User talk:71.81.74.166: Difference between revisions

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Happy editing! Declangi (talk) 06:21, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all your wonderful contribs so far. Just a heads up that your edits are triggering the vandalism (ORES) filter, so if they get reverted, that might be why (though I can't see why, because your edits are great). Making an account is always the best way to ensure your edits stay in place, so I'd highly encourage you to do so.

Keep up the good work! Cheers. ɯɐɔ 💬 00:26, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I will consider doing that. Just out of curiosity, what is an ORES filter exactly? Are all my edits tripping it? --71.81.74.166 (talk) 00:32, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I wanted to thank you for your recent efforts as well. ORES is meta:Objective Revision Evaluation Service. It's not flagging all of your edits, but it does flag a significant number (20 out of your most recent 100). Plantdrew (talk) 00:11, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome, and thanks for the info. I have edited very intermittently on WP, off-and-on for over 10 years, many times thought about signing up, but I have never really edited continuously for any stretch of time until recently. Still might do it, but I might stop editing next week... --71.81.74.166 (talk) 00:19, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I'm CAPTAIN RAJU. I wanted to let you know that I reverted one of your recent contributions —the one you made with this edit to Hazardia (plant)— because it did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. CAPTAIN RAJU (✉) 23:14, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If this is a shared IP address, and you did not make the edits, consider creating an account for yourself or logging in with an existing account so you can avoid further irrelevant notices.

@Yamla:

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

71.81.74.166 (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

Trying to paraphrase what I had stated on some kind email "ticketed" unblock request. Briefly: I had started updating women's college basketball pages after taking a break from fixing small stuff on plant species articles. I was noticing updates from a user whose name was Lewisstarks0531. A day or two later, his edits were gone. I had no idea who it was or why he was being reverted. In fact I thought for a while user Yamla was some sort of trouble maker, and for all I knew at the time, that appeared to be the case. (Later I saw that Yamla was in fact an admin, doing what I assume now is standard procedure when blocking?) At some point I started simply reinstating Lewisstarks0531's updates and his deleted information back into the articles. Why? Because it helped out tremendously in adding my own updates along with it. Basically it saved me a ton of work and I was able to update all tournament qualifiers pages in about a day or so. At some point during that time, I clicked on his name and I learned Lewisstarks0531 was blocked for being a sockpuppet. I still have no idea what the whole history behind this person is, but Lewisstarks0531 edits were good! I checked them. So I continued to use them while double checking them and adding it to my own update info. It never occurred to me I would be mistaken for Lewisstarks0531 at the time, but my best guess is that is precisely what happened. My edits apparently looked too close to his. But his were about 99% correct. I only found a couple errors. So how would was I suppose to not use it? I can't willingly edit wrong information after I knew what was there was correct. If it looked right, and it helped me, I put it in. I assume there are more sophisticated methods of determining sockpuppets than just restoring correct information. If not, how is any editor supposed to correct all these pages now without looking like a sockpuppet? Anyway, someone please unblock? Look at my edit histories. They go back to December 2016. There has got to be a bunch of edits where the two of us are editing simultaneously, to the point where it would be impossible for one individual. Look at my talk page posts I have made to my own page and User talk:CAWylie where I mention I've been editing about 10 years, albeit very very intermittently. My IP should show im in Illinois. The sockpuppet, looks to be a Jayhawks fan (Kansas) fwiw

I have compared my own contributions with that of User:Lewisstarks0531. March 12 edits in particular look like its impossible, or at least very unlikely these are the same person. In general the two sets of contributions don't show any evidence of sockpuppets other than my last 24 hours or so, explained above.

The following two edits of mine seem to me the most powerful evidence that I am not a sock of Lewistark: Feb 17 and March 14. These two edits, without a doubt, link the period in which I was editing plant species related articles and college basketball related articles. Could anyone believe the sock puppet is the same person who made several thousand (not exaggerating, check it) good, quality edits to plant species and taxonomy-related pages?

71.81.74.166 (talk) 23:08, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Decline reason:

This is more a procedural decline than anything else; I don't think any other admin is willing to punt on this, so I'd say sit the rest of the block out (which is now a day or two) and do something fun. (Oh and read User:Ritchie333/SPI considered harmful). It does contribute to my pet theory that those editors reverting edits by socks (both actual and just imagined), regardless of whether they are good faith improvements to the encyclopedia, probably don't actually write that much content. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:42, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

I was fine, and didn't need you to tell me to have fun while I was wrongly blocked. Did anyone even check my contributions against Lewisstark's? I made the point to Yamla that myself and Lewistark were editing at times almost simultaneously before he was blocked. Yamla chose to ignore that point and instead chose to refute my other point that "Lewis" socks to date have come from Seattle (while I'm Edwardsville, IL) by informing that we, as a human race, have for sometime now, developed the technological ability to travel across time zones

The short essay you linked only scratches the surface of the problems I see at WP with admins and their accepted practices. The fact that an admin can wrongly ban a completely reliable and productive editor (with thousands of quality edits over several months time),with no warning, and then restore hundreds upon hundreds of pages to incorrect and outdated states, without any fear of reprimand for such reckless and careless actions speaks volumes. And the fact not a single admin came through here to fix an obvious mistake shows zero balls and paints the lot of you as pretty much gutless. --71.81.74.166 (talk) 06:09, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

{{checkuser needed}}, I'm not sure if you can tell us anything here, given that it's an IP address. There's massive overlap in edits and the user behind Lewisstarks0531 (talk · contribs) (and Lewisthejayhawk (talk · contribs), and see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Dereks1x/Archive. The sockpuppeteer has been known to use a variety of IP address ranges. I'm not at all sure a checkuser can provide any statement here, though, due to privacy concerns. --Yamla (talk) 03:02, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Yamla: You're correct. Per policy, there's nothing a CheckUser can do to link this IP to a named user.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:58, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Theere's a shocker! You have no evidence to support your claim, (because there is none of course) and yet you provide nothing that exonerates me either (because that would prove yourselves wrong and have to admit you made a mistake) --71.81.74.166 (talk) 10:39, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Dereks1x/Archive. The IPs in that SPI all geolocate to Washington state. My IP geolocates to Alton, Illinois. Shouldn't that have been the first thing you checked? What else is needed? --71.81.74.166 (talk) 03:10, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No. For example, I'm currently editing in a significantly different location than I normally use and, as I'm in a different timezone, also at a time I'm not normally active. Behavioural evidence is generally considered primary in cases like this. Your edits were basically proxying for a blocked editor, immediately after a previous unblock decline, from a prolific sock. Now, I'm not claiming you are definitely Lewisthejayhawk; that's why I've requested that a checkuser chime in. But even if not, your edits were inappropriate as they were proxying for a blocked user. Though if this is the case, I would most certainly not object to you being unblocked. --Yamla (talk) 03:16, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware that there are such things as cars and airplanes. Shouldn't there be some benefit of doubt? Not sure what you mean by proxying a blocked user. If a basketball team is ranked 8th, then they're ranked 8th. I can't leave it at 7th just because Lewistark changed it to 8th and you reverted him. If fact, at least one user has already reverted at least one of your reverts and restored my version. Is he "proxying"? --71.81.74.166 (talk) 03:23, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, don't worry too much about it Yamla. I have seen your hundreds of reverts mine and Lewistarks edits now, and when the tourney results start coming in tomorrow and everyone runs to update those pages they are going to find severely outdated versions and a lot of work in front them to get them caught up. Or worse, they will blindly update the scores and leave the old version buried. I currently do not have the time nor the desire to fix all those pages. So it won't be me doing the extra work; regardless if I'm unblocked or not at this point. I can just wait till my week expires because I'm going to be real-life busy all this weekend and next week. So the block is probably doing me a favor. Not for those who have fix those pages though. Anyway, no hard feelings, but you did make a big mistake here. Everything comes at a price and it is not me who is going to have to pay for it.(Just meant someone else, not me, will be fixing the mess)Have a good one! --71.81.74.166 (talk) 03:49, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Following. It's a pretty complex web of suspected sock puppets here and I've only looked at a fraction of them, but right off the bat, I don't understand where it was ever established that sockmaster User:Dereks1x (with edits mostly pertaining to politics) was the same sockmaster as sockmaster Lewis... (with edits almost entirely pertaining to college basketball). The SPI archive for Dereks1x as of 1 December 2011 mentions previously identified Lewis... sockpuppets but none are actually listed previously and I'm not finding a CU that made a connection. As far as I can tell, Derek and Lewis are separate sockmasters. I haven't seen where Derek's socks got interested in basketball. The SPI for Derek and Lewis on 14 December 2016 included a bunch of IPs editing basketball. I haven't really looked into the IPs, but all the "Lewis" named socks over the last few years start editing basketball right away, and don't spend two months amassing a couple thousand edits on plants before venturing into basketball. 71.81.74.166, like many other people, may have gotten interested in editing basketball articles during March Madness. Lewis socks do basketball year-round. I don't see how enthusiasm for editing college basketball articles in March proves a Lewis sock. Surely there should be a warning and/or CU before blocking this IP (or the other basketball enthusiastic IPs blocked in December)? From what I've looked at just now, IPs are doing a substantial amount of work keeping college sports articles updated, and I doubt they are all socks. Plantdrew (talk) 03:52, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, thanks Drew. The more I look into it, the less I understand it. It seems like most of their "proof" is cited as  Looks like a duck to me. And prefer to think the most likely scenario is that people are commuting from St. Louis to Seattle every day to avoid blocks.

I wonder how many times this scenario has taken place:

User get blocked and all his outstanding edits are reverted.

User gets desperate from slow response to unblock request and creates new account or reinstates his edits from an IP. Admin see it and blocks new accounts and IPs and reverts all the edits, even though they are correct. A different user (second) sees good edits being reverted and restores them. Admin see it and thinks  Looks like a duck to me and blocks this user.

Second user is pissed because he did nothing wrong. User gets desperate from slow response to unblock request and creates new account or reinstates his edits from an IP. Admin see it and blocks new accounts and IPs and reverts all the edits, even though they are correct. A different (third) user sees good edits being reverted and restores them. Admin see it and thinks  Looks like a duck to me and blocks this user.

Third user is pissed because he did nothing wrong. User gets desperate from slow response to unblock request and creates new account or reinstates his edits from an IP. Admin see it and blocks new accounts and IPs and reverts all the edits, even though they are correct. A different (fourth) user sees good edits being reverted and restores them. Admin see it and thinks  Looks like a duck to me and blocks this user. etc, etc... Nothing gets done and everyone gets blocked. Sounds lovely. --71.81.74.166 (talk) 04:58, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully that scenario doesn't happen often, but I suspect it does happen. I looked at the IPs blocked in December as Lewis socks, and they do all geolocate to the Seattle area, while you are in Edwardsville. At this point, since you're only blocked for a week, I'd say enjoy your forced Wikipedia vacation, and watch some basketball. Don't register an account before the block expires. Plantdrew (talk) 16:32, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Will do. (enjoy break) --71.81.74.166 (talk) 10:36, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I rolled back an edit without explanation, but it's better to keep O. humifusa in the more general "Flora of North America" category since it occurs throughout ENA than put it in the more specific "Flora of Ontario" category. (In other words, we don't try to make "Flora of State/Province" categories exhaustive lists of every species that occurs there.) Choess (talk) 14:28, 23 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. Thanks for the explanation. Just to explain my rationale: I was just trying to get rid of "Category:Flora of North America" where it's not needed. Many articles on cacti are categorized as "Category:Cacti of...." . In this case "Category:Cacti of the United States" covers the U.S. and since there is no "Category:Cacti of Ontario", I used "Flora of Ontario" instead and removed "Flora of North America". But it's no big thing. However you feel it should be categorized best is fine with me. Let me know what think though so I may consider how to handle such situations in the future.--71.81.74.166 (talk) 16:02, 23 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Plantdrew: might be able to explain it better; I think he's been the one trying to keep the Flora categories in order. I realize this is one of those cases where the fact that it's in Ontario is arguably interesting (I assume it doesn't enter Canada anywhere else) but the choice between higher- and lower-specificity Flora categories is a bit subjective and I'm not 100% sure how to navigate it. Choess (talk) 16:36, 23 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Choess:, I don't actually do much work with Flora categories. What has been discussed and documented is using WGSRPD categories. I'm not sure where categories for plant habit or intersection of habit and distribution (Category:Trees of North America) or intersections of taxonomy and distribution (Category:Rosids of Western Australia) have ever been discussed (I'm not sure whether to regard "cacti" as a habit or a taxon in the context of "Cacti of the United States"). Intersectional categories really don't work well with Wikipedia's category model (ideally Wikidata would provide an easy way for intersecting properties). Another problem more particular to "Cacti of the United States" is the existence of Puerto Rico (and Hawaii? any cacti native there?); on the flip side of that issue, there's been a proliferation of categories for various insects of Metropolitan France.

I'd lean towards always including relevant WGSRPD categories. Habit (and habit intersectional) categories should be additional to WGSRPD categories. Unfortunately, Opuntia humifusa's distribution doesn't map very well to WGSRPD. It is present in WGSRPD Eastern Canada and the Northwest US, but barely. "Flora of North America" might be too broad, but O. humifusa is a particularly awkward case. It's in most of the US, but not the western US, and a relatively small part of North America as a whole. Plantdrew (talk) 02:44, 24 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi 166. I genuinely wanted to say "thank you" for your recent edits on List of fictional countries. It's one of those articles that's ended up on my watchlist, but not really on my radar, and it was a pleasant surprise to see an IP editor making proper, encyclopaedic edits.

Please consider setting up an a/c on Wikipedia. You don't have to feel obliged to use it, nor will you be told off if you edit an article without logging into your a/c. It just makes the review of edits process easier for others, as well as making it more likely that you'll stick around. I suspect this would be a good thing :) . Bromley86 (talk) 13:31, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bromly. You're welcome! Always good to hear such appreciation. Like I've explained to others, I have been editing off and on for quite a long time. I mostly just tinker around with articles in need of "clean-up" type issues, make minor sports update edits, and other "low-hanging fruit", but rarely do I add any significant content. I mostly just don't feel the need to sign up. I do not plan on editing consistently and I may stop altogether tomorrow, say. I have my reasons for doing or not doing things, but who knows? I may change my ways and sign up one day. --71.81.74.166 (talk) 14:16, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I very strongly suggest this, too. This IP address has in the past been used by a massively abusive vandal, Lewisthejayhawk (talk · contribs), and there was some question whether you, the current user on this IP address, was that vandal. I'm all but certain you are not (given the high quality of your edits), but you'll have less problems if you do your editing via an account! --Yamla (talk) 13:58, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and I'm sure if every non-vandalistic editor registers for an account, thus making it safe to assume every IP is a vandal, that would make things even easier for you. Yamla, I would very much have appreciated you taking the time to look into the points I made about my contribution histories and those of LewistheSockpuppets and come to that determination during my unblock request. Or how about shooting a warning if there is any doubt instead of the hair-trigger block you imposed on me. --71.81.74.166 (talk) 14:16, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]