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Thank you very much for a second barnstar, Foxy Loxy. It wasn't that much effort for me, really. Just some copying & pasting.
So glad to see LoxyBot up and running again, keeping {{Opentask}} fresh all the time. It must have been a lot of work for you to get your helpful bot running smoothly on the wiki-toolserver. Here's a really big sandwich for you in appreciation for your hard work! Thank you. Enjoy! --PFHLai (talk) 04:22, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Yummy ;), thankyou very much. FoxyLoxyPounce! 11:06, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Email
Hiya, I got a blank email response from you, that might have been my virus protection (McAfee) stripping off attachments (whether they're infected or not, so don't worry). Could you either reply here, or send me something in plain text? - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 14:09, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Hmm, must have been my PGP signature (it is an attachment). Message body was I was asking, does the general RfA population think that, when a candidate is answering RfA questions and they are not sure of the answer, it is alright to ask a third party what they think the answer might be (and use the third party's answer as a basis of their own).FoxyLoxyPounce! 00:51, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Judging from the responses, I'm pretty sure the answer is "no", but I'm happy to help anyone with typical RFA questions before or after their RFA. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 02:35, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Whose responses are you referring to? FoxyLoxyPounce! 03:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
The rationales in RFAs in 2008 and 2009 seemed to me to assume the candidates were answering questions on their own. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 03:59, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Ah, ok. So, just clarifying, you personally believe that if a candidate doesn't know the answer, and admits to that, they should not have the option to ask others and say something along the lines of I don't know, but X says Y at Z and I trust their judgment? FoxyLoxyPounce! 04:03, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I guess I didn't understand the question ... yes, that can be a fine answer. I think people might be disappointed if a candidate doesn't bother to read the relevant policy page, but for other questions, sometimes quoting someone else is the best anyone can do. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 04:15, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
(outdent)Thats fine, thanks for your input. FoxyLoxyPounce! 07:31, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
RE: Hugo Perls
Hello, and thank you for your reversion of an edit by 160.7.60.162 - is there any logical reason for the aforementioned user to have made such an action in the first place? Would one know, anyways? And is the burden of justice to prove historical notabilty dependent upon the ignorance of those who clearly might be better off enjoying Manga comics or graphic novels? Perhaps it is the 'flipside' to the 'anyone can edit policy' which although a gorgeous idea for the informed could ultimately lead to the lunatics running the asylum if it weren't for the vigilance of editors of your calibre. Thanks again.Ernstblumberg (talk) 18:53, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
I would see no logical reason for the edit, most likely some kind of vandalism. Notability is demonstrated by providing reliable sources to base the article's content on, so notability is based on the ability to verify your facts, not the opinion of people. And yes, the 'anyone can edit' idea that Wikipedia runs off has its problems, but for ever person like 160.7.60.162, there is another person like me willing to clean up their mess. Happy editing! FoxyLoxyPounce! 00:58, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Deleting
The sources I added do not add up with the infrmation...so I deleted them.
Removing or stopping me from editing the article on the Nova Scotian Settlers. First of all, the sources do no match the information I wrote in the article.
Some of the sections are inaccurate...these are the ones I removed.
The 'sources' do not match the information. I created the article and now that I wish to edit it fully, I am being stopped? The sources and references do not add up...stop trying to prohibit me from editing the article correctly....
Feel free to revert me, I was not aware for the reasoning behind your removal. FoxyLoxyPounce! 01:31, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
RFA thanks
My RFA passed today at 61/5/4. Thanks for participating in my RFA. I appreciate all the comments I received and will endeavor to justify the trust the WP community has placed in me. Have a nice day. :-) AdjustShift (talk) 21:30, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
RfA Thankspam
Thanks to everyone who took the time and trouble to take part in my RfA whether support, oppose or neutral. All comments are valued and will be considered carefully in the coming weeks. Feel free to add more advice on my talk page if you think I need it. SpinningSpark 23:51, 16 April 2009 (UTC) In case you're wondering, the image is a smiley, just a little more aesthetic, but not as serious as the Mona Lisa
Thank you!
Thanks for your participation in my recent Request for adminship. Good luck on your RFA in return; things are looking pretty good for you so far. :) BOZ (talk) 04:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
RfA
Congratulations - just saw it close. Fritzpoll (talk) 13:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
I'd like to add mine as well. I had only one interaction with you as well, and didn't know enough to really vote, but I am glad that you were given the mop. Good luck with it, :) - Arcayne(cast a spell) 13:51, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Thankyou both for your kind words. FoxyLoxyPounce! 13:56, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
A consensus has been reached by your peers that you should be an admin. I have made it so. Please review Wikipedia:Administrators' reading list and keep up the great work. Sincerely, Kingturtle (talk) 13:50, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Congrats, FL, and here's your free T-Shirt! Here's your free T-shirt!Xclamation point 14:03, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Does it come in blue ;) and your changes to the top element of my userspace are most welcome, although I must admit they confused me for a while as I couldn't remember making them FoxyLoxyPounce! 15:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Well done Foxy Loxy, use the tools well. Camaron | Chris(talk) 11:43, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Happy Foxy Loxy's Day!
Fl has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, so I've officially declared today as Fl's Day! For being an excellent user and a great clerk at WP:SPI, enjoy being the star of the day, dear Fl!
Hello, thank you for your message and usefull links to discussion. Although you are an administrator and I am not, you have no special right to revert something while there is continuing discussion about the theme. I have put my message at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#The Pirate Bay... (and related). --Snek01 (talk) 12:46, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
However this also means you have no real right to put it back. Bit of a catch-22 here. GARDEN 14:16, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Snek01
Hi FoxyLoxy
Congratulations on the nice shiny buttons. I wondered if you could look at the unblock request for Snek01 [1]. I'm minded to release the block in return for the promise not to redo the edit they were warring over. Do you have any objections to this? SpartazHumbug! 15:43, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Oh my. You blocked this user after edit warring against them while they were discussing the edits at AN. You just broke the first law of admining - not to block when involved - and you did it big time. I'm also not seeing a clear warning to desist or be blocked and this would, imo, be mandatory before blocking any long standing editor with a clean block log. Please feel free to discuss this further if you would like further advice or guidance on this block, but I do hope that you will show a little more caution before blocking in future. FWIW I have released Snek01's block under pain of something much longer if they do it again. Their reasonable question about why they should be blocked for edit warring and you not is perhaps, something you might like to consider responding to on their talk page. SpartazHumbug! 18:06, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
I apologize for not replying sooner, but, to be fair, I do list my local time at the top of the page, and your message was received at 11:43PM; I was asleep. While some may interpret my actions as 'breaking the first law of admining' as you call it, I did consult policy before making a decision and I feel I should explain my own logic here. (It should be noted, before I continue, that I accept that my actions could and are being viewed from a different perspective, and I respect that.) I first removed the content, without any type of reversion, after it was drawn to my attention that such a link was of questionable copyright status, and thus legality. The link was replaced by Snek01. A different user, Synergy, removed the link this time, he was also reverted.
By this time, I can back to notice that the link had been re-added, so I reverted (that would be my first reversion) and contacted the user on their talk page. The note was of a tone that said, politely, but firmly; don't do that. It outlined the copyright issues of the link, and the requirement of evidence that it is in the public domain to link to it. After that notice, the user posted on my talk page that I had no right to remove the content, and Snek01 placed the link back again.
At this time, I began to file an ANI report to deal with this issue that was approaching 3RR (for Snek01) but closed the window before posting as I noticed that yet another unrelated user had noticed the link and removed it, and had been reverted by Snek01 again, so I moved to block for 3RR violation. So far, the amounts of reversions were sitting on 4 for Snek01, 1 (or 2, depending on how you want to argue revert; my initial edit was not reverting anyone in particular) for me, 1 for Synergy, and 1 for D.M.N..
I acted in the manner that I did, because I believe that it was in line with our various policies. The 3RR page clearly says Contributors must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period and permits blocking of the user violating the rule. Now it can be argued that I acted in a conflict of interest, as you suggested, but I did check WP:UNINVOLVED, which says an administrator who has interacted with a user or article in an administrative role (i.e., in order to address a dispute, problematic conduct, administrative assistance, outside advice/opinion, enforce a policy, and the like) ... is usually not prevented from acting on the article, user, or dispute. I believe that I was acting perfectly within the lines of said policy, as a potentially illegal torrent link is against out external linking policy's restrictions on linking (Copyrighted material which is reproduced, without verified permission, by someone other than the copyright holder must never be linked.). I thus can conclude that acting in my "administrative role" of stopping the posting of potentially policy violating content is within the bounds of what is acceptable "uninvolved" behavior.
To address the issue of my suggested edit warring on the article; WP:3RR exempts users from 3RR if they are reverting the addition of links to content that is clearly illegal, and it can be extrapolated that this also applies to the broader edit warring policy. And finally, I accept that it is your opinion that there should have been a more clear warning that the user was going to be blocked if he continues, but, like you said, the user has been here for a long time, and I would expect such a user to be aware of the 3 revert rule, as well as the disruptive nature of edit warring and possible consequences of continuing to do so. Again, I am not trying to reject your view as invalid, or trying to ignore constructive criticism in regards to this incident, but I believe you have not been exposed to what could be called "my side" of the story, and hope you can understand, if not condone, where my reasoning was at this time. ~fl 02:37, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Irrespective of the fine points of wikilawyering above, the core issue Foxy was whether to a reasonable uninvolved user you were engaged in an edit war and whether you blocked a user while engaged in a dispute with them. In this [2] diff snek01 clearly said that the film linked to was public domain and provided evidence at AN to back up that conclusion. I can see that you queried this, there is no indication that you engaged Snek01 in the discussion at AN over the validity of the argument based on on commons practise that there was no copyvio and they did point you into the direction of that discussion in response to your warning. Your edit summaries make no mention of copyright or illegality.
As a wholly uninvolved admin I'm not seeing sufficient evidence that this link was illegal or that you had taken enough due care to satisfy yourself that it wasn't, to justify an exemption from the 3RR or from edit warring. I do however accept that this might be an arguable position and I'm more then willing to assume good faith on that, but, and this is the biggie, I cannot see how, once you started editing the article, you can be considered sufficiently uninvolved to block the user. To be honest, I'm a little disappointed how defensive you are about this. I don't think its the end of the world but, you only just got promoted, and we all make mistakes (I got an admin RFC in my face a week after being promoted myself). A key requirement for an administrator is to be able to see errors and learn from them. That you are not open to this is more concerning to me then the mistake because it suggests that you are going to struggle to learn from mistakes. Rather then try an argue your way out of this, please just carefully consider whether an uninvolved user might reasonably view an administrator blocking a user for adding a link they removed as being too involved to make the call?
If you are unwilling to accept advice from me, maybe you you run the question past some different admins and ask what they think? I'm not suggesting for a minute that you acted with malice or in anything other then the best intentions but, it may have escaped your attention, that there is a gap between the admin corps and the editing fraternity and actions like this are precisely the ones that fuel this divide. SpartazHumbug! 06:34, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
carefully consider whether an uninvolved user might reasonably view an administrator blocking a user for adding a link they removed as being too involved to make the call?, when you put it like that, I would say yes; but that is over-simplifying things if you wish to apply it to this situation. As I stated in my previous message, I understand your viewpoint, and I will take it on board. Thankyou and happy editing/admining! ~fl 07:06, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Hello, I ate humble pie that I broke the rule but you did not accept your mistake. Just a short explanation what 3 revert rule is (to became better administator): Contributors must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period means all contributors but not the only certain contributor. The rule is related to a same material, not to the same material restored by the same person. This means that the third revert made by anybody is bad. In the example: My third revert at 12:50, 18 April 2009 was bad and it was broking the rule. Every other revert after this edit was broking the rule. We can not punish the user D.M.N. because we expect a good faith and we expect that he/she was not familiar with the article history. But you were familiar with this matter. (Maybe my explanation is wrong, it is just describing what I thought.)
As for to the point to the link. To the external linking policy's restrictions on linking that you provided above (Copyrighted material which is reproduced, ...) can not solve this matter because that material is is not copyrighted now. However it is very sensitive task to solve how the link could be provided. Feel free to discuss at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#The Pirate Bay... (and related) that link you have provided for me and where I was discussing according to your advice even before I broke the 3 revert rule accidentally. Thank you for your attention and I am looking for more fruitful cooperation in the future. --Snek01 (talk) 07:52, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Contributors must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period means all contributors but not the only certain contributor. The rule is related to a same material, not to the same material restored by the same person. This means that the third revert made by anybody is bad.. I'm sorry, but that is incorrect. 3RR does only, and can only, apply in reference to one contributors reversions, and I believe Spartaz would agree. I also look forward to fruitful cooperation. Thanks, and happy editing! ~fl 08:24, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
An administrator who is addressing a persistent attempt to breach editing standards, can deal with both the user and the problem edit, as an administrator. We aren't lawyers here, and we do expect commonsense and not excessive bureaucracy. For example if an administrator blocks a vandal, they are allowed to also revert the vandalistic edit. If an administrator sees a likely or potential copyright breach and determines it's being inserted by edit warring, they may both remove the edit and deal with the editor.
In this case, the admin action was well within norms. If Foxy Loxy had (for example) been previously involved in the article, or been edit warring to keep out a link because he didn't believe it was an improvement to the article or some content issue, that would be different. He wasn't. The record clearly shows he had no involvement except as an admin, dealing with a likely copyvio and a user revert who was warring (even despite a warning he might be blocked) to reinstate it. It also shows that after his revert, he stepped back and did not become involved. Another admin then removed the link, which complies with norms about consultation if there is a problem, and the same user then reverted that too.
In the circumstances, the admin warning (not to edit war) is quite reasonably followed up by use of blocking, and the edit warred "questionable content" removed (pending consensus) to enforce the policy that was being ignored.
For your information or your further admining I can tell you why this your message [3] had no demanded effect:
There was no mentioned 3 revert rule (and so I simply forget it).
There was neither real copyvio nor copyright issue so an admin was wrong in the reason. (there was a torrent link, wikilink and html link and the only html link was unacceptable but for different reason: for advertisement.) To show how out of point the massage was: In real I already answered all questions from the message and demonstrated all demanded things but nothing has changed yet! (and I can not correct it without an advertisement link, because I could be blocked!)
In real, I have read only first four sentences briefly and then I click to the Administrators_noticeboard wikilink to write down the statement there.
There was an question about the very easy information be able able to get. Admin that is concerning copyright issues should be able to know or to be able simply find trivial information about free content. At wikimedia commons they are all for example in one page. There is an category Public domain films in the article and the main article in the category contain the demanded information. (but I was not able to answer this, because I overlooked the question.)
There was a presumption: you need to demonstrate why its in the public domain if you want to link to it. I do not need to demonstrate such trivial information for hundreds of such articles if there is such information so easily detectable. You did not tried to get such information by yourself...
Such bureaucratic links like RFC do not help (by the way, I have never seen that page before today 20 March 2009, lol), because normal simple to the point explanation is always better. (There was no even try to explain anything and if was, it was accidentaly out of point. There was just statement that someones behave is unwanted.)
other comments:
Writing discussing on user's talk page into edit summary is annoying, because to the point things should be solved on discussion page of the article.
I hope my comments will help you in further admining.
It is very sad, because since you blocked me, then you did not tried to solve the situation, you never discussed about the torrent link(s), about the possibility how it should look like, and so on. --Snek01 (talk) 22:50, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
(break)
Foxy Loxy, speaking as someone previously uninvolved in this specific situation (I have been involved in the larger discussion about bittorrent links on AN), in my mind you did violate at least the spirit of WP:3RR, if not the actual rule itself. At the time of the edit war over the link in question it had not been established that the material was a copyright violation (and that has still not yet been established). Now, it takes two or more to edit war, Snek01 has already admitted that he messed up so perhaps a simple "oops, maybe I goofed up too" would be a good way to put this to rest?
As for the larger copyright issue, the reason this has been a gray area is no one seems to know who retained the copyright to Children of Hiroshima (Gembaku no ko). Kaneto Shindō produced the film in 1952 through his production company and if the copyright was retained by the production company, the file is indeed in the public domain. On the other hand, if Kaneto Shindō personally retained the copyright, then the film is not yet in the public domain. Japanese copyright law states that works published by corporations prior to 2004 are protected for fifty years following publication.
The particular version of the film obtainable via bittorrent was encoded from a DVD produced in China which was an unrestored film to DVD copy. All versions of this movie are out of print (including the unrestored DVD version) and it is difficult to obtain. Given what has already been stated above, given that it has long since been established that merely linking to (potentially) copyrighted material is not in and of itself a copyright violation, and given that torrent metadata files themselves do not contain any copyrighted material, are not illegal, and cannot download material on their own (the metadata file must be loaded into a bittorrent client to do anything) I personally don't see that the link that was removed and edit warred over was nearly as big of a deal as people made it out to be.
From what I saw on AN, people initially wanted to turn this link into a poster child and use it as a reason for an all out ban (which as I pointed out in the AN thread would be nearly impossible to enforce) against all links to bittorrent metadata files and sites. In my mind this whole thing got blown way out of proportion due to media hype over the The Pirate Bay trial.
Given the cultural and historical significance of the film perhaps instead of edit warring over a link it would be better to expand the article itself? WTF-FILM has a review of this film on their site which might be a starting point for more information...
Note: I am not a lawyer. My experience with copyright issues has mainly been within the realm of things related to software copyright and licensing.
I don't think we should pressure Foxy to accept more fault than he's truly due. Keeping in mind that he is a brand new admin, we should cut him some slack on the errors he did make and not assign errors to him that he didn't commit. He did, certainly, make some mistakes: He was probably wrong about the copyright issue, and wrong not to more clearly state the context for the block in the block log. He should have issued a more explicit warning, taking both 3RR and copyright rules into account, and posted a more complete block rationale on Snek's page.
Having said that, he believed he was removing a link to a copyright violation, and doing so as an administrator. His block was a reasonable continuation of that effort, and I don't think his actions rose to the level of either inappropriate edit warring or blocking to win an editing dispute. In the future I imagine he will be more careful to leave fuller explanations of his reasoning before going offline. I know I don't expect to see a further mea culpa from Foxy, and with all the views on the table hopefully folks can let this go from here. Nathan T (formerly Avruch) 15:08, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Should be fine now, placed rangeblocks on 76.249.19.0/24 and 76.249.22.0/24 with expiry of 2 weeks, let me know if there are any more problems. ~fl 11:33, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Your User:Foxy Loxy/cascade page was cascading protection far too deep (it goes beyond your userspace onto whatever you have transcluded in your userspace). We should also typically not fully protect our user pages unless they are subject to vandalism (move=sysop protection is ok and advised). You may look into Twinkle's batch protection script to easily protect all your pages from moving. –xenotalk 04:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Sorry about that, didn't realise that cascading protection was so... cascading :). I've deleted the page now. The main reason I was protecting the pages, particularly the archives, is that I don't watch them, and subtle vandalism could slip through. So protecting them is a no? Happy editing! ~fl 04:20, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
There may be good faith edits that can be made to archives (such as updating links to old discussions if they happen to be moved), but you could also fully protect archives if you like. Normal pages though, absent vandalism, should be left open for good faith input from other users (again, move protection across-the-board is completely fine). If you'd like an elegant way to watch all your pages, create a page such as User:Xeno/subpages and then construct a link as follows: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:RecentChangesLinked&hidemyself=1&days=30&limit=500&hideminor=0&target=User%3AXeno%2Fsubpages to show changes by others to your user subspace. –xenotalk 04:23, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
smashwords
Hi foxy, i'm not sure if this is the right place or form to message you. I posted the initial article for Smashwords, then someone flagged it for speedly delete, then I offered to fix it if someone would make suggestions, then an admin offered to make suggestions, but I never received them and now I see it's been deleted. Kind of discouraging after I spent all the time to research it and provide references. Any way you can bring it back, and provide some tips on how I can rework it? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Feedmelit (talk • contribs) 06:26, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
FYI, I posted a message about the deletion of Kwonqu on Balloonman's talk page. Wronkiew (talk) 15:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
AfDs
AfDs run a full 7 days= 7 X24 hours . please do not close them half a day early., even though I know you're eager to start. DGG (talk) 15:52, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
hi
Hi thanks for your help i appreciate it im gonna try to attach the key below
No one can see that message except me (it says, for the record 'Hi thanks for your help i appreciate it im gonna try to attach the key below '), all they see is the random text. When encrypting messages with another persons public key, none of your information is connected to the text you encrypt. ~fl 09:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Hi Foxy, could you lend me a hand? That SPI got really intense, with both sides pulling each other's hair and teeth out. I have declined it because the weak evidences, but nevertheless I want to hear your opinions. OhanaUnitedTalk page 17:28, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
He hasn't actually edited in eight and a half hours.--Pokémaniac Thomas (talk) 17:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Martin Musatov
Can you explain a little more your "let the AfD run" justification for removing the G4 CSD on Martin Musatov? We just had an AfD on almost the same article a few days ago; what is the purpose in having another one so soon? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:39, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
I didn't realize the last AfD was so recent. Deleted under G4. ~fl 01:47, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
