2005/11/23, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:

On 22/11/05, ilooy ilooy.gaon@gmail.com wrote:

...

This behavior will not be tolerated.

Unacceptable.

Ah, so you are the kind that tolerates this stuff, eh? Mark, I thought I knew ye!

...

This person is not the only one who has done this type of activity at the ia.wiki ...and... to substain this type of abuse is just intolerable.

If he's not the only one, then maybe there's some solid reasoning behind it?

No it just means there are others who shouldn't perhaps have been given adminship to work on a wiki whose language they don't speak nor post in. Severeal times he was asked to post in Interlingua or English but not in Dutch which few understood at the ia.wiki

...

Hundreds and hundreds of articles have been deleted since this wiki

"Articles they were working on"... last time I checked, the Great Purges at ia.wiki were all of itty-bitty articles, some less than 5 words. Find me one that was more than a paragraph, and I'll be surprised.

Ah, so you check the ia.wiki as well, that's all good, Mark. And why is an article with five words that one's been working on to be deleted at someone's whim? Now you know if you've been frequenting the ia.wiki, as you say, that there were many articles which had indeed many many paragraphs and which were deleted. Articles which showed a lot of edits and personal work... case in point Paolo's work and Jasef's work. These two folks aren't in the habit of just writing 5 words as you say. And if the articles were deleted how is it you knew that some had just 5 words unless you were one of the "saboteurs" who deleted tons of articles yourself???

Only because I know you stand up for minority languages that I would ever doubt you'd do something like that, Mark. But if I see it's you by another username I'm halting your editing priviledges as well until this matter is resolved.

I and a lot of other ia.wiki contributors find this situation intolerable.

It depends on the Wikipedia. I posted a stub on the Zuñi language to the Japanese WP. A month later, it was deleted for being a stub, despite the fact that it was a few sentences long. Different WPs have different thresholds of quality.

Again, since when do we simply delete articles people are working on only because we deem them "mere stubs"... Isn't the English wiki filled with many articles claiming to be "stubs" and requesting a visitor to help out? You know it's true, Mark, are you simply trying to be the Devils Advocate or are you seriously saying here that all stubs should be deleted?

...

I consider this attack on the ia.wiki to be akin to vandalism. It has got to stop and it better stop soon.

You consider? You?

I do. And since when should you question my own right to an opinion?

...

And remind me how many people there are at ia.wiki?

Your only type of authority is that you are an admin.

You may, and I should remind you that if you bring this type of attitude to the interlng list there would be quite a vociferous outcry requesting you'd be kicked out. I'm sure. You don't gain any friends by kicking down folks who've been victimized by such abuse as the ia.wiki has had to undergo... you may call them "purges" I call them "abuse" and vandalism.

Rather than BLOCKING HIM, which is utterly inappropriate,

Somewhere in your mind you may believe that. But I'm not putting up with it and I'm sure many others who've volunteered to work on the project and who've reached out to help by giving of their time and effort would also have done likewise.

you should've REQUESTED HE BE DESYSOPPED for what you considered to be inappropriate actions on his part.

Well, you may have done it differently. But you don't, obviously don't, get the emails from people crying out that their work has disappeared, that someone has been deleting articles, that there's no record of there being such articles in any log and that it feels like someone is definitely sabotaging the progress of the ia.wiki.

No, you probably don't see such emails, do you? And when you're totally fed up with the situation what does someone do? Well, I did what I felt would be the right action. I quarantined the user name on this particular wiki and I made mention of it on this list. You, Mark, may handle things differently, that is your prerogative. But if I catch you sabotaging a wiki I'm a sysop in you're rear is canned until the situation gets resolved. ...to put it plainly.

...

Whatever I can do to halt this form of abuse I will do. And so would any other reasonable member of this community. I'm sure.

So anybody who disagrees with you isn't reasonable? I'm sure.

No, Mark, not whoever disagrees with me. Whoever deletes other peoples' work and sabotages the progress of a wiki I've dedicated to help out as a sysop.

"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin

That's right, so please don't start acting like Stalin and don't support vandals who think ia.wiki should be an "animal farm" either. There are good people there, good people with feelings, who've devoted many hours of editing articles for this fine project. Please Mark, consider whose side you're on and why you're defending this intolerable situation.

Since, Jay B. [[ia.User:ILVI]]

Well, I now have some information thanks to Andre Engels I know more about what happened and why a lot of articles disappeard and without discussions at that. Now I'm getting the heat from a User Waerth who is vowing to leave nl.wiki due to censorship and who still claims to be a steward. Why is he posting on my discussion page with such venom and spunk??? What is there between ia.wiki and nl???

I am posting on your page because "this is wikipedia .... anyone can edit" . Also I am not posting with venom and spunk. You are the one doing that. If you post such comments in nl.wikipedia you might just draw reactions from other people on nl.wikipedia. And the last time I checked I still was a steward. I am just not that active at the moment because I am having more work than I can handle at the moment. Which is good btw as the months before november I barely had any work.

Greetings Walter / Waerth

I think that was basically my point -- that deletion of articles is at the discretion of the individual admin, and if people disagree, he should be de-admined rather than blocked.

With the extra power of sysophood comes extra responsibility; however if you abuse it you should simply lose the extra responsibility rather than being banned altogether.

Mark

On 23/11/05, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:

You are talking of jcb I presume...

An admin can unblock himself (as many of us discovered when we tried to block ourselves in the middle of a heavy wikistress crisis), so blocking an admin will not solve anything.

Oscar made a good suggestion in saying you should rather start a procedure for de-admining. Since Jcb seems of good will, I do not think it is necessary to de-admin him temporarily. I do not think you have the right to ban him.

Imho, mostly, it seems there is a technical issue and you should talk with a developer about it. Can you show previous numbers of articles ?

Please do not start a war with Mark on the issue :-( Oscar is probably ready to help you as a neutral party on ia. If he does not have the time, just ask if anyone else could help you figure out the mess...

ant

---

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-- "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin

2005/11/24, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net:

Before you start engaging in drastic or punitive actions it helps to discuss the problem with him first.. Negotiation can be a wonderful tool.

Well, it was maybe a matte of shoot first then ask questions.

I had asked about the situation before from others, and no one seems to know why there were so many deletions and why the article counts were so screwy. Like a hundred thousand words deleted. That wasn't just a few articles with "stubs". And that's only one instance. There are negative new article entries??? What's up with that?

And the complaints from disgusted contributors who kept wondering where were articles that they'd edited? And I've experienced it myself. Sometimes I'd think that they were problems with the software, that perhaps there were upgrades, or shutdowns which required the reloading of a database... and what else... I don't know... no one seems to know obviously.

What I did find was that Jcb was deleting articles. And he did have a bot active on the wiki. So I posted that I was blocking him until the matter could be resolved with the deletions going on in ia.wiki and that's the situation up to now.

Since, Jay B.

-- ilooy.gaon@gmail.com

2005/11/24, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com:

People had been putting up the complete text of books of the Bible, the book of Mormons and the Koran. Those have been deleted by Dissident in February.

These texts were discussed and moved to Wikisource. Then they were moved off Wikimedia and onto discussions on YahooGroups. I kept in touch with Ensjo, Dissident, and Almafeta about some of these issues.

The fact remains that hundreds and hundreds of articles were missing and at that no record of deletions. But contributors would make new entries and these would disappear. It has happened to me and to several strong contributors on ia.wiki who are disgusted with the project now. But you notice, I haven't given up and I am active in several wikis and I am asking for a resolution to the matter.

There was a whole lot of inappropriate material added (articles in other languages, year pages that contained no text except for on each page the same explanation of what Interlingua was, entries with nothing but a single translation, empty pages, vandalism), and there was no sysop to clean it up. Then someone took on the job (I don't remember who, but it was a German and I helped him) and deleted it all in less than a week. Thus, for that month (August 2004) the number was indeed negative.

So hundreds of thousands of words. This is definitely not some articles with a few words each, and definitely some articles with a lot of text. Are you telling me that you and this German collaborator of yours decided to delete willy-nilly without discussion and with only the traces of Statistics Tables to show your massive deletions?

But actually you could have had a discussion with several of us admins, why didn't you? Why not? ...Actually there were sysops around. ...And stuff was getting cleaned up also. ...And vandals blocked. And what is your relationship to Interlingua and who is this German fellow who you were collaborating with? Why didn't you discuss with some of the admins in ia.wiki?

Shoot first, ask questions later, and then complain when you are blamed for shooting, in other words.

That of course was a matter of speech. Jcb did unblock himself right away. But I did post messages on discussion pages on his own Dutch page and on my discussion page and elsewhere on ia.wiki and want the situation to be resolved.

Get rid of the only person actually doing moderator work. Excellent way of improving your wiki...

Actually, I didn't get rid of anything after all, did I, and now it seems you had a hand in ia.wiki all along without discussing anything with any admins that I know of. So I'm pleased that things are coming out now. BTW who is the German fellow you were collaborating with? And why isn't he communicating with the admins either?

Since, Jay B. [[ia:Usator:ILVI]]

-- ilooy.gaon@gmail.com

On 11/24/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

"Hundreds and hundreds of articles" -- why not give some EXAMPLES so people can check out your unbelievable story?

Yes! Call the Mediawiki software guys, because here is something impossible happening! Show them what articles disappeared, and let them be puzzled about how they disappeared without anything being shown in the logs.

... I don't know about his relationship to Interlingua, but he is a STEWARD. That means he has special privelages. He has a licence to kill, so to speak, and you do not. He is trusted by the community, if he sees a massive base of articles he feels need deleting, he can just delete them without asking anybody. If somebody complains at a later date, other stewards will check their complaints, and if it seems he made an inappropriate judgement, his action would be reversed.

Well, we are supposed to only work based on what the local wikipedias want. However, as I stated, there WAS no local wikipedia community at the time. There were 117 total edit actions in July. The number of new articles a day had not gotten above 0,5 for months.

That German fellow WAS an admin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Only admins and stewards and developers and bureaucrats can delete pages!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, he was made an admin especially for this occasion, because these articles were hanging around on the wiki, and there was no admin at the time to do the work. He volunteered, and he got the job. He did not discuss with the admins because there WAS no admin to discuss with. And there wasn't much of anyone else either.

-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels

On 11/24/05, ilooy ilooy.gaon@gmail.com wrote:

The fact remains that hundreds and hundreds of articles were missing and at that no record of deletions. But contributors would make new entries and these would disappear. It has happened to me and to several strong contributors on ia.wiki who are disgusted with the project now. But you notice, I haven't given up and I am active in several wikis and I am asking for a resolution to the matter.

This I find hard to believe. If it is really the case, then you should get the programmers of the Wikimedia software. Undoubtedly they would be very interested to hear of even ONE article being lost without a trace, let alone if it happens regularly as you claim.

...

There was a whole lot of inappropriate material added (articles in other languages, year pages that contained no text except for on each page the same explanation of what Interlingua was, entries with nothing but a single translation, empty pages, vandalism), and there was no sysop to clean it up. Then someone took on the job (I don't remember who, but it was a German and I helped him) and deleted it all in less than a week. Thus, for that month (August 2004) the number was indeed negative.

So hundreds of thousands of words. This is definitely not some articles with a few words each, and definitely some articles with a lot of text. Are you telling me that you and this German collaborator of yours decided to delete willy-nilly without discussion and with only the traces of Statistics Tables to show your massive deletions?

The Wiki was mostly dead at the time. There was nobody to discuss with. I had

But actually you could have had a discussion with several of us admins, why didn't you? Why not?

Because there were no sysops around at the time.

...Actually there were sysops around.

Who?

...And stuff was getting cleaned up also

Nope, was not.

...And vandals blocked. And what is your relationship to Interlingua and who is this German fellow who you were collaborating with? Why didn't you discuss with some of the admins in ia.wiki?

As I said before, there were none.

Actually, I didn't get rid of anything after all, did I, and now it seems you had a hand in ia.wiki all along without discussing anything with any admins that I know of. So I'm pleased that things are coming out now. BTW who is the German fellow you were collaborating with? And why isn't he communicating with the admins either?

For the last time, there were none.

-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels

2005/11/24, ilooy ilooy.gaon@gmail.com:

To you it SEEMS???

Where are my articles Mark???

Where are my edits Mark???

Why does http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediaIA.htm show negative growth by several hundred articles between July and August of 2004. The table shows a loss from 339k word count to 240k words, that's almost a hundred thounsand words. So is that one or two 5 word articles to you???

Wake up! You are talking July and August _2004_ here! That's not last week, not last month, that's more than one year ago! And those deletions were not done by Jcb, he was not even on Wikipedia then!

You seem too eager to criticize and don't seem patient enough to listen.

Well, that same can be said about you.

I'm telling you that I want to know what happened to my edits and you tell me that there are no edits. Well what about everyone elses edits? Why do hundreds of articles disappear??? And you get all too silly with your REALLY knowing what's going on... You don't know anything Mark because you don't know what's been going on.

And apparently YOU don't know what's been going on either.

BTW you're starting to annoy me Mark.

And you're starting to annoy me. You find a sysop deleting pages, and: 1. You DON'T talk with him 2. You DON'T ask for his removal 3. You DON'T bring the pages back 4. You DO block him,

That's one wrong thing done, two right things not done.

Then you throw shouts at those who notify that.

And then you give him blame for things he cannot possibly have done!

The facts of the matter are: * Jcb has deleted some pages * ILVI has blocked Jcb

That's about the only thing we can be sure of.

Also some things that definitely are NOT true, but that ILVI has claimed: * Jcb did NOT do the deletions of July-August 2004. He has been a moderator only since February/March 2005 * Jcb did NOT delete anonymously. Deleting anonymously is simply impossible.

-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels

2005/11/24, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com:

Wake up! You are talking July and August _2004_ here! That's not last week, not last month, that's more than one year ago! And those deletions were not done by Jcb, he was not even on Wikipedia then!

That was one example of massive deletions. There are other deletions which went on on a regular basis which meant many times there were minus new entries, figure that one out on the tables.

And apparently YOU don't know what's been going on either. And you're starting to annoy me. You find a sysop deleting pages, and:

1. You DON'T talk with him
2. You DON'T ask for his removal
3. You DON'T bring the pages back
4. You DO block him,

I've written before that this was going on. I posted messages everywhere I could to tell Jcb I was blocking him only until the situation was resolved. There are no records I can find of who or what bot has been making deletions other than Jcb. And he is the only other sysop I didn't know well enough at the wiki. He also has a bot at work on the wiki, and no other admins do. I wanted to put a stop to the situation and look into it.

And then you give him blame for things he cannot possibly have done!

No, I noticed that he was the admin who was actively deleting pages. I noticed that he was the only admin claiming to have a bot at work in the wiki.

The facts of the matter are:

• Jcb has deleted some pages
• ILVI has blocked Jcb

That's right.

That's about the only thing we can be sure of.

Exactly.

Also some things that definitely are NOT true, but that ILVI has claimed:

• Jcb did NOT do the deletions of July-August 2004. He has been a

moderator only since February/March 2005

• Jcb did NOT delete anonymously. Deleting anonymously is simply impossible.

I didn't claim that Jcb did those particular deletions. I stated that this type of deletions were troubling and have been going on for quite a while. When it was obvious that other admins were not deleting pages and did not have a bot at work on the wiki, the next step for me was to put a block on him, although Anthere said it probably doesn't work, but I want to know if Jcb had anything to do with not only deletions but disappearences of new articles and edits.

And why are there so many negative messages regarding this matter? What would other wikis who have had this unexplained disappearences have done?

Since, Jay B. [[User:ILVI]]

-- ilooy.gaon@gmail.com

2005/11/24, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com:

You do neither of this. Instead you get into a rage against the person that you *think* is to blame, and you are deaf to any suggestion that the situation might be different than you thought, or that you might better have done differently even IF it is as you thought.

Dear Andre, No, I didn't get into a rage. I've had contact with Almafeta and Dissident many times. Jcb was not discussing his deletions with others and this caused a lot of strong contributors to leave the wiki.

We're talking of strange things happening with the wiki. And if a bot of unexplained goings on is at work in it then this would be cause for alarm. Jcb is the only one with a bot on the wiki.

I don't know of any other wiki I'm a member of where hundreds of thousands of words have been deleted and there's no record except the Statistics Table to show that there were articles, there were new entries and then they were gone, plain gone. And this has been going on for a while. And then I'm told I'm an inactive user in the wiki to boot! I've been active against vandalism attacks and I've been correcting and editing articles and why are entries to this effect missing on logs. Why are there several contributors in the same situation?

Maybe Jcb didn't have a part in the massive deletions that were going on, but he was one who wasn't complaining about it, and other admins and several contributors were. I've got nothing personal against Jcb, I appreciate he'd be willing to help with the ia.wiki but I did notice things that threw up a red flag and I want the situation resolved.

Since, Jay B. [[User:ILVI]]

2005/11/25, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:

Sure.

But Jay (or is it Ilooy? Or Jacinto??) still doesn't seem to get the basics of sysophood.

He seems to think that _anonymous users_ were resposnible for the mass deletions, and has blocked them for that.

Anybody who has been at Wikipedia rfor long will know how ridiculous that is. Anons cannot delete articles!!!

That's indeed very strange... Where would he get that idea? Not to mention that those IPs don't have any edits on ia:, so where did he get the numbers anyway? Could you please explain, ILVI?

-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels

On 11/25/05, oscar oscar.wiki@gmail.com wrote:

fyi from anonymous users who edited on articles that are since then deleted you cannot see any edits anymore, so theoretically this is indeed possible.

Just FYI this is not completely true, see e.g. http://tools.wikimedia.de/~kate/cgi-bin/archive_contribs?user=86.195.145.5&a...

-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]