Wikibooks:Reading room/Administrative Assistance

Welcome to the Administrative Assistance reading room. You can request assistance from administrators for handling a variety of problems here and alert them about problems which may require special actions not normally used during regular content editing. Please be patient as administrators are often quite busy with either their own projects or trying to perform general maintenance and cleanup.

You can deal with most vandalism yourself: fix it, then warn the user. If there is repeated vandalism by one user, lots of vandalism on a single page, or vandalism from many users, tell an admin here, or in #wikibooks (say !admin to get attention).

For more general questions and assistance that doesn't require an administrator, please use the Assistance Reading Room.

User talk:Googletictactoe

Dear admins, I have 2 questions here. First, is this an acceptable usage of the user talk page feature? Second, is this username acceptable? The username is named after a famous company. MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 11:32, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

@MathXplore:, No (the page has been deleted) and yes. Just because it's named after a company doesn't make it inappropriate. Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 12:34, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, not appropriate. I blocked them indef for their inappropriate username and the fact that they're clearly not here to build Wikibooks. --SHB2000 (discuss • contribs) 13:23, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

@SHB2000: Perhaps I'm missing something, but why would "Googletictactoe" be inappropriate? I see it as no difference to something like "MicrosoftFan"... Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 13:25, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

It's the name of an actual game (the name is very deceptive); I had to search this one up before blocking. --SHB2000 (discuss • contribs) 13:35, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Protection for highly visible templates

I request the indefinite semi-protection of Template:Formatting (120+ tranclusions), Template:Featured book (150+ transclusions), Template:Navbox, Template:Anchor, Template:Nowrap, Template:Book search, Template:Mbox, and Template:Ombox (500+ transclusions). MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 00:54, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I think I got all of these—thank you! —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 02:32, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Template:Department:Reserved/default

I think this template also needs indefinite semi-protection. It has 500+ transclusions. MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 13:00, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

@MathXplore: Done Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 14:44, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Dialysis Machine

Special:Contribs/Dialysis Machine include some disturbing edit comments if any admin could go through them and hide the disturbing ones. Jonteemil (discuss • contribs) 19:32, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

And also Special:Log/User:Dialysis Machine. Jonteemil (discuss • contribs) 20:04, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Done Cheers —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 23:08, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, maybe the one at {{Anchor}} as well though? Jonteemil (discuss • contribs) 01:27, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/CPM-1436 and User:CPM-1436/sandbox

Spam-only account. Please delete the sandbox. MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 11:46, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Done —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 14:26, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/205.164.152.254

This is lock evasion of Special:CentralAuth/Jinnahpk, Special:CentralAuth/Ove_Levo, Special:CentralAuth/Hipponz, etc. Please see their edit special:diff/4423981 and the page history of q:Akhtar Aly Kureshy (the person mentioned in special:diff/4423981). MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 05:39, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Blocked IP for 1 week. Thanks! —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 12:18, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Your_loan_partner

Promotional username. MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 12:08, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Another user editing User:Jay Bolero's user page

@MarcGarver, Xania: (I'm pinging CUs because this is related to my previous CU request, Wikibooks:Reading_room/Administrative_Assistance/Archives/2024/February#Alert_about_possible_evasion_of_previous_1-week_block_at_English_Wikibooks_(CU_needed?)).
Last time I was able to request CU because I found Special:Contributions/BASILLABASALLOTE editing the user page of Jay Bolero (JB, special:diff/4369584). I recently found a another account (3rd account) changing JB's user page (special:diff/4424293). Also, JB and the 3rd account refer to the same region in the Philippines. In addition, JB and the 3rd account also overlap at Bikol/Why Study Bikol?, Bikol/Introduction, Bikol/Numbers, Bikol/Particles, Bikol/Vocabulary, etc. As can be seen in special:permalink/4369359 and special:permalink/4366300, both users are causing recipe-related issues (all of them are warned by user:Kittycataclysm), and I think increasing issues by more accounts is unacceptable.
If they are related, what should we do with them? If they are not related, should we revert the user page edits made by the 3rd account? What do our admins and CUs think about this? MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 08:22, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for flagging this! If these are the same individual, I think we would have to determine whether this is an acceptable use of sockpuppetry. We don't have an official policy for sockpuppets (just this proposal), but I'm not seeing any good reason for these sockpuppets to exist (assuming they are indeed sockpuppets). —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 12:55, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

(Note) Talkback sent to CU (Special:Diff/4425128). MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 07:55, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

They've done similar on the English Wikivoyage – I'd say they're not really using socks to actively disrupt Wikibooks so it's not as huge of a problem as it would be on Wikipedia. --SHB2000 (discuss • contribs) 13:01, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Please wait a while for Motivation and emotion/Book/2024/Free will and neuroscience

A Wikiversity school project participant may have posted their submissions to the wrong place. I'm asking the project organizer if it should be imported into Wikiversity (v:Special:Diff/2639360). Please wait for a while. MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 12:22, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

(Already solved) The participant moved the page to Wikiversity by themselves. MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 00:22, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

EDP

Hello! I'm trying to update m:Non-free_content#Wikibooks and link EDP's to Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria (Q4391089) the Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP) page.

English Wikibooks have this EDP: Wikibooks:Media#Non-free_media. It is linked to Help:Pictures (Q4618557) which is a help page.

So I wonder if we could create Wikibooks:EDP as a redirect and link that to Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria (Q4391089). Or to move the EDP to that page and just transclude it at Wikibooks:Media#Non-free_media (similar to what enwiki does). --MGA73 (discuss • contribs) 13:23, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi @MGA73! I'm not sure I understand the reason for the following:

"I wonder if we could create Wikibooks:EDP as a redirect and link that to Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria (Q4391089). Or to move the EDP to that page and just transclude it at Wikibooks:Media#Non-free_media (similar to what enwiki does)."

Could you explain why you're suggesting this? Thanks! —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 18:18, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I can try :-) If you look at Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria (Q4391089) then it looks like the only Wikibooks that allow non-free content is the Russian wikibooks. The list on meta is maintained manually and as you can see it is not updated. If we use Wikidata it should be more updated and give a better understanding of how many wikis allow non-free content. But since it is not possible to have more items on Wikidata to point to one page on Wikibooks we should either split out the EDP from the page or link the item on Wikidata to a redirect. If we split out the page the link will work both from Wikibooks to Wikidata and reversed. If we add the item to a redirect the link will only work one way because it is not likely anyone will go to the redirect and click wikidata from there. --MGA73 (discuss • contribs) 18:29, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/2405:204:0:0:0:0:0:0/32 and w:Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1157#IP_editor_adds_unsourced_content_to_JP_writing_system_articles

@MarcGarver: (pinging ENWB-based steward) It looks like there is ongoing xwiki abuse involving the unicode-related topics (please see Special:Contributions/2405:204:0:0:0:0:0:0/32 and the block log of w:Special:Contributions/2405:204:0:0:0:0:0:0/32). I noticed this via special:diff/4425793, special:diff/4424181, special:diff/4424007 (semi-protection by user:Kittycataclysm), etc. How should we handle this? Should all targeted pages be semi-protected, and should we have range blocks here? MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 07:56, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I also noticed that Special:Contributions/2409:4040:0:0:0:0:0:0/32 (see also w:Special:Contributions/2409:4040:0:0:0:0:0:0/32) is also involved here (special:diff/4425787). MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 08:00, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @MathXplore! I've done some partial blocking of these ranges for a few of the main book pages; however, I don't see a way to block them from editing the entire book—we would have to do each page individually, and there are a lot. I also can't seem to do cascading protection for the book pages, since cascading protection is only allowed when restricting edit access to administrators only (I don't understand why this is). We would have to protect each page individually. @Leaderboard do you know how we could request more cascading protection/blocking options in the interface? These would make a lot of sense here at WB. —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 12:36, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

@Kittycataclysm:, a filter can do this. I can set this up. Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 13:27, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 18:14, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

@Kittycataclysm:, Done - see filter 69 Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 16:20, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you again! Is there a good resource for me to learn how to use the edit filter? I'd like to be able to help manage it. —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 22:32, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

@Kittycataclysm: I recommend looking at mediawikiwiki:Extension:AbuseFilter/Rules_format and playing with it on the Beta Cluster (mediawikiwiki:Beta Cluster) which gives you an opportunity to test these things without causing any kind of damage from a bad filter. It may also help looking at the filters we already have to see how they work. Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 06:38, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Maklerfinden

This is a spam-only account. Please take care of the pages. MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 13:52, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Done —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 15:25, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Inspilingua

Spam-only account which username matches a website domain. MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 11:44, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Done by Kittycatalcysm. I've also changed the visibility of said edits. —Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 01:28, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

CU request

Hello! @Xania@MarcGarver Could we get a CU for the following users?

• User:MatthewTheUnicodeGuy
• User:MatthewtheUnicodeGuy25
• User:Matthew7829

They are all active in Unicode, which has been the target of a lot of vandalism. Thank you! —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 23:45, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I tried but couldn't get anything conclusive about these users because the edits were not made in the past 90 days for two of the users (maybe this is a recent change as I think it used to show IP information for all edits).--Xania ^talk 07:37, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Follow up: The last of these users is definietely connected to other blocked users who were blocked for editing the Unicode pages (Ashtontameirao7829 and Ashtoncreates1225). I'll block each of these accounts which should also auto-block the last IP address used.--Xania ^talk 07:43, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

CU has always been time limited due to the WMF privacy policy. For LTAs, some data is manually archived on the CheckUser Wiki. MarcGarver (discuss • contribs) 09:34, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! I'm going to be very conservative with this book's edit approvals going forward, since the vandalism appears to be quite extensive and hard to detect, with many socks. —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 12:28, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Nadi_Astrology_Service

Username issues (implies business). MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 06:28, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Blocked—thank you! —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 12:23, 16 August 2024 (UTC)