User talk:Elassint

Today is December 23, 2024

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Upgrade and logo stuff

Please check out WikiIndex:NewLogoDecision and WikiIndex:Spring 2011 Upgrade Path, Best, MarkDilley

Deleting Wiki from WikiIndex

Hey Elassint, looking forward to hearing what your thinking is in regards to moving away from Category:Inactive. Best, MarkDilley

I don't think it really makes any sense to list sites that are long dead, especially if there is little or no information about the defunct wiki. EdBooks for example has been dead for at least 5 years, and the domain for Nepwiki seems to have never been registered. Is there any reason to keep these pages? Elassint, 06 18 2011

We have over 800 in the archive right now Category:Inactive. It had been a decision at the outset to keep the pages of dead wiki for historical purposes. The question can be raised to folks to see if we should just delete them. I think that we have a unique position in the wiki world to show the projects that have failed. Am open to figuring out a new policy. But maybe till that is decided, keep them...? Best, MarkDilley

I agree that it's good to keep them for historical reasons, if only so that people searching for the wiki can find out that it's dead rather than continuing to futilely look for it. Also, in some cases we might be able to provide a few scraps of info that could help people track down the people who were involved with the wiki, e.g. in case they want to start a similar wiki and want some pointers or database dumps. Leucosticte (talk) 11:08, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Maybe, if those who started the dead wiki are not dead themselves ;-) They might add some information to the WikiIndex that might help to figure out what went wrong, how to do better or that it is no good idea at all to try for such wiki again. Like when one wiki merged with another, the dead wiki entry could point to the active one, where it is contained. --88.70.38.121 15:58, 16 July 2014 (UTC) Manorainjan AKA 88.70.38.9 (unable to create account)

Check this out

I think this might have been something you were looking for? Form:Wiki. Best, MarkDilley

New User

I'm impressed with how quickly you blocked User:Careforyouuu gupta, which was obviously spam, and who registered just before me. I hope I followed your procedures in registering and creating the pages Scott Schaefer and LexingtonWiki. Please let me know if I need to edit. Thank you.

[[Scott Schaefer]] | <small>[[User talk:ScottSchaefer|talk]]</small> 07:57, 5 July 2011 (PDT)

Whooo Hooo - pot calling the kettle black. Going by Special:Contributions/ScottSchaefer - you TOO are a blatant spammer - why else has the vast majority of your contributions now been deleted???? Further comment here on fellow Admin DavidCary's talk page. Best regards to Elassint and all the Admins here on WikiIndex -- Hoof Hearted 15:38, 30 December 2011 (PST)

Thanks!

Thanks for the page move! --MarvelZuvembie 15:59, 13 July 2011 (PDT)

Vandalism on my user page

Thanks for deleting. -- Supermorff 12:55, 29 July 2011 (PDT)

rocking work on spam patrolling

I am asking everywhere - and I haven't found a clear answer on what to do. I think having a random, number, answer, recaptcha might be the answer. Best, MarkDilley

There where no external links involved in the spam attack, so the weird gibberish/comment bots did not have to go through capatcha at all. Just tested it myself. Elassint, 07 30 2011

Do you know how to do that? If there are clear instructions, I might be able to get in and flip that switch. ~~ MarkDilley

I don't, but great job with the vandal! --MarvelZuvembie 16:21, 6 September 2011 (PDT)

I posted a possible fix for this on Mark's talk page. It would require a CAPTCHA for any edit, with a link or not. However, if I understand correctly, it would only require it once. It's not a fix-all solution, but it might stop this bot at least. --MarvelZuvembie 13:10, 7 September 2011 (PDT)

At present only Werdna's Extension:AbuseFilter or Extension:Bad Behavior seem like valid options..--Comets 20:51, 7 September 2011 (PDT)

I'd support either. I'm sure that Elassint and Tera S have better things to do with their time. I'd support using a blacklist, if we could find one. Googling these IPs, I can see that they've been used several times before, so I would imagine that there is a blacklist out there somewhere that includes them. --MarvelZuvembie 15:56, 8 September 2011 (PDT)

Tera's also been asking about solutions to this, over here. --MarvelZuvembie 16:03, 8 September 2011 (PDT)

Columns

Thanks for the welcome. I know how to make templates but the "Template:Columns-list" is quite complicated. And it's a basic template. Many mediawiki users can make use of that. WikiFan 02:25, 2 November 2011 (PDT)

Thanks

Did you do that through the form, or by hand?

I used the form. It's working pretty well. Elassint, 05 21 2012

wikiFactor "crash"

Dear Elassint, I have just noticed the wikiFactor "crash" for Citizendium, and it is indeed a curious phenomenon. They seem to be running MediaWiki 1.16.5 (CZ modified) (r249), but on my wiki I have gone through these versions and the MySQL database did not lose any significant number of page counts, so I fail to see how a wikiFactor "crash" can occur. Interesting. -- Carl McBride (talk) 03:13, 25 May 2012 (PDT)

My guess is that it's the odd way Citizendium users manage their site. That or something happened that reset the view counters and since then that's how many views they've got. Elassint, 05 25 2012

No rename

Hi, I have wanted this for a while, but you are the first person to mention it. Let's put it on the feature request list. How does that sound? Best, MarkDilley

OK, that should be good for now. Elassint, 05 25 2012

Welcoming

Hi, saw you removed that from the sidebar. Would like to know your thoughts on it. ~~ MarkDilley

Welcoming is a good thing to do, but I don't see how a sidebar link to an article on the subject is going to actually do much of anything. The sidebar is pretty big as it is anyway. Elassint^Admin 17 June 2012

URL organization

I don't think it's a good idea how URLs are organized throughout this wiki, messing with pages and MediaWiki's files in the same directory. Maybe you want to move that files to a subdirectoy beginning with a lowercase letter, like I do on my wikis, and keep the base url solely for page names. This would also allow for non-directory-based rewrite rules in the server configuration and therefore save on subrequests and server load. Look at these rules I'm using on my wiki's vHosts:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(w/|BingSiteAuth\.xml$|favicon\.ico$|google.{16}\.html$|robots\.txt$)
RewriteRule ^.*$ /w/index.php [L]

--Bachsau 05:03, 28 June 2012 (PDT)

Many thanks

for expanding my stub. Best regards, Wolf | talk 00:15, 19 July 2012 (PDT)

Defamation

I speak of this edit to the Ratchetpedia page, there is no evidence it was me. I considered removing it myself but then again the poster may just put it back. Thanks. Escyos (talk) 14:38, 9 August 2012 (PDT)

Another edit on the Ratchepedia page, no names mentioned but the event is...plus it really serves no point. Escyos (talk) 11:06, 25 August 2012 (PDT)

Hi I am being attacked on my talk page, pointless posts are being placed on there so i remove them and yet they are being put back. Thanks. Escyos (talk) 07:38, 26 August 2012 (PDT)

Spam emails

Hi Elassint. I'm sorry to burden you, but I'm hoping you'd be able to help me with the user above. I'd like to file a complaint against Escyos. For the past two weeks, I've been receiving emails from various addresses under the stargate-wiki.org domain name. This domain, as you're probably aware by now, is owned by Escyos, and he's made no attempt at hiding this fact, seeing as he openly introduces himself as such. In the emails, he speaks at great lengths about his desire to start a "mutiny," of sorts, against several wikis, including Ratchetpedia, Wikisimpsons, Darthipedia, and even WikiIndex. He also lists a group of "targets," i.e., usernames of people he's promised to ban, including the whole of WikiIndex's administrative team. I'm not sure why he's been spamming me (and close to 30 other people, judging from the contacts), but if I had to guess, he's looking for help and wants people to join his wiki-hacking group, the "Escyos Project". I can continue blocking his addresses every time he spams my inbox, but is there anything you can do to prevent a WikiIndex take-over? I'm planning to warn the administrators on the other targeted websites, as well. Thanks and sorry to bug you with this. Kayne (talk) 07:50, 26 August 2012 (PDT)

Could you please lock my talk page as some one is trying to make trouble. Thanks. Escyos (talk) 09:03, 27 August 2012 (PDT)

Spammers - and new account names

Hi Elassint, I've noticed that a lot of the recent spammer new account creations are following similar name conventions - like 'cash', 'loan', 'credit', 'insurance' and 'payday'. Would you know if there is any way we can set the software to automatically reject new account creations with those target words? Would ether MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist or My spam blacklist work, or do you have any other suggestions/ideas? Best regards, Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 03:36, 25 September 2012 (PDT)

I don't think either of those pages would work because they are both for blacklisting known spam websites. I'm sure there is an extension somewhere that would allow us to blacklist certain usernames and username patterns, such as the abuse filter extension, but the problem with username blacklist is what if a legitimate user comes over wanting to add a wiki that happens to be about loans? Elassint 26 September 2012

Are there any repeating spam urls from these spammers which need adding to the blacklists? The AbuseFilter extension looks promising - is Mark aware, and/or does he intend installing it? I take your point about usernames - particularly 'legitimate' usernames - but surely that would be an if. I'm not aware of any wiki about loans etc (and I've no doubt that a google search for "loan wiki" would throw up anything BUT wikis on loans!) - but I think you slightly miss the point - my thoughts were on usernames, not article titles ... a loan wiki could still be created (either by an IP editor, or an existing registered user, or even the owner of the loan wiki by creating an account here with a RealName or an acceptable pseudonym). Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 07:40, 26 September 2012 (PDT)

Hi again - how did you determine the IP ranges of those spammers??? Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 08:59, 12 April 2013 (PDT)

I probably should have tipped you about this earlier - those user talk pages they are creating are likely to be the IP addresses the account was created on. I noticed that all of today's accounts were creating user talk pages within a single /24 range that never edited the wiki before, so I blocked it. Of course I don't directly know that without checkuser. Elassint 12 April 2013

Oh... OK. I wondered if you might have noticed the same spammers on any other wikis you sysop on. I just wish Mark would hurry on with the upgrades! Best Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 10:45, 12 April 2013 (PDT)

Memorial

Hi, I have a friend who killed himself (several months ago; I was away and didn't find out about it until yesterday), and his widow and I were discussing creating a memorial. He doesn't fit into any special category like 9/11 victims, so it wouldn't be appropriate for a site like In Memoriam (which is not even up anymore). We were talking about creating a wiki just for him, but I'm thinking it would be better to just create a page on another memorial wiki, rather than creating a wiki with maybe only one article. Is there an appropriate place in the wikisphere for this? Thanks, Leucosticte (talk) 05:26, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

The Vault

Thank you for being reasonable. I hope you don't mind, but I think I'll create a page for Nukapedia later, too, just for sake of information balance. 67.187.96.246 08:22, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Leucosticte

Why do you let write about himself and add links to pedophile sites? Sophie Wilder (talk) 15:13, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I guess the question would be, Why not? WikiIndex:About says, "The people of WikiIndex are creating a complete directory of all wiki websites on the Internet." Completeness usually requires that people write about themselves and their sites, because often no one else cares about the topic. WikiIndex:Policies and Guidelines says 'One man's "irrelevant" can be another's "interesting".' WikiIndex:FrequentlyAskedQuestions says, "WikiIndex is not the same as Wikipedia. Original research is allowed. Having a point of view is allowed."

This is not like RationalWiki, which has a goal of catering to leftist orthodoxy and letting the leftist mob rule, even at the expense of making the truth known. RationalWiki makes it clear, by how they treat people and the content they allow to remain on the site, that non-leftists are mostly unwelcome; WikiIndex tries to be more inclusive and eclectic. Rather than subtracting facts from articles, why don't you add facts? That would better serve the goal of helping people become well-informed. Leucosticte (talk) 15:25, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Question

I have been adding several Dutch wiki's, they are all on the listing on the frontpage, and I wanted to know how do I get the wikis to show up under the Dutch language category? Do I have to make an account in order to approve them? Do you also know how I could make sure many of these Dutch wikis will end up being archived. I am sure most of them will, but there is a very large one called Catawiki (NL,EN,FR,DU), which probaly isn't a mediawiki site, it is a site where people can add and sell there hobbyproducts and make pages for them, it has a huge amount of data. Do you have any suggestions? --213.93.202.241 12:55, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

The Dutch language category is Category:Wiki Dutch, which contains all of your wikis already. Elassint 9 March 2014

Now that I log in I can see all the Dutch wikis under that category. --Redgreenfourties (talk) 19:18, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

It is weird that signing in did that, I don't know how that would work. MarkDilley

When I am logged in I see all the wiki's under there categories, but when I log out, almost all of them are missing. There are 124 wikis when I am logged in, but only 91 when I am logged out. --Redgreenfourties (talk) 22:20, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

This weird bug also affected User:Ross Burgess - I think the discussion is on either his or my talk page, or maybe on his wiki article talk page. I'm guessing page caching works differently between logged in users and logged out or IP users. :/ Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _{Admin / 'Crat} • talk2HH 20:30, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for following up with that, I have never experienced it, so weird! :-) ~~ MarkDilley

I am trying to figure out how this could happen. I verified it. [1] shows the pages that are not displayed when not logged in. There are certain special pages that might not be displayable without a special user class, but this is the first I've ever heard or seen something like this. AFC Ajax displays in Category:Wiki Dutch whether logged in or not. When I'm logged out, Apache OpenOffice does not display in the category. In both cases the Category is applied through Template:Wiki. Looking at Apache OpenOffice logged out, I see the category Wiki Dutch at the bottom, so the template is being parsed properly.

I did not see this phenomenon with Category:Wiki French, even though there are more pages in that category (296 logged in or not). Nor with Category:Wiki Spanish, with 2,539 pages either way, or Category:Wiki German, 2,332 pages. Just Wiki Dutch.

I'll ask Leucosticte, he's in the MediaWiki developer community. --Abd (talk) 00:11, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Could it be me, or my IP-adress, for example, all the wikis that don't show up are wikis that I made or edited, but not all the wikis of a particulare date fail to show up. It can't be that I caused it by making the page, since some of the pages where edits, where I added the language Dutch when it was missing. The pages also didn't show up in other categories. --Redgreenfourties (talk) 00:26, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I also checked the English pages for you and logged in shows 13.513 and logged out shows 13.505, so most likely all new wikis that get added have a tendency not to show up. it's just the Dutch wikis that show up on mass, because I have been adding and editing them on mass. --Redgreenfourties (talk) 00:34, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I thought it may be a cache issue. Why would logged in users receive favorable treatment as opposed to anons though? I see no vaild reason for that. Elassint 10 March 2014

Confirming the above, I have now seen a difference. The non-displayed pages are newly added to the category. The oldest were ArchiefWiki, categorized 22:06, 21 February 2014, SigarenWiki, categorized 22:20, 21 February 2014, and The Dutch Charmed Wiki, 22:09, 21 February 2014. It is looking like logged-in users are getting more recent collected categorization data. And the data is being collected for a logged-in user, then not available to the same user if then logged out and requested again. --Abd (talk) 00:49, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

✓ Fixed purged while logged out. --YiFei | talk 12:38, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

confirmed, the pages work for me too. --Redgreenfourties (talk) 13:01, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

The software must treat all logged-out users as the same. It worked for me, too, i.e., I didn't do anything, but all pages now display. See mw:Manual:Purge. --Abd (talk) 13:42, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Personal enemy

Hey Elassint, I don't necessary disagree with your decision to delete Research Psychologist, but Research Psychologist is not a personal enemy of mine. If you review my interactions with him, you'll see that he has always been a sysop at every wiki I've operated that he's chosen to participate in, and although I did have to take away his powers briefly (since his tendency, for awhile, was to protect pages at the first sign of conflict rather than to first try the BRD cycle; and he kept misusing page protection despite repeated warnings), I gave them back. He is still welcome to come back to those wikis, in fact, and I would be glad to see him.

Researcher Psychologist (or as I know him, Cathartes) chose to make the edits he made, because he had certain beliefs (some of which I find intriguing, by the way). I don't think he's ashamed of his record or anything like that. People have accused him of various things, but those are just accusations. Still, I respect WikiIndex's right to choose what kind of content it wants to include or exclude. I just point it out because you put "This is clearly harassment" and I want to make sure I set the record straight that it wasn't intended as harassment.

Anyway, keep up the good work; the sysops here show much more restraint than at many other wikis, where people are often unwilling to simply let drama run its course. They think it's necessary to kick one faction or the other off the wiki rather than allowing different opinions to be expressed. I think it's okay for various debates to be constantly going on at a wiki, as long as new and relevant information and arguments based on it continue to be put forth, and people don't just keep repeating themselves. Leucosticte (talk) 21:46, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Nathania

You full-protected this page due to revert warring. The author, Leucosticte, is not normally a revert warrior, but was faced with open proxy IP vandalism and one single-purpose account, Sophie Wilder, who has since been blocked. (Sophie Wilder is an elected moderator at RationalWiki, and joined with the IP proxies in attacking Leucosticte.) Because that page does still contain excessive detail, and one trivial error introduced by an open proxy vandal (see Talk), please reduce protection to semipro, allowing registered editors to edit. If that single editor returns to what amounted to vandalism as well, she could be blocked again. (I assume she's welcome to edit non-disruptively here, which could include working collaboratively to ensure more appropriate coverage of any site.) Thanks. --Abd (talk) 13:38, 14 March 2014 (UTC)