UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard

The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995

 
Jump to: navigation, search

The administrator noticeboard is where we discuss and coordinate administrative tasks on the wiki. Although this page is intended for administrators, all users are encouraged to participate in discussions.

Major Discussions
Vandalism: Mostly spam, actually.
Page Archives
Archive 1: Feb 2005 – June 2006.
Archive 2: June 2006 – August 2006.
Archive 3: September 2006 - June 2007.
Archive 4: June 2007 - July 2007.
Archive 5: August 2007 - October 2007.
Archive 6: October 2007 - November 2007.
Archive 7: December 2007 - January 2008.
Archive 8: January 2008 - February 2008.
Archive 9: February 2008 - August 2008.
Archive 10: September 2008 - October 2008.
Archive 11: November 2008 - December 2008.
Archive 12: December 2008 - March 2009.
Archive 13: April 2009 - August 2009.
Past Administrative Requests
Aristeo's Request for Adminstrator: Approved June 19, 2006
Nephele's Request for Adminstrator: Approved Aug. 13, 2006
Aristeo's Request for Bureaucrat: Withdrawn by Aristeo Nov. 19, 2006
Ratwar's Request for Adminstrator: Approved Jan 31, 2007
TheRealLurlock's Request for Adminstrator: Approved Feb. 23, 2007
Rpeh's Request for Adminstrator: Approved Oct. 1, 2007
Nephele's Request for Server Access: Approved Jan. 4, 2008
Eshe's Request for Adminstrator: Approved Mar. 31, 2008
GuildKnight's Request for Adminstrator: Approved Nov. 11, 2008
Timenn's Request for Adminstrator: Approved Aug. 7, 2009

Contents

[edit] Switching to New Content1 Server

I setup the new content1 server over the long weekend and am planning on switching over tonight unless something terrible comes up. There *should* be no disruption from the user/editor point of views other than possibly having to re-login due to the resetting of the php session data. If you notice anything strange tonight or the next few days don't hesitate to mention here or on my talk page. -- Daveh 21:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Update: I have switched over to the new content1 and have fixed a few issues but other than things loading a bit slower (which may indicate other issues) everything seems to be working. -- Daveh 22:16, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Two major sources of problems that I can see so far:
  • The ownership of all files appears to have changed during the switch, which is likely to cause various problems. I just changed the group ownership of everything in the phpbb3 directory to apache; prior to that change, the forums were completely unable to load because apache couldn't read several important files in the directory.
  • The IP address of content1 has changed, which means that mysql doesn't completely recognize the new server... I'm not sure where else the IP address needs to be changed.
--NepheleTalk 22:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
There's also something strange with the apache settings on content1: any attempt to access wiki pages directly on content1 takes you to EQWiki instead of UESPWiki (e.g., Main Page). --NepheleTalk 16:07, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
The EQWiki thing is probably due to how I've setup the Apache configs on the new content1 (using conf.d with individual config files for each site or module). Its either a typo in a config or perhaps the loading order of the configs.
Note that my home internet decided to stop working on me 2 days ago (first time in 10 years) so it will be a few days before it will be working again. Am checking on the site from work but won't do too much from there unless its a priority. -- Daveh 20:46, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Daveh, content1 defaults to UESP again instead of EQWiki. One other thing is that (a) I've lost membership in the 'uesp' group on content1 and (b) the wiki directories and files are all owned by the 'uespadmin' group, to which nobody appears to belong. If you can't get to it, I should be able to make the necessary changes later today -- but I'm not sure whether that means there are also changes needed for some of your scripts. I'll leave the scripts up to you ;) --NepheleTalk 22:17, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Open Proxies

Have the IPs in the recently deleted discussion (back up a diff or two from this edit) been added to our global ban list? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that most, if not all of them were probably the same person contributing through a variety of proxies. Thanks! —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 01:27, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Two had already been done; the rest have now been done (now that I could find a few minutes to read up on Tor exit nodes, and now that our friend has been good enough to confirm that blocking the IPs does actually get noticed). --NepheleTalk 22:52, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Nephele! —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 23:52, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Pages Proposed

Hi, I am Nordickie and I have been a "lurker" (someone without a profile on the site) on this site for about 3 years and a avid fan of the elderscrolls series for around 7 years. I most have logged hundreds of hours on this darn site, until I finally joined about a week ago. I am an avid power leveler, and am constantly looking for ways to make stronger characters. So I was surpised there wasn't much of a "power leveling" page. I am aware of the efficient leveling page and the "Making an Awesome Character, and end game optimizing pages" but I felt they were sorely lacking (no offense). I have some expereince with other wiki sites and I was wondering if I could touch these up a little and maybe suggest to at least throw out the idea of combining the pages "Making an awesome character" and "end game optimizing since they seem repetive and disorganized.

Hi! There's no need to ask on the Admin Noticeboard before editing- "be bold"!
A few tips:
  • Use Preview! (a lot!)
  • Consider doing the rewrite in a sandbox so that readers won't navigate to a half-rewritten page.
  • And, of course, don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions.
The talk page of the applicable article is usually the best place to ask questions, but you can also personally ask an editor on their talk page, or use the Community Portal if it's regarding more than an article or two. Have fun! --GKTalk2me 03:07, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Rpeh, De-Admin Request

Look, I don’t like doing this, but the events of yesterday, it is clear to me that Rpeh is no longer fit to be an administrator on his site. Using the Check User function, I have tied both Rpeh and Calliope to the IP address 89.168.63.134. At 13:59 server time, Calliope made an edit to his user page. At 14:04, Rpeh used the address to protect Elliot’s talk page, and then at 14:06, Calliope was again using the address. Therefore, we can reasonably say that they are in fact the same person. Furthermore, IP logs for both Rpeh and Calliope oscillate between 79.72.*.* and 89.168.*.* on the same ISPs. Once again, this makes it quite clear that Rpeh has been using a alternate account.

An alternate account is not a huge deal, but Rpeh was using his account to attack Elliot 1, and was using proxies as well. In addition to this, he was using his administrative powers to protect Elliot’s talk page 2, and also issuing warnings to both Elliot 3 and his alternate account 4. He also used his administrative powers to run check users on his own alternate account. There is also evidence that this type of behavior has been happening for some time. On the Arena Talk page we can see an anon user (89.168.126.149) with a similar IP to Rpeh (89.168.*.*) attacking Elliot, and three minutes later, Rpeh made an edit telling both Elliot and the anon to quiet down.

Personally, I feel that these behaviors are not fitting of an Administrator on the UESP. In fact, I feel that they are gross violations of ethics for abuse of power and just plain lying. As seen by Rpeh’s switch to 89.168.118.93 (probably by rebooting the modem) to deliver warnings to Elliot and Calliope, he was actively attempting to fool the UESP staff. Therefore, I must propose that we strip him of being an Administrator as soon as possible.--Ratwar 06:35, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

There's NO evidence at all. I am absolutely disgusted at this. Overnight I decided I had had enough of the playground this place had become and decided to leave. I post a notice to that effect and within just a few minutes I see my name being dragged through the mud. Did people decide to wait until I'd left because they thought I wouldn't notice? I only wish I'd left sooner. –rpeh•T•C•E• 06:36, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Oh I see. Please can somebody explain why the Checkuser I ran last night on Calliope produced no matches to any other account and this morning it does? Do you really want me out that much? –rpeh•T•C•E• 06:39, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
If indeed Rpeh and Calliope were coming from the same IP address from within a few minutes of each other, especially with the back-and-forth, I see that as almost bullet-proof evidence that Rpeh was indeed using Calliope as a sockpuppet. I would, of course, appreciate confirmation from a second Administrator, but if this is the case, I would whole-heartedly support de-adminship. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 06:43, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
(E/C) To respond to just two parts of this rubbish: I semi-protected Elliot's page (briefly) to stop the IP vandalism as suggested by others here. The only reason I got involved was that I saw the problem escalating, and Eshe's message that she couldn't intervene herself. Second, why would I use anon IPs to post idiotic comments on Elliot's talk page and incriminate myself by using the same IP for two named accounts? Somebody didn't think through this frame job very well, did they? –rpeh•T•C•E• 06:48, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
And while we're at it, blocking me and then starting a discussion that I can't take part in isn't exactly fair is it? –rpeh•T•C•E• 06:59, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
I've done a brief check. Results.... Rpeh seems to post from two locations (much as I do). One of those has had a stable ip for about three months. The other changes semi-frequently but stays in the bins 79.72.*.* and 89.168.*.* as listed by ratwar. When an ip is used repeatedly, then the checkuser function lists a time range during which it is active. For the range of ratwar's activity, there are only two overlaps with other users (not counting one overlap with his own User:RoBoT). Both of those overlaps are with Calliope. (Aside from 89.168.63.134, there's also 79.72.92.60 on 8/29-8/30).
On the other hand, Calliope and Rpeh are posting consistently from browsers with different browser signatures. (Ratwar, if you check the user logs, you'll note that the gray text next to the IP is different for rpeh and Calliope.) So posts seems to be coming from different computers (skipping the details, but my best guess is that different computers are involved.) So this would tend to argue against Rpeh == Calliope; however it could also be explained by using different computers at the same location. (Could be done, as could repeatedly resetting the modem, though it would be a hassle.)
Despite the differences in browsers/computers, the ip/time overlaps provide very strong evidence for the same user. And if so, the behavior listed above would be quite bad. Wikipedia frowns strongly on sock puppetry -- especially by admins, who have been summarily de-sysoped for it. While we're not wikipedia, we ordinarily take them as a good guide to our policy.
Please note that I won't be able to contribute much to this discussion. I have a pretty limited amount of Wrye time available these days. Looks like its going to be a mess though. Having been through it before... my sympathies to folks who will be weathering the storm. --Wrye 08:13, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm still evaluating the strong evidence versus the seemingly lack of motivation for such an elaborate ploy to what seems to be a direct attempt to discredit Elliot. I just can't make up a judgement right now, though it might be best to remove Rpeh's admin rights for now.
The one piece of evidence I would like to bring into contempt is that of Arena talk:Arena. Replying within three minutes is not suspicious if one realises that someone who loads the Recent Changes would find that discussion on top. The match of IPs is another matter, that is based on the same evidence with the CheckUser results. --Timenn-<talk> 08:32, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
To save people the effort of checking, I post from two locations: home and work. At home I'm on the Tiscali ISP, which has the 79.72.*.* and 89.168.*.* ranges, and at work, which is the IP I'm using right now. Tiscali hands out IP addresses like confetti - you can see in the Checkuser logs that I've used it do determine my home IP while at work more than one; the logs before the MediaWiki upgrade had many more instances of doing the same. At both home and work I use FireFox unless I'm asked to use something else. RoBoT will show up as something else; possible IE or possible .NET - I can't be bothered to check. I'll leave that for the black hat brigade.
I feel I should also point out that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. By posting CheckUser information publicly, Ratwar has violated the Privacy Policy. –rpeh•T•C•E• 08:41, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
For the sake of completeness, it's possible to get different browser signatures if you're running two different browsers side-by-side on the same computer (e.g., IE and Firefox) -- which also happens to be an easy way to be simultaneously logged in using two different accounts (I've done it in the past with NepheleBot when I've needed to quickly log in and clear the "you have new messages" notices; I've also done it on the forums, where I use a separate login to do admin-related tasks). It's also possible if multiple computers in the same house are using the same internet connection (e.g., using a private LAN connected to a hub with NAT) -- or even a computer and a web-capable cell-phone in the same house. For any admins interested in an example, feel free to run checkuser on my current IP (63.249.111.117), which reports that I've used at least four different browsers all from that same IP -- three of the browsers are from the same computer (two in windows mode and one in linux mode; it's a dual-boot computer), and if you scan for "iPhone" you'll also find my iPhone's browser. If NepheleBot had been active recently, there'd be yet another browser listed for NepheleBot.
Also, I've also independently examined the CheckUser logs and seen the same evidence. --NepheleTalk 08:54, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
In regards to rpeh and Calliope using the same IP, there is, of course, the possibility that they're two different users within the same household or small office, but at this point, I think the discussion is moot.
Rpeh does have a point, though, that posting IP information about someone else violates the Privacy Policy, so can I suggest that the original post be edited and the changes oversighted (or whatever mechanisms we have here...I remember a discussion on it, but not the results). —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 17:45, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Stricken, since Privacy Policy does say "Where it is necessary to limit any damage as a result of vandalism or related activities", which this would certainly qualify as, if true. Since the strength of the evidence is of prime concern here, I think it was reasonable to post the information (though specific addresses could probably still have been avoided). —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 20:10, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Well, I'm new here so I hope I am not speaking out of turn, but I have been following the recent exchanges fairly closely. Even a cursory look at the contents of their posts will make it clear that Rpeh and Calliope are not the same person, unless Rpeh is a really really great roleplayer. Rpeh and Calliope living or working together is much more likely, given how he seemed to be defending her. He screwed up with Eliot, no doubt about it. Too bad this ended with the nuclear option, with both Eliot and Rpeh leaving. Ninti 18:44, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

The evidence that Calliope and rpeh were simultaneously editing from the same location is, unfortunately, unambiguous. As admitted at the Wikipedia guidelines, nearly all cases of sock-puppetry must rely on circumstantial evidence. However, in this case, all of the evidence leads to the conclusion that Calliope and rpeh are the same person. I believe the intent behind creating the Calliope account was not malicious, and also believe that some of the other circumstances of the situation are less incriminating than may seem at first glance, nevertheless, several prohibited actions were made in relation to the sock-puppet account. As a result, the bottom line is that regretfully I no longer feel that rpeh can be trusted with administrative rights.

In two separate incidents, more than a week apart, both Calliope and rpeh made edits from the same IP address within minutes of each other. Multiple admins have now independently examined the CheckUser logs and confirmed these facts. The IP addresses are not from a public location (library, school, etc.) but rather, by rpeh's own admission, are IP addresses assigned to his home internet connection, and therefore it is not possible for rpeh to be unaware of someone else using the IP address. While there are possible legitimate reasons why two people could share an IP address, in that case, any such connection should have been revealed, especially before rpeh issued warnings related to Calliope's edits. Rpeh could even have clarified the situation when he used CheckUser (at 11:58 PDT, hours before anyone else noticed the issue) and discovered the evidence. Or he could have provided some sort of explanation here on the Admin Noticeboard. By instead refusing to even acknowledge the facts in the case and responding with angry counter-accusations, rpeh has destroyed his opportunity to provide an alternative explanation, leaving sock-puppetry as the only viable explanation.

Even his denials have been contradicted by the facts. For example, the CheckUser logs undermine his claim that "the Checkuser I ran last night on Calliope produced no matches to any other account". Of the 25 IP addresses used by Calliope, rpeh ran followup checks on 2 IP addresses. Those happened to be the only 2 IP addresses used by both Calliope and rpeh, and there is nothing else to connect the 2 IPs -- more than a dozen other IPs were used in the time period between those two. The only conceivable reason why rpeh would be interested in those specific IPs is that he saw the notes next to those IPs stating that multiple users had shared the IP address -- the exact same note that was noticed by other admins and triggered this investigation. The followup checks on those IPs by rpeh would have clearly shown the shared usage, presenting rpeh with the exact same evidence examined now by at least four other admins.

On one other minor point, I wouldn't be surprised if rpeh had not realized that his IP address would be recorded by CheckUser when he protected Elliot's talk page -- and therefore did not realize the incriminating evidence created by that one act. Plus, the details recorded by CheckUser and the analysis of results available increased dramatically during the wiki upgrade: the shared IPs would have been more difficult, if not impossible, to notice if the same events had happened a few months earlier.

Beyond the shared IP addresses, examining Calliope's contributions confirms, in retrospect, all of the other expected signs of sock puppetry:

  • "Precocious edit histories", i.e., unusual familiarity with wiki standards and policies for a new user, including UESP-specific wiki details (our use of namespaces; what is relevant to Lore) that would not have been acquired by editing on other wikis.
  • "Chronology of edits". Beyond the overlapping use of IPs, the overall chronology is also meaningful: Calliope appeared at a time when rpeh wanted to step away from the site (due to offline events that have been brewing for a few weeks and culminated in this unfortunately-timed announcement); and, rpeh's pattern of contributions to the site changed after Calliope appeared (the following day, he started using the rpeh account exclusively for admin/RoBoT-related edits).
  • "Similar writing/editing styles": Calliope's edit summaries and justifications consistently mimic those used by rpeh; a more detailed example is the careful in-game testing of Feet of Notorgo. Plus, the two accounts made identical votes, citing the same basic reasons.

Only "editing identical articles" is inconclusive, and that's simply because rpeh has edited every article on the site, making it impossible to fail that test. Overall, my conclusion is that the evidence is as clear as possible in a sock-puppetry case.

On the other hand, though, I think some of the more extreme interpretations of events are unlikely to be true. Specifically:

  • I don't think rpeh started editing as Calliope for malicious reasons, and specifically I do not think the account was created explicitly to attack Elliot. Rather, I think rpeh wanted to stop visibly patrolling UESP edits, and therefore was using Calliope to do his patrolling (or at least the edit-fixing part of patrolling). Such an account might not be entirely honest, but it would not necessarily be an inappropriate use of an alternative account. It was probably just an unlucky coincidence that Calliope and Elliot disagreed over an edit, at which point events rapidly escalated out of any one person's control.
  • I don't think rpeh is responsible for any of the anonymous edits to Elliot's talk page. I think one of our persistent trolls is responsible -- making multiple anonymous edits to escalate a site disagreement is the exact M.O. of one troll, and that troll has tried multiple times to antagonize Elliot in the past. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this troll has Elliot's talk page on his watchlist, plus it would have been easy to realize on Tuesday that things were heating up and to then wait until Wednesday to jump in as soon as round two started; so the timing of the anonymous edits is, in my opinion, not truly significant. There is absolutely no evidence of a connection between this troll and rpeh.
    • Furthermore, the anonymous edits were responsible for discovery of the rpeh/Calliope connection. The only reason why CheckUser was run on Calliope was to look for a connection to the anonymous edits; discovering the connection to rpeh was an accidental side-effect. Rpeh had no reason to engage in edits that would inevitably trigger the use of CheckUser, and his actions yesterday instead suggest that he was actively trying to prevent the anonymous edits from increasing the visibility of the situation.

Nevertheless, even assuming that rpeh had the best possible intentions when creating the sock-puppet account, there are still several actions that are clearly forbidden by Wikipedia policy:

  • Rpeh twice used his sock-puppet to vote in site decisions, duplicating his own vote (at UESPWiki:Deletion Review/Bloodmoon:Collecting Swords and at UESPWiki:Featured Articles#Yashazmus). Double-voting is expressly forbidden.
  • He issued a warning to Elliot when he himself was one of the two contributors to the edit war. This is also explicitly covered by Wikipedia policy: "Admins are also proscribed from operating a "bad hand" account for the purpose of engaging in editing disputes while at the same time appearing to be a neutral admin dealing with page protection or "three-revert rule" issues on the same articles."

Of course, as pointed out by Robin Hood, this is essentially now moot. On top of which, rpeh's subsequent statements/accusations have eclipsed the original events as far as influencing my opinion. I don't want to further aggravate the situation by rehashing the details, yet based on the previous comments I think this information needs to be clearly stated for everyone's benefit. Perhaps it will help some community members make a bit more sense of these bewildering events; perhaps it will help to rebut some of the specific counter-allegations or the general (and understandable) skepticism.

It's very disheartening, to me personally as well as to the community overall, that UESP appears likely to lose one of its most valuable editors and most respected administrators, but it was rpeh's decision to go down this path, including opting to burn all of his bridges and quit the site. I remain confident that UESP will recover from this unexpected setback, and will continue to flourish and move forward. --NepheleTalk 21:16, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Also, one quick bit of feedback to Robin Hood: I agree that disclosing some IP information was necessary for the sake of this discussion, and such usage is covered by our Privacy Policy. Given that Tiscali randomly assigns IPs that rotate multiple times per day, providing one specific IP address doesn't substantially reveal any more information than providing a range such as 89.168.*.* -- the extra details are random and therefore do not contain meaningful data. Furthermore, there is no easy way to eliminate the information from this article and its history. It's present in each of the two-dozen-plus revisions made in the last 12 hours, so this entire discussion would have to be erased. The text of the discussion could be pasted back into the article, but in the process all of the details of the history (who said what when; the edit summaries; etc.) would be lost. --NepheleTalk 21:36, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Agreed, there's little to be done for it at this point. Also, in regards to the anonymous IP edits you mentioned above, while I initially suspected Calliope, having looked more at Calliope's edits vs. the anonymous IP's, I have to agree that the troll you're talking about is far more likely. The overall style simply isn't the same. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 22:02, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Good analysis, Nephele. Based on that, plus earlier analysis, I also agree that a de-adminship is the correct course of action in this situation. As noted, it's somewhat moot at this point since rpeh has asked for that as well. However, it should be done sooner rather than later.
I'll also second that the site will continue to do well despite this. We've had similar problems in the past and recovered (even fluorished) despite them. --Wrye 22:08, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Rpeh was editing at WikiIndex for the last few days, which can explain some of his recent inactivity here. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 22:40, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with pretty much everything Nephele has laid out here. I'd like to echo the sentiment that it's unfortunate things came to this point, but it seems like the end result may be for the best for everyone involved.
In light of these discoveries, I would like to suggest that the warning that has been placed on Elliot's page should be removed. While I contend that Elliot should be held accountable for his actions, it seems entirely inappropriate for the warning to stay in place. –Eshetalk 22:55, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
If it needs a seconder, I concur, the warning should be removed. While Elliot's response (the one rpeh warned him of) may have been off-the-mark, I admit jumping to a similar conclusion initially, so I can hardly fault him for doing the same. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 23:55, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
I also agree with Eshe's suggestion that the warning needs to be removed. I've even been in touch with Elliot already about the situation, so he's aware of the unusual circumstances. And thanks, Eshe, for the other followup you've taken care of today. --NepheleTalk 04:17, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
In light of agreement by two Admins (Eshe, Nephele) and a Patroller (myself), I've gone ahead and removed the entire section. There was a response by Ninti there as well, but on its own, it would've made little sense, so everything went. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 05:14, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
Nephele, your opinion is well thought out and well researched, and I agree with it. Really, for those of you that doubt the strength of the technical evidence, I'm not sure you really understand exactly how damning this evidence is. I mean, a before and after IP match in a ten minute time period could only be more clear cut if he used the same browser. You aren't going to get better technical proof. The chance of this happening just once is extremely remote, and as Wrye has discovered, it happened twice. --Ratwar 06:48, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
I could go through Nephele's post and refute it point by point but I can't be bothered. I mean, calling our edit summaries similar when most of the time she didn't provide one? I just feel sorry for anybody posting well-researched information from anywhere in England, as they will probably now be linked to me. I know I'm nothing to do with Calliope and I don't care what anybody says in opposition. Whether the IP coincidence came from malice, chance or error (I've certainly had enough "UESP has a problem" messages recently) I don't know and I no longer care.
Of course UESP will continue to flourish, and I really hope it does. I have put real-world months of work into this site and if you think I want that effort to be wasted then you are quite simply wrong. Speaking of wasted work, I uploaded the cleaned and zoomed tiles for the other Oblivion map zones to content1 several weeks ago and I assume they're still there if somebody wants to make the updates to the map code. If not, let me know and you can have them. I also have several pages I was going to add to a new mod sub-site. If anybody's interested you can have those too. That's not finished though.
Due to various off-site issues I was already planning on taking a break; after the incident between Elliot and Calliope I decided to make the break absolute because I knew I was going to keep getting dragged back into being a playground monitor if I didn't. As a result these latest developments don't change my plans very much. The only difference is that now whenever you see a well-researched post removing a VN tag from an article, you can rest assured it won't be me because I will definitely not be editing this site again.
Goodbye. –rpeh•T•C•E• 10:32, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
Just wanted to chime in, even though it looks like I’m rather late. Sock puppetry or not, the UESP has lost one of its best and most prolific editors. That is a fact, and to be honest, it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. Not only was Rpeh the very reason I joined the site in the first place, he also took his time helping me out with my stupid questions – as well as doing the same for a handful of other editors – and always managed to run the site with a glimpse of humor, making it more fun to work on this page. While I was prepared to give rpeh the benefit of the doubt (I mean, making a sock puppet to be able to edit more quietly is no big deal – it just went too far), it seems like the evidence is overwhelming, unfortunately. What saddens me about this whole affair is the feeling of “angry lynch mob” that’s been haunting this place for the last couple of days. I mean, come on – it was a sock puppet made by a guy with over 44000 edits! Nevertheless, the result is inevitable and we’ve lost a brilliant editor. Was it worth it? No. So rpeh, thanks for all the good times with the NPCs - you will be truly missed on the project and on this page in general. --Krusty 15:20, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure I can agree with the "angry lynch mob" comment, though I'm not about to say it's all been rainbows and flowers, either. As Nephele said in her comments, I think the sockpuppet that went too far was one thing, but his reactions in response to the accusation, whether he was guilty or innocent, were anything but what I would expect from an Admin, and it was that more than anything that made me firm in my stance. There have been other incidents of un-Admin-like behaviour over the past year that have also concerned me, to be honest, and I think I've been fairly open about those concerns as they came up. But in spite of those concerns, there is no question in my mind that rpeh contributed hugely to this site over the years, and I don't mean in terms of edit-count. I will always value his contributions, his help and pleasant IRC banter. I can honestly say that I wouldn't be the UESP editor I am today without his guidance along the way. But whether it was interpersonal differences, stress, or who knows what, I think rpeh no longer fit here as well as he once did. So with that, I'll say a great big thanks to rpeh for all his hard work, and I wish him the best in whatever he chooses to do in the future. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 19:04, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Definitely not an RfA ;)

In light of the fact that we've recently lost one significantly-active Administrator and the fact that the other still has limited use of her hands, is there a need for more Administrators at this point? To be honest, I'm perfectly content as the Patroller I am, but at the same time, I also want to see UESP do well, so if help is needed, I'm willing to go through the RfA process. Opinions? —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 20:31, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Right now I'd rather wait a little bit. I think in the short term the current admins can cover the needs (I'm trying to chip in a bit more). In the long term, we'll probably need to appoint another one, but we want to be very careful about it. After having two admins out of the eleven that have been appointed resign (and 2 of the 9 that have been active since I've been on the site), I'd much rather put in a little more time right now than pick the wrong person with a knee jerk reaction. --Ratwar 20:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
Per Ratwar. It probably best to wait. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 22:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
I also agree with Ratwar. Now is not a good time, regardless of who may or may not be ready. We've got things covered for the short term, especially since things are pretty slow at the moment. –Eshetalk 23:35, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
Not a problem. I basically wanted to put it out there that I was willing if there was need, but I don't feel any pressing urge to become an Admin, so consider it a standing offer if things get a little hectic. Oh and Ratwar, I think your count may be off...depends how you look at it (no subtext intended here...this is just me being anal-retentive). To my knowledge, we have indeed only had 2 Admins who've had the privilege removed, but we've also had one who more or less said he was resigning but never had the privileges removed, and 2 others who've stopped contributing at some point (though Endareth has said he/she will return with TES5). —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 03:22, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Well, the one that basically resigned wasn't going to have his access taken away if he didn't, which in my mind is an important distinction. I did count Endareth and Garrett though in saying that only nine of us have really been active since I've been around.--Ratwar 06:20, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
It was your use of the word "resign" that confused me, but obviously you counted all the same ones I did in the end. Thanks for clarifying my nitpick. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 07:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Recent Changes Changes

Last time I spent some time on UESP even non-patrollers could get a list of which edits were unpatrolled. That's no longer the case and makes it much more difficult for people who want to help out to do so. Is there any reason this was changed? Dr Jones 10:26, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I just tried logging out to confirm it, and you're right--there's no longer a "hide patrolled edits" option on the Recent Changes page. I'm guessing it has something to do with the recent upgrades. –Eshetalk 15:20, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
The option disappeared after the update - and it is pretty annoying, especially for users trying to keep track and help out (I know this, because I used this feature a lot, before I became a patroller). Any way we can get it back? Krusty 17:46, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
I bet Nephele knows :). –Eshetalk 18:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
I would say maybe... but I am no Nephele. After perusing the extension manuals and upgrade manuals, the only things I could see were Added wlshow=patrolled|!patrolled to list=watchlist and list=recentchanges doesn't check $wgUseRCPatrol, $wgUseNPPatrol and patrolmarks right, which are listed as bugs (so imagine the opposite. So there might actually be a way to do so. –Elliot talk 18:05, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Massive Site Outage

The site has been inaccessible all day, producing only a message saying "UESPWiki has a problem". Was this outage anticipated? Dr Jones 16:00, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Anticipated? Doubtful. Unexpected? No. We have been getting a lot as of late, so we just deal with them when we hit them. Daveh has been working on the servers to upgrade them recently, so a slight bump must have been hit. –Elliot talk 16:07, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
It has happened a few times (3?) since we switched to the new DB server at the start of August so its likely something to do with the new setup. Unfortunately, each time it happened I've been traveling which makes it hard for me to do anything (fortunately, Nephele has been around to get things going again). I've made a few changes and will watch it closely in the near future to see if that solves things or if I can catch it happening. -- Daveh 00:38, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FYI - I made another account

I just wanted to make an official record of it, considering recent events; I've created another user account (User:GK) and redirected the pages to mine. The main reason is that I want to make sure no one else uses the name, but there a a few convenience-related reasons as well.  :) --GKTalk2me 03:05, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

W2G GK :D Lukish_ Tlk Cnt 04:45, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Questionable User Name

I believe the new user Austin is coosie (created August 22, 2009) falls under the "inappropriate username" catagory based on the definition given here. Dlarsh(Talk,Contribs) 23:47, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I took care of it. Thanks for pointing it out! –Eshetalk 23:52, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Spam watch

While looking through the User Creation Log, I noticed the user Xiaoyuokok05 (created 9/22/2009), which is extremely similar to the bolcked user Xiaoyuokok01 (created 9/21/2009, blocked 9/23/2009). Given the nature of Xiaoyuokok01's block, I'm not sure if such a similarity would qualify as coincedence. I know they haven't done anything wrong, so this is more of a heads up just in case. Dlarsh(Talk,Contribs) 23:45, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed that yesterday and ran a quick check on them. They're both using the same IP address, so it's probably reasonable to do a preventative block on the other account. I'll take care of it. Thanks for reminding me! –Eshetalk 23:53, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] TORolling

It's happened a few times recently that IP users have been using TOR to troll on our wiki. Is this something we want to try to block? I found an article about blocking Tor exit points here (PDF), but my network/Internet knowledge is limited to the basics, so much of the article is over my head and I don't know if it would be useful if we do want to try to block TOR trolls. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 01:56, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

On a related note, I've also been in touch with OverlordQ who designed the "Tor check" for Wikipedia. While he's unwilling to re-design it for uesp.net, he is willing to give us the code and explain exactly how it works if we want to re-design it for ourselves. Is this something we'd be interested in? The Wikipedia version will double for us if the person also happens to be using Wikipedia, but I suspect it wouldn't work if the person is only using UESP. If we don't take measures to ban Tor users (as we would other public proxies), then we may want to add our own "Tor check" option to the anonymous IP menu. Any thoughts? —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 00:28, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
I think such as system would be worth looking into. Since the middle of August, there have been at least five incidents where Tor has been involved in Trolling on the wiki (or at least that's what I gather via manually checking IP addresses. There's already an option for 'Tor Check' in the check user function, but unfortunately, it doesn't appear to work.--Ratwar 03:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
He said it was written in Perl, but that it was fairly simple logic and should be easy to modify, so I suspect anybody with any web programming experience would be able to get it up and running. Nephele would probably be able to handle it quite easily, though she seems to be on a bit of a Wikibreak right now. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 01:46, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
I was hoping that Nephele would return and comment on this, since at least the initial post would have been more her domain, I think. In regards to the Tor check, though, should I go ahead and ask OverlordQ for the code? I'm not a web programmer, so I don't know what would be involved in setting up something like that and whether it's something that anybody could host on any server we want, or if this is something that would have to be handled by Daveh/Nephele. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 01:37, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
I think it would be worth asking for the code, even if it never gets anywhere. If someone knows how to work on it and is willing to do so, then we'll at least have the material ready for them! –Eshetalk 01:53, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Okay, done! Any admins who are likely to work on the project and want a copy of it should e-mail me and I'll respond with a copy of the message once I get it. (Sorry, I won't send it to anybody else, both for safety reasons and because I presented this in the context of us implementing a Tor check ourselves, not freely distributing his source code.) —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 05:54, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] UESP Blog

Now that the summer excitement of the database server has passed (well, mostly) I've had time to start something I've been thinking about for a while now: the UESP Blog. Other than the name and a link on the sidebar this is separate from the rest of the UESP so there's no extra work involved for the current Wiki/forum editors/admins. If people think it is appropriate I may also consider adding a front page news article.

The blog is also open to other UESP editors or ES fans that wish to be authors there (just let me know). The only real criteria is that appropriate content matches the UESP guidelines (i.e., in terms of vulgarity/content if would be inappropriate for the Wiki its likewise for the blog).

If you're not into blogging at all (either reading or writing them) feel free to ignore this. -- Daveh 00:25, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Misleading "You have new messages" banner

On User:Dagoth_Ur,_Mad_God's page (a banned user, for anybody unfamiliar with him), there's a fake "You have new messages" banner which leads to somewhere else on the site. It has previously been removed by User:Vallidin and then reinstated by User:Rpeh, I think on general principle. I decided that it really didn't belong, since it would mislead any users who read the page into thinking they had a message, which they would probably then click on and find themselves somewhere they didn't expect, so I removed it last night only to have it reverted by an anonymous Tor user. Being banned, we can't really ask the original user to remove it, so can I ask for a consensus on removing the header? Or if not removing it, altering it in some way to make it patently clear that it's not a real system message. Thanks! —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 19:14, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I've asked it before. Here -> User talk: Dagoth Ur, Mad God#Delete something from his userpage?. But I think my opinion has changed. I don't think many users will stumble across it, and even if they do, I don't think they will get too confused when it leads them to something unfamiliar and be quick to realize it's some kind of joke. Since I don't think it'll cause any problems, I say: Don't remove it. Talk Wolok gro-Barok Contributions 19:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
While it's true that not many people will likely stumble across it at this point, it may come up in things like page histories or "What links here" uses. At the very least, I'd like to alter it to read "(Joke) You have new messages...", just so that it's 100% clear to the rare user who does end up there for whatever reason. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 19:53, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
I'd rather not do anything to it. I don't like messing with User namespace pages, and it's not doing any harm. I think it's actually pretty clever. Don't let it bother you, I doubt it will trick anyone. Lukish_ Tlk Cnt 23:10, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
It tricked me, albeit indirectly, since I don't usually click on them but jump straight to my own talk page instead. But more to the point, I see impersonating system messages as a form of vandalism in its own right, much like altering a user-page warning. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 23:55, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
I think Rpeh's argument earlier on is still valid. You don't have to visit the userpage, and I'd rather not disturb the sleeping dogs. Furthermore, the links lead to seemingly random articles, and not harmful ones. --Timenn-<talk> 14:18, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm really not invested in what happens to this particular page. However, I think it's probably better to leave it alone. There are plenty of things about other users' pages that might be annoying (like layout, wacky colors, whatever), but user pages are supposed to be personal space. If it's not hurting anything, might as well leave it be. For the record, I'm pretty sure it got all of us! And if I recall correctly, DUMG's page is not the only one that uses it. –Eshetalk 22:43, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Okay, well, I'm surprised that nobody at all seems to agree with my POV (apart from Wolok, who used to but no longer does <g>), but it seems I'm massively out-voted on this one, so I'll let it stand. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 00:34, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

One question: Why does a permanently banned user need an userpage for? When an user is banned permanently on other wikis, their user pages are either blanked or deleted. I'm not saying we should become like other wikis, but what practical use can Dagoth's userpage possibly have now? --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 18:37, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Really, why bother? The userpage provides significant history. Deleting prevents editors from checking it, and blanking seems like a non-solution. --Timenn-<talk> 11:44, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
Alright. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 17:41, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] UOP changelog summary - wikified

I've been working on a project for Oblivion; as part of that, I decided to take the UOP changelog, sort everything out, and convert it to wikicode. It was going to be part of a wiki, but plans changed and I was left with this folder full of Notepad files. It wasn't until recently that I thought, "Why not give it to the UESP wiki?" So, here I am. Can someone direct me to somewhere I can add it, and then I can make sure everything's up to snuff?

Oh yeah - you can contact me here, or drop me an email: mistmane@yahoo.com. I'll even be happy to hand over the files if anyone wants to look at them. I contacted Qarl about this awhile back, when I first started working on it; he was cool with it, since he and Kivan had stopped working on it over a year ago and no one's touched it since. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by WalkerInShadows (talk • contribs) on 14 October 2009.

I never realised the project was continued upon since previous year. I think it's manageable to cover the list here, if that is indeed OK with the creators. The list would need some better organization though, as it is too long for a wiki article as it currently stands. --Timenn-<talk> 11:49, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I've already got it organized, and it's even done in wikicode, though I might have to make a few changes; I did it for Wikidot. I'm just wondering where to put it.
I might be a good idea to sort them over a few different subpages. Like Tes4Mod:Unofficial Oblivion Patch/Object Placement, and Tes4Mod:Unofficial Oblivion Patch/Graphical Issues.
Though before you start I hope some other editors will add their ideas to this. --Timenn-<talk> 11:39, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Already been done. I've got it spread out over 17 files (there's a LOT of stuff), though some of them could be combined (I have four "Text Fixes" files - Books, Cells, Dialogue, and Quests). If no one has any objections, I'll start adding stuff this weekend, then whoever's interested can sort it out.
Great. Perhaps you can start with a single page, and see how it works out and whether others have any ideas for improvements? Then you can incorporate those in the other pages the first time around. --Timenn-<talk> 15:43, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Oblivion:Glitches Semiprotection

Since there isn't a "Protection Review" page (at least not that I'm aware of), I thought I'd bring this up here. Oblivion:Glitches was semi-protected three years ago to avoid having unregistered users enter a lot of uninformed information (if that's not an oxymoron). At the time, that made a lot of sense, since the game was still new and a lot of things were poorly understood. What's the general feeling about keeping that page semi-protected now? I only ask because we just had a report from an unregistered user because he/she couldn't make good-faith edits to the page. My personal opinion would be to give unprotection a try and re-protect if problems arise, but I don't have strong leanings in either direction. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 09:12, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Three years is long enough ago to warrant an attempt at a trial with Oblivion:Glitches being open to all editors (not just autoconfirmed). Normally pages should only be protected to prevent vandalism. --Timenn-<talk> 09:27, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
While we're at it, perhaps we should review the entire list at Category:Semi_Protection. I didn't look at all of them in detail, but it seems to me that there are at least a few entries there that probably don't need to be semi-protected any more. That said, I think there are some like Oblivion:Generic Magic Apparel that may have more reason to be long-term semi-protected. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 19:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
The whole idea of semi-protecting Oblivion:Glitches was that people would post on /Proposed instead. What are you going to do with that? While Aristeo's "solution" to the glitches problem wasn't perfect... or even half decent... don't come up with half a fix in response. 89.168.110.46 19:59, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
If that were the primary concern, then it would have been fully protected. At this point, I doubt we're going to get too many additions to the page by anons, but if we do, we can always put it back to semi-protection. Still, if you have a better solution to propose, now is the time to do it. After all, TESV will be coming out at some point, and we'll probably face the same issues on its Glitches page as we did originally on Oblivion's. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 20:53, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
You missed my point. I don't like the current solution but if you unprotect the main page, what happens to /Proposed? 89.168.110.46 20:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
It depends on your faith in users...and we have to assume that they're editing in good faith. If all users do as they should, then they'll still used /Proposed properly. If they don't, then we'll re-investigate options at that time. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 21:39, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Sorry... you know why the subpage was created, right? Good faith has nothing to do with it. People can add total nonsense in good faith and the subpage was created to deal with that problem. Registered editors usually took more care. Unregistered ones added anything. The idea was that glitches would be confirmed by experienced editors before being moved to the main page. By and large, that is what has happened. Yes, this solution (introduced by Aristeo with no consultation) has ended up moving the rubbish to /Proposed rather than the main page, but at least the main page now has a collection of relevant, confirmed problems.
If you have TWO pages that anyone can post to, you will end up with chaos on both of them. IF you unprotect the main page, you need to merge /Proposed into the talk page or something like that. Having OB:Glitches, OB:Glitches/Proposed and Oblivion talk:Glitches all unprotected and apparently open for editing is going to be massively confusing. 89.168.110.46 21:46, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Yes, I understand the logic, and if it's necessary, that's what we would go back to. I don't see the harm in trying unprotection to see if it's still a concern. As I said, I expect we'll need to implement a similar solution on TESV's Glitches page when it comes out, but at this point, I don't think it's likely to be a big concern for Oblivion's. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 22:10, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that a glitches page should be created for at least 6 months after TESV is released or you'll be inundated with rubbish. Well that's likely to happen on every other page anyway, but by creating a Glitches page you're asking for trouble. If OB:Glitches is unprotected, then why not fully-protect /Proposed and have everyone post on the talk page? At least that would be getting back to something like a standard article. 89.168.110.46 22:14, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Currently we have a better patroller coverage, and if the patrollers are consistent with moving anything unproven off the main page it will work. We probably need to start being more consistent with the Proposed and talk pages. Proposed should only cover those entries that are seemingly correct, while everything in the form of a personal experience should be moved to the talk page right away. --Timenn-<talk> 12:37, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] NewLine Weirdness

Not sure where to post this exactly, but since it's indirectly related to the above post, I figured this was good enough. For some reason, Template:NewLine isn't showing up in the Protected Templates category. At least to me, it appears to be identically structured to Template:Linkable Entry, which does show up. At first, I thought it might be the fact that {{NewLine}} was used in {{TemProtect}} causing some kind of recursive issue, but even after removing that, the problem doesn't seem to have resolved itself. Anybody know what's going on here? —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 20:49, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Barnstars

I hope this is the right place to suggest this (I figure admins are the only people who can nforce this...) Would it be worth introducing a barnstar policy (like on Wikipedi.a) It would serve as a fun little addition, a nice incentive for editors and a fun way of rewarding regular contributers. Just an idea. Aias 19:52, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Myself, I don't like systems for rewarding people. Seeing the barnstar article on Wikipedia, it only makes me a dread that we will eventually end up with a similar long list of trivial rewards. I prefer to see that if one editor feels he/she should give a reward to another editor, the editor is free to that in his/her own way. --Timenn-<talk> 16:53, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Isn't it about time...?

Why dont you people apologize to Rpeh and invite him back on to the site? You just have to look at the recentchanges page to see how much the site has suffered since he left and its only going to get worse as time goes on. He didnt do anything wrong (Elliot pretty obviously faked the whole thing - look at how he left almost straight after the incident) and although one or two of you are trying to keep things going, your missing your most active editor and it isnt working.

You all used to be friends so why not stand up, shake hands and get on with fixing the site? 192.251.226.206 21:45, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Quite simply, he chose to leave (although I'm not ignoring the drama around that), but he still has his account here and if he wishes to contribute, he knows he can do so at any time. I doubt that he would get his Administrator status back, but that doesn't stop him from contributing. Also, Elliot didn't have the means to fake much of what happened, so I think we can discount that entirely. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 21:57, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
As Robin Hood points out, I'm not blocked. I can come back any time I want. The fact is that as I have mentioned elsewhere, I don't want to. He should realise, though, that I had stated several times I wanted to get rid of my administrator status, and that even if I did come back I wouldn't want that particular ball and chain back.
While I thank 192.251.226.206 for its comments, it should rest assured that I am quite capable of fighting my own battles.
Every so often I cast my eye over the site, and there are many edits I would test, edit or undo, but I'm sure UESP will continue regardless of how inaccurate it is becoming. –rpeh•T•C•E• 22:31, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://www.uesp.net/wiki/UESPWiki:Administrator_Noticeboard"
Sponsored Links
Personal tools