User talk:Curps/archive10

Blocking IP

You blocked 62.254.0.38

Had you done your research a bit better, and check that IP on Sam Spade you would have found that the block 62.253.0.0 to 62.254.254.254 is a server in an ISP server farm in Nottingham, UK. in fact, 62.254.0.38 = nott-cache-9.server.ntli.net .When you blocked this address, you stopped thousands of people in Nottinghamshire, Linciolnshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire from editing Wikipedia.

For your edification, heres a tracert to illustrate my point:

3    10 ms    10 ms    20 ms  nott-t2cam1-a-v133.inet.ntl.com [80.4.46.73]

4    20 ms    10 ms    20 ms  nott-t2core-a-ge-wan73.inet.ntl.com [80.1.79.7

5    10 ms    20 ms    10 ms  lee-bb-a-so-200-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.188.33]

6    20 ms    20 ms    11 ms  lee-bb-b-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.187.186]

7    20 ms    20 ms    40 ms  man-bb-a-so-700-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.193

8   150 ms    80 ms   130 ms  212.187.137.1

9    30 ms    10 ms    20 ms  so-10-0.hsa1.manchesteruk1.level3.net [4.68.11

7] 10 20 ms 20 ms 30 ms ae-1-0.bbr1.london2.level3.net [212.187.128.46

11 101 ms 100 ms 100 ms as-0-0.bbr2.washington1.level3.net [4.68.128.1

12 131 ms 130 ms 150 ms as-2-0.mp1.tampa1.level3.net [209.247.11.201]

13 140 ms 140 ms 140 ms so-6-0-0.gar1.tampa1.level3.net [4.68.124.10]

14 130 ms 130 ms 130 ms unknown.level3.net [63.208.0.94]

15 130 ms 140 ms 130 ms 64.156.25.242

16 130 ms 160 ms 130 ms www01.wikimedia.org [207.142.131.235]

I have excluded the first two hops to protect my system. Notice hops 5 to 7. THAT is the server farm you blocked.

I will take this further, You ignorantly abused your power by failing to investigate properly. I want you stripped of you admin rights, because you are a danger to innocent users like me because of your unresearched vandalism.

Lincolnshire Poacher

I did in fact do a RIPE Whois lookup, and the range 62.254.0.0 - 62.254.31.255 belongs to one paticular ISP. [1] But that in itself doesn't indicate anything... practically every single anon IP we deal with is part of some ISP somewhere in the world, apart from those users who log in from schools or workplaces. Once in a while an anon IP is blocked by one admin or another for various reasons, usually for 24 hours. Whois lookup did not indicate that 62.254.0.38 was special in any way.

You are saying that I should have done a reverse DNS lookup and deduced from the subdomain name "nott-cache-9.server.ntli.net" that this might be a proxy server? Well, doing a reverse DNS lookup (or even a WHOIS lookup) is not part of the standard recommended procedure or instructions for admins prior to applying a block. If you would like to recommend that it should be, feel free to suggest that. However, such reverse DNS lookups would often not be of much help, because many ISPs will not choose to helpfully label their machines in a way that might reveal their network layout and infrastructure to outside hackers.

Although anyone who ends up being inadvertently blocked because of a standard 24-hour anon IP block might understandably be annoyed, I believe your announced intention to seek retribution is an overreaction and would not succeed. You are of course free to do so, but I believe my actions were standard procedure.

How to enable admins to better distinguish between an ordinary dialup IP address and a proxy server is an open question. I don't know that it's possible to build in the knowledge of all the proxy servers in use by all the ISPs into a usable reference page, or into the software itself. For extremely large national or transnational ISPs like AOL, it is possible to do so, but not for the multitude of smaller local ISPs worldwide.

-- Curps 21:20, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Its perfectly simple. The lookup indicates that the IP is part of an ISP block, so blocking that IP will affect multiple users. So blocking it isnt safe as it will affect innocent users. You see to be taking the position 'better that hundreds of innocent users get blocked that one spambot gets thru', an argument g'teed to annoy and inflame large numebrs of people.

In fact 62.254.0.38 is a CISCO 5000 series switch that is ARP'd for by 62.254.0.1, a CHECKPOINT Firewall box.

I suugest if there is any doubt that any IP is other than an individual users or network then you dont risk blocking it, certainly not if you dont want to alienate people. You punished me and I did nothing wrong. Consider that. Especially as the word 'sorry' appears to be lacking from your vocab.

Also, you are completely uncontactable. When blocked it is impossible to edit a user talk page, and you do not supply an email, so it is not possible, once blocked by you, to in any way take you to task. You are unaccountable for your actions, and you forced me to email other admins to get justice. I therrfore demand you supply an email so that you can be taken to task when required to justify yiour actions. You need to learn that power also carries responsibility and accountability, and you seen to be avoiding that two of that trio, which is shameful and immoral. Next time you block someone, make sure they can contact you. You have a moral obligation to supply a contact email, to be accountable. If you dont want to be accountable and responsible for your power then relenquish it to someone who will be.

Lincolnshire Poacher

Every IP is part of some ISP's range of IP addresses (unless it's a workplace or school), so that alone doesn't signify anything.

I did the block believing that this was just a garden-variety anon IP address. If I had known it was a proxy server, I wouldn't have done the block; the circumstances weren't extreme enough to warrant that. You are mistaken when you suggest I knowingly applied any policy of 'better that hundreds of innocent users get blocked than one spambot gets thru'.

But the only thing that might indicate that 62.254.0.38 is a special IP is the subdomain name "nott-cache-9.server.ntli.net" which could have been found by a reverse DNS or a traceroute if I had done one, or perhaps the relatively low numbering of the IP address within the block (x.x.0.38 of a block x.x.0.0 - x.x.31.255). But both of these are merely suggestive; there is no standard naming scheme, and every ISP adopts its own arbitrary naming and numbering for its network hosts. In fact many ISPs deliberately avoid helpfully labelling any of their hosts in any way that would reveal any network layout information useable to hackers or other potential intruders; yours is an exception.

You mention details about the network infrastructure:

In fact 62.254.0.38 is a CISCO 5000 series switch that is ARP'd for by 62.254.0.1, a CHECKPOINT Firewall box.

Is any of this discoverable somehow via standard Internet utilities (dig, traceroute, ping, whois, etc)?

You are saying I should have known this was not an ordinary IP address before applying the block, but I don't agree that there is any universal or foolproof or easy way to know this, including doing a reverse DNS (which is not in any case part of any required or even recommended procedure for admins, in Wikipedia:Blocking policy or anywhere else).

Nobody ever wants innocent users to be blocked, but I don't believe there's any way to guarantee that this will never inadvertently happen. If there's some way of doing so that I'm unaware of, please point it out and suggest adding it to Wikipedia:Blocking policy or the instructions on the page that admins use when applying a block.

I choose not to supply an e-mail address, which is my right. This should not be a problem, since any administrator can remove a block placed by any other administrator. Just go to Wikipedia:List of administrators and take your pick. Given a reasonable explanation of the circumstances, any administrator including myself would have removed the block (and in fact one did). Even if I had an e-mail address, there's no guarantee that you would have been able to contact me in a timely way; I could be away from my computer and I'm in a different timezone from you. E-mail or lack of e-mail has nothing to do with accountability; any accountability issues can be handled right here out in the open, on publicly accessible Wikipedia pages.

-- Curps 23:05, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Supercentenarian article

You just got into a revert war with me it seems?The Maria Olivia da Silva claim is EXTREMELY DUBIOUS and it can NOT be left in the current article the way 67.etc. had it.--Louis E./12.144.5.2 05:31, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Israeli art students

Aloha. I was wondering if you could take a brief look at the history for Israeli art students. A single, solitary user posting under a dynamic IP address has reverted the page five times in 24 hours. I've already reverted three times. Thanks in advance for any help you could offer. I've left the same message on User talk:RickK as well. --Viriditas | Talk 23:20, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Mahalo. --Viriditas | Talk 00:55, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Grammarbot

From my talk page:

"From your contributions, I didn't see any other Grammarbot reverts or discussion of other possible Grammarbot errors"

Why do you assume the Grammarbot reverts are from my contribitions? Consider the corrections on Inner product space (reverted by User:Jitse Niesen) and Archimedes Plutonium (reverted by User:Infrogmation). I am still checking the other "fixes". Note that the Grammarbot completely messes up TeX formulas (for instance, " \ ," is quite different from "\," ).

I think the policy on bots is pretty clear: If there is any doubt the bot is misbehaving, then it should be blocked. Ample evidence exists that the bot creates more work than it's worth. CSTAR 19:25, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Please check the citation: The Archimedes Plutonium is a written quote from Usenet (which is easily verified by looking at the link supplied). It has the space after the comma. Do you think there is justification for changing an actual quote?CSTAR

I agree. I don't see any reason to correct grammar or punctuation of something that is clearly a direct quote. -- Infrogmation 19:45, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

First of all, you can't fault the bot for making this edit, because a human (namely me) would and did make the same edit. That is, even if you consider this edit to be an error, it's not a bot-type error than no human would make.

Second, modern editors routinely correct spelling and certainly punctuation of even authors like Jane Austen (who originally titled her book Love and Freindship) or Shakespeare to conform to modern standards. So I certainly don't agree that we need to religiously preserve every typo in a Usenet posting. If Mike Godwin had made a typo while posting Godwin's law to Usenet, or Linus Torvalds had made a typo while posting his first announcement of Linux, these would need to be preserved for all time? Sorry but that's nonsense. -- Curps 19:54, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Mistaken revert not a mistake

r3m0t asked me to revert all the changes, so I did. I didn't make a mistake. CryptoDerk 20:32, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

All the Grammarbot changes? Nearly all of them are perfectly valid. I believe the Archimedes Plutonium edit to be valid as well, see discussion above. -- Curps 20:51, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Stop vandalising

Offical wiki policy is to use the offical name, just because it a bit big for you, doesn't mean you get to reduc it.--Jirate 21:28, 2005 Mar 6 (UTC)

On the contrary, official Wikipedia policy is to use common names, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), as I have already pointed out to you on your talk page. -- Curps 22:12, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Stop threatening to use your admin powers to get your way.--Jirate 22:03, 2005 Mar 6 (UTC)

I am not threatening to use admin powers over the dispute over the cathedral page article titles. I am threatening to use admin powers if you do clearcut pagemove vandalism like renaming United Kingdomedited United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to Jiunkrn Ireland, as you did. [2] -- Curps 22:12, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

For the benefit of anyone else following this, User:Irate has filed an RfC at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Curps. -- Curps 22:31, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC) User:Irate later requested the RfC to be deleted, and Silsor did so.

I was under the mistaken impression that you had renamed the United Kingdom article itself to Jiunkrn Ireland, whereas you actually renamed the little-used redirect United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the new title. This was still page-move vandalism, but not as serious as I thought at the time. I have corrected the record above. -- Curps 04:02, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Manchester Cathedral

I have done the move back. --rbrwr^± 23:06, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup at Talk:Calcutta

Thanks a lot for the much required cleanup, but unfortunately something seems wrong with the links you put for the voting and discussion page. They (the links) don't appear at all! Could you have a look again? I am leaving it to you since you know what you did better than I do! -- Urnonav 09:29, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I haven't made an attempt to move the discussion section. I didn't want to do it since it seems you did that before and you put a link in the voting section saying that the voting section and the discussion were both removed. I see that from the history but if I visit the talk page now, I don't see the links anymore! I have tried two browsers and I don't think it's a browser issue. Are you seeing the links you put? -- Urnonav 00:53, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I totally fail to see the reason. So, I manually checked out the location and visited Talk:Calcutta/Vote and Talk:Calcutta/Vote discussion. Wikipedia gives me an edit page directly instead of showing me the page. There is data, but it just automatically gives me the edit page. I fail to see why! I don't think I am the only one. Few more votes have been cast since your change on the main Talk:Calcutta page. You might want to go and re-edit and put the links again! -- Urnonav 02:11, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Calcutta/Kolkata

Do you understand the Calcutta/Kolkata thing? Is this just a question of how long it takes the world to catch up with a name change, or is this some politically charged thing that is contentious among English-speaking people living in India? Dpbsmith (talk) 21:06, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

reverting my changes

I am new to wikipedia and tried to modify the page on Pythagoras. I beleive it was posted under 68.108.48.115 around Feb 24th. I noticed that you have reverted the changes. It is because of the anonymous ID or because of the content? If it is the content, can you please explain what you find objectionable?

I have replied at your talk page. -- Curps 05:35, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Lesch-Nyhan syndrome

Hi Curps, I've replied on Talk:Lesch-Nyhan syndrome about your concerns. Paul August ☎ 22:59, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I will be paying close attention to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Lars Olsen. Paul August ☎ 23:46, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

User:Larsie

FWIW, I don't know what's going on with User:Chrispy and Lars Olsen, but Larsie seems to have made quite a few sincere, if a bit rough, contributions in the past [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], and responded appropriately on my Talk page when I left a note about a cut&paste page move User_talk:Larsie#West_Corporation. Seems more likely a case of someone letting their (presumed) immaturity get the better of them. Niteowlneils 23:59, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

re: VfD/Myg0t

I moved the new vote to a separate page, Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Myg0t (2nd nomination) and linked it to the old vote. That preserves both discussions, eliminates the probability of mistaken (or deliberate) co-mingling of discussions or editing of votes and helps (a little) to control the size of the VfD page. I've considered writing up the procedure I use so other second nominations can be made unambiguously but it doesn't really come up all that often. Rossami (talk) 01:32, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Re: User:Larsie

I cannot help you with that, Curps. I knew Larsie as initiator of the Wikifun game, which is quite nice, albeit sleeping now. That game had nothing to do with possible stealth vandalism, though. -- Ravn 09:26, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Vandalised home page

Thanks for keeping an eye on my home page --SqueakBox 15:17, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

Stealth Vandalism

Hey there thanks for the heads up. I apologise for any misunderstanding and as well as inconvenience. most of my work on wikipedia i do at work, where unfortunatly i must share the pc with other coleagues. it seems as though this may be a case an immature prank and i will be changing my password information soon as i have a suspicion it has been used by an individual other than myself. please delete any type of vandalism that has come about from this unfortunate mishap. thank you. --Larsie 21:49, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Here Comes the Judge

Your accusations on my page are aggressive, unfounded, and lead me to believe you may have some issues that you may need counseling for. Feel free to delete that ridiculous page and stop harrassing me.--Chrispy 22:25, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Lars Olsen

now as for the article titled Lars Olsen it seems as though the ip that had made the most recent edit is the same as that of the one which created the article in the first place. maybe that will assist the investigation. assurdly this childish behaviour should arrest as i have changed my password and will keep it to myself. oh and about the cryptic message, that was referring to perhaps starting a game of nomic through wikipedia, but once you read the article you can see that it could very easily get too big and too out of hand. case closed. --Larsie 00:55, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

my contributions are all fine thank you for your concern.--Larsie 17:41, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

VfD template

Hi there! In reaction to your revert of the template, please let me quote this from the recently-created Guide to VfD, "The purpose of the discussion is to achieve consensus upon a course of action. The votes are a means to gauge consensus, and not the ends in themselves (Wikipedia is not a democracy)."

Since the template is often seen by people unfamiliar with VfD, it should not give the impression that they can simply go there (possibly bringing friends), say 'keep' and the article will be kept.

Yours, Radiant! 12:35, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

User:Lucia Cargill

User:Lucia Cargill, President, AOMAA Hi, I am new tonight. Tried to put our info on the tsunami page and got blocked at www.aomaa.4t.com, a free,temp website put up by one of our docs in Kosovo. What to do? Jamesday set up a prior block on .4t.com in Dec because it was the beast number, or some such folly. I don't know anything about that except our good guy in Kosovo has been using this template because it is free. Can we unblock the info and get the American Overseas Medical Aid Association listed on the international non-governmental orgs list, plse? I have typed in info on several pages only to get blocked.We have a terrific clinic in Aceh serving the rural folks and IDPs in 4 camps. Help post this to keep the docs rolling. We have 100 orphans in Sri Lanka being fostered in homes in their communities. They need sponsors. Help get this up. Our real site is www.aomaa.org on Go Daddy, but we need a volunteer who can write HTML to set it up. 12 Mar 0133 PCT (UTC)

User:Duncan.france

HELP! I have now got ready my article 'Plate Tectonics - Evidence Against' + several ancillary articles. They presently in my User page. The main one is: 'User:Duncan.france/PT_EA'. I would be grateful if you will tell me how to move them in into the public arena.

Also, I would welcome your advice on: 1) Formatting so sub-sections appear in the 'Contents' links. 2) What I should do about the Figure Captions until I have copyright permissions. Thanks in advance Duncan France