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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Administrator Questions

I am interested in becoming an administrator, I recreated the wiki for a game called http://www.fire911.net after the wiki crashed due to spam, the wiki is http://wiki.fire911.net I am still working on it, and don't have permissions to delete users, as well as images, pages, and the what not. I would also be interested in helping you out with the music list, as I am a musician. Any help or advice would be greatly needed. Here is my user page http://wiki.fire911.net/wiki/User:Twp1980 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Twp1980 (talk • contribs) 05:00, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) You'll have to contact that wiki's bureaucrat (Sebastian) for adminship on that wiki. It should be noted, however, that MediaWiki does not have support for completely deleting a user. If you have questions about the software itself, feel free to ask at mw:Project:Support desk.--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:30, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. If you're interested in becoming a Wikipedia administrator, it generally takes a few thousand edits before people will give you serious consideration. You may want to read WP:Administrators to get an idea for what the "job requirements" are. 28bytes (talk) 05:32, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Accounts

Hi, I appear to have a misunderstanding as to how something works. According to WP:CHU:

Once you have been renamed, your old account name will no longer exist and could be recreated by a third party. To guard against impersonation, you may wish to recreate the old account yourself and make redirects.

To me, that sounds like the old account is deleted, and yet I thought accounts could not be deleted. What am I missing? Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:56, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Think of it this way: if you rename a file on your computer, you haven't deleted it, even though there will be no file with the old file name. 28bytes (talk) 02:28, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

If that analogy holds, then unless the old account is recreated, once it is renamed, the old account would not be "findable" on Wikipedia. If that's true, what happens if the old accounts is recreated, either by the same person or by a new person? Is the previous history of the old account available? I'd actually like to know how this works, but my questions also relate to something that happened yesterday, which I'm now trying to better understand. I'm particularly interested in whether my administrative actions were justified.

Start with this rename that you did at the user's request. As for yesterday, look at this SPI. I was aware of the rename when I blocked the two accounts, but I was not aware of how the rename worked technically. If I understand what happened in September 2012, the account MarcosPassos did not exist on the English wikipedia until you renamed Soulflytribe to it. Right after the rename, the old account Soulflytribe ceased to be attached to anyone. Because Soulflytribe was apparently recreated on September 13, 2012, and because I can't see any history of the account before then, I'm assuming that the pre-rename history is unavailable, at least to me. Now, Marcos admits to both accounts, so it's a fairly safe assumption that he recreated the account.

If you can, please confirm all my technical conclusions above regarding the history and how it works. Feel free to add anything if you think there's something I'm missing. As for my blocks, you can comment on those if you wish, but I don't expect you to do that extra work. I'll be in a better position to review my own blocks once I'm clearer as to how this works generally and how it unfolded in this specific instance. Thanks for bearing with me.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:09, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

When I was renamed in 2008, I didn't use my "old" account for years. When I became an admin in 2012, I asked a Crat about capturing the old name. He told me to just log in and use it which I did. I didn't have to "recreate it". User:Pharmboy Dennis Brown / 2¢ / © / @ 15:19, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

I referred to your comment, Dennis, at Marcos's talk page, and drew some tentative conclusions from it. If my conclusions are correct, we should probably change WP:CHU to clarify that "recreation" just requires using the account again by the original account holder.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:30, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Matt is the crat that told me this a year ago. I'm not sure if the age of my account is the issue, or if the instructions are just incorrect, but he would know. Dennis Brown / 2¢ / © / @ 15:57, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Bbb23, everything you say matches my understanding of the sequence of events. The pre-September 12 contributions of the Soulflytribe account would have been reattributed to MarcosPassos; everything in MarcosPassos's contribution history prior to the rename was done using the Soulflytribe account; no contributions were lost, as far as I can tell. Hope that helps. 28bytes (talk) 16:13, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it does help, and your last point about the older contributions is one more piece of the puzzle for me. As for my and Dennis's comments about WP:CHU, perhaps I should bring up the possibility of changing CHU on its talk page so "recreation" is clearer. I can alert Matthew to the discussion in case he wants to contribute.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:22, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Let me add: it is indeed possible that the user used both accounts accidentally and innocently; User talk:Soulflytribe has redirected to User talk:MarcosPassos since the day I renamed the account, so anyone going to the former's talk page would immediately learn the accounts were connected. When a rename detaches an account from its SUL (as this rename did), a quirk of the MediaWiki software will indeed cause the old account to be recreated if the user happens to be logged into another project (for example, Commons) with the old account then happens to go to an English Wikipedia page. I'd say most of the blame for this confusion can be laid at the feet of the software, not the user. (Going forward, this quirk won't be an issue since the WMF folks are preventing SUL detachment by moving the rename function from local bureaucrats to the stewards on meta. WP:CHU is going away entirely within a few months.) If it were me, I'd keep the old account blocked to help him avoid accidentally using it and unblock the new account since his explanation seems in line with the way the software works. 28bytes (talk) 16:24, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

I've taken your advice and unblocked Marcos. I'm not wholly convinced as to the user's motives (call me cynical), but the evidence is no longer stronger enough for me to justify leaving them blocked, and I'd rather "err" on the side of good faith.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:43, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. 28bytes (talk) 16:50, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Admin's Barnstar
	I generally see you making sound contributions and I admire your level-headedness and leniency. I noticed the section above and think it typifies both qualities but this is just an example; the award is in recognition of a long pattern of good judgement. John (talk) 23:10, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Support, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:52, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much, John, that is very kind of you to say. 28bytes (talk) 14:47, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome, and thanks again for being such a good example to the rest of us. --John (talk) 18:08, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Follow on question

Hello 28bytes. Prior to my recent username change I asked "does the rename affect deleted contributions as well?" It appears that your answer, "Yes, renames apply to deleted contributions as well."—is not reflected according to these totals. I am hoping some additional step can be taken to marry the deleted contributions to the newly named account. :) John Cline (talk) 05:59, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

There appears to be a bug in that edit counter... it's showing 0 deleted edits for me too, and I have tons of them (and have not renamed my account.) I can see your deleted contributions just fine here, although unfortunately that link is admin-only. If you'd like a list of your deleted contributions, I can paste that into a subpage for you. 28bytes (talk) 06:08, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for that reply. I would appreciate the list you mentioned, pasted to User:John Cline/Deleted contributions—thank you for the offer. My concern is two fold, firstly I feel that deleted contributions paint an important part of one's Wikipedia involvement, especially when they may represent a significant amount of properly tagged CSD articles—secondly, I wouldn't want anyone to infer I had elected a technique to deliberately hide deleted contributions as a attempt to circumvent transparency. I will contact the tool's developer to request this bug be fixed. Thank you again, for all of your assistance in this matter. :) John Cline (talk) 20:15, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

 Done. Glad to help. 28bytes (talk) 20:33, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello 28bytes, I was hoping perhaps you could help with another issue. I am an authorized AWB user under my former account; will you verify this fact and then add my new username to the list? Thank you for giving this the courtesy of your attention. :) John Cline (talk) 07:25, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

 Done. 28bytes (talk) 13:48, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, 28bytes. Please check your email; you've got mail! The subject is IRC.
Message added 06:10, 17 June 2013 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

In case you didn't get my reply. Feel free to ask me or some other IRC user if you need more help. Jasper Deng (talk) 06:10, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Jasper. I will give it a try once I have a block of free time to dedicate to it. 28bytes (talk) 20:46, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Admin's Barnstar
	You got in with the unblock just as I was trying to make up my mind whether to do it myself of not (since I'm offline in ten minutes, I wouldn't be available to deal with any fallout). Thanks for doing the necessary, and saving me the hand-wringing! Yunshui 雲‍水 13:50, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. 28bytes (talk) 13:52, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
	Great job locating and removing the malware from Marquette, Michigan. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:14, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Rklawton deserves the credit for bringing it to my attention at AN/I. 28bytes (talk) 15:29, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Yogurt

Hi 28bytes. You may remember closing a RM discussion on yogurt. You may have a comment to make at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Yogurt Rule. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:31, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. 28bytes (talk) 15:15, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Largeness

I was wondering perhaps what page would describe to me how large a company needs to be (by whatever standards) to be large enough to have an article here on Wikipedia.Superdadsuper (talk) 23:55, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) may be of help. 28bytes (talk) 00:26, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Ideas

Hi 28. Based on some recent discussions, I have quickly drafted this. It is in no way definitive, but the effort is to keep it very simple and on track. If you have time, you are welcome to develop this further on its talk page or tweak the draft until such times if and when a collaborative effort can be moved to RfC space. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:45, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up, Kudpung. It looks like an interesting proposal; speaking as a 'crat, if the community thinks this is a role the bureaucrats would be well suited to fulfill, I'm sure many of the active 'crats would be happy to participate. 28bytes (talk) 16:58, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Name change

Hello! I hope you're okay. I need your help for changing my name. Could you change it in Στέλιος Τ. (please copy it from here)? Stellakis (talk) 20:48, 3 July 2013 (UTC)