User talk:Antandrus Voyage Tips and guide

Contents

To help get you started contributing, we've created a tips for new contributors page, full of helpful links about policies and guidelines and style, as well as some important information on copyleft and basic stuff like how to edit a page.

If you are a Wikipedian then you may notice some differences in policies and the style of our articles. These include:

• NPOV → be fair (not quite the same thing!)
• be bold → plunge forward
• Village pump → travellers' pub
• External links → We do not use a separate external links section, but incorporate primary links only into the text itself.
• sandbox → graffiti wall
• stub notes → Article status notes

It may also be very useful for you to check out Wikivoyage:Welcome, Wikipedians. If you need help, take a look at Wikivoyage:Help, or else post a message in the travellers' pub or on my talk page. Thanks for contributing!

Thanks for correcting my typo on Taft. -- Ryan • (talk) • 05:17, 9 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

Hey, thanks for the welcome! I was just looking around at places I know or have been. Nice looking site; I actually didn't know about Wikivoyage until now. I'll have a look around. :) Antandrus (talk) 05:26, 9 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

Oh, and I just read your blog post about ... you know what. Wow. Sorry you had to go through that. As an admin on en I've been threatened and threatened but it's never actually happened. Glad it turned out right! Antandrus (talk) 05:27, 9 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

We probably need to find ways to better promoting cross-project collaborations - the Wikivoyage links at the bottom of Wikipedia articles are easy to miss, and our Wikipedia links too easily get lost in the left nav...

As to that lawsuit, if you've ever had any doubts as to whether the hearts of the folks manning the Wikimedia corporate office were in the right place, or if they really took their mission statement seriously, I literally can't say enough good things about everyone who helped me. Not only are the Wikimedia projects good projects on their merits, they are good projects being shepherded by insanely great people. -- Ryan • (talk) • 05:40, 9 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

Do you want me to semi-protect your talk page for a while? --DannyS712 (talk) 00:14, 12 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi Danny. Yes please - he'll just go to another project and harass me there, but whatever helps. Appreciate it. :) Antandrus (talk) 00:27, 12 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Protected. If its a project I'm a sysop on (or a GS project) that they go to next, let me know and I'll tackle it there too DannyS712 (talk) 01:14, 12 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

I noticed you reverting vandalism on Talk:Bargaining. Thanks.

Reading your user page, I wonder if you might contribute at Music or related pages. Pashley (talk) 04:57, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

You're welcome. Looking around, my first thought -- wow, this is different from Wikipedia, where one has to cultivate a dry, gray, facts-only style, with everything cited to (and paraphrased from) some reliable source -- no original thinking allowed. Intriguing though. Stuck in my house because of you-know-what, craving travel and unable to do it, there is a certain attraction to this site. Antandrus (talk) 15:44, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

According to the Special:ListUsers/sysop, you are now an administrator. Congratulations, and thank you for your contributions to Wikivoyage. Ground Zero (talk) 15:26, 5 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Hey -- thanks! I promise not to break anything. :)

I'm available to help on stuff, of course. I will have time here and there between real-lifey kinds of things. Antandrus (talk) 16:16, 5 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Pinging @LPfi:

You need to file a phabricator task. Ours is at phab:T273864. Leaderboard (talk) 08:20, 12 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Looks like he's got a new interest in the Katyn Massacre... SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 09:08, 16 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

Yep, that's one of his standard things (for the last two years or so anyway) - did you see anything besides this? I didn't spot any on WV just now. Antandrus (talk) 15:45, 16 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

This one to Smolensk Oblast. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 22:27, 16 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

Ohhh yes, that's him. Missed that one. (I usually go through all recent changes on WV at least once a day. He had gone away for a bit.) Antandrus (talk) 23:22, 16 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

I think he's a lot less active here because my talk page is treated like its indef protected (but I've left another talk page for IPs and strangely enough, he hasn't discovered it.). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:45, 16 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

Thought if you might be interested in serving as a docent for your neighbourhood. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:21, 24 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

Hi!

You get this message because you are an admin on a Wikimedia wiki.

When someone edits a Wikimedia wiki without being logged in today, we show their IP address. As you may already know, we will not be able to do this in the future. This is a decision by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department, because norms and regulations for privacy online have changed.

Instead of the IP we will show a masked identity. You as an admin will still be able to access the IP. There will also be a new user right for those who need to see the full IPs of unregistered users to fight vandalism, harassment and spam without being admins. Patrollers will also see part of the IP even without this user right. We are also working on better tools to help.

If you have not seen it before, you can read more on Meta. If you want to make sure you don’t miss technical changes on the Wikimedia wikis, you can subscribe to the weekly technical newsletter.

We have two suggested ways this identity could work. We would appreciate your feedback on which way you think would work best for you and your wiki, now and in the future. You can let us know on the talk page. You can write in your language. The suggestions were posted in October and we will decide after 17 January.

Thank you. /Johan (WMF)

18:14, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Happy holidays, Antandrus! Hello Antandrus, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! It has been a pleasure to have you as a fellow Wikivoyager this year. Wherever you are, enjoy the festive season and stay warm (if you're north of the Tropic of Cancer)! Your help in maintaining, improving and expanding Wikivoyage will always be appreciated. Greetings from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. --SHB2000 on 12:34, 24 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

And thank you for the vote of confidence on Wikibooks :-). --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 12:34, 24 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Thank you SHB! - and happiest of holidays to you as well, from the dark side of the planet. I've been traveling, but have arrived, as of yesterday, in a dusty desert place. Hopefully I will get around to writing some voyage-appropriate stuff this year. You have my full confidence as an admin wherever that might be. (I was kicking around the idea of asking for global sysop, but sometimes wonder if it is more trouble than it is worth, writing being after all more fun than vandal-whacking, in the long run, but both tasks need to get done.) - Best wishes from the great North American Desert - Antandrus (talk) 15:01, 24 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

If I may ask, are you in Arizona or still in Cal? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 06:03, 25 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

I am at the moment in Arizona (family holiday). Warm and dry while the rest of the US experiences a rather severe blizzard and cold wave. Antandrus (talk) 14:51, 25 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

@SHB2000, what a lovely card. I am trying to do something I am terrible at: sending out season greetings cards. I sent out a few last year for the very first time, but It took me way too long to figure out the logistics. Do you know if there a laqe anywhere in wikiland where one can learn some time-saving tricks.

Hi Antandrus, please take my apologies for Special:Redirect/logid/3763641. Was meant to block our WMF-banned amigo (sarcasm intended – yes, I'm looking at you, Ljupco), but had accidentally blocked you in error. I don't know if this action might hinder your access to the Wikipedia Library, and if it did, I apologise for that. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 03:55, 28 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Ha ha, no worries! That's funny, because he loves to claim that I am 'globally blocked' etc etc (when in fact I have never been blocked except accidentally on any WMF project, ever), - and while there is a good chance he has been personally blocked more than any other troll in the history of the Foundation. I doubt accidental blocks have any effect (I've blocked myself twice accidentally on enwiki.) Happy Christmas-plus-three. :) Antandrus (talk) 04:18, 28 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

ha lol. The only time I've ever been blocked was on the Bulgarian Wikipedia by a bot. I don't know if I've blocked him more, or if I've blocked the infamous Brendan John Williams more (which is practically nearly every IP that geolocates to Brisbane or the Sunshine Coast). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 06:59, 28 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hello, Antandrus, the user has returned with a new account, see User:TruthOrDie1. Can you please block it and delete my talk page, for the reasons on the delete template? Thank you! ChrisWx (talk) 16:36, 17 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

Update: Account blocked, pages deleted, no action needed. ChrisWx (talk) 16:43, 17 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

Hi Chris - is that the same LTA as this person? I will watch your page and block them if they return. Antandrus (talk) 18:33, 17 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

Yes that is, please do, and thank you very much. ChrisWx (talk) 18:49, 17 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

Hi Antandrus, I was traveling intercity recently as a passenger on a mid-distance trip which I have taken many times before. To lessen the boredom I decided to look see what wiki-voy has to say about the area, and before I knew it I was drawn to some minor stuff that can be easily fixed. Since I am on a road trip away from my usual IP and "editing" environment I decide it is best to make my changes without logging in. This seems like the right thing to do until I hit a snag: A big ugly pink notice informing me that my IP range has been blocked by Steward X (whom I easily recognize) "temporarily" (2026 IIRC) for any IP in the range editing ALL wikimedia projects. Wow!

Are we really that desperate to block a few kiddy-vandals at the cost of losing the many good-faith IPs who originally built many of our wikimedia-masterpieces? I had no idea simple vandals required such a sledge hammer. Just wondering about your take on this matter, which should be of great concern especially to wiki-voy, I think? Ottawahitech (talk) 03:09, 31 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hmm. Not sure without seeing the history of that IP range. I have collided with the same notice, because sometimes for privacy I like to use Tor or one of the others that is universally blocked. Some of those services are blocked because of a history of rather extreme abuse. It's possible the IP was an open proxy and you bumped into this policy. I wish we had some more refined tools for keeping bad actors away, like allowing a specific device owned by a good-faith editor with a history on various projects to edit through one of those mass IP blocks. - Some serious philosophical issues here: with freedom comes abuse, necessarily, and if you lock too much down then there is less freedom, and the very premise of the Wiki-universe is freedom of information and its dissemination to a rather radical degree, right? - or at least it was 20 years ago when this all was new. Antandrus (talk) 03:26, 31 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

I was blocked from editing Wikipedia from my iPhone while logged into my account on the same basis (see w:User talk:Jon Kolbert#IP Issue, and note that the claim that I must have been using a VPN is wrong, but when I found the IP address on my phone and emailed it, I was told that wasn't the IP address that was shown on the site, etc.), and for what it's worth, I was told by email that Commons gave me permission to edit while logged in on my iPhone (I do not care enough to jump through hoops on Wikipedia to try to get similar permission, which I think they wouldn't give me because denying access to iPhone users who don't disable privacy features that are defaults is their policy, but think their policy is wrong and stupid for auto-confirmed users who are logged in). Since users with records of good-faith editing have been given exceptions to be able to edit by proxy in special circumstances, as I recall, isn't there a way to give such users permission to edit Wikivoyage from their IPs while on the road, by request? Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:57, 31 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

I think you can if you request IPBE (IP block exemption). It does suck, though: thankfully those Apple features don't affect me editing Wikivoyage, though (I presume you also used Safari?). --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 07:14, 31 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

Yes. As I said, I can't be bothered to ask for a special exemption on Wikipedia, and I think they're really stupid to block people from editing while logged into their accounts. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:40, 31 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

What's worse is it is only active for 12 months even if you obtain it. That's something that I never understood, but I guess 4 individuals cannot do much about it. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 09:55, 31 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

Wow @Ikan Kekek, good for you. I love the exchange you had with the Steward who created the IP range-block that affected you whlie you were logged-in. I myself would never be able to use the straightforward language you have used to communicate, and I envy you. If I did I'd be globally locked in five seconds:-)

Anyway, in my case, the IP-range block that prevented me from fixing the minor problems on wikivoy was created by the she-Steward who contributed her views to your exchange on enwp. The IP-range-block she created, was 32-bits wide IIRC, which translates to something over 4 million IP numbers (2 to the power of 32), I think(?). At the time I was toying with the idea of reporting this to the functionaries involved, but all the links I clicked in that ugly pink box lead to either non-existent pages on enwp, or were pages un-related-to-the-problem wallsoftext. Just like you I am not motivated to spend any more time to help wikimedia fix the public relations problems which are created by functionaries who do not understand the damage they do to the movement. I have much bigger fights on my hands, unfortunately.

It is nice, though to see that I am not to the only person around with problems contributing the the pool of universal knowledge. Ottawahitech (talk) 00:22, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Not that it helps anything, but I agree with the sentiment that it is really stupid to block people who are logged in to their accounts. Tempted to use stronger language; wait until I have another glass of wine. - But yes, this needs to be fixed. Antandrus (talk) 00:42, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hey,

Here is an edit-by-open-proxy-suggestion for your meta-user-talk: "I sincerely hope is that my work here". Will we get in trouble for posting this here, or is en-voyage enwp-guidelines-exempt? cheers :-) Ottawahitech (talk) 00:19, 18 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

lol, oops. I'm not a rules-monger, anyway, really. If something improves a project, whatevs. When I finished my doctorate and started looking for jobs, for fun I took a career placement exam, where I could find what "other" careers might suit my abilities - out of hundreds, or even thousands - and bureaucratic jobs came in with low, low scores, and "policeman" was dead last. So there's some irony I spend time chasing around banned idiots. Life is full of such absurdities. Miss seeing you around at Wikiquote. Antandrus (talk) 01:14, 18 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

If you had told me years ago that I was capable of doing even a tiny copyedit, I would have rofled. I was so convinced I could not do it. BTW for someone without natural talent for being a cop you do a better job of it than 99% of the other wiki-coppers, imio. How kind of you to say you miss seeing me at wq - it makes up for all those others who do not.

I hope you realize that editing-by-proxy is a serious business, if not here then on other wikis. One of many examples: META:User_talk:Camouflaged_Mirage/Archive_2#Improve access to COVID-19 content - an observation Ottawahitech (talk) 01:32, 20 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Ikan Kekek, or anyone else, I was visiting enwb and to my surprise/or not saw this old request: Request_Unblocking_of_an_IP. I wonder if this connected to what we are talking about here? cheers Ottawahitech (talk) 20:52, 13 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

I came here to tell you something I had found out only today, but by the time I got hereto actually post I've already forgot why I came here, sigh, Anyway do you know anything about the little grey box displaying at the top of this page with a link to.. I forget. I think it is some new feature, which I don't have the time to study right now. Cheers, Ottawahitech (talk) 16:59, 21 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

I forgot to congratulate en-voy for resisting the temptation to change the traditional way the wiki looks. I can still find my contribution and the recent changes buttons, yey! Ottawahitech (talk) 17:08, 21 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

You probably already know that IP addresses will be masked very soon on all wikimedia rejects with only admins allowed to see the actual IP address. This has been mentioned on many wiki-bulletin boards, such village pumps etc for some time.

When I first saw this announcement I immediately panicked because I thought my own IP address will only be visible to admins, some of whom have been drastically hostile with no reason IMIO. However recently I found out that this treatment only affects unregistered-users, and that individuals who are registered on wikimedia foundation wikis, will have protection from probing eyes of hostile admins. I hope that also means me when I post without logging in, not sure. I have not found discussion at the Trailers pub about it Ottawahitech (talk) 19:51, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Yeah - I do not like the new thing at all. Highly likely I'll just stop patrolling, because then my ability to remember IP addresses becomes useless, except where I'm admin. Just makes it harder for some of us. I have some tricks I won't mention that will become unavailable. Antandrus (talk) 23:10, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Maybe it's time for you to start collecting hats :-)

Offtopic: I just discovered (I think?) Tips for women travellers and there is some talk there about pregnancy, hmmm... Ottawahitech (talk) 13:15, 23 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

How good is your ability to remember IP addresses compared to AI? Can you tell me who 66.99.49.194 is/was without looking it up? That reminds me that at some point in my real life I had an autistic like-like memory for phone numbers. Without giving out too many dhints, except for: how old I am, where I live, what I do for a living, the list goes on. I can tell you that once I wrote down someone's phone number, I never had to look it p ever. If I wanted to talk to X, say my city councillor, I would custodial their phone number without having to look it up. Unfortunately or fortunately I lost this ability/disaiblity a long time ago, even before I realized it was unusual.

Talking about hats, the very first time I was indef-blocked, actually it was the first time ever I was blocked for any length of time anywhere at all IIRC, was in 2012 on enwp. Someone I had never even heard off showed up on my UTP and demanded to know (speaking from memory now, I have not looked this up recently) who I was. When I asked what his/her credentials were to ask such a probing question I was told by this admin (who's not wearing an admin hat, which does not exist to this day, 12 or so years later), and by name other UTP participants that my behavior was intolerable and I was blocked within a very short time, I remember it seems very long at the time, but then one time when I was involved a real life road accident, the few moments just before the crash were etched in my memory as if they took forever.

Usual pet disclosure apples. Ottawahitech (talk) 14:25, 25 November 2024 (UTC)Reply