Whilst pursuing some information and perusing Wikipedia as a result today, a page I was on came with a “You have a new message” near the top of the page. When I clicked on it, it was a warning from 2012 about two revisions I allegedly made to some content. (Two different subjects, one in May and one in June of 2012. Two subjects that I don’t know about/have no interest in, by the way.)
I’m 100% positive that I didn’t make any revisions (don’t know how for one thing) and they admit it’s based on my IP address and that those addresses change occasionally and may be shared. It recommends that I create an account to avoid this problem in the future.
The message ends with an ominous “This is your last warning. The next time you troll on Wikipedia, you may be blocked from editing without further notice.” That’s gonna keep me awake at night.
I guess what I’m wondering, besides the randomness of the whole thing, is why am I getting this warning nearly eight years later?
What do you mean you don’t know how to edit a page? You click on ‘edit’ either at the top of the page or ‘edit’ next to each following sub paragraph labeled with bold font.
Like IMDB you can make a change and then submit it for the admins etc. to evaluate.
Sometimes you can see the change happen and then it’s removed later if it’s not accepted.
I’ve added over ten filming locations to IMDB and one time I was wrong and it was added and then removed later.
Another time I was right and it wasn’t accepted and then I added it again and the second time it worked.
It was for The Shawshank Redemption which is rated #1 on the site so they were probably even more uptight about it.
I haven’t heard about what you’re talking about. It would be interesting to see a screenshot of it.
Are you sure it wasn’t a pop-up banner from some malware on your computer? Because it sounds like an excellent way to get you to “create an account” (by clicking on a link in the “warning”) and being directed to a page that may ask you to provide some extraordinary information.
My highly uninformed opinion is that Wikipedia used this slowdown to update a server, or upgrade a server, and when they brought it back online, it sent out stuff that was stuck in a queue somewhere.
The answer is that very few computers have fixed public IP addresses. For the most part, your computer is given a private IP address and the public address is shared by all of the customers of the ISP. So, yes, someone else probably made the change. If you do decide to edit on Wikipedia, you should make an account.
When you say you wouldn’t even know how to do it, I assume that’s because you’ve never done it. I personally don’t know how either, I’m sure I could figure it out, but it’s not something I’ve ever even thought about attempting.
If that’s the case, would it really be that big of a deal if they banned you from editing anything going forward?
I was chastised up-thread for not knowing how to edit and like you, I just meant I’d never done it but could likely figure it out. That’s the main reason I KNOW I didn’t edit anything on there. The other being, I don’t have a clue what the two subjects are that I’m accused of editing.
Thanks everyone. It was just a rather bizarre thing to occur when researching today. I mean, I was wrongly accused of TROLLING on Wikipedia. I have in the past tossed them a few bucks when they’ve asked nicely. No more. Not until I get an apology.
In case what I wrote wasn’t clear; no one is accusing you of trolling on Wikipedia. The warning just says that someone using that IP address trolled on Wikipedia.
There are only three edits to the linked page. The most recent, added by user Arcandum was the one that added the warning. Arcandumwas a troll and sock puppet, with a historyof posting inflammatory comments on other people’s pages. He himself banned in 2012.
Don’t worry about the warning. It didn’t come from anyone official. It’s a bit of trollery from someone who was banned long ago.
I can’t explain why you’re only just seeing it, though.
This, by the way, is incorrect. You can make a change, and it shows up immediately. Nobody evaluates it. Of course, another person might revert your change, or correct a misspelling, or add details to what you’ve written, but there is no review by admins to your edits.
What you say is true only for some editions of Wikipedia (like the English one). Other editions do require edits to be reviewed by editors with the appropriate permissions (not necessarily administrators) before they become visible.
The “warning” message appears to have been made eight years ago. The account who posted it is a sock that has been banned.
It sounds like someone with that IP address got into a minor pissing contest with a jerk, and they thought it would be cute to use a sock account to post an official-looking warning to intimidate them.
Unless you pay your network provider for a static IP, it’s unlikely you’ve had the same IP for 8 years. Most likely you got reassigned to that IP recently. If you do have a static IP, it just took you 8 years to notice this warning, or it took Wikipedia 8 years to generate the warning.
Admins run cleanup scripts all the time on Wikipedia. They don’t always work as expected, either due to bad design or bad data. It could also be that.
I have just deleted the warning. I’m just an ordinary user of Wikipedia, who makes a few minor edits from time to time, but I had no problem deleting it.
(If people want to see the warning again, they just need to go through the history of the talk page. Nothing ever really goes away at Wikipedia.)
