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This is an archived version of this page, as edited by Peter Damian (talk | contribs) at 14:37, 16 November 2013 (→‎User Peter Damian and his meta email). It may differ significantly from the current version.

Latest comment: 10 years ago by Peter Damian in topic User Peter Damian and his meta email
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Meta-Wiki has a small active community. When a normal user requires the assistance of an [[<tvar|sysop>Special:MyLanguage/Meta:Administrators</>|administrator]] or [[<tvar|bureaucrat>Special:MyLanguage/Meta:Bureaucrats</>|bureaucrat]] for some particular task, it is not always easy to find one. This page helps users find one when they need one; asking specific admins directly via their talk pages is one way to elicit a fast response. It is only for assistance required at Meta-Wiki, help for other wikis needs to be requested at those wikis.

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[[<tvar|rfa>Meta:Requests for adminship</>|Requests for (translation/central notice/interface) adminship]] on this Meta-Wiki</translate>

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[[<tvar|rfcu>Meta:Requests for CheckUser information</>|Requests for CheckUser information]] on this Meta-Wiki</translate>

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[[<tvar|os>Meta:Oversighters</>|Requests for oversight of edits]] on this Meta-Wiki</translate>

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To report [[<tvar|vandalism>Special:MyLanguage/Meta:Vandalism</>|vandalism]] on Meta: please click [<tvar

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<translate> Please find answered requests in the [[<tvar|archives>Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat/Archives</>|archives]] ([[<tvar|current>Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat/Archives/2024-07</>|this month]]).</translate>

suspected WP:SPIP

Latest comment: 10 years ago26 comments4 people in discussion

Please verify & clean, danke.[1] 74.192.84.101 21:46, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

[2] PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:48, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
MF-Warburg has globally locked this account. PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:50, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
((edit conflict)) But do note -- this might be an *honest* mistake, since they are *honestly* using their actual obviously-COI business-name Maybe they're trying to get an AfC, on enWiki? Suggest sending them to my enWiki talkpage, or the Wikipedia:WP:TEAHOUSE, or something, so that somebody can show them the ropes, and explain the five bazillion policies they just violated. WP:NICE, WP:AGF. 74.192.84.101 21:51, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
Since the user is now globally locked, they will probably not check their talk page. Nonetheless, I have added a short note explaining what they did wrong. PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:55, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
It is senseless to try to explain such stuff to a spambot which already hit 4 wikis (Special:Centralauth/Mortgagewoodbridgevirginia). --MF-W 21:57, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
Oh, didn't notice it was a bot. Anyway, per 74's suggestions, [3] (feel free to revert). PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:59, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
I do not care about *this* case being a bot. I care about the 1% of cases that are false-poz. It is most definitely not senseless to be nice to 100% of the triggered-stuff by default, that is the definition of assuming good faith. Besides, even if it is a spambot, there has to be some human reading the fallout, right? And before this $smallbiz hired some spammer to get them into wikipedia, bet you they tried to write the article themselves, and were reverted by Wikipedia:WP:NINJA folks with no explanation, and no hand-holding. Can you do some kind of wizard-tool-global-search for the *first* time this particular smallbiz selling mortgages was ever seen on any mediawiki sites? Prolly AfC, would be my guess. Even if I'm wrong, on this case, I can be wrong 99 times in a row, as long as I'm correct on the 100th time, we just earned a new editor. All we had to do was WP:AGF about the previous 99 spammers. Very hard to do! But it gets easier. Like this.

Here is the errmsg we just gave them. Officious, assumes bad faith, et cetera. Does not matter if manually given, or generated by a bot.

Please do not add commercial links or promotional content to Meta. A page that you recently created, or link or text you added to a page, seems Wikipedia:WP:WEASEL to be an advertisement or otherwise promotional. This is not acceptable on any Wikimedia wikis, and will be removed on sight. If you persist in this unacceptable behaviour, your account may be blocked and/or the domain(s) blacklisted. Thank you. PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:47, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Here is the manual addendum, at the *end* of all the officious threatening language. PiRsquared is trying hard, and I appreciate it, but I want WP:AGF to be the default, not the afterthought.

If you think your organization/business is notable enough for a Wikipedia entry, you may ask for help at the Teahouse (help forum for new users).

What if, instead the template-spam was written like a personal note... a form letter, of course, but trying to be personal, not officious.

Hello, welcome to wikipedia, thank you for your constructive addition of $smallbiz. This is not the site for business-articles, this is where we have meetings of editors, like yourself. You are welcome to come back any time. I have moved your article on $smallbiz over to enWiki, since you wrote this helpful overview of your $smallbiz using the $locale glyph-system. There is a procedure for new articles about businesses, to gather information about how notable your business is. Please gather some links or clippings from newspapers, television, and radio that show off the notability of $smallbiz. The nice friendly editors over at AfC will help you get your article on $smallbiz into shape. If you have any questions, or concerns, please visit wp:teahouse or wp:retention. p.s. Because wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not all businesses belong in the articles here; if $smallbiz does not yet have enough media coverage to warrant a full-blown article, it might have enough coverage to be WP:NOTEWORTHY in an article on the industry of which $smallbiz is an important part, or on the region where $smallbiz is located. If it turns out that $smallbiz does not yet belong in wikipedia, keep trying -- you'll get there. Good luck! And thanks for helping to improve wikipedia. Love, your B.F.F., PiRsquared17. ♥ ♥ ♥

(Apologies to PiRsquared for the sig.) Is that worse, somehow, than what just happened? Why globally block them, which is frustrating, if we can let them down gently? And maybe get some editors, as part of the deal. Wikipedia:WP:RETENTION. I've got a one-track mind, folks. Even if we only get 1% of these events turned into active editors, we will add literally 100 new editors a month, indefinitely. What is senseless about that? We get hundreds of millions of uniques, and nobody stays around to edit, because wikipedians no longer assume good faith. 74.192.84.101 22:14, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

You're funny. Users who really want to edit constructively instead of spamming for some business won't even edit Meta. --MF-W 22:16, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
I swear, dead serious. I know what meta means, I've written a meta-circular-evaluator. You think the mortgage spammers know what meta is about? We cannot assume WP:CLUE. (not sure that's a real policy but if it isn't it ought to be.) 74.192.84.101 22:20, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
We don't want a mortgage spammer neither on Meta nor on enwiki, I think. --MF-W 22:22, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
How about a hair salon spammer?[4] 74.192.84.101 22:24, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
How about a menswear spammer?[5] 74.192.84.101 22:31, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
Well, they are not spambots on Meta, no? --MF-W 22:37, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

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Correct, they were clueless humans, over on enWiki. But you are not assuming good faith about the spambot here on meta, and the people who dealt with the hair-salon-kid and the tuxedo-store folks over on enWiki assumed exactly the same thing about those clueless humans: Bad Faith, based on obvious advert/useless/WORTHLESS edit that was their very first one ever. We have to AGF about the spambot on meta, because the culture of assuming bad faith, reverting without helping, template-spamming rather than leaving a human-friendly note, is the fundamental root cause of the retention problem. I am not here to defend the 99 spammers. I am here to defend the one poor clueless n00b that *looks* like a spammer, *smells* like a spammer, and *edits* like a spammer... cause THEY ARE CLUELESS. You are very familiar with the truth. You know almost everything caught by the filters is bad. You resist offering my nice love-letter to the mortgage-spammer because you assume bad faith, you assume it is because they are a spammer, because you know they are a spammer. But sometimes, one in 100 or worse, maybe only one in 1000, they're just a kid, like ThatGirl, who thinks wikipedia is like facebook or myspace. Sometimes, they are running a small business in downtown London, and are too busy selling friggin *duffel* bags for USD$900 each to the hoity-toity menswear clients, to bother with reading the five bazillion wikipedia policies. Will all of the spammers suddenly turn good? No, course not. Will all of the clueless folks magically become WP:COMPETENT? No, course not, most people are incapable. But I insist we do our best to catch and retain the small sliver of humanity worthy of keeping us company here. Sending pictures of whimsical bots, and oh-so-polite form-letters -- that you and I both know are wasted on 99.9% of them -- is the price we pay. We need more active editors. I'm not asking for much, I just want to send nice messages, you can still crack down on the Bad Guys, as long as you are careful to make sure and attract the Good Eggs, rather than repel them. This requires some changes in the errmsg text, and the names of bots newbies might be bitten by, but it mostly requires a change in culture. We really, really have to mean it when we say that wikipedians Assume Good Faith. 74.192.84.101 22:44, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Found it, WP:CLUE is a real policy, which says whoever has the most CLUE is the one who gets to edit the article, and the other editors are instantly reverted. The policy laid out in Wikipedia:WP:CLUE is a recipe for exactly the way wikipedia works right now. It is the unwritten rule which governs everything. The way it works is like this: every article has an owner with WP:OWN ability to edit, and any n00b that dares cross them is instantly reverted by the WP:NINJA defense forces using huggle stiki wpcleaner and friends. The position which I advocate is also policy, found under WP:NOCLUE, which says for the sake of really preserving AGF, we must never assume CLUE, and in fact unless the person is typing utter gibberish rather than broken ungrammatical but could be cleaned up by a WikiGnome on the talkpage English, we give them the benefit of the doubt, and proceed as if they were capable of potentially developing CLUE. My current quest is to *eradicate* the use of WP:CLUE as the default unwritten rule, because it has side-effects which are killing WP:RETENTION, and I want five million active editors and slowly growing, not 80k and steadily dropping. 74.192.84.101 22:56, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
Please note that WP:CLUE is not a real policy, but an essay. And I think this discussion about retention etc. probably belongs on the Wikimedia Forum. PiRSquared17 (talk) 23:01, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
Yes, it is very honourable to care about attracting editors, but I really do not think Meta is the place where much can be done about it; this discussion would probably be better on enwiki. --MF-W 23:12, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
Sure, it is not a real policy, on paper. But look at the edit-history of the various anons that modified the Duchamp-clothing-store article. Nobody contacted them, on any talkpage, for *five years*. Whether it is official or not, it is the way enWiki works, and my experience with inability to comment on a talkpage about bot-problems because those selfsame guardians prevented my *comment* seems pretty convincing evidence that meta has the same cultural problem, only worse. (Nothing compared to wiktionary, though -- or from what I hear, to deWiki, though I have no experience there.) Anyways, if you insist on having this discussion elsewhere, we can. But it will quickly lose focus, is the most likely outcome. I'm trying to convince MzMcBride and MF-Warburg, because *they* have access to the code which runs the bots, and because *they* have the status to be able to make the culture-change I'm advocating stick. The policy I'm advocating here is not wp:clue, or wp:noclue, or even wp:retention, the policy I'm advocating is pillar number four, which is also known as WP:NICE, with the corollary of WP:AGF. If the culture is correct, the text of the errmsgs and the names of the regex-rulesets will fix itself, but if the culture is not correct, any change to the errmsg will be resisted because, it is senseless to waste time making all these changes so we can politely global-block spammers and vandals. The culture is the key. And I have explicit proposals for what can be done on meta: change all the descriptive yet unintentionally-offensive names of all the regex-rulesets and all the mediawiki extensions and all the 'actual' bots, and change all the correct yet unintentionally-offensive texts of all the error-messages, so that when that one Good Egg in a thousand happens along, we retain them. 74.192.84.101 23:21, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

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Retention is not me trying to WP:PEACOCK my self-image, or make friends in high places (though I do appreciate the help from MF-Warburg and MzMcBride and PiRsquared and Rschen7754 very much -- thank you). It is me trying to plant the seed for a tenfold increase in our Good-Egg-active-editors in the next three years, from 30k to 300k, which will increase our pool of available admins/devs/botmasters/etc, and give everybody *time* to care about really really Assuming Good Faith. My opinion is that the culture is key, and the errmsgs are a good place to begin changing that culture. But the fatal danger of treating retention as anything but priority numero uno, that is not just my opinion. Scroll to bottom; we are flatlined.[6] Looks flatlined for past three years; does not even include admin-lossage.[7] Everybody has known this since early 2010, but nothing has changed, because the wrong tactics were chosen.[8] We are in trouble, and must act. The only question is where to start. I picked you. (Bet that doesn't strike you as lucky... :-)   Sorry for the bother, but you are in a position to really help retention. 74.192.84.101 23:36, 26 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

This is not the place to reflect on English Wikipedia, either take it to enWP, or start a RFC. I have blacklisted the domain name as it is xwiki spam, and that we don't need. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:35, 27 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
Hello billinghurst, since yours is the third suggestion to take this elsewhere, I suppose I will take the hint, and take my complaints elsewhere. Grumpily. But please note, my core complaint here in this section is about the template-message used on meta.wikipedia.org herself. It so happens, the same or a similar template-message is also used on enWiki, and of course that *is* relevant to my complaint... since if we're going to fix one we might as well fix both and be done with it... but just because my complaint also applies over on enWiki, does not therefore mean meta is somehow exempt from this criticism. Template-messages used on meta are rude. That needs to be fixed. Sending me away to enWiki, and making me first attempt to fix the rude template-messages over there, before you will reconsider fixing the ones over here, is no way to run a railroad. Anyhoo, no hard feelings on my part. If I succeed in navigating the wikipolitics on enWiki, I shall return someday. 74.192.84.101 16:10, 27 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
Honestly, I don't see how you can expect anyone to really know what the heck about what you are truly complaining. I find that I try to keep it simple, express simple requests wherever possible. … All busy people here, so when someone starts a rant my eyes glaze over, TL;DR pops to mind, and you will be lucky if anyone reads it or does anything. If want a template edited or are concerned about a template then start a discussion on the talk page of the template, and if no response escalate it to the appropriate forum and do keep it simple. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:44, 2 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
Please use Meta:Babel to discuss things related to Meta, Wikimedia Forum for things related to the Wikimedia movement in general or multiple wikis, and WM:RFH for requests requiring an admin. I don't think you need an admin to edit that template. You can either be bold (but please make it reasonable) or discuss the template on its talk page with {{editprotected}}. HTH PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:19, 27 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
Well... perhaps I am just confused. It seems clear to me that admin-help was required, but maybe DIY rewriting is possible, at least for some of the things I'm griping about here? I'm trying to get the names "antivandalism" and the ever-hated "comment bot edits from IPs" changed to something else. If I thought I could do it myself, I would, in a hot second, but it was suggested that WM:RFH was the place for suggesting such drastic changes to the wording, and implied that only devs or top-level admins could do it anyways (at least that's the message I got). Similarly, I don't think I have any capability of performing the changes myself to the default trigger-message-text of the AbuseFilter (let alone changing the mediawiki-extension-name to SeriuzWohrdWahtchBoht).
   I'm happy to rewrite the template-spam message-text that warns about promotional content myself, if it's not locked down... and I'll do my best to be reasonable and omit B.F.F. slang and other silly-beyond-the-pale things... but if I rewrite the template-text-warning-about-promotional-spam, it will look a whole lot different, something very similar to the prototype-with-pictures proposal that I made above as a replacement for the 'antivandalism' regex-resultset#57 of the 'abuseFilter' mediawiki-extension. And of course, instead of calling it the template-warning-promotional-spam transclusion, I will instead rename it as the your-business-sounds-great-maybe-it-should-be-in-english-wikipedia-here-let-me-help-you ... although for backwards-compatibility the same transclusion-keyword will be retained.
   Is everybody here totally okay with that scheme? Or rather, if you do not want me to do that, well then speak now, or forever temporarily hold your peace (until you see what kind of "whimsical" changes I come up with at least). Because I'm hearing a pretty clear Wikipedia:WP:NOTHERE signal, which I'm interpreting (perhaps incorrectly) as having an undertone of no more discussion of this silly 'seriuz boht' stuff on meta noticeboards. I'm happy to go off and change the anti-spam-template, but for the other changes, I need an admin, or maybe even a dev, right?
   So maybe, we can treat the anti-spam-template rewrite as a good test-case, to see what happens, in terms of whether my cute-but-stop-short-of-patronizing approach actually *will* generate thanks-for-the-chuckle barnstars, and even this-boht-is-on-a-rampage-and-must-be-stopped pleas for help (which is useful info... albeit of a negative-feedback-loop sort rather than the positive-feedback-loop). I'd be fully satisfied with that deal, since it will give us a real-world dataset on whether the whimsical approach gives good results, in practice. I obviously think it will work great, but I'll not be offended if reality proves my hunch incorrect. (Dern you to heck, reality! :-)   If I go give the anti-spam-template some whimsical edits, and a major friendlyism overhaul, is anybody here going to be against that idea, prima facie? 74.192.84.101 19:54, 27 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
I'm not strongly opposed to it, but please don't change the tone so drastically that it looks like a kid wrote it. The {{spam}} template is used by humans, not bots, so keep that in mind. If you do make a lot of references to Wikipedia, try to make it less enwiki-centric (my edit failed at this). If we actually get people going to the Teahouse from this, it is a success, but I don't think the kind of spammers that target Meta are interested in helping to build an encyclopedia (try to prove me wrong please! That would make me happy.) PiRSquared17 (talk) 23:47, 27 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Insults

Latest comment: 10 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

First anonymous user wrote insulting message, one hour later user DobarSkroz added to that message, removed IP signature and signed message as his own. User DobarSkroz is permanently blocked on hr wiki for personal attacks and trolling, and it seems that he continues such conduct also here. SpeedyGonsales (talk) 14:47, 31 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Blocked on hr.wiki for also saying to you SG : "you are not telling the truth and I can prove it" [9]. Since when is saying to admin that he is not telling truth insult? FYI In the same case Seiya whites to Kubura "Not true", Argo Navis writes "Kubura iznosi neistine - Kubura is not telling truth"...--DobarSkroz (talk) 14:58, 2 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
[10]. Is this hatespeech acceptable on meta? SpeedyGonsales (talk) 14:18, 2 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
There has been an amount of unsavoury statements, and passion and pleading. I think that all parties need to try to rein back their verbiage, and look to identifying the issues, and proposing solutions rather than justifying their positions. It is going to take compromise, which means both sides will need to give rather than winner takes all. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:34, 2 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

CentralNotice banner request for the tenth anniversary of the Tagalog Wikipedia

Latest comment: 10 years ago12 comments2 people in discussion

Hi, guys. I'd like to request for admin assistance to set up a CentralNotice campaign for the tenth anniversary of the Tagalog Wikipedia, which will take place this December 1. Currently, I'm preparing materials for the banner campaign, but I still need an admin to actually get the banner set up. If someone can help me with this, I will really appreciate it, especially since I hope to roll out the campaign by November 10-15. Thanks. :) --Sky Harbor (talk) 05:41, 9 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

I can help. PiRSquared17 (talk) 05:57, 9 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
@Sky Harbor: Can you give more details? PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:07, 11 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
Okay, here are the parameters for the campaign:
  • Link: http://tl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sampung_taon_ng_Wikipediang_Tagalog
  • Duration: from November 15th to 30th, 2013 (this may be shortened when we finalize the second campaign, where we have a planned meetup for the actual day of the tenth anniversary)
  • Audience: for all users
  • Coverage: the English and Tagalog Wikipedias. For the English Wikipedia, this should be visible to users in the Philippines only, while for the Tagalog Wikipedia, this should be worldwide.
  • Text: Makisama sa pagdiriwang ng ika-10 anibersaryo ng Wikipediang Tagalog ngayong 1 Disyembre!
  • Image: Wp-10-philippines-sun-cmyk.png
Thanks again! :) --Sky Harbor (talk) 00:18, 12 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
@Sky Harbor: I created the banner and two campaigns (one for enwiki, one for tlwiki). Tell me how it looks: [11]. It will start on November 15. PiRSquared17 (talk) 01:53, 12 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
Looks good, but I just realized: I'd also like the English Wikipedia campaign extended to Meta and Commons as well, if this is possible. :) --Sky Harbor (talk) 05:01, 12 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
I'll do this, but I'm busy now. Maybe someone else can do this for me. PiRSquared17 (talk) 17:12, 12 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
FYI this is Done already PiRSquared17 (talk) 15:56, 14 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
@PiRSquared17: Thanks again! However, I made a slight change to the banner text: I added the date. Other than that, there should be no further changes. :) --Sky Harbor (talk) 23:19, 14 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
@Sky Harbor: Should be done! Are you planning to change the Wikipedia logo in the top left corner of tlwiki to the anniversary logo? PiRSquared17 (talk) 00:29, 15 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
Yes, if you also make modified Wikipedia logos. My plan was to superimpose the tenth anniversary logo to the corner of the Tagalog Wikipedia logo, as the tenth anniversary logo is the national logo (so not a monopoly of the Tagalog Wikipedia), but I don't have image editing software to do that myself. :) (Also, there was a typo in the banner text: it should be makisama, not makisali. Thanks again.) --Sky Harbor (talk) 03:37, 15 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
I don't really know how to use image editing software, so I'm afraid I probably can't help (Well, I can try.). And I fixed the typo. PiRSquared17 (talk) 04:36, 15 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

Request for CentralNotice banner

Latest comment: 10 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion

Hi! I would like some help to create a CentralNotice banner for the Hackathon planned by Wikimedia Argentina. More info about the request is available here. Thanks a lot, Osmar Valdebenito (WMAR) (talk) 18:49, 11 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

@Osmar Valdebenito (WMAR): Should be done. PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:06, 11 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
@PiRSquared17: Thanks a lot! Could you do a small correction to the banner? Please, change the image to this one //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Wikimedia_Argentina_logo.svg/50px-Wikimedia_Argentina_logo.svg.png and the height and weight of the image in the code to 50px. Thanks again! --Osmar Valdebenito (WMAR) (talk) 13:08, 12 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
Done PiRSquared17 (talk) 13:20, 12 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
That was fast! :) Thanks a lot! --Osmar Valdebenito (WMAR) (talk) 13:33, 12 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

User Peter Damian and his meta email

Latest comment: 10 years ago14 comments10 people in discussion

I'm an administrator on the English Wikipedia. User Peter Damian is sending me harassing emails through this meta-wiki (as he is blocked since 2010 on the English wiki with his email being disabled). I wish to report these emails for their content and wish to request action on Peter's email account access on Meta and perhaps a block too, if the admins/bureaucrats here so deem fit. Is this the right forum to request so? Thanks.Wifione (talk) 10:08, 14 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

Please forward me a complete copy of the most recent mail with intact mail header/date and time stamp. Thanks, -Barras talk 13:53, 14 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
Done Thanks.Wifione (talk) 16:07, 14 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
With that being said though, there's nothing to stop him from going over to other wikis and doing the same thing. --Rschen7754 20:09, 14 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
Or creating a new account. Wifione can spam block the emails if he is really concerned or disable the "email this user" feature on meta. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:34, 15 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
Or, alternatively, ignore them. Killiondude (talk) 22:19, 15 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
The mail sent via the system was not abusive and so no action can be taken here. I've informed Wifione already. -Barras talk 22:30, 15 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
Informing Wifione is not good enough. A false accusation of harassment is a blockable offense, and I think Wifione should be blocked. Besides, I'm not sure how Wifione could serve as admin on English Wikipedia, if he doesn't even know what is and what is not harassment.69.181.41.73 22:52, 15 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
I think the best action to take here is to just let it go and move on, but I don't personally know what the emails were like (nor do I want to know). PiRSquared17 (talk) 22:54, 15 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
  • Barras has replied to me privately too, and I thank him for that. What he has communicated is that after the first email was sent by Peter via meta (which was simply an enquiry email by Peter checking if the email address was right, to which I had replied), the later questionable emails were sent out of the system directly to my email address - as Peter had already obtained my email address - so no action could be taken here on meta. I believe I am alright with that logic; and of course, what Killiondude and Ottava suggest are evidently better time saving solutions. I guess we could close this discussion here. Thanks again for giving this a look. Warm regards.Wifione (talk) 03:04, 16 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

Closed Closed Contributor indicates sufficient investigation and resolution. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:26, 16 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

What's the big deal here?

I resent this accusation of 'harassment'. After establishing I had the correct email address, I wrote to W1 with the following message:

Hi many thanks for replying. I am working on a piece about the penetration of Wikipedia by IIPM, as part of work about paid editing in general. I have done extensive research on the following two articles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arindam_Chaudhuri http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institute_of_Planning_and_Management

I have also researched the three articles which were legally suppressed (the one by Rashmi Bansal, who I am corresponding with, the Careers360 and the Caravan article. I am also in touch with the external lecturers listed by IIPM to understand if they are really employed by the Institute.

Given your extensive involvement with the articles, I have to be really frank and ask if you have, or have ever had, any kind of financial relationship with IIPM, or with anyone associated with them (such as Chaudhuri or an associate) who would have an interest in promoting the Institute in any way on Wikipedia. This is the most interesting and impressive case I have studied.

Obviously you don't have to answer this question or even reply to this mail.

Assuming that his failure to reply meant that he did have some financial interest in this diploma mill, I followed up with a second mail as followsl

OK you haven't answered, so you do have some kind of financial relationship. This was obvious. I suppose the next question is whether you are or were 'Nichalp'. That is far from certain.

It would be good to talk about this so I can get some insight into your motivation (apart from money), and your moral position. You never actually confirmed or denied a financial interest, although you did say once that 'there was no conflict of interest'. Did you mean there was no conflict of interest in being paid? Or perhaps are you, or were you, a student at the school?

Ed

I'm still trying to understand how this massive conflict of interest came about. Indian Institute of Planning and Management is one of the most infamous examples of using the courts to suppress information on the internet. E.g. see this report by Cory Doctorow – "Indian diploma mill uses Internet censorship to shut down critics" Boing Boing 2:44 pm Sat, Feb 16, 2013. Internet censorship now includes Wikipedia, right? Peter Damian (talk) 14:37, 16 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

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