User talk:Abd

Welcome to WikiIndex! We hope you will contribute much and well. You will probably want to read the help pages. Again, welcome and have fun! Koavf (talk) 21:20, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Disclosure

I came to Wikiindex because I was pointed here by Leucosticte. However, I'm not his meat puppet. I do not approve of his description of Nathania, as an example. Leucosticte is, however, not a pedophile, has not been charged with any sex crimes, but is a radical libertarian who tends to take up highly unpopular causes, in the name of freedom, and then he will present what are often rational arguments to be considered. He then appears to be advocating the cause.

Those attacking him here will continue unless stopped. They are truly fanatic, and they will attack anyone who simply tries to stop the attacks. On RationalWiki, for simply pointing out fact, with evidence, I was told to rape my kids. And I do have children, lots of them. And I'm in regular contact with the Department of Children and Families. The extremists within the anti-pedophilia movement openly state that "pedophiles" should be castrated, violently tortured and killed, and so should anyone who supports or defends them.

Nathan is right about one thing. Hysteria about this issue is rampant. It is obvious that some deep buttons are being pushed.

The question here is whether or not wikis regarding issues and containing advocacy that is widely considered horrific, inhuman, repulsive, something to be stamped out, should be covered here. And if so, how should they be handled? I'm obviously new here; however, I have long been interested in and involved in the wiki movement, I started my first wiki about a dozen years ago, and was on-line with the W.E.L.L in the 1980s. I do not necessarily have easy answers.

Whatever I'm doing here, I will stop doing on the request of any established editor, and would then consult site administration before proceeding.

The vandals and trolls (who may think of themselves as "defending children," but they are not, they are acting out their own hysteria, berserking) will attack, and it can be predicted to increase. That could be stopped by banning Leucosticte, but that would set a very poor precedent. Some of Leucosticte's work here may be unnecessarily provocative. He can be regulated. He is likely to respect that.

It is unclear to what extent WikiIndex wants to allow site criticisms and hostile tagging. I'm watching and hopefully learning. --Abd (talk) 14:24, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Firstly, hello and a very warm welcome to WikiIndex. I hope you are able to stay here and add some input to our existing articles, or add any new wikis not already listed. :)

On to Nathan Larson, aka Leucosticte. Should anyone ask that Leucosticte be banned from WikiIndex, then I personally would fight very hard against that. I have not met Nathan in real life, my only contact with him is across the ether that is the wiki world of the interweb -- and I admit that some of the subject matter which Nathan writes about does make my eyebrows raise, being very much out of my comfort zone -- I accept, and thoroughly respect the extremely professional manner in which Nathan writes about those subject matters. It is clear that Nathan is highly educated, and it shows from the unbiased and empathetical manner he deals with controversial subjects. Nathan has been a very welcome contributor to WikiIndex - not only on the subject matter he has a personal interest, but very much also with the whole WikiIndex project, and I personally value his input here.

There is always space for new editors here on WikiIndex, and providing they be constructive in their editing, no matter how 'toe curling' the subject matter may be -- they will be warmly welcomed and be a valued asset to our community. Warmest regards :)) Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _{Admin / 'Crat} • talk2HH 20:35, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Hoof Hearted, thanks for the welcome. Nathan just reverted some deletion tags, [1], [2]. (To be fair, he also reverted one he had placed himself: [3]). The involved pages show the problem. Nathan, from his history, is likely to use Wikiindex to "expose" those he thinks have harmed him. And he wants to use Wikiindex to criticize other wikis, that is why he'd want to remove the opt out category. He may also be deliberately provocative, attracting what we saw here for a while, vandals and trolls going after him. The latter is a difficult problem, and I would most agree with your protective stance around that, but ... it is also an issue that he essentially trolls them.

The deletion tags show a structural issue. If there are no administrators regularly checking for deletion requests, granting where appropriate and removing where appropriate, there can be harmful content left on-wiki for a long time. It can cause damage. I placed those tags because I wanted to know if Wikiindex will tolerate pages that, without their permission, document individuals. The articles themselves were relatively harmless, in themselves, indeed I'd consider them utterly boring, except that they can later be edited to be not-so-harmless, once the principle is established that biographies of non-notable living persons are legitimate here. These are not wikis, they are not wiki founders or anything other relatively low-level administrators, MZMcbride being the administrator who last blocked him on the Meta-Wiki. I'm currently documenting, on that wiki, what is starting to look like a clear case of extended steward abuse. Should I bring that here? An article on the steward? That's a much higher level functionary than the administrators Nathan wrote about. --Abd (talk) 00:48, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I would see nothing wrong with writing such an article. On Meta-Wiki, you might not have as much free speech, because they could claim to see your continued complaints about the matter as disruptive or harassing. But the story isn't complete without interviewing the people who are most affected by the action being taken. Who will interview you? No one, because they don't care or they've already been kicked off Meta.

So, the involved party (i.e. you) has to put on his journalist hat and write an account of the situation from his point of view. But as we saw in my case, such essays are not welcome at Meta. However, you could post a lengthier account to your bliki (or other website) and summarize it on a relevant page here. Then others could fact-check your claims and edit your summary if needed to make sure it fairly presents what happened and gives both sides of the story.

There never was a requirement that a person be a wiki founder in order to have an article about him posted here. He merely needed to be a "wiki person". Anyone who has ever edited a wiki might fall in that category, if it's broadly construed. Leucosticte (talk) 01:25, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Of course you would think that there is nothing wrong with a total waste of time and space. Well, I became involved because I saw a strange tagging of a page for cross-wiki spam, that wasn't spam. As I investigated that, opened it up, worms started falling out. The first case is documented at a Wikiversity user page (and may become an educational resource there). Following up on that, I requested global unlock for a series of users who had violated no policies. That was denied at meta, but a steward suggested I file an RfC (and another wrote he had "issues" with what had been done). I don't file RfCs without prepping, and I can take weeks of research to do it. So I started to work on Antispam practices and, looking at current activity, I noticed another "cross-wiki spam" removal of what appeared to be an academic book, totally relevant to the page. And so I started to investigate that, and it led to the Santarelli incident. This is not organized to impeach the steward, it's simple a collection of research notes, so far, with only a little conclusion. But the same name keeps coming up in nearly all the activity. The planned RfC is on antispam practices and policies, it's not about the individual steward, but ... I have some idea that some stewards are embarrassed by what has been done, but don't know what to do. The particular steward has more or less threatened to block me before. It's a risk, but so what? If I'm blocked, I dump the data where others who might be interested can use it, and walk away, knowing that I did what I could.

I have a history of getting administrators sanctioned or desysopped, while you were busy poking the feds and wasting their money. Their friends retaliate, no surprise, but then a steward worked on another case, succeeding mine, and more of the faction involved was sanctioned. I'd uncovered problems with the antispam practices, back then, and the first ArbCom case was about that, abuse of blacklisting. My position was sustained by the Committee, but ... by that time the blacklisting had moved to meta, where the Committee has no remit. And it took something like two years to get that blacklisting lifted. It's about time that the meta policy be confirmed by the community, or revised, one or the other. Basically, policy is routinely ignored by certain stewards.

I remember my first user RfC on enwiki. The faction I was confronting was fat and happy because they mustered 2/3 votes "Ban Abd," entirely contrary to RfC policy, since the RfC was not about me, and had been cosigned by Durova. (Who warned me I'd be banned from cold fusion, by the way, if I filed, as I eventually was. At that time, I cared much more about wiki policy than about cold fusion, they imagined that I was a POV-pusher, because that is how they think.) But I expected that. The failed RfC provided the basis for an ArbCom filing, a failed attempt to find agreement. At first, they thought they might prevail before the Committee, and they claimed my evidence was cherry-picked. After all, any admin can make an occasional mistake, right? In fact, my evidence was a "total compilation of all relevant edits and actions by the administrator,* and what they thought were my hostile comments were the admin's own edit summaries. Whack! An arb decided to recompile the evidence, using a bot. It showed, of course, exactly the same thing. The faction scattered and the admin retired for a while. It was all, for the most part, a useless waste of time, because he wasn't the problem, the structure is the problem. He came back and just got his friends to do whatever he wanted, after that, instead of doing it directly. He continued the same agenda, POV-pushing, without any change. And so did they.

So, we never know what will come. Before I'm ready to file the RfC, I will identify support. If there is no support, I won't file. "Voice crying in the wilderness" is a formula for "waste of time." I've got plenty else to do!

If I'm going to put up the evidence and analysis somewhere, it won't be here, where it could only be useless, at best, and it could do harm. It would be on wikipediocracy, where I've been invited to write articles and blog posts. That's a place where someone might see it who can actually do something. Not here, Nathan. You have some sort of value in just "being right," or imagining that you are. I don't. I just do my work and see what happens.

The other place where it might go would be as a private communication with Wales. I have a specific opportunity for that, don't know if I'm ready. His project, however, his baby, is being corrupted by gross violation of wiki principles and policies, and it might be possible to do something about it. As you know, I'm about principles and structure, the individual incidents don't really matter that much to me, though, of course, I act with respect to specifics, as demonstrations or examples. What I'm seeing is the tip of the iceberg, and the problem is not "bad users," but defective structure, I've been on that for years.

As to Wikiindex policy and practice, I don't have any dogs in this race. I just want the administrators here to know what they are getting into. You brought down a few trolls and vandals. There could be a lot more where those came from, if enough oxen are gored. --Abd (talk) 02:17, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

reply to both

You both make interesting and valid comments (and criticisms!), and for differing reasons, you are both correct. It is true that WikiIndex could have been accused of having poor policy structures in the past, and even today, our policies arn't the best in the wikisphere. However, just like Wikipedia, WikiIndex is also a wiki - albeit massively smaller! And because we are a wiki, we can evolve and grow our own policies to suit our primary aim (we are not an encyclopaedia, we merely document wikis, and all which makes wikis 'tick'). Without 'people', wikis would be nothing, so it is absolutely correct that we include 'wiki people' - be they constructive or destructive in the wiki experience. Arguably, one of the most fascinating aspects of a wiki are when peoples with differing ideologies and experiences come together and create something great. Whoever we are, and whatever our beliefs, we are all welcome here on WikiIndex, and all thoughts on moving forward will be discussed in an open and constructive manner. Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _{Admin / 'Crat} • talk2HH 22:33, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

What RONR has to say about attacking a member's motives

"REFRAINING FROM ATTACKING A MEMBER'S MOTIVES. When a question is pending, a member can condemn the nature or likely consequences of the proposed measure in strong terms, but he must avoid personalities, and under no circumstances can he attack or question the motives of another member. The measure, not the member, is the subject of debate." Leucosticte (talk) 08:50, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

What's the "measure"? RONR is formal process, and only allows one measure to be on the floor. However, when a series of measures are under consideration, the purpose of the series becomes relevant. RONR has means for summary resolution of certain kinds of disputes. As you know, that's often lacking on wikis. However, a basic principle is that, to be considered, a motion must be seconded. Motive, all the rest, is utterly irrelevant if there is no second.

If we are running a library, and we are offered a "special collection," the overarching purpose of the collection is quite relevant. If a collection consists only of materials added from a very specific and very personal point of view, that point of view, the collector's purpose, becomes important.

In the present cases, articles on wiki users are being created by someone who has specific interest in the users, often involved in conflict with the user, or frustrated that a debate was avoided. The information presented is highly selected, presenting a user with a complex history as if he could be reduced to a few highly selected snippets.

If the article is worth keeping, yes, the intention of the creator becomes irrelevant. But what I've begun to do is to examine a pattern of behavior, that will, if allowed to continue, foster, invite, and amplify disruption here.

It is not that it is impossible for this wiki to host "wiki criticism." It is that the structure here is not designed to handle it. Lecuosticte is acting outside of traditions here. The page on Category:Wiki People, which he attempted to change, has

this is a list of people who consider themselves to be part of the wiki community and their associations to various Wiki sites

Please add your name to this list by creating a new page for yourself.

There is nothing there about creating pages on others. It's been done for some highly notable people. Jimbo Wales, for example. Leucosticte created a page on me, Abd Lomax. It's not particularly offensive, though it points to a page that was intended to be so, from a dead wiki, with the material having been copied by Leucosticte to his wiki, RationalWikiWikiWiki, [4]. That page gives a warped history of my work, written from a pseudoskeptic RationalWikian perspective, where the primary goal of all RW work was maximized snark. It tells little about my real history, who I actually am, my accomplishments, what I'm known internationally for, though there is a hint about one small facet of my career.

Allowing such material opens a huge can of worms. Hosting controversial criticism of wikis was considered in the past, here, and no consensus was found. That's because it's a difficult problem. --Abd (talk) 17:50, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

"this is a list of people who consider themselves to be part of the wiki community" I'm sure that MZM, Nemo, etc. consider themselves ot be part of the wiki community. Therefore, they meet the criteria. Why don't YOU write an autobiography, if you want that other stuff to be included. Leucosticte (talk) 18:41, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

And I could do that, it's invited. Nathan, what is not invited?

The people express "considering themselves a part of of the wiki community" do so by creating the page. It is not just considering oneself a part, it is also consenting to there being a page here. Are you notifying the "wiki people" that you have created an article on them? Would MZMcBride want you to send him an email about that? What do you think he would do? Do you want to find out? I'm not notifying them because I've requested deletion of the page, making it moot, hopefully. I could drop a note on his meta talk page. What do you think would happen?

Hint: I've seen all this come down. I can't predict individual outcomes, but I certainly know what's possible as a result.

You are arguing endlessly, and your arguments are corrupt. You actually know better, if you'll stop to think this all the way through.

Instead, I suspect, you are setting things up for another wiki-Ragnarok.--Abd (talk) 20:42, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

It's actually a trap they're on the verge of falling into. If they go on Meta and say "This guy created articles on WikiIndex as part of a vendetta against us" and get the rest of their cabal riled up about it, then I will have evidence that they assumed bad faith; and since that's a violation of wiki norms, they will all be banned from Meta, and the only people left on Meta will be those who are either neutral or supportive of me. Those good users will get me unblocked, because there will be no longer anyone around to oppose such an action.

With the bad users gone, Sanger's Law will cause the entire culture of the wiki to permanently change in revolutionary ways, becoming more tolerant and open to dissident viewpoints. It will begin to better fulfil its three stated purposes. All this has been planned out; I am several moves ahead of my opponents in my thinking and they can do nothing but the Template:W that have already been decreed. It's determinism in its most sublimely pure and beneficent form. Leucosticte (talk) 21:36, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I personally think, after reading this, that your presence at this wiki is a big joke at our and others expense. You seem to get a sort of delight at seeing Abd debate with you, while you have no real intention debating with him. You seemed to have sucked yourself unto this wiki and you are planning to suck it dry. Ever since I started adding wikis to wikiindex, I have noticed that you continiously change your wikipages, start debates on irrelevant issues and now you are creating biographies on users you may or may not be enemies with. In other words, you want people to notice you here and connect your presence to wikiindex. Why? Who cares. But the pattern is solid and that is all I care about. --Redgreenfourties (talk) 22:44, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps you are waiting for likeminded minds to show up on this wiki. That would explain your passive-agressiveness. You probaly think that the moment you have two or three people supporting you, you can use this wiki as a portal for supporting your ideas? --Redgreenfourties (talk) 22:51, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Fascinating. Leucosticte, you have written that some of your wiki pages are parody, sarcasm. Maybe it's not just pages on your wikis. The prediction about meta went completely over the top. Redgreenfourties, you may be close to the truth here. Pleased to meet you. --Abd (talk) 23:00, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

It would explain why a Danish-German Neonazi wanted to recruite me via a forum. --Redgreenfourties (talk) 23:04, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I was joking about that prediction of how things would play out at Meta. It was some mild escapism. (I say "mild" because I did successful restrain myself from including the original ending, in which I ride off into the sunset on a glittery unicorn. This compromise of the initial artistic vision was tough, but perhaps the scene will be restored in the director's cut.) Leucosticte (talk) 00:20, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Danish-German Neonazi

I am debating with Leucosticte and he is losing (I am getting upvotes), suddenly an anonymous person questions if I am German or French, I assume that the person is German, since the French wouldn't even whipe there asses with use, I make a bicycle-joke, I get a loud S.H. from the fellow, make a snarky remark and suddenly the person announces himself as a Danish-German Neonazi, who wants me to pick a forum where we can fight the "kinderschander" (written in German, not English) Leucosticte. --Redgreenfourties (talk) 23:17, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Other small points, he places on of his posts above posts directed at my comment with support signs and a few days later he changes my userpage in a harmless manner, by correcting my spelling. I posted a message on his talk page saying that I will give permission to someone if they want to alter my userpage. As of this postdate, he has not responded to this remark on his talk page. --Redgreenfourties (talk) 23:17, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Honestly, I feel like I am being tested. Like someone is looking how I will react. I don't like it. --Redgreenfourties (talk) 23:17, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, yeah, this has happened a few times, that I've made a few minor corrections to someone's userpage and been told to back off. I guess I'll have to quit doing it, even though it's a wiki. Perhaps it's like walking onto someone's lawn to water a flower that seems to have wilted in the sun. The owner might have wanted the plant to live, but he wants even more for people to not trespass. Anyway, I have nothing to do with these other people you mention. Leucosticte (talk) 00:20, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

It is more like walking into someones backyard and removing all the shrubs and death leaves. When an aquintance does it, it's ok, but when a guy you barely know walks into your garden when your working in your house to clean up all the leaves, you wonder what there doing. --Redgreenfourties (talk) 14:43, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

He may have been a little offended at the delay in reply, though you did reply reasonably quickly.

Actually, Nathan, there could be a language problem here. The user here says that he said "he will give permission." I recall the post to your talk page as he said that he wanted to be asked first. It can indeed be seen as intrusive. Always ask. Sometimes I see something easy to correct, a single thing, and change it, and will then have an edit summary like "spelling. I hope this is okay. If not, my apologies and revert me." Mostly the Wikipedia guidelines on this say "Do not touch!"

I think he may have been a little offended that you did not reply. But I

I read the user page, with the jokes. Nice jokes. I look at it this way: that English is far, far better than my Dutch. And I appreciate it when those whose primary language is not English make an effort to communicate in English. --Abd (talk) 00:53, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

It is most likely more of a cultural thing, as of yet Leucosticte and I are not partners, so I would think it a sign of respect on his part to ask me if he wants to improve my spelling, that is all, no hard feelings. --Redgreenfourties (talk) 14:43, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• (edit conflict with above)Leucosticte is not trying to do you any harm, that's clear to me. The IP editors are trolling you.

• Where are you debating with Leucosticte?

• Now, what has happened on your user page is simple. There are hackers and activists on the internet dedicated to attacking sexual deviants, and the most popular target is "pedophiles." While child sexual abuse is a serious problem, these people are not actually involved with protecting children, they are full of hatred and are vicious (and there is real violence, people have been murdered on claims they were pedophiles.

• Leucosticte is, in fact, a long-time wiki user. He came here with information about wikis, though it was largely about his own (I have not looked at the balance, but it's okay for him to do that). Given the nature of what he hosts on his sites, the appearance that he presents, it is not surprising that he was attacked here. He is being targeted by at least two people, I think, and it may be more.

• One person, who registered an account, is a moderator at RationalWiki. I suspect some connection between her and the IP users, some form of communication between them elsewhere, but I have no proof of that, and it may be coincidence. Her behavior here was like her behavior at RationalWiki, which argues against her connection with the IP. Strange bedfellows. I think she was blocked here partly because of that IP activity, though it is likely not her.

• These activists lie, they libel, and activists like them have declared they are not concerned about collateral damage. They don't mind if a hundred "perverts" go to jail, having committed no crime, if one child is protected.

• Leudosticte is not a pedophile. He doesn't fit the definitions. He has no history of molesting children. He was in federal prison and was on parole for a completely different offense, and was under intense scrutiny.

• He writes about these things primarily as an extreme libertarian. He's definitely provocative, he seems to enjoy the fuss created. It's complicated.

• These IP users are after him. However, WikiIndex appears, to them, to be supporting him. So they are also threatening WikiIndex, and attacking administrators here, and, of course, me as well. And you are a new WikiIndex user, so they could also threaten you. It really isn't about you.

• WikiIndex needs to develop specific policies about both Leucosticte's work here (to avoid unnecessary provocation) and vandalism and trolling as has been coming from the IPs. Without the policy and clear procedure, response will be delayed and quite a mess can be created. I've documented the open proxy vandalism/trolling to support possible wiki responses. --Abd (talk) 00:41, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• The recent events are documented at User:Abd/Open proxy events/2014-03. The IPs which edited your talk page were, of course, noticed by me. They are using open proxies to conceal their location, at the same time as they accuse others of being cowards for refusing to debate with them. I'm a real person, I actually use the name Abd in daily life, and it's easy to find me. I have two small children (10 and 12), as well as five grown children and six grandchildren. --Abd (talk) 00:41, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

The page where I had the debate was Category talk:OptOut, but anyway if you can vouch for him, then I will not push the issue. --Redgreenfourties (talk) 14:43, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I vouch for him as being unlikely to be a pedophile, but also as deliberately creating high conflict and controversy. He is normally cooperative as an editor, if given clear boundaries. as I mentioned, he did not intend harm in editing your user page. He will push certain kinds of boundaries, as might be common with people with, say, Attention Deficit Disorder. If it is not explicitly prohibited, he may assume it is allowed.

However, he can also be strangely compliant, when someone else might not be. There is a wiki where he was "banned," for a time, and is blocked (by the unilateral action of a single administrator) but he still has, as of this date, administrator privileges there, and could unblock himself. He hasn't. See, on Wikipedia, it's prohibited for an administrator to unblock himself. So he follows that rule. Yes, he might be desysopped if he unblocks himself. Or not. It depends on how funny it is. If it's really funny, he might not be desysopped, or he might be quickly resysopped if he is. Or not. It's a wiki, which, translated into English, means "unpredictable." --Abd (talk) 19:37, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I was reportedly given a "rule-out diagnosis" of pedophilia, although I wasn't allowed to actually see the report; as you know, that matter is in litigation. A rule-out diagnosis is an informal diagnostic label that means "the client meets many of the symptoms but not enough to make a diagnosis at this time; it should be considered further." The use of rule-out diagnoses is not endorsed by the DSM-5 and is sometimes even considered bad practice.

Isn't it against the law for people to go around endorsing Nazism in Germany? Leucosticte (talk) 20:08, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I think so. Perhaps some one in Germany could point out that some of the open proxies were on German servers, and server logs may exist and be legally accessible. Popcorn, $1 per bag. --Abd (talk) 20:51, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Trolls

Anyway, I got a message back from a German friend and he says your most likely being trolled by people from a Identitarian movement, or something similar to them. Many of them are dedicicated pedohunters. Ill post a link: [5].

Maybe. There were some hints in the edits. It would take too much time to track them down, and it doesn't really matter who they are. Thanks. --Abd (talk) 18:53, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Privilege-checking

You wanna talk about a site at which children are objects, pawns in a pseudo-intellectual game... Leucosticte (talk) 20:17, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

last post 2012. I think they must have all died laughing. -- I'd imagine Somebody around here would think the pedophile joke was funniest, except, of course, that real children get charged with child sexual offenses. --Abd (talk) 20:43, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Open proxies

We probably need some better proxy blocking tools around here; otherwise, it'll just be a game of whack-a-mole. There's a daily-updated list here of several megabytes of open proxy IPs; this can be imported into the database using mw:Manual:addProxies.php. However, tech support on this wiki isn't the greatest in the world, so such a comprehensive solution will probably he hard to implement. The war on spammers and vandals will have to be fought on other fronts.

I think the third party wikis have usually relied on security through obscurity. ChildWiki can't do that, though. Its defenses will need to be hardened, probably beyond what the currently available software permits. Therefore, more software will need to be developed. Leucosticte (talk) 22:10, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

You would keep out the amateurs (most of the time), but you would be fighting a losing battle against professionals. Remember many proxy services where orginally designed so that people could get over there nations firewall, or unto far more professional forums and if that is not enough, a person could simply use dynamic IP's and unplug there modem, or manually change there ip. --Redgreenfourties (talk) 22:25, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Which would you consider 4chan, amateurs or professionals? I think somewhere in between, maybe. I dunno if that's who hit WikiIndex, though. User:Abd/Open proxy events/2014-03 Leucosticte (talk) 01:21, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Amateur, it seems someone and possibly there friends are mostly trolling wikiindex, because you are on here. I couldn't think of any other reason. Either there tired of the game, or waiting. I doubt you would experience a raid against your wiki, since you are not a pedosite posting videos or that sort of horrible stuff and the mods of wikiindex should simply keep there eyes open. It also possible that they are making fake accounts to troll people, I remember a now long defunct anarchists wiki where around 20 users made an account and occasionally posted and then suddenly started destroying the entire infrastructure of the wiki. So my advice is, look into new users who don't post or rarely post, they might be trojans, ready to be used on notice. --Redgreenfourties (talk) 12:14, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree with "amateur." There are professionals engaged in eliminating or sanctioning pedophilia, active and otherwise, and they will not be operating like those using the open proxies. For brevity, I'll call them "pedo-trolls." What that IP study showed was that the only people using open proxies to access WikiIndex, in the last three months, were the pedo-trolls. That's an argument for banning open proxies. That's what the WMF has done, though they don't necessarily enforce the policy, i.e., they often wait until there is actual vandalism/spam/disruption from an open proxy range, but then they block the entire range.

That sometimes catches an innocent user, -- or possibly innocent --, and so there is the user privilege, IP block exemption. Easy enough to add the privilege for the rare case. Email is not blocked by IP blocking. However, a sincere user may be unable to create an account, that's different. In that case, what I've recommended is that the user go to a library or otherwise use different unblocked access, create the account, enable and confirm email, and then it becomes possible to request IP block exemption by email, for a named account. --Abd (talk) 14:04, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Apparently this wiki doesn't have the user privilege IP block exemption. IP soft blocks might still be usable. --Abd (talk) 15:11, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

WikiIndex has CheckUser installed, and a few select sysops have access to that (follow the link on our Stats page). I've confirmed that the female moderator troll was abusing a few very different IP addresses, and so have been blocked accordingly. I havn't been able to make any direct links between the remainder of the IP addressess in the recent troll attacks - though I didn't go into great detail when checking. We do have the ability to block ranges of IP addresses - so if anyone notices a range of IPs being used for trolling or spamming, give me or any of the other sysops a heads up. Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _{Admin / 'Crat} • talk2HH 22:47, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Question

Dear Abd, could we talk in private? Perhaps via mail? --Redgreenfourties (talk) 12:31, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Sure. Use the wiki email interface. --Abd (talk) 12:59, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

difficult

Do You think You are less difficult?

That is no observation. Difficult is an opinion. It is entirely subjective. I could call Sean, Dave and others difficult if I wanted. But, what is the use?

However, if You call me combative I shall let that stand even though it is no less subjective and entirely depending on the situation. I am not this or that. I act like this or that in certain situations according to the situation. Dave called me belligerent after he observed my reaction to his so called hard-ban.

I do change headers rather often. Mostly to adapt to the content. In this case because the header was calling me names. So I kicked the ball back. Poor Dave was too upset to play the game right. So eventually he called me a WikiWikiWeb user which counteracted his intention behind his so called hard-ban. Proper title would be: "Dave Voorhis cries about Manorainjans unexpected belligerent reaction to his unwarranted so called hard-ban on wards wiki." ;-) Manorainjan (talk) 08:18, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

WikiIndex:Teamwork Info

This is a proposal for a new wiki community related feature.

I hope You like the idea and find a way to integrate this table on Your User Page.

Online Accessibility	E-mail	Commitment	Exeptions	UTC	Skills	Duty	Rank	Propensities
?	yes	-	-	?		-	User	consensus

It's first try. I'm happy if You help to improve it. Details filled in lines other than mine are of course only for demonstration. I'm curious to see how You might fill it. --Manorainjan (talk) 13:30, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Response

See my talk Koavf (talk) 06:25, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Wiki people

Perhaps you'd care to weigh in on this discussion. Leucosticte (talk) 20:02, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Two concerns

So, Koavf is concerned about WikiIndex being used to promote users and wikis, while you're concerned about WikiIndex being used to denigrate users and wikis. MarvelZuvembie was saying, "Wiki People pages were originally generated by the people themselves. I think it should stay that way. That's my criteria" while it seemed like Koavf's concern was that if people created pages on themselves, they would tend to be self-promotional.

Basically, it sounds like the only people who can create anything here are those who have no agenda, but why would such people bother? People usually create content about stuff they're interested in, whether because they have a strong like or dislike for it. It's kinda similar to how survey results tend to be biased either extremely positively or extremely negatively, because the only people who bother to fill out surveys are usually customers who are either extremely pleased or displeased with a company's product.

There was never really a policy created on what point of view WikiIndex pages are supposed to have. Are they supposed to be neutral, like Wikipedia? Sympathetic, like Wikinfo? Hostile, like Encyclopedia Dramatica? It's anyone's guess. Leucosticte (talk) 23:42, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I prefer that Koavf state his position for himself. Koavf is a Wikipedian. Wikipedians are trained to think that self-promotion is Bad. However, in fact, on Wikipedia, self-promotion is allowed in certain contexts, such as one's user page. Normally. Unless a Steward gets upset. Some stewards seem to think that self-promotion is Evil. However, most or all of the WMF wikis allow an established user *on their own user page* to promote their accomplishments, etc. They may block a newbie for spam. And, in fact, many of those newbie self-descriptive pages *are* spam.

Here, it was classic that users created their own listings. Of course they would be self-promotional! However, a certain user turned his wiki listings into a blog on everything you ever might have wanted to know about the wiki, it's history, it's disruptive users, it's drama with providers, and everything you didn't want to know about his personal life.

And then the wikis themselves were provocative, another issue, quite different.

The basic WikiIndex problem is low participation. That's fine for a wiki that can gradually and slowly build content or maintain it, for design purpose. However, when you have a wiki owner who doesn't take responsibility for basic decisions, but wants the community to do it, then there is chaos. Chaos can be great, but it tends to be quite inefficient except under circumstances I don't see operating here. The problem with the lack of standards is that someone can come here an build content that they think is peachy-keen, and then it gets blanked or blasted or deleted. That is not fun. Nobody likes to see their work deleted. (Wikipedia really missed the boat here, sowing the seeds for continued disruption. Plenty of alternatives existed, but the community became extremely conservative almost immediately. They could have created a *more reliable* project *and protected their users. But Wikipedia really never cared about the users, it was the *content*, man! Yet the only standard for neutral point of view is genuine consensus, Wikipedians imagined that NPOV was objective, and, of course, *they had it.*

I see WikiIndex as having, and for a long time, a narrow purpose, with most users believing they understood it, and working on it here and there. It was mostly a low-conflict wiki, because of that narrowness of purpose. It was, I think, *effectively clear,* the policy. Except, of course, it wasn't formal, documented, and, when problems arose, it was largely unenforced. Wikis die if they don't clear this passage. Abd

I'm not sure this is the first time these sorts of issues have arisen here. I don't think anyone has written a very thorough history of WikiIndex; there's no WikiIndexWiki to document the conflicts, and a lot of conflicts are settled in places other than the community portal. I can see, though, that requests for explicit rules have been pending since at least 2009. The question about the point of view of the wiki goes back to 2008. Really, RationalWiki was a pretty big test case here, and we see how that ended up. Leucosticte (talk) 00:42, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

User:Proxima Centauri was a sysop here and a RationalWikian. She protected the RationalWiki listing while involved and was desysopped over it. However, I see no sign that policy was developed from the incidents. So then it happens all over again. I look at what was written then, people -- including one long-time sysop here -- wrote quite a bit. It is as if the wiki spat in their face, what you write means jack. Of course, they did not, themselves, write policy, they just gave their opinion. And that is common on wikis. Yak yak yak. Nothing. Repeat. Then someone violates a policy that was never explicit, and gets banned. They should have known better. --Abd (talk) 01:17, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

I thought you hated the singular "they"? Anyway, yeah, I hadn't noticed he'd been desysoped over that. Leucosticte (talk) 01:20, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Please stop vandalism/deletions

Please refrain from dictating policy. You do not get to require people to create accounts and declare certain edits unworthy and requiring of revert because they were not made by a registered user. Please stop.

A simple rDNS lookup would tell you that this is the IP address of the Akula server Ehrenburg owned by Krasnaya Security. There are at most, < five people who could be using this computer. Any attack you make is very direct. –maelstr0m 173.255.192.138 19:52, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, batshit crazy. You have made comments that are personal, ("my wikis"), and you lie in your posts and edit summaries, but you do not identify as personal. I have no obligation to research your effing IP. Ordinary edits, no problem. Libel and highly disruptive material, like ban requests, as you have been adding, big problem. Stay off my Talk page, unless logged in. --Abd (talk) 19:56, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I would like to apologize for the trouble the above user has caused. I have examined their edits and allegations, and frankly, I too found it disruptive and your edits have, to my examination, proven reasonable and appropriate. I have blocked the IP for their disruption and again apologize for the trouble they have caused you. Arcane (talk) 20:32, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Edit conflict with the above. Thanks, Arcane. Below, before I saw the above, I explain a bit about what I was doing. It's a basic wiki technique for a regular user dealing with serious disruption. It works. Occasionally, I've been blocked for "revert warring," but, in the end, I've always been vindicated, because I am *always* seeking consensus and standing for community welfare, as my goal. The multiple edits call rapid attention to the problem. It's very simple to stop my activity: just ask me! If this were a bit worse, I'd be asking for revision deletion. I think, under the circumstances, it probably doesn't matter. Nobody will take those claims seriously. --Abd (talk) 20:40, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

"I've always been vindicated" Was that the outcome at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard&oldid=433842952 ? Leucosticte (talk) 04:59, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Your middle name is "useless debate." It blinds you to what is actually being said. You pointed to the ban discussion on Wikipedia, which had nothing to do with what I was writing about above. Zilch. Revert warring was not an issue. I was banned on WP for creating a single sock and editing non-disruptively with it. No revert warring, no fringe advocacy, purely a status offense. My purpose was fulfilled. No, there would be no need to do on Wikipedia what I did here, because there are functioning, actively monitored noticeboards. I have done what I did here, on both en.wikiversity and beta.wikiversity, when administrative attention was thin. It gets attention. It's risky, because it can irritate an administrator.

Actually, come to think of it, I did do this on Wikipedia, early on. I revert warred with a blatant sock puppet, was blocked -- my first block --, immediately unblocked, and the admin blocked everyone else in sight. That was before I knew how to use the noticeboards. --Abd (talk) 13:40, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

How to restore the content I'm reverting

• Any admin may ask me to stop reverting and I will. (Basic wiki user rule: admin requests abstaining from behavior, abstain. Discuss if one disagrees. Admins, defacto, and roughly, represent consensus.) The admin is then taking responsibility for this content being appropriate for WikiIndex, that's all.
• Any regular user may undo my revert and it will stand. I am not allowing Leucosticte to do this, because he both attracts and enjoys and foments disruption around his participation. Obviously, I'm not going to allow the IP to attack him, and the IP is also attacking a whole list of people, including lying about "policy" at RationalWiki.[6] RationalWiki is itself batshit crazy, but so what? --Abd (talk) 20:40, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think he was being disruptive, really, except by edit warring. Leucosticte (talk) 20:42, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't care what you think, Leucosticte. Did you read what he wrote on the RationalWiki template? I didn't ask for him to be blocked, he brought that on himself. His attacks on you were *disruptive.* You might as well argue that the sky is not blue. Maybe it's not, maybe it's a sandstorm or a s***storm. Now, I have other things to do today... --Abd (talk) 20:46, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I guess the RationalWiki template edit was disruptive. Leucosticte (talk) 21:25, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Ya think?

One of the attachment therapists used to say that when someone said something really obvious. --Abd (talk) 22:07, 5 January 2015 (UTC)