User talk:Peterdownunder/Archive 7

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Very young users

Peter, Fr33kman suggested on meta that I contact you. I came into contact with a very young user on Wikiversity, who was creating inappropriate pages with his fantasy or creative writing, and who had done this on other projects as well. He was being blocked and his pages were being deleted.

From reviewing his contributions, I realized that he was probably about seven years old. Wikiversity has, as a goal, educational resources, and it, itself, can be educational, i.e., participation can represent learning skills and learning to interact cooperatively with a diverse community.

I was, for a short time, a probationary custodian, but even before that, I took over managing these pages and the user, I moved IP pages into v:User:Abd/Playspace, set up a project -- with no additional participation so far -- called v:Wikiversity:Playspace, and encouraged the user either to edit pages in my Playspace -- where I would review and make sure that pages complied with what's allowed in user space -- or to move them to his own registered user subspace.

It was difficult to establish communication with this user, due to, quite likely, poor comprehension, and, as well, some sort of assumption, from his experience, that he was going to be rejected, blocked, and his pages deleted. However, with patience, I was able to gain his cooperation, though he still makes mistakes occasionally. He's a normal, if precocious, kid! (I have 5 biological kids, and two adopted kids, and I'm still parenting the adopted kids, ages 7 and 9, and I have six grandchildren, though I'm not close to them at the moment).

The standard delete and block approach to a kid like this creates a new puppet master who gradually learns how to evade blocks. There is still some administrative maintenance involved with my on-line adoptee (it's v:User:Draubb, but there is far less than there would have been with the standard approach. He's apparently stopped cross-wiki activity, is regularly working on his "stories" on Wikiversity, mostly now in his own user space, but still a little in the user space of prior socks.

It is not clear that all the socks attributed to him were actually him. He's accessing Wikiversity mostly through a class computer, apparently, and he has friends there whom he writes about, and some of them may have created accounts, which were, with a checkuser filing at meta, naturally identified with him and globally locked. Another attempt was just made at meta to get some of these accounts locked, none of which had recently edited, considering them "sleepers." If these were sleepers, they were awfully open and blatant! No, this is a very young kid, playing with what he can play with. He'd already learned to reboot his modem if there was a problem.... and had no idea how far blocks could go! Fr33kman sensibly declined to do what another checkuser had cheerfully done....

In any case, it would be helpful if you could come to Wikiversity and help with this, occasionally. I'd agree to come to simple and support your work here. Wikiversity is much more open to creative work than the other wikis, it isn't an encyclopedia, and pages could even be created that are "classes," with "student papers" underneath (WV allows subpages in mainspace, and it also allows original research). So we could create a range of activities and resources to channel very young users into, and this could help the other wikis. If there were enough support at Wikiversity -- more than just me! -- we could handle the increased traffic.

I've had to be, occasionally, firm with this user, but always accompanied it with plenty of encouraging and supportive noises. And he's responded to that, becoming chatty, and obviously happily so. He now recognizes that, overall, I'm protecting him. It took a month to get there!

But there are others who have no tolerance for this, they have a narrower vision of Wikiversity as being intended for more formal and university-level education, apparently. And even there, they strongly oppose "fringe" and apply other concepts that are more appropriate for Wikipedia, they have often come from Wikipedia. So far, I've been able to stave this off.

In addition to the issue with young users, Wikiversity, as a haven for original research, also became a haven for highly disruptive users from other wikis who have sometimes abused it as a place from which to attack users at other wikis. And the resulting disruption has caused users and custodians to flee. So WV is very short of custodial attention, it's become blatantly obvious. Please help me work with young users at WV, and if you'd consider becoming a custodian there, it's a very easy process, and you are obviously amply qualified. My own understanding of the crucial custodial responsibilities is more like sergeant-at-arms at a meeting, and less like having to slog through all the crap, which can actually be done -- the way paved -- by ordinary users, so that custodians can very efficiently handle what would be too much by themselves. --Abd (talk) 19:11, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

@Peter: We have had this young person visit simplewiki and can give you information in simpleadmins-l if you wish. BTW: Abd is a good person and has similar views to yourself. All the best :) fr33kman 20:02, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

My guess would be that most edits of this person to simplewiki would be inappropriate at this time. Most WMF wikis are result or product-oriented. I.e., even user space is to be used only for working on the project, with some limited personal-purpose usage allowed if the user is working on the project itself. Eventually, and it might not be long -- but probably a few years! -- the person might be ready to contribute to actual project pages. It can be arranged, before then, that there would be some pages on Wikiversity that the user could contribute to, for practice, as an example. The user, getting started, did many things readily considered disruptive, and they were actually disruptive. They all become understandable if we realize the age. And then we can act to channel the behavior into what eventually will become constructive, or that remains, at least, harmless.

I have focused on very young users, but some similar kinds of responses may be appropriate for learning-disabled users, and I used the Playspace concept on WV to handle a fringe personal scientific theory page, with some success. Play with it! Discuss it! And maybe someone learns something. Do it in a way that doesn't create false impressions, but in a way that is also considered helpful by the user. --Abd (talk) 20:35, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

You say may not be ready, but I actually support a, well not "play area" but something like it. We have multiple Japanese classes that do class assignments on simplewiki. I think the concept can be extended to lower aged persons. But it needs doing correctly. fr33kman 20:40, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like an interesting idea, I think we need to keep younger editors on side, or we do reap the consequences later. The Japanese users have certainly improved the quality of articles here, once other issues were dealt with and supports put in place. I will certainly visit Wikiversity and see if I can assist.--Peterdownunder (talk) 11:08, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
We might want to seek the creation of something like this on the other major projects. It would be great to channel the super energy these young editors and vandals have and get them to really learn to contribute to Wikimedia, It would be really good for both them and us. Of course, let's start slowly for now. Perhaps Belinda and Dewflower might be interested? :) fr33kman 22:54, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd love to help. :) Young and new users are always so sweet to see on wiki, and it makes me sad when I see them wasting their time (and "super energy") on vandalism etc instead of some real good contribution. But what can we do - as energetic as they are, most are also very strong-willed and free minded, and it is hard to make them understand the wiki. I can't think of any brilliant solutions atm. Perhaps this conversation has enough importance to be moved to Simple Talk, so we can collect more opinions and suggestions? ♥ingly, Bella ^{tête-à-tête} 09:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm dealing with a very young kid at the moment. What he does would not fit on most projects. He's interested in writing fantasies, stories about himself and his friends, and soccer. His writing skills aren't ready for work on articles or the like. I looked at what might have been his earliest edits, on Wikipedia, and they were basically scribbles. Like a kid first playing with writing! Wikiversity, because of its educational mission, can channel his activity into learning, but it's still difficult. I had to repeat things over and over before he'd get them. We could develop clear, very simple, crafted instructions for very young kids. It's an art, like writing children's books. The biggest difficulties I've had have been with the use of real names, vs. privacy policy for minors. Weird stuff happens, that's hard to understand. Today, he told me he had a "miner problem with his security" [sic] and that he needed "privacy policy." I looked and saw nothing. But several hours later, there was a slew of edits from his account, adding the real names of users where I'd redacted before -- and got revision deletion -- to remove them, replacing them with first name and initial. Why would he tell me about a problem and then create it? I'm suspecting password compromise, he knew about it and didn't know what to do.

I don't know. He doesn't have email enabled, there is no way to contact him directly, except by what could be considered harassment or privacy violation! (I know where he goes to school, and I know real names, so he'd be easy to find that way. But ... not good!) With some kind of Very Young User WMF project, we could share experience and set up guidelines for dealing with very young users and protect them and the projects as well. I think Wikiversity is the place to encourage these kids to edit, in user space or special places set aside for "supervised play." "Anything goes" doesn't work. Hopefully, we could get enough more experienced users to assist. Sponsor a kid! Warning: kids can be frustrating! But they are the future. --Abd (talk) 19:41, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

:::May I ask you how you found out what school he went to? Albacore (talk · changes) 19:58, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Why don't you get that Draubb is a sockpuppet(eer)? Please see the behavior of User:Farsif83 here and NewPak2 at English Wikipedia. --Bsadowski1 20:03, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Uh, I know what Draubb is. He's a kid, maybe seven or eight years old, who found that he could create accounts and has no idea of all the implications. When were the last contributions of those "puppets"? The response here is, in fact, a very typical WMF editor response, and is why I strongly encouraged Draubb to stay on Wikiversity and stay in user space. It has been, largely working. The standard approach (RBI) fails to stop the behavior. Treating him with respect has prevented, my guess, a large amount of problem, continued need for review. Overall, more efficient. And a damned lot kinder!

As to the connection with the school, it's obvious. He writes about the school, he's edited IP from the school, etc. This is not some sophisticated sock puppeteer who will use evasive techniques. He's learned to reboot the modem if blocked, and simply starts a new account, and if you don't actually talk to the kid in language he can understand, and with respect, he'll just carry on. He will, as he ages, if we don't change the way we deal with him, indeed, become a more sophisticated sock puppeteer. He's very bright.

I'm worried, at the moment, that his account has been compromised, so it's possible that cross-wiki disruption could appear again. I'm not a custodian at the moment, so there is less I can do. But it's being watched. --Abd (talk) 21:57, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

If you know what school he goes to and what his name is then why don't you just contact the school and ask them to do something about it? Albacore (talk · changes) 13:49, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

What do you expect the school to do? Lock down the computer so none of the kids can get on WMF sites? Abd is trying to encourage this in a controlled environment; not get rid of the kid, but shape the way he uses Wikiversity and other WMF sites. I think the idea is great. Wikipedia in particular, but other wikis too, are being introduced younger and younger as a source of information. The next generation should be taught and encouraged, not discouraged and blocked. They are the future of WMF. PrincessofLlyr ^talk 17:19, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Princess. I still don't know what happened the other day, he's edited today and it's fine. For the first time, he added an approving comment to my speedy deletion tag (which is for a real name in a page name. That, and the rest of his editing, indicates he understands the problem.)

Here is what would happen if I contacted the school: they would shut him down, and possibly they would shut everyone down, because teachers cannot take the time -- they don't have the time -- to supervise the internet usage beyond occasionally glancing at the screen. One WV user, who apparently doesn't like kids being kids, demanded that I tell the user to tell the teacher to come to the computer. I know just where that would have gone.... end of our communication. No, treating the kid with respect and kindness -- and some patience -- seems to be paying off. I can't be sure how it will all end, and he might just disappear one day. But we may be able to work out some procedures. Meanwhile, there seems to be much less disruption, i.e., nonsense pages in mainspace, etc., and, as far as I can tell, this effect has been cross-wiki. There was a checkuser request at meta, by a WV user who was worried that the older accounts were "sleepers" and that cross-wiki disruption would begin -- this was what connected me with Fr33kman -- and I looked for any of the accounts being blocked on any other wiki. None. I found only one fairly old contribution outside of Wikiversity, totally harmless. So, so far, it seems to be working. Providing him with a place to write and create -- and get to know a community -- is keeping him away from "vandalism" and inappropriate page creation. --Abd (talk) 01:00, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Right. I came to the main English Wikipedia when I was like 11. ADHD, ODD, still elementary school age. Now, I am Middle School age, with the same problems, but now I take stronger pills. Sure, I got indeffed on the main wikipedia. I don't care about it. Some people came to my page and said, 'Hey. Come to Simple Wikipedia so that you can continue to help.' So I did. I'm a kid. We all make mistakes. I've made big mistakes I now regret. Working here has allowed me to learn that it's NOT ok to "spam", or vandalize or (I never did this, EVER) harass. I have been wrongly accused of being a sockpuppeteer, when I really only told my brother about it and to come on, and have fun helping out. I admit, I was immature when I joined English Wikipedia. He's being a little bit so as well here. I tried to be just, supporting Samlaptop's unban, because he'd been stuck off of both wikipedias for 2 years. He'd had a chance to become more mature. I am a user on his wiki, because all I wanted to do was check it out (I'm also very inquisitive) and ended up being one of Sam's most trusted. I was mature, I sought to help him. And so I'd like to do the same thing here. Loudclaw (talk) 00:52, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the school could get through to him that he shouldn't be posting private information on the internet. Albacore (talk · changes) 00:59, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Who, me? I'm at home. Besides, I was trying to tell you what I thought, as I am a member of the community, aren't I? Loudclaw (talk) 01:06, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I am a mere child and have gone through a very similar thing, just not the socks. I will watch him. I do tend to get along best with kids younger than me. Loudclaw (talk) 01:23, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I shall move this conversation to Simple Talk. Loudclaw (talk) 01:32, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Moved. Loudclaw (talk) 01:35, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I was indeffed for "suspicious socks" on en.wp. I think we should engage with this user, not block them. I'm still in school , so what? I want to help. He/she probably does too. There's no need to block this user. Highspeedrailguy (talk) 16:49, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Let's just see how this goes. I can't access Wikiversity for some reason. Is it broken or something? --Highspeedrailguy (talk) 16:52, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Someone's ought to help if I can't access Wikiversity. --Highspeedrailguy (talk) 16:53, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

New to Editing

Hi! I got your auto-greet and figured maybe you could help me with a question. I'm trying to create a new redirect for 'subnet' and 'subnetting' to http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol#IPv4_subnetting since nothing's been written yet, and that seems to be the best content about the topic on simple.wikipedia.org (at least until I get around to writing more...). I tried

#REDIRECT[[1]]

but it gave me an error that it matched a blacklist entry: The title "Http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet Protocol#IPv4 subnetting" has been banned from creation. It matches the following blacklist entry: .*(?:http|https|ftp|mailto|torrent|ed2k)\:\/\/[\w:@\-]+\.[\w\-]+.*. What should I do?

PS: It seems that wikipedia iterprets links even when they're in a code block... what should I write to have it display the whole line as typed?

I am not good at technical questions. I would think however that you should not use the full http address in the redirect, just

#REDIRECTInternet_Protocol#IPv4_subnetting

--Peterdownunder (talk) 11:35, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip! The redirects work fine. Loimprevisto (talk) 14:29, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Vince Prudente

Hey, while you're fixing it, could you import an article to EN-WP from here? There isn't an EN-WP article on that guy, and probably should be Purplebackpack89 06:17, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Cathalt‎

Hi, just spotted User:Cathalt‎ page in recent changes, not sure who's looking after that, but the image is of Green Day's drummer, and userpage looks like wiki article... not sure what's going on. Could have posted at Admin notice board, so please tell me to go away if you want :) Deadstar (talk) 11:27, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

This is probably Cathalt experimenting on his/her user page. While it stays in User space there is not really a problem. I will keep an eye on what is going on. --Peterdownunder (talk) 11:31, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Cheers. Deadstar (talk) 12:05, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Adoption

Hi! Are you still available to adopt new users? Would you please consider adopting me? This lousy T-shirt (talk) 19:09, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Please can you consider adopting me too! I would be really grateful if you could, but I know it is a big ask. DJDunsie (talk) 18:51, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Saturn (planet)

I'm making them all of the accessdates/retrievals/etc. to YYYY-MM-DD, not MMM DD, YYYY. --SEPTActaMTA8235 19:11, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok --Peterdownunder (talk) 19:13, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced deletion request

I think that I created a deletion request for Computer microphone in the wrong place - Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2011/Computer microphone. Please could you (or someone) help me sort this out. Thank you, DJDunsie (talk) 09:29, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes you did - it has ended up in the archive somehow. I will see what I can do to get it to the right spot. --Peterdownunder (talk) 11:57, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Peterdownunder. You have new messages at Groton's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Groton (talk) 07:52, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Chad article

Hello Peter :) I was wondering if you could help me fix up the article Chad. The infobox does not really work even though it is the same as the one from en.wiki. Please could you tell me what to do and how to sort it out. Thank you --DJDunsie (talk) 17:47, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry now - others have fixed it up. --DJDunsie (talk) 17:34, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Kangaroo Island

I think this needs a page; it seems to have a good collection of marsupials. Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:32, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

You are indeed right, it is one of the few places that I have not visited yet, very wild and beautiful. Shall start a page this weekend and visit the island in the next 12 months! --Peterdownunder (talk) 22:37, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Book!

This editor is a Master Editor I and has the right to show this Book of Knowledge with Coffee Cup Stain, Cigarette Burn, and Chewed Broken Pencil.

Hey Peter! Looks like you're already displaying your new userbox, but I still wanted to come and present you with your book! Congrats on three years of service! Thanks for all your hard work!--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 11:36, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Congrats Peter! Keep up your great work here. -Barras (talk) 11:38, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Still working on my goal of getting more edits than Barras! --Peterdownunder (talk) 11:50, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Your chances to get me are quite high as I'm sadly very busy in real life and can't be as active as I was about 2 years ago. But I will do my best to leave you behind me ;-) -Barras (talk) 11:56, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

What do you suggest?

Hello Peterdownunder, I am a quite new editor in the Simple wiki, I created this article some days ago, but today I found this, that is much bigger, but has problems of verification (It doesn't have references), it is "abandoned" and it is difficult to understand since the creator copied the article from en.wiki (the version at that time) and simplified it, I personally think mine does not have big problems, it doesn't need a Wikify, it has interwikis from other wikipedias, between other things. But the other one is bigger. What do you suggest??, since I currently don't have time to solve all the problems the other one has. --Lcsrns (Talk) 15:14, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Ps:Sorry for my "not so good" english.

Ps2: Also sorry for coming to you since I don't wikiknow you (well, you gave me the welcome and i saw you in some talks), but is a good excuse to know more users.

That is a really good question. Usually when we find to articles on the same topic we merge them together. This is what I would like to do here as well. As the longer article has a better title; that is drink is simpler than beverage, I will merge your work into it. You do not need to solve all the problems in the longer article in a hurry. I would just do a little bit at a time, other editors will join in too. --Peterdownunder (talk) 21:15, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for you help, in here do you have History merge (or something similar)??, In the spanish we have it, so when articles are merged the history from the article that is not going to stay in the wiki is also merged to the article that will remain. Obviously that this action can only be performed by admin. Than you again for your help.--Lcsrns (Talk) 03:37, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I put a merge into the edit history, but I am not aware of any way to merge the page history. I will put a note on the talk page.--Peterdownunder (talk) 05:13, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Flood flag?

Hello, sorry to bug you, but would you mind giving me the flood flag for some stub sorting? :-) -Avicennasis @ 06:53, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

 Done - don't forget to get it turned off when you are finished. --Peterdownunder (talk) 06:58, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Ahoy Admin, i need help

Ahoy Administrator, I need help with a few wikipedia stuffs. I want to update my User:Page and want to add that i can speak good English, Hindi, Marathi. But how do i do it? I do not know the wiki-code of Hindi and Marathi, can ye help me out with that?

GOT IT!

Can someone look at the mess in Korean Pop Music Scandals :P

I was contributing to this wiki page (Korean Pop Music Scandals) and thought it was a good idea for a page (like NYPD Scandals) but people who apparently have some type of agenda have called for the page to be deleted and in the deletion discussion section they have begun erasing "keep" votes and erasing arguments to keep the page.

It's ridiculous.

Honestly, this has left a bad taste in my mouth about wikipedia. These are wikibullies who are acting immorally. The idea of even looking at that page makes me feel sick now because of all the pettiness I have experienced there.

Can someone please punish the culprits?

Re: QD

Oh, when i saw the article i actually didn't quite understand what the user was trying to say. :S I'll be more careful next time. Greetings!--Jcaraballo (talk) 16:16, 17 June 2011 (UTC)