for the requirement for perfection. No we don't have it, but we do try to point out a certain pattern in attitude/patrolling style we'd wish to adress. Whether you make mistakes isn't the issue. --Timenn-  11:27, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

:: Elliot, in our original conversation about patrol tags, that took place only minutes after I had removed them, you didn't mention Wikipedia or policy confusion once, so forgive me if I'm sceptical when that becomes the centrepiece of your argument some weeks later.
:: I'm not accusing you of being a monster or even of acting in bad faith. In a way, what's happening is more problematic. If you were acting in bad faith there would be no difficulty in acting under existing site policies and issue a warning or a ban. I fully understand you're acting in good faith, but you're doing it in a way that is causing widespread disquiet. Additionally, you always defend your actions even when the problems are brought to your attention. You claimed to understand the point I made about escalating disputes but yesterday's series of edits did exactly the same again, so what has changed? In your final post, you said "So stop making something out of nothing" but if you had followed your own advice the problem would never have occurred and I wouldn't be writing this.
:: I would love to see you continue contributing to the site because, as I said in my original post, the vast majority of your edits have been great. You will need to start listening to other people, though, and learning from what they tell you. –rpeh  11:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

:::Okay, so it looks to me like we have an agreement from both sides for a two-week suspension, and hopefully that'll give a little time for everybody to cool off and reflect.  (And yes, I say "everybody" in italics because while I certainly see some issues here, I do think they're being blown out of proportion, probably due to the last month of back & forth discussions.)

:::While it's a little unusual, I understand Elliot's desire to leave the indicators of his Patroller status in place while he no longer has that permission, and I didn't see any complaints at the thought by either Timenn or rpeh.  I don't particularly see a reason for Nephele to make the permissions changes, but respecting Elliot's wish for that to be done, I'll send Nephele an e-mail and ask her to make the appropriate change without changing his page or the Patroller page.

:::And finally, responding to one point of rpeh's, I don't remember wether it was a private e-mail or a posting here, but I clearly remember Elliot saying at some point that there was confusion in his mind around the     tag policy, so at least on that point, I can back him up and hopefully reduce your scepticism. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 18:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

:::: The point is that the claim wasn't made at the time, but that's another matter.

:::: I have no problem with the indicators being left. This wouldn't a removal of status, but a suspension. –rpeh  18:29, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I share many other editors' concerns over Elliot's patrolling style.  While this discussion seemed to wrap up rather quickly, I'd like to add a few comments.

Firstly, Elliot's right, everyone makes mistakes.  My only request is that when someone points out those mistakes, the editor realize that it is an opportunity to improve themselves and the wiki, it is not someone "yelling at" them.

Next, I am rather concerned about the way he has thrown my name into this discussion, and the way I read his comments suggest a different conversation than the one that actually occurred.  I have been in IRC regularly, and after he asked for feedback in the channel on several edits before deciding what to do about them, I told him that that was an improvement, and I was glad to see it; however, his comments seem to suggest that I think he's doing fine, and he is well aware that I do not.  I have had numerous discussions with him since the referred-to conversation, all outlining my concerns.

Finally, his comment, "I never intended to take a malicious tone when I reply, it is just who I am naturally."  I'm sorry, but that's a cop-out.  When editing the wiki, you are not responding to someone face-to-face, where words can unfortunately come out before you think about the repercussions.  You are typing, and so it is very simple to not make a post if you can't do it without it being abrasive and/or inappropriate.  A few slip-ups, where an editor's "emotions" get the most of them I can understand...  not condone, but understand; however, when multiple editors have brought concerns to a person about their patrolling style, it really is as simple as not making the post if you can't do it appropriately.

In summary, I agree with the outcome outlined above.  Perhaps the suspension will help everyone, including Elliot, remember why he was nominated and elected in the first place.  I also have no problem with the indicators staying in place.  See y'all in a coupla weeks!  ;)  --GK  19:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

:Rpeh:  Poor wording on my part.  I meant that around the time of the protect tag incident, he'd indicated that there was confusion over policy, but that may have been in a private e-mail - I don't remember. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 19:57, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
::GK, I didn't just throw it around, and then there was a miscommunication on both of our parts. And I wish the regular editors would have talked to me through e-mail and whatnot, instead of having the administrators do it one by one. But that is beside the point. 
::Nephele, can you do this now? Thanks. –Elliot&#32;  18:47, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

:::I hadn't taken any action here yet for two reasons.  First, it's taken me this long to finish typing up my feedback.  Second, I didn't want to rush to take any action.  Even now, less than a week has passed, and normally only actions necessary to prevent damage to the site are made so quickly.  On the other hand, I don't think Elliot's return to normal status should be delayed either, especially since he clearly hasn't been doing any patrolling since this discussion was started.  Therefore, I just changed Elliot's status, but I'm planning to restore his patroller rights in 11 days, i.e., two weeks after Elliot agreed to the temporary change.
:::In the meantime, I don't think the discussion should be considered closed, since there may well be community members who haven't even had a chance yet to see the discussion.  Or others like me who take a while to collect their thoughts.  Therefore, I'm hoping some of my slowly-typed feedback might still have some value.

:::Elliot has claimed that he's being singled out, and I agree that's probably true.  However, inherently he's being singled out because of his value to the community.  Elliot is currently one of the most influential editors on the site.  Everything that I've read suggests that everyone wants Elliot to continue contributing.  Furthermore, I think everyone sees the potential for Elliot's role on the site to continue to increase.  For these reasons that Elliot's contributions have been noticed and other editors have invested time in providing feedback.  If Elliot's contributions were insignificant, they would have been simply ignored -- it takes much less time!  Furthermore, the only intention I've seen behind all of the discussions has been to help Elliot improve as an editor, so he can continue to contribute and do so even more effectively -- so he can learn from his mistakes, not make them disappear or atone for them.
:::However, being influential means mistakes are influential, too.  "With great power comes great responsibility" (or some such cliche).  Even if only 5% of Elliot's edits need improving, those 5% "stick out like a sore thumb" because of their effect, not their quantity.  Over the last month, Elliot has probably been the single editor who has been most likely to influence new editors: his actions (reverting an edit, responding to a question) have directly affected new editors.  Furthermore, because he is a patroller, his responses are likely to be seen as representative of the UESP community as a whole.  Even if an edit only represents 5% of Elliot's edits for the day, it may represent 100% of another contributor's impression of our site.  We only have one chance to make a first impression on any new editor.  Which is, in my opinion, why certain edits made by Elliot have come under more scrutiny than many other edits.
:::It's clear from Elliot's overall record that he wants to welcome new editors to the site.  However, these discussions have identified several situations where Elliot's edits have been more likely to have the opposite effect.  I think the problem is one of relative priorities.  Elliot apparently believes that the integrity of the site is the single highest priority.  I disagree; if integrity were so important, the site would not be a wiki (the best way to maintain integrity is to prevent the site from being altered).  Therefore, rushing to undo edits just to keep the site clean should not be a priority.
:::Rather, I believe the highest priority is the community of editors: without people who are interested in contributing to the site, it will stop being a wiki.  Site integrity may suggest that a questionable edit should be undone as quickly as possible.  However, respect for the contributor may instead suggest that it's better to leave the information in place for a day or a week -- in which case, I think the latter objective should take higher priority.  Of course, obscenities and blatant vandalism need to be removed as quickly as possible, but for the majority of the edits made to the site, there will be no harm if they are seen by some readers.  In the meantime, we can take the time to make sure we're responding properly to the edit, and to treat a new editor with respect -- assuming new information is correct unless you can prove otherwise (no matter who added the information); providing more detailed explanations if an editor didn't get the first explanation; making sure your actions (not just an anonymous welcome message) show new editors that they are welcome.  In the end, the edit may still be undone, but perhaps after the contributor understands why it's being undone.

:::Finally, I have one concrete suggestion for Elliot, for now or for after his patroller privileges are restored: try waiting 24 hours to make any counter-responses.  Some of you might think I fall back on the "wait 24 hour" suggestion too often; however, looking over the incidents that have been discussed, I really think waiting after the initial response would have prevented most of them.  Elliot's initial undo or the initial response wasn't noteworthy; it was the subsequent, rapid exchange before anyone else could even respond.  Therefore, Elliot, if someone re-instates an edit you undid, wait 24 hours to see what other editors think should be done.  If someone doesn't like one of your responses, wait and see whether someone else can explain it better.  Or ask someone else on IRC to look at the question/edit/response.
:::Simply giving time for other editors to get involved can make a huge difference -- for me, or any other patroller, just as much as Elliot.  Sometimes an editor might simply not respond well to my style of feedback -- not because there's something inherently wrong with my style, but simply because we all have different personalities, and therefore sometimes two people get along right away and sometimes they don't.  If an editor didn't like my response the first time, the chances are that editor simply won't like any response I provide; the editor may just need a different style of response or different perspective, which can be best provided by another patroller.  Even if the editor isn't going to like anyone's response, hearing from multiple people ensures that the feedback is representative of the community, not just one individual.  
:::--Nephele  06:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

::::Thanks Neph for the response. And trust me, I will try to utilize your advice. I admit that I like to rush things (I am extremely impatient a lot of the time), and I agree it is something that needs to be worked on. After some more thinking and time away from the computer/wiki, I will probably slowly come back and make more edits, and they will be better than ever. Thanks again, all! –Elliot&#32;  12:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

::::: I think you should keep editing during this "time off". The whole idea is to remove the pressure of being a patroller so you can become more relaxed on the site again. That won't happen if you're not here. –rpeh  12:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

::::::I plan to; I just haven't had enough time to focus in on myself. I'm still observing from outside the box. But don't worry, it won't be too long of a wait. Elliot&#32;  12:32, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
:::::::How do you know he's not Daedryon under a new ISP? 24.36.37.224 06:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
::::::::Well, how do you know? 24.36.37.224 06:52, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) The Admins would be able to tell if it's someone in the same city as Daedryon, unless he's also managed to change cities or find an unknown proxy.  Apart from that, the use of language isn't the same. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 06:54, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
:Well you might wanna look into this possibility, as I know that Daedryon is no longer in the same city, nay, province anymore. He's left for college in the states. The only problem I see with the possibility of Elliot being a sock of Daedryon is that Elliot is gay, but maybe Daed is just posing as someone else. 24.36.37.224 06:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
::Also, your perceptions of peoples language is flawed. Anyone can change the way they speak or type. It's not hard to do. Cover all your bases. 24.36.37.224 07:04, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
:::Elliot isn't Daedryon, but since you share his ISP and location you could well be. You have also vandalised this page in a manner typical of Daedryon. Please don't do it again. –rpeh  07:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
::::Again, how do you know? I know Daedryon personally. He is no longer in Canada, having left to the United States for college.

::::Obviously I share is ISP and location, I've lived next door to him for the past 6 years or so, until recently when he left. And also, I saw that Daedryon did that whole Zalgo thing, so I thought I'd try it, and honestly...it's lame. Not all that fun. So yeah, I apologize for that.

::::But if I was you, I'd look into Elliot being Daedryon. Just because you say he isn't, Rpeh, doesn't make it so. You're just doing things half assed as an admin because you've gotten lazy. Snap back and do things properly. 24.36.37.224 07:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

:::::Would that be the next-door neighbour mentioned on Daedryon's user page...the infamous vandal?  I think we're quite capable of policing ourselves without the help of an anonymous editor who is likely either Daedryon himself or his next-door neighbour that everyone on other wikis believes is Daedryon.  I think it's probably fair to assume, in light of rpeh's warning, that further edits to this thread will only result in the blocking of your IP address. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 07:28, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

:::::: I wouldn't have blocked him for engaging in a sensible discussion, but he made the decision very easy with that post on your talk page.
:::::: I have many reasons for saying that Elliot isn't Daedryon, not least that Elliot has made hundreds of useful posts to this site while Daedryon's activities earned him one of the few perma-blocks we have for named accounts. If I choose not to share them with an offensive BoN, that's tough. –rpeh  07:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) Yeah, that was a rather amusing post, wasn't it?  What does "BoN" stand for?  I've been trying to figure it out and I'm not getting anything.  If it's not suitable for public posting, by all means, reply by e-mail. :) --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 21:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

:"BoN" = "Bunch of Numbers". Just another way of describing an anon. –rpeh  21:53, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

::Ah, got it!  Thanks. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 22:46, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Several days later
Now that that Elliot's patroller permissions have been reinstated we should continue on this. What are our opinions on it, what does Elliot have to say and what is the commmunity's final decision.

I hate to say it, but I'm disappointed with the results of this entire set of events. I'm not really talking about Elliot in this case. He has made less edits than usual, and seems to have avoided some of the more difficult edits. Which I think worked in his favor. I refer to how these 11 days (not 2 weeks, as I was surprised to learn) have not really been enough to make a good final decision.  
Past week few people seem to have been really around to make it seem they have been paying attention to Elliot. Now it's perfectly understandable if you're away for a week, but if you had a strong say about this matter, and then not be around when the actual thing happens I find it strange. Were these days not just a waste of time, and unecessary hindrance for Elliot? Sure we may have been trying to cool down, but you don't cool down by totally avoiding the conflict. I was really under the impression that we could have used this time to work with Elliot in a way we learned to appreciate his good sides again, while Elliot could notice we have not criticised his person, but rather some elements of his patrolling style. Simply avoiding each other simply won't work.

So it comes down to this, has this really helped the case forward? --Timenn-  20:52, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
:Yeah, I actually found/find myself calmer than ever. It was 11 days because I stopped patrolling three days before Nephele enacted the decision. I don't what else there is to say, but I know taking a break from patrolling definitely helped. –Elliot   21:04, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
::Looks to me like he totally misunderstood the idea of the thing by staying away. But not having him around for two weeks definitely improved the wiki. Now we're back to the usual opinion-based deletions made with no checking. Just in the last few hours we've had this and this. How Elliot ever got made a patroller in the first place I really don't know. 94.136.16.242 03:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
:::Both of those examples are provided out of context.  The first edit, despite the somewhat opinionated summary, removed an edit that did not conform to the style guide.  The second edit was done after the anon who posted it origionally created an account to discuss the issue (their actual comment can be seen here), at which point Elliot placed it back on the article in a manner which conforms to the general wiki style.  Shortly thereafter, the User KFM updated his talk page with this, proving that the edit was unnecessary.  Eliot then removed the information again.  I fail to see how those examples can be considered overly opinionated, nor do I see any evidence that Elliot failed to check the information. -Dlarsh  03:43, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
::::I agree — both edits look fine to me. —Robin Hood   04:00, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
:::And 94.136.16.242 has been banned for being an open proxy and probable troll. --Ratwar 04:07, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
:I was not very active during the original discussion (I only discovered it after the whole Elliot/Daedryon discussion), but I understand Timenn's point. Now it does seem to look like we continue on like the whole matter didn't take place. But I do think this has helped the case forward. First, Elliot himself concludes that it really helped him, which is important. Secondly, Elliot seems to realize his sometimes hasty reverts, and makes up for it by adding it again. Therefore, this break, I think, has helped Elliot and the site. However, 3 days (I don't know exactly when Elliot officially became a patroller again) might not be enough to judge that yet.  ->T->C->E 10:38, 23 August 2009 (UTC)  

 
 
 

Image prods

Elliot has  'd some images that were recently uploaded by ACGrecor to fill out this page.  I agree completely, the images are below the quality we would want, but at the same time, I feel that something is better than nothing.  So basically, I don't object enough to remove all the   tags and revert the page, but at the same time, I feel I should voice some objection before they get deleted and ask for a second opinion on whether we're better off with poor images or no images.  So this is me doing just that. :)  Can an Admin please make a decision on this one?  Thanks! --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 03:39, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
:Call me a "deletionist", but I think there should be a minimum standard for "initial" images to include on the wiki (as in, temporary placeholders until something better is provided). I mean, the images basically broke every rule (suggestion?) provided on the  page. Yeah, we can have some lack-luster images, but these images detract way more than add, in my opinion. Also, this would have to be brought up on a Deletion Review if someone else objects. –Elliot   03:48, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
::It doesn't need an admin. The images are not very good but at least they are better than nothing. 94.76.246.74 08:01, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
:::I'm with Elliot on this one.  We hold text based edits/additions to a higher standard on main articles, so why shouldn't we do the same for images?  A poor quality image detracts more from an article than simply having no image at all in my opinion.  I see it along the same lines as a section of text that uses the first person in that even though they are trying to add something pertinent to the article, it just makes it look less professional than it did before. -Dlarsh  18:55, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
::::Well, Elliot has said elsewhere that he'll write it up on Deletion Review since there's clearly conflicting viewpoints here, so once he's done that, we can all move this chat over there. :) --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 04:25, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
:::::At the current moment, I am waiting to see if Timenn plans on getting better pictures for them in the near future. He has stated that he plans for it (see ). So as of now, the DR is on hold. –Elliot   04:30, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
::::::Oh, sorry, I was only skimming and must've missed that. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 04:48, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

 

Deleted Logs
I just took the liberty of deleting the entries detailing the account creations, blocks, and renames from the recent changes log and the activity log.  In particular, I think that the main goal this vandal wants to accomplish is to add offensive nonsense to the recent changes page in the hopes that the nonsense then cannot be removed.  Therefore, clearing out the information from the logs is likely to be the best way to thwart the vandal.  Note that all I've done is remove the log entries -- the blocks are still in place, and the accounts still technically exist (although I'm also going to rename them all).  Also I've dumped the sql of the logs so that if it's decided that the information should be restored, I can do it.

I'll look into other options for dealing with this, including the above suggestions.  I just wanted to post this information first to explain why the evidence all suddenly vanished.  --Nephele  04:02, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
:I'm glad to see that they could be taken away! But there are two more in the account creation log dated at 06:00, August 17, 2009. Just a heads up! –Elliot   04:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
::I'm already working on them. --Nephele  04:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
:::Okay, cool. Just letting you know. Nephele, I swear you have special powers or something. –Elliot   04:29, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Vandal notice

Following the advice listed here, I would like to bring the anon editor 71.239.161.45, to the administrators' attention.  All three of this User's edits at the time of this post have been disruptive to the site (1;2;3) and in the edit sumary for the third example, the User asks to be banned. Given their reaction to warnings, I feel that stricter action on the part of the site is required. -Dlarsh  19:36, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

:Thanks. User has received a one-week block. --Timenn-  20:23, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Complaint about a personal attack
As you can see on my talk page, a troll by the name of Priam is flaming me.  In fact, he used the exact words "fucking idiot" to describe me.

If you would be so kind as to send the Troll Patrol over there and settle this, I would be quite grateful.Dstebbins 21:03, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

:I believe the acute situation has been settled. Priam seemed insistent on his insulting behaviour, resulting in an indefinite block. --Timenn-  21:53, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

 

Open Proxies

Have the IPs in the recently deleted discussion (back up a diff or two from this edit) been added to our global ban list?  It doesn't take a genius to figure out that most, if not all of them were probably the same person contributing through a variety of proxies.  Thanks! —Robin Hood   01:27, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
:Two had already been done; the rest have now been done (now that I could find a few minutes to read up on Tor exit nodes, and now that our friend has been good enough to confirm that blocking the IPs does actually get noticed). --Nephele  22:52, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
::Thanks, Nephele! —Robin Hood   23:52, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Pages Proposed
Hi, I am Nordickie and I have been a "lurker" (someone without a profile on the site) on this site for about 3 years and a avid fan of the elderscrolls series for around 7 years.  I most have logged hundreds of hours on this darn site, until I finally joined about a week ago.  I am an avid power leveler, and am constantly looking for ways to make stronger characters.  So I was surpised there wasn't much of a "power leveling" page.  I am aware of the efficient leveling page and the "Making an Awesome Character, and end game optimizing pages" but I felt they were sorely lacking (no offense).  I have some expereince with other wiki sites and I was wondering if I could touch these up a little and maybe suggest to at least throw out the idea of combining the pages "Making an awesome character" and "end game optimizing since they seem repetive and disorganized.

:Hi!  There's no need to ask on the Admin Noticeboard before editing- "be bold"!
:A few tips:
:*Use Preview!  (a lot!)
:*Consider doing the rewrite in a sandbox so that readers won't navigate to a half-rewritten page.
:*And, of course, don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions.
:The talk page of the applicable article is usually the best place to ask questions, but you can also personally ask an editor on their talk page, or use the Community Portal if it's regarding more than an article or two.  Have fun!  --GK  03:07, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Rpeh, De-Admin Request

Look, I don’t like doing this, but the events of yesterday, it is clear to me that Rpeh is no longer fit to be an administrator on his site. Using the Check User function, I have tied both Rpeh and Calliope to the IP address 89.168.63.134. At 13:59 server time, Calliope made an edit to his user page. At 14:04, Rpeh used the address to protect Elliot’s talk page, and then at 14:06, Calliope was again using the address. Therefore, we can reasonably say that they are in fact the same person. Furthermore, IP logs for both Rpeh and Calliope oscillate between 79.72.*.* and 89.168.*.* on the same ISPs. Once again, this makes it quite clear that Rpeh has been using a alternate account. 

An alternate account is not a huge deal, but Rpeh was using his account to attack Elliot 1, and was using proxies as well. In addition to this, he was using his administrative powers to  protect Elliot’s talk page 2, and also issuing warnings to both Elliot 3 and his alternate account 4. He also used his administrative powers to run check users on his own alternate account. There is also evidence that this type of behavior has been happening for some time. On the Arena Talk page we can see an anon user (89.168.126.149)  with a similar IP to Rpeh (89.168.*.*) attacking Elliot, and three minutes later, Rpeh made an edit telling both Elliot and the anon to quiet down.

Personally, I feel that these behaviors are not fitting of an Administrator on the UESP. In fact, I feel that they are gross violations of ethics for abuse of power and just plain lying. As seen by Rpeh’s switch to 89.168.118.93 (probably by rebooting the modem) to deliver warnings to Elliot and Calliope, he was actively attempting to fool the UESP staff. Therefore, I must propose that we strip him of being an Administrator as soon as possible.--Ratwar 06:35, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

: There's NO evidence at all. I am absolutely disgusted at this. Overnight I decided I had had enough of the playground this place had become and decided to leave. I post a notice to that effect and within just a few minutes I see my name being dragged through the mud. Did people decide to wait until I'd left because they thought I wouldn't notice? I only wish I'd left sooner. –rpeh  06:36, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

:: Oh I see. Please can somebody explain why the Checkuser I ran last night on Calliope produced no matches to any other account and this morning it does? Do you really want me out that much? –rpeh  06:39, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

::: If indeed Rpeh and Calliope were coming from the same IP address from within a few minutes of each other, especially with the back-and-forth, I see that as almost bullet-proof evidence that Rpeh was indeed using Calliope as a sockpuppet.  I would, of course, appreciate confirmation from a second Administrator, but if this is the case, I would whole-heartedly support de-adminship. —Robin Hood   06:43, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

:::: (E/C) To respond to just two parts of this rubbish: I semi-protected Elliot's page (briefly) to stop the IP vandalism as suggested by others here. The only reason I got involved was that I saw the problem escalating, and Eshe's message that she couldn't intervene herself. Second, why would I use anon IPs to post idiotic comments on Elliot's talk page and incriminate myself by using the same IP for two named accounts? Somebody didn't think through this frame job very well, did they? –rpeh  06:48, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

::::: And while we're at it, blocking me and then starting a discussion that I can't take part in isn't exactly fair is it? –rpeh  06:59, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

:: I've done a brief check. Results.... Rpeh seems to post from two locations (much as I do). One of those has had a stable ip for about three months. The other changes semi-frequently but stays in the bins 79.72.*.* and 89.168.*.* as listed by ratwar. When an ip is used repeatedly, then the checkuser function lists a time range during which it is active. For the range of ratwar's activity, there are only two overlaps with other users (not counting one overlap with his own ). Both of those overlaps are with Calliope. (Aside from 89.168.63.134, there's also 79.72.92.60 on 8/29-8/30). 

:: On the other hand, Calliope and Rpeh are posting consistently from browsers with different browser signatures. (Ratwar, if you check the user logs, you'll note that the gray text next to the IP is different for rpeh and Calliope.) So posts seems to be coming from different computers (skipping the details, but my best guess is that different computers are involved.) So this would tend to argue against Rpeh == Calliope; however it could also be explained by using different computers at the same location. (Could be done, as could repeatedly resetting the modem, though it would be a hassle.)

:: Despite the differences in browsers/computers, the ip/time overlaps provide very strong evidence for the same user. And if so, the behavior listed above would be quite bad. Wikipedia frowns strongly on sock puppetry -- especially by admins, who have been summarily de-sysoped for it. While we're not wikipedia, we ordinarily take them as a good guide to our policy. 

:: Please note that I won't be able to contribute much to this discussion. I have a pretty limited amount of Wrye time available these days. Looks like its going to be a mess though. Having been through it before... my sympathies to folks who will be weathering the storm. --Wrye 08:13, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

:::I'm still evaluating the strong evidence versus the seemingly lack of motivation for such an elaborate ploy to what seems to be a direct attempt to discredit Elliot. I just can't make up a judgement right now, though it might be best to remove Rpeh's admin rights for now.
:::The one piece of evidence I would like to bring into contempt is that of . Replying within three minutes is not suspicious if one realises that someone who loads the Recent Changes would find that discussion on top. The match of IPs is another matter, that is based on the same evidence with the CheckUser results. --Timenn-  08:32, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

:::: To save people the effort of checking, I post from two locations: home and work. At home I'm on the Tiscali ISP, which has the 79.72.*.* and 89.168.*.* ranges, and at work, which is the IP I'm using right now. Tiscali hands out IP addresses like confetti - you can see in the Checkuser logs that I've used it do determine my home IP while at work more than one; the logs before the MediaWiki upgrade had many more instances of doing the same. At both home and work I use FireFox unless I'm asked to use something else. RoBoT will show up as something else; possible IE or possible .NET - I can't be bothered to check. I'll leave that for the black hat brigade.
:::: I feel I should also point out that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. By posting CheckUser information publicly, Ratwar has violated the Privacy Policy. –rpeh  08:41, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

:::::For the sake of completeness, it's possible to get different browser signatures if you're running two different browsers side-by-side on the same computer (e.g., IE and Firefox) -- which also happens to be an easy way to be simultaneously logged in using two different accounts (I've done it in the past with NepheleBot when I've needed to quickly log in and clear the "you have new messages" notices; I've also done it on the forums, where I use a separate login to do admin-related tasks).  It's also possible if multiple computers in the same house are using the same internet connection (e.g., using a private LAN connected to a hub with NAT) -- or even a computer and a web-capable cell-phone in the same house.  For any admins interested in an example, feel free to run checkuser on my current IP (63.249.111.117), which reports that I've used at least four different browsers all from that same IP -- three of the browsers are from the same computer (two in windows mode and one in linux mode; it's a dual-boot computer), and if you scan for "iPhone" you'll also find my iPhone's browser.  If NepheleBot had been active recently, there'd be yet another browser listed for NepheleBot.
:::::Also, I've also independently examined the CheckUser logs and seen the same evidence. --Nephele  08:54, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
::::::In regards to rpeh and Calliope using the same IP, there is, of course, the possibility that they're two different users within the same household or small office, but at this point, I think the discussion is moot.

:::::: Rpeh does have a point, though, that posting IP information about someone else violates the Privacy Policy, so can I suggest that the original post be edited and the changes oversighted (or whatever mechanisms we have here...I remember a discussion on it, but not the results). —Robin Hood   17:45, 10 September 2009 (UTC) 
::::::Stricken, since Privacy Policy does say "Where it is necessary to limit any damage as a result of vandalism or related activities", which this would certainly qualify as, if true.  Since the strength of the evidence is of prime concern here, I think it was reasonable to post the information (though specific addresses could probably still have been avoided). —Robin Hood   20:10, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

:::::::Well, I'm new here so I hope I am not speaking out of turn, but I have been following the recent exchanges fairly closely. Even a cursory look at the contents of their posts will make it clear that Rpeh and Calliope are not the same person, unless Rpeh is a really really great roleplayer. Rpeh and Calliope living or working together is much more likely, given how he seemed to be defending her. He screwed up with Eliot, no doubt about it. Too bad this ended with the nuclear option, with both Eliot and Rpeh leaving. Ninti 18:44, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

The evidence that Calliope and rpeh were simultaneously editing from the same location is, unfortunately, unambiguous.  As admitted at the Wikipedia guidelines, nearly all cases of sock-puppetry must rely on circumstantial evidence.  However, in this case, all of the evidence leads to the conclusion that Calliope and rpeh are the same person.  I believe the intent behind creating the Calliope account was not malicious, and also believe that some of the other circumstances of the situation are less incriminating than may seem at first glance, nevertheless, several prohibited actions were made in relation to the sock-puppet account.  As a result, the bottom line is that regretfully I no longer feel that rpeh can be trusted with administrative rights.

In two separate incidents, more than a week apart, both Calliope and rpeh made edits from the same IP address within minutes of each other.  Multiple admins have now independently examined the CheckUser logs and confirmed these facts.  The IP addresses are not from a public location (library, school, etc.) but rather, by rpeh's own admission, are IP addresses assigned to his home internet connection, and therefore it is not possible for rpeh to be unaware of someone else using the IP address.  While there are possible legitimate reasons why two people could share an IP address, in that case, any such connection should have been revealed, especially before rpeh issued warnings related to Calliope's edits.  Rpeh could even have clarified the situation when he used CheckUser (at 11:58 PDT, hours before anyone else noticed the issue) and discovered the evidence.  Or he could have provided some sort of explanation here on the Admin Noticeboard.  By instead refusing to even acknowledge the facts in the case and responding with angry counter-accusations, rpeh has destroyed his opportunity to provide an alternative explanation, leaving sock-puppetry as the only viable explanation.

Even his denials have been contradicted by the facts.  For example, the CheckUser logs undermine his claim that "the Checkuser I ran last night on Calliope produced no matches to any other account".  Of the 25 IP addresses used by Calliope, rpeh ran followup checks on 2 IP addresses.  Those happened to be the only 2 IP addresses used by both Calliope and rpeh, and there is nothing else to connect the 2 IPs -- more than a dozen other IPs were used in the time period between those two.  The only conceivable reason why rpeh would be interested in those specific IPs is that he saw the notes next to those IPs stating that multiple users had shared the IP address -- the exact same note that was noticed by other admins and triggered this investigation.  The followup checks on those IPs by rpeh would have clearly shown the shared usage, presenting rpeh with the exact same evidence examined now by at least four other admins.

On one other minor point, I wouldn't be surprised if rpeh had not realized that his IP address would be recorded by CheckUser when he protected Elliot's talk page -- and therefore did not realize the incriminating evidence created by that one act.  Plus, the details recorded by CheckUser and the analysis of results available increased dramatically during the wiki upgrade: the shared IPs would have been more difficult, if not impossible, to notice if the same events had happened a few months earlier.

Beyond the shared IP addresses, examining Calliope's contributions confirms, in retrospect, all of the other expected signs of sock puppetry:
"Precocious edit histories", i.e., unusual familiarity with wiki standards and policies for a new user, including UESP-specific wiki details (our use of namespaces; what is relevant to Lore) that would not have been acquired by editing on other wikis.
"Chronology of edits".  Beyond the overlapping use of IPs, the overall chronology is also meaningful: Calliope appeared at a time when rpeh wanted to step away from the site (due to offline events that have been brewing for a few weeks and culminated in this unfortunately-timed announcement); and, rpeh's pattern of contributions to the site changed after Calliope appeared (the following day, he started using the rpeh account exclusively for admin/RoBoT-related edits).
"Similar writing/editing styles": Calliope's edit summaries and justifications consistently mimic those used by rpeh; a more detailed example is the careful in-game testing of Feet of Notorgo.  Plus, the two accounts made identical votes, citing the same basic reasons.
Only "editing identical articles" is inconclusive, and that's simply because rpeh has edited every article on the site, making it impossible to fail that test.  Overall, my conclusion is that the evidence is as clear as possible in a sock-puppetry case.

On the other hand, though, I think some of the more extreme interpretations of events are unlikely to be true.  Specifically:
I don't think rpeh started editing as Calliope for malicious reasons, and specifically I do not think the account was created explicitly to attack Elliot.  Rather, I think rpeh wanted to stop visibly patrolling UESP edits, and therefore was using Calliope to do his patrolling (or at least the edit-fixing part of patrolling).  Such an account might not be entirely honest, but it would not necessarily be an inappropriate use of an alternative account.  It was probably just an unlucky coincidence that Calliope and Elliot disagreed over an edit, at which point events rapidly escalated out of any one person's control.
I don't think rpeh is responsible for any of the anonymous edits to Elliot's talk page.  I think one of our persistent trolls is responsible -- making multiple anonymous edits to escalate a site disagreement is the exact M.O. of one troll, and that troll has tried multiple times to antagonize Elliot in the past.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if this troll has Elliot's talk page on his watchlist, plus it would have been easy to realize on Tuesday that things were heating up and to then wait until Wednesday to jump in as soon as round two started; so the timing of the anonymous edits is, in my opinion, not truly significant.  There is absolutely no evidence of a connection between this troll and rpeh.
Furthermore, the anonymous edits were responsible for discovery of the rpeh/Calliope connection.  The only reason why CheckUser was run on Calliope was to look for a connection to the anonymous edits; discovering the connection to rpeh was an accidental side-effect.  Rpeh had no reason to engage in edits that would inevitably trigger the use of CheckUser, and his actions yesterday instead suggest that he was actively trying to prevent the anonymous edits from increasing the visibility of the situation.

Nevertheless, even assuming that rpeh had the best possible intentions when creating the sock-puppet account, there are still several actions that are clearly forbidden by Wikipedia policy:
Rpeh twice used his sock-puppet to vote in site decisions, duplicating his own vote (at  and at ).  Double-voting is expressly forbidden.
He issued a warning to Elliot when he himself was one of the two contributors to the edit war.  This is also explicitly covered by Wikipedia policy: "Admins are also proscribed from operating a "bad hand" account for the purpose of engaging in editing disputes while at the same time appearing to be a neutral admin dealing with page protection or "three-revert rule" issues on the same articles."

Of course, as pointed out by Robin Hood, this is essentially now moot.  On top of which, rpeh's subsequent statements/accusations have eclipsed the original events as far as influencing my opinion.  I don't want to further aggravate the situation by rehashing the details, yet based on the previous comments I think this information needs to be clearly stated for everyone's benefit. Perhaps it will help some community members make a bit more sense of these bewildering events; perhaps it will help to rebut some of the specific counter-allegations or the general (and understandable) skepticism.

It's very disheartening, to me personally as well as to the community overall, that UESP appears likely to lose one of its most valuable editors and most respected administrators, but it was rpeh's decision to go down this path, including opting to burn all of his bridges and quit the site.  I remain confident that UESP will recover from this unexpected setback, and will continue to flourish and move forward. --Nephele  21:16, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

:Also, one quick bit of feedback to Robin Hood: I agree that disclosing some IP information was necessary for the sake of this discussion, and such usage is covered by our Privacy Policy.  Given that Tiscali randomly assigns IPs that rotate multiple times per day, providing one specific IP address doesn't substantially reveal any more information than providing a range such as 89.168.*.* -- the extra details are random and therefore do not contain meaningful data.  Furthermore, there is no easy way to eliminate the information from this article and its history.  It's present in each of the two-dozen-plus revisions made in the last 12 hours, so this entire discussion would have to be erased.  The text of the discussion could be pasted back into the article, but in the process all of the details of the history (who said what when; the edit summaries; etc.) would be lost. --Nephele  21:36, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

::Agreed, there's little to be done for it at this point.  Also, in regards to the anonymous IP edits you mentioned above, while I initially suspected Calliope, having looked more at Calliope's edits vs. the anonymous IP's, I have to agree that the troll you're talking about is far more likely.  The overall style simply isn't the same. —Robin Hood   22:02, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

:Good analysis, Nephele. Based on that, plus earlier analysis, I also agree that a de-adminship is the correct course of action in this situation. As noted, it's somewhat moot at this point since rpeh has asked for that as well. However, it should be done sooner rather than later. 

:I'll also second that the site will continue to do well despite this. We've had similar problems in the past and recovered (even fluorished) despite them. --Wrye 22:08, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Rpeh was editing at WikiIndex for the last few days, which can explain some of his recent inactivity here. --Michaeldsuarez   22:40, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
::I agree with pretty much everything Nephele has laid out here.  I'd like to echo the sentiment that it's unfortunate things came to this point, but it seems like the end result may be for the best for everyone involved.

::In light of these discoveries, I would like to suggest that the warning that has been placed on Elliot's page should be removed.  While I contend that Elliot should be held accountable for his actions, it seems entirely inappropriate for the warning to stay in place. –Eshe  22:55, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

:::If it needs a seconder, I concur, the warning should be removed.  While Elliot's response (the one rpeh warned him of) may have been off-the-mark, I admit jumping to a similar conclusion initially, so I can hardly fault him for doing the same. —Robin Hood   23:55, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

::::I also agree with Eshe's suggestion that the warning needs to be removed.  I've even been in touch with Elliot already about the situation, so he's aware of the unusual circumstances.  And thanks, Eshe, for the other followup you've taken care of today. --Nephele  04:17, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

:::::In light of agreement by two Admins (Eshe, Nephele) and a Patroller (myself), I've gone ahead and removed the entire section.  There was a response by Ninti there as well, but on its own, it would've made little sense, so everything went. —Robin Hood   05:14, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

:Nephele, your opinion is well thought out and well researched, and I agree with it. Really, for those of you that doubt the strength of the technical evidence, I'm not sure you really understand exactly how damning this evidence is. I mean, a before and after IP match in a ten minute time period could only be more clear cut if he used the same browser. You aren't going to get better technical proof. The chance of this happening just once is extremely remote, and as Wrye has discovered, it happened twice. --Ratwar 06:48, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

:: I could go through Nephele's post and refute it point by point but I can't be bothered. I mean, calling our edit summaries similar when most of the time she didn't provide one? I just feel sorry for anybody posting well-researched information from anywhere in England, as they will probably now be linked to me. I know I'm nothing to do with Calliope and I don't care what anybody says in opposition. Whether the IP coincidence came from malice, chance or error (I've certainly had enough "UESP has a problem" messages recently) I don't know and I no longer care.
:: Of course UESP will continue to flourish, and I really hope it does. I have put real-world months of work into this site and if you think I want that effort to be wasted then you are quite simply wrong. Speaking of wasted work, I uploaded the cleaned and zoomed tiles for the other Oblivion map zones to content1 several weeks ago and I assume they're still there if somebody wants to make the updates to the map code. If not, let me know and you can have them. I also have several pages I was going to add to a new mod sub-site. If anybody's interested you can have those too. That's not finished though.
:: Due to various off-site issues I was already planning on taking a break; after the incident between Elliot and Calliope I decided to make the break absolute because I knew I was going to keep getting dragged back into being a playground monitor if I didn't. As a result these latest developments don't change my plans very much. The only difference is that now whenever you see a well-researched post removing a VN tag from an article, you can rest assured it won't be me because I will definitely not be editing this site again.
:: Goodbye. –rpeh  10:32, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
::: Just wanted to chime in, even though it looks like I’m rather late. Sock puppetry or not, the UESP has lost one of its best and most prolific editors. That is a fact, and to be honest, it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. Not only was Rpeh the very reason I joined the site in the first place, he also took his time helping me out with my stupid questions – as well as doing the same for a handful of other editors – and always managed to run the site with a glimpse of humor, making it more fun to work on this page. While I was prepared to give rpeh the benefit of the doubt (I mean, making a sock puppet to be able to edit more quietly is no big deal – it just went too far), it seems like the evidence is overwhelming, unfortunately. What saddens me about this whole affair is the feeling of “angry lynch mob” that’s been haunting this place for the last couple of days. I mean, come on – it was a sock puppet made by a guy with over 44000 edits! Nevertheless, the result is inevitable and we’ve lost a brilliant editor. Was it worth it? No. So rpeh, thanks for all the good times with the NPCs - you will be truly missed on the project and on this page in general. --Krusty 15:20, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
::::I'm not sure I can agree with the "angry lynch mob" comment, though I'm not about to say it's all been rainbows and flowers, either.  As Nephele said in her comments, I think the sockpuppet that went too far was one thing, but his reactions in response to the accusation, whether he was guilty or innocent, were anything but what I would expect from an Admin, and it was that more than anything that made me firm in my stance.  There have been other incidents of un-Admin-like behaviour over the past year that have also concerned me, to be honest, and I think I've been fairly open about those concerns as they came up.  But in spite of those concerns, there is no question in my mind that rpeh contributed hugely to this site over the years, and I don't mean in terms of edit-count.  I will always value his contributions, his help and pleasant IRC banter.  I can honestly say that I wouldn't be the UESP editor I am today without his guidance along the way.  But whether it was interpersonal differences, stress, or who knows what, I think rpeh no longer fit here as well as he once did.  So with that, I'll say a great big thanks to rpeh for all his hard work, and I wish him the best in whatever he chooses to do in the future. —Robin Hood   19:04, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Definitely not an RfA ;)

In light of the fact that we've recently lost one significantly-active Administrator and the fact that the other still has limited use of her hands, is there a need for more Administrators at this point?  To be honest, I'm perfectly content as the Patroller I am, but at the same time, I also want to see UESP do well, so if help is needed, I'm willing to go through the RfA process.  Opinions? —Robin Hood   20:31, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
:Right now I'd rather wait a little bit. I think in the short term the current admins can cover the needs (I'm trying to chip in a bit more). In the long term, we'll probably need to appoint another one, but we want to be very careful about it. After having two admins out of the eleven that have been appointed resign (and 2 of the 9 that have been active since I've been on the site), I'd much rather put in a little more time right now than pick the wrong person with a knee jerk reaction. --Ratwar 20:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
::Per Ratwar. It probably best to wait. --Michaeldsuarez   22:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
:::I also agree with Ratwar.  Now is not a good time, regardless of who may or may not be ready.  We've got things covered for the short term, especially since things are pretty slow at the moment. –Eshe  23:35, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
::::Not a problem.  I basically wanted to put it out there that I was willing if there was need, but I don't feel any pressing urge to become an Admin, so consider it a standing offer if things get a little hectic.  Oh and Ratwar, I think your count may be off...depends how you look at it (no subtext intended here...this is just me being anal-retentive).  To my knowledge, we have indeed only had 2 Admins who've had the privilege removed, but we've also had one who more or less said he was resigning but never had the privileges removed, and 2 others who've stopped contributing at some point (though Endareth has said he/she will return with TES5). —Robin Hood   03:22, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::Well, the one that basically resigned wasn't going to have his access taken away if he didn't, which in my mind is an important distinction. I did count Endareth and Garrett though in saying that only nine of us have really been active since I've been around.--Ratwar 06:20, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
::::::It was your use of the word "resign" that confused me, but obviously you counted all the same ones I did in the end.  Thanks for clarifying my nitpick. —Robin Hood   07:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

 

Massive Site Outage
The site has been inaccessible all day, producing only a message saying "UESPWiki has a problem". Was this outage anticipated? Dr Jones 16:00, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
:Anticipated? Doubtful. Unexpected? No. We have been getting a lot as of late, so we just deal with them when we hit them. Daveh has been working on the servers to upgrade them recently, so a slight bump must have been hit. –Elliot   16:07, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

:It has happened a few times (3?) since we switched to the new DB server at the start of August so its likely something to do with the new setup. Unfortunately, each time it happened I've been traveling which makes it hard for me to do anything (fortunately, Nephele has been around to get things going again). I've made a few changes and will watch it closely in the near future to see if that solves things or if I can catch it happening. -- Daveh 00:38, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

FYI - I made another account
I just wanted to make an official record of it, considering recent events;  I've created another user account () and redirected the pages to mine.  The main reason is that I want to make sure no one else uses the name, but there a a few convenience-related reasons as well.  :)  --GK  03:05, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

: W2G GK :D     Lukish    04:45, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Questionable User Name

I believe the new user Austin is coosie (created August 22, 2009) falls under the "inappropriate username" catagory based on the definition given here. Dlarsh  23:47, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
:Agreed.  I took care of it.  Thanks for pointing it out! –Eshe  23:52, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Spam watch

While looking through the User Creation Log, I noticed the user Xiaoyuokok05 (created 9/22/2009), which is extremely similar to the bolcked user Xiaoyuokok01 (created 9/21/2009, blocked 9/23/2009).  Given the nature of Xiaoyuokok01's block, I'm not sure if such a similarity would qualify as coincedence.  I know they haven't done anything wrong, so this is more of a heads up just in case. Dlarsh  23:45, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
:Yeah, I noticed that yesterday and ran a quick check on them.  They're both using the same IP address, so it's probably reasonable to do a preventative block on the other account.  I'll take care of it.  Thanks for reminding me! –Eshe  23:53, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

 
 

Misleading "You have new messages" banner

On 's page (a banned user, for anybody unfamiliar with him), there's a fake "You have new messages" banner which leads to somewhere else on the site.  It has previously been removed by  and then reinstated by , I think on general principle.  I decided that it really didn't belong, since it would mislead any users who read the page into thinking they had a message, which they would probably then click on and find themselves somewhere they didn't expect, so I removed it last night only to have it reverted by an anonymous Tor user.  Being banned, we can't really ask the original user to remove it, so can I ask for a consensus on removing the header?  Or if not removing it, altering it in some way to make it patently clear that it's not a real system message.  Thanks! —Robin Hood   19:14, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
:I've asked it before. Here -> . But I think my opinion has changed. I don't think many users will stumble across it, and even if they do, I don't think they will get too confused when it leads them to something unfamiliar and be quick to realize it's some kind of joke. Since I don't think it'll cause any problems, I say: Don't remove it.           19:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
::While it's true that not many people will likely stumble across it at this point, it may come up in things like page histories or "What links here" uses.  At the very least, I'd like to alter it to read "(Joke) You have new messages...", just so that it's 100% clear to the rare user who does end up there for whatever reason. —Robin Hood   19:53, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
:::I'd rather not do anything to it. I don't like messing with User namespace pages, and it's not doing any harm. I think it's actually pretty clever. Don't let it bother you, I doubt it will trick anyone.    Lukish    23:10, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
::::It tricked me, albeit indirectly, since I don't usually click on them but jump straight to my own talk page instead.  But more to the point, I see impersonating system messages as a form of vandalism in its own right, much like altering a user-page warning. —Robin Hood   23:55, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

:::::I think Rpeh's argument earlier on is still valid. You don't have to visit the userpage, and I'd rather not disturb the sleeping dogs. Furthermore, the links lead to seemingly random articles, and not harmful ones. --Timenn-  14:18, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
::::::I'm really not invested in what happens to this particular page.  However, I think it's probably better to leave it alone.  There are plenty of things about other users' pages that might be annoying (like layout, wacky colors, whatever), but user pages are supposed to be personal space.  If it's not hurting anything, might as well leave it be.  For the record, I'm pretty sure it got all of us!  And if I recall correctly, DUMG's page is not the only one that uses it. –Eshe  22:43, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Okay, well, I'm surprised that nobody at all seems to agree with my POV (apart from Wolok, who used to but no longer does  ), but it seems I'm massively out-voted on this one, so I'll let it stand. —Robin Hood   00:34, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
:One question: Why does a permanently banned user need an userpage for? When an user is banned permanently on other wikis, their user pages are either blanked or deleted. I'm not saying we should become like other wikis, but what practical use can Dagoth's userpage possibly have now? --Michaeldsuarez   18:37, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

::Really, why bother? The userpage provides significant history. Deleting prevents editors from checking it, and blanking seems like a non-solution. --Timenn-  11:44, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
:::Alright. --Michaeldsuarez   17:41, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

 

Oblivion:Glitches Semiprotection

Since there isn't a "Protection Review" page (at least not that I'm aware of), I thought I'd bring this up here.   was semi-protected three years ago to avoid having unregistered users enter a lot of uninformed information (if that's not an oxymoron).  At the time, that made a lot of sense, since the game was still new and a lot of things were poorly understood.  What's the general feeling about keeping that page semi-protected now?  I only ask because we just had a report from an unregistered user because he/she couldn't make good-faith edits to the page.  My personal opinion would be to give unprotection a try and re-protect if problems arise, but I don't have strong leanings in either direction. —Robin Hood   09:12, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

:I agree. Three years is long enough ago to warrant an attempt at a trial with Oblivion:Glitches being open to all editors (not just autoconfirmed). Normally pages should only be protected to prevent vandalism. --Timenn-  09:27, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

::While we're at it, perhaps we should review the entire list at :Category:Semi_Protection.  I didn't look at all of them in detail, but it seems to me that there are at least a few entries there that probably don't need to be semi-protected any more.  That said, I think there are some like  that may have more reason to be long-term semi-protected. —Robin Hood   19:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

:::The whole idea of semi-protecting Oblivion:Glitches was that people would post on /Proposed instead. What are you going to do with that? While Aristeo's "solution" to the glitches problem wasn't perfect... or even half decent... don't come up with half a fix in response. 89.168.110.46 19:59, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

::::If that were the primary concern, then it would have been fully protected.  At this point, I doubt we're going to get too many additions to the page by anons, but if we do, we can always put it back to semi-protection.  Still, if you have a better solution to propose, now is the time to do it.  After all, TESV will be coming out at some point, and we'll probably face the same issues on its Glitches page as we did originally on Oblivion's. —Robin Hood   20:53, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

:::::You missed my point. I don't like the current solution but if you unprotect the main page, what happens to /Proposed? 89.168.110.46 20:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

::::::It depends on your faith in users...and we have to assume that they're editing in good faith.  If all users do as they should, then they'll still used /Proposed properly.  If they don't, then we'll re-investigate options at that time. —Robin Hood   21:39, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

:::::::Sorry... you know why the subpage was created, right? Good faith has nothing to do with it. People can add total nonsense in good faith and the subpage was created to deal with that problem. Registered editors usually took more care. Unregistered ones added anything. The idea was that glitches would be confirmed by experienced editors before being moved to the main page. By and large, that is what has happened. Yes, this solution (introduced by Aristeo with no consultation) has ended up moving the rubbish to /Proposed rather than the main page, but at least the main page now has a collection of relevant, confirmed problems.
:::::::If you have TWO pages that anyone can post to, you will end up with chaos on both of them. IF you unprotect the main page, you need to merge /Proposed into the talk page or something like that. Having OB:Glitches, OB:Glitches/Proposed and Oblivion talk:Glitches all unprotected and apparently open for editing is going to be massively confusing. 89.168.110.46 21:46, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) Yes, I understand the logic, and if it's necessary, that's what we would go back to.  I don't see the harm in trying unprotection to see if it's still a concern.  As I said, I expect we'll need to implement a similar solution on TESV's Glitches page when it comes out, but at this point, I don't think it's likely to be a big concern for Oblivion's. —Robin Hood   22:10, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

: I'm not sure that a glitches page should be created for at least 6 months after TESV is released or you'll be inundated with rubbish. Well that's likely to happen on every other page anyway, but by creating a Glitches page you're asking for trouble. If OB:Glitches is unprotected, then why not fully-protect /Proposed and have everyone post on the talk page? At least that would be getting back to something like a standard article. 89.168.110.46 22:14, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

::Currently we have a better patroller coverage, and if the patrollers are consistent with moving anything unproven off the main page it will work. We probably need to start being more consistent with the Proposed and talk pages. Proposed should only cover those entries that are seemingly correct, while everything in the form of a personal experience should be moved to the talk page right away. --Timenn-  12:37, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

NewLine Weirdness

Not sure where to post this exactly, but since it's indirectly related to the above post, I figured this was good enough.  For some reason,  isn't showing up in the Protected Templates category.  At least to me, it appears to be identically structured to , which does show up.  At first, I thought it might be the fact that   was used in   causing some kind of recursive issue, but even after removing that, the problem doesn't seem to have resolved itself.  Anybody know what's going on here? —Robin Hood   20:49, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

 

Isn't it about time...?

Why dont you people apologize to Rpeh and invite him back on to the site? You just have to look at the recentchanges page to see how much the site has suffered since he left and its only going to get worse as time goes on. He didnt do anything wrong (Elliot pretty obviously faked the whole thing - look at how he left almost straight after the incident) and although one or two of you are trying to keep things going, your missing your most active editor and it isnt working.

You all used to be friends so why not stand up, shake hands and get on with fixing the site? 192.251.226.206 21:45, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
:Quite simply, he chose to leave (although I'm not ignoring the drama around that), but he still has his account here and if he wishes to contribute, he knows he can do so at any time.  I doubt that he would get his Administrator status back, but that doesn't stop him from contributing.  Also, Elliot didn't have the means to fake much of what happened, so I think we can discount that entirely. —Robin Hood   21:57, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
::As Robin Hood points out, I'm not blocked. I can come back any time I want. The fact is that as I have mentioned elsewhere, I don't want to. He should realise, though, that I had stated several times I wanted to get rid of my administrator status, and that even if I did come back I wouldn't want that particular ball and chain back.
::While I thank 192.251.226.206 for its comments, it should rest assured that I am quite capable of fighting my own battles.
::Every so often I cast my eye over the site, and there are many edits I would test, edit or undo, but I'm sure UESP will continue regardless of how inaccurate it is becoming. –rpeh  22:31, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Dropping the Ball on Vandalism Among Other Things
 

Block Appeal
So, 79.72.61.216 wants to appeal his block. I believe that the case is clear that Rpeh is in fact 79.72.61.216. They share the same ISP (Tiscali UK Ltd), and the anon user displays at least two of the expected Signs of sock puppetry (in this case a Precocious edit history and editting identical articles, mainly Elliot's talk page). He's also harping on policy an awful lot, another known sign of Rpeh. Rpeh has been blocked since Novemeber 20, and the block was already extended once, since he edited from the address 79.72.91.10 on the 23rd. At that time, the timer on Rpeh's block was reset. That is why the block, which was orginally for just a week is still active. 

I believe it is clear that Rpeh was using 79.72.61.216 to continue editting the wiki, despite being blocked. Since apparantly reseting his timer has little effect on him, I would also propose that we extend his block for a month, if not longer. That is of course, pending on the outcome of this appeal.--Ratwar 21:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

:The similarities are way too much to ignore. He targets similar articles, similar editors, and basically brings up the same talk each time he is confronted. And not only that, but there have been multiple IPs autoblocked in response to Rpeh trying to edit with an IP. I agree with the month block extension, and I think that a month should be added each time the block is circumvented, in addition to a reset of the block. –Elliot   22:05, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

:: What exactly do we win by blocking Rpeh month after month after month? If the “evil editor” is indeed Rpeh, it is more than likely that an extended block will force him to keep using IPs, making it even harder to figure out who is who – and in the end win the UESP an award as the most user-blocking wiki on the net. I would much rather have Rpeh being able to speak for himself instead of using all the anons. In short: We can’t block our way out of this crisis, so we might as well try the opposite and see what happens. -- Krusty 22:51, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

::: We can't treat this any differently just because the accused happens to have a lot of edits. If you don't like the idea of constantly blocking, then you are bowing to child-like behavior by not staying away while being blocked. If you don't like that idea, then perhaps we should range block the entire ISP while he is blocked. Perhaps he will use proxies, perhaps he won't. And what will Rpeh need to say? We are going to talk it out...? –Elliot   22:55, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
:::Also, with maintaining blocks when necessary and utilizing some of the features I detailed up above in that mammoth both I am extremely confident that we can handle anything that will be thrown at us. –Elliot   23:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

::::'''Note: this appeal seems to no longer be "active," given the user's post here'''

::::The way I see it, the most important issue here has nothing to do with Rpeh.  First and foremost, we've just suffered from a massive attack made by an IP from the same range as the user in question.  Given the amount of trouble we've been from both this range and the network in general, I think a precautionary block on those IPs is warranted.

::::On the issue of circumventing blocks and resetting timers, I agree with both Ratwar and Krusty, to an extent.  There's only so much we can do to "prove" a user is circumventing a block by editing anonymously or through another account.  If we can be reasonably sure that a blocked user is attempting to circumvent a block (and this must be a case-by-case guideline), the original block should be reset and the new IP or account blocked for an appropriate amount of time.  I agree that there is nothing to be gained by indefinitely extending the timer in such cases.  If after a couple of resets it becomes clear that the idea of the block isn't setting in, we should move to an indefinite block, which could always be appealed at a later date.

::::In this particular case, I would first like to point out that as of the 28th, the protection on Rpeh's talk page has expired and he is more than welcome to make his case there.  The first "sock IP" block, 79.72.91.10, may very well have been someone else impersonating Rpeh.  However, given what we believe to be Rpeh's previous actions, this was a "better safe than sorry" situation.  This case is less clear, but also seems to be justifiable, given the other reasons to be wary of IPs from this range.

::::Also, please note that we're currently discussing some things that may help solve problems like this in the future (See #Dropping_the_Ball_on_Vandalism_Among_Other_Things). –Eshe  23:56, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

:::::I agree that extending the block on Rpeh serves little purpose if he's circumventing it.  And if, instead, it's someone else who appears to be him (whether deliberately or because we're becoming paranoid), then again, the block is ill-advised.  To be honest, I'd rather see Rpeh make a fresh start under a new nick and just take things from there, since he does have significant editing experience around here and could probably be a significant asset if he chose to.  I'm pretty sure it was him that pointed out the broken redirects from the Lore:Dictionary DR, and that's exactly the sort of experience I'm referring to, since that's not something I had considered until it was mentioned.  Nevertheless, I'm not naïve enough to think "Can't we all just get along?" will really work at this point.

:::::Given the continued issues from that IP range, I would suggest a range block.  It's possible that that may only instigate more Tor editing, but we'll deal with that if the issue comes back up.  Given that the appeal has been withdrawn, even if somewhat ungraciously, I think the appeal itself is really a non-issue at this point, though. —Robin Hood   00:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

\=> There is no good proof this IP editor was rpeh. The circumstantial evidence that is present is not good enough to warrant a block. We should not care whether the editor may or may not sound like rpeh, it's not how we should judge other editors. If we start blocking people for these reasons, we lose our objectivity. Let me summarize the similarities and the differences.

Precocious edit history: rpeh has argued for policies more than many other editors, and more frequently as of late. The IP editor has hinted to earlier confrontations with Elliot and Ratwar. Furthermore, the editor has been editing Templates, which are edited more frequently by established editors than new editors. On the other hand, it's not that hard for a new editor to dig up old discussion with Ratwar and Elliot present that refer to similar events. I can imagine that if you are blocked, you wish to do some investigation into the one who blocked you. It's also quite easily forgotten that another wiki, Wikipedia, contains a great deal of regular editors. Those editors are familiar with policies, and would know where to find them on other wiki's. We have had some other editors who pursued the same policies before. The edit history of this IP is too short to truly derive a good profile of his/her knowledge of this wiki's history.

Editing identical articles: As argued before by Nephele, rpeh has made edits to a vast majority of articles of this site. Considering that the IP editor edited Elliot's talk page because it were Elliot's edits that were undone is perfectly reasonably. All the IP editor did was revert a couple of Template edits made by a single editor, and then contacted that editor about it. Comparing this IP editor to rpeh because rpeh has edited Elliot's talk page as well sounds very far fetched.

Knowledge that an obscure article exists: Templates are usually less known than major articles, especially the templates in question. Then again, the Template namespace should be familiar to anyone with experience on editing wiki's. And, more importantly, Elliot's edits were on top of the Recent Changes. 

Similar writing/editing styles: This is the most speculative part of the all the signs. You need a good deal of writing before you accurately compare two styles. The phrasing "on this wiki" sounds quite familiar to me. It has been made by various new editors that mistakenly believed we are a part of wikia, or that wikia owns all wiki's outside of Wikipedia. It would not be a slip that would be made by an editor already familiar with this site. On the other hand, since I recognized the phrase, it can be reasoned that rpeh knew it as well, and chose it to mimic a new editor. The immediacy of the hostility towards Ratwar and Elliot is one sign of an earlier history with both. But considering that Elliot bluntly removed the IP's talk page comment, and Ratwar didn't elaborate on the block until he created the section here, I can imagine any editor would be annoyed and started acting in this way. It's nothing new that the blocked editor tries to discredit the one who caused the block.  
My point here is that this similarity can be reasoned both ways. It's all flawed reasoning.

Seeing these four points, I feel the evidence is very weak. We cannot judge editors on this kind of circumstantial evidence. That would mean that every editor with this ISP is an immediate suspect, which I don't find a welcoming thought. I think we should try to save the objectivity of this community, rather that pursue this enormous deal of speculation. --Timenn-  14:14, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

:Timenn, I respect your opinion, although I find it discouraging. Look, catching sock puppet accounts will always rely on circumstantial evidence. It's just the nature of the game. I laid out my case before, but I'll reiterate with a bit more detail. The IP address in question made Precocious edits to the templates. I checked the Content, Footer, and Header template subcategories and found a grand total of 3 anonymous IP edits (not counting the template attack and the Non-Sense bot). None of these edits were to change a formatting issue on the templates or to revert changes by any editor (established or otherwise). Thus we can say that it is very unlikely for anon users to edit templates, and even more unlikely for them to be reverting established editors. Then he goes on to quote Wikipedia policy on Elliot's talk page, therefore we can surmise that this editor is making highly unusual edits (for an anonymous user), knows Wikipedia policy, and is in an immediate conflict with Elliot. Rpeh would easily qualify for all three of these criteria. The ISP match is a confirmation that it would be highly unlikely for anyone to be framing Rpeh, and it does help to build the case. Now, after the block, it becomes even clearer that Rpeh is behind the anon IP. For example, he bolds the "never had an account on this wikia", so basically he's saying that he's familiar with wiki markup, yet doesn't realize that we are not a Wikia (something that would be quite evident to anyone familiar with Wikia, since we have far less ads). Secondly, he manages to find the Encyclopedia Dramatica entry on the UESP and OblivioWiki with astonishing speed, kinda like he knew where to look. 

:Really, I believe it is quite clear that the IP address was Rpeh, and recent attacks on the site have dictated that it would be wise to take a more proactive approach for dealing with disruptions caused by rpeh. I do not want to have a repeat of the long argument Rpeh caused on November 20th. I do not want a repeat of the spam attack on November 29th. Those problems will drive established editors away from the site and convince prospective new editors to stop joining. The reason I would like to see a month long block on Rpeh is not because I feel that blocking him will prevent him from editing. I'm not stupid. I merely want the ability to block anonymous IPs that can reasonably be linked to Rpeh (such as this one) before they cause large arguments that hurt the site. I believe that this course of action is the best one for the site. No matter what Rpeh has done for the site, he has become a disruptive vandal, and I plan on dealing with him like one.--Ratwar 18:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

:: 
:: This could be anyone. rpeh isn't the only who knows about wiki syntax, policies, and concensus. Most wiki users have been to Wikipedia, and anyone who knows about Jimbo Wales knows about Wikia. Anyone could rip off information from UESP Watch. This may be a troll trying to pit us against rpeh. --Michaeldsuarez   19:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC) 

:::So basically your theory is that someone hates Rpeh so much that not only are they attempting to frame him, they've actually managed to get a Tiscali IP address, and have been working for about three months on it? You don't believe that Rpeh, who has a known history of using sock puppet accounts is a far more likely explanation?--Ratwar 21:22, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
:::: &ndash; rpeh explains this better than me. He describes the problems with Tiscali there as well. Yes, I believe that the anon is some sort of prankster trying to cause trouble. These pranksters are called trolls, and the trolls are disrupting the wiki by causing us to argue over things like this. They want to see good contributors go down. It has happened before. --Michaeldsuarez   23:40, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
:::::Would rpeh really be stupid enough to say ''"I'm rpeh and I'm evading your block. Ban him! Ban me!". --Michaeldsuarez  ''' 23:45, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Can I just bring this all back to earth for a second and remind everyone what the base issue is here?  What Rpeh has or has not done is not relevant; the issue here is that we've seen a significant amount of trouble lately from a given ISP, and it's come to a point where we're forced to be wary of edits that come from it.  Is it an overreaction?  Probably.  But given that the administrators and patrollers can't be expected to give every second of their free time to be on some paranoid lookout for more vandalism, I think it's better to err on the side of caution until we find a better way to control the problem.

We have to do the best we can with what we have, and arguing over what has been done and things we can't know will do little to help us.  I think it's more important to focus on ways to deal with this issue in the future so we won't have another fiasco like this one. –Eshe  00:12, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

:I agree with Eshe. I, personally, don't believe this is rpeh. We need to figure a way to stop this vandalism (which is why the above discussion is taking place). –Elliot   00:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
::That's what's being discussed at #Dropping the Ball on Vandalism Among Other Things.  created this sub-section in order to discuss extending rpeh's block. Perhaps we should remove the extension, end this debate, and focus on the anon's vandalism? --Michaeldsuarez   00:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
:::Yes, and I am against an extension. –Elliot   00:38, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

::::Ratwar, my point behind it was not whether one should believe rpeh was the anonymous IP or not. It's something that is hard to prove either way, and in this case we do not have evidence to support the fact that this IP was rpeh. I agree that we will always have to rely on circumstantial evidence, but even in that we have degrees of verifiability. In the previous case there were IP matches that showed up in the CheckUser function, and longer edit histories to judge. 

::::Having discussion about whether one believes rpeh or not will only divide the editors, and that for a question that can never be truly answered to everyone's satisfaction. If rpeh is innocent, we will be judging him most unfairly. If he is determined to disrupt the site by creating these incidents, as you say, he succeeds when he forces us to act outside of our policies. 

::::It's the believability of the administration that is at stake. We discussed before on how the site should never turn into a place where administrators lead and the other members are silenced when they are too verbal in their criticism. Instead we opt to allow some of the loudmouthed people to continue, to keep the atmosphere alive that everyone should be able to speak their mind. This results in that we sometimes have to let a vandal walk free. --Timenn-  13:13, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

:::::As mentioned by Timenn, myself, and others, it's impossible to absolutely prove that the anon is rpeh or anybody else.  For the sake of the site, I suggest that we treat the vandal and rpeh as two people, regardless of whether or not people think they actually are.  Assuming rpeh makes good contributions to the site, as is his wont, then we should by all means encourage him to continue to do so.  In the mean time, we should do all that we can to minimize the vandalism and trolling. —Robin Hood   23:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

:Well, it would appear that I do not have any real support for a longer block, so I will bow to consensus. As for the appeal, the administrators appear to be split. Timenn, if you’d like to take this up to Daveh (per policy), feel free.--Ratwar 01:51, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

::Ratwar, may I point out that in fact, Eshe hasn't pronounced herself either in favour or against the block, if my interpretaion of her post is correct. This means that in reality the Administrators are not split, since Timenn has stated he is against the block and Eshe has remained neutral. Basically 1-0. Therefore there is no real reason to ask Daveh to handle this. 

::Rpeh has repeatedly stated his good intentions and by keeping the block in place you are effectively obstructing any positive work he wishes to carry out. The only other thing acheived by the keeping this block is the rising in tension. Since nothing constructive is being acheived by this prolongued block, and given that Rpeh, like anyone, would probably find editing during the weekend easier, may I suggest that it be lifted immediately, given the fact that consensus has been reached? --SerCenKing   17:57, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

:::There has been no consensus reach on whether the block should be lifted. Plus, even there is consensus, policy states that it is Ratwar's final decision. The block ends Sunday, so I believe that any further conversation hurts more than it helps. –Elliot   19:58, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

 
 

NPC Summary tweak

Can one of you uber-template-editing types have a quick peek at User:RobinHood70/Sandbox2|my sandbox and compare it to  just to make sure I did everything right and that nothing's gonna wreak havoc if I make the change to the real template?  The only change I made was near the top, putting the   into an   block to have it not initialize if the summary is being used in user space.  (Note that the closing }} is at the end of the initial block of   commands.)  Thanks! —Robin Hood   10:55, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

: Well the code is right so the template won't bork... but I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't work because of the way the parser functions work. –rpeh  11:01, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

::I think it will be fine. I just looked at some previews of it on a bunch of different pages in different namespaces, and the trail only showed inside the Oblivion namespace. –Elliot   11:27, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

:::Ah - I was misreading it. You get a trail in every namespace except User. I was playing in things like User_talk. It should be fine. –rpeh  11:42, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

::::Okay, I'll make the change, unless one of you has beaten me to it. —Robin Hood   22:50, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

 

Vandal Brake
You have to keep in mind two things about the vandal brake. First, for various stupid philosophical reasons I will not go into now, RationalWiki decided not to block users, ever. We still need something to stop vandals, that's why we have the brake (or bin, the nomenclature is a bit inconsistent at this point). But our approach to troublesome users is also different. The point of the bin is to still allow the user to edit - what they use this opportunity for is their choice. At RW, evading a block to revert vandalism for example is not only allowed, it is encouraged, that's why the bin allows one edit every 30 minutes. Additionally, the admins of RW either didn't know that mediawiki could allow blocked users to edit their talk pages or that option was not available at the time, so the vandal bin was better because it would allow a "binned" user to appeal the block on the wiki.

Second, we didn't use memcached (or any other kind of caching) until recently, so wgRateLimits was useless for us (it only works with memcached).

If you use wgRateLimits and blocking, I'm not sure you need VandalBrake. Nx  10:10, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

:It was mainly added to give the patrollers the ability to stop vandals without forgoing the admin right to block. We stil haven't tested it, so if we do not need it, I am sure we will get rid of it in time. But we cannot say how it works without at least testing it. –Elliot   11:16, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

:: Forgot to reply to this... Yes, rate limiting will stop anonymous users flooding the site but it won't do anything to stop an autoconfirmed user doing it. Most cases of sustained vandalism I've seen have come from confirmed users (Benny220 and Xbox plus their various aliases spring first to mind, Roleplayer4life and his aliases, Granty and his aliases, ImmortalKaine, etc etc etc). The Vandal Brake would allow patrollers to slow down such editors without extending them block rights. That's another key difference with RationalWiki - instead of 350+ sysops, UESP has about 2 active ones at the moment. –rpeh  16:23, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
::: Well, that's unfortunate. And $wgRateLimits works on anyone who doesn't have the noratelimit right, by default this is given to sysops IIRC. The vandal brake uses the same right for applying the 15 second (by default) limit.
::: Anyway, I've made some improvements to the bin, including making the IP checking stricter so you can't just log into another account from the same IP and edit again, and I've separated the right to bin from the right to block. I've described the configuration options here Nx  18:45, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I know this is alot to ask...

Hello UESP administrators, my name is King and I am working on a Shivering Isles-specialized wiki and I was wondering if you guys would be ok if I posted a link to your site on my site's homepage.
My site's URL is  I know I sorta took a little bit of your name but I really admire the UESP site.  
:You don't need permission to add a link to UESP. Go ahead. --Michaeldsuarez   16:59, 21 December 2009 (UTC)