User talk:Patient Zero

  1. Home
  2. Wiki

Help!

The Signpost
14 May 2025

Archives (Index)

This page is archived by ClueBot III.

No worries

[edit]

With reference to [1]. Its really not a big deal at all. Everyone who does RCP for long enough has made a bad revert, you caught it quick, and it was rather minor to begin with; hope your doing well. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 12:53, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, IP - I appreciate your kind words of reassurance! I'm doing OK; hope you are too? Patient Zerotalk 00:27, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fine, largely inactive these years, but that's life. Just didn't want you to worry, sometimes people make a bad revert and get shaken up, if you do RCP you're here to fix problems, so extending them even for the tiniest bit is never going to feel good I would know I've made the occasional error myself over the years. You did exactly what you're supposed to do when that happens and caught it very quickly so I didn't want you to lose any confidence.
I may be around a bit for a few days, got a couple of LTA cases to work on if I can find the time, including one that involves disruptive changes to ethnicity numbers that looks rather tedious. Nonetheless if you need help with something feel free to leave me a message and I might be able to look it over, we'll see. Be well, 184.152.65.118 (talk) 01:57, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that completely - I've taken long breaks from here in the past due to real-life matters, but always love coming back and helping out where I can, and catching up with all that has changed. I really do appreciate you popping onto my talk page and saying that - it's all too easy to overthink these things, and get caught up worrying about them to an unhealthy extent. Everybody makes the odd mistake from time to time, we're all human here (or bots operated by humans) and that's worth remembering! Thank you - I'd like to reciprocate that offer; I'd be more than happy to help out with LTA-related matters if needs be? Patient Zerotalk 02:06, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well just typing it up might take a while, but I'll see what I can do, just remember you volunteered. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 02:09, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's alright! Drop me a line again if you need anything. Once again, more than happy to assist - I've dealt with LTA cases in the past, so know what I might be in for...! Take care, Patient Zerotalk 02:11, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Alright then, first up there's our ethnicities vandal. Only noticed them recently, but they've been at it for a while. Edits mostly consist of inserting incorrect or dated demographic information with missing or misleading edit summaries, sometimes accusing the people that revert them of vandalism [2] [3] [4]. But the best way to get familiar is to look over their edit history.

I think I've reverted most of it, but the histories should probably be double checked hence the tedium followed by some range sweeps to see if it spread to additional pages.

Next up we have BMN123 who was back for another round of disruption a few times this last month. The LTA page has many of the details though the larger context is best understood by reviewing the investigations [5] [6] [7]. In some ways it's a fairly easy case to deal with, most of their targets are predictable and listed on their LTA page. They often use edit-summaries with an LTA sniff, and mostly use proxies every so often a sock account or public IP from the St. Louis area will be used, more rarely non-public ones like 155.186.0.17 but that's very much the exception so edits tend to be easily spotted once you check the SYNTHy stuff they spam where they try to say Gagarin wasn't the first in space or Shephard's flight was much more important went under the radar for a while and managed to take up more time then if it'd been caught early but at least a clear consensus against them was created. Given proxy use its also likely that most of the VOAs they create for run-of-the-mill vandalism will not be linked back to the master, but they're still easily dealt with. For some page history examples see [8], [9] [10].

However they also like to post harassment of editors including to mainspace, which is often in random places. Sometimes it gets caught quickly [11], but you also have cases like 74.3.163.33 where mainspace harassment lasted for a while before removal and revdel [12]. There's actually some rather old stuff I caught just recently that I need to review for revdel eligibility. For obvious reasons I prefer not to discuss the specifics of any harassment in public. The most effective strategy to start helping out is to simply watchlist the pages that are commonly targeted for minor disruption like the ones linked above, which function as a honeynet of sorts since the contribution history of the proxies used can sometimes be followed to find and revert more problematic edits on other pages. For this reason its best to avoid requesting protection of pages outside of mainspace unless the rate gets really high or the nature of disruption shifts to something more significant though the sockmaster's user talk page was briefly protected without issue so there is no need to be rigid about it. Fair warning, among their innocuous edits is some truly nasty stuff.

Finally there's GRP/Projects. I almost hesitate to mention this one. Partly because its abuse only, and describing the nature of abuse tends to perpetuate it. Partly because he will harass you directly if you revert him enough and it does not take much. For better and for worse activity often occurs on obscure talk pages for mainspace often, but far from always. These histories are typical. Often it appears in sprees but with rapidly switching proxies. If you do see it and want get involved, review of the filter log and carefully crafted search queries can sometimes turn up more. Not one for the faint of heart. When active, Antandrus is usually the best sysop to contact for revdel requests.

I don't expect to have much time for Wikipedia for the next few weeks, and probably shouldn't be looking at it at all to avoid the temptation. Thus I probably can't help much and I wouldn't blame you for staying away from this stuff even if I could, nonetheless there it is if you want to look it over. Regardless of whether or not you do, I'm glad for your help. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 04:59, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for the detailed, comprehensive reply! Yes, more than happy to help out. :) The one I'm most familiar with here is GRP, despite the fact I've not actually reverted him before. Do you have a preference for any particular method of private correspondence, should you wish to discuss any further details? I'm not sure if you'll have the option to email me on the left-hand side pop up as an IP editor, but I also don't wish to post my email address publicly, as I know vandals like to come here to have, erm... "polite words"... with me sometimes. If you're on Discord, I'm on there as patientzerowiki. Once again, really appreciate you taking the time to explain these cases in detail. Patient Zerotalk 01:03, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

MarnetteD

[edit]

Thank you for mentioning MarnetteD under Decesased Wikipedians, however, the link should go to a section in memory, not the user page, - compare others. I know too little to write that, - could you? -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:11, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, my apologies Gerda. I wish I could assist with that although I feel others knew him far better than I did and so wouldn't want to overstep. Appreciate you reaching out, though, and hope all is well :) Patient Zerotalk 00:39, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Articles for Creation backlog drive

[edit]

Hello Patient Zero:

WikiProject Articles for creation is holding a month long Backlog Drive in June!
The goal of this drive is to reduce the backlog of unreviewed drafts to less than 1 month of outstanding reviews from the current 3+ months. Bonus points will be given for reviewing drafts that have been waiting more than 30 days. The drive is running from 1 June 2025 through 30 June 2025.

You may find Category:AfC pending submissions by age or other categories and sorting helpful.

Barnstars will be given out as awards at the end of the drive.
There is a backlog of over 3200 pages, so start reviewing drafts. We're looking forward to your help! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:25, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Possible error?

[edit]

The revert here and subsequent warning here appear to have possibly been done in error, those edits look good to me. Am I missing something? fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 21:36, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, sorry. I've made a mistake - have now deleted the warning. Thanks for calling this to my attention Fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four! Patient Zerotalk 21:37, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

[edit]
The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
Keep doing what you do! Myrealnamm (💬Let's talk · 📜My work) 21:41, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much, Myrealnamm! I really appreciate it. :) Patient Zerotalk 21:43, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

May thanks

[edit]
story · music · places

Thank you for improving article quality in May. One of mine was Jadwiga Rappé. -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:23, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Event coordinator granted

[edit]

After reviewing your request for the "eventcoordinator" permission, I have enabled the flag on your account. Keep in mind these things:

  • The event coordinator right removes the limit on the maximum number of new accounts that can be created in a 24-hour period.
  • The event coordinator right allows you to temporarily add the "confirmed" permission to newly created accounts. You should not grant this for more than 10 days.
  • The event coordinator right is not a status symbol. If it remains unused, it is likely to be removed. Abuse of the event coordinator right will result in its removal by an administrator.

If you no longer require the right, let me know, or ask any other administrator. Drop a note on my talk page if you run into troubles or have any questions about appropriate/inappropriate use of the event coordinator right. Happy editing! * Pppery * it has begun... 19:05, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I echo my words at WP:PERM here, but thank you Pppery - much appreciated :) Patient Zerotalk 00:32, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]