The Sims Wiki talk:Admin Portal/resolved discussions 2012

Users KnucklesTheSim and RandomWikiaUser1680
Discussion moved from Talk:Community Portal

claims to be under a new name. However, KnucklesTheSim is not blocked, was never blocked, and on one occasion (http://sims.wikia.com/index.php?title=Lyla_Grunt&diff=prev&oldid=284693 ) actually removed profanity from an article. IMO, this is notable because RandomWikiaUser1680 is currently blocked for vandalism and profanity. I am not 100% certain that the two users are in fact the same person. Anybody else have any ideas? Dharden (talk) 13:50, December 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't doubt that KnucklesTheSim, way back in August changed their name to RandomWikiaUser... but based on KTS' good behavior, I would definitely lean towards thinking that their account was somehow hacked, or perhaps some sibling got a hold of their account. It just doesn't fit their previous behavior at all. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 13:55, December 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * Good point. Dharden (talk) 14:03, December 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd go with the hacking/sibling hijacking theory, given that Knuckles apparently redirected his userpage to that of RWU1680 back in August. According to Special:Listusers, Knuckles apparently logged in on the 18th of December. A checkuser may or may not be redundant as I know that logs are only kept for 3 months but I'm unsure of whether it logs IP addresses based on login data or edits. I do remember a case in the past where a user from Russia constantly vandalised Knuckles' fanon articles and made poor quality fanon articles with similar names. Here, Knuckles reveals that he lives in the UK. Granted that a CU would be pretty useless if RWU1680 is in the UK too (being a friend or sibling), I'm not sure what to do in this case. 20:02, December 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * Something worth mentioning, I think, is that KnucklesTheSim is currently unblocked. It might be possible that whoever is hijacking RWU1680 is unaware of that account, so maybe if RWU is blocked, the legitimate user will go back to using KnucklesTheSim, although that transition would, I suppose, technically be considered ban evasion and a sock puppet account. But if the idea is that RWU has been compromised, the admins could choose to let it happen, assuming the legitimate user was still aware of the old account. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 21:14, December 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks like this edit was made by someone in relation to RWU1680. whatismyipaddress.com shows it as a "Suspected network sharing device" with the hostname of "hosted-by.ecatel.net". By the looks of things, this could possibly be a proxy server (given what looks to be a vhost) although I could be wrong. 00:40, January 1, 2012 (UTC)
 * I have contacted KnucklesTheSim and I'm waiting for a response. For the issue above, I think 93.174.93.145 should be RWU1680 themselves. I have blocked the IP for a week and extended RWUO1680's block as well to the same amount. Perhaps we should request a CU? 00:45, January 1, 2012 (UTC)
 * Sent in a request. 00:57, January 1, 2012 (UTC)
 * According to the checkuser, neither have used 93.174.93.145 yet both accounts are using the same email address. Whether or not the address is being shared by a whole family or something like that is beyond me but I still doubt that Knuckles is actually socking. I guess all we can do now is wait for Knuckles to respond to Andronikos. 19:13, January 1, 2012 (UTC)
 * Since both accounts use the same email address, it's at least plausible that Knuckles intended to change usernames and that the RWU1680 account was either hacked or hijacked. Regardeless, it does appear to be compromised, and we may need to consider a long-term, or even permanent, block. It also may be advisable to try to contact Knuckles by email, as they may have forgotten about that account. Dharden (talk) 20:19, January 1, 2012 (UTC)
 * I have emailed KnucklesTheSim per Dharden's suggestion and expecting a reply on either the talk page or my inbox. 20:48, January 1, 2012 (UTC)
 * Based on a suggestion LiR made via IRC, I've blocked the two accounts indefinitely (but allowed them to edit their talkpages and email administrators) until this situation can be solved. That way, whoever is compromising the account(s) won't be able to continue. 21:13, January 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * I had some problems with the editor and I was unable to keep this up to date. I apologize for that. Anyway, I received reply from KnucklesTheSim and he stated that he indeed was RandomWikiaUser, and then spammed with random keystrokes :(. Anyway, I believe mailing wasn't a good idea as an option, as it was confirmed they share the same email, so I'm rather unsure of what we should do next. 15:42, January 12, 2012 (UTC)
 * I think its better to wait KnucklesTheSim reply on his talkpage to confirm this. because so far he not reply yet on his talk page yet. they share the same email right? so it is possible the email is hijacked too.
 * But if the account is not hijacked and both used by same person (1 for pure editing and 1 for pure vandalizing) like what andronikos receive from KnucklesTheSim email. a sockpuppetry + vandalism will result permanent block for the both account, but based the person still have good contribution I think 1-3 month block + final warning is better for KnucklesTheSim than permanent. but RandomWikiaUser must be blocked permanently. Wiryawan310 01:46, January 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * I feel that we should try and come to a conclusion about this. I'm still under the impression that RWU has hijacked KTS' account, without KTS knowing meaning that RWU could do what he wants with both accounts without the real owner of KTS ever knowing or that RWU and KTS are possible friends/family IRL and KTS may have left his login details somewhere that it can be easily found (like a Word document or something) and RWU has used this and possibly changed some information related to KTS' account (such as the password and email) preventing him from accessing the account. It may also have been possible that RWU used the suspected proxy server to "cover his tracks" and hide the apparent British IP address being used by KTS/RWU or to cover up what could be a legitimate IP address in a different location by using a proxy server that could be utilised by anyone or it could be possible that the proxy is neither user in question (CheckUser only links accounts to IP addresses if an edit has been made while logged into an account while using that IP) and is just a hit-and-run vandal.


 * There may be more situations that could be the case for this but I don't want to put emphasis on this being a bad faith case when we don't know the truth behind this. I'm thinking of leaving the RandomWikiaUser block at permanent (seeing as someone on that email admitted to being him) while I'm currently undecided on what to do about KnucklesTheSim (though I'm leaning towards keeping it at a permanent block just to be safe), though I'm open to suggestions from other administrators. 22:58, February 2, 2012 (UTC)
 * I suggest leaving both accounts permanently blocked. We've made an honest attempt to contact the rightful owner of the account (assuming that this really is a hijacking case, which we simply don't know for sure) and we've seen that this user either is really the owner and has just decided to start editing in bad faith, or has been compromised. In either case, we don't want that user having access to the wiki, which means that, failing any evidence that the rightful owner is still around, the best choice is to simply block both indefinitely, perhaps with an apology on the talk page addressed to the 'rightful owner', assuming they ever gain control of the account. The apology could be something explaining the situation, maybe saying 'We have attempted to determine if this account has been compromised, and have tried to act as if the owner of this account is still interested in returning to good standing. However this has not been demonstrated, so unfortunately we have decided to indefinitely block this and its associated account.' --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 23:10, February 2, 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with LiR. They haven't even argued about their rights to be unblocked, which is kind suspicious. The chance they will be back and notice they can't edit or realize what has happened is small, and we don't want any risk of further action from RWU/KTS.  Nikel  Talk  08:31, February 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * What everyone else said.
 * I've modified the block accordingly. I guess we can (finally) call this as resolved. 20:25, February 5, 2012 (UTC)

User:Cadenm11
has make many nonconstructive edit to the wiki starting by create many page and category that doesn't warrant its own page + nonsense, creating page that too minim with info and left it alone so I delete it, and the last one inserting nonsense and garbage into article.

I currently blocked that user for 3 days for vandalizing the sims 2 and the sim 2 pets page and since that user only have 16 edits and all of them is nonconstructive edit, I want to give that user a final warning. but before I do that, I want to hear opinion from another admin here. Wiryawan310 18:16, January 15, 2012 (UTC)
 * This may not be my place, but I have to disagree, both with a final warning and the block this user currently has. I've looked through his edits and, though he did vandalize The Sims 2: Pets, it in my opinion wasn't severe enough to warrant a 3-day block, especially since none of his other edits appear to be made in bad faith. I would guess that this user is simply unfamiliar with some of our policies, and perhaps should receive a warning (using the template warning, not a final warning or anything of that sort) instead of the block they currently have. Again, this is just my opinion after looking into it a bit. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 18:58, January 15, 2012 (UTC)
 * @LiR - They have also deleted contributions, which can only be viewed by admins. I'm guessing Wir thought about that as well when he made the block. As for my opinion, I agree with the block.
 * If it weren't for the deleted edits, I'd be inclined to disagree with the block. Considering them, I do agree with it. However, I am willing to consider the possibility that Cadenm11 means well, or at least does not mean ill, so I'd say to hold off on the final warning. Dharden (talk) 23:47, January 15, 2012 (UTC)
 * Assuming he here for a good faith and that user is unfamiliar with rules on this wiki as LiR suggestion. I think we can wait after the block over and if that user creating a same nonconstructive edit or vandalism again the final warning can be issued. Wiryawan310 01:42, January 16, 2012 (UTC)
 * At first I thought he was one of the spammers above, but it's unlikely. He's not spamming after all. I wonder why he persistently did such things...  Nikel  Talk  08:01, January 17, 2012 (UTC)

Just after my block end, he has been blocked again for 1 week by nikel for another nonsense and vandalism. since that user seems doesn't have any good faith to this wiki, I will give him a final warning so another block will be result permanent block. Wiryawan310 14:10, January 24, 2012 (UTC)
 * I forgot that we had a talk about this user. I agree with the final warning. The chance for him to introspect is little, but I'll just see what he'll do.  Nikel  Talk  15:12, January 24, 2012 (UTC)
 * He came back and vandalized Wir's userpage. Since he had been given a final warning, I gave him a permanent block. Dharden (talk) 04:18, February 1, 2012 (UTC)
 * Although this issue has been resolved, there's something that came to my mind. Recently, this user, Cadenm11 has been renamed to TheCadenm11. Though this change isn't significant or has a major impact, I'm wondering who could have possibly renamed this permanently-blocked vandal.  Nikel  Talk  14:27, February 14, 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmmm.... the history for the redirect shows that it was automatically done by Wikia while renaming Cadenm11 to TheCadenm11. Presumably, this user is still active and unblocked elsewhere on Wikia, and renamed their account. However, they are still permanently blocked here. Dharden (talk) 16:16, February 14, 2012 (UTC)

Cross wiki attack
We know that creating many page about glitch and most of them is deleted because it doesnt warrant its own page. He decide to a new wiki thesimsglitcheswiki to write his glitch article there.

When I visited his wiki, I dissapointed because found something not good there, he make inappropriate edit attacking our wiki twice and personally attack Woganhemlock there.

Can we do something about it? Wiryawan310 07:16, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmph. It seemed like he has a personal disliking toward Wogan... And I thought he wasn't a really bad person. :-/ I don't know if we can do something to him, because what he did was out of this wiki. Perhaps we can find a better solution for this without harm... I'll see what others think.  Nikel  Talk  12:14, January 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * The last cross wiki attack is User:Sforster123 to GG and the result is that user is permanently blocked from this wiki because of the unacceptable behavior. In this case can we do the same thing to WinMacSims3? because on his wiki he directly pointed Woganhemlock even give his userlink here, and that is unacceptable! Wiryawan310 12:43, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * Though user harassment is serious, WMS3, although I admittedly disliked him, has done numerous contributions on this wiki that can't just be forgotten. Though he has created many articles not warranting their own page, he has contributed a lot as well. Facing this matter with maturity, I believe we should just give him a friendly warning on his wiki and try to resolve the matter with no harm done. Agreed with Nikel per everything else, but I want to see what the ombudsman thinks. 14:48, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * Overall, I think he means well, and he has made many good contributions here. However, a large part of his motivation in this matter appears to be personal pique. Therefore, I think that any delete nominations he makes should be considered suspect, and that something having been imported to his wiki should not be considered reason to remove it from this wiki. Dharden (talk) 15:15, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * Given that WMS3 has made constructive contributions here (unlike Sforster123 who pretty much trolled his way to a block), I don't think a permanent block is warranted. However, I do feel that someone should give him a warning regarding the cross-wiki attacks, particularly those against WH. 21:47, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, let's hold off and let's all take a deep breath here. If Wogan did indeed delete the pages WMS is referring to, then WMS is telling the truth in that statement... which means it's not really an attack - to me, an attack would be if WMS said something that was untrue, or said something in an overly accusatory manner. Rather than warning WMS that he shouldn't make cross-wiki attacks, I think it would be better to ask that, in the future, he not make direct comments about other users. Aside from that, I think all of us need to take a step back from this situation for a bit and cool off. The worst that WMS can do is attack this wiki, and if he does, we can just report it to Wikia. There's no need for us to take any sort of action at the moment, as I don't see that he's done anything to provoke it. Blocking him now would show that we're reactionary, irrational and insecure, and that we would rather kick someone out then try to work with them thoughtfully. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 22:58, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with LiR. An asking is a more friendly solution than a warning. All the glitches he wrote about are what caused this. I don't really think that's really wrong, but I don't think it's right either. Maybe he could write one on his blog or under Tutorial: namespace?  Nikel  Talk  23:22, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the reason WH delete the glitch article is because the author, WinMacSims3 is requested himself. I will talk with WinMacSims3 about this issue on his wiki. Wiryawan310 02:13, January 24, 2012 (UTC)

Adam Sandler anons.
As some of you may have noticed, 20+ (at the time of writing) IP addresses have been blocked for spam. The majority of them have been inserting "Adam Sandler" into their edits in one form or another. Most of these have been identified as proxies based on their IP data and the fact that so many different IPs across different ranges and locations have been used.

Basically, this post is to say that if any administrators see anyone engaging in the Adam Sandler spam, they should block immediately and users should try and report any Sandler-spam edits to an admin. They've said through several IPs that they're "low on proxies" yet they've come back with more so I'm unsure how long these attacks will last. 01:33, January 30, 2012 (UTC)


 * Have used Special:Contact to notify Wikia about this. Dharden (talk) 02:19, January 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * I just hope they can do something to stop this. WH told me on IRC that he tried to blacklist "Adam Sandler" as a term. From the looks of it, he wasn't able to but I'm guessing that it'll be added to the blacklist for this wiki or something. 02:24, January 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * It turns out that we don't have the extension to blacklist things, and wikia only grants it in extreme cases and on large wikis (15k+ pages). In the meantime wait for the S:C reply and protect all the pages they make from creation. I have to head off for a few hours so don't expect a response from me until ~ 7:00 UTC. That said we might be able to get the extension (its called Abuse filter IIRC) but it is very complicated, and is probably more trouble than it is worth.
 * I'm presently on #wikia-vstf trying to get some help... Looking at recent changes, it looks like it has stopped, at least for now, unless I'm missing something. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 02:48, January 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * Update After talking to the VSTF on their IRC, they've temporarily blocked editing by unregistered contributors. Hopefully that will deter that spammer, though it also means that in the meantime, no anons will be able to edit. I'll be announcing it shortly in Community Corner. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 02:55, January 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * If they disabled unregistered contributors to edit, we can't tell if the spam have ceased. I suppose it will be a temporary timeout for the spammer.  Nikel  Talk  06:57, January 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the idea is similar to when we block anon users... VSTF knows that the user can just wait out the block, but are probably hoping that they get bored beforehand and just give up. If not, we'll have to go back to VSTF and look for a more permanent solution. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 07:00, January 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * yes, the block is not a solution. I believe VSTF will find a solution for this spam like adding a chapta for anon user if want to edit, etc. note: no, I missed the blocking party by wh and gg... lol Wiryawan310 07:31, January 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * Just a note - all admins who are opped on the IRC channel have been sent a message regarding this, so be sure to sign in and read it :)
 * I'm not sure that adding a captcha would do anything other than slow the vandal down. That and I'd imagine that sort of thing would have to be added to MediaWiki, which isn't something VSTF can do. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 07:36, January 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * I can imagine that Wikia Staff would possibly do the same thing as VSTF in this case. I doubt we'll get the AbuseFilter due to our wiki being considered as one of the smaller ones. If anyone catches the spam once the temporary site-wide protection ends or when the IP blocks are over, they should alert VSTF ASAP. 08:44, January 30, 2012 (UTC)

poop vandalism
Guys, I notice that someone has vandalize this wiki with same pattern, the vandal write "poop" on the article. I suspect the vandal using proxies because I see this and this have different ip and if I dont wrong, I remember there is more vandalism with "poop" but I cant find it... how we can deal with it? Wiryawan310 02:41, February 5, 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, no. Not again. You mean like the Adam Sandler spammer and many other proxy spammers again?  Nikel  Talk  03:02, February 5, 2012 (UTC)
 * If I'm correct, you find this pattern of vandalism too and give a warning right? Wiryawan310 03:05, February 5, 2012 (UTC)
 * It seems much more limited than before. I say we just wait and see. Proxy attacks like we experienced before are very rare, so I'm more likely to believe that the incidents are unrelated. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 03:18, February 5, 2012 (UTC)
 * The first IP is on BellSouth.net, which are a common ISP in the US while the second one, despite not being read as a proxy, is on "Speed of Light Broadband". I've never heard of them either but they could just be a smaller ISP. As for the vandalism pattern, "poop" is a pretty common term used across multiple wikis for vandalism so I'm guessing these guys are unrelated, also considering that the first instance was on a Player Stories page while the second was in the Mainspace. 10:46, February 5, 2012 (UTC)

Tempblock redux
So, I don't really like Tempblock - the way that the header line (you have been temporarily blocked for 'reason') is worded makes it really hard to give a block reason that sounds intelligent. I think the template is too inflexible as far as including additional information, such as links to the offending edits(s) that led to the block, or a link to the relevant violated policies. I think the expiration parameter in the current template is needless, since we already have a duration parameter.

With all this in mind, I've set about redoing the tempblock template. May I now present.... *drumroll*... Tempblock 2.0


 * Proposed template with All Available Parameters


 * Proposed template with Only Required Parameters

The parameters in the new template are:
 * Parameters
 * - The reason for the block being issued; Required
 * - How long the block lasts; Required
 * - The name of the issuing administrator (not their signature - admins should 'sign' with three tildes instead of four); Required
 * - The time and date that the block expires - if provided, a Countdown to the block expiration will be placed down; Optional
 * - Links to a specific policy page (i.e. The Sims Wiki:Policy/ ) - useful if the behavior violates a specific policy; Optional
 * - A designated space to provide links to page history/edit 'diff' of the offending edit(s) so the user knows what specific things they've been blocked for; Optional
 * - A space for listing any additional information that doesn't go anywhere else, for instance whether a user is or is not allowed to edit their talk page, etc.; Optional

If you want to see the code for the template shown above, visit my test page. What do you all think? --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 03:42, March 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * I like how it has more flexibility than the old one and is an improvement. Nice work.
 * I want the additional info to be a little more emphasized, if possible, because usually we add it separated from the template.  Nikel  Talk  04:13, March 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * I think we go a bit overboard with emphasis in our tempblock and warning templates, because emphasis in a template usually means bold text. When half the text in a template is bold, it starts to lose the ability to grab a person's attention, which really was the whole purpose of bolding it in the first place. So, do you have some other idea for emphasizing that information. I myself think it's just fine as I've made it. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 04:20, March 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking about placing the additional info under a horizontal line between the Link to Relevant Policy and "You have ignored a warning" message without bold text, though it might take up some more space...  Nikel  Talk  04:56, March 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * If you do that, use an if# so that the line doesn't display if the parameter isn't filled. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 05:17, March 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it looks amazing. I blocked my first vandal yesterday after they evaded a ban and vandalised GG's userpage and I thought that the template was a bit... Messy. Good work, LiR. 07:26, March 15, 2012 (UTC)

I went ahead and threw these changes into Tempblock. Feel free to go to that template and fiddle around with it to make it better. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 22:34, March 15, 2012 (UTC)

User:4nders
According this and this edit, I see has no interest to change his behavior on this wiki after the block and its look like he is here only to troll. I recommend we give him permanent block because his unacceptable behavior and profanity that we can see from his userpage. Wiryawan310 15:06, March 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed, this user is proud of their behavior, so I don't see any potential for reform. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 15:14, March 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm looking at this again, and I think we should give him one more chance. All he has done since his block ended is brag about being blocked which, while certainly not constructive, isn't against any rules. I say until he starts swearing again or doing things he's not supposed to do, we just ignore him. But if he does any of that stuff, then I say infinite block. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 15:28, March 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * I can't see much hope for this guy either but I also think we should hold back on a permanent block until he crosses that line once more. 19:15, March 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm tempted to just hand out a perma-ban right here and now, but anything he can do can easily be reverted, so I suppose giving one more chance couldn't hurt too much either.
 * So, the conclusion is we will give 1 last chance to this user. Another bad thing and he gone forever from this wiki. Wiryawan310 10:47, March 29, 2012 (UTC)

User:Yara124
has done absolutely nothing constructive for the wiki. Her disruptive edits include claiming she knows another user which that user later denied, changing the correct spelling of words like "Jock" to something that's incorrect and claiming it's a fix, making unnecessary format modifications and most recently today, blanked and vandalised a page. I have tried to help her in the past whilst assuming her edits were made in good faith but now it seems unlikely that her behavior is going to change and I feel this user should be permanently blocked, but of course not without the opinions of other administrators. 15:24, April 4, 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm sure that user here is only to vandalize. the last edit of that user is blanking a page clearly show that. I agree for permanent block. Wiryawan310 15:27, April 4, 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed. She didn't just blank the page for Showtime, she claimed the Pack didn't exist. Given the rest of her history, I take that as an indication that she is deliberately acting in bad faith. I issued a 1-day block in accordance with The Sims Wiki:Policy/General Policies, but agree with giving her the boot. Dharden (talk) 15:52, April 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * And booted, she is. Her lack of willingness to turn her behavior around does nothing but strengthen the justification of her permanent block. 17:05, April 4, 2012 (UTC)

84.235.57.173
I've given a one-day block -- see the deleted contributions for why. I'm hoping whoever it is will get bored and Go Away. Dharden (talk) 12:44, April 6, 2012 (UTC)
 * What a life this guy leads. :| But yeah, we should just hope they'll get bored of waiting out the block and not bother at all. 13:09, April 6, 2012 (UTC)
 * Seems this guy came back and did the same thing. I've given a 3 day block...for now and create protected the main fake stuff pack article, seeing as that's the catalyst in all of this guy's deleted contributions and edits to Katy Perry. 18:53, April 10, 2012 (UTC)
 * I protected Katy Perry page for 2 weeks to prevent her freak/obsessed fan doing something weird again. The page is about a real life 5 star celebrity in sim form, so no wonder there is a fan like that... O.o Wiryawan310 00:51, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

'Allah' Vandal
Today an unregistered contributor, first at this address then at this one, edited several user pages as well as The Sims Wiki:Report, replacing the content of those pages with all-caps text, including references to Allah and, on at least one occasion, Sactage. Since the user was able to evade the first block and edit again, I've gone ahead and blocked the whole 216.66.xx.xx range. Keep your eyes open to see if this vandal evades the range block as well. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 18:14, April 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * Im agree to block this range. this is extraordinary vandalism! Cursing and swearing under GOD name is very serious case! it is the worst vandalism that ever happen. blocking the range for 1 or 3 month is better. Wiryawan310 02:02, April 14, 2012 (UTC)
 * It isn't the content of the vandalism that warrants a block, it's the fact that the vandal evaded the original block on their IP address, as well as the nature of the vandalism (replacing the entire page with all-caps vandalism, versus some 'minor' vandalism). And I would hardly say that this is the worst vandalism ever, because we've had much worse... -  LostInRiverview talk · blog 09:17, April 14, 2012 (UTC)
 * The block should just remain as it is rather than making it long term. Chances are they'll never come back anyway. As for worst vandalism, we have indeed had much worse. Adam Sandler caused the wiki to be locked from anonymous editing and that's just one example... 10:00, April 14, 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree, we should keep the length as-is. I also recall some porn videos or pictures, as well as a video of a very gruesome physical assault that was posted up here... all of those I would classify as worse than this particular incident. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 19:39, April 14, 2012 (UTC)
 * To be additional comment while archiving this, I actually was really offended with this kind of vandalism. I agree with Wir, but I guess that 1-month block is too much, since chances were little that they'd come back. I can't stand if any religious form is being mentioned under certain circumstances, and especially in this kind of form.  Nikel  Talk  03:23, May 28, 2012 (UTC)

User:Daniel92234 and related IP addresses
As some admins are aware, was permanently blocked for his disruptive behaviour following his warning regarding content removal. This user has used 3 IP addresses (to date) all belonging to different service providers. whatismyipaddress.com reports that 50.134.161.235 belongs to Comcast, 174.232.137.80 belongs to Verizon Wireless (possibly a mobile phone or a 3G dongle of some sort) and 174.16.43.13 belongs to Qwest/CenturyLink. The Comcast and Qwest IPs both geolocate to different parts of Colorado while the VZW address doesn't have a state assigned, though that could be due to it being a cellular address.

As it stands, this guy is seemingly shifting between IP ranges and service providers (that's what happens when you don't secure your wi-fi). Currently it's useless blocking any IP ranges as it would be redundant if this guy is going to jump from one provider to another. Until he uses subsequent IP addresses on the same range with the same type of vandalism, I suggest blocking the IPs individually. It's worth noting that mobile networks use either carrier grade NAT (basically meaning that a large number of users, potentially in different parts of the US, are accessing from one IP address) or dynamic IP addresses meaning that a rangeblock could cause quite a bit of collateral damage but we'll see how it goes. 16:42, April 20, 2012 (UTC)

User:Jmcmillin
A week may seem long for an initial block, but given this user's pattern of behavior, including deleted contributions, I think he rates it. Dharden (talk) 20:22, April 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't get to see his deleted video (I probably wouldn't have wanted to either) but this guy does seem persistent on inserting false information and trying to get his own way around things. The block seems fine. 22:12, April 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * If he does it again after the block is up, should we escalate the blocks, or go straight to a permanent block? Dharden (talk) 23:16, April 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * If he persists in the same pattern of vandalism then the chances are that he's not actually here to write about anything else, meaning we may as well just cut him loose completely and go for the indefinite block. 23:55, April 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * Works for me. Dharden (talk) 00:35, April 29, 2012 (UTC)

User:Spongeblock66
has received two blocks for vandalism and inserting false information. To me, these edits are either in retaliation to being told what not to do or just simply ignorance of our policies. I think we should take a "Three strikes and you're out" approach to this user, meaning that we should give him a final warning (that goes with his current block) and if he acts up again, we'll just give him his third block, which will be indefinite. Thoughts? 11:03, May 9, 2012 (UTC)
 * He smeared my userpage! That's the first time my userpage being smeared by He persistently ignores all the warnings and guidelines we left to him. For me, I'd rather give him the third block lasting for a week, and then the last one. Overall, I agree with it.  Nikel  Talk  12:11, May 9, 2012 (UTC)
 * Lets give him a final chance to this user, assume (as a good faith) that this user doesnt know how to open his talk page. if after that he still do the vandalism lets giving him a perma block. Wiryawan310 13:15, May 9, 2012 (UTC)
 * The history for his talk page shows that he's made one edit to it, so I think we can assume that he can open it. I'm with Georgie... This guy's on his second strike; one more, and he's out. Dharden (talk) 16:11, May 9, 2012 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and given him a final warning (and reiterated that he should read our policies). 18:01, May 9, 2012 (UTC)
 * I know I'm late to the party but yeah, I agree with the final warning.

Protecting this page - should it happen?
I've noticed that a few administrators would like this page to be protected so that only admins can edit it. I've also noticed that there have been occasions where non-admins have been invited to voice their opinions here. I know this isn't where we would usually try to gain consensus but as it's an administration issue, I've chosen to bring it up here. I have removed the current sysop-only protection until we gain an outcome.

Based on what I've seen, I think this needs to be discussed amongst administrators so we can decide whether to go ahead or not. I personally don't think we should add admin-only protection to this page due to the points I've mentioned above but I wouldn't be opposed to semi-protection. Do you think we should add any protection to this page? 20:53, November 11, 2011 (UTC)
 * I personally don't agree with admin-only protection because regular users have been called to voice their opinions on here. -- RoseGui [[File:Thanks rose.png]] ( talk here ) 21:02, November 11, 2011 (UTC)
 * it is possible we protect this page and just open the protection when regular user is invited on the discussion? because the last discussion uninvited regular user who enter many speculation on the articles just pop up in with angry and accuse us "only information we want can be added to the wiki" then leaving. :( Wir.wiryawan 03:19, November 12, 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Wir, but still uncertain about this. Also, this discussion page is usually used to discuss about not-nice users... which means we're talking about them. It's just not right if they butt in when we discuss about them. Also, we already have community portal talk page, where it's more proper place discussions open for public. So I think this can be our "private corner". Perhaps other users who actually want to join the discussions may give input from any admin's talk page.  Nikel  Talk  14:06, November 12, 2011 (UTC)
 * i support to protect this page for admin only page. because i think this page is created for admin to talk about administrative things about this wiki. so its better to prevent unnecessary regular user to join the talk like what happen couples day ago. we can always open the protection if we need input from regular user and closed it back if the discussion is finished. Wir.wiryawan 03:06, November 15, 2011 (UTC)
 * i support to protect this page for admin only page. because i think this page is created for admin to talk about administrative things about this wiki. so its better to prevent unnecessary regular user to join the talk like what happen couples day ago. we can always open the protection if we need input from regular user and closed it back if the discussion is finished. Wir.wiryawan 03:06, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

Alright, this discussion died long long ago, but I'm going to respond to it because I'd rather this incomplete discussion be brought up later as a reason to pursue some course of action.

I think before we protect pages we should have a good reason. For other pages that are protected as a rule on TSW (like featured content templates, the main page, new game pages), they receive protection for a specific reason, usually to prevent negative edits they would otherwise receive due to their popularity or importance. In contrast, this page is relatively 'out of the way' and I doubt most unregistered users are even aware of it. But aside from this, my biggest problem here is that protection was being sought to lock out non-admins from the discussions that happen here. On no other page on this wiki are select users systematically prevented from contributing simply because they do not possess a rank or position. So while I support the idea that this page is primarily for administrative discussions, I feel that editing rights should remain open to everyone. --  LiR speak ~ read 03:56, May 25, 2012 (UTC)

Coming out of Retirement
To the bureaucrats: I would like to formally request that I be re-instated as an administrator of the wiki. I retired from service as an administrator and bureaucrat on September 4, 2011. Therefore, as 6 months has not passed since my retirement date, I am requesting to be re-instated here, rather than going through the Requests for Administratorship process (especially as RfAs are currently closed), in accordance with point #3 of the Inactive Administrator Policy, which says:

"A former admin can immediately regain their status by contacting a bureaucrat and declaring their intention to return to active duty if the absence is less than six (6) months. If they are inactive for longer than six months they will have to reapply."

When I left the wiki in September, I chose to do so because I wanted to devote more time to my studies, extra-curricular activities and my job. However, this semester my level of involvement has decreased dramatically, and I feel I am now capable of resuming an administrative post, and of effectively executing that post.

Under the wiki policies, Bureaucrats are allowed to immediately re-instate me. However, because of the fact that I retired, and was not removed due to inactivity, I would ask that the bureaucrats refrain from immediately approving this request, so that if any bureaucrats have any issues with my reinstatement, they can voice them beforehand.

If you have any questions for me or comments, leave them here, and I'll get to them.

Thanks for the consideration! --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 23:54, January 16, 2012 (UTC)
 * I've got no issues with this request myself. However, I'd like to find out the opinions of some other bureaucrats/admins before this is approved for the purpose of making sure everyone is OK with this.
 * I certainly have no objections, especially since you have the policies to back up your request. —Random Ranaun (Talk to me! ) 00:13, January 17, 2012 (UTC)
 * I have no problems with this. Dharden (talk) 00:24, January 17, 2012 (UTC)
 * It's fine for me too. LiR is still eligible to be repromoted.  Nikel  Talk  08:12, January 17, 2012 (UTC)
 * I actually somehow knew you would ask to be re-instated soon, seeing your increased activity rates. I actually wanted to ask you wether you were coming back. As long as you wish to be a bureaucrat here, I fully support your return. And the policies don't actually just allow bureaucrats to re-promote you right away, but you are given the right to demand these flags as well. Therefore, I'm fully OK with this and happy to have you back. 13:13, January 17, 2012 (UTC)
 * Since there are no objections to this, and support for it, it has been done. Dharden (talk) 15:48, January 17, 2012 (UTC)
 * Welcome back to the team :) Wiryawan310 18:39, January 17, 2012 (UTC)
 * You hit on a point I hadn't even throught of, Andronikos... I was a bureaucrat when I left, and I wasn't explicit in my request. For the record, I was requesting only reinstatement as an admin, and that's what I got, so I'm happy with that. I'm ready to get back to work! --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 21:28, January 17, 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm so sorry that I didn't find out about this earlier. =( But I'm really happy that you want to get back, welcome back! -- RoseGui [[File:Thanks rose.png]] ( talk here ) 22:13, January 17, 2012 (UTC)

76.74.153.244/Meep sheep
was blocked for a year by LiR today for spam. It's worth noting that the same IP address came onto IRC (vHost - vmail03-lax-playback.tokbox.com) to post the same thing and it turned out to be Meep sheep (not linked to the userpage and separated to avoid triggering the spam filter). Seeing as it's a proxy server anyway, I've upped the block on this IP address to permanent seeing as it's only used for abuse. I urge anyone patrolling both on-IRC and on-wiki to look out for spam from this user to see if it's comparable or not and if it is, I'd suggest permabanning the IP(s). 20:59, May 24, 2012 (UTC)
 * Also if you happen to witness this vandal, don't say anything, whether it be in a block summary or directly, that will provoke him because he craves attention. Just revert, block, ignore; same goes for IRC. 21:18, May 24, 2012 (UTC)
 * We had it happen again today. Dharden blocked a total of eight IP addresses all doing the same thing. When I arrived on-wiki the spammer had already either been blocked by VSTF or had moved on, but I reported the incident to VSTF anyways. Some interesting things to note: Three of the IP addresses used started as 41.xx.xx.xx, and two of them were 80.xx.xx.xx. The spam attack yesterday was at around 2:30 UTC, and today took place at almost the same exact time. Obviously we can't completely bank on a repetitive pattern, but I'd say it would definitely be a good idea if any administrators who can be be present on wiki after 2:00 UTC tomorrow. Additionally, I'd suggest contacting VSTF on the IRC (channel #wikia-vstf) if the spammer returns, in addition to revert-block-ignore as suggested by GG. --  LiR speak ~ read 03:14, May 25, 2012 (UTC)
 * The worst thing is that this guy keeps switching IP ranges...and is notorious for it too. All we can really do is just keep blocking and reporting as long as this guy is trying. 08:06, May 25, 2012 (UTC)
 * And it happened again. I've blocked a few IPs and a Wikia-implemented script killed most of the pages. I noticed a load of IPs attacked Uncyclopedia too so I'm guessing we'll have to rely mostly on Wikia and VSTF. 21:39, May 26, 2012 (UTC)
 * We're under a 6-hour "lockout". -  LiR speak ~ read 21:52, May 26, 2012 (UTC)
 * I thought the spammer only spam the pages. They actually created pages for spamming too.  Nikel  Talk  17:15, May 27, 2012 (UTC)
 * You know I think the Wiki should be disabled for unregistered users for now until this problem is resolved. This is way too much for even admins can handle at the moment, the spammer created so much pages. Starmoonie - Talk Here  17:20, May 27, 2012 (UTC)
 * Starmoonie, I agree. We don't have the tools to lock the wiki ourselves, but VSTF has been notified. If this happens again, someone needs to go on the IRC and join the #wikia-VSTF channel. I've had to do it the last two times and unfortunately I wasn't around when both incidents started, so if you're on wiki when it starts, get to the VSTF channel right away! --  LiR speak ~ read 17:23, May 27, 2012 (UTC)
 * The main problem with that is it will cause a lot of collateral damage, which will probably make our activity levels drop rapidly. Is it certain that anonymous users will at least have the option to create an account? If so then I reluctantly support this as it will be effective against the spammer seeing as we won't know when he'll attack. 18:17, May 27, 2012 (UTC)
 * I've noticed that the deleted contributions of both and  show a different style of spam but using the same randomised gibberish names, which got me suspicious that this may be Meep sheep. For now I say we should leave their blocks at one day assuming this is someone different but this is worth keeping an eye on.  19:05, May 27, 2012 (UTC)

The IRC op/voice issue, again
I know we've hashed this over on the Comm. Portal talk page, but I think that for administrative purposes it should be re-evaluated here. Given the recent spam events and the fact that the IRC channel was targeted at least once, and could be again, that we should revert our previous position on voicing and opping members of that channel. I think, first off, that highly trusted and often present IRC users (who may not be admins on TSW) should be given op rights, specifically Xd1358 but perhaps others as well (JRCrichton?). I don't see the harm in giving special rights to channel members who have proven themselves, especially since I think we need experienced and capable eyes on the Channel and on the Wiki 24/7 if we can. --  LiR speak ~ read 17:47, May 27, 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree. Before I was promoted to sysop, there were times in which there weren't any ops. There is a couple of users worthy of those rights since they are trusted IRC-ers. 18:01, May 27, 2012 (UTC)
 * I placed a ban on the nick and we never saw him again so whether or not he's just sticking to one nick is another thing. He's only made one appearance on Thursday the 24th - if he was going to return I'd of thought it would have happened by now.


 * As it currently stands, I don't think we need to worry about it too much on IRC just yet. While I do agree that LiR's suggestions of candidates (Xd and John), I still think the whole eligibility issue can be considered. The fact that users (non-admins) have complained about not having voice (I honestly don't see what's so special about it anyway) makes me wonder what it would be like if the same thing arised with operator flags, except that op is a more "serious" flag than voice. Therefore while I do understand it wouldn't hurt having the extra users to help, I'm going to have to give a weak oppose to this based on the flaws though if the consensus turns out like it did last time then there will be no clear answer.


 * While I'm here, voice is, and should only be, used to designate who is an administrator - I don't really agree at all with non-admins having voice due to the fact that a user looking for administrator help may not know who to ask if they can't see who is designated as an administrator. If the community does decide to allow non-admins to be ops, I really hope what I just said about voice is considered because issues over voice flags have arised in the past and I would be very disappointed if the whole cycle was repeated.


 * I may change my mind on this if conincidentially the spammer's presence on IRC does become problematic but for now I feel that we shouldn't worry. 18:14, May 27, 2012 (UTC)
 * Objection to the voice flags is noted and I agree with your points on that, but I stand by that we should be opping trusted users. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," as they say. --  LiR speak ~ read 18:22, May 27, 2012 (UTC)
 * Call me ignorant but I can't help but feel we're overreacting to the spam problem a little bit, with this proposal being an example. This particular spammer has only joined IRC once (which was the first day of the spam attacks) and since I banned the terms *Meep*!*@* and *Sheep*!*@*, this guy hasn't returned at all - it's more than likely he's not interested in evading the ban so we may as well assume he's given up on our IRC channel. For the vast majority of the time, there are at least one or two administrators present (there's like three on IRC now, including myself) and not that much uselessness to deal with anyway. I do not believe that one incident warrants giving out operator flags to non-admins when our current admins can handle things just fine and giving out flags in the past, both chanop and voice, has caused issues that can easily be avoided by one thing only - make it so that only users of an explicit usergroup are allowed voice/op flags: in our case, administrators. Every IRC channel has one guy to cause trouble now and then - that's just how things are. 18:47, May 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * Its not just about the recent spammer, though that was what spurred me to propose this. There have been multiple times where the channel is either without ops or without active ops (because they were either AFK, too busy or simply not paying attention) and these sorts of things have happened. And I really have to ask - what harm would it do? Who gets hurt by giving two more users op flags? I see nothing but benefits coming out of doing this. --  LiR speak ~ read 18:55, May 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * I never said there was any harm in giving flags to two users but I'm rather hinting at the fact that this is all going to spin out into something larger, such as virtually anybody gaining operator flags for no reason thanks to administrators/bureaucrats having personal ties with these users or something like that, and if voice flags caused disruption, it wouldn't surprise me if the same thing, if not worse. happened with operator flags. If it does turn out we will go down the route of opping non-admins then I insist the community has input in who gets these flags and I am aware that this is a tedious process but it's the fairest way of doing things. To me, gaining operator flags on IRC has a parallel resemblance to gaining administrator flags on-wiki - they can actually give a user enough power to "take over" an IRC channel.


 * As for the whole AFK argument, there is often periods where everybody is AFK, even the largest of IRC channels endure these periods and they have even bigger problems than we do and they get on fine with just their administration team having flags on IRC. More often than not, an administrator will notice these things anyway. Plus IIRC, Meep sheep was actually automatically disconnected from freenode because he flooded the channel at a rapid rate before anyone here could ban him (I wasn't actually here when he spammed, DanPin banned the hostmask and I just added nickbans to strengthen it). Again, these things happen in even the largest of channels and they don't need to go to extensive measures like this to resolve these things. Also in my opinion, we're a small channel which doesn't need that many operators - the administration team is enough and the majority of these users are highly active on IRC. This is how I feel we're overreacting to what happens on IRC.


 * I stand by my points of opposition and (assuming we actually gain consensus) if the outcome of this proposal is positive then time may tell if I'm wrong but we're not the only victims of these things, every IRC channel has a spammer every now and then as well as the fact that every channel has AFK operators now and then not to mention that I can see the past unpleasantness with everyone having voice flags being echoed with operator flags but as an even bigger problem. Yes this does have positive things about it but there are also negatives, some of which I have listed here and on the above sections, which I personally can't ignore. 07:18, May 29, 2012 (UTC)

User:Jmcmillin, again
Since he has returned, and done the same things that got him blocked before, I have given him a permanent block per this discussion. Dharden (talk) 02:23, May 29, 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree, since he remained persistent with his actions.  Nikel  Talk  04:21, May 29, 2012 (UTC)

Facebook Page Statistics
In the spirit of providing up-to-date information on the Facebook page, I'd like to resume posting weekly updates on stats for our page.

The Sims Wiki's Facebook page!


 * As of May 24, 2012
 * 45 Total Likes
 * 20 People talking about us, down 31.03% this week
 * 117 Weekly Total Reach

-  LiR speak ~ read 21:21, May 24, 2012 (UTC)

Apologies for missing a week, I was without internet access.
 * As of June 6, 2012


 * 80 Total Likes
 * 21 People talking about this, up 5% from last week
 * 471 Weekly total reach, up 36.52%

Here's some interesting stats about our page likes; 36 'liked' because of a Like box on an external (i.e. not Facebook) site, such as the Box on the mainpage, 7 'liked' on the Facebook page itself, 2 'liked' from a mobile device, and 1 'liked' in response to seeing a friend like the page. -  LiR speak ~ read 03:20, June 8, 2012 (UTC)


 * June 14, 2012
 * 109 Likes, Increase_green_arrow.svg 36.25% for the period June 6-14
 * 33 People talking about this, Increase_green_arrow.svg 57.14% for June 7-14
 * 609 Weekly total reach, Increase_green_arrow.svg 49.26% for June 5-12

Admins - if you are on Facebook, please like the page and contact me so I can make you an administrator on the page. -  LiR speak ~ read 21:08, June 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * June 21, 2012
 * 133 Likes, Increase_green_arrow.svg 20.91% for the period June 14-21
 * 23 People talking about this, Red-Arrow-Decrease.png 30.3% for June 14-21
 * 767 Weekly total reach, Increase_green_arrow.svg 25.94% for June 12-19

-  LiR speak ~ read 18:15, June 21, 2012 (UTC)

I forgot to keep this up-to-date, my apologies. The following covers the previous week period, not the time since the last update on this page.
 * July 29, 2012
 * 232 Likes Increase_green_arrow.svg 9.95% for the period July 22-29
 * 25 People talking about this, Increase_green_arrow.svg 150% for the period July 22-29
 * 492 Weekly total reach, Increase_green_arrow.svg 25.94% for June 20-27

-  LiR speak ~ read 20:26, July 29, 2012 (UTC)

Social networks and Google+
Hello, fellow admins.

So, since the re-creation of the Facebook page and the revival of our Twitter profile, I think we should also have a Google+ page, in order to attract more fans, since this social network has also diverse user demographics.

I'd like to hear your suggestions. 06:24, May 25, 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm ok with this. As a side note, this wiki does have a gmail account, however the password of it is unknown to me, so maybe if we found that out we could use it for this?
 * Since I don't know about Google+, I can't say much about this.  Nikel  Talk  07:44, May 25, 2012 (UTC)
 * FWIW, Google+ has YouTube integration, if someone has the password to the YT account then we can just integrate it with Google+, otherwise we may as well create both a new YT and G+ account at the same time. 08:02, May 25, 2012 (UTC)
 * I have access to the Google group that was set up with the passwords to Twitter and Gmail; I can log into that group and send the password out through sendops on the IRC. I don't have time to do it right now, though. -  LiR speak ~ read 11:28, May 25, 2012 (UTC)
 * As far as I read this morning, we can create pages on G+ just like we can do on Facebook. 13:42, May 25, 2012 (UTC)
 * I've created Google + pages in the past, and I don't like them as much as Facebook Pages - they're not as versatile and IIRC you can only have one administrator. But since we'll be using the wiki Google account, that won't really matter much. I'll work on setting the page up soonish. --  LiR speak ~ read 18:17, May 25, 2012 (UTC)
 * Before you start, LiR, I found out that G+ has added recently multiple admin capabilities (as one can see here), so that shouldn't be much of a hassle. 22:12, May 25, 2012 (UTC)

You can link facebook and twitter each other. so we will need 1 status update to update all the social network. But I dont sure about google + Wiryawan310 15:25, May 26, 2012 (UTC)
 * I try to give a touch on the facebook page. I hope it have a better look :) Wiryawan310 16:09, May 26, 2012 (UTC)
 * Wir, where did you get the Facebook Page's cover photo from? --  LiR speak ~ read 16:10, May 26, 2012 (UTC)

I got from the official site, I found it is match for the banner. I change the banner to the next katy perry stuff, because it is almost the time for the game released. I dont found our old wiki logo. I only found the small one and it cant become the facebook page Icon. do you have the bigger one? Wiryawan310 16:16, May 26, 2012 (UTC)
 * I took the Katy Perry cover photo off, I think the cover and profile pics should be more generic and related to the series, not an individual game. Plus, NO KATY PERRY, please!. As for the profile picture... I chose the current one only because I could not find anything else that was even passable as a picture. --  LiR speak ~ read 16:19, May 26, 2012 (UTC)
 * check the facebook page for diesel banner. UPDATE: Its not good. Switch to the old one. Wiryawan310 16:24, May 26, 2012 (UTC)

User:Ssjoe13
has been persistently adding the same edit to Life state, even though it keeps getting removed as unsourced. I have left messages on the user's talk page asking that they provide a source for the statement, but I'm not sure what more to do. Dharden (talk) 03:13, June 16, 2012 (UTC)
 * I think we will follow our rules, because you already write the explanation into the talk page right? keep adding that information can be categorized as inserting false info and edit warring another same edit will result a block. I know we cannot bite the newbie but the newbie cannot stubborn too. Wiryawan310 08:49, June 16, 2012 (UTC)
 * We can temporarily protect the page as an alternative if we don't block him, since he's a new user. His persistence is enough for a block, especially that he never replies the message.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote for Featured Media!  09:40, June 16, 2012 (UTC)
 * I've protected the page as he didn't really mean any harm by adding the info and I don't think a block is warranted yet. I'd support a block if they persisted with it after the protection expires or do something similar on another page.
 * He has a warning on his talk page already so truth be told he's one wrong move away from a block. 12:32, June 16, 2012 (UTC)
 * And for what it's worth he has tripped an abuse filter by attempting to add a pejorative to life state, if anyone feels any action should be taken on that. 12:41, June 16, 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, that puts a slightly different light on things, as it appears that he is ignoring his talk page, or at least ignoring what he doesn't want to hear. Dharden (talk) 13:25, June 16, 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it's a little obvious that he ignores it on purpose, and apparently, he will attempt to persist in doing it again.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote for Featured Media!  13:39, June 16, 2012 (UTC)
 * They haven't edited since I left a warning (their last edit was at 02:50, I warned at 03:52). Since the page is semi-protected (this user is not auto-confirmed), it's safe for now, but if that should change or if the protection is lifted and this user repeats their edit, they should receive a block for edit warring and inserting unsourced information. I'd say 3 days because of the number of warnings they've received, but that's up to whomever blocks the person (if they should repeat their actions). --  LiR speak ~ read 16:08, June 16, 2012 (UTC)

Smexymamma78
seems to be a moderately inappropriate username, or is it just okay? "She" seems not to be doing something bad though.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  16:02, July 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd say it's borderline. For now I'd go without doing anything about it. 16:49, July 3, 2012 (UTC)

User:Admin22
I'm somewhat concerned about as a username on the basis that someone looking for help may become confused (despite the colour coding making admins/crats stand out) into thinking that this user is actually an admin. I know this seems ignorable to an extent as the username isn't actually offensive but I would like to know what others think. 16:51, July 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd say we just keep a lose eye on the user, with a name like that we can't be too sure if anything will happen. Starmoonie (Talk Here) 18:34, July 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * I think we should block them and let them register another username.
 * Before taking any action, we must let him know first, just a reminder...  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  10:33, July 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * I left a note on his talk page. Dharden (talk) 12:44, July 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * I've permanently blocked the user as a checkuser I got to see if an IP and account were related also showed this as a sock of a perma'd user.

User:Corymach7
has been persistently creating pages on rumoured stuff packs with absolutely no confirmation on them, as well as persistently adding false information. Given he's already recieved 2 blocks I doubt he'll stop. Before I hand out another block I'd like to see what you guys think should be done.
 * I would have warned and blocked him if what he was doing was breaking the rules or precedent, but since we already have 'ideas' pages for proposed games in the forums, I didn't feel justified in deleting the pages or taking action against him (other than renaming the pages so it didn't seem like the games were confirmed). Personally I think the pages should go as they don't contribute much of anything and only stand to confuse readers, but I don't think any action should be taken against him since he's not technically doing anything wrong. If he re-created deleted pages, then I'd see a point in doing something. --  LiR speak ~ read 01:23, July 22, 2012 (UTC)
 * I've noticed that he is persistent in trying to pass off rumours (or in cases, his own personal creations) as facts. His forum pages may as well be deleted (the nominated ones are already gone). He seems to have made a few good faith edits but I don't think we should give him a long term block just yet. I am however going to delete the remainder of his forum threads and inform him of this as an extrapelation of the note LiR already left for him. 11:35, July 22, 2012 (UTC)
 * Having looked over his edits, it seems that he is a mixture of both over-ambitious and slightly ignorant of our policies. I think for this user, a restrictions system similar to that of which is used at Uncyclopedia may help. We can basically jot down the problems (like his passion for rumours etc.), specific rules/restrictions for the user (e.g. like no rumour forums or adding rumours without irrefutable proof), what happens if they breach a restriction (e.g. a block that gradually gets longer when repeated), comments and if sufficient improvement has been made in his conduct then he could be placed on probation for a little while and if he doesn't do anything disruptive in that time he could be parolled completely. I'm not sure how practical it could be by having a system like this on TSW, which could be helpful for dealing with various other users too, but it's just an idea. 00:55, July 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * So long as its fair to the user and isn't too strict or too lenient, I'm in favor of trying any different ideas. I certainly think, except for the rumors issue, that this user is acting in good faith with their edits. As for the rumors, they seem to be a bit obsessed with 'making a rumor', for what reason I don't know. So if they start to re-create pages or start new rumors, I'd support such a restriction. I don't know if adopting a system like this wiki-wide would be practical, but in individual circumstances it could be helpful, especially if the user isn't being a troll/vandal/person we can easily justify blocking. --  LiR speak ~ read 02:24, July 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * So we're making some special restrictions to the user, while as long as he does anything else other than what he's restricted, he's free? I think this is kind of special case like this... Not sure if it can be fully implemented... We can make him as a test subject though.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote  –  Guess!  04:53, July 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * I've created a draft of the feature if anyone wants to take a look and fiddle around before I move it out of my userspace and whatnot. As for LiR's first point about being fair to the user, not too strict or lenient, I've put on the draft that an admin wishing to impose a new restriction should bring it up on this page first so that we can all agree on the terms of it, whether it's appropriate and whatnot.


 * This is a trial for now and it is generally best suited for users who can be troublesome but not justifiable for an indefinite block - no point putting a restriction on a user whose blatantly a bad faith editor. Feel free to tweak my draft accordingly, let me know what you think of how it's set out, what could be improved and what you think of the restriction I've placed on this user (which isn't actually active yet as this is currently a userspace draft). 11:13, July 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * If possible, should it be done now, or will Corymach7 be eventually blocked before we can try this out? He made another edit in the rumor page again. I just let him free for now.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote  –  Guess!  16:48, July 28, 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm going to start up the discussion about the editing restrictions system in a new subject line below. We can revisit this particular user's restriction after the restriction system itself is finalized. --  LiR speak ~ read 16:50, July 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * In relation to the original purpose of this section, this user has just got himself a 3 day block for edit warring and inserting false information once again. 16:56, July 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * I bumped it up to a week, as I felt they deserved longer. Maybe a week block will get the message through. I left quite a lengthy explanation on the talk page as well. --  LiR speak ~ read 17:02, July 28, 2012 (UTC)

Given that the Editing restrictions system has been put into place, Corymach7's restriction (which I drafted before the system was "officially" implemented) can come into place once his block expires. The restriction is aimed at the major problems surrounding this user including: The blocking system of each subsequent block doubling from the last one was put into place based on his previous offenses and to try and strengthen the message put across if he decides to ignore his additional restrictions/ruleset. I'm about to notify him of this so it's no surprise for when his block expires.
 * Creating prediction threads for unannounced entries to the series.
 * Adding rumors to The Sims game rumors using either unreliable references, including ones he created himself, or simply none at all.
 * Edit warring

Admins, if you need to block him then be sure to a) check the block log for any previous blocks related to his restriction and double the length from his last block and b) make sure the block summary clearly states that he violated his restriction. There's no need to list his blocks on the Restrictions page. Also if he does something disruptive that's unrelated to his restrictions then he should be dealt with in the normal manner. Given that I instated the restrictions for him, I'll obviously be closely monitoring his behavior and I'd appreciate if other admins help to enforce them too. If anyone has anything they'd like to know about his restrictions then please don't hesitate to let me know. 19:13, July 31, 2012 (UTC)

Lock the Player Stories pages?
I think we should decide (quickly) whether the player stories pages, which are set to be deleted (see here if that was a complete surprise to you) should be locked prior to their deletion date, or whether they should remain open for editing. If locked, users would still be able to access the page editor for those pages, but wouldn't be able to add new content. However, they'd still be able to copy content off the page, to be pasted somewhere else. If we chose to lock them, we could have one of our sysop-ranked bots do the dirty work for us. What do you think? --  LiR speak ~ read 22:16, July 25, 2012 (UTC)


 * I think they should be locked too. IMO, WoganBot can do the job. 22:18, July 25, 2012 (UTC)


 * Fully agree. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻﻿) ǝıuooɯɹɐʇs VOTE! 22:22, July 25, 2012 (UTC)
 * Locking them seems to be a fair solution. Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 22:47, July 25, 2012 (UTC)


 * Great idea. I totally think they should be locked too. 🌹 Bakerychaz  ( talk page ·  blog )🌷 03:41, July 26, 2012 (UTC)
 * While I do agree with what you guys say, it wouldn't be feasible for me to protect ~3500 pages, it'd simply take too long. Instead, I'm going to try some other alternatives. Check here for updates.
 * I do strongly agree that something like this should be done however due to Wikia's technical limitations, it's really easier said than done. As WH said, protecting every page, even with a bot, will be pretty time consuming. In addition to this, I tried to create a filter via Special:AbuseFilter a little while ago to try and stop users from adding stories as categories but it seems I can't designate a subpage nor can I do anything without it affecting the entire mainspace so...I'm out of ideas. 06:42, July 26, 2012 (UTC)
 * Alas, technical limitations. While on the subject of bot actions and such, do you think that the problems we're having now with protecting the pages will return when we try to delete them? Obviously the deleting is going to have to be done by bots... will we run into the same issues? -  LiR speak ~ read 14:37, July 26, 2012 (UTC)
 * Deleting every page will take quite a long time (~6 hours) similarly to protecting it. I'm doing some tests in my userspace with deletion and whatnot just so I can at least try to do it right and not delete every page on the wiki by accident. 14:52, July 26, 2012 (UTC)
 * Another point related to the bot tasks is that it would probably be easier to delete than protect over a long timescale as when it comes to deletion, we could actually use more than one bot to do it and AWB would only list the non-deleted pages. For protecting, it will list every page and would probably have no advantage at all by using multiple bots. 16:34, July 26, 2012 (UTC)
 * I can't say much to this. This is like we have to decide whether to protect or delete them. Both of them will be time-consuming (which I suppose we can deal with) and end up the same result: irreversible and stopping further edits. Technically, it's reversible, but I don't suppose we all want to undelete and unprotect them all again.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote  –  Guess!  19:22, July 26, 2012 (UTC)
 * This isn't about permanently protecting the pages, this is about protecting them until it's time to delete them in 28-or-so days. In any case, it appears that it would be impractical to do this. --  LiR speak ~ read 20:13, July 26, 2012 (UTC)
 * From some snooping around I just noticed that WH put up a filter which pretty much solved this whole protection problem completely. Looks like this is solved then. 21:40, July 26, 2012 (UTC)
 * Tested it, the filter works. Resolved. --  LiR speak ~ read 23:31, July 26, 2012 (UTC)

Editing Restrictions
GEORGIEGIBBONS Has written up an Editing Restrictions page to address users what are good faith editors, but whom have one or more disciplinary problems. In his own words:

"This is a trial for now and it is generally best suited for users who can be troublesome but not justifiable for an indefinite block - no point putting a restriction on a user whose blatantly a bad faith editor. Feel free to tweak my draft accordingly, let me know what you think of how it's set out, what could be improved and what you think of the restriction I've placed on [Corymach7] (which isn't actually active yet as this is currently a userspace draft). 11:13, July 28, 2012 (UTC)"

I personally think this could be an effective system to implement, but I have some concerns. My main concern is whether this might serve as a 'badge of shame' towards users, especially long after their behavioral problems are addressed and corrected. I'm a firm believer in the idea that people can change. But if there's a record of that user's behavior in the past, it could dissuade people from supporting them in the present if that user is pursuing special user rights (rollback, admin, b'crat), even if that user is 'paroled' and has honestly made a change. I think the simplest way to avoid this instance would be to remove the 'Paroled' section entirely, so that after any probationary period is up, the record of the user's problems is simply removed from the page. Another purely minor thing - the list of long-term/indefinite blocks... is it really necessary? We already have logs which list standing blocks and their reasons.

Finally, I'm not sure if there necessarily needs to be an approval process for new restrictions. After all, administrators are able to block users outright without coming here and asking for consensus among the admins (although generally longer-term blocks are discussed, this is not a matter of policy and admins can - and have - issued long-term or indefinite blocks without consulting others' opinions here), so why should an administrator need to seek permission for issuing what is admittedly a less severe sentence? Since the whole admin team would be relied upon to enforce the restrictions, it seems to me that the most obvious solution here is to have all new restrictions approved by default. If an administrator has an issue with a restriction that another admin imposed, they could then bring the issue up and the admins could consent to a definite course of action. Just a side note - I'm aware that the current draft doesn't call for an admin consensus to new restrictions. I like the way the draft is written presently as it relates to this, I simply wanted to make it known that I wouldn't support a more restrictive system.

So, all-in-all, I think this is a promising system. --  LiR speak ~ read 16:50, July 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * As some of you may have guessed, I pretty much did copy the framework from Uncyclopedia and I knew I'd be changing things before anything is finalised and whatnot. LiR's points are fully understandable. If they've been parolled then that's the end of it, if the user does mess up again then the old restriction would still be in the page history for reference. Same with the blocked users thingy - if they're blocked then there's no point leaving the restriction there, again the page history will still contain everything. Having no need for consensus to add a restriction is useful too. As long as the restriction is reasonable, there's no reason not to go against it and anyone who does have an issue can simply bring it up with the admin who instated a specific restriction.


 * I've gone ahead and made those changes per what LiR said. I've also removed the "Watchlist" section as again that could go down as a "badge of shame" towards a user who changes their behavior before a restriction is even imposed. Feel free to say what you think of this system. 17:14, July 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * I like the idea and think it would be very useful to the wiki. 17:08, July 30, 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. Even if we don't use it all that much it'd be useful to have it there for if we need it.
 * Seeing as the consensus is generally favourable all around with no opposition, I've moved the userspace version to The Sims Wiki:Editing restrictions. Feel free to let me know if you have any comments on the system. 19:02, July 31, 2012 (UTC)

User:Morris lupin
has received 2 blocks for vandalism, personal attacks, adding vanity to his userspace after being told not to, creating spam blogs and an inappropriate fanon article (check his deleted contributions). In addition, he has spammed Special:Chat with the same vanity he's been adding all over the place and even joined IRC and did the same thing. Currently all of his bans are set at 1 week but I'm actually quite pessimistic in thinking that we're going to see any improvement... 19:09, August 12, 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah I don't see much hope here. I'd be fine with a perma ban myself.
 * A perma ban seems to be the best solution. BakeryChaz  ~ ( let's have a chat! ) 01:32, August 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * He's out. 13:16, August 13, 2012 (UTC)

Nuking player stories
As some IRC users already know, I contacted Wikia to try and look for an alternative to using bots to delete the Player stories via a batch delete script. Here is Wikia's response:

"Wikia does have a few mass deletion extensions, but honestly they are reserved for staff and helper use due to previous abuse and its not really possible to grant those rights locally anyway. I'd be more than happy to run a Nuke script for your wiki if you can provide both the list of pages you wish to have deleted (separated by a new line command [/n]) and then the link to the community agreement to delete all these pages."

In short, we won't be given an extension to do this ourselves but Staff are happy to do it for us provided we give them the discussion where we voted to delete the articles (from the Community Portal) and the list of pages to delete, which can be gathered from both Category:Player stories and from when we list the pages in that category on AutoWikiBrowser. I'd like to know firstly if everyone is okay with this before I say anything to Wikia. 18:22, August 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * It's fine by me. --  LiR speak ~ read 18:45, August 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * It's fine by me, too. :) -- RoseGui [[File:Thanks rose.png]] ( talk here ) 19:04, August 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * Wikia can go ahead by me. 19:11, August 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * I guess that'll do.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  01:36, August 14, 2012 (UTC)
 * Fine with me, although I think it'd not be worth it if we have to write down every page. If we can get them to delete from a category, it'd be okay, otherwise I think getting our bots to do it would be better.
 * I was thinking that myself actually. To copy the names of every page and add newline commands after them is a bit tedious. I know the nuke script can be set to wipe out the contributions of a specific user so I can't see why they can't just nuke everything inside the category. I'm going to give it some time before I reply back to accommodate the whole 1 month agreement but we'll see how it goes nearer to the time. 17:42, August 14, 2012 (UTC)
 * I tracked down and deleted remaining instances of Playerstorysub, and wrapped the template code with . That way, if we ever do decide to re-enable player stories, the code doesn't have to be re-done from scratch. Dharden (talk) 20:33, August 30, 2012 (UTC)

User:TheEditorOfWikia777
I hesitated to bring this up here, given AGF, but I felt if I didn't mention this, this user would likely receive a block before the checkuser I've requested is completed. made an edit to Maximilian Moore, linking to a Sim uploaded to the TS3 exchange created by User:Corymach7. The fact that he linked to this particular user's creation, and the fact that he inserted it into a canon article (which, after all, was part of Corymach's M.O.) tends to suggest that they are the same person. I assumed good faith by issuing a warning, but I have requested a checkuser and if it comes back positive that they are the same person, I will be issuing a block. I wanted to make you all aware in case you come across this user and their edits. --  LiR speak ~ read 02:22, August 27, 2012 (UTC)
 * Checkuser has confirmed that they are the same person, so TheEditorOfWikia has received a permanent block. --  LiR speak ~ read 18:53, August 27, 2012 (UTC)
 * Should anyone do the same pattern of action, I think it's safe to assume that it's Corymach again. Good thing it's not "Ladah" anymore.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  05:00, August 29, 2012 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I've written an Abuse Filter set to automatically block an account (and the IP range) if they write "Corymach7" in an edit summary, which this guy did. Whether or not this filter will be beneficial or detrimental is yet to be seen as this filter can easily generate a false positive although I've just changed the conditions so that it will ignore autoconfirmed users. 10:51, August 29, 2012 (UTC)
 * I can tell that is Corymach7... okay, anyone can tell. It seems that he patterns his name with a "7," so keep looking on more of his socks.  Nikel   Talk  –  Vote!  13:28, September 3, 2012 (UTC)


 * Okay... except Michaelbachelor. So I suppose his pattern is not definite anyway.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  13:36, September 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * The only evidence to suggest that is Cory lies on his contributions on a self-created wiki, so that can go down as blatant.


 * I'm not entirely convinced at this time that is Cory. While the username might be somewhat similar, it may also be coincidential as usernames can have different meanings and interpretations (another possibility behind it is a play on something, for example - W(indows)7mach(h)). Furthermore, all he's done is ask a curious question about another user's fanon, which doesn't seem like Cory at all and there are no off-TSW contributions to suggest anything. I don't know what everyone else's standpoint is on this but I'd recommend for now that the user is unblocked and we can keep an eye on him. To me, the username alone isn't enough to go on for judging whether or not the user is a sockpuppet, or at least in this particular case...  15:19, September 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * The avatar is also suspicious since it's the same one as Michaelbachelor's image which overwrote Belladonna Cove image. That convinced me, though it's true I didn't have further evidence, but I took this as an anticipation. Unless... anyone else wants to check his behavior pattern first. :/  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  15:31, September 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * Fair point, I guess I overlooked that part. Anyway, that settles the W7mach thingy. If anyone comes across any more socks, just revert, block, ignore and hopefully he'll get bored soon enough. 15:42, September 3, 2012 (UTC)

User:Larasboyfriend
has made a number of speculations that several Sims are based on celebrities. While this may not be a big issue, perhaps we could restrict him from doing the same behavior to get TSW:ER to work again. I want to know what others think about this, though.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  14:39, September 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * Can you list some examples please? --  LiR speak ~ read 15:29, September 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * Bachelor family, saying Bella is based on Rihanna, Monika Morris, saying she's based on Nicki Minaj, twice, Bella Goth herself, saying she's based on Isabella Swan, Cornelia Goth, saying she looks like Katy Perry witch (wha..?). In the past, he said Matilda Smart resembles Lady Gaga. The only speculation kept until now is Katy Perry, which is real. Even so, he did it twice and Auror undid the edit. He once blanked a page too, for the record, but I'd say it was by accident.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  15:40, September 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * Inserting false information is already something that isn't allowed, so we don't necessarily need an ER for that. If they continue to do it after warning, then blocks are the responsible course of action IMO. I'm not sure how a restriction would be managed in this case, so it seems better to simply follow our usual procedure. --  LiR speak ~ read 15:46, September 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure. Before, Corymach had been inserting false information too, and received the restrictions. This case isn't worse than that, and I could just assume Larasboyfriend is a little misguided, like simply saying out that a Sim looks like someone in the article. But I don't know, I wouldn't insist on using ER either.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  15:55, September 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * The difference I see is that where Corymach was creating new pages, Larasboyfriend is simply adding it to existing pages. If we were to set up a restriction, we'd have to make it so that they can't add any speculative information to an article, which is already a rule we have. If not that, then we essentially are saying that we won't allow them to edit articles anymore, which is functionally the same as just blocking them. So whereas we could've restricted Corymach from creating speculative articles, it's very hard from what I can tell to restrict speculative edits to articles that exist by using an ER. --  LiR speak ~ read 16:21, September 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I guess you made a point there... So I guess we'd just give him a straight warning and block, then.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  12:57, September 5, 2012 (UTC)

Activity Update, September 2012
I wanted to take an opportunity to make everyone up-to-date on the status of our wiki and our social media presence. Given my utter failure to maintain an up-to-date weekly report on our status, I hope that I will be able to keep up with a monthly report, and hope that it will suffice. Let's start on our wiki.

Now, as you probably know, we can no longer check our visitor traffic by Quantcast. However, Wikia does provide an in-depth, if slightly cryptic, set of statistics. It's not exactly what we were looking at before, but as far as I can tell it's the best we can do. Here's how September broke down for us (note that this report is about a day early):
 * Wiki Status


 * Total registered (and active) editors in all namespaces - 251 (down 16% from last month)
 * Total registered and active editors in the content namespaces - 174 (-13%)
 * Number of registered editors that have made more than 5 edits to the content namespaces this month - 72 (-10%)
 * Number of registered editors that have made more than 100 edits to the content namespaces this month - 5 (-44%) - Note that this is the lowest number of over-100 editors since December 2009.
 * Total number of content namespace articles - 8,241 (+2%)
 * Total number of edits to content namespace articles - 3,321 (-33%)

Month-to-month comparison : September 2011 vs September 2012

Feel free to extrapolate from this data whatever you want. You can see all the numbers at Special:WikiStats/main.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell Twitter offers no real analytical tools to help us determine how successful we are at getting tweets/retweets or how much or message is being distributed. All I can give is a raw number:
 * Facebook and Twitter


 * Number of followers: 587

As far as Facebook, we can go much more in-depth. Unfortunately in this case, much of their analytics is based on a week-to-week change, not monthly.


 * Likes: 394 (up 2.87% from 9/22 - 9/29)
 * People talking about TSW: 39 (up 69.57% from 9/22 - 9/29)
 * Weekly total reach: 724 (Up 140.53% from 9/21 - 9/28)

Hopefully I'll be able to keep up on reporting. In the meantime, feel free to discuss this data below. --  LiR speak ~ read 04:10, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

Reorganizing and restructuring policies
I've hinted at this in previous posts and/or on the IRC channel, but I'm bringing it up formally now.

It's hard to say what is and isn't policy here on TSW. We know that our four principle policy pages are definitely community-defined rules. But what of the other pages; things like TSW:AGF or TSW:MOS? Certainly these are more that mere guidelines... they constitute the core of the structure of the wiki and the principles which it is based on. But AGF and psudeo-policies like it were never directly voted on or consented to by the community - consent for those policies has been more-or-less implied and accepted at large, rather than through specific discussions and votes and the like. I think that this is actually preferable to passing rules through discussions or votes, because the rules like AGF are all the more genuine because they have stood the test of time. We don't have that luxury with many other policies, but I digress...

The point I'm trying to get to is that it's silly to say that we as a wiki only have those policies listed on the 4 official policy pages. Certainly AGF and its kind are in the same sphere, and should be considered policy too. Now this might seem to be a bit radical but I assure you it really isn't. We enforce these rules anyways, even if they aren't considered official, and even if they haven't even necessarily been written down - take for example the rule that The Sims Wiki doesn't allow articles about rumored games. There is no currently-standing policy written out that prohibits it, yet we as a community decided that it is not allowed. That's a policy. And as such, it needs to be written down, so we can point to it and say "This is why you can/cannot do this."

So here's what I'm suggesting. I think we should take the four "official" policy pages and break up the sections into individual pages, then have The Sims Wiki:Policy link to all those pages, as well as pages like AGF, The Sims Wiki:5 pillars, etc. I've been working on a Policy template for this purpose, and it's set up to serve both as an official policy header and a proposed policy header... the former would apply both to those policies that are voted on before enacting, and those that are de facto policies, like AGF and our Rumored Games policy. Since amending the de jure policies and the rules like AGF would be essentially the same process, I see no harm or difficulty in treating them all the same.

Then it comes to the drafting of new policies. Assuming this idea were carried out, I think there would need to be some common sense when writing policies, on whether or not the thing being written already describes a de facto wiki policy, or whether it's a change to a current mode of operation. This could be accomplished by the posting of a template that essentially stipulates that the rule should be considered as official, but that it is subject to community consent and amendment (though the others are as well).

Why am I bringing all this up, you might wonder. I think having different 'tiers' of policies is a mess and a headache. It's hard to know which rules you're supposed to follow and which ones are just suggestions. It's even worse when we start enforcing rules that aren't even written down. We ought to be clear and specific in our policies and our framework... but that's just my opinion. I'd love to hear yours!

--  LiR speak ~ read 08:30, October 3, 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, since the unwritten policy on game rumors is that they belong in The Sims game rumors, we might as well go ahead and write that down. As for the rest, I think you've got a good plan. Dharden (talk) 12:27, October 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * ETA: That could probably cover the policy that games and Packs don't get articles until they're officially announced or it's clear that they will be in the near future. I don't know if that was ever written down, it's just The Way Things Are Done. Dharden (talk) 13:32, October 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * This might've been a poor choice of words on my part. A Rumored Games policy proposal was written down... what I meant to say is that policies we follow aren't implemented (like that one) or simply don't exist (as we did enforce that policy prior to it being written). --  LiR speak ~ read 17:04, October 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * Usually, when this kind of topic is being pointed out, I suddenly forgot examples of the kind of cases... IMO, the rumored games policy is ready to go and be implemented and attached as a sticky notes on The Sims game rumors, unless we need some more points to fill in the flaws or merely improve that policy again.
 * I kind of concluded that you'd promote some of these guidelines (MOS and AGF) to be official policies, as well as writing down the spoken rules and policies into existence. I say it's a good idea, unless I missed the point here. It's good to break up the policies individually and then list them to the official policies, as otherwise many policies would just be scattered without any clear purpose where they're supposed to be.
 * This reminds me if I should bring up the speculations around contents... What can and cannot be written down in Sim articles? Do we simply wipe out any speculations at first sight, or keep some that's relevant, noteworthy, or obvious? All this time such speculations are prohibited or wiped out based on opinion. I'd like to know whether we should have standards regarding this, but I guess we currently have other topic to discuss about, so maybe this could go as an addition later.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  10:09, October 4, 2012 (UTC)


 * I think Rumored Games policy proposal is pretty much what's done in practice, except for recognizing that some confirmation might come from EA staff members at EA events, whether in-person or online. Dharden (talk) 11:53, October 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * Good point Dharden; I'll add a catch-all statement onto it. As for content speculation... that's another thing we could determine a written policy for. Presently we block people for inserting false information but there is no rule as far as I can tell that prohibits that, though obviously it's a practice to try and avoid it. Speculation may not be false information but it's information that can't be readily verified, so I think we have to walk a fine line here. The best solution that comes to my mind right away would be to keep this information on the article, but word it such that it's clear that the information is speculative, as well as providing a link or citation to the evidence for it. --  LiR speak ~ read 17:47, October 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with the idea behind this. It makes it easier to for users to understand what to follow, what rules are what and it would be easier to cite the rules as guidance to a user with this structure as it could avoid potential "tl;dr" situations and such. 19:33, October 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * One question... if we don't have a particular policy, but it's a general one, e.g. deletion policy (I'm not sure if we had one. Did we?) does Wikipedia cover us, or it's a separate policy from Wikia?  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  14:05, October 10, 2012 (UTC)
 * Our sort of un-written policy, if you could even call it that, is that deletions that are more than just obvious vandalism/irrelevant content are discussed at Category talk:Candidates for deletion after being flagged. As for Wikipedia policies... we don't adhere to Wikipedia policies directly, but many of our policies are based directly off theirs or are inspired by theirs (see Assume Good Faith, Five Pillars, What Wikipedia is not, etc). Often if there's a gap in our policies to address a certain situation, Wikipedia policy is used as a means to fill in that gap or to determine a good course of action. But Wikipedia policy doesn't carry any official weight as a rule on The Sims Wiki most of the time. - 14:33, October 10, 2012 (UTC)

Activity Update: October 2012
In my attempt to make this monthly update a regular occurrence, here's the observations for October 2012 on our wiki.

Note: These stats are through October 30th, and do not include October 31st
 * Wiki Status


 * Total registered (and active) editors in all namespaces - 218 (down 14% from last month)
 * Total registered and active editors in the content namespaces - 162 (-10%)
 * Number of registered editors that have made more than 5 edits to the content namespaces this month - 70 (-11%)
 * Number of registered editors that have made more than 100 edits to the content namespaces this month - 5 (-16%) - Note that this is the lowest number of over-100 editors since December 2009.
 * Total number of content namespace articles - 8,407 (+1%)
 * Total number of edits to content namespace articles - 2,990 (-18%)

Month-to-month comparison : October 2011 vs October 2012

You can see all the numbers at Special:WikiStats/main.


 * Facebook and Twitter


 * Number of Twitter followers: 634 (last month: 587 - an increase of 47, or 7.4%)

This past week on our Facebook page looks like this:


 * Likes: 450 (up 1.58% from 10/24 - 10/31 - Up from 394 last month, +12.4%)
 * People talking about TSW: 31 (down 18.42% from 10/23 - 10/30 - Down from 39 last month, -20.5%)
 * Weekly total reach: 608 724 (up 139.37% from 10/22 - 10/29 - Down from 724 last month, -16.0%)

--  LiR speak ~ read 04:10, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

User:Creeper22
While having done absolutely no contributive edits whatsoever, has vandalized quite and big amount of articles and made many unrelated to The Sims series one. I have a claim in my talk page that he is also a sock of








 * Other accounts.

​Should a checkuser be requested or should I (or another admin) apply a permanent ban immediately? 19:17, November 3, 2012 (UTC)


 * Sock or no, I think this person has earned a final warning. Dharden (talk) 19:38, November 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * ETA: I checked, and reinstated the block, as the account had apparently become unblocked. Dharden (talk) 19:51, November 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * ETA2: Final warning has been issued. Still, given the claims of socking, I think a checkuser is appropriate. Dharden (talk) 19:57, November 3, 2012 (UTC)

File licensing vandal
While this is not worth noting and I don't suppose there's a simpler way to deal with this, I guess I'll just document it here anyway. A number of anonymous users (presumably using proxy?) incorrectly insert copyright template to a lot of images in the past weeks, as in, , , , , , , , , , ,. Some people just don't have anything better to do (sigh). Well, just sayin' this issue. If you happen to see this... just revert.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  04:17, November 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * So, the anon was bored and apparently changed target instead., , , , , , .  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  06:05, November 18, 2012 (UTC)

Football spambots
Two users have popped up this evening with the intent of spamming to external sites where one can watch football. Given that both and  have not only been the ones to conduct this but also abuse multiple accounts, they've both been permanently blocked. For now all I can recommend is a revert, block and ignore approach to this issue and I'd advise all admins to keep an eye out as/if this progresses. 20:38, November 24, 2012 (UTC)
 * Minor update: I've written a new entry for Special:AbuseFilter aimed to combat this and from a test on my IP it seems to be effective. Currently it only targets the forum namespace so here's hoping that's their only target. 20:48, November 24, 2012 (UTC)
 * Another attack took place this morning, this time on the blog namespace and using the term "NFL" as opposed to "NCAA". I've upgraded the filter to cover all namespaces and both terms but as they only cover the terms in the page titles, I'm not sure how long it will be if the spammer decides to find another way around. 11:17, November 25, 2012 (UTC)

Activity Update: November 2012
Note: These stats are through Noveber 29th, and do not include November 30th


 * Total registered (and active) editors in all namespaces - 232 (up 5% from last month) - First percentage increase since July.
 * Total registered and active editors in the content namespaces - 171 (+4%) - First percentage increase since July.
 * Number of registered editors that have made more than 5 edits to the content namespaces this month - 60 (-15%) - Fourth consecutive month of decrease.
 * Number of registered editors that have made more than 100 edits to the content namespaces this month - 6 (+20%) - First percentage increase since July.
 * Total number of content namespace articles - 8,545 (+1%) - Third consecutive month of minor (1-3%) increases.
 * Total number of edits to content namespace articles - 2,972 (-1%) - Fifth consecutive month of decline.

Month-to-month comparison : November 2011 vs November 2012

You can see all the numbers at Special:WikiStats/main.


 * Facebook and Twitter


 * Number of Twitter followers: 721. Last month: 634, or a 13.7% increase (previous month was up +7.4%)

This past week on our Facebook page looks like this:


 * Likes: 501 - Up 2.04% from 11/23 - 11/30. Up from 450 last month, +11.3% (prev. month was up +12.4%)
 * People talking about TSW: 23 - Up 27.78% for 11/21 - 11/30; down from 31 last month, -25.6% (previous month was -20.5%)
 * Weekly total reach: 340 - Down 28.27% from 11/17 - 11/24; down significantly from 608 last month, or -44.1% (previous month was -16.0%)

So all-in-all, a mixed bag of results. We've stopped the downward slip in the number of editors, but fewer editors are making significant numbers of edits. And the 232 total editors we're sporting this month is still down significantly from our year's high point in July of 328. --  LiR speak ~ read 00:56, December 1, 2012 (UTC)

Fanon of User:Carman39
I blocked until May 31, 2015 due to the user admitting they are only 10 years old. You'll note that I did not block the user permanently. So the question is, what should be done with this user's fanon? --  LiR speak ~ read 23:00, December 6, 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking we delete it based on the quality of it being subpar (most is tagged for cleanup as it is) and maybe we could restore it for them in 2015 or something if they ask?
 * I'd say we delete the fanon for two reasons: one being that it is of poor quality, and as Wogan said, most of it is tagged for cleanup. The second reason is that another user was blocked earlier this year for being underage. Their fanon was deleted. Another admin did not agree and restored it, only for it to be deleted again. Now, if Carman39's fanon stays, it will be unfair on this other user, as his fanon hasn't been tagged for cleanup. I'd say delete the fanon, then restore it when Carman39 returns, much like the example I provided. Asher Éire I'm a lonely person, so please talk to me... 16:12, December 7, 2012 (UTC)
 * K, went ahead and deleted his stuff. --  LiR speak ~ read 17:20, December 7, 2012 (UTC)