UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archive 18

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This is an archive of past UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

Upcoming Hardware Changes

This post is to make everyone aware of a number of significant changes coming up on the hardware side of the site. I've been working with iWeb to provide a number of upgrades at the same time that are within our budget in a manner than permits zero downtime.

Currently these hardware changes include:

  • Private Rack -- Moving our six servers to a private rack with two spaces to spare for future servers. The two main reasons for this are bandwidth consolidation and performance. Currently, our main Internet facing servers (squid1 and files1) have a monthly bandwidth of 1500GB. While this sounds like a lot we're very close to exceeding this amount in the past few months. Exceeding the monthly cap can be very expensive and we've had monthly bills of several hundred dollars in past years. By moving to a private rack we now get 10000GB/month which does not include any internal traffic between the servers. There should also be a small amount of performance improvement by moving to a private rack as all internal server traffic would use 1000Mbps compared to the mixed 10/100Mbps now in addition to the actual physical distance between servers (100s of ft down to several). The external connection to the Internet is also increased to 100Mbps for all servers. I'm not sure exactly how much performance increase to expect, it may not even be noticeable at the current traffic levels but it will definitely help when the traffic increases in a few months due to Skyrim.
  • RAID -- Add RAID1 to the database and files server for redundancy purposes. This will significantly reduce the amount of downtime if/when we see another hard drive failure on those servers. There isn't enough benefit compared to the cost t:o similarly add it to the remaining content and squid servers. The content servers are already mirrored/load balanced and if the squid goes down there are simple ways to temporarily redirect traffic to one of the content servers.
  • Hard Drive for Backup -- Increase the hard drive size of content3 for backup purposes. This will just make it easier to setup rotating backups in one place without having to juggle free disk space.
  • CPU/RAM -- Upgrade all servers to the same CPU and RAM (i3 Dual Core 2.93 GHz and 4GB). More of both can always be used in some manner and it makes load balancing the content servers much easier.
  • Site Cost -- The monthly cost of the site's servers will increase from the current 400$/month to over 700$/month and I'll be pre-purchasing all servers for 24 months to get a discount. Fortunately, the ad revenue has been very good this past year so we shouldn't have any problem supporting it for the next few years at least.
  • Future Thoughts -- Hardware wise this setup should be good for a significant increase in traffic. A conservative guess would say at least 5x the current traffic which is unlikely to occur in the near future. Given the trends of past ES title releases I would expect a traffic peak of about 2x at Skyrim's release at the end of the year compared to the current traffic (so in the order of 2 million page views/day). We still have two free spaces in the private stack and more servers outside the stack can always be obtained as needed.

The plan is to get six completely new servers installed in the private rack which will let me setup and switch over each server one by one with minimal down time. I'm aiming for zero downtime and only a limited amount of time when the site is set to read-only (partially or fully) so the change to the new servers should be transparent to most visitors. The process of switching over likely won't begin for a few weeks and I'll post something here whenever I plan on setting something to read-only. I have an arbitrary amount of time to keep the old servers so I always have the option to switch back to the original server should issues pop up.

If anyone has any requests for additional hardware or features just let me know in the next few days since the deal with iWeb hasn't been finalized yet. -- Daveh 17:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Sounds brilliant! The private rack should make a big difference - anybody who doesn't know our current setup should look at the Servers page and imagine how much data is zipping around between the different boxes. I imagine the RAM upgrade will make a big difference too. rpeh •T•C•E• 17:42, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Update -- 7 Feb 2011: I finalized the deal with iWeb last week and received the servers on Friday. I'll be setting up the servers this week and beginning to switch them over in roughly the following order:

  • files1 -- Best to do this first as it makes setting up the new content servers easier. There will be a short window of time where uploads will be disabled.
  • content3 -- Nothing is currently relying on this host so it can be switched over easily.
  • content1/2 -- These are similarly easy to switch by just updating the Squid cache to point to the new hosts.
  • squid1 -- Once setup it is a simple matter of changing the DNS entry for www.uesp.net and letting the change propagate naturally over the next 24 hours.
  • db1 -- The trickiest one that will require a short window with the wiki/forum set to read only when the switch is made.

I'll post here when each server switch is occurring and any issues that appear can be posted here as well. I'll make a server switch every couple of days to permit any issues to reveal themselves and make it easier to diagnose their source. -- Daveh 01:08, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


Issue Note: 9 Feb 2011 -- In case anyone just noticed some site issues (images/skins not loading, sessions invalid, etc...) that was just me playing around with NFS on the new servers and files1 which caused the NFS shares on content1/2/3 to become invalid. All should be well now. -- Daveh 01:43, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


Files1 Update: 14 Feb 2011 -- I plan on beginning the switch for files1 to the new hardware sometime tonight if everything goes well. I'll lock Wiki uploads for a short period but that should be the only noticeable effect. I'll update here as it goes and if anyone notices any issues you can record them here as well. -- Daveh 22:35, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Wiki uploads disabled now. -- Daveh 23:39, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Re-enabled uploads. There is an issue with content1/2 accessing the lockd server on newfiles1 I have to figure out first. -- Daveh 00:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Figured out the issue and disabled Wiki uploads again. PHP session files on content1/2 are running from newfiles1. -- Daveh 01:12, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Switched shares on content1/2 to newfiles1. Switched directories on files1 to mounts from newfiles1. -- Daveh 01:15, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Changed DNS entries for maps/skins/images/files to point to the newfiles1 server. Propagation will take ~24 hours to fully switch. -- Daveh 01:18, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Re-enabled Wiki uploads and did a quick test. Everything seems to be in order but let me know if you see anything out of the ordinary. -- Daveh 01:32, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
It's worth saying that I've been hitting the file upload page pretty hard over the past couple of days and there haven't been any problems. I think I'd have noticed. rpeh •T•C•E• 00:47, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


Content2 Update: 17 Feb 2011 -- I plan on switching over content2 to the new server tonight. This will be a very simple procedure which just requires squid1 to be restarted so there should be no site interruption besides a few seconds of downtime. -- Daveh 19:33, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Content2 switched over. I noted a few minor issues in the error log which may be new or only just visible now that I'll be watching. -- Daveh 01:00, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


Content1 Update: 19 Feb 2011 -- Content1 was just switched to the new server. -- Daveh 15:44, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


Squid1 Update: 21 Feb 2011 -- I plan on switching to the new squid1 server sometime today. Barring any issue there should be no service interruption. -- Daveh 16:32, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

DNS entries for www.uesp.net changed to point to the new squid1 server. It will slowly begin to take over all requests in the next day or two. -- Daveh 17:00, 21 February 2011 (UTC)


Db1 Update: 23 Feb 2011 -- I plan on switching db1 tonight sometime if everything works out. This will require the Wiki and forums to be put into read only mode for a while (up to an hour at most) while the switch is made. -- Daveh 17:07, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Locking Wiki/forums shortly. -- Daveh 00:29, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Test edit from content3. -- Daveh 00:41, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Test edit from content2. -- Daveh 00:42, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Test edit from content1. -- Daveh 00:42, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Wiki/forums re-enabled. -- Daveh 00:44, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Changed database host address for all secondary services (maps, EQWiki, Blog, DaveWiki). Shut down old db1 and tested all sites to make sure they are still working. Barring any issues we should be good. -- Daveh 01:02, 24 February 2011 (UTC)


Summary: 28 Feb 2011 -- All servers have been successfully switched over and appear to be running fine so I canceled the old servers yesterday. There is still a lot of work left on the new servers to setup monitoring, backups, documentation, and other minor services. On a slightly related note the site had its highest daily traffic ever this weekend at around 950k Wiki page views (or around 8 million files) each day on Saturday and Sunday beating the previous record by a decent 10%. Despite the high traffic volume the new servers didn't appear to notice it which means we should be good for the upcoming traffic spike for Skyrim. -- Daveh 01:13, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

vandal IP

this guy keeps vandalizing skill pages: 98.15.210.73 — Unsigned comment by Pwnageincarnate (talk • contribs) at 01:34 on 4 February 2011

Only two vandal edits and the fact that he/she stopped right after being warned does not really warrant any further actions. --Krusty 05:18, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Vandal

Using a second account. User talk:XinXXX. --DKong27 Talk Cont 04:31, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

And another User talk:XinXXXX. --DKong27 Talk Cont 04:34, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
All done. --Krusty 05:25, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Vandal

Please take care of this IP 24.109.215.3. --AKB Talk 04:06, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Done. Thanks. rpeh •T•C•E• 04:37, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
Your welcome, and thank you, I feared I'd have to hit F5 all night to keep a watch on recent changes. --AKB Talk 04:40, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Precautionary Protection

Just as a precaution, can an Admin please semi-protect UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Block Notifications. It was vandalized once very early on, and really, nobody but Blockers and Admins should normally have any reason to edit it anyway. – Robin Hood↝talk 06:53, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Namespaces in Search

Please could an admin add the missing namespaces to this page so they show up on the search options. It looks like we're missing Skyrim, Dawnstar, Stormhold and OBMobile. Thanks. rpeh •T•C•E• 10:05, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, this is odd. I can only choose to "create" a new page, with no "edit" options. Maybe Daveh is the only one allowed to do this? --Krusty 10:31, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
No, it's just that the page is using the default value at the moment so a new page needs to be created to override it. See Nephele's instructions here. You'll probably need to copy/paste the default onto the new page, but if the worst comes to the worst you can always just speedy-delete the page anyway. rpeh •T•C•E• 10:38, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Okay, done. One thing that puzzles me is that Skyrim, Stormhold and Dawnstar is not ticked by default when I do a search. Did I miss anything? --Krusty 11:07, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, that's perfect! The namespaces ticked by default are set in your preferences, on the Search tab. rpeh •T•C•E• 11:12, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Oh yes, the Preferences - figured it out right after hitting "save". Still, everything seems to be fine now and it is refreshing to be able to search for "Eustacia" and get some results. :) --Krusty 11:16, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Spammer

This edit is pure spam so should get an infinite block. It doesn't look like we have any admins around at the moment, but it one should pass by, please could he or she do the honours? Thanks. rpeh •T•C•E• 09:12, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

And another spammer

The IP is 109.230.251.252, the page it created was a sandbox for a talk page of an inactive editor. I blanked it and added a speedy template but the IP still needs to be taken care of. --AKB Talk 04:52, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Edit: and Krusty already took care of it, thanks for the swift response! --AKB Talk 04:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Blocker Rights

I wasn't sure where exactly to put this, so I figure here would be alright. I know that I was just recently made a Patroller, but I would like to ask again for more rights; this time as a Blocker. There have been several times where I have been working against vandals while no admin is online. I feel that in these times, a short block would have been very successful in warning the vandal, but nobody was around to do so. I cannot find much information on Blockers, but I have seen rpeh do so, and I think I could handle the responsibility. --DKong27 Talk Cont 04:04, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Vandal IP

In relation to my above statement, an IP has been acting out a bit. User talk:72.39.123.186 Special:Contributions/72.39.123.186. --DKong27 Talk Cont 04:04, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I think this is a simple misunderstanding, and the IP got a little hostile as a result of that. I've tried to explain the situation on their talk page. We'll see what happens. – Robin Hood↝talk 04:13, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Clearly this has moved beyond the level of a "simple misunderstanding". Given what's been happening on the IPs talk page, can I ask an Admin to give him a cool-off block including his talk page? So far, he's confined himself to that page, so either rpeh or I blocking him would be ineffective. – Robin Hood↝talk 06:49, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Just woke up, so I'll be watching. Regardless, is it true you guys can't use your three-hour block rights to block a user from editing his talk page? I didn't know that. --Krusty 08:35, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Yes, that was one of the stipulations of being a Blocker was that we wouldn't have that right, so they would always be able to appeal before a possible full block. Oh and technically we have 4 hour block rights, it's just that with 3 being in the drop-down, that's usually sufficient and easier to select. – Robin Hood↝talk 08:50, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Hmm, that is ridiculous; these days where GK is busy with things much more important than this site (and I'm down with a less important cold, sleeping 12 hours a night), we need you guys to be able to do what we do. Also, I'm pretty sure nobody but you and rpeh will get Blockuser rights anytime soon, and why should one of you start abusing your blocker rights all of a sudden? If nobody objects, I'll contact Daveh so you can block users from editing their talk pages. --Krusty 09:03, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm fine with it either way. I mean, it's nice to be able to give a full cool-down when needed, but at the same time, there's only so much harm a user can do (besides a little cluttering of RC) when limited to their own talk page. – Robin Hood↝talk 09:50, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
E-mail to Daveh sent. It might be a minor thing, but it doesn't make sense to give editors a 4-hour "cool-down"-block and at the same time invite them to freak out on their talk page. :) --Krusty 10:00, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Semi-Protection

To discourage a repeat of the incident mentioned in the previous section, could an admin please semi-protect Template:OB Purchased Spell Notes. I've checked the other Notes Templates, and they should all be fine. (No longer necessary due to changes in template.) – Robin Hood↝talk 06:40, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Can I go further here? We've had huge changes in templates over the past 12-18 months, and a lot of things have changed. There are several templates that are used on literally hundreds or thousands of pages that are not currently protected. This is the page to visit for details, and as I said some time back when a couple of ignorant people were accusing me of vandalising the site, that page is a great was of advertising the pages that will cause the most damage.
The "User" templates on that list don't matter so much, but there are templates like {{Autolink}} and {{Infobox Style}} that are used on over a thousand pages that currently have no protection. Templates like {{NPC Summary/Tamriel Rebuilt Other}} only appear at #64, but would seriously screw up the site if edited badly.
Going even further, some templates, like {{!}}, {{!!}} and {{!-}}, should never be edited at all. I remember saying that 18 months ago, too. They could be fully protected to stop anybody screwing with them.
In general, there are only a few of the top 50 templates that shouldn't be at least SPed. Many of the next 50 should also get protected. Then there are examples like the Notes Templates that RH brought up, for which there are other reasons for protection. I don't like protecting pages in general, but in cases like this I think there's good reason to do it. rpeh •T•C•E• 04:38, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I'll get started on the top 50 now. Somebody feel free to add the relevant padlocks. --Krusty 17:54, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
Ah well, I took the top 100. So far so good. --Krusty 18:39, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
Okay, all done with the requests on this page; if anything else needs some protection, hit me on my talk page. --Krusty 11:45, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Another spammer

IP number 178.150.200.230, it has added two spam messages now to what seems to be a porn site. --AKB Talk 16:53, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Blocked for 3 hours. I imagine an admin will be along shortly to make it permanent. rpeh •T•C•E• 17:04, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Rpeh, lets hope this one won't slip through the cracks again. --AKB Talk 17:15, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
Done. --Krusty 17:27, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Skyrim Semi Protection

Based on this recent edit, the semi protection for Skyrim:Skyrim is failing or not implemented correctly. --Wizy (Talk/Contribs) 03:58, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I gave it another 6 months; the original semi-protection only lasted a month (obviously made before we expanded it), so thanks for noticing. --Krusty 07:10, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Worshiper to Worshipper

Sorry if I'm a bit late bringing this topic up. rpeh said that using a bot to fix the spellings could be problematic as there's no way to distinguish an in-game source. I'd be willing to take on the project myself, but a solution to the problem of clogging up the recent changes page needs to be made. Thoughts? Legoless 01:42, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Do it late at night? If I remember correctly bots are only supposed to be ran in the dead of night to avoid them clogging up the recent changes when people are actually editing, since this is a bot-like task I believe the same rules should apply. As this page says "The bot will not be run during periods with heavy server traffic (Defined as noon-9pm PDT weekends and 3pm-9pm PDT weekdays).". This option would avoid the worst clogging of recent changes in my opinion. Anyone else agree with me? --AKB Talk 02:06, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
Thing is, I'm GMT. I'd probably have to do it early in the morning so as to disturb the least amount of people. Legoless 02:09, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
As long as you are making useful edits, clogging up the RC is no problem at all. Just go ahead whenever you feel like it - and thanks! --Krusty 07:06, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm almost finished, but for the Daggerfall Daedric quest articles. They seems to consistently use the single 'p' spelling, even in dialogue quotes where the "worshiper's name" is supposed to be inserted. I haven't played Daggerfall extensively, so does anyone know if the worshippers are spelling like that in-game? If so I think I might leave those pages alone. Or, it might stem from the fact that all the articles seem to be written by the same group of people (the Daggerfall masters, I assume), who probably use the same spelling throughout. Does anyone know for sure? Legoless 00:29, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
I just searched through all the DF files and came up with these occurrences of the double p version:
  • "They say _qgfriend_ is a very pleasant and charming =qgfriend_, who is also a daedra-worshipper.ÿ_qgfriend_ is rumored to be Peryite's slave in %reg. Peryite is the Daedra of Pestilence and Plague."
  • "Sanguine is an enemy none should have. You won't regret this, %pcf, provided you fulfill your end of our agreement. This sanctimonius monk is not harmless; =monster_ is %g3 name and %g burned my lovely worshippers to crisps."
  • "The Dark Brotherhood is a very mysterious organization, often hired as assassins by the more pragmatic rulers. They have a reputation as maniacs and daedra worshippers, but they must be doing something right. They've been around for thousands of years."
  • "That's the temple devoted to Arkay, the God of Birth and Death.ÿThe Order of Arkay is a temple for worshippers of the God of the Cycle of Birth and Death. Any temple dedicated to Zenithar, the God of Work and Commerce, is called a Resolution of Zenithar or a Resolution of Zen."
  • "Even those people without children of age go to pray for the wisdom and benevolence of the clergy. Riglametha is celebrated on the twelfth of Hearth Fire every year in Lainlyn as a celebration of Lainlyns many blessings. Pageants are held on such themes as the Ghraewaj, when the daedra worshippers in Lainlyn were changed to harpies for their blasphemy."
  • "On the 8th of Suns Dusk, the Bretons of Glenumbra Moors hold the Moon Festival, a joyous holiday in honor of Secunda, goddess of the moon. Although the goddess has no active worshippers, the traditional celebration has continued through the ages as a time of feasting and merriment."
  • "Worshippers know better than to expect this philanthropy, but they arrive in a macabre procession with the recently deceased nevertheless. when ale flows free in all the taverns in all the cities of Tamriel.ÿthe biggest party of the year!ÿa huge drunken orgy ...."
  • There are also "pp"s in Ghraewaj, The Brothers of Darkness, An Overview of Gods And Worship, Ius, Animal God, Invocation of Azura, and King Edward, Part XII (×11).
I think you're safe changing anything else. rpeh •T•C•E• 10:36, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

(←) I think I'm finished. I haven't changed any of the unofficial mod articles, and I've added sic tags to any in-game source using the single 'P' spelling that I've come across. One thing that's puzzling me is the Overview of Gods and Worship book. It seems to use both spellings, so I don't know if that's an error from Bethesda or from an editor. Legoless 11:47, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Great work! I just checked that book and both spellings are definitely used. Typical - we worry about consistency and Beth can't be consistent even in the same book! rpeh •T•C•E• 12:41, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Yeah. Good job. I searched the CS for the one-p spellings and put in a couple sic tags last night. The Overview of Gods and Worship one is a funny one, having both spellings. I figure it is either a misspelling by the game writers, or a roleplay indicator that spelling was not important at the time the book was written. --Brf 15:21, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Monobook.js

For some reason, I can't patrol this edit, which is marked as unpatrolled on the recent changes page. According to the patrol log it wasn't already patrolled. So, is this normal? --Jplatinum16 03:18, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

It's a bit of an oddity with the patrol code. Only admins can patrol edits to users' Javascript pages. rpeh •T•C•E• 10:21, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Same with me when I was trying to patrol some edits at Emoboy64's monobook page. Nothing abnormal I suppose. --Rigas Papadopoulos • Talk • Deeds • 14:02, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

SKYRIM!

Hi guys youve semi locked the skyrim page however from the screenshots given on http://www.elderscrolls.com/skyrim/media/ a lot of information can be gathered like the 7 schools of magic (enchanting is BACK!) ect, some should update the page — Unsigned comment by Calcal (talk • contribs) on 26 February 2011

Spammer

User talk:FrikaNons is a spammer --Brf 18:19, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Got it. --Krusty 18:28, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Vandal

This Anon has now repeatedly vandalized the Oblivion Vampirisim page even after being I warned it. --AKB Talk 22:13, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Done. Do me a favor, though - instead of the trendy edit summary "rv", please state the problem instead - much easier to spot. --Krusty 22:18, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
What do you mean, I don't think I have ever used "rv" as an edit summary? DKong27 undid the most recent one, with rv I might add. Would you prefer me to specify the specific form of vandalism for now on (which would be nonsense in this case correct?) or was this aimed at DKong? --AKB Talk 22:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Nothing personal; I'm aware who reverted the last edit, but it is merely a request for everyone, so we can avoid clogging up this page with reminders. Don't get me wrong, it is very useful when these things are mentioned (especially when there are no admins around), but more precise edit summaries would be helpful. :) --Krusty 22:29, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Ah, okay then I'll try to be more precise with my edit summaries for now on. Thanks for the help. --AKB Talk 22:31, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Captcha Whitelist

A link to the forums has just been added to the Welcome message template following this discussion, but now using the template requires non-patrollers to pass a captcha check, which is pretty annoying.

Please would an admin add:

forums\.uesp\.net

to this list? I don't see any reason why links to our own forums should be restricted after all. rpeh •T•C•E• 15:45, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Me neither. Try now. --Krusty 15:48, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
  • If you prefer to discuss Elder Scrolls related topics with other users, without the expectations of a wiki to worry about, see our Forums.
Testing it here. --AKB Talk 15:52, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
Edit: Didn't need to do a captcha test so I assume it works. Thanks Krusty! --AKB Talk 15:54, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

CSS Format Tweak

In this page, please could an admin delete the "margin-bottom: -0.5em;" line from the "table.wikitable caption" definition? It's been bugging me for a while now: it causes table captions to overlap the table on pages like this. Thanks. rpeh •T•C•E• 17:20, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

All done! --Krusty 17:23, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
Better, thanks! If people can't see the change, do a hard-refresh to force a reload of the CSS. rpeh •T•C•E• 17:24, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Troublesome Anon

I gave an IP a warning (seen here) after five nonsense edits to talk pages. However than a different [IP] arrived and removed my warning. I honestly do not know what is the appropriate action at this point is so I'll rely on the administrators experience in this situation. I'll ignore this issue as I've already voiced my opinion on giving the warning. --AKB Talk Contribs Email 18:35, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Since the edits seem to have been made in good faith, just with a lack of understanding of what a wiki is about, I've changed the official warning to a friendly warning that's more specific to the anon's edits. – Robin Hood↝talk 22:27, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
I chose to wait and see if any more trouble came our way from the anon, and it died out, as usual. I agree with RH70 at the same time; the additions may have triggered all the "nonsense"-alerts, but in theory it was more experimental than anything else. Just remember this; when you are at the beginning of an edit war it is sometimes useful to take a deep breath and wait - simply because anons like that tend to lose interest fairly quickly - and then you can revert everything in peace, without them even knowing it. --Krusty 22:52, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
Yeah I should of assumed good faith. I need to spend more times on the forums to get used to there style (which is what this was closer to on reflection). Sorry for bringing this up here, I'll try to use the notices more often. --AKB Talk Contribs Email 23:00, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Rename Request

Please could an admin do this? rpeh •T•C•E• 23:20, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Done. --Krusty 06:37, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Obvious Vandal

User Snedward, has vandalized a good 5 or 6 pages now. Sometimes he removes his own obscenties, sometimes he doesn't. Either way, he isn't here to help. Western3589 04:45, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I would like to second that, now that he has vandalized my [user page] after I simply gave him some [polite advice] it is obvious he does not want to help the wiki. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 04:49, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
And [again], he clearly is not going to stop until he is blocked. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 04:50, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Done. --Krusty 06:37, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Failed protection of Lore:Skyrim?

After a recent string on nonsense edits from an anon to this page it seems clear that the semi-protection on the page is not working. Can someone look into this? --AKB Talk Cont Mail 01:49, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Just a note: the semi-protection actually expired on December 26. Do we want to extend all the Skyrim protections until release date (or maybe even later)? – Robin Hood↝talk 02:51, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
Re-adding SP to Lore:Skyrim is probably a good idea for now. At some point we'll have to have the debate about what to do come 11/11/11 but there are still a few things up in the air on that topic. rpeh •T•C•E• 07:58, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
We might as well SP the Lore page as well - when an anon realize that the official Skyrim:Skyrim page is SP'd, he/she will naturally turn to the other page. --Krusty 14:21, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Anon vandal

This IP has inserted nonsense into several pages now, even after being warned. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 19:08, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I can see two edits and a nonsensical response to the warning. I'll keep an eye out. --Krusty 19:22, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
Okay, to save me the trouble of reporting IP's or users to early when should I note them here? After four, five nonsense edits? Or if he/she branches out into more offensive forms of nonsense such as personally attacking other users? Or is this more of a judgment call kind of thing?--AKB Talk Cont Mail 19:26, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
There's no harm done in reporting it here; however, it is kind of normal for these people to add a few nonsense edits, receive a warning, then complain in some way - and then disappear. Always wait a few minutes after handing out a warning and if the nonsense continues, report it here. It IS a matter of judgment, although it can be a hrad task sometimes. :) --Krusty 19:33, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Main Page edit request

At the moment we have a link at the bottom right of the Main Page to "Newest Articles". The trouble is that with our namespace structure it doesn't work because the default link only shows new articles in mainspace, where almost nothing ever happens. Although this could be changed to show all namespaces (like this), that would include every new talk page and user page, which is also undesirable. My suggestion is that since the link appears at the bottom of the "Did you know..." section, that the link should point to this page, with a link text of "More facts..." (or something like that - note that the "..." is for consistency with the other two main page links). Any objections? rpeh •T•C•E• 20:50, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I've been puzzled about that empty link for the longest time - and you're right, it's pointless as it is now. I'll see what I can do - more facts are funnier than an empty page! --Krusty 20:54, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Protecting Archives

This recent spam edit reminded me of a thought I had a while back. Can we semi-protect the archives? There is no reason anons should edit these pages and they are frequent targets for spam bots for some reason. This would be a good way to stop spam or nonsense edits to archives. It would also stop some confused editors from adding questions to archives (A somewhat frequent event) saving us the trouble of moving them to the proper talk page. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 18:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I suggested that here (okay, I was suggesting full protection, but the basic arguments still apply). Semi-protection might be a better idea and I'm certainly in favour of it. rpeh •T•C•E• 19:00, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Having reviewed the arguments provided by the admins that responded to the topic that Rpeh linked I'll add this as well. By Semi-Protecting archives we allow for those instances of a topic that needs to be readdressed, and we also will stop the vandalism to those pages which means that it does fall under our Protection Policy. I also wish to say that since nearly every edit to an archive is wrong, since generally speaking only maintenance editing is allowed for archive pages there is no reason not to semi-protect archives. Anons and new users are less likely to know how to perform maintenance than Auto-confirmed users. Though it does create more work for the Admins it shouldn't be too much that they would be overwhelmed. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 19:24, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
That old discussion is hilarious due to the laziness on display. I have been thinking about the Archives for the longest time, as it makes no sense that we allow users to edit them freely then revert all edits anyway. Of course, it will take a long time protecting the existing archives, but it will be worth it. Just say the word. --Krusty 19:41, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
I know what you mean... I don't think you're going to want to do the existing ones by hand though: assuming every page that transcludes the {{Archive Header}} template is an archive, there are about 700 of them. It would be easier to ask Daveh to give bots the protect right and do the first lot like that. rpeh •T•C•E• 19:51, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Well, if they all use the Template, why not add in to the template? Does that work? You could then add another optional parameter for when you want to skip the section. --DKong27 Talk Cont 20:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
There's no way of saying "protect every page that uses this one". You can do it the other way around - "protect every page that this one uses", but I don't believe there's any alternative to protecting each page. rpeh •T•C•E• 20:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

(←) If we are going to do this, which it looks like we are going to, we should have the bots do all the heavy lifting and just protect any new ones manually. Seems like the best solution. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 21:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I'll ask Daveh to make the necessary change. rpeh •T•C•E• 22:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Just as a reminder to myself more than anything, once this is done we should change the message here to check for the word "archive" in the title and display a different message directing people to the current talk page. rpeh •T•C•E• 18:17, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

(←) Okay, RoBoT is currently going through the list of pages to protect them and add the {{protection}} template. I spotted a few pages that weren't using the {{Archive Header}} template and did those manually, but there may be others out there. I've changed the protection message to include a link to the current talk page - test it by logging out and trying to edit this, for instance. I've added an extra line to the protection policy to cover our latest addition - tweak it if you like. Otherwise, I think we're done. rpeh •T•C•E• 08:12, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Request for Adminship

Our Request for Adminship (RfA) process is based on Wikipedia's policy. An editor, when nominated, accepts and answers questions, which can be asked by any registered editor. Votes and comments can also be left by any registered editor. Daveh makes the call, based upon the community's consensus, after about a week.

Consensus: Support
moved to User:Rpeh/RfA 2 --GKtalk2me 02:23, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Potential Multi Account Vandal

Earlier a user called W00d elf started vandalizing the Lore:Redguard page until he or she was blocked. Just a minute ago another new user called Negro bob, after registering proceeded to vandalize the Redguard page in virtually the same way W00d elf did. It seems clear to me that W00d elf is bypassing his ban with a sockpuppet to continue to vandalize. Just wanted to put this here so the admins can keep an eye out for this guy. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 23:41, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

In the light of the latest additions to Negro bob's talk page (I'm not going to link to them), please could an admin remove talk page access for this user? rpeh •T•C•E• 08:08, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Done. --GKtalk2me 21:51, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Search Log

Daveh has created a new Special page following this discussion on his talk page. It's only accessible by User Patrollers, Patrollers and Admins so anyone else will get a permission error I'm afraid. It's an early version at the moment, and currently lets us see just the 100 most recent searches along with the number of title matches, text matches, plus the time taken and the date/time of the search.

The idea was to see if any sensible searches were producing zero hits, so that we could create appropriate redirects. Of course, it turns out to be less straightforward. A quick glance at the log shows that the original approach to spelling used by many of our editors extends to searches. Of the current zero hit searches, we have "maradurs", "armor mithral", "merchent", "marader", "armorsmithing", "dust from getting glow o the the will wisp", "dust from getting glow o the the will wisp", "alyssia sir", "gaan mar", "gaan magic mar or rock", "kallist", "kallistor", "chamileon enchanted items", "tos v", "valtiere vicinte", "fathis ulles", "frostspire", "helmet kanch's", and "of savior tears teh". Now it's pretty clear what people were trying to find with many of those so the question is this: do we want to create redirects to help people who can't spell?

The previous attitude has been that we can't cater for every possible misspelling so we ought to stick to the correct name only. Except we also have a small number of Redirects from Misspellings, plus of course we have several redirects for British English spellings such as "Armour". I'm fairly split on this. On the one hand, we'll never be able to fix all the problems with dodgy spelling, and trying to do so will ultimately mean we have hundreds of misspelled redirects. On the other hand, our lovely pages aren't much help to people if they can't be found.

Okay, let's see what everybody thinks. rpeh •T•C•E• 06:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

My vote would go for only adding redirects for regional dialect misspellings, therefore Heavy Armor and Heavy Armour would have the same results, at least I assume that isn't the case right now, search isn't working for me it seems... But for every other case, we can't do much to help them. It is almost impossible to correct every potential misspelling, maybe a few cases for inappropriate spacing but besides that there isn't much we can do without creating hundreds of redirect for every possible item. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 07:15, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Edit: Actually on further thought, that isn't a very good solution, especially for "Fantasy Words" that only complicate the issue, so therefore my vote now goes for allowing redirects for misspellings of "Fantasy Words" like the names of Dwemer Ruins which, by the way, the devs even misspell sometimes. For people who can't spell actual words like merchant though however, they will likely see their mistake and fix it, so we won't be serving a purpose by creating redirects for them. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 07:20, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Even redirects for "fantasy words" would be tricky - some poor soul just searched for "akhuklan", "akuklan", "akkuklan", and "akkukhlan", all without luck. I assume he meant Akulakhan - and I must confess my first guess at the spelling was "Akhulakhan", which already has a redirect. Daveh is thinking about using a different search engine, which might make some of this moot, but I've already spotted some things that are worth creating as redirects. rpeh •T•C•E• 15:02, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Search Issues and Improvements

The addition of the search log as quickly revealed a number of short comings compared to the current site search, the biggest of which is that some 75% of all searches performed on the site return no results. A good amount of this may be due to the "Search Titles Only" user preference defaulting to TRUE which is probably not the best value for a new or anonymous user trying to find something. You can see a lot of searches in the Special:SearchLog (patroller permission required) which should have valid results but return none due to this.

For now I've set the searches to always ignore the user's "Search Titles Only" preference and always search for both titles and text. This will consume a bit more resources but shouldn't be near enough to make a noticeable difference. We'll see how this changes the number of empty search results (much better in just the past 5 minutes).

The search log has also revealed the relatively poor performance of some searches. The first time a search for a term is performed (or after the MySQL query cache is invalidated) the search can easily take up to 10 seconds to perform. This is just the time of database query itself so the time seen by the user will be even more. There are a number of better search engines for MediaWiki, notably Lucene and Sphinx, and I've installed Sphinx on content3 for testing purposes. Feel free to visit http://content3.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page and try it out. It is currently just the default installation and as such only looks for text matches and not article titles.

The main benefits of Sphinx (and/or Lucene as they seem to have comparable feature sets):

  • Faster...much faster. Even a "slow" Sphinx query takes only 50ms with most performing in under 10ms which is 10-1000x faster than the current search.
  • The ability to customize the "Did you Mean..." search feature. For example, try searching for "lycanthorp" on content3 (note the misspelling). Custom words can be edited from within the Wiki.
  • Customized stop word list. The current MySQL full text search contains an almost silly amount of stop words which are ignored in searches. A much smaller number of stop words (the, a, and, etc...) would probably make more sense in our case.
  • Ability to run on searches on dedicated hardware. Sphinx can be setup to run on the content servers or on a separate server altogether making scaling much easier if/when needed.

The one notable downside to Sphinx/Lucene is that pages must be re-indexed in order for their content to be available for search results. The UESP Wiki is not too large so this re-indexing is relatively quick but page edits may still take minutes to hours to be returned in searches depending on how the re-indexing is setup to take place.

Comments and suggestions are welcome. There still remains a good amount of work to get Sphinx/Lucene in shape to replace the search full time, in particular the ability to search for titles and some namespace awareness like the existing search/go feature. Likely I will simply reuse the existing title search and use Sphinx for the text search. -- Daveh 01:00, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Sphinx for text searching works fine for me. I can't use the new search log tool myself, but if the results are that bad then I think a new search engine is worth the time investment. Legoless 01:30, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
The title search being the default was something Nephele changed ages ago when the site was experiencing severe slowdowns - I can't find the discussion but it's archived somewhere. The new one is lightning fast, but the number of results it's returning is a bit frightening "throat of the world" returns 1000 results, because it seems to be searching for each word rather than the term. That's going to make improving Lore pages a lot trickier. In general, though, it looks like a much better search system than the current one. rpeh •T•C•E• 18:43, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Using double quotes (") around the phrase will make it only search for the group of words together. Legoless 20:31, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Edit: My mistake, it doesn't have the tickbox. Legoless 20:33, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

New Articles

Please could an admin create the following (that I'm not going to link in case the answer is "no" in order not to create wanted links):

  • Skyrim:Development Team
  • Skyrim:Concept Art
  • One that I don't have a title for but would be something like "Pre-Release Content" for in-game pictures and video.

I believe I have enough content for all three (the last two are pretty easy!). If you'd prefer I sandbox first and let you move, please let me know.

At the moment, I'd vote against unprotecting the whole namespace. The guesswork already taking place on pages like Oblivion:Esbern would suggest that a page containing "He may of been in knight of teh nine" would appear fairly quickly. rpeh •T•C•E• 23:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Your wish is my command. Two minutes... --Krusty 23:22, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
In the same spirit as the above, I left a message on the Skyrim talk page requesting for a new article, only to realize it would be more appropriate here. May an admin please create something like Skyrim:Dragon or Skyrim:Dragons? I'd hate to see this sandbox go to waste. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 18:18, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
That's a rather good page, but it's exactly what I was afraid of and why I suggested the page blacklist in the first place. We're eventually going to have a Skyrim:Dragon page and it'll have all the necessary stats and details on it when we have them. I'd guess about 90% of the sandbox content wouldn't be relevant to the final game because it's information that will be superseded. Furthermore, all the references to interviews and articles won't be wanted. I'd also hate to see that sandbox go to waste, but my preference would be for it to go on Skyrim:Skyrim as a new section rather than having it as a new article. rpeh •T•C•E• 18:53, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
I understand the purpose of the blacklisting of Skyrim articles, but of course that doesn't seem to be enough. For example Skyrim related articles are constantly being edited to include info from Skyrim, or pages for Skyrim are created in other space, such as the earlier made page for the Dovakiin in Lore space. It is obvious these pages are wanted if we want to make them or not. The reason I worked on this was an attempt to help avoid these issues. I understand that eventually the page would be almost entirely rewritten as the information may be untrue in the final release or as the information is superseded by the actual game, which would make the references useless. This article was an attempt to at least create one new article for Skyrim that would of been written appropriately, with as little speculation and as much genuine information as possible. I can't really thank of a way to include any of the information on this sandbox on the Skyrim main page without it looking unseemly, maybe a sentence or two, but besides that it will be a wasted effort on my part. I understand your logic though, and I guess I will go back to ignoring Skyrim for now. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 00:50, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
If GK or Krusty wants to create the article then I won't object, but I don't personally think it's the right decision to create articles that we know are going to be completely re-written when the game is released. rpeh •T•C•E• 10:42, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
I think the article is good, but still lacking; let's face it, at this point most of the Skyrim coverage is hype and is subject to change over and over during the final stages of development. Look at Horses - they haven't even made up their minds about that feature yet! While I like the article, I suggest to keep it around for a month, just to see if we can get closer to the truth. Do not delete it, please. :) --Krusty 11:13, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

(←) It has been roughly a month now and I've heard pretty much no major news about dragons. The three most likely reasons for this are:

  • I've somehow missed any major news about dragons
  • There isn't really much else to say about dragons.
  • Bethesda is keeping there mouth shut about dragons to avoid spoilers.

Unless it is possibility one, there isn't anything else to do to this page until game release. So is it safe to launch it? I don't think we are likely to ever get any closer too understanding dragons until we have the game in our hand, but if you still believe that the page shouldn't be launched because of the lack of information then I'll understand; admittedly I'll be a bit disappointed but I will understand your reasoning entirely. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 03:29, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, I have been wondering why the page hasn't been launched. Personally I think that posibility one is nearly impossible. Plus, the article you've created is very thorough and accurate from the gathered knowledge on Dragons. I have no issues with the article being launched.--Kalis AgeaYes? Contrib E-mail 03:47, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
My opinions are on record. I don't want people to think that I'm making a vote though; I've stated my views and will await a consensus or at least, a clear view. I'm not going to create it myself until some more people have had their say, but as I said above, I'm happy for another admin to do so. rpeh •T•C•E• 07:57, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
A fair enough point rpeh, I can understand the hesitation here as this decision seems to come down to if we are going to be willing to allow pre-release content pages in Skyrim space. Regardless, I stand by my belief that having several well written content pages created by experienced editors can only help avoid some of the trouble we have been having with Skyrim pre-release content appearing on pages that have the remotest connection to Skyrim. Yes, I understand that the page will need to be entirely re-written later on, but it is better than having nothing I believe. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 08:58, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
Nudge* Am I correct to assume that this topic being ignored means that no one else wants to consider us having additional Skyrim articles? Any more opinions on this or are we going to wait until Skyrim is released to begin developing Skyrim Space more? --AKB Talk Cont Mail 05:05, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm still not convinced this is a great idea, but I've created the page. The sandbox you've created is very well done and since Dragons are causing probably the biggest stir out of any new feature in TESV, it's just about worth breaking the normal rule. rpeh •T•C•E• 16:00, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
I understand your reservations with this, indeed I felt like I was starting to lean in the camp thinking this was a bad idea. And I most certainly won't try to create another Skyrim article in the aftermath of all of the trouble it caused :-). While I'm being problematic though do you think you can create the talk page? I'd imagine it might see some use between now and the release of Skyrim. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 16:41, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Multiple IP Confusion

Several IP anons have been posting around claiming that they have been warned or blocked. See User talk:Wolok gro-Barok and User talk:Rpeh. The Anons have blank talk pages with no curious edits to be seen. --DKong27 Talk Cont 23:52, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

There are two possibilities that I can see here.
The first is that we're being trolled. There's always been a problem with people getting an IP that was previously assigned to someone else and wondering why they're getting messages intended for the other person, but this doesn't seem to be that: people are getting messages for totally unrelated IP addresses, which is just plain weird. I wouldn't suggest this as a serious option except the latest spate of "problems" all occurred after I issued this warning to 96.4.127.21 and another to 96.4.127.20 (almost certainly the same person given the IPs are almost identical). On the latter talk page, we first had 94.113.47.248 remove the warning, then 2.97.100.149 add a message and lastly, 203.97.155.77 add another message.
I've just run 96.4.127.20 through WhatIsMyIpAddress.com and it confirms that it's a proxy server as is 96.4.127.21. 94.113.47.248 translates to the Czech Republic, 2.97.100.149 to England and 203.97.155.77 to New Zealand. This means it's entirely possible that the last three addresses all got the message because they were using the same proxy. It would be odd that three different people from all around the world used the same proxy to view the same site within such a small time period, and it's quite possible that those addresses are proxies too.
The second possibility is that somehow, caching is involved. Is it possible that if one IP user was viewing a page when the New Messages banner appeared that the next IP user to view the same page would get the banner because that version was in the cache? I couldn't make this happen with a couple of quick tests, but it might explain what's happening.
We'll have to wait and see for a bit. Given that a confirmed proxy is involved, I'm not inclined to take this too seriously at the moment. rpeh •T•C•E• 07:58, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
I presumed that they were using a proxy website, maybe to bypass office blocking, and the proxy website re-routed them through other IPs to bypass said blocking. I'm inclined to doubt any troll would put in that much effort. However, I could be entirely wrong. Just my two cents. :) Apollo Quinn 09:54, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Can we just start deleting these messages on site? They are getting quite annoying, and aren't doing anything but taking up space as the IPs don't seem to stick around after they leave a message about "their" warning. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 02:21, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
It might be worth having a standard message to use, or reviewing the block messages we use. rpeh •T•C•E• 09:50, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Right, this is obviously a problem that is still on going, and may in fact be older than we first thought. This message on my talk page is just one example of this problem, which shows that it dates back to at least last month. I've even seen it reported on the forums. Is there any other possibilities that might be causing this problem? I don't think we are being trolled, and I would have trouble believing all of these cases are caused by proxies (Not that I checked to confirm this belief). It seems obvious that we must at least edit our warning and block messages to have a line like:
"If you are not the responsible party for this vandalism, and you do not share a connection with this user or IP, please ignore this message."
No matter what something has to be done as this problem doesn't show any signs of stopping itself. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 21:37, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I can give a little first-hand experience myself: When I was first viewing UESPWiki, a while a go to say the least, every few times I brought up the mainpage from my favorites menu, I would see a warning about vandalism/nonsense, dispite not editing pages at that point. This problem only seemed to go away after I created an account, and logged in. I only edited once I had my account, not before, which is why I was confused about the nonsense warnings, particularly because they seemed to have a random IP each time. I strongly suggest that admins, patrollers, or other frequent users try clearing their browser memory caches, then logging out and browsing the main page/recent changes page anonymously (but not edit) to see if this problem can be reproduced. If innocent IPs can come accross these notices, I think we can say safely that IP identification/warning system needs to be re-examined.
Another Idea: sometimes gateways/routers/switches/hubs can be set up to automatically assign IP addresses, for convenient network connecting. This means that users with a router can have different IPs on different days without realizing it, or intending it. Many people have routers, especially if they have multiple consoles/computers. This problem can increase exponentially if apartment buildings, for instance, are sharing a daisy-chained router or server array. I hope, someway, this helps. - Neural Tempest 00:37, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
(Neural Tempest Speaking) Just as a demonstration, last time I was online, my IP seemed to show 64.231.249.93, and I did not fiddle with any settings. Now check my signature, (64.231.248.235 16:50, 30 April 2011 (UTC)) not quite the same, is it? This was all automatic, with no interference from me. (Now, time to sign with my normal sig:) - Neural Tempest 16:50, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
(Neural Tempest Speaking Again) Ha! Absolute proof of IP changes! After 2 hours, I check back, and my IP address (64.231.251.39 19:18, 30 April 2011 (UTC)) has changed without any manipulation by me, which shows just how easily people could get unintended messages. Assuming that there are limited numbers for IP possibilities, eventually, with dynamic IPs, one person could get a message for their IP, when a different person previously edited with the same one. I think we need to examine the IP identification system, to see if it's really a good means of notification.
My Idea: since users can create an account free of cost, and anyone can create an account, perhaps edits should only be allowed for logged-in users. It would be a pain to implement, but with dynamic IPs, misidentification will become increasingly prevalent. Dynamic IPs also mean that blocked IPs might be of little use. Please try blocking this IP (64.231.251.39 19:18, 30 April 2011 (UTC)), to see if I can work around it. Assuming that if I log on, my main ID (Neural Tempest) should have no problem, blocking the IP I signed with (64.231.251.39 19:18, 30 April 2011 (UTC)) should be a good experiment. I will try posting again later, to see if my IP changes, at which point we can assume that blocking anonymous IPs is really a stop-gap measure. If only logged-in users can edit, blocking could be more effective, assuming they don't create sock-puppets. - Neural Tempest 19:18, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
I just wanted to verify that it was truly I who posted these last two, because without my confirmation, this would be hard to check. I used 64.231.248.235 and 64.231.251.39, but these are my only posts made without my true Log-in. (I posted this message for anti-impersonation purposes) - Neural Tempest 19:25, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
Coming up to the release of Skyrim, I think blocking IPs from editing might be necessary. If it also solves this problem (although in a very brute-force way), then all the better. Legoless 19:57, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

{od} Since you two agree, I'll take it to the CP - Anonymous editing is definitely a site-wide discussion.--Ghurhak gro-Demril or TAOYes? 20:08, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Blocking IPs from editing is almost certainly not going to happen. The main reason is that it doesn't stop vandals, because they can just create an account and edit from that instead. The fact that they have to create an account gives people an extra chance for silliness, as they can create one using whatever insults or obscenities they like and we have no (easy) way of hiding it in the logs. This has actually happened at least once before.
Thank you to Neural Tempest for the research on dynamic IP addresses, but it's already well-understood. My own IP typically changes several times a day. If bouts of vandalism came from a group of IPs like the one you describe, it would be spotted and a range block might be used. For instance, see this note from 2009, and this one from 2007, which was (I think) the first time a range block was used on UESP. Admins have the CheckUser tool, which while far from perfect, makes it fairly easy to see when IPs are in a similar range. rpeh •T•C•E• 07:53, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
Are there any rejections to the much simpler, "Alter our warning/block messages" suggestion? I see no reason to block IPs from editing because of problems with them getting others warnings. But my previous suggestion is an easy enough thing to implement. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 16:17, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
We're certainly going to have to do that, but I'm trying to write up a wider-ranging suggestion for modifying our block policy and hope to present the whole thing as one topic rather than doing it piecemeal. rpeh •T•C•E• 17:01, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
I think that it could be beneficial to put a link in Warnings to User Contributions, with a note that if there is nothing there, to ignore the warning. --DKong27 Talk Cont 17:20, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
I know I am not an admin, but might I suggest something? How about making it so that you can still block IP editing, but making it so that you have to have at least been on the wiki for a day or two, and responded to the welcome message, and participated in one conversation on another user's talk page that was not vandalism or spam.--Iamgoofball 17:40, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
That's a bit specific, if you ask me. I think you're getting at autoconfirmed users, but without the rights to edit then that would be impossible to achieve. And not everyone responds to their welcome message (quite the contrary, actually). Nor would many new users randomly comment on someone's talk page (unless they mistake it for a forum, as is often the case). And it still doesn't get around the problem of offensive usernames that rpeh brought up. Legoless 17:53, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

(←) We are not blocking all IPs. More importantly we aren't also blocking all new users, how would you had felt if we blocked you from editing for a few days after responding to a welcome message? Not only would your suggestion destroy our ability to recruit new editors, but it is pointless. Many people aren't here to just talk with other editors, they want to contribute to the wiki, and they aren't guaranteed to even know how to find active conversations. In fact your suggestion would see us only recruiting editors who would be better off using the forums, leading to many undesirable editors clogging up discussions and recent changes with pointless forum like nonsense (After all, how would they know what is appropriate idea if they aren't given an opportunity to learn how to properly edit?). Your suggestion not only blocks IPs, but also effectively blocks all new editors. We really don't have that much of a vandalism problem that we need to block everyone not already here, why is that so hard to understand? This is in no way a solution to our current problems. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 18:00, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Well I've started things rolling here. Feel free to continue commenting here, but any concrete suggestions should now go on that thread instead, since we're discussing changes to the policy. rpeh •T•C•E• 18:17, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

(←) Okay, I finally saw this problem for myself and I'm now convinced that it's down to caching. I purged the page concerned (the main page) and the problem went away. Since the problem was on the main page, it might explain why we were getting so many of these. rpeh •T•C•E• 18:21, 5 May 2011 (UTC)


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