All The Tropes Wiki Project, Part XI

[robkelk]

I'm also curious as to why he posted a message "We all love you!" on the talk page of an IP that geth blocked for spamming...

[GethN7]

I'm also curious as to why he posted a message "We all love you!" on the talk page of an IP that geth blocked for spamming...

Either IP was used for legit purposes elsewhere or weird test edit is my guess.

Either way, couldn't hurt to ask them.

[Bob Schroeck]

Done.

[GethN7]

Two things:

1. We had RandomSelection break yesterday due to a GitHub commit gone wrong, now fixed, refresh any pages affected or clear your browser cache if still seeing errors.

2. Our friend Davey2010 has edited a few user pages of other users, but relax, they are beneficial edits:

https://allthetropes.org/w/index.php?tit...id=1581299

Basically, they are cleaning up template data, which makes them load faster.

They also seem to be experimenting with CSS layouts and other functions we have, generally in harmless and even beneficial ways.

If they start breaking stuff, warn them, but otherwise, I see no cause for alarm yet.

[Bob Schroeck]

His answer to my query about the "we love you" post was... unclear, but yeah, as long as he's fixing things let him work.

[robkelk]

He gave me a list of edits that he expects me to make to my own User page. (I have it protected so that only admins can edit it.) He didn't say why the edits needed to be made, just that he wanted them made.

Sorry, no changes to my User page - not without consulting me first.

[GethN7]

He gave me a list of edits that he expects me to make to my own User page. (I have it protected so that only admins can edit it.) He didn't say why the edits needed to be made, just that he wanted them made.

Sorry, no changes to my User page - not without consulting me first.

If he's starting to get offensive, slap him down as hard as wiki policy dictates.

While his edits appear to be technical in nature and in good faith, he cannot give orders nor do things that violate a user's personal pages without proper consent first.

I'm going to give him a stern warning about this.

https://allthetropes.org/w/index.php?tit...su3zrgm842

[Bob Schroeck]

I think he's trying to curry favor with us -- but he's doing it a dumb way if what I just found (nearly a dozen thanks for edits I made to my own userpage more than a year ago) is any indication.

[robkelk]

He gave me a list of edits that he expects me to make to my own User page. (I have it protected so that only admins can edit it.) He didn't say why the edits needed to be made, just that he wanted them made.

Sorry, no changes to my User page - not without consulting me first.

If he's starting to get offensive, slap him down as hard as wiki policy dictates.

While his edits appear to be technical in nature and in good faith, he cannot give orders nor do things that violate a user's personal pages without proper consent first.

I'm going to give him a stern warning about this.

https://allthetropes.org/w/index.php?tit...su3zrgm842

Thanks, Geth.

Since you posted that two hours after he posted his reply regarding editing my User page, I will wait until I see replies to both threads before taking action (if I do take action).

[Morganite]

This page is also broken now.

This guy seems to love subpages for those language boxes... is there even a productive purpose to that?

-Morgan.

[robkelk]

This page is also broken now.

This guy seems to love subpages for those language boxes... is there even a productive purpose to that?

-Morgan.

Thanks - the page is fixed (and protected) now.

And, no, there is no productive purpose for what he's doing. In fact, it uses more system resources and disk space than the way that I did it.

---

And he installed Module:Pagetype  Is that going to break anything?

And he broke pages "Javascript" and "Category:Javascript" by changing their content model from plaintext to Javascript. (They've been reverted.)

And he posted a copy of the Welcome message to two User Talk pages, one of which belongs to the Abuse filter. This may be "Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking", or it may be a malicious user testing what he can and cannot get away with.

And one that I cannot overlook: he changed the General Disclaimer without permission. I've reverted that page and protected it so that only admins can edit it. The reason I gave is "This page documents part of the legal agreement between All The Tropes and its users. Changes to it must be discussed with the administrators before being made." (The change he made was changing "You agree not to send automated requests to our website faster than a human could browse the site," to "You agree not to send automated requests to our website faster than Google could browse the site," - which would have left us open to DDoS attacks.)

I think he's had his three strikes, but I'll let him respond to Geth's comment on his User Talk page.

[Bob Schroeck]

He also moved "Tragedy" to "Featured Page:Tragedy", apparently misunderstanding how our featured page system works. I've just started looking at the changes made since my long weekend started, he may have moved other pages. He's starting to be more of a pain than a help, now, I think.

Edit: And he's added welcome messages to User talk:Abuse filter and User talk:Mark Holmquist? (now deleted) What the hell does he think he's doing?

Edit2: Rob, you're not the only one he's given a /babel subpage to. He seems to be determined to do one for every user. This guy has gone past clueless but helpful to "it's vandalism, regardless of motive".

[Bob Schroeck]

Also, I think we need to keep an eye on a new user named Roza, who signed up just before midnight on March 15, and as their first edit made custom CSS changes for themselves.

[robkelk]

To be fair, Roza blanked the custom CSS two minutes after making it.

[Bob Schroeck]

I just thought it was too much of a coincidence.

[Bob Schroeck]

Okay, he's really starting to get on my nerves.

[robkelk]

Why in the would should "François" redirect to "Français"? As far as I know, we don't redirect spelling errors - we encourage people to learn how to spell.

I've replaced his brand-new redirect with a disambiguation page, listing famous creators with the name François.

[Morganite]

Are these language stubs actually mission-relevant? I saw Bob approving of it somewhere, but I'm not sure I see the point.

-Morgan.

[Bob Schroeck]

I approved of it before it became stubs for the sake of stubs. If he were actually translating pages and enriching our alleged foreign-language support, I'd be ecstatic. Right now, though, it looks like it's just some kind of intellectual masturbation.

[GethN7]

I'm fed up and giving them a month to think about what we're all about and encouraging them to, to borrow a phrase from ED, "lurk MOAR", and see if they can produce something vaguely relevant and useful.

If they don't come back a month later, fine. If they do and produce actual, meaningful content, great. If they go right be to crapping out off mission nonsense and edits that are more frustration than help, it's permanent.

I initially assumed they were editing in good faith if somewhat clueless about how to go about it, but the aggravation to benefit ratio is getting overwhelming.

Edit; If this is too harsh, amend it, but I figured it was appropriate:

https://allthetropes.org/w/index.php?tit...t6eup1xuoi

[robkelk]

He's posted a reply to your post. In response to his admission, I'm lengthening the block to a year.

[Bob Schroeck]

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure he was admitting anything; a lot of his responses seem almost mechanical, and that one seemed almost parrotlike, like he was repeating what you said for some reason. I also don't think he's really a native speaker of English, so there may be translation difficulties.

[robkelk]

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure he was admitting anything; a lot of his responses seem almost mechanical, and that one seemed almost parrotlike, like he was repeating what you said for some reason.  I also don't think he's really a native speaker of English, so there may be translation difficulties.

Maybe, maybe not... but after this, I'm not inclined to be nice to him. If there wasn't a perceived conflict of interest, I would have upped the ban to permanent and blocked him from commenting, since that sure looks like a violation of Rule 1 to me.

[GethN7]

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure he was admitting anything; a lot of his responses seem almost mechanical, and that one seemed almost parrotlike, like he was repeating what you said for some reason.  I also don't think he's really a native speaker of English, so there may be translation difficulties.

Maybe, maybe not... but after this, I'm not inclined to be nice to him. If there wasn't a perceived conflict of interest, I would have upped the ban to permanent and blocked him from commenting, since that sure looks like a violation of Rule 1 to me.

I saw that too, and I've had enough, he's out on his ass indefinitely.

He was given a month to chill out, and if he had meekly accepted that, I might have been inclined to cut it short after a week or two and give him another chance, but that crap he just pulled has ended any mercy I felt like showing.

[Bob Schroeck]

How was he still posting? I thought he'd already been (temp-)banned.