WT:RFA, WP:BN, WP:CN, WP:AN, WP:ANI, WP:AE, WP:RFAR, WP:DRV
WT:RFA
RfA candidate | S | O | N | S % | Status | Ending (UTC) | Time left | Dups? | Report |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
HouseBlaster | 137 | 9 | 2 | 94 | Open | 00:50, 23 June 2024 | 1 day, 5 hours | no | report |
Candidate | Type | Result | Date of close | Tally | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
S | O | N | % | ||||
Pickersgill-Cunliffe | RfA | Successful | 15 Jun 2024 | 201 | 0 | 0 | 100 |
Elli | RfA | Successful | 7 Jun 2024 | 207 | 6 | 3 | 97 |
DreamRimmer | RfA | Withdrawn by candidate | 31 May 2024 | 45 | 43 | 14 | 51 |
Numberguy6 | RfA | Closed per WP:SNOW | 27 May 2024 | 5 | 23 | 2 | 18 |
ToadetteEdit | RfA | Closed per WP:NOTNOW | 30 Apr 2024 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
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Feedback on the "new RFA process"
Hi all, as suggested above - I think the discussion stage is an excellent improvement to the RFA process, and I hope it continues in future. It's less binary and instant than the wave of negative/positive votes - I would like the status to say something like "discussion stage" or something that indicates that "voting" hasn't opened.
I hope others have feedback too! Turini2 (talk) 17:09, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- I realize there are multiple, sometimes self-contradicting goals for this new process. But one data point is: I don't think that was any less painful for the candidate than a bunch of opposes. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:58, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- I have to agree; it's still a pile-on whether it occurs in the General Comments or Oppose section. Pawnkingthree (talk) 19:08, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- The above comments are correct, but I don't think that this RfA is really prototypical of the problems that people were trying to address. The discussion period seems like more of a potential fix for RfAs where an initially strong candidate is contested by an oppose that alleges significant misconduct, leading to reevaluation of past supports and perhaps lending itself to an overly polemic back-and-forth as oppose !voters try to swing against the wall of initial, presumably superficial, supports. signed, Rosguill talk 19:38, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- I have to agree; it's still a pile-on whether it occurs in the General Comments or Oppose section. Pawnkingthree (talk) 19:08, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- Levivich recently wrote
Has anyone reading this ever, in any other aspect of their life, seen anything like this happen? Ever gone to a school where the entire faculty and student body gets together and talks about you? Or had a job where an all-staff meeting is called and the subject of discussion is the performance of an employee?
And what do we have here? A bunch of of people lining up to explain "here's the reason why you suck". Only this time without so much as a single Moral support. I would frankly suggest IAR-deleting the RFA. ToadetteEdit does not deserve to be subjected to that. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 18:59, 29 April 2024 (UTC)- @Suffusion of Yellow, what do you mean? ToadetteEdit! 19:11, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- I mean people are being needlessly cruel in your RFA. I seem to remember that once upon time RFAs like this were just deleted as a courtesy. If you want it kept, sure, that's your choice. If not, well, there's no policy supporting deletion, but hopefully someone will do the decent thing and WP:IAR. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:20, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Suffusion of Yellow, what do you mean? ToadetteEdit! 19:11, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- It's a nice idea in theory, but I think the discussion phase actually made it worse. I really don't see the point in a general comments section if people are just going to fill it up with would-be opposes, withdrawal recommendations etc. It's just moving the poor and bitey comments to another section on the page. --Ferien (talk) 19:29, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- I admit I'm not the biggest fan of discussion only for a few days even if I think discussion is a valuable part of the RfA process. Maybe the next time we do RfA reform 2 years from now I'll try my luck? An idea popped into my head this afternoon: an actual vote for support/oppose akin to the securepoll process but without getting rid of the discussion aspect. We could just place a greater emphasis on general comments if one has feedback they wish to bring to the wider community (whether that's "wow I'm glad so and so is running, they do a great job at x" or "I have some concerns because of y"). But people don't have to pitch in if they don't want to and votes otherwise remain anonymous. I think we might get the best of both worlds from that. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 19:54, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- People will always be more motivated to explain why they're opposing than why they're supporting. With the SecurePoll option, people whose votes were going to be "yup" or "LGTM" or "not a jerk, has clue" will probably not make any public comments at all. So the whole "discussion" could just end as a pile-on of negativity, even if the silent majority supports the candidate. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:06, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think a sample size of one (and not exactly a typical RfA, either) is sufficient for determining this. Elli (talk | contribs) 20:09, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- I'd still suggest a running tally of the votes, just with them being anonymous. I don't think it'd necessarily end in a wall of negativity - I suspect many would be opposers would just oppose and leave it at that instead of engaging in discussion about why they're voting the way they are unless they think it's crucial that other voters be aware of such information. And I genuinely think that people in our community would be willing to leave positive feedback in these comments like they would if they wrote an extensive support vote in the current rfa environment. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 20:25, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, a running tally would remove my objection. A bit more difficult to anonymize; you'd need to keep secret the list of voters until the vote is over, and then shuffle it. But not impossible. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:35, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think these difficulties are significant. That's not to say I disagree with you - just that I think this is easily surmounted. -- asilvering (talk) 03:04, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Anyways my random idea for the next time RfA reform kicks around is somewhat off-topic for this conversation. If anyone has any further feedback for it (whether it's to say they think it's great or it wouldn't work), feel free to stop by at my talk page. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 19:24, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think these difficulties are significant. That's not to say I disagree with you - just that I think this is easily surmounted. -- asilvering (talk) 03:04, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, a running tally would remove my objection. A bit more difficult to anonymize; you'd need to keep secret the list of voters until the vote is over, and then shuffle it. But not impossible. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:35, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- People will always be more motivated to explain why they're opposing than why they're supporting. With the SecurePoll option, people whose votes were going to be "yup" or "LGTM" or "not a jerk, has clue" will probably not make any public comments at all. So the whole "discussion" could just end as a pile-on of negativity, even if the silent majority supports the candidate. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:06, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- This is a poor test case for the new idea. This sort of RfA would also have been painful under the old system. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:18, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- +1. This is not a typical RfA. If this RfA had happened a month ago, it would have been a simple snow close after multiple moral support opposes. Perhaps we should encourage people not to self-nom under this system during the test period. Valereee (talk) 20:46, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed. Discussions of RfA reforms have always focused primarily, if not entirely, on ones that have a chance of succeeding. It's very difficult to imagine how we deliver a WP:NOTNOW or WP:SNOW outcome in a way that isn't painful, but in any case the discussion-only trial was not intended to address that and explicitly said that they did not count towards the trial period. – Joe (talk) 09:22, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I'd argue it would've been less painful under the old system—definitely still painful—but however many people would've opposed, it'd get closed as SNOW or NOTNOW, and it'd be over in a few hours. Instead, this discussion has drug out for over a day and the pileons keep, well, piling on. Queen of ♡ | speak 19:14, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- There's some discussion at the RFA's talk page and the candidate's user talk about this. I'm not sure it's that clear. Experienced editors, Arbs, and crats have all pushed back on snow closure being possible here, and the main reasons presented have nothing to do with this trial. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:24, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- No one pushed back until the close was reverted, though? What I mean is, it was for ~ten hours treated as noncontroversial. Now that it's controversial, no one is willing to repeat the close. Only a very few actually seem to have objected to it, and as far as I can tell even fewer think the revert was a positive. Valereee (talk) 19:26, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- People have been willing to repeat the close, but it hasn't stuck. Other than that, I agree with you. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:32, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Who repeated the close, @Firefangledfeathers? I saw that the RfA disappeared for a few minutes, but I couldn't figure out why. Valereee (talk) 19:34, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- See Special:History/Wikipdia:Requests for adminship for the back and forth. ProcrastinatingReader→ Cremastra→NoobThreePointOh→Primefac. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:38, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- There is no revision history at that link. Sorry for being an idiot, I know it has something to do with transclusion... Valereee (talk) 19:40, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Special:History/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship; FFF misspelt "Wikipedia". Queen of ♡ | speak 19:41, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Hahahahaha Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:42, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- hahahahaha...and I didn't catch it! Valereee (talk) 19:43, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- And this is why I love Wikipdia, the free encyclopdia anyone can edit... Queen of ♡ | speak 19:45, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- hahahahaha...and I didn't catch it! Valereee (talk) 19:43, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Hahahahaha Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:42, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Special:History/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship; FFF misspelt "Wikipedia". Queen of ♡ | speak 19:41, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Just a typo: Special:History/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship NotAGenious (talk) 19:41, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- So that wasn't actually it not sticking, though...noob failed to correctly close, Pf simply fixed it? Valereee (talk) 19:46, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- It is true that removing the transclusion isn't the way to close. Maybe Pf doesn't object to closure? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:49, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- The only thing I'm thinking is that the crats at this point seem to be treating this cautiously because of the reversion of the close? I mean, we're all treating it that way. Valereee (talk) 19:51, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I am "treating this cautiously" because after someone asked if they had withdrawn, I sought confirmation and they said no, they were not withdrawing. I do not necessarily object to someone deciding that this is a TOOSOON/NOTNOW case and closing (as it states at WP:RFA, anyone can make that call), but I personally am going to wait for a go/no go from Toadette before closing, especially since the close has already been reverted once. Primefac (talk) 20:01, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- The only thing I'm thinking is that the crats at this point seem to be treating this cautiously because of the reversion of the close? I mean, we're all treating it that way. Valereee (talk) 19:51, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- It is true that removing the transclusion isn't the way to close. Maybe Pf doesn't object to closure? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:49, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- There is no revision history at that link. Sorry for being an idiot, I know it has something to do with transclusion... Valereee (talk) 19:40, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- See Special:History/Wikipdia:Requests for adminship for the back and forth. ProcrastinatingReader→ Cremastra→NoobThreePointOh→Primefac. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:38, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Who repeated the close, @Firefangledfeathers? I saw that the RfA disappeared for a few minutes, but I couldn't figure out why. Valereee (talk) 19:34, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- People have been willing to repeat the close, but it hasn't stuck. Other than that, I agree with you. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:32, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- No one pushed back until the close was reverted, though? What I mean is, it was for ~ten hours treated as noncontroversial. Now that it's controversial, no one is willing to repeat the close. Only a very few actually seem to have objected to it, and as far as I can tell even fewer think the revert was a positive. Valereee (talk) 19:26, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Kind of depends. The reversion of the snow close, which turned the original close into a controversial edit, could have been made under either system. Under the old, it might have meant the vote was left open basically for the entire seven days. If this one gets reclosed quickly after voting starts, which kind of resets the clock, it could end only a few hours later. Valereee (talk) 19:26, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- There's some discussion at the RFA's talk page and the candidate's user talk about this. I'm not sure it's that clear. Experienced editors, Arbs, and crats have all pushed back on snow closure being possible here, and the main reasons presented have nothing to do with this trial. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:24, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Related to the section above too, but I've asked a question at Template talk:RFX report about enacting 3b on the status column. NotAGenious (talk) 19:28, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
In the interest of not unduly biasing the current request in progress, or having the candidate undergo a meta-analysis of their request while it is live, perhaps further retrospective discussion can be delayed until at least the request is over? isaacl (talk) 21:03, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for this suggestion. However, it is now over, and I have to say: this was awful. If we're going to continue using this "comment only" bit at the beginning, we absolutely have to make it clear that comments that are in essence describing a vote are not allowed. But I don't see any way for this to be possible. To take a single comment that I think illustrates the problem well (I don't mean to pick on anyone in particular! but Daniel, since I'm quoting you, it seemed best to ping you), this comment is clearly an oppose vote:
Was not impressed by this DRV submission, which was very ill-judged. When challenged by numerous editors, including directly as a reply, failed to show up to defend their position. This would be a strong oppose for lack of experience and capabilities from me.
- But let's say we remove the vote part. That would fix the problem, right? No. We're left with:
Was not impressed by this DRV submission, which was very ill-judged. When challenged by numerous editors, including directly as a reply, failed to show up to defend their position.
Come on! We can all see this is an oppose vote. But how on earth would anyone bring up legitimate concerns without sounding like an oppose vote? I could rewrite this to something more hesitant, like "I'm not sure this DRV submission showed a willingness to adapt to consensus. When other editor challenged this submission, the candidate didn't comment." But that's no better. It's just more passive-aggressive. -- asilvering (talk) 03:03, 30 April 2024 (UTC)- The instructions on the AfD page say "Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review their contributions before commenting." So I thoroughly reviewed their contributions before commenting. "Voting opens at 12:21, 1 May 2024 (UTC). In the meantime, discussion may only take place under § General comments", so I placed my review of their contributions under General comments. I didn't "vote", but indicated how I viewed their candidacy to be totally transparent, based upon my review of their contributions. I felt it was less passive aggressive to write my perspective on their future candidacy, rather than a more vague comment that everyone knows what it means but lacks the candidness of actually saying it. Not sure what else I'm meant to do? Daniel (talk) 03:28, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think anyone is criticizing you. I believe you just happened to phrase your comment in a way that illustrates how difficult it is to discuss a candidate without indicating a vote. Joyous! Noise! 05:25, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- You're right, of course - my frustration is more with the process causing this confusion. If someone in good faith feels like they're doing the right thing (like I was here), but their action is counter-intuitive to the actual goal of that process, then maybe either a) the process needs to be tweaked or b) the instructions for said process need to be clearer. Cheers, Daniel (talk) 05:31, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I'm starting to get the sense (possibly incorrectly) that what people want to see is a wave of solely positive comments and discussion points. That's all well and good, but I'm concerned it might set some users up to expect their RFA will succeed and then be crushed when the actual vote comes and it isn't successful. Intothatdarkness 13:10, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- If I'm not mistaken, part of the reason for this trial run is to find a solution for the common trend of dozens of support !votes being cast before the candidate has really been scrutinized. While this is a worthy objective, I do wonder if we may have tipped the scales too far in the opposite direction. That said, this particular RfA probably isn't going to be very instructive for evaluating the trial run. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 19:07, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- I'm starting to get the sense (possibly incorrectly) that what people want to see is a wave of solely positive comments and discussion points. That's all well and good, but I'm concerned it might set some users up to expect their RFA will succeed and then be crushed when the actual vote comes and it isn't successful. Intothatdarkness 13:10, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I think it would be easier to discuss good points ("several GAs") and bad points ("not many edits to AIV") about a candidate if there were no issues that are almost universally seen as disqualifying. You just can't make up for recent blocks or recent poor judgment about copyright or similar core article issues. —Kusma (talk) 10:05, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- You're right, of course - my frustration is more with the process causing this confusion. If someone in good faith feels like they're doing the right thing (like I was here), but their action is counter-intuitive to the actual goal of that process, then maybe either a) the process needs to be tweaked or b) the instructions for said process need to be clearer. Cheers, Daniel (talk) 05:31, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Daniel, I'm not criticizing you. As I said, I chose your comment because it illustrates the problem well. I don't think there's any way to write it differently that would not come off as an oppose vote. You could have behaved differently, but I don't know that you should have - that is, I can't really come up with any way for you to raise this concern in the discussion without either appearing to be an oppose vote or talking in weird circumlocutions that don't really help anybody. -- asilvering (talk) 15:22, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Do you think that all comments that raised concerns appeared to be oppose votes? I don't, I think there are plenty of examples on the rfa page of comments that are not votes. Contra to your view above, my view is if you take out the last sentence of Daniel's comment, it reads like a concern raised that's not an oppose vote. Were it not for the last sentence, I would not assume that Daniel was going to vote oppose. I wouldn't assume that a criticism meant the editor would vote oppose or that a compliment meant the editor would vote support. Levivich (talk) 15:45, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- When I wrote "Come on! We can all see this is an oppose vote." I did mean that. -- asilvering (talk) 20:46, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Do you think that all comments that raised concerns appeared to be oppose votes? I don't, I think there are plenty of examples on the rfa page of comments that are not votes. Contra to your view above, my view is if you take out the last sentence of Daniel's comment, it reads like a concern raised that's not an oppose vote. Were it not for the last sentence, I would not assume that Daniel was going to vote oppose. I wouldn't assume that a criticism meant the editor would vote oppose or that a compliment meant the editor would vote support. Levivich (talk) 15:45, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think anyone is criticizing you. I believe you just happened to phrase your comment in a way that illustrates how difficult it is to discuss a candidate without indicating a vote. Joyous! Noise! 05:25, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I closed that section of the RfA RfC and don't remember seeing any discussion of forbidding comments that indicate an intended vote. You're very welcome to propose such a measure, but it was not an explicit part of the proposal that we're trialling now. Personally, I find it difficult to imagine how you could make a meaningful comment, that isn't a question, without giving away which way you are leaning. – Joe (talk) 09:28, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Joe Roe For what it's worth, I'm uncertain where I land on Asilvering's argument. But, I personally thought it was obviously in the proposal (at least to the extent my comment below says). If RFA is converting to "No support or oppose votes for 2 days" and editors go "If I could, I'd vote oppose" or similar, that pretty much defeats the point of trial-ing a discussion based setup. I did not care to discuss it because I didn't think I'd need to. "Hey let's not do X for some time" does not need an explicit "But what if I threaten to X" clause; that way lies more Wikilawyering. Soni (talk) 14:14, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I think the point is that any vote, !vote or quasi-vote expressed in the discussion section will not be counted when determining the outcome. That is, at least, how Barkeep49 described his aim when he proposed it (
[discussion before voting] has the potential to take some of the temperature of [RfA] down since people will be able to express concerns and respond to those concerns without the immediate stakes of having that discussion impact the support percentage
). – Joe (talk) 14:24, 30 April 2024 (UTC)- I will note that my proposal is not what passed and so how I described it is irrelevant. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:31, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- But the proposal that did pass was derived from your proposal, just changing the number of days. This was noted in the proposal that formally passed (3b) and the close. – Joe (talk) 14:39, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- My reading of the proposal differs from both Joe's and BK's. There were two proposals: 3, by BK, and 3b, by utbc. 3 didn't pass but 3b did.
- The text of proposal 3b is, in its entirety,
Note I have just added an alternative, proposing a 2+5-day RfA trial instead of the 3+7-day trial originally proposed.
This clearly means "the same thing as 3, except change it from 3+7 to 2+5." So the text of 3 is very relevant to what 3b proposed. - The text of proposal 3 included:
For the first 3 days (72 hours) no "Support", "Oppose", or "Neutral" comments/!votes may be made. Optional questions may still be asked and answered, and general comments may still be left.
- To me,
no "Support", "Oppose", or "Neutral" comments/!votes may be made
is pretty clear: don't say whether you support, oppose, or are neutral, about the candidate. Because doing so would, indeed, defeat the whole purpose of having 2 (or 3) days during which no support/oppose/neutralcomments/!votes may be made
. - So I do think there is consensus forbidding such comments, and that consensus comes from reading 3b together with 3, which is how 3b must be read. Levivich (talk) 14:42, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Joe: I just realized that your re-statement of the proposal in your close of 3b changed "no "Support", "Oppose", or "Neutral" comments/!votes may be made" to "no !votes (comments indicating "support", "oppose", or "neutral") may be made". Subtle, but I see those two things as being materially different for reasons that are now apparent: It's not just no "[support/oppose/neutral] !votes," but no "[support/oppose/neutral] comments/!votes", and that word "comments" being in there, and not just "!votes" is meaningful, at least under my reading. What do you think? Is this just scrivener's error, or was there something you saw in the discussion that led you to rephrase that part? Levivich (talk) 15:05, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I think I just thought it was a bit clunkily worded. To me a !vote and a "comment indicating support/oppose/neutral" are the same thing.
- In general I'm not saying that the understanding that "no votes" means "no indicating how you will vote" is unreasonable, just that in the absence of a clear statement to that effect in the proposal, and no explicit discussion of it until now, as far as I can recall, it seems a bit too flimsy to hang a new rule off. – Joe (talk) 15:49, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Comments like
This would be a strong oppose for lack of experience and capabilities from me
orI will automatically oppose
are clearlycomments indicating "support", "oppose", or "neutral"
, right? I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but as I read your closing statement, there is consensus not to have such comments during the first two days... right? Levivich (talk) 15:56, 30 April 2024 (UTC) - I do not think it's a 'new rule' but a simple 'Rules as Intended' scenario. To me, the central point of a "Discussion only N days" came from a clear "Why is this proposal a thing", which was 'To reduce stress on RFA candidates'. To me, it's not a bureaucratic note of "Say whatever you want, but we only start counting 2 days later" but a "We find vote-piling is stressful, so we are not voting at all for 2 days". Its core argument derives from "Discussion is less stressful than a bunch of Opposes, but without necessarily losing the 'bringing things up' and feedbacks" in my opinion.
- Had I realised how your close differed from what I imagined, I'd bring it up post close. It's hard to notice distinction, but with significant implications (as we can see). So I guess the main question isn't "Is this a new rule" but "Which one did the discussion imply". Soni (talk) 16:01, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think asking what discussions imply rather than what they explicitly said is a good road to go down. When something is unclear, surely the best and easiest thing to do is to just discuss it further? – Joe (talk) 06:19, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- That's what we're doing here. I just wanted to point out that it's not a "new rule", that's all.
- But yeah, we could benefit from a quick discussion on "What comments are okay/not" and "Do we need any enforcement of this/by who?" (Probably just crats?). So far this section has a lot of opinions in all directions Soni (talk) 06:37, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think asking what discussions imply rather than what they explicitly said is a good road to go down. When something is unclear, surely the best and easiest thing to do is to just discuss it further? – Joe (talk) 06:19, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Comments like
- I will note that my proposal is not what passed and so how I described it is irrelevant. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:31, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I think the point is that any vote, !vote or quasi-vote expressed in the discussion section will not be counted when determining the outcome. That is, at least, how Barkeep49 described his aim when he proposed it (
- There's a big gap between "giving away which way you are leaning" and (to take one clear example) "Should I be able to participate in the voting time, I will automatically oppose in line with my past precedence". This is a support/oppose/neutral comment/!vote, it is not general discussion. In fact, it says nothing at all about the candidate, and just an announcement of one person's voting criteria. It's a vote, clearly a vote, and I think there was consensus to not do this. Of course we can imagine less-clear examples, but "I would vote X" and similar constructions are a clear examples of votes, not discussion. Levivich (talk) 14:47, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
Personally, I find it difficult to imagine how you could make a meaningful comment, that isn't a question, without giving away which way you are leaning.
Yes, I agree. That's my point. -- asilvering (talk) 15:24, 30 April 2024 (UTC)- "The candidate has 2 FAs and 4 GAs and over 50 DYK credits. They have made no edits to AIV. They seem experienced with content and less experienced with vandalism." A comment like this would just be reporting on research on the candidate without giving away what I personally find important in an admin candidate. —Kusma (talk) 15:50, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Can you try a similar comment for when there's something specific being brought up? I agree that "They seem experienced with content and less experienced with vandalism" doesn't in itself come off as a vote (unless, of course, the candidate has expressed a desire to work in anti-vandalism, in which case it sure sounds a lot more like an oppose). But a lot of the discussion about the problems with RFA come down to something like "it's awful that the candidate can be doing well and then get totally scuppered because of a single comment they made somewhere, it makes people feel paranoid and ends up being a drama-fest". I don't really see how "you can bring it up, but you can't vote about it" makes that aspect any better, or how people who are really trying to abide by that rule would be able to bring up incidents they think are important without coming off as being an "undisclosed oppose". -- asilvering (talk) 20:58, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I imagine we could get discussions of the following type.
- A: "candidate used invalid ILIKEIT arguments in these AfDs about snooker players".
- B: "but they have hundreds of excellent AfDs unrelated to snooker, so I think they understand notability"
- A: asks candidate whether they will recuse from closing snooker AfDs
- Sometimes there are problems where there are solutions other than opposing the candidate, and it may be worth discussing them first before voting. —Kusma (talk) 22:33, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Can you try a similar comment for when there's something specific being brought up? I agree that "They seem experienced with content and less experienced with vandalism" doesn't in itself come off as a vote (unless, of course, the candidate has expressed a desire to work in anti-vandalism, in which case it sure sounds a lot more like an oppose). But a lot of the discussion about the problems with RFA come down to something like "it's awful that the candidate can be doing well and then get totally scuppered because of a single comment they made somewhere, it makes people feel paranoid and ends up being a drama-fest". I don't really see how "you can bring it up, but you can't vote about it" makes that aspect any better, or how people who are really trying to abide by that rule would be able to bring up incidents they think are important without coming off as being an "undisclosed oppose". -- asilvering (talk) 20:58, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- "The candidate has 2 FAs and 4 GAs and over 50 DYK credits. They have made no edits to AIV. They seem experienced with content and less experienced with vandalism." A comment like this would just be reporting on research on the candidate without giving away what I personally find important in an admin candidate. —Kusma (talk) 15:50, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Joe Roe For what it's worth, I'm uncertain where I land on Asilvering's argument. But, I personally thought it was obviously in the proposal (at least to the extent my comment below says). If RFA is converting to "No support or oppose votes for 2 days" and editors go "If I could, I'd vote oppose" or similar, that pretty much defeats the point of trial-ing a discussion based setup. I did not care to discuss it because I didn't think I'd need to. "Hey let's not do X for some time" does not need an explicit "But what if I threaten to X" clause; that way lies more Wikilawyering. Soni (talk) 14:14, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- The instructions on the AfD page say "Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review their contributions before commenting." So I thoroughly reviewed their contributions before commenting. "Voting opens at 12:21, 1 May 2024 (UTC). In the meantime, discussion may only take place under § General comments", so I placed my review of their contributions under General comments. I didn't "vote", but indicated how I viewed their candidacy to be totally transparent, based upon my review of their contributions. I felt it was less passive aggressive to write my perspective on their future candidacy, rather than a more vague comment that everyone knows what it means but lacks the candidness of actually saying it. Not sure what else I'm meant to do? Daniel (talk) 03:28, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- (ec) I think my takeaway is for people to understand that a discussion is different from a voting process. This isn't a typical ANI discussion where consensus will be evaluated from just arguments; we have a separate vote later. Not everything needed mildly rephrased repetitions. Perhaps editors/crats should informally discourage pile ons more (More section headings? Cutting down discussion sooner?). Comments like
Should I be able to participate in the voting time, I will automatically oppose
or bolded "too soon"s do not do any favours either. The point of a "discussion only" time period is to avoid votes, not to merely make them early. Soni (talk) 03:07, 30 April 2024 (UTC)- I agree that commenters need to be aware that there's no need to repeat any points, since the relative strengths of each discussion point will be weighed by each person weighing in during the support/oppose phase. (Commenters can engage in discussion to further expand or counter points.) In general, Wikipedia editors ought to exercise restraint when an outcome seems apparent.(*)
- Looking at the other end of the process, it's hard to dissuade editors from doing something they decide they really want to do. They will say they've read the relevant advice, and be given opinions from experienced editors against proceeding, and yet still go ahead. Maybe there should be a procedure to initiate a quick temporary pause, where some experienced editors could pause a request for administrative privileges to check with the candidate if they want to proceed. But English Wikipedia's decision-making traditions make it hard to make decisions quickly, and many Wikipedia editors don't like having gatekeepers (which certainly can lead to clique issues).
- (*) I realize, of course, that editors doing what they really want to do applies also to commenters. A lot of editors like expressing a viewpoint set in bold, and so it happens all the time even when editors are asked not to express a final opinion and focus on discussion points instead. isaacl (talk) 04:11, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- In general, Wikipedia editors ought to exercise restraint when an outcome seems apparent. Honestly, I think this is the crux of a lot of our issues here. We like to see our own comments. We like the little notifications telling us that our comments have triggered replies. This invariably leads to pile-ons in the comment sections. Joyous! Noise! 16:18, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- your signature being placed after this comment... oh no, haha asilvering (talk) 20:59, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- In general, Wikipedia editors ought to exercise restraint when an outcome seems apparent. Honestly, I think this is the crux of a lot of our issues here. We like to see our own comments. We like the little notifications telling us that our comments have triggered replies. This invariably leads to pile-ons in the comment sections. Joyous! Noise! 16:18, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not impressed with how this first one went. 1) It interferes with the normal RFA dynamic of the first day or two being mostly supports, which could be an important morale booster. 2) It seems more disorganized. People are still supporting and opposing with the tone of their comments, but it is no longer placed in the corresponding section. 3) Folks that comment now have to remember to come back in 2 days and copy paste their comments into the support/oppose sections. I'll keep an open mind since we have 4 more of these to do, but not off to the best start. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:51, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
About 5 trial runs
- P.S. I guess according to the proposal 3b close and ProcrastinatingReader's WP:NOTNOW close, this latest RFA doesn't count towards the 5 trial runs total, and we still need to do 5 more of these? –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:18, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Not 5 more of these. 5 real RFAs. Hopefully next time people will refrain from using the nonvoting period to indicate how they will vote. Levivich (talk) 05:38, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- The instructions on the RfA page itself should be improved to clarify this, especially during the trial period. Nowhere on the RfA did it state that you could not indicate how you would vote, whether implicitly or explicitly. Daniel (talk) 05:40, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- This seemed like a serious RFA by an experienced editor, so I'm a bit surprised it doesn't count. But that's fine, let's follow the wording of the close. 5 non-SNOW non-NOTNOW RFAs or six months (September 24, 2024), I think it says, whichever comes first. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:21, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Perhaps a BN should strike such comments in the future. — ♠ Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Non nobis solum. ♠ 15:35, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- But Joe (who closed the discussion that led to this trial) has explicitly stated that there's no consensus to forbid such comments. Perhaps a bolded Support or Oppose would be downgraded, but those that merely quack like a support or oppose are fair game. As noted above, many kinds of feedback are impossible to give without implicitly supporting or opposing anyway. — Amakuru (talk) 16:51, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- What if a sixth RfA while the fifth is still open? My reading of the close says that the sixth and any subsequent RfAs opened before the fifth has been closed will also fall under the trial rules.
- The alternative is that we have two simultaneous RfAs with different rules, where the newer RfA has voting open several days before the older one. Toadspike [Talk] 19:33, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- Five means five, in my opinion. I think the sixth one should be done under the old procedure. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:37, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
- I agree that five means five, but one could read
the next five RfAs that are not closed per WP:SNOW or WP:NOTNOW
as requiring us to wait for the fifth RfA to end, to know for sure that it won't be SNOW or NOTNOWed. Toadspike [Talk] 11:42, 1 June 2024 (UTC)- Just how we would handle a new RfA, if 4 RfAs have been completed without being closed as SNOW or NOTNOW, and one is currently open. We will not know, at least for a while, if the 5th RfA will complete without SNOW or NOTNOW (and, as we have just seen, that may not be obvious during the discussion phase). So, do we require that next requester to wait until we know how the 5th RfA will end? I don't see an obvious answer. Donald Albury 14:44, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
- I agree that five means five, but one could read
- Five means five, in my opinion. I think the sixth one should be done under the old procedure. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:37, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
- Not 5 more of these. 5 real RFAs. Hopefully next time people will refrain from using the nonvoting period to indicate how they will vote. Levivich (talk) 05:38, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
Reopen and reclose
Since the RfA is underway once again, I repeat my suggestion to defer retrospective analysis until at least the RfA is completed. isaacl (talk) 17:21, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
Cremastra has reverted his reversal of the close. So third time's the charm, I guess? Queen of ♡ | speak 20:11, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- This is what the great Kenneth Parcell would have called a "clusterwhoops". Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:15, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Sorry about that mess... I just hope no-one will revert my self-revert, which would cause everything to become so much more confusing. Cremastra (talk) 20:16, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Out of your hands now! Thanks for self-reverting. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:24, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I was fairly active in the discussions about the reform proposals, and I tried to make the case that we should take it slow on implementing stuff, and subject most of it to the Phase 2 part of the process before implementing. But I got pushback from editors who felt like, if something clearly had a lot more support than opposition, then we should go ahead and treat it as having consensus. At this point, for this particular trial, it looks like we were going to run into harsh reality, one way or the other, sooner or later. I'm on the side of the editors who say here that we cannot regulate that RfA participants only comment in general, without indicating how they intend to !vote. It's unrealistic to think that we can reduce that rule to something that is enforceable. It can't be done. Editors will want to say what they want to say, and if we demand that nobody indicate a planned !vote, people will just find artful ways to skirt the edges. There are so many ways to write about one's opinion without quite framing it as a stance, that it simply will be unenforceable. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:44, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
Trial info request
I generally come to RFAs from my watchlist and have not followed the reform discussions, and it took me quite a bit of time to figure out why the RFA looked different and why everyone was noting that ToadetteEdit "was the first under the new system". Would it be possible to put a bigger banner/info in the lead on WP:RFA, or the individual RFAs, saying that there's a trial happening and linking to which trial(s) are ongoing? Right now the only information is a half-sentence in #Expressing opinions that I missed until my second time reading the page. Or maybe add another line linking to the trial information in the Support/Oppose/Neutral sections where it currently just says "Voting opens at [date]"? Alyo (chat·edits) 13:45, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I don't know, it sounds quite bureaucratic and might risk turning the next few RfAs into reruns of the RFA2024 RfC rather than a real test of how the changes work. The way I look at these 'trials' is just that we've agreed to make a change to policy, and also agreed to revisit that decision after a fixed amount of time. Until then, WP:RFA and the individual RfA pages describe the process RfA voters should follow now. The links and discussion archives are all there for those who want to dive into why the process looks like it does. – Joe (talk) 14:33, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- My thought is that for someone (*cough*) whose path is Watchlist-->"An RFA is open" link-->the RFA candidate link in the box on the right, it's complete opaque why "Voting opens at [date]. In the meantime, discussion may only take place under § General comments." I thought I'd gotten to the RFA before it had officially opened and that the candidate had either requested feedback from a bunch of people or was so known that a lot of people had watchlisted their RFA page. And also that maybe Special:Watchlist was glitching and showing me an RFC that it shouldn't be. I realize a lot of this is based on me being dumb, but if you end up on the individual RFA without doing a full read of WP:RFA (which, why would I?) then there's no explanation why it's different than every other RFA I've ever been on. Alyo (chat·edits) 14:42, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Is something like what I added to Toadette's support section adequate? Floquenbeam (talk) 14:48, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I added ", per a recent RFC." to Floq's addition. Levivich (talk) 14:51, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Absolutely, much appreciated. Alyo (chat·edits) 14:53, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- It might also be good to have watchlist notices for all RFAs in this trial mention it explicitly. "A new RFA is up. Note that Support/Oppose/Neutral votes may only be made after 1 May 0000 UTC". Or something roughly along those lines, so it's clear from Watchlist notice that something is different Soni (talk) 15:37, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Is something like what I added to Toadette's support section adequate? Floquenbeam (talk) 14:48, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- My thought is that for someone (*cough*) whose path is Watchlist-->"An RFA is open" link-->the RFA candidate link in the box on the right, it's complete opaque why "Voting opens at [date]. In the meantime, discussion may only take place under § General comments." I thought I'd gotten to the RFA before it had officially opened and that the candidate had either requested feedback from a bunch of people or was so known that a lot of people had watchlisted their RFA page. And also that maybe Special:Watchlist was glitching and showing me an RFC that it shouldn't be. I realize a lot of this is based on me being dumb, but if you end up on the individual RFA without doing a full read of WP:RFA (which, why would I?) then there's no explanation why it's different than every other RFA I've ever been on. Alyo (chat·edits) 14:42, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
Holy freaking facepalm What an absolute disaster this 'trial' is. Nobody can snow/notnow close it (there's reverting going on over that), it's a freaking shambles as is, some don't know what the hell is going on, no problem was identified that this would solve, and the candidate themselves acknowledges it's a failure but won't withdraw. Not to mention that these 'trial' RFAs are being inflicted involuntarily upon RfA candidates who want to become administrators. Not to mention that now, instead of snow closes on RfAs that will obviously fail, we now get two days of slapping the crap out of a candidate until !voting begins. What an absolutely colossal eff-up. Take this steaming pile back to the drawing board and think about its impact, potential unintended consequences, and just what the hell problems it's supposed to solve vs. the massive problems its inducing. Wow. Just utter wow. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:43, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think that's really a fair assessment. This wasn't a typical RfA, and the snow close probably should have been left alone. Valereee (talk) 21:04, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- It wasn't an RFA. It was a public hazing. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:30, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Suffusion of Yellow, Is there a difference? Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 21:54, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Fair enough, no, but if you're nasty to someone who stands a realistic chance of passing, you can excuse it to yourself with "well, they'll have to put up with the same shit when some troll drags them to ANI, so they better get used to it". Piling on to a doomed RFA with "and another thing" is ... well, I'll hold my thoughts per WP:NPA. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:10, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Suffusion of Yellow None of what you say is wrong-- you've described every RfA that isn't a blow out. That's why I'll never vote oppose. RfA is one of the oldest, most important hazing rituals on the internet, and I see a lot of that as stemming from how uniquely powerful-- and fickle-- the Wikipedia community is. It's a cultural thing. I don't think the comment delay is necessarily bad because of that. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 22:19, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Without the delay, either there is a "cushion" of supports, so the candidate knows that not everyone hates them, or it's closed (and maybe even deleted) within hours, before an excess of pile-ons can happen. This new format sets up the opportunity for two days worth of pile-ons, the excuse being "well, we don't know how the vote is going to go, they might pass." Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:28, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- We have a sample size of one, and it did not go for two days, and was in fact snow-closed within hours (14 hours). I'm not sure that other snow-closed RFAs are snow-closed much sooner than that, and I don't think they're deleted; sometimes they're courtesy blanked, and so was this one. Also, there are different kinds of snow/notnow RFAs: this one wasn't like one that's made by a non-extended-confirmed editor, which might be closed within an hour and deleted; this one was by an experienced editor, so that would lend itself to a longer period before it was closed as snow/notnow... long enough for their to be a pile on. In fact, the only way we get to snow closes in such cases is with a pile-on; it's snow-closed because of the pile-on. So, pile-ons are inevitable for any non-obvious-but-still-snow RFA. While I agree on the larger points (RFA is hazing, this discussion period idea will not make RFA less toxic), this RFA doesn't seem to have been much different than any others. Levivich (talk) 22:37, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Agree about the sample size of one; I'm still willing to let the experiment run out. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:53, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- If having a bank of supports is deemed important for all requests for adminship, then the process could require a nomination period where editors supporting the request would comment, with a somewhat low threshold required for the request to proceed. Without changing the process, potential candidates could be encouraged to do this themselves, with the understanding that if they can't find enough people to support them, then their chances aren't good at making a successful request. isaacl (talk) 22:43, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- We have a sample size of one, and it did not go for two days, and was in fact snow-closed within hours (14 hours). I'm not sure that other snow-closed RFAs are snow-closed much sooner than that, and I don't think they're deleted; sometimes they're courtesy blanked, and so was this one. Also, there are different kinds of snow/notnow RFAs: this one wasn't like one that's made by a non-extended-confirmed editor, which might be closed within an hour and deleted; this one was by an experienced editor, so that would lend itself to a longer period before it was closed as snow/notnow... long enough for their to be a pile on. In fact, the only way we get to snow closes in such cases is with a pile-on; it's snow-closed because of the pile-on. So, pile-ons are inevitable for any non-obvious-but-still-snow RFA. While I agree on the larger points (RFA is hazing, this discussion period idea will not make RFA less toxic), this RFA doesn't seem to have been much different than any others. Levivich (talk) 22:37, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Without the delay, either there is a "cushion" of supports, so the candidate knows that not everyone hates them, or it's closed (and maybe even deleted) within hours, before an excess of pile-ons can happen. This new format sets up the opportunity for two days worth of pile-ons, the excuse being "well, we don't know how the vote is going to go, they might pass." Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:28, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Suffusion of Yellow None of what you say is wrong-- you've described every RfA that isn't a blow out. That's why I'll never vote oppose. RfA is one of the oldest, most important hazing rituals on the internet, and I see a lot of that as stemming from how uniquely powerful-- and fickle-- the Wikipedia community is. It's a cultural thing. I don't think the comment delay is necessarily bad because of that. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 22:19, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Moneytrees:
"Is there a difference?"
I'd say it's analogous to the difference between a multi-level marketing company and a pyramid scheme. Or between an escort and a hooker. Kurtis (talk) 19:09, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- Fair enough, no, but if you're nasty to someone who stands a realistic chance of passing, you can excuse it to yourself with "well, they'll have to put up with the same shit when some troll drags them to ANI, so they better get used to it". Piling on to a doomed RFA with "and another thing" is ... well, I'll hold my thoughts per WP:NPA. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:10, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Suffusion of Yellow, I feel like what you're talking about would have happened under any system. This wasn't a ridiculous nom. I think many people would have tried to treat this with respect -- and in fact many did --and we could have ended up with something that went on much longer. If it hadn't been for the reversion of the close, this would have been over in hours. Valereee (talk) 01:37, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Suffusion of Yellow, Is there a difference? Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 21:54, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- It wasn't an RFA. It was a public hazing. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:30, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- What, you think it would have gone perfectly and there'd be no hard feelings if they had submitted one in the old style? jp×g🗯️ 20:48, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
"Typical" RFAs
- "
I don't think a sample size of one (and not exactly a typical RfA, either) is sufficient for determining this.
" - "
+1. This is not a typical RfA. If this RfA had happened a month ago, it would have been a simple snow close after multiple moral support opposes.
"
Ahem.
- Typical RfA, January 2024 – withdrawn within 6 hours
- Typical RfA, November 2023 – withdrawn within an hour
- Typical RfA, April 2023 – withdrawn within 3 hours
- Typical RfA, January 2023 – NOT NOW after just 2 hours, despite the candidate's statement:
- "
I am requesting this go the full 7 days. I value input from the community as a whole whether it's support or oppose and requesting it be closed only 2 or 3 days would curtail that.
"
- "
- Typical RfA, October 2022 – SNOW within 2 hours
This typical type of RfA happens much less frequently than it used to, but all types of RfAs happen less frequently these days.
I don't follow the logic that you can NOTNOW or SNOW when the vote is 0–0, i.e. before voting has even started, unless the so-called "discussion" section, where !voting doesn't happen is interpreted as a "pre-voting" not voting section where not not votes are not voted, but are counted anyway.
This trial should be SNOW closed, because of this fatal flaw. A better option for handling pre-vote discussions for first-time candidates would be to mandate that they open an RfA candidate poll before they are allowed to open an RfA. I'm not sure that's a good option, but it could be an option for a viable trial. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:55, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- It's not necessarily a flaw—if the discussion hadn't been closed prematurely, it wouldn't be a problem. Cremastra (talk) 17:11, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- (It is hilarious to read that community consensus should be "SNOW closed" for a "fatal flaw") On a more serious note, OCRP has problems too, like a lack of participation and the danger of digging up or manufacturing skeletons that tank future RfAs. The consensus in favor of a better mentorship system reflects this. What I would support is requiring candidates to have at least one nominator, since that seems to be the best mentorship we can offer. Toadspike [Talk] 19:30, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
Proposed rule: Delete all RFAs that are closed before the voting starts
Suggested rule: Any RFA that is closed before the start of voting is to be deleted unless the candidate explicitly requests otherwise. The candidate may also request undeletion at any time. If the candidate starts a new RFA within one year, the RFA will be undeleted and the new RFA marked "2". Any new RFA after a one-year period will be treated as a "first" RFA. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:42, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think this is a good blanket rule (creation of a speedy deletion criterion for this). We welcome countless editors to participate in a discussion, then just delete all their contributions because one person decides they've had enough of the discussion? Even withdrawn requests can be useful, with feedback the requester should be able to make use of in the future. — xaosflux Talk 22:32, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- The candidate can always request an emailed copy. How much value is the feedback to any third party, unless they're looking to "dig up dirt" on the candidate, e.g. "Serious concerns have previously been raised about [person just dragged to ANI], see [RFA from five years ago]". As to the wasted effort of the commenters, well WP:IWORKEDSOHARD is a bluelink for a reason. But I realize this proposal might go too far for many people. How about not officially listing RFAs that are closed early. As in, the page exists, people can link to it if they want, but it's not at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Recent, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship by year, and so on? WP:SNOW closes can still be IAR-deleted on a case-by-case basis. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:49, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I Oppose all deletions of RfAs for any reason - Wikipedia deliberately keeps a permanent record of everything and this is not the place to attempt to hide from your past. * Pppery * it has begun... 23:13, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Where is the place to attempt to hide from your past? Asking for a friend. Levivich (talk) 23:52, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Some website that doesn't keep permanent logs of everything. Like IRC. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:20, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Or WP:SPI -- Euryalus (talk) 03:15, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- I disagree with the way SPI outright deletes cases too, for that matter, but that's not relevant here. * Pppery * it has begun... 03:20, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- SPI is where you go for help remembering your past. Levivich (talk) 03:40, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- It's where Levivich goes when other people remember his past :D ——Serial Number 54129 14:18, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Or WP:SPI -- Euryalus (talk) 03:15, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Some website that doesn't keep permanent logs of everything. Like IRC. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:20, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- How would you feel about just not listing them, as I suggested above? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 01:39, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- I don't follow the logic behind this - a RFA being listed is nothing more than a factual statement that it happened and nothing more. But I guess I have no formal objection. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:42, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Deleting someone's embarrassingly failed bid for adminship is "hiding from your past"? You can't be serious. It would be rude of me to leave a response to this comment consisting entirely of "🙄", but if it weren't, I would. jp×g🗯️ 17:20, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
- Where is the place to attempt to hide from your past? Asking for a friend. Levivich (talk) 23:52, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- You seem to be under the impression that this RFA format is still going to be around after its "trial" period. That's currently looking pretty unrealistic. —Cryptic 23:50, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Not sure where you get that impression? We've had one rather atypical RfA under this system (that would've likely been quickly closed under the old system). The reforms weren't focused on that sort of RfA in the first place. Elli (talk | contribs) 01:10, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- So what was this 3b idea intended to fix then? --Hammersoft (talk) 01:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- My impression is that it was supposed to fix the situation where you initially have 100% support, something gets brought up on day 3, and you slowly watch opposes gather while you wonder if you'll stay above 75 (or 65) percent support by the end of the week. The people I've talked to who have experienced such RfAs have uniformly described them as awful. Trying to front-load the discussion would hopefully lead to a more stable experience and less constant refreshing and worrying. Elli (talk | contribs) 03:41, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Also to give people a chance to raise/address/respond to/discuss concerns before anyone votes instead of after. Levivich (talk) 03:44, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- So now we have the same situation, except the candidate doesn't even get the comfort of the initial support. Swell. I can't imagine wanting to go through RFA during this trial, not before we saw the first live result and certainly not after. And I have to wonder, if every candidate we savage thoroughly enough either withdraws or gets involuntarily withdrawn before it gets to the voting stage, and those RFAs don't count towards finishing the trial, whether we'll ever get through it. —Cryptic 19:45, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- My impression is that it was supposed to fix the situation where you initially have 100% support, something gets brought up on day 3, and you slowly watch opposes gather while you wonder if you'll stay above 75 (or 65) percent support by the end of the week. The people I've talked to who have experienced such RfAs have uniformly described them as awful. Trying to front-load the discussion would hopefully lead to a more stable experience and less constant refreshing and worrying. Elli (talk | contribs) 03:41, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- So what was this 3b idea intended to fix then? --Hammersoft (talk) 01:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Not sure where you get that impression? We've had one rather atypical RfA under this system (that would've likely been quickly closed under the old system). The reforms weren't focused on that sort of RfA in the first place. Elli (talk | contribs) 01:10, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Have we ever deleted an RfA? Even in very serious circumstances, from what I've seen they tend to be blanked rather than deleted. The same goes for most discussions. – Joe (talk) 06:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- RfAs that have been run or RfAs that have been created and abandoned? I've definitely seen the latter get deleted, but never a RfA that was actually transcluded at any point. Giraffer (talk) 07:01, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose deleting any RfAs because this grand project of ours is based on transparency. Courtesy blanking may be appropriate occasionally, but any editor in good standing should be able to take a look if they want, to learn something useful. In the recent case, transparency is especially important because it is the first RfA since recent reforms kicked in. I can only imagine that it must have been embarrassing for the candidate. but they freely chose to self nominate, and actually received a lot of supportive words that should be remembered. We do not need a memory hole. Cullen328 (talk) 07:10, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- I would prefer that unsuccessful RfAs weren't listed on the RfA main page in the table. This has been discussed before, and the decision was to keep the unsuccessful in the table but let all RfAs age off more quickly, as with so few RfAs, some were being listed on the main page for many months.
- IIRC, the rationale for keeping unsuccessful RfAs on the main page for up to three months was that they were educational for prospective candidates to be able to easily find recent unsuccessful RfAs. I don't think it's actually useful for very many prospective candidates; anyone savvy enough to be thinking along the lines of "I should go review recent unsuccessful RfAs as part of my preparation" is likely also savvy enough to be able to find them even if they aren't on the main page. Anyone who wouldn't know how to find them is IMO also unlikely to have bothered with that much preparation. Any benefit of having unsuccessful RfAs listed in that table is IMO far outweighed by the downside of it. Valereee (talk) 10:51, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- The benefit to listing, esp in the discuss-now, come back later for not-voting, is that if you start participating in the discussion, then remember to come back for it and the discussion is just disappeared, you can be quite confused. The one-line in a table of "this was closed" makes it easy to see that you are done. — xaosflux Talk 14:07, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- I agree, but does that outweigh the downside of having a failed RfA prominently displayed for up to three months? I'm not saying delete. The discussion would still be available at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship by year. It just wouldn't be on the main RfA page as a constant reminder to all. Valereee (talk) 14:26, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- The benefit to listing, esp in the discuss-now, come back later for not-voting, is that if you start participating in the discussion, then remember to come back for it and the discussion is just disappeared, you can be quite confused. The one-line in a table of "this was closed" makes it easy to see that you are done. — xaosflux Talk 14:07, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Generally against deletion. It seems like some of the concerns/reasons for this could be addressed, in part, by framing. While we're doing this 2-day pre-vote discussion thing, we could frame it as not actually part of the RfA or otherwise use language to make it seem like the stakes are reduced. Like you can announce your interest in being an RfA candidate, start a 2-day discussion, and then make an active decision about whether or not to initiate a vote. Declining to do so would mean the RfA never started, not that you failed/withdrew it. Not a major change, but maybe could help? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:08, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- That's more of less the reasoning behind my second proposal, of just not listing the never-voted-on RFAs. It's not really a "request" until the vote starts. It's a bit more like a political candidate who withdrew from the race before the ballots were printed. The current RFA is listed as having "0%" support. Except 0/0 is not 0%. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 17:57, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose deletion. Failed RfAs—whether under the old or the trial system—can be as useful as those that pass. In fact, for would-be candidates, they are more useful. A successful RfA might suggest the things you should do; but a failed one demonstrates what you should not. And knowing what not to do, in any walk of life, is something you take to the bank! ——Serial Number 54129 14:21, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose. Transparency is an important value to me. I would prefer not to delete or blank RFAs, and I am also disinclined to take failed RFAs out of the stats table. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:34, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- To be clear, I'm not suggesting taking all failed RFAs out of the stats table. Only those closed before the vote starts. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 17:59, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose - looking back at old RFAs is incredibly useful when people re-run. GiantSnowman 17:27, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
- It seems extraordinarily unkind to have a policy where anyone who fails the seven-day-long public job interview has to have the whole thing slathered across the public web until the sun burns out. Yeah, sure, it's "not indexed by search engines" -- but we all know this is a crock. Look at, for example, https://www.google.com/search?q=%22requests+for+adminship%2Ftamzin%22 gives you:
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Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Hammersoft. The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful request for adminship. Please do not modify ...
- I support being able to do something about RfAs that don't get brought out of the discussion stage, whether this is a deletion or a courtesy blanking or being delisted from the table or whatever. Maybe they could be courtesy-blanked and then linked from the main table as "Unsuccessful RfA" -- I don't know. I get that there's a public interest in editors being able to see what happened during an RfA -- generally, editors who have an interest in the RfA process, so people who are deffo capable of going through page histories. Otherwise it just seems like pointless cruelty; my own RfA passed by an extremely wide margin but I was still quite concerned about the implications of having a failure on public record under my real initials forever (and put it off by a year accordingly). jp×g🗯️ 17:35, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose, why should RfAs be deleted anyways? ToadetteEdit! 19:01, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Saying not now nicely
Now that the kerfuffle over the most recent RfA is dying down, one point that I think is worth discussing further is whether we could make early closes (i.e those citing WP:NOTNOW/WP:SNOW) a less painful experience. They are, after all, supposed to be a kindness: stopping an RfA that has no chance from going further, even if the candidate doesn't realise it themselves.
The first thing that comes to my mind is to try harder to stop them happening in the first place. WP:RFA currently says, the only formal prerequisite for adminship is having an extended confirmed account on Wikipedia (500 edits and 30 days of experience). However, the community usually looks for candidates with much more experience and those without are generally unlikely to succeed at gaining adminship.
This is ridiculously understated and I think a prospective candidate that is a bit oblivious to subtext could easily get the impression that running with, say, 1500 edits and three months of experience is fine. We don't have to set minimum criteria, but surely it's realistic enough to say something like "successful requests from adminship usually come from editors with at least [one] year spent actively editing, [5000] edits, and substantial experience in either writing articles and/or working in one or more maintenance areas" – exact wording and figures obviously subject to change. – Joe (talk) 13:09, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- If you try to establish metrics people should pay attention to before applying, then you're really applying prerequisites for adminship. This won't work for a large number of reasons. See Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Prerequisites for adminship. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:46, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- I'm explicitly not suggesting adding prerequisites. Sure, it might be misread that way, but if it's question of giving people honest and realistic expectations, versus potentially losing a few inattentive readers with low edit counts who are somehow also great admin candidates, I know what I'd choose... – Joe (talk) 13:59, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think the cause of these is that editors who don't meet the practical criteria but think they're ready for RfA are unlikely to do any of the reading anyway. They often don't even bother to seek advice. Even when they do, and they receive clear counsel at ORCP or elsewhere that they aren't ready, it's not uncommon to see an RfA not long afterward. Valereee (talk) 13:58, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- That is very possible. But isn't it worth a try? – Joe (talk) 14:00, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- It is often far easier to start something than it is to stop. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:02, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- I do think it's worth a try, and I've actually added bolded advice at WP:RFA/SELFNOM with a link to WP:RFASELF.
- Maybe stop with the clear step-by-step instructions on how to self-nom. Maybe that'll force people to at least ask a question somewhere that will be seen by someone who can give them advice. Or maybe it'll just end with malformed noms that someone well-intentioned but unaware of the problem will come along and fix. Valereee (talk) 14:06, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- In the last six years, we've averaged just __2__ snow/notnow closes per year. The number of snow/notnow closes is very, very small. So we risk ever creeping RFA prerequisites, for...what, exactly? Even in the unlikely event that this was wildly successful and reduced snow/notnow closes by 50%, we'd see just one less per year. This is a solution looking for a problem. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:45, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- When people don't read something, it's usually because it's too long and says too much, not because it doesn't say enough. There was already a warning in that section; adding another one on top of that was WP:CREEP. I've merged the warnings together. If people want to improve from there, I'd suggest focusing on what it's possible to remove, not what it's possible to add. That section, like many projectspace pages, mixes technical advice with policy advice. If we can simplify the technical process, removing the need for much of the technical advice, that'll leave more room to emphasize the policy advice. Sdkb talk 15:23, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- In the last six years, we've averaged just __2__ snow/notnow closes per year. The number of snow/notnow closes is very, very small. So we risk ever creeping RFA prerequisites, for...what, exactly? Even in the unlikely event that this was wildly successful and reduced snow/notnow closes by 50%, we'd see just one less per year. This is a solution looking for a problem. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:45, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- That is very possible. But isn't it worth a try? – Joe (talk) 14:00, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- I have no objection to trying to improve the language, but while I think these are well-intentioned ideas, they might be ineffective because they're trying to treat the symptoms instead of curing the disease.
- One way in which the Wikipedia community is dishonest and cruel is that it announces a formal criteria for something and then routinely rejects applicants who exceed that criteria by extreme factors like 10x. Wikipedia is lying when it says you only need 30 days and 500 edits to run for RFA, because people with 300 days and 5,000 edits have a 0% chance of passing. Even at 20x, it's still unlikely.
- If Wikipedia wants to be nicer to candidates, it should start with being honest with candidates (and with itself). Levivich (talk) 15:01, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- The minimum standard is appropriate. Today it may be necessary in practice to greatly exceed the standard, but that doesn't mean it should be changed. The only formal requirements to be US President are to be at least 35 years of age, be a natural born citizen, and have lived in the United States for at least 14 years. But no President has been elected who was younger than 43, and most of them had lived in the US for more than 40 years. It also doesn't say they need to be literate, speak English, or not be a certified idiot. Does that mean all these criteria should be in the US Constitution? No, because it is far better to let electors use their judgement and to retain the flexibility for requirements to change over time. Same with admins. MarcGarver (talk) 15:17, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Imagine if the US Constitution said you have to be at least 3 years old and lived in the US for 1 year to be President. That would be a ridiculous lie. That's what Wikipedia is doing. Levivich (talk) 15:21, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- The reason I chose the US Constitution as an analogy is because it can be extended to how difficult it is to change, just like some Wikipedia policies and practices. Would it be sensible to try and get two-thirds of the House, and two-thirds of the Senate and 38 states to make a change to that article to 40 years old and 20 years in the US because "that was the reality?" I'd say not - lots of effort for a trivial outcome. Same here. All it would do is stop a tiny handful of people - the ones who read the guidance - from applying before they are ready. MarcGarver (talk) 19:46, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- It would be sensible if the constitution said 3 years old and 1 year in the US. Your analogy is inapt because we're not talking about a gap of 35 years stated vs 40 years reality (a small gap), we're talking about 500 edits/30 days stated vs 10,000 edits/18 months reality (orders of magnitude of difference). I doubt you'll find any analogous situation where the gap between stated criteria and actual criteria is an order of magnitude or larger; that's unique to Wikipedia. Levivich (talk) 14:00, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
- The reason I chose the US Constitution as an analogy is because it can be extended to how difficult it is to change, just like some Wikipedia policies and practices. Would it be sensible to try and get two-thirds of the House, and two-thirds of the Senate and 38 states to make a change to that article to 40 years old and 20 years in the US because "that was the reality?" I'd say not - lots of effort for a trivial outcome. Same here. All it would do is stop a tiny handful of people - the ones who read the guidance - from applying before they are ready. MarcGarver (talk) 19:46, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Imagine if the US Constitution said you have to be at least 3 years old and lived in the US for 1 year to be President. That would be a ridiculous lie. That's what Wikipedia is doing. Levivich (talk) 15:21, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- The minimum standard is appropriate. Today it may be necessary in practice to greatly exceed the standard, but that doesn't mean it should be changed. The only formal requirements to be US President are to be at least 35 years of age, be a natural born citizen, and have lived in the United States for at least 14 years. But no President has been elected who was younger than 43, and most of them had lived in the US for more than 40 years. It also doesn't say they need to be literate, speak English, or not be a certified idiot. Does that mean all these criteria should be in the US Constitution? No, because it is far better to let electors use their judgement and to retain the flexibility for requirements to change over time. Same with admins. MarcGarver (talk) 15:17, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- I would be fine with such a change. I would prefer to see 5000 edits/1 year set as an absolute minimum, and for the ""successful requests from adminship usually come from" suggestion to use something like 10,000 edits/18 months. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:27, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Support. The culture around here is to hate red lines, and this results in our minimum requirements for perms being too low and out of alignment with actual practice, which results in bitey situations for applicants, both at RFA and at PERM. I'd prefer to have the requirements align closely (or at least more closely) with actual practice. I think the de facto edit count nowadays for RFA is about 8000 (0xDEADBEEF in 2023). I think you have to go back 7 years to get an RFA that was much lower than that (2,385 edits, GoldenRing in 2017). –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:32, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
In another discussion thread on this page, I suggested having a pre-RfA nomination period, where a prospective candidate would seek out a certain number of supporters before proceeding. The threshold would be low: just enough to give the candidate assurance that they aren't misreading their likelihood of making a successful request. This could be introduced as a recommended optional step, as a reality check to try to avoid a possible embarrassing emphatic rejection of a request.
On the general principle of saying "no" nicely: giving feedback constructively and receiving feedback in its intended spirit are two very difficult things to do. Providing feedback in this circumstance is a balancing act between being honest and impartial, while also being understanding of the good intentions of the volunteer. For candidacies that are clearly going to fail, users thinking about commenting ought to gauge how much additional value they can provide, and lean towards deferring any comments. isaacl (talk) 16:21, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- The idea of seeking out certain number of supports would be a good idea for a future RFA review. — ♠ Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Non nobis solum. ♠ 19:33, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Isn't this kind of what we do know, with the unwritten rule that you should find two admins willing to nominate you? (Almost?) all early closes are self-noms. So we could just make this existing expectation more explicit. – Joe (talk) 11:51, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
- There are a lot of alternatives between a self-nom and two admins. One respected, experienced nominator should be sufficient for a good candidate. We've had two early closes within the last year that weren't self-noms, plus at least one successful self-nom, I think. Valereee (talk) 13:01, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
- Sure (with the caveat that as noted by Valereee, it doesn't have to be two admins, or even two people). But this discussion is regarding those who aren't doing this, and how to reach them. These volunteers aren't looking at past RfAs for guidance, and are at most giving a cursory look at Wikipedia:Advice for RfA candidates. The community has shown reluctance to bar self-nominations in the formal procedure, but perhaps it would be more open to adding a strong suggestion that anyone planning to self-nominate should undertake a reality check, and find X number of supporters first. (Unfortunately, there are always some users intent on doing what they really want to do, regardless of what advice they are given, and there's no easy way to keep them from proceeding. That's when saying "no" nicely has to be done.) isaacl (talk) 18:08, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed. When they do proceed, regardless of any heads-up they're given, it isn't hard to be nice. It isn't hard to word comments constructively. It isn't hard to give advice and suggestions. I don't think it's out of line to want - and even expect - people to be kind instead of rude. Useight (talk) 18:23, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
- I agree it isn't hard to want to make the effort. My experience with the feedback process in life, though, is that it's a skill that has to be consciously developed (for most, anyway), particularly when being delivered in writing without the benefit of ongoing reaction cues. I do agree that expecting kindness to be exhibited, even if imperfectly, is reasonable. isaacl (talk) 18:46, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed. When they do proceed, regardless of any heads-up they're given, it isn't hard to be nice. It isn't hard to word comments constructively. It isn't hard to give advice and suggestions. I don't think it's out of line to want - and even expect - people to be kind instead of rude. Useight (talk) 18:23, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
- Reminder that the generation of admins who got their adminships from 2004-2005 generally only had 1000 edits and three months experience. This is like the boomers getting cheap houses. 77.103.193.166 (talk) 09:19, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
- The wiki and the associated responsibilities/expectations for admins have also changed. A shack is cheaper than a space colony duplex. — ♠ Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Non nobis solum. ♠ 14:05, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
- In some ways, we could do more damage in the old days (to give an example, it was impossible to restore deleted images; also, there was no extra layer of "interface admin" protection for .js files), but Wikipedia was a small upstart, not a massively trusted and widely used source of information, so everything was a little lower profile. —Kusma (talk) 14:14, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
- This is a way more interesting example than deleted files. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 15:14, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
- The English Wikipedia is the only one where it is impossible to delete the Main Page. —Kusma (talk) 06:40, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- My understanding is that the English Wikipedia also has much higher standards for adminship compared to other projects. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 06:42, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- The English Wikipedia is the only one where it is impossible to delete the Main Page. —Kusma (talk) 06:40, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- This is a way more interesting example than deleted files. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 15:14, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
- In some ways, we could do more damage in the old days (to give an example, it was impossible to restore deleted images; also, there was no extra layer of "interface admin" protection for .js files), but Wikipedia was a small upstart, not a massively trusted and widely used source of information, so everything was a little lower profile. —Kusma (talk) 14:14, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
- Conversely, an admin that has been continuously active since 2004–2005 has shown that they can use the admin tools for twenty years without causing enough of a fuss to be kicked out. In some ways that shows more trust than a 200-person RfA two years ago. – Joe (talk) 14:39, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think you make a good point here. For every admin that has lost touch with community norms over time, there are plenty that haven't. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 03:58, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- The wiki and the associated responsibilities/expectations for admins have also changed. A shack is cheaper than a space colony duplex. — ♠ Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Non nobis solum. ♠ 14:05, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
- Back to Joe's initial comment around
the only formal prerequisite for adminship is having an extended confirmed account on Wikipedia (500 edits and 30 days of experience). However, the community usually looks for candidates with much more experience and those without are generally unlikely to succeed at gaining adminship
- could this be reworded to better give reader a reasonable expectation of the community requirements to pass RFA? In practice the extended confirmed requirement is next to meaningless, so it's misleading to lead with it - it could even be a footnote. Consigned (talk) 13:54, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Asking candidates about their religion at RfA
Hi everyone. I've waited for the dust to settle a bit before I've felt like bringing this to the attention of the wider community, but something happened at my RfA might have wider implications when it comes to crat moderating decisions, so I figured it is probably worth starting a discussion here about it. I'm talking about questions 6 and 7, specifically. These questions asked:
I found your answer about editing Jehovas Witnesses notable. Are you a Jehovas Witness, and do you feel that being one could impact on your neutrality when editing and administrating the article (potentially leading to stonewalling)?
How do you feel about allegations that the Jehovas Witnesses are a cult, and about having a full section on that allegation in the article? I note that the article you are passionate about doesn’t have substantial sourced discussion of external commentary on whether it is a cult in the article, yet it’s a commonly heard real world comment on the JWs I hear frequently.
I answered the questions and I understand the practical reasons for why removing this after the fact would not be a desirable outcome. However, the discussion at BN leaves me a bit concerned for candidates who may be asked similar questions in the future. At least to me, that conversation implies that these types of questions do not be removed by crats and that asking them is fine for COI reasons. My understanding is that our current iteration of the COI guideline is that editing about a religion or former religion is not a COI without other factors being involved (see here). No specific concerns were brought up about my editing to Jehovah's Witnesses (all of which can be seen here), just vague accusations. I do not think the same argument would have been made if I was a random Catholic editor who had made uncontroversial changes to the article we have about the Catholic Church. Given the nature of the questions themselves, I was wondering what the broader community thought about whether these questions should or should not be moderated by crats at RfA. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 04:37, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- I personally don't feel questions about faith are appropriate unless the person has divulged their faith and clearly edits in that topic area (e.g. many of the editors at WP:CATHOLIC). I think the allegations are likelier to be brought up for smaller or contentious denominations/faiths compared to mainline denominations. For a personal example, I could expect questions about my editing on Opus Dei but would be surprised to be asked about my editing about the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. — ♠ Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Non nobis solum. ♠ 07:09, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Also I think that because of the whole Scientology fiasco religion questions are bound to be asked if someone divulges their faith as a necessary step of due diligence. — ♠ Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Non nobis solum. ♠ 07:11, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- We should be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking that WP:COI describes all types of bias. It is only about bias arising from specific external relationships. There are plenty of other characteristics (religion, nationality, sexuality, etc.) that are not an "external relationship" with a specific entity but which we all have and, in certain circumstances, which could make us edit or admin in a non-neutral way. I hope that people wouldn't ask about such things unless there was a genuine reason and evidence that that had happened. However I'd be reluctant to say that these kind of questions are generally inappropriate, because neutrality is important and there could be reasonable grounds for concern. At the end of the day, if a candidate doesn't want to answer a question, they don't have to. – Joe (talk) 07:31, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think it was an inappropriate question, and I think the best option is probably for people to point out that it's an inappropriate question. I wouldn't even object to someone -- anyone, really -- inserting a statement to that effect into the space reserved for the candidate's answer, reminding everyone watching that all of the questions are optional and that in the case of inappropriate questions no one should be opposing on the basis of the candidate deciding not to answer.I also wouldn't object to the removal or collapsing of inappropriate questions, although I don't think it should require a 'crat to do that. 'Crats tend to be among the most cautious of admins, really. As seen in that discussion at BN that Clovermoss linked above. I don't think we should be drawing up a list of topics that can't be brought up, though. I think it has to be a case-by-case thing. The reason those questions were inappropriate was because they were poorly thought out. If that fairly-inexperienced editor had instead asked, "I see from Q2 that you're interested in editing on JW topics, and I'm concerned from this edit and this userbox that you seem to have a POV about that subject. Would you be willing to avoid adminning around topics related to JW?", it would still have been a somewhat naive question, but not an inappropriate one. Valereee (talk) 12:33, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Inappropriate I concur with Valereee that the questions were inappropriate in particular for how they were asked. If there is a serious concern with regards to COI, then it could be raised. Here, there's just a suspicion they might have a problem in the subject area because they are one, and I agree with Clovermoss. Questions like this can and should be removed, and no it doesn't take a bureaucrat to do it. Some discernment is required before doing so, but this case is clear cut. I'm also rather stunned about the username of the editor who posted the question. "Manboobies"? Seriously? No time right not, but this may be appropriate to take to WP:RFCN. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:47, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- I'm reticent to say "no, we should never ask about religion", as there are going to be some cases where someone would have a COI (at the most obvious level, someone who is employed to a Church). However, faith itself isn't a COI. Having a bias, or being particularly tied towards something (which we all are), doesn't constitute a COI. If it did, we'd all have to edit articles about things we didn't care about. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:38, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- I know I'm not being fair to RFA candidates under a lot of pressure, and I know RFA voters as a whole are not as rational as I wish, but I would love to see a candidate with the self-confidence to say "This is an inappropriate question and I won't be answering it", and then cross it out, --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:17, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- +1. If I were that person's nominator, I would advise that it probably wouldn't be a productive idea. But I'd love to see a candidate go down that path and succeed. :D Away w'ye, troll! Valereee (talk) 16:40, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- I mean, I was already pushing some boundaries of what's expected at RfA by being a self nom and responding directly to neutrals and opposes. I don't think the candidate striking questions themselves would be perceived all that well... but maybe that's just a perceived social norm and not what would actually happen. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 21:02, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Well, on my RFA I refused to answer question 8. (Not exactly the situation you describe through). Ymblanter (talk) 16:17, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- +1. If I were that person's nominator, I would advise that it probably wouldn't be a productive idea. But I'd love to see a candidate go down that path and succeed. :D Away w'ye, troll! Valereee (talk) 16:40, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- It's entirely fair to ask a candidate what areas they feel they can act neutrally in, and where they feel they might be biased. That does not require asking them about their real-world beliefs, which is deeply inappropriate. If someone's RL beliefs have seeped into their editing, then any questions can focus on their editing; if they haven't, the candidate is clearly able to set those beliefs aside and edit neutrally, and they're no business of ours. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:29, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- People should *never* be asked to identify their religion. It is a prohibited grounds, and asking that should lead to the questioner being sanctioned, and the question being immediately removed. Period. If a person who wants to submit a question to an RFA can't think of a way to bring up a hypothetical conflict of interest without asking someone their religion, then that person shouldn't ask the question.
Generally speaking, we should be far less forgiving of asking personal questions of candidates. Questioners should be able to link to specific concerns, or be able to ask about how the candidate will apply specific policies. The sort of nonsense Clovermoss experienced is what is causing problems at RFA, and it could be easily sorted without having a gigantic RFC that leads to nowhere. Risker (talk) 18:54, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Easily sorted without an RfC means someone is willing to address concerns without the knowledge they have community backing. I feel like almost all 'crats want to know they're on firm ground, and many admins do. Look at the BN discussion Clovermoss posted. Admins expressed dismay 'crats didn't handle it. 'Crats expressed a desire for caution in such cases. I really feel like 'crats don't pass RfB because they're willing to take risks, and it's not really fair for us to expect them to be willing to do so once they're 'crats. Valereee (talk) 19:23, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- The reason I've stopped voting in 'crat elections (rare as they may be) is that I genuinely believe a majority of the RFA-participating community really *do* want bureaucrats to intervene when RFAs go to hell in a handbag, and none of the candidates in the last several years have been willing to do that. Enforcing the UCoC on RFA shouldn't be considered a risky activity; if 'crats think it is, then perhaps we need to reconsider the requirements of the role entirely. Risker (talk) 19:50, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- What does "prohibited grounds" mean? – Joe (talk) 06:55, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Easily sorted without an RfC means someone is willing to address concerns without the knowledge they have community backing. I feel like almost all 'crats want to know they're on firm ground, and many admins do. Look at the BN discussion Clovermoss posted. Admins expressed dismay 'crats didn't handle it. 'Crats expressed a desire for caution in such cases. I really feel like 'crats don't pass RfB because they're willing to take risks, and it's not really fair for us to expect them to be willing to do so once they're 'crats. Valereee (talk) 19:23, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not sure I'd be in favor of "crats moderating" these questions. If a question is inappropriate, it can be ignored by the candidate. Or even better, calmly and politely state that you're not very comfortable with the question. Or calmly and politely state that you don't think that this is a great question, but then answer it anyway. There's good ways to handle even inappropriate questions. An example answer to
I found your answer about editing Jehovas Witnesses notable. Are you a Jehovas Witness, and do you feel that being one could impact on your neutrality when editing and administrating the article (potentially leading to stonewalling)?
could be something likeThank you for your question. However I don't feel comfortable disclosing my religion. But I appreciate your concern, and I can assure you that I am aware of Wikipedia's policies on neutrality and reliable sources, and will always do my best to edit neutrally, and to summarize reliable sources rather than injecting my own beliefs about a topic.
–Novem Linguae (talk) 19:35, 7 May 2024 (UTC)- That puts the onus on the candidate, which isn't ideal. Valereee (talk) 19:42, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- It isn't fair, but administrators will face inappropriate questions and reasoning from upset editors. Being able to see how candidates handle these scenarios is helpful in judging their skillset. And ignoring inappropriate questions is often a perfectly good approach that Wikipedia editors ought to employ more regularly: deny oxygen to the thread. Nonetheless, I also appreciate that in some cases, removing an inappropriate question can be an important measure for the community to express its disapproval. isaacl (talk) 21:36, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Let's throw 'em in the deep end, see if they can swim? I certainly would never have ignored a question. Five years ago I was flummoxed by how to deal with opposes who'd never even asked me a question. We learn on the job, and that's not a bad thing. We probably don't actually want admins who are eager to act like admins before they're admins. Valereee (talk) 21:58, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think the skills in dealing with inappropriate questions are unique to administrators. Communication skills are important for all editors, and having examples of them is useful in evaluating the degree of trust you have in any editor. Good communicators are also demonstrating the capacity to learn through discussion, which is key in a collaborative environment. All the same, I do agree I'd prefer to look at examples unrelated to personal matters. isaacl (talk) 23:18, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Let's throw 'em in the deep end, see if they can swim? I certainly would never have ignored a question. Five years ago I was flummoxed by how to deal with opposes who'd never even asked me a question. We learn on the job, and that's not a bad thing. We probably don't actually want admins who are eager to act like admins before they're admins. Valereee (talk) 21:58, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- It isn't fair, but administrators will face inappropriate questions and reasoning from upset editors. Being able to see how candidates handle these scenarios is helpful in judging their skillset. And ignoring inappropriate questions is often a perfectly good approach that Wikipedia editors ought to employ more regularly: deny oxygen to the thread. Nonetheless, I also appreciate that in some cases, removing an inappropriate question can be an important measure for the community to express its disapproval. isaacl (talk) 21:36, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Crats already moderate RfA questions, they just didn't in this situation. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 21:04, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- That puts the onus on the candidate, which isn't ideal. Valereee (talk) 19:42, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Nothing should be done BY RULE. The questions cannot be filtered and excluded, so once they are visible, the appropriate way to deal with it is for the candidate to respond, including a decline - with or without a reason. To do otherwise is a redaction / strike / removal based on someone else being offended. The clear and obvious problem with that is that a candidate may not be offended - and no one can just assume that they are. Leaky caldron (talk) 19:59, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, I don't think these questions were optimal, but a 'crat removing them would be a little too much. And I don't think being a Jehovas Witness means there's a COI; I'm an atheist, but that doesn't mean I have a COI with the Christopher Hitchens article. Cremastra (talk) 20:53, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- These seem like total chickenshit questions to ask a candidate, although I admit I find myself at a loss for how to write an objective rule to reliably distinguish between tough questions and total chickenshit questions. jp×g🗯️ 21:51, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Not sure we need a rule. Just judgment and a willingness to take the risk that you'll overstep in the eyes of the community. Valereee (talk) 21:54, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, I think Risker is onto something up there -- it seems like, if the issue actually has anything to do with editing, it ought to be possible to phrase it in those terms. Maybe that is something. But I think that, even if you're not directly asking about some intimate detail, it is still esay to write a question that requires them to disclose it. For example:
"I notice that you have a lot of edits to this article, part of which is about acts of mopery committed by the Whateverists. Do you feel like you're biased on the subject of Whateverism, or that you'd recuse yourself from intervening in content disputes about them?"
-- it seems extremely difficult to answer this question without saying whether you're a Whateverist, to the point where it might as well just say that. Of course, it'd be possible to artfully avoid that, but I think everyone would notice that you had done so. jp×g🗯️ 22:09, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, I think Risker is onto something up there -- it seems like, if the issue actually has anything to do with editing, it ought to be possible to phrase it in those terms. Maybe that is something. But I think that, even if you're not directly asking about some intimate detail, it is still esay to write a question that requires them to disclose it. For example:
- Not sure we need a rule. Just judgment and a willingness to take the risk that you'll overstep in the eyes of the community. Valereee (talk) 21:54, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with a lot of the things that have already been said. Asking a candidate their religion is inappropriate. One can ask about perceived POV editing without needing to ask about motivations. I also think it's useful to see how the candidate deals with the situation. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:03, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- It's not fair to force a candidate to choose between uncomfortably disclosing personal information (which religion very much is) if they respond or risk significant opposition for (understandably) declining to respond. Perhaps it's also worth considering whether one would ask someone they meet for the first time IRL about their religious beliefs – being considered a sensitive topic offline, I don't see why it shouldn't be treated as such on WP. Also, since it's not commonplace for RfA candidates to decline to respond to such a question without potential backlash, it should be up to the crats to moderate when inappropriate questions are asked.
- Re the NPOV/COI concerns, I find myself in agreement with Lee Vilenski and Vanamonde93 – people edit about topics important to them all the time in a manner perfectly compliant with WP policy, and are to thank for quality content in those areas. There are plenty of harmless ways to ask about neutrality in editing without asking for personal information. Complex/Rational 22:06, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think that is very culturally specific. The idea that "faith is a private matter" is, ironically, quite particular to Anglo-American secular/protestant culture. In most parts of the world, you wouldn't ask someone you met about their religion because there wouldn't be any need to. Either it would be obvious because practically everybody you ever meet follows the same religion or, in multi-denominational societies, because religion is the primary structuring factor of your social life and is visible in everything from your name to your dress, dialect, place of residence, etc. – Joe (talk) 07:32, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- In general, I don't like a ban on asking, although it feels inappropriate unless there is evidence of a conflict of interest. If you saw me posting in Methodist articles in a way that seems like I was promoting Methodism over other faiths, then I would understand why you asked. Asking without demonstrating potential bias is more of a problem. I'm not sure we should "ban" it, however. And I have to admit I agree with Joe above that the "private relationship" is more of a western cultural construct that you don't see in other parts of the world. Where I now live, there would be no need to ask, but few if any would be offended if you did. The person asking the question at RFA might not see asking as taboo, so the question is, do we ban asking under all circumstances as an enforcement of western cultural norms? Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:18, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Dennis Brown: There are many reasons (from a global perspective) why one might not want to be upfront about such information. For example, if I actually was an active Jehovah's Witness, it would not be wise to say so. If my account was ever linked with my real life identity (I've said things here that go against the religion's beliefs), it'd kickstart a process that would lead to me losing contact with all my friends and family. I'm already an evil apostate so I'm not concerned about that, but it goes to show that these questions aren't nessecarily harmless in nature. Alternatively, imagine I was living in Singapore, China, Russia, or Vietnam... it likely wouldn't be in my best interest to say that I was a member of a religion where it's illegal to actually follow it. I don't see this situation as banning questions as an enforcement of western cultural norms but as moderating questions that may pressure the candidate to share information they might not otherwise be willing to share. If there's concerns about someone's editing, there are ways to phrase those concerns that don't involve asking what their religion is, as others have already pointed out above. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 14:37, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think you raise excellent points, and they show that it is impossible to have a single standard that applies to everyone. I think the best we can do is simply say that if someone wants to decline answering questions like that, we (as a community) should be respectful and not hold that against them. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:08, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Dennis Brown: There are many reasons (from a global perspective) why one might not want to be upfront about such information. For example, if I actually was an active Jehovah's Witness, it would not be wise to say so. If my account was ever linked with my real life identity (I've said things here that go against the religion's beliefs), it'd kickstart a process that would lead to me losing contact with all my friends and family. I'm already an evil apostate so I'm not concerned about that, but it goes to show that these questions aren't nessecarily harmless in nature. Alternatively, imagine I was living in Singapore, China, Russia, or Vietnam... it likely wouldn't be in my best interest to say that I was a member of a religion where it's illegal to actually follow it. I don't see this situation as banning questions as an enforcement of western cultural norms but as moderating questions that may pressure the candidate to share information they might not otherwise be willing to share. If there's concerns about someone's editing, there are ways to phrase those concerns that don't involve asking what their religion is, as others have already pointed out above. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 14:37, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with Risker's point about raising specific edits as a cause for concern in RfA questions, rather than asking candidates to disclose their religion whilst insinuating that simply being a practitioner of a given faith is potentially indicative of a conflict of interest in editing related articles. I think the question was inappropriate on its face, and becomes even more so when taking into consideration the underlying reasons for asking it. Nobody should ever feel pressured into disclosing private information about themselves on Wikipedia if they are not comfortable doing so. Kurtis (talk) 20:45, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
Which of these questions should we deem unacceptable?
I propose questions that include the following points should be considered unacceptable and be removed from RFAs:
- Are you gay/straight/bi/gender-fluid and, if so, do you think this will create a problem editing LGBTQ+ articles? (i.e., questions that include an expectation of revealing the candidate's sexual orientation/gender identity)
- Are you married/single/living common-law/dating and, if so, do you think this will create a conflict of interest in editing articles about marriage? (i.e., questions that include an expectation of revealing the candidate's marital/relationship status)
- Are you Jewish/Catholic/Muslim/etc. and, if so, do you think you can be impartial editing articles about [any or all religions]? (i.e., questions that include an expectation of revealing a candidate's personal beliefs of faith)
- Are you of European/African/Asian etc. descent and, if so, do you think you will have problems editing articles about [name ethnic identity]? (i.e., questions that include an expectation of revealing a candidate's ethnicity and/or race)
- Are you from X country and, if so, do you think it is a conflict of interest in editing articles about X country? (i.e., questions that include an expectation of revealing a candidate's nationality)
- Are you GenX/GenZ/silent generation/boomer, etc. and, if so, do you think there is a problem with you editing articles about another generation? (i.e., questions that include an expectation of revealing a candidate's general age group/cultural group)
I can't think of one of those questions I'd consider acceptable in an RFA; in fact, I'd be concerned and would need lots of contextual understanding to see those questions just about anywhere on this project. What about others? Do you think it is acceptable to have RFA questions that are specifically designed to expect candidates to reveal what we generally consider non-public personal information (if the candidate hasn't already revealed that information)? Risker (talk) 22:04, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with you, that all of those examples are inappropriate questions. They're all variations on the same theme: asking personal information under the guise of asking about COI. The acceptable alternative would be to link to editing at some page, and to ask about perceived POV editing. No one needs to know the motivation for such a POV, just whether or not it exists. That said, I don't think we need a new rule forbidding such questions. Better to see how the candidate deals with the situation. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:09, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think these questions are all chickenshit, and I'd say so if I saw somebody ask them. But for all of them, it seems pretty simple to come up with a version that only talks about strictly editing-related issues, but still de facto requires the person to answer the chickenshit part. For example, the one I posted above -- but you could pick any from this list and phrase it like
- "Do you expect to intervene in user conduct issues relating to issues of [inappropriately personal thing] or would you recuse yourself from such matters?"
- and I think it would still, in practice, require the person either to divulge their status on the issue or do an awkwardly contorted dance around it. Of course, it would clearly be a good idea to explicitly forbid questions such as these, that directly asked about this sort of thing. jp×g🗯️ 22:13, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Potential answer: "It never occurred to me that this would be an issue. Do you have a concern about me acting in this topic area?" Alternatively, "Hmm, here are edits I've made in that topic area: [diffs, showing non-problematic edits]. Do you have a concern about me acting in this topic area?" --Tryptofish (talk) 22:20, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Ah. I think I see what the problem is with RFA now. Risker (talk) 23:12, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe I'm just being dimwitted, but what is that problem? --Tryptofish (talk) 01:02, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- To be clear, my plan if someone asks something like this is to respond to it directly by saying "this is a chickenshit question" and urging the candidate not to answer, regardless of whether it is permitted by policies/guidelines. jp×g🗯️ 06:57, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think restrictions on these sorts of questions are reasonable. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:36, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- There is a nasty variation on this though; where the question is designed to elicit non-public information about another editor. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:39, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Could you elaborate a bit on this? I've never seen this but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Just a bit hard to wrap my head around how this variation would even work. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 00:46, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- There are simple things like "given you and X live in the same city", which you cannot answer, even though you know that you do not. But there are also questions explicitly soliciting details about personal relationships with other editors ("given you are married/living with/dating X"), and even about relationships between two other editors. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:15, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Could you elaborate a bit on this? I've never seen this but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Just a bit hard to wrap my head around how this variation would even work. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 00:46, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Apart from sexuality, I wouldn't say that any of these are "non-public personal information". They might be things that it's considered impolite to ask about, or that pseudonymous people on the internet are reticent to discuss, but that's not the same thing. As a thought experiment, try to count how many people from your physical workplace that you know but couldn't tell their marital status, religion, race, nationality, or rough age. I counted zero. In fact, where I work now, it's not unusual to list all of those things except race and religion at the top of your CV. I don't think of any of these are good RfA questions but we should not go down the road of conflating Wikipedia's quite unusual (but good) support for pseudo-anonymity in our online 'workplace' with actual, legally-protected expectations of privacy. – Joe (talk) 07:11, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I actually have no idea about the marital status or religion that would applicable in regards to most of my coworkers. If we're going to bring up real-world comparisons though, let's think about job interviews. The questions Risker used as examples above would be illegal to ask a prospective employee where I live because the only reason someone would really ever need to ask them is if they are trying to be discriminatory. Hence the concept of a protected class. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 07:29, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- It would be illegal in jurisdictions that have that concept, which according to our article is the US and Canada. As I said, in Central Europe people often to put those things on their CV (I don't agree with that practice, but it shows that norms differ). Whenever the workplace analogy comes up, we seem to end up taking the norms of American white collar offices as universal – but this is a global project. Johnuniq's solution below, which allows for a degree of flexibility in interpreting what is and isn't "personal information", seems like a better option to me than adopting specific concepts from US employment law. – Joe (talk) 07:45, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I did say
where I live
. I also don't work a white collar job by any means. Anyways, my argument was that your experience was not universal (and obviously neither is mine). I do think it's important to think about what we would gain by having people treat RfA as a free for all where we allow these sorts of questions. In contrast, what do we have to lose? I think the risks far outweigh any potential benefits. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 08:00, 8 May 2024 (UTC)- Something else to keep in mind in terms of a global perspective is not every country has the same track record with human rights and asking some of these questions could prompt real world danger. There are multiple places where it is illegal for someone to be a member of my former religion. There are also places where you can be executed for being gay. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 08:33, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Asking those questions would be illegal where I live too. But when I was working in the United States, one of my co-workers was fired due to her marital status (living with her boyfriend instead of being married). Apparently, there is no federal law against discrimination on the basis of marital status in the United States. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:32, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- The situation you described would be contrary to the Canadian Human Rights Act, which is what's applicable to me. [1] Anyways, I was looking into what Joe was saying about how apparently things are different in Europe and I came across similar legislation here. There's always going to be some nuance about who counts as a protected group across countries but the concept of restricting discrimination based on someone's characteristics isn't unique to America. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 11:45, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Asking those questions would be illegal where I live too. But when I was working in the United States, one of my co-workers was fired due to her marital status (living with her boyfriend instead of being married). Apparently, there is no federal law against discrimination on the basis of marital status in the United States. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:32, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Something else to keep in mind in terms of a global perspective is not every country has the same track record with human rights and asking some of these questions could prompt real world danger. There are multiple places where it is illegal for someone to be a member of my former religion. There are also places where you can be executed for being gay. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 08:33, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Asking about marital status at a job interview (which is a good analogy for RFA) is illegal in the US, Canada, all of the EU, Australia... almost all of the West. While it's allowed in Japan and some other countries, and this is a global project, English is a Western language and English Wikipedia has Western values, especially when it comes to discrimination and privacy (just look at the UCOC). In much of the world it's illegal to be gay, you can be killed for being of the wrong religion, husbands own their wives, etc etc. Norms differ, yes, but here on enwiki we have Western norms and that's a feature not a bug. Put me down for no questions at RFA (or rfb or arbcom elections or wp:perm, etc) about marital status, religion, sexual orientation, or other protected class info, or any private RL info, at RFA, in line with Western values even if not global values, and unapologetically so. Levivich (talk) 13:45, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I strongly disagree that there's such a thing as "Western values" and, even if there were, that this project should follow them just because it is written in English, a language spoken by people in literally every corner of the world. I'm also curious how this prohibition on asking about marital status works in cultures where, say, wedding rings are a thing. But really, we've drifted very far from my original point. I'm just saying that most of the things on Risker's list are not "non-public personal information" – a term of art both in transatlantic privacy law and our local policy (namely WP:BLP and WP:OS). I'm not saying they're fine to ask about for no reason, either in RfA or a job interview (which, while not a bad analogy, RfA is not). But I think a general reminder that such things are impolite and rarely constructive (per Johnuniq below) is enough to discourage that. We don't have to start throwing around legal terminology and alluding to OS blocks. – Joe (talk) 14:20, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think "non-public personal information" as discussed here is in the context of the wiki, which means there is a whole host of things that fall into it that might not in 'real life' (like whether on is a dog :)). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:48, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, Wikipedia says there is such a thing as Western values. :-) Levivich (talk) 04:49, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I strongly disagree that there's such a thing as "Western values" and, even if there were, that this project should follow them just because it is written in English, a language spoken by people in literally every corner of the world. I'm also curious how this prohibition on asking about marital status works in cultures where, say, wedding rings are a thing. But really, we've drifted very far from my original point. I'm just saying that most of the things on Risker's list are not "non-public personal information" – a term of art both in transatlantic privacy law and our local policy (namely WP:BLP and WP:OS). I'm not saying they're fine to ask about for no reason, either in RfA or a job interview (which, while not a bad analogy, RfA is not). But I think a general reminder that such things are impolite and rarely constructive (per Johnuniq below) is enough to discourage that. We don't have to start throwing around legal terminology and alluding to OS blocks. – Joe (talk) 14:20, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I did say
- It would be illegal in jurisdictions that have that concept, which according to our article is the US and Canada. As I said, in Central Europe people often to put those things on their CV (I don't agree with that practice, but it shows that norms differ). Whenever the workplace analogy comes up, we seem to end up taking the norms of American white collar offices as universal – but this is a global project. Johnuniq's solution below, which allows for a degree of flexibility in interpreting what is and isn't "personal information", seems like a better option to me than adopting specific concepts from US employment law. – Joe (talk) 07:45, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I actually have no idea about the marital status or religion that would applicable in regards to most of my coworkers. If we're going to bring up real-world comparisons though, let's think about job interviews. The questions Risker used as examples above would be illegal to ask a prospective employee where I live because the only reason someone would really ever need to ask them is if they are trying to be discriminatory. Hence the concept of a protected class. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 07:29, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
I would add a generic statement at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship#Expressing opinions with something like "Questions which ask for personal information are rarely appropriate." That might be put a little more strongly but it would avoid listing out-of-bounds questions while leaving room for IAR if someone could ever justify their question. My answer to any of the listed questions would be to say that I wasn't comfortable providing personal information as it might be a precedent that led to other candidates being required to reveal more. Admins encounter nonsense and RfA needs to show that they are not going to go crazy when that happens. Johnuniq (talk) 01:52, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think Johnuniq's idea is the way to go. We can't possible come up with all of the "don't ask this" questions ahead of time. Maybe with an added "...such as..." with two or three of the most-likely-to-be-asked questions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joyous! (talk • contribs) 02:19, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I agree withJohnuniq's idea. Often in RFA there will be questions that should not be asked, as they are trolling, or perhaps timewasters. An admin candidate should be wise enough not to answer some questions. But may say they are not going to answer for whatever reason. If a questioner is trying to figure out undisclosed bias or COI editing, they can ask about why particular edits done. And I will say that jsut because someone is in a group, does not mean that they are necessarily biased or have an assumed point of view. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:50, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Here's an actual question from my RfA: "In your last RFA, one of the few questions you did not answer was how you would navigate another undisclosed conflict-of-interest. So I'll repeat the spirit of that question: can you elaborate on how you would navigate your existing conflicts-of-interest?" The questioner was fishing for information about another editor. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:53, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A "fishing question". For disclosed interests, candidates should use their user page. For undisclosed, they whould keep away from the topic or edit so carefully that no bias is detectable. And many interests / opinions do not matter. So for example it does not matter whether we have met or not. And some "interests" can be determined from editing patterns and do not need to be disclosed. eg I like to rescue garbage, eg abandonded user drafts, or pages about to be deleted by G13. Or for some particular editors I will try to assist them. But say I was married to another Wikipedia editor. Should I disclose it or avoid voting on anything related to that connected editor? Such disclosure is not required for RFA. But if there were problems showing up in relation to a possibly related editor, then votors may be justified in voting "no". Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:51, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- You cannot disclose that, because it would be disclosing personal information about another editor. Part of my contract with my former employer was non-disclosure of any detail whatsoever about my work. When someone accused me of writing about my employer, I could only respond that the firm in question was not my employer, but I could not disclose who my actual employer was. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:28, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A "fishing question". For disclosed interests, candidates should use their user page. For undisclosed, they whould keep away from the topic or edit so carefully that no bias is detectable. And many interests / opinions do not matter. So for example it does not matter whether we have met or not. And some "interests" can be determined from editing patterns and do not need to be disclosed. eg I like to rescue garbage, eg abandonded user drafts, or pages about to be deleted by G13. Or for some particular editors I will try to assist them. But say I was married to another Wikipedia editor. Should I disclose it or avoid voting on anything related to that connected editor? Such disclosure is not required for RFA. But if there were problems showing up in relation to a possibly related editor, then votors may be justified in voting "no". Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:51, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Here's an actual question from my RfA: "In your last RFA, one of the few questions you did not answer was how you would navigate another undisclosed conflict-of-interest. So I'll repeat the spirit of that question: can you elaborate on how you would navigate your existing conflicts-of-interest?" The questioner was fishing for information about another editor. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:53, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- That sounds like a good solution. – Joe (talk) 07:12, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think it's better than nothing but it doesn't fix the problem of what to do when people do actually ask these inappropriate questions if crats refuse to moderate them. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 19:45, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- With luck we'll soon have designated moderators per Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Designated RfA monitors. Valereee (talk) 19:54, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Clovermoss: I am trying to see your perspective here. My point of view is surely coloured by the fact that none of my answers to Risker's questions mark me out as a minority (or well, one does, but it's not a big deal for me) or are something that I mind sharing. But still, I can't understand why answering "I don't want to disclose that information", "<X> has never affected my editing" or just nothing at all, isn't sufficient to deal with questions you find inappropriate? During your RfA the questions about religion were rude and baseless, but is it a systematic problem that we need to make hard rules about? – Joe (talk) 09:50, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- RfA is a high stakes environment where candidates may be pressured to share personal information that they otherwise wouldn't. Leaving
rude and baseless
questions benefits no one. I've shared other reasons why in this thread (e.g. these questions are not harmless, are really only useful if someone is trying to be discriminatory, and can pose real life consequences and dangers). While questions like these are not common, toxicity at RfA is a well-known problem. Why wouldn't we want to do something about it? Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 14:22, 9 May 2024 (UTC) - Well, in some cases, there are legal protections against someone's refusal to answer an incriminating question being used as evidence against them. Here, there are not, and anyone is free to form whatever opinion (and cast whatever vote) they darn well please, based on anything. Since, let's be real, most of the time a voter's main source of information about a candidate will be what's on the RfA page, this means that it is somewhat problematic to have one of the dozen-or-so pieces of information be "John Smith refused to answer a question about whether he was a Communist". jp×g🗯️ 07:24, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- RfA is a high stakes environment where candidates may be pressured to share personal information that they otherwise wouldn't. Leaving
- I think it's better than nothing but it doesn't fix the problem of what to do when people do actually ask these inappropriate questions if crats refuse to moderate them. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 19:45, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
Why? It's not like such ('are you or have you ever been') questions are common and so this seems like a rather extreme hypothetical. But for me it is within bounds for anyone to ask (respectfully) almost anything about a user box the candidate chose and Wikipedia policy, the candidate then gets to show their ability to explain, follow, and/or apply policy. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:33, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Alanscottwalker: These questions may not be common but they do exist (see why I started the thread about people asking about religion in RfA in the first place – because one of my questions was essentially "Are you a member of [this religion]?" and crats saw no need to remove it). So the list of questions posed by Risker is not an "extreme hypothetical". I don't think it's that crazy that if questions like this are considered okay to ask, there aren't going to be people in the future who ask stuff like the alternative examples she posed. We can easily make it known that the community doesn't want to allow such toxicity. It's depressing that we might not want to. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 19:55, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Well, one instance does not a pattern make, it makes an outlier, thus extreme, and rather hypothetical, especially in the listing of iterations. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:42, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
This list of no-go areas may or may not be agreeable and may or may not be accepted by the community. Without a method of uncontroversial and non-disruptive implementation it is no more than a wish list. Like "I wish rain water was beer" - but just try making it so. Leaky caldron (talk) 16:59, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Just for the record, the questions above are from the examples of harassment that are written right into the Universal Code of Conduct. There definitely have been questions like this on RFAs. And, Alanscottwalker, the assumption of the questions above is that the candidate has not disclosed the information publicly in the past (e.g., with userboxen); the question examples are seeking undisclosed personal information. Leaky caldron, it's really, really sad that you feel expecting people to follow both the letter and the spirit of the UCoC is equivalent to expecting rain water to be beer. What does that say about our community? Risker (talk) 21:26, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Well the premise of the initial question suggested that the questioner thought the person had publicly revealed something about their religion, so the answer to that would be something like, "No. I was not addressing my religion when I spoke earlier (and I have no intention of discussing or disclosing my personal religion, if any, on Wikipedia), I was addressing what the sources say about . . . or some such. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:48, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- The "basis" on which the initial religion question was asked was that the candidate had edited articles related to that religion. There was no reason to assume that they were the religious beliefs of the candidate; that's a false assumption that isn't appropriate. Plenty of people edit articles that don't relate to their personal interests; most of my recent edits have no relation to my own interests, let alone my belief system, and I think that is commonplace for all editors. Risker (talk) 21:59, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- No. As I recall, it was something they said about the religion that prompted the question. And even assuming you are right, the reply is obvious to anyone with any clue: 'No. My editing does not disclose my religion (and I have no intention of discussing or disclosing whether I have any religion at all on Wikipedia) I seek and I was seeking there to write NPOV based on V without NOR or CVIO,' etc. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:02, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I didn't say anything about my religious beliefs in my RfA prior to their questions. My response to question 2 (What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?) did state that
My long term goals are improving content about the Niagara Region and Jehovah's Witnesses.
If they had actual concerns about my editing, they could've linked to a diff instead of just waving vague accusations and demanding to know what my current religious beliefs are. It's not the biggest deal in the world to me (which is why I did in fact answer their questions) but I did realize that the question was inappropriate. It's why the crat discussion that took place later bothered me. It has wider implications for other people running at RfA and I couldn't in good conscience just ignore that reality. Hence this entire discussion. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:13, 8 May 2024 (UTC)- So it was something you said about the religion, and not that you had edited, but that you wanted to edit it. At any rate, you are bound to get a curveball question from time to time. Just respond with telling them you don't know how they got to that curve. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:20, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I had edited Jehovah's Witnesses already at that point, the above was a partial quote about my general long term goals before going into specifics about what I've actually done in regards to content. But I do not think this counts as
so it was something you said about the religion
, it's literally just me saying I have an interest in the topic area. Let's imagine they decided to take a different angle on their questions since I have edited articles about the Niagara Region. They could've asked if I currently live in Niagara Falls. Would that question have been okay? Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:33, 8 May 2024 (UTC)- That seems a thin distinction, not the religion, the subject, but anyhow. In any other situation one would not be surprised, nor shocked, nor concerned about harassment, if someone just told you they like to write about X, and a response was what's your relation to X. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:49, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- No one has ever asked me about my relationship with food, women, or people of color, which are the topics I most commonly write about. IMO there's a reason for that. Valereee (talk) 14:35, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- No one asked about what you like to edit, that you like to edit broad topics, that almost everyone has some relationship to, seems irrelevant. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:18, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- If you don't mind me asking, why do you find such a comparison irrelevant? Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 13:23, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- 1) No one asked, so it is contextually irrelevant.
- 2) No one was talking about examining someone's edits, we were talking about responding to a statement, so it is contextually irrelevant.
- 3) Broad topics that almost everyone has a relationship with are not what this conversation is about, so is substantively irrelevant. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:35, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- Hmm. Well I can't speak for Valereee but I assume that she thought the comparison to be relevant when she made it. I'll suppose I should wait to see if she'll present her side of the matter before coming to any conclusions.
No one asked
does seem to be a bit dismissive? I'd ask that maybe you reconsider framing things in such a way but of course I can't stop you from acting how you wish. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 13:54, 11 May 2024 (UTC)- If you are posing a question, the answer is no it was not dismissive. But perhaps you are just being loose with the word. As for framing, it's not a frame, it is a fact, from which a contextual inference was drawn. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:39, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- Hmm. Well I can't speak for Valereee but I assume that she thought the comparison to be relevant when she made it. I'll suppose I should wait to see if she'll present her side of the matter before coming to any conclusions.
- If you don't mind me asking, why do you find such a comparison irrelevant? Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 13:23, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- No one asked about what you like to edit, that you like to edit broad topics, that almost everyone has some relationship to, seems irrelevant. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:18, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- No one has ever asked me about my relationship with food, women, or people of color, which are the topics I most commonly write about. IMO there's a reason for that. Valereee (talk) 14:35, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- That seems a thin distinction, not the religion, the subject, but anyhow. In any other situation one would not be surprised, nor shocked, nor concerned about harassment, if someone just told you they like to write about X, and a response was what's your relation to X. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:49, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I had edited Jehovah's Witnesses already at that point, the above was a partial quote about my general long term goals before going into specifics about what I've actually done in regards to content. But I do not think this counts as
- So it was something you said about the religion, and not that you had edited, but that you wanted to edit it. At any rate, you are bound to get a curveball question from time to time. Just respond with telling them you don't know how they got to that curve. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:20, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I didn't say anything about my religious beliefs in my RfA prior to their questions. My response to question 2 (What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?) did state that
- No. As I recall, it was something they said about the religion that prompted the question. And even assuming you are right, the reply is obvious to anyone with any clue: 'No. My editing does not disclose my religion (and I have no intention of discussing or disclosing whether I have any religion at all on Wikipedia) I seek and I was seeking there to write NPOV based on V without NOR or CVIO,' etc. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:02, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- The "basis" on which the initial religion question was asked was that the candidate had edited articles related to that religion. There was no reason to assume that they were the religious beliefs of the candidate; that's a false assumption that isn't appropriate. Plenty of people edit articles that don't relate to their personal interests; most of my recent edits have no relation to my own interests, let alone my belief system, and I think that is commonplace for all editors. Risker (talk) 21:59, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- They're in the UCoC as examples of harassment, not forbidden topics. "Papists like you shouldn't be admins" is an example of harassment based on religion. I think most reasonable people would agree that just asking "Are you Catholic?" is not harassment, though it may or may not be appropriate given the context and circumstances. – Joe (talk) 10:04, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Well the premise of the initial question suggested that the questioner thought the person had publicly revealed something about their religion, so the answer to that would be something like, "No. I was not addressing my religion when I spoke earlier (and I have no intention of discussing or disclosing my personal religion, if any, on Wikipedia), I was addressing what the sources say about . . . or some such. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:48, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Risker, I was highlighting the potential difficulty of implementing your list into practice in a reasonable, non-provocative manner. The fact that UCoC now evidently places an obligation to swerve these topics will, I have no doubt, place us under an obligation. But it sadly doesn't resolve my concern about the practicalities, does it? Leaky caldron (talk) 07:16, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Leaky caldron, the fact that something is potentially difficult doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Heck, we have a few thousand FAs, and a ton of other featured content; that's hard, too. And we've changed our culture multiple times in the last 20-odd years. So what about a rule that says "Questions that appear to try to reveal non-disclosed personal information about the candidate or any other editor are not permitted and will be removed immediately by any administrator or bureaucrat. The questioner will have one opportunity to revise the question to meet this standard. Repeated attempts (including similar questions over more than one RFA) may be sanctioned." It doesn't have to be hard, it just needs to be enforced. Risker (talk) 08:05, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- To be clear, do you mean rain water that's already fallen (e.g. into a cistern or collection system) turning into beer, or an entire episode of cloud precipitation consisting of beer? The latter seems like it would be extremely miserable and unhealthy, and probably cause a lot of property damage (i.e. every square inch of the area it rained in would afterwards be covered in a layer of stale beer). jp×g🗯️ 07:27, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- I suspect collected rainwater, as opposed to simply "rain". The quote is taken from A Man for all Seasons spoken by the Common Man having just been sacked by Sir Thomas More who had resigned as chancellor of England... "All right, so he’s down on his luck! I’m sorry. I don’t mind saying that: I’m sorry! Bad luck! If I’d any good luck to spare he could have some. I wish we could all have good luck, all the time! I wish we had wings! I wish rainwater was beer! But it isn’t! . . . " Leaky caldron (talk) 17:55, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
Request for admin
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I would like the opportunity to be installed as an admin as I noticed more and more acts of vandalism and dishonesty and hiding honest information has become a thing and I would love to help contribute to the good work already being done. Farmer4-89 (talk) 01:39, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Farmer4-89. Thanks for your interest. Becoming an administrator involves receiving public comments for a week, and achieving a certain percent of supports. With 7 edits, you would not pass this process. You would need much more experience (thousands of edits) to qualify. I have good news though. There are many ways to help out without being an administrator. Most activities on Wikipedia are open to everyone, or there is a template you can use to summon an admin to do the action for you. Hope that helps. Happy editing. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:56, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
- Thank u kindly. You wouldn’t have any other tips that would be helpful for being an admin would u. Farmer4-89 (talk) 02:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
- WP:RFAADVICE has some info. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:02, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
- You are an all star. Perhaps you could help me out? Not to sound rude. Farmer4-89 (talk) 02:03, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
- To become an admin? Novem Linguae certainly could, but I doubt he would want to - not just because he may have other things to do onwiki, but also because users are generally discouraged from joining Wikipedia for the purpose of gaining high positions.
- You mention "acts of vandalism" and "hiding honest information". You can counter these by reverting vandalism and discussing "hidden" material on the articles' talk pages; none of these require you to be an administrator. Become a regular editor first, edit your way through the encyclopaedia, and then apply for adminship (if you still want it by then)...
- If you meant help with editing in general, you may consult your homepage, where you may have a mentor assigned, to whom you can send messages through the homepage. You can also ask questions at the Teahouse, or indeed even on my talk page (and I guess NL's as well). Kind regards, Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 10:53, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
- Thank u kindly. You wouldn’t have any other tips that would be helpful for being an admin would u. Farmer4-89 (talk) 02:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
A new RfA
Several hours ago a new RfA was started, but we should not do the same as the previous one, closed, reverted, blanked, unblanked, and reclosed. As the second after the review and the first to see possible voting, we would expect positive feedback to be made once RfA has been finished. I cannot expect what has happened, and I was shocked about that. It is like everybody beat me up, but I won't expect the same as the curren RfA. ToadetteEdit! 19:06, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Yet another self-nom, which is really not all that helpful in determining whether this new system will help. I wonder why this is attracting self-noms? Valereee (talk) 20:11, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
- If we're being honest, because the kind of people who would approach a nominator will largely be waiting until the trial is over. RfA incentivizes risk-averse behavior. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 20:48, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, maybe people who would't bother to consider approaching a nominator are the same ones who'd take a risk on a new system. It's too bad, really. I do think there could be benefits to this, but if it keeps going this way we may not get a chance to see that. Valereee (talk) 21:48, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
- This new system may have sounded like a reasonable idea on paper, but what we've seen in practice is that over the course of two days enough negative information surfaces to sink the candidate. While both of these candidates would certainly have failed under the traditional system, I think the results so far have lessened the likelihood of a more qualified candidate taking the risk. I believe this experiment will fail because very few suitable candidates will be willing to risk it. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:23, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
- Well, never mind. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 22:58, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- This new system may have sounded like a reasonable idea on paper, but what we've seen in practice is that over the course of two days enough negative information surfaces to sink the candidate. While both of these candidates would certainly have failed under the traditional system, I think the results so far have lessened the likelihood of a more qualified candidate taking the risk. I believe this experiment will fail because very few suitable candidates will be willing to risk it. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:23, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
- We are also living in the post-Tamzin (and Vami) RfA Wikipedia, where prospective candidates can look forward to any slightly controversial opinion they have ever stated onwiki taken out of context and used as reason to impugn their judgement and fitness to be an admin. Are people really surprised there's little appetite among experienced editors to run? Just scroll up a bit and see what Clovermoss went through, and that was a largely uncontroversial RfA; there's also experiences from those like SFR who had all sorts of accusations thrown at them for their trouble. Personally, I don't think I'll ever run because my record isn't 100% perfect and I could only look forward to being called "uncivil" (because I don't entertain BS) and a "deletionist" (with several dozen GAs). So why would I bother running? I have the content creation 10 times over, and the experience and edit count, but why on earth would I want the massive stress of getting picked apart by the entire site? I think you could ask many other editors and they'd give you a similar answer. Maybe the new system will herald a shift, but I have my doubts. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:25, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
- Some things change, some don't. Eighteen years ago I put off submitting to RfA, even though SlimVirgin had asked me to, in part because I was worried that some mistakes I had made would be brought up in a RfA. When I did run a few months later, no one mentioned any of my mistakes, other than one criticism for being too bureaucratic about changes to policies. Of course, there were a lot more RfAs then, and individual RfAs got less attention (81 votes total for mine). Donald Albury 14:51, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
- +1. Best, Reading Beans 08:16, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
- My hope is that people are just waiting until they can try the "admin election". —Kusma (talk) 17:11, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
- And/or the other Phase 2 items. Still, I don't think this rfa is any more typical than the last one, so I'm not sure we've had a "normal" or typical test case yet. We may not get one until Phase 2 is done and/or elections are rolled out. I'm very curious to see if we get a bunch of candidates standing for election. Levivich (talk) 20:34, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
- I would disagree that this recent RFA was atypical. It was a user with many years of experience and many thousands of edits, but the RFA failed due to lack of experience in a few specific areas (and, to some degree, for taciturn answers in the RFA itself). But I don't think an RFA needs to be successful in order to fall within the bounds of typical. Useight (talk) 15:52, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- Totally agree that a typical rfa need not be successful. I think it was the answers to questions that made the last rfa atypical. (IMO, those were very atypical answers.) Levivich (talk) 16:21, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, I agree with that. It's much more common for RFA candidates to be more descriptive and verbose when answering questions. I'm wondering if this trial, with its initial period of only comments/questions is simply going to result in a higher number of questions and, therefore, all things being equal, result in candidates giving shorter answers to each individual question due to a number of factors, from the objective (answering more questions in the same amount of time requires shorter answers) to the subjective (more questions tiring or flustering the candidate). Useight (talk) 19:27, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- Totally agree that a typical rfa need not be successful. I think it was the answers to questions that made the last rfa atypical. (IMO, those were very atypical answers.) Levivich (talk) 16:21, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- I would disagree that this recent RFA was atypical. It was a user with many years of experience and many thousands of edits, but the RFA failed due to lack of experience in a few specific areas (and, to some degree, for taciturn answers in the RFA itself). But I don't think an RFA needs to be successful in order to fall within the bounds of typical. Useight (talk) 15:52, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- And/or the other Phase 2 items. Still, I don't think this rfa is any more typical than the last one, so I'm not sure we've had a "normal" or typical test case yet. We may not get one until Phase 2 is done and/or elections are rolled out. I'm very curious to see if we get a bunch of candidates standing for election. Levivich (talk) 20:34, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, maybe people who would't bother to consider approaching a nominator are the same ones who'd take a risk on a new system. It's too bad, really. I do think there could be benefits to this, but if it keeps going this way we may not get a chance to see that. Valereee (talk) 21:48, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
- I notice in the current RfA that some people are explicitly saying how they intend to vote when that starts, even though that's not what the proposed process intends. Once again, that seems to be difficult to enforce. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:50, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
- I don’t see how it can be enforced and never understood this. It seems to be a fatal flaw. Doug Weller talk 19:33, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
From a candidate's pov, the General Comments section in the current RfA is a complete shambles. Questions to answers buried in TL;DR discussions and ramblings about photographic evidence about animals and basically editors saying how they intend to !vote when the time comes rather than waiting until the time comes. This, repeated as it will be, is unfair to candidates and needs to be addressed, speedily. Leaky caldron (talk) 19:16, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
- Any idea how before we get new candidates? An RfC maybe, but that might take too long unless enough agree for a snow close. Doug Weller talk 19:36, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
- It does seem that we need to have more structure in these pre-voting discussions. I would like to see people adding relevant information to the page, like their experience from interactions with the candidate, their impressions from reviewing the candidate's contributions, their analysis of the candidate's AfD record etc., so there is better information available for voters once voting starts. Maybe make it "candidate evaluations" and ask all participants to provide information not yet on the page? —Kusma (talk) 19:45, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
- I continue to believe that more sectioning would improve the General discussion experience. Right now it's a mismash catch all of "All comments people would otherwise make at RFAs (with/without voting indicators)". Which then leads to more repetition.
- I think a simple encouragement of sections would do most of the trick. If I want to discuss someone's laconic answers, I'd put it under "About short answers" subsection instead of the larger "General Discussion" section. I think it wouldn't be very contentious for someone (probably an admin?) to move such comments to the right section too. Soni (talk) 21:25, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think we need a better delineation of what is a general comment versus what is a question. At the same time, I don't think it's unusual that we are a bit confused with a brand new process. Once the RfA concludes I think we will be able to do a post-mortem and assess what is and isn't working. I do think that removing the immediate voting really helps turn down the temperature (and allows the candidate an easy out if they so choose). Things have been remarkably calm so far, which is a positive change for sure. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:21, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
- Update: Voting started an hour ago and as of the moment I am writing, there are 11 against and 2 in favor. Expecting that the ratio of supports and opposes gets worse, it is expected that it may close early and thus it would not still count towards the first five RfAs before September. ToadetteEdit! 02:37, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
- This means we still have a lot of fixes for it to work. The RFA talk page seems blank, somehow... Just a random Wikipedian(talk) 03:18, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
I'm very interested to see how this discussion period is affecting the amount of questions. Average RfAs seem to reach ~20-30 questions across 7 days; this one got to 32 in just a little over 2 days but is also another unusual RfA. I.e. is the discussion period resulting in all the questions being asked at once, or is it resulting in more questions to be asked across the entire RfA, or some other third thing? There has always been a trend that the majority of questions are asked in the first few days and then this tapers off, but this is quite dramatic even acknowledging that. Curbon7 (talk) 05:43, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
- It could also be that in this specific case the answers given were way too short. This means people didn’t get a good idea about the candidate and had to ask more questions to get a better idea (my own question was a direct repeat of Q1, for example). I suspect that better answers may have meant a lot less questions, which would then probably have tailed off sharply once !voting started. (I opposed this at the RfC and I’m still waiting to see if there are any upsides to this. Maybe a different candidate (one who isn’t a self nom and with a stronger track record in admin-lite areas) will show the benefits of the system). - SchroCat (talk) 07:57, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
IMHO, folks were chompin' at the bit to engage in the RfA and the process only gave them two outlets: questions and comments. I'm disappointed this candidate wasn't better prepared to respond to questions, because on paper the candidate had some good qualities (an ORCP wouldn't have hurt them either). With due respect to Toadette (whom I honor for being the human to be "first through the door"), neither of these worthy contributors were "shovel ready" sysop candidates, but both of them might have successful 2nd runs if they continue to demonstrate their trustworthiness. For the record, I think having a set of nominators gives some rudder to the boat, so to speak. My 2nd RfA nominators vetted me personally and offered to help me with the basic three questions if they thought mine needed help. My nominators made themselves available to me during my run as did a few other supporting admins. A self-nom is a tougher road to tread. BusterD (talk) 13:29, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
As sort of alluded already, I think this process is no better, if not worse, then the default process we've been using for over a decade. Rather than editors bluntly posting how they will vote, the ... nominee has to guess how they will eventually vote based on the "General comments" section prior to the voting period starting? So ... as far as I can tell, the only way I can see this being avoided is to basically restrict editors from voting if they participate in the RFA prior to the voting period starting ... which I really do not see happening as enforceable or an agreeable resolution to this, but I don't see any alternatives either to make this process better for the nominees. Steel1943 (talk) 23:19, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe we should have required anyone who RfAd under this trial to have a nominator. Valereee (talk) 01:04, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- Thankfully a moot point, now we have a nominated candidate put forward. A superficial glance shows this one may be a solid candidate, so the new system will at least get something of a proper test. - SchroCat (talk) 11:41, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- This is dependent on what you are testing. Are we testing whether this makes RFA better for candidates who will not pass? Or better for candidates that would have passed on the old system? I'm genuinely curious. Before running tests you always work out what you are testing. Therefore, what is it that we are testing here? - Bilby (talk) 12:06, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think SchroCat's point is that we are getting a test of the system with a candidate that has a chance of passing. Dialmayo 12:15, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- That makes a degree of sense, but I am still a bit lost. I'll go over the voting from before to try and get a better picture. But it seems to me that the ultimate goal is to make RFA more accessible to editors so that we get more people nominating. If that is the case, there are two situations we should care about - the treatment of people who are unlikely to pass and the treatment of people who have a chance to pass, but may not. At the moment we have two examples of the former, which is a good thing. But we should not discount them because they fail to fit into the second model. - Bilby (talk) 12:48, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- The trial is for 5 non-snow/withdrawn RFAs, so what we are testing is how this works with candidates who have a chance of passing. This current one looks like it'll be the first one. Levivich (talk) 13:03, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- I'm ok with that. I don't want to be difficult, but strangely enough this is my field.
- I'm curious because I assume that the intent is to pass more admins. There are two models which I think could achieve that:
- Making RFA less onerous so that more people will run, increasing the number of successful attempts.
- Lowering the standards such that people who would not have passed on the prior model would pass on the new one, and thus increasing the percentage of successes.
- I am assuming that we are targeting the first of these. If so, the first two RFAs are relevant, because anyone asking if they should make a run at RFA will look to those to decide if it is worth it. People who would have succeeded in the old model would be largely irrelevant.
- The problem with these situations is that the relevant stakeholders are not those who choose to take part, but those who decide not to run. Understanding why some people choose not to run for RFA is far more valuable than understanding why those who choose to did so. - Bilby (talk) 14:25, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- I get it, and I don't think you're being difficult. But I think there are more than those two models, and the intent is not just more admins: it's possible to have a better process that produces the same number of admins, it's not just about the numbers. And then there's admin elections, which is a big untested elephant in the room. I wouldn't judge any of the RFA2024 reforms until, at the earliest, we've had admin elections. Levivich (talk) 14:42, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) The direct aim (for this new mechanism, at least) was not to pass more admins. The rationale for the original proposal (which was originally for three days of comments followed by seven days of !voting) was given by Barkeep49 and can be found here, where he says "it has the potential to make RfA less unpleasant for candidates". Obviously this hasn't been properly tested yet, but this new candidate looks like someone who will be able to give the facility a proper test to see if it does actually make RfA less unpleasant for candidates. If it does that, there may be a knock-on effect that others will be willing to throw their hat in the RfA ring, thus raising the numbers overall. - SchroCat (talk) 15:01, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- I ask to not be pinged about RfA. Thanks, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:13, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- And we're going to make this rather significant change to RfA based on a subjective analysis of a sample set of ...5. --Hammersoft (talk) 01:00, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- The trial is for 5 non-snow/withdrawn RFAs, so what we are testing is how this works with candidates who have a chance of passing. This current one looks like it'll be the first one. Levivich (talk) 13:03, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- That makes a degree of sense, but I am still a bit lost. I'll go over the voting from before to try and get a better picture. But it seems to me that the ultimate goal is to make RFA more accessible to editors so that we get more people nominating. If that is the case, there are two situations we should care about - the treatment of people who are unlikely to pass and the treatment of people who have a chance to pass, but may not. At the moment we have two examples of the former, which is a good thing. But we should not discount them because they fail to fit into the second model. - Bilby (talk) 12:48, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think SchroCat's point is that we are getting a test of the system with a candidate that has a chance of passing. Dialmayo 12:15, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- This is dependent on what you are testing. Are we testing whether this makes RFA better for candidates who will not pass? Or better for candidates that would have passed on the old system? I'm genuinely curious. Before running tests you always work out what you are testing. Therefore, what is it that we are testing here? - Bilby (talk) 12:06, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- Thankfully a moot point, now we have a nominated candidate put forward. A superficial glance shows this one may be a solid candidate, so the new system will at least get something of a proper test. - SchroCat (talk) 11:41, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
Place for discussing the trial proposals
Obviously, discussion of the Phase II proposals is supposed to take place at the Phase II sections (Proposal 2, Proposal 16/16c, Proposal 17, and Proposal 24), but what about the trial proposals? I see discussion of the trial proposals in quite a few places on this page, but it's a little messy and hard to follow. Should discussion take place in a section here, on WT:RFA2024, or some other avenue I'm not thinking of? Dialmayo 11:59, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- Nowhere would be best for right now, IMO. We should try the new stuff out first before we analyze or discuss it. It's too soon to learn anything about the reforms. Levivich (talk) 13:06, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with Levivich that it's better to wait until there's been more experience with the trial process. We risk overreacting, particularly with the real-time analysis that has been ongoing. Plus if anyone is concerned about the behaviour of participants in requests for adminship, now's the time to influence community expectations. If you feel candidates aren't getting enough moral support, then offer some. Soni has added subsection headings to try to focus discussion into common points, as he discussed earlier. (I've previously advocated centering threads around specific discussion points to avoid repetition.) We have the opportunity to lead by example through our participation. isaacl (talk) 16:28, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
- I'm fine with wanting to wait before judging the trials prematurely, but a related point occurs to me. What I see here, at WT-RfA, includes a significant amount of editor concerns about how the trials so far have been going. But it seems to me (other editors' mileage may of course differ) that these concerns would lead logically to some thoughts that could be relevant at the current discussions at Phase 2 of RfA2024. In particular, I think the discussions about the reminder of civility norms and about admin recall are ones where I've been surprised at what I personally think is a lack of the skepticism that is the same skepticism that I have been seeing on this talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:36, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
- I've just lost interest because I feel steps were jumped in the process, and now things like Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Administrator recall are being ramrodded through. At some point, you just have to realize the project wants to screw itself over. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:02, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
- I have a feeling that you are not the only experienced editor who feels that way. But I urge editors who are concerned about that ramrodding (not to mention that screwing!) to weigh in before it becomes a fait accompli. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:06, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
- It's too late. There's already been three weeks worth of participation there, and nobody is going to change their minds now. In a world where we're desperate for administrators, we're trying desperately hard to come up with a way to get rid of them <smdh>. And this, for something that happens at the ArbCom level twice a year. If ever there was a solution looking for a problem, this is it. I don't mean to be dramatic, but it gives me pause about whether to continue to be an administrator. --Hammersoft (talk) 00:46, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- By the way, we're now down to 438 active administrators. 16 months ago, we had 500. Give or take, we're going to be down to around 412 by the beginning of the year, and by this time next year, we'll be below 400. --Hammersoft (talk) 01:52, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- Whether or not it's too late to change the minds of editors who already commented there, it's not too late for other editors (even if not you) to add their opinions to the discussion. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:56, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- I have a feeling that you are not the only experienced editor who feels that way. But I urge editors who are concerned about that ramrodding (not to mention that screwing!) to weigh in before it becomes a fait accompli. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:06, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
- There are plenty of proposals that have received consensus support about which I've been skeptical. Eventually, though, it gets tiresome for others if I begin every comment with "I'm skeptical of this proposal, even though it has consensus support. That being said, here is my feedback on implementation detail X..." At some point, I either get on board with working on the implementation details, or I leave it to others who feel strongly about making the implementation as effective as possible. isaacl (talk) 15:04, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- Just to clarify, I'm really talking about when editors have skepticism about proposals that are still being discussed. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:36, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- I just can't. We're at the point now where people just throw as much
censoredspaghetti against the wall as they can to see what sticks. Nobody seems to give a damn about trying to actually figure out what's wrong and work the process. Just come up with "solutions" and get them applied and see if they work or not. Well, as we've seen with this stupid discussion trial, it doesn't work. I feel sorry for the people that have had to endure this discussion trial. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:06, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- I've just lost interest because I feel steps were jumped in the process, and now things like Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Administrator recall are being ramrodded through. At some point, you just have to realize the project wants to screw itself over. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:02, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
Early start by an hour?
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/Purple_arrow_down.svg/20px-Purple_arrow_down.svg.png)
@SchroCat, why did you do this? – robertsky (talk) 09:19, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- I suspect because of time zone things. Anyone on UTC+1 will see "starts at 10:02" and potentially forget that "10:02" their time is really 09:02 UTC. Primefac (talk) 09:26, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- Like DST offsets not accounted for? That makes sense. – robertsky (talk) 09:30, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Indeed. I forgot that we in the UK are currently on BST, rather than UTC. - SchroCat (talk) 09:37, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- Oh well. The milk has spilled, and it is just an hour off. I don't think much can be faulted on this. A pedantic me would request you to re-sign the vote after 20 minutes from now lest others seek to invalidate the early votes in a toss-up, if it happens. If this 2-day thing becomes a permanent thing, we can look into solutions to warn people not to vote early if they do so mistakenly. – robertsky (talk) 09:47, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- I have always though that a tool to lock sections of a page would be beneficial, rather than locking the whole page. That would be useful in these situations too. Alternatively, not having the voting sections in place until the kick-off time would also help. - SchroCat (talk) 10:04, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- Prior to the note being added, that was my thinking as well (hiding them entirely, that is) much as we do with the auto-close code. Something to discuss at WT:RFA though, not necessarily here. Primefac (talk) 10:10, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- The conditional statement that would have automatically opened up the voting at the right time didn't help much here because it was manually removed an hour early. If that conditional contained the entire voting section, it probably still would have been manually removed an hour early. Not that this was a big deal, but there's probably not much we can do about people removing code because they think the code is broken, don't understand what it is, or don't notice it's there. I don't think the problem is with the code. Maybe add to the hidden comment something that alerts people that the code will automatically open the voting at the right time? Levivich (talk) 10:18, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- I was thinking that maybe we can explore using an edit filter to warn editors to not vote if they make modifications in the voting section early. – robertsky (talk) 10:20, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- Edit filters are loaded on every single edit page on the entire wiki, so in general should be useful on a large number of pages to justify the performance overhead. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:53, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- Could this be done by transcluding the section from another page (say, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/DreamRimmer/Vote), and locking that page? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 10:57, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, but that makes things complicated. A {{hide until}} call (or something similar) would actually hide the text/sections entirely so there would be no reason for anyone to be editing it unless they were editing the entire page and didn't then notice the code saying that it was hiding the voting. The other option, as Levivich says, is to possibly indicate that the "this isn't open yet" code also contains a note that the code disappears when the time is right. Primefac (talk) 11:02, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- It might look like I'm going to fall out with SchroCat over footnotes and pages +n, etc., in the near future, but he's one of the best editors we've got and is trustworthy as hell. That's for the record. ——Serial Number 54129 11:32, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- No need to do this, and should be reminded that all times in Wikipedia are in UTC and not your local time. Just a random Wikipedian(talk) 06:49, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- UTC+00:00 (UTC for short) is also known as Greenwich Mean Time. SchroCat above says they live in the United Kingdom, which confusingly isn't always on Greenwich Mean Time, "despite having Greenwich". —andrybak (talk) 08:08, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- No need to do this, and should be reminded that all times in Wikipedia are in UTC and not your local time. Just a random Wikipedian(talk) 06:49, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- It might look like I'm going to fall out with SchroCat over footnotes and pages +n, etc., in the near future, but he's one of the best editors we've got and is trustworthy as hell. That's for the record. ——Serial Number 54129 11:32, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, but that makes things complicated. A {{hide until}} call (or something similar) would actually hide the text/sections entirely so there would be no reason for anyone to be editing it unless they were editing the entire page and didn't then notice the code saying that it was hiding the voting. The other option, as Levivich says, is to possibly indicate that the "this isn't open yet" code also contains a note that the code disappears when the time is right. Primefac (talk) 11:02, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- Prior to the note being added, that was my thinking as well (hiding them entirely, that is) much as we do with the auto-close code. Something to discuss at WT:RFA though, not necessarily here. Primefac (talk) 10:10, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- I have always though that a tool to lock sections of a page would be beneficial, rather than locking the whole page. That would be useful in these situations too. Alternatively, not having the voting sections in place until the kick-off time would also help. - SchroCat (talk) 10:04, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- Oh well. The milk has spilled, and it is just an hour off. I don't think much can be faulted on this. A pedantic me would request you to re-sign the vote after 20 minutes from now lest others seek to invalidate the early votes in a toss-up, if it happens. If this 2-day thing becomes a permanent thing, we can look into solutions to warn people not to vote early if they do so mistakenly. – robertsky (talk) 09:47, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Indeed. I forgot that we in the UK are currently on BST, rather than UTC. - SchroCat (talk) 09:37, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- Like DST offsets not accounted for? That makes sense. – robertsky (talk) 09:30, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
Discussion of discussion-only period
You are invited to participate at the phase II review of the ongoing trial of the discussion-only period :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:24, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- You are also invited to participate in a discussion of the discussion of the discussion-only period at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Discussion-only period. —andrybak (talk) 17:13, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
Asking two questions
I have eliminated the parameter for the second question number from Template:Rfa-question, as it should always be the first question number plus 1. So, if you want to ask two questions, then you should use {{subst:Rfa-question|first question number|question 1|question 2}}
rather than {{subst:Rfa-question|first question number|question 1|second question number|question 2}}
. GTrang (talk) 14:13, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Discussion of off-wiki commentary
I don't know if we should do this here or maybe at the village pump or yet another RFA reform RFC but it seems clear we have a problem in this area. It's clearly not going to sink the current RFA, but there are some questions that need to be resolved:
- How are we to evaluate accusations based on off-wiki evidence that apparently cannot even be named, yet alone directly linked to, on-wiki? Only users already in the know of these specifc discussions even know what is being discussed.
- Is there a difference between off-wiki criticism forums as opposed to the en.wp dischord?
- Is emailing links of the relvant off-wiki evidence to the arbitration committee even relevant, as ArbCom is in no way in charge of RFA?
Seems like we need to clarify this stuff. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 19:36, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- Speaking only to the second point, I think there's a pretty clear difference between participating at off-wiki criticism forums vs participation on one of the unofficial Wikipedia discords. I think it's at least relevant that the en-wiki Discord server is moderated mostly by Stewards and en-wiki admins. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:42, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- At the end of the day, they're both 'off-wiki' forums for on-wiki activity. It is impossible to separate the two. The stewards and admins of Wikipedia perform very different functions on Discord; naturally so, as they are not subject to community oversight. ——Serial Number 54129 19:57, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- That makes sense SN. Lightburst (talk) 05:24, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
It is impossible to separate the two.
– I disagree, unless you were just referring to the idea of treating all off-wiki communication platforms the same. One is specifically tailored towards criticism and, ahem, other things. The community Discord however is meant to facilitate the work that goes on on-wiki in a positive way. Whether we always succeed in doing so is debatable (there is a genuine effort there from what I see), but the intent and purpose of the two are very different. Hey man im josh (talk) 20:07, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think there is a big difference in any random place off-wiki and the Discord, which is managed and moderated by Wikipedians and where you have to actually authenticate yourself to participate (or to see anything there). We've been down the road of treating "off-wiki" by semiofficial wateringholes as verboten to talk about, and that did not work out well. Treating Discord as a place where you cannot be held to account on-wiki but which everyone can see is not a winning combination. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 20:03, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm just reading along from my watchlist and not planning to deep dive into this discussion (yet), but to clarify: The Discord server does not require authentication, though almost all long time users do so. Everything (but the noted admin area, similar to the IRC admin channels) is visible without doing so. Note this is specific to the main Discord. Some language projects (i.e., not enwiki) DO require authentication. -- ferret (talk) 20:09, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- I want to comment about the third bullet point in JSS's opening post, about whether it is appropriate to email ArbCom. In a general sense (separate from RfA specifically), community practice is to email private evidence of wrongdoing to ArbCom (or in some cases, Functionaries), with the exception of evidence about COI, where we now have a dedicated email queue. I doubt that we need ArbCom to establish another email system for RfA (although if recent events become a trend, eventually we might). Given that, and given that ArbCom does have a specified role for admin wrongdoing, I see nothing wrong with expecting that such evidence must be submitted privately to ArbCom when brought up in RfA discussions (although perhaps we need an RfC to make that a requirement). The problem I see with that is that there is generally a need for a prompt response during an RfA, and ArbCom tends not to be prompt. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:44, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- This, to me, is the crtux of the issue we are seeing before our eyes right now. A few users are opposing based on a few completely inncuous comments at an off-wiki site, basically because "admins can't do that, at all, ever, no matter what it is they say, and if they do they are complicit in literally everything else that goes on in the entire forum". I feel like this is an attempt at creating a chilling effect where users are meant to be afraid to be critical on these forums, or to comment in them at all. How are RFA particpants to judge this opposition when, currently, we apparently can't even say where it is? Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 22:05, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- I doubt that this is something that is causing worthy RfAs to go down in failure. We've always had opposes at RfA that happen, cause angst, but don't sink the candidate. Editors familiar with what happened elsewhere can say whether or not they think there was a real problem, and other editors can decide for themselves who to believe or not believe. That's what I did in my support: [2]. (Where I also used a three-letter acronym, uh-oh!) --Tryptofish (talk) 22:12, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- As a seperate issue, I have just filed an WP:ARCA request for the committee to clarify some policy points related to how or even if we are allowed to discuss these things on-wiki. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 22:47, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- Of course we can discuss things in general. A specific outing of someone is not appropriate. But if they have outed themselves, then they gave away the right to that privacy. But the committee can make their own pronouncements. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:21, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- I wanna link to the snotty thing JSS just said about me at that other site.
--Tryptofish (talk) 21:53, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I wanna link to the snotty thing JSS just said about me at that other site.
- Of course we can discuss things in general. A specific outing of someone is not appropriate. But if they have outed themselves, then they gave away the right to that privacy. But the committee can make their own pronouncements. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:21, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- As a seperate issue, I have just filed an WP:ARCA request for the committee to clarify some policy points related to how or even if we are allowed to discuss these things on-wiki. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 22:47, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- I doubt that this is something that is causing worthy RfAs to go down in failure. We've always had opposes at RfA that happen, cause angst, but don't sink the candidate. Editors familiar with what happened elsewhere can say whether or not they think there was a real problem, and other editors can decide for themselves who to believe or not believe. That's what I did in my support: [2]. (Where I also used a three-letter acronym, uh-oh!) --Tryptofish (talk) 22:12, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- This, to me, is the crtux of the issue we are seeing before our eyes right now. A few users are opposing based on a few completely inncuous comments at an off-wiki site, basically because "admins can't do that, at all, ever, no matter what it is they say, and if they do they are complicit in literally everything else that goes on in the entire forum". I feel like this is an attempt at creating a chilling effect where users are meant to be afraid to be critical on these forums, or to comment in them at all. How are RFA particpants to judge this opposition when, currently, we apparently can't even say where it is? Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 22:05, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- The obvious solution is to drop the charade. If Wikipedia editors are talking about Wikipedia, on a public forum, devoted to commentary of Wikipedia, using an account that is clearly linked to their Wikipedia account, then we should be able to discuss it openly here on Wikipedia. It's not outing, not "logging", not a copyright violation, or any of the other ridiculous, self-serving excuses that people have come up with for this taboo over the years. ArbCom has no role to play: their remit isn't "off-wiki evidence", it's
matters unsuitable for public discussion
, and what we're talking about here is already under "public discussion", by definition. – Joe (talk) 07:50, 5 June 2024 (UTC)- @Joe Roe: Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't believe there's any authentication between that other forum and on-wiki unless it's admitted on-wiki, since we can't exactly trust that someone is the same person on that site just based on the user name alone. The community Discord however does have a bot that authenticates you as an on-wiki user. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:22, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- To my knowledge there's never been an example of someone impersonating an editor on Wikipediocracy to get them into trouble on Wikipedia. If that ever did happen, I imagine the matter would be very quickly resolved by the target saying "that's not me". Otherwise, I think it's safe to assume that people are who they say they are, authentication process or not. – Joe (talk) 13:27, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- I was impersonated on Wikipediocracy on January 2, 2024. A thread was started by someone with the same name as me impersonating me. It may be more common than you think. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:47, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- That assumes that the target keeps up with all the many sub-"forum" pages on WPO, which surely at most only a handful of people do, and they wouldn't be the ones to be impersonated. Johnbod (talk) 16:15, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- To my knowledge there's never been an example of someone impersonating an editor on Wikipediocracy to get them into trouble on Wikipedia. If that ever did happen, I imagine the matter would be very quickly resolved by the target saying "that's not me". Otherwise, I think it's safe to assume that people are who they say they are, authentication process or not. – Joe (talk) 13:27, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- Just to note one other thing - some active participants on Discord (including myself) don't have a Wikipedia account to link, so there's no way to tell for sure that the person behind this IP at the moment is the same person named Tarlonniel over on Discord, beyond taking my word for it. 57.140.16.48 (talk) 21:17, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Joe Roe: Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't believe there's any authentication between that other forum and on-wiki unless it's admitted on-wiki, since we can't exactly trust that someone is the same person on that site just based on the user name alone. The community Discord however does have a bot that authenticates you as an on-wiki user. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:22, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- 1. So long as the current consensus on Discord chat logs remains in force, mention of them must be avoided entirely instead of using an actual live RfA's !oppose section to re-litigate it by bringing up veiled accusations that stick to the letter of the Discord Logs RfC but not its spirit, no matter if one thinks it's just a charade, or ridiculous, or self-serving, or any such adjective one can think up. Any change to that consensus should be sought in a new RfC.
- Personally I will disclose any of my Wikimedia Discord messages to whoever asks, and I won't be opposed to being able to link to messages on the server so long as the users are authenticated. But that is me. Community consensus is that people would rather keep their Discord comments private. Change that first.
- 2. Yes lol, the English Wikimedia Discord server enforces enwiki's own civility rules far more actively than enwiki itself. Blocked users aren't allowed to harp on their blocks and How Much They Hate Wikipedia day in and day out, unlike WPO where that is the express purpose.
- 3. If community consensus is something worth respecting, then given the current consensus, emailing ArbCom is the only way to bring up problematic Discord messages. Of course, if consensus shifts to allow Discord logs to be posted publicly, this will be moot.
- Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 09:56, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- Let's say I send you an email, out of the blue, saying
Hi Wilhelm Tell, I think you're stupid, but please don't tell anyone else. Best wishes, Joe
. And then some years later, you're asked to be on a committee to decide whether I should be given the Friendliest Wikipedian Award. Are you not going to mention the email, because I would "prefer to keep it private"? Oh and remember you can't just vote against me without saying why, because if you try the other members will accuse you of malfeasance and argue for you to be ejected from the committee. – Joe (talk) 10:08, 5 June 2024 (UTC)- Isn't this what Arbcom is for? You can just email your evidence of off-wiki harassment, then disclose the fact that you emailed them when explaining you vote? Because, in this specific situation, to prove that the person said what they said (and that you didn't just lie) you'd have to give out some pretty private information that would have to go through Arbcom anyway. GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 10:15, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- But what is ArbCom supposed to do with it? Wilhelm Tell is upset with my vote here. I could have appended "which I've notified ArbCom of" to the first clause (because, as a matter of fact, I have, several times), but what difference would it have made? – Joe (talk) 10:30, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- ArbCom will evaluate the nature of the comments then? And they can decide whether or not to block the editor based on the evidence of offwiki abuse, thus preventing their election...? Also, I'm not upset, I only think community consensus should be respected in both letter and spirit, even if you think it's stupid. I reiterate that I will be fine with the Wikimedia Discord being linkable, I don't think we're disagreeing there. Also, if you did send me such a mail, I would be quite amused. You can try it out now ~ Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 10:47, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI In the context of a time-limited RFA, it seems pertinent to note that ArbCom moves at a very slow pace. Mach61 13:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
- This makes me wonder - what was the timeline of Icewhiz/Eostrix being blocked during his RfA? Was Arbcom informed or someone else? Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 13:34, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
- Someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but my recollection is that ArbCom enacted the block during the RfA, but ArbCom had been in the process of investigating the Eostrix account for some time prior to the beginning of the RfA. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:16, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
- You're mostly right; we had flagged the account earlier in the year as a potential sock, but the RFA was really the impetus for finally making the connection. Primefac (talk) 20:33, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
- If, hypothetically, the account had not been flagged earlier, but was flagged right around the beginning of the RfA, would ArbCom have been able to work it out within the time-frame of the RfA? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:41, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
- You're mostly right; we had flagged the account earlier in the year as a potential sock, but the RFA was really the impetus for finally making the connection. Primefac (talk) 20:33, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
- Someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but my recollection is that ArbCom enacted the block during the RfA, but ArbCom had been in the process of investigating the Eostrix account for some time prior to the beginning of the RfA. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:16, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
- This makes me wonder - what was the timeline of Icewhiz/Eostrix being blocked during his RfA? Was Arbcom informed or someone else? Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 13:34, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI In the context of a time-limited RFA, it seems pertinent to note that ArbCom moves at a very slow pace. Mach61 13:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
- Decide whether or not the candidate violated the specific policies you named in your vote? It's not perfect, but it's the best system we got. I always did prefer the story about the giant bug to the one about the court, anyway. GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 10:47, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI and GreenLipstickLesbian: there is a rather large gulf between 'something that stops me supporting an RfA' and 'off-wiki harassment meriting an ArbCom block'. Unlike user conduct forums—which is where the 'send it to ArbCom' rule comes from—you don't have to point to a specific policy violation or disruptive behaviour in an RfA. Editors are perfectly entitled oppose a candidate because they just don't think they'll be a good admin, don't like them, and/or get bad vibes – whether that's based on interactions on- or off-wiki. – Joe (talk) 11:44, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have no interest in your vote, and nor have I expressed one. You asked a question about a hypothetical scenario. I answered. I am beginning to suspect that the question was rhetorical. Was it? GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 11:55, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not talking about my vote specifically, I'm talking about RfA in general. My hypothetical question was supposed to be an analogy for RfA, because this is a discussion about RfA on WT:RFA, but sorry if the use of a counterfactual scenario confused things. (It was also, incidentally, directed specifically at Wilhelm). – Joe (talk) 12:09, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'll freely admit I don't know of an effective way to oppose the Discord logs consensus in the oppose section of an RfA. But I do know you shouldn't be opposing the Discord logs consensus by breaking it. It appears to me the better course of action would be a fresh RfC. Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 12:32, 5 June 2024 (UTC) P.S. A wise person once said if something seems systemically broken on Wikipedia, that may be on purpose, to prevent you from doing what you wanted to do in the first place.
- I have no interest in your vote, and nor have I expressed one. You asked a question about a hypothetical scenario. I answered. I am beginning to suspect that the question was rhetorical. Was it? GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 11:55, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI and GreenLipstickLesbian: there is a rather large gulf between 'something that stops me supporting an RfA' and 'off-wiki harassment meriting an ArbCom block'. Unlike user conduct forums—which is where the 'send it to ArbCom' rule comes from—you don't have to point to a specific policy violation or disruptive behaviour in an RfA. Editors are perfectly entitled oppose a candidate because they just don't think they'll be a good admin, don't like them, and/or get bad vibes – whether that's based on interactions on- or off-wiki. – Joe (talk) 11:44, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- ArbCom will evaluate the nature of the comments then? And they can decide whether or not to block the editor based on the evidence of offwiki abuse, thus preventing their election...? Also, I'm not upset, I only think community consensus should be respected in both letter and spirit, even if you think it's stupid. I reiterate that I will be fine with the Wikimedia Discord being linkable, I don't think we're disagreeing there. Also, if you did send me such a mail, I would be quite amused. You can try it out now ~ Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 10:47, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- But what is ArbCom supposed to do with it? Wilhelm Tell is upset with my vote here. I could have appended "which I've notified ArbCom of" to the first clause (because, as a matter of fact, I have, several times), but what difference would it have made? – Joe (talk) 10:30, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- Isn't this what Arbcom is for? You can just email your evidence of off-wiki harassment, then disclose the fact that you emailed them when explaining you vote? Because, in this specific situation, to prove that the person said what they said (and that you didn't just lie) you'd have to give out some pretty private information that would have to go through Arbcom anyway. GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 10:15, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- Caveat: I speak only in terms of WP:Discord, and not in general of usage of Discord outside of that specific server.
Community consensus is that people would rather keep their Discord comments private.
I don't think this is the consensus at all. It's certainly not why I !voted the way I did in the RFC, and anyone who believes that their Discord messages are private is very very sorely mistaken. Joe can call itridiculous, self-serving excuses
if he likes, but I based my position on my reading of the policies and community expectations as I understood them at the time. However, the Discord server has long stated up front (prior to the RFC), both on it's project page and its Server Guide / Info channel, that the messages posted are public and can be read by anyone that joins. The RFC is a silly result that comes from how our policies/guidelines are written. I've noted this in the ARCA as well, but some people take OUTING so far as to suggest mentioning personal details on the userpages of an editor on another Wikimedia project is forbidden. That's obviously silly as well, in the post-SUL world at least. My personal hope is some guidance at ARCA results in some clarification that can then be channeled to a new RFC, that at least takes the Discord question out of this equation. I have no comment on WPO. -- ferret (talk) 14:39, 5 June 2024 (UTC)- I should clarify by "private" I meant that community consensus seemed to be that people didn't want Discord chat logs linked here. Obviously anyone can click on the invite and see every message since 2016. Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 16:15, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- Let's say I send you an email, out of the blue, saying
- speaking to question 2: i'm very active on the discord, and i've found some of the comments at Elli's RfA about the discord to be really far out of whack with what it's actually like on there. the moderators are, to their credit, very proactive in shutting down even a hint of misbehavior, to the point where it can even be a bit over-bearing occasionally. the abundance of caution on the part of the moderation team, especially where eg canvassing is concerned, is in part a reaction to what the server used to be like, as well as the history of off-wiki shenanigans that have landed at ArbCom's doorstep over the past 2 decades.
for those not on the discord or not aware of the rules there, one is generally not allowed to even neutrally link an ongoing RfC/XfD/etc or even discuss an active RfA at all. doing such is usually shut down by whoever's active in the chat at the time, whether moderators are there or not - in other words, the discord community does a good job of self-moderating against canvassing (or even the appearance of canvassing) without the moderators needing to enforce it themselves. the prohibition of discussing ongoing RfAs is particularly well-enforced in the wake of Vami_IV's passing, and some of the very difficult RfAs that members of the server have gone through previously. basically, the discord community wants to avoid adding more stress to an already stressful process.
now, i'm not active on WPO and never have been, but this to me seems like basically the exact opposite. ... sawyer * he/they * talk 20:32, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
Sdkb RfA debrief
Hi all! I wrote a debrief of my RfA from February and have added it to the debriefs page. You can read it at User:Sdkb/RfA debrief. Cheers, Sdkb talk 22:38, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- Some additional conversation at User talk:Sdkb § RfA debrief. Sdkb talk 16:48, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
Clovermoss RfA debrief
Sdkb's debrief above reminded me that I really should get around to writing mine. It can be found here. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 13:04, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
Floq's RFA debrief
What a wonderful procrastination opportunity. I'm just self-important enough to think that a third one would be useful too. I assume there's some central repository to link to these? Anyway, it's here. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:23, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Debriefs. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:25, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks! Floquenbeam (talk) 17:25, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
Are admins automatically CUd?
I thought all candidates were ran through checkuser, however I cannot find written mention of this and don't want to hallucinate something that happened one time to be procedure. Thanks,L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 18:02, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @L3X1: no, they aren't. This has been proposed and rejected before. Elli (talk | contribs) 18:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think it has also been something of an "urban legend" type belief that this actually is done but kept quiet. If it is kept quiet, it is being kept so quiet that even arbcom aren't aware of it. There was this RFA, in which the committee was made aware of a suspiscion that the candidate was a sock of banned troll, and a subsequent investigation produced evidence that this was the case. Basically there has to be an actual reason to CU an admin candidate, or to use CU in any other capacity. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 22:18, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- thanks for the link, that's the rfa I had in mind. Thanks,L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 03:54, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think it has also been something of an "urban legend" type belief that this actually is done but kept quiet. If it is kept quiet, it is being kept so quiet that even arbcom aren't aware of it. There was this RFA, in which the committee was made aware of a suspiscion that the candidate was a sock of banned troll, and a subsequent investigation produced evidence that this was the case. Basically there has to be an actual reason to CU an admin candidate, or to use CU in any other capacity. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 22:18, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
If there's any doubt that we need more admins...
...I've made a graph comparing stats across English projects. Active users per admin is in blue. Cremastra (talk) 20:20, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- That could instead just be showing that those other projects have more admins than needed. The ones you've chosen are all also kind of niche projects. It still wouldn't "prove" anything, but I'd be more curious what the ratios are like for German, Spanish, French, Hindi, Japanese, etc. etc. Wikipedias. We may very well need more admins (pending a good definition of "need"), but this graph doesn't prove it. Floquenbeam (talk) 20:55, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- My understanding is that eswiki has a more dire admin shortage than we do but that's just an offhand impression I've received from talking to people from other projects. It's possible I'm misremembering what was said. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 20:59, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- To me this is a more stark demonstration. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:09, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- So you would actually be looking for a number of users per number of admins willing to wade into AE ratio. That's gonna be much higher. Floquenbeam (talk) 21:13, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not concerned about ratios, I'm concerned about important tasks going undone. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:18, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- So you would actually be looking for a number of users per number of admins willing to wade into AE ratio. That's gonna be much higher. Floquenbeam (talk) 21:13, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- That must be why Wikinews has such high quality standards and so little vandalism. Spicy (talk) 21:10, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Wikinews is a weird case - it has many inactive admins and relatively few active users. So the stats don't follow. * Pppery * it has begun... 21:26, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- News articles there have been fully protected (in some sort?) after days of being approved and published, preventing any further vandalism on those articles. Well, vandals might seek other pages to mess around, but then what else is there for vandals? George Ho (talk) 17:55, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Commons would be an interesting comparison. Commons is in quite dire need of administrators. Some backlogs there stretch back months, even almost a year at one point. --Hammersoft (talk) 22:28, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'd be interested to see a graph showing admin backlogs over the last few years. Levivich (talk) 22:51, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Would also be interested in this...... what we need is to unbundle some of the features so that editors not interested in being admins can do some tasks.... as we did with "template editor" many years ago. Moxy🍁 23:00, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- That's handy, but it's not the whole story, and doesn't capture the more difficult admin tasks. Average time to close, admins commenting, and reports archived without closure at AE would be good. Similar data for ANI threads, too. Backlogs at AIV/UAA/PERM/etc generally don't get too bad because they're fairly easy to clear. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:05, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not sure I'd say the same about PERM. It's not uncommon for requests to be unanswered for days and I've seen some that go unanswered for weeks. I've pitched in there a bit. I've also been taking a break from it lately for reasons that are difficult to explain. My heart just isn't in it as much and I'm a volunteer. I don't exactly have much experience with this... but I'm assuming it's normal for admin motivation to ebb and flow? Sometimes I feel the same way about new page patrolling. I'm trying not to overdo it, pace myself, and chip in where I can. But I admit there is some level of inner guilt that makes me feel like I should be doing more when I hear about backlogs. Ideally everything would just get evenly dealt with across the board but humans are complicated. It's also a bit intimidating to consider all these areas you couldn't help out in before and you don't want to mess up by just waltzing in. It's easier to avoid areas like AE for that reason. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 00:10, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Unbundling is just a band-aid and won't solve the underlying problem; lack of administrators. If the situation were static, it might help some. But, things are getting worse over time. Over the last year, we've gone from 471 active admins to 434, a ~8% drop. --Hammersoft (talk) 01:06, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I entirely agree; the issue is an insufficient proportion of experienced editor effort going toward administrative tasks, made somewhat worse (IMO) by some editors who are willing in principle being deterred by the atmosphere of RFA. Vanamonde93 (talk) 03:36, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Honestly, this is just average users per admin or average edits per page. The graph doesn't fully explain which admin is active on Wikipedia and how many active editors per active admin have been there. Of course, how about inactive editors per active admin? And what about bureaucrats? George Ho (talk) 18:02, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- The number of active editors (defined as at least one action in the last 30 days) is 117,283 (Special:Statistics). There are 436 active administrators (30 or more edits in the last 2 months) [3]. Thus, about 268 active editors per active administrator. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:11, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Hmm... I'm unsure still whether the graph tells the full story. Still doesn't fully explain which editors have been reported to ANI and then chided, blocked, or whatever. Still doesn't fully explain which editors have been taken to ArbCom, but such cases have become infrequent recently. Still doesn't fully explain which were taken to 3RR notice, which pages were requested for protection, and so forth. Well, it's not as if an active admin wanna monitor each of 268 active editors all day and pages that such editors have been editing, right? George Ho (talk) 19:53, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- If you want to define active editor more restrictively, we have 5,032 editors who have more than 100 edits this month. [4] Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 20:40, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- The number of active editors (defined as at least one action in the last 30 days) is 117,283 (Special:Statistics). There are 436 active administrators (30 or more edits in the last 2 months) [3]. Thus, about 268 active editors per active administrator. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:11, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- This graph is comparing stats between the largest of the Wikimedia projects by far and several much smaller projects with different design goals - it's a bit like comparing the energy use of an ocean supertanker with a Honda Civic. Do one comparing English Wikipedia to large foreign-language Wikipedias, that would be a more enlightening comparison. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:07, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Extended-confirmed protection
Apologies if this has been brought up before, but as Svampesky suggested here (and as I had been thinking myself), why don't we have a separate page for votes à la the comments sections on The Signpost? The vote page can be extended-confirmed protected and transcluded to the main, unprotected RfA page. This way non-30/500 folks can still comment and ask questions but their votes, by nature of not being able to be cast, won't have to be publicly struck off - what we're doing now is a bit bitey imo. Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 05:37, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Or perhaps an edit filter that specifically detects edits to the Votes section and disallows non-ECP editors from submitting a vote? Is such a section-specific filter possible? Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 05:41, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Detecting sections probably not, but detecting votes by non-ECP editors should be easy. Nobody (talk) 06:08, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- The recent 2024 RfA review voted to prevent non-ECP editors from !voting and it was strongly supported. The closer of that review took the view that the vote was not to make the page ECP protected, but that was their view and I don't think it was properly debated.
- It makes no sense that an almost new editor can make comments on an RfA candidate, and ironically, when many of the typical objections are that the candidate does not have experience. At the 2024 RfA review, it seemed clear that there have been instances where the non-ECP/IP editor was an experienced editor trying to disrupt the process and derail the RfA. Aszx5000 (talk) 09:19, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- The idea of an RfA is for any editor to bring up concerns that can refute the nominator(s)' assertion that the candidate is suitable for the mop. This is why Opposers are badgered if they don't give a rationale, even if they're otherwise respectable editors - let alone a throwaway doing the same thing and disappearing without explanation (which is why I think Kusma used the narrow language that they did while writing up the proposal, of explicitly saying comments were welcomed from all). In my opinion IPs and newbies should be allowed to bring up actual concerns, but if indeed the
constructive-to-nonconstructive ratio here is extremely low
as Extraordinary Writ said in Support #6, we could probably exclude them from that as well. Would need fresh consensus though ~ Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 10:39, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- The idea of an RfA is for any editor to bring up concerns that can refute the nominator(s)' assertion that the candidate is suitable for the mop. This is why Opposers are badgered if they don't give a rationale, even if they're otherwise respectable editors - let alone a throwaway doing the same thing and disappearing without explanation (which is why I think Kusma used the narrow language that they did while writing up the proposal, of explicitly saying comments were welcomed from all). In my opinion IPs and newbies should be allowed to bring up actual concerns, but if indeed the
- Edit filters are run on every single edit page on the wiki, so they have a performance cost, and they are not usually a great choice for restricting very specific pages and sub pages. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:49, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm so stupid, I read about this technical cost just a couple days ago. Yea edit filters are off the table –Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 14:15, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Not a bad idea, but there'd be a cost in terms of making it more awkward to edit and watchlist the voting page, especially for the first few RfAs as people get used to it. I think the simpler option of just applying ECP to the whole page would be fine. Participation by non-EC editors was already very low before they were prohibited from voting, and if the handful that do find their way to an RfA really want to comment without voting, they could do so on the talk page and ask for it to be copied over. I agree that what we do now, making it look like anyone with an account can freely edit and therefore vote in an RfA, then striking the comment—because oops didn't you read down to the sixth subsection of WP:RFA??—is a pretty unfriendly approach. – Joe (talk) 13:11, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Right, I've thought up one more approach, so this can be framed as three proposals as below, for further input/consensus-building. In decreasing order of complexity:
- Option 1: Votes shall be cast on a separate, EC-protected subpage that will be transcluded onto the main, unprotected RfA page.
- Option 2: RfAs shall be EC-protected after the two discussion-only days. After this, IPs and newbies can bring up further concerns on the talk page.
- Option 3: RfAs shall be EC-protected altogether. IPs and newbies can bring up concerns on the talk page alone.
- Is there a place for this to be proposed? RFA2024? Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 14:23, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Should consider adding an "Option 4 - No change / status quo / strike non-EC votes" if you end up RFCing this. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:31, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- If these options are being considered, we could also consider making the watchlist notice visible only to extended-confirmed accounts. DanCherek (talk) 14:29, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think using subpages will be an issue for adding comments. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests is set up with subpages and editing each section happens transparently. If desired, a link could be added to the top of the section to watchlist the subpage. An extra step would be required to create the subpage. isaacl (talk) 18:39, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Right, I've thought up one more approach, so this can be framed as three proposals as below, for further input/consensus-building. In decreasing order of complexity:
- Why are we trying to solve a very minor problem with a long RFC discussion and new technical processes? I'd prefer Option 0: Just leave it as is, and any votes by non-EC people can quickly and easily be struck by, you know, humans. Who can leave a short message on the user's talk page. I understand the use of templates and bots and protection and edit filters for stuff that's overwhelming the humans, but this isn't. If anyone else agrees with me, perhaps they can better articulate this vague feeling I have that this increasingly common approach is the Wrong Direction(TM). --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:41, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think there's a common belief that restrictions on new/unregistered users that rely on undoing/striking are more WP:BITEy than ones that technically prevent users from editing restricted spaces. I generally agree, but I don't think the trade-off is worthwhile if it inconveniences experienced editors and if the vast majority of participants are experienced. That's the case here; I'd prefer not to have a whole RfC about this, and if it does happen, I'm likely to vote Option 0, or what Novem is calling Option 4. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:55, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Well it needn't be long if we can simply find consensus right here, and these technical processes are hardly new. Most RfA regulars must be familiar with the Signpost approach and they'll be fine with whatever's up next. EC-protection is not complicated at all. The reason I am opposed to the current approach is purely because of how striking out the votes of newbies and IPs is BITE-ey. Consider their POV - they walk in, they find a community process they may be interested in, participate in it (because it seems to be allowed)... then bam, their vote has a black line through it and there's a senior editor on their page telling them they're not allowed to do that. In contrast, if they just see a blue lock right from the beginning, there won't be any hard feelings. This is pushing me towards Option 3. Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 14:57, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for explaining the motivation. I guess I just really disagree; having a human come and explain why they can't vote yet seems much less bitey to me. I doubt anyone who isn't allowed to vote knows what a blue lock means, so they're going to try. I think all the system message says is something to the effect of "you can't edit this page", without explaining why. Floquenbeam (talk) 15:05, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- On desktop, the system doesn't say a thing, they simply don't get the option to edit (only to view the source). On mobile, they get "this page has been protected" or similar. Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 15:10, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Well, they can state a support/oppose opinion from a technical perspective; they're just not permitted to do so from a process perspective. If a human would pop up at the moment they tried to edit the page, sure, that would be ideal, but failing that, stopping them from being able to edit the page is, in my view, less confusing. isaacl (talk) 18:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Although I think that having a human explain it certainly is non-bitey, having their !vote stay on the RfA page with it struck-through isn't. For that reason, I like Options 2 and 3, because that prevents any embarrassment. There should be (yet another) note to that effect near the top of the RfA page, explaining the protection and pointing to the talk page, in the hopes that some will read it. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:48, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for explaining the motivation. I guess I just really disagree; having a human come and explain why they can't vote yet seems much less bitey to me. I doubt anyone who isn't allowed to vote knows what a blue lock means, so they're going to try. I think all the system message says is something to the effect of "you can't edit this page", without explaining why. Floquenbeam (talk) 15:05, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Comment I was pinged in this. Leave it as is, the striking is okay and I didn't feel bitten. I'd've felt bitten if people got on my case about it, but no one did. I cast a new !vote and didn't reinstate the original one because it's nothing to be embarrassed about. You cast an invalid !vote, it’s not a big deal; good-faith mistakes aren't something that should be swept under the carpet. Svampesky (talk) 15:37, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- How about this? Option 5:
- - Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Username - Not protected (for comments)
- - Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Username/!Votes - ECP protected
- - Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Username - Not protected, but transcludes both above like The Signpost
- - Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Username/Off-topic - Not protected (for the badgering) Svampesky (talk) 15:49, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- If protection would be too controversial, an alternative would be to have a large bold-faced red message that YOU ARE NOT ELIGIBLE TO !VOTE IN THIS RFA and then use Template:If extended confirmed and its relatives to hide it from anyone who's extended confirmed. A passing mention in the editnotice isn't conspicious enough to be noticed. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 20:27, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- This seems like the best idea so far, since it is easy and effective and would not need an RFC. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:30, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Out of curiosity, is it possible to nest if admin and if extended confirmed given that the latter doesn't hide text from admins? Perfect4th (talk) 20:43, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- It is: see User:Extraordinary Writ/sandbox7. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 20:49, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is actually harder than it looks as long as this and this remain unresolved. I guess the workaround in the current revision of User:Extraordinary Writ/sandbox7 does the trick, but maybe someone more technically minded can think of something better. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:40, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe try
<div class="extendedconfirmed-show sysop-show">Your message here.</div>
. That might work and be a bit neater. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:58, 20 June 2024 (UTC)- Is there an easy way to do the opposite of that (to show it only to non-EC non-admins)? Typically
<div class="nonextendedconfirmed-show nonsysop-show">Your message here.</div>
would work, but interface admins haven't wanted to add nonsysop-show. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:10, 20 June 2024 (UTC)- Ah, I forgot about the "else" case. Sadly, I can't think of anything better than what you have in the sandbox. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:22, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Is there an easy way to do the opposite of that (to show it only to non-EC non-admins)? Typically
- Maybe try
- The last thing is that sometimes editors with 500 edits/30 day account get EC removed. Usually it's an accident/side-effect when other roles are edited, like an admin resigning their bit. Is that enough people to add a fix for them? I don't think any template solution has a way to check edit count anyway. Soni (talk) 22:34, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is actually harder than it looks as long as this and this remain unresolved. I guess the workaround in the current revision of User:Extraordinary Writ/sandbox7 does the trick, but maybe someone more technically minded can think of something better. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:40, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- It is: see User:Extraordinary Writ/sandbox7. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 20:49, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Enacting this seems like the right move, would prevent an unnecessary RFC. As Floq said, this is a pretty minor issue that we shouldn't waste too much time with. ULPS (talk • contribs) 21:13, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Temperature check: Applying for the Researcher right
The Researcher access right allows users to view deleted content, but not to actually delete (or block, or protect pages, or do anything else admin-y that isn't viewing deleted content).
I am one of the more active admins on Commons (and just picked back up admin on Wikidata to better deal with cross-project spam), and it would be useful for me to be able to see user's deleted English Wikipedia contributions in order to better assess whether images nominated for deletion on Commons as spam are, in fact, spam.
However, there really isn't a precedent for applyifor this right, as far as I'm aware, so before I went down the path of actually trying, I wanted to do a temperature check to see if such a thing was something this community would even approve of.
Cheers, The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 01:36, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @The Squirrel Conspiracy: It looks like we have 3 editors with this permission [5]. My gut instinct is to tell you that getting approved for this would be difficult. I wonder what people who are sysops on both projects think of these sorts of situations? There might be viable alternatives. Courtesy ping to Red-tailed hawk who happens to be the only person that I know to be an enwiki and commons sysop (at least off the top of my head). Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 03:19, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Looks like my unconventional method of fixing pings doesn't work. It's possible to read this page and come to the conclusion that an alternative solution is to properly link a user and signature in a new edit. [6] It looks like a new line is actually required. [7] Anyways, Red-tailed hawk, I meant to ping you earlier. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 11:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Clovermoss: Interestingly, the ping worked when editing your comment in user talk space but not in your regular user space. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:22, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- So [8] does work even though everything suggests it doesn't. Courtesy ping to Novem Linguae who understands tech stuff better than I do. I'm also cool with this whole side conversation being moved to my talk page because it's somewhat tangential to the issue at hand. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 12:27, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Clovermoss: Interestingly, the ping worked when editing your comment in user talk space but not in your regular user space. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:22, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Looks like my unconventional method of fixing pings doesn't work. It's possible to read this page and come to the conclusion that an alternative solution is to properly link a user and signature in a new edit. [6] It looks like a new line is actually required. [7] Anyways, Red-tailed hawk, I meant to ping you earlier. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 11:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- First, I'm not sure who exactly can assign the researcher right, but I can tell you English Wikipedia admins can't. It looks like it may be a WMF-only thing. Secondly, maybe a friendly neighborhood WMF person (or bureaucrat, if they're capable) can remove researcher from the three people that currently have it? It doesn't seem like it was ever meant to be a permanent right. Finally, TSC, if you have any interest in being an en.wiki admin, I'd welcome an RfA. In addition to the cross-wiki spam you mention, you'd be an asset at WP:ERRORS. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:53, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- This log does give the impression that these permissions were meant to be a temporary thing [9]. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 03:59, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Only Stewards (and I guess sysadmins and WMF trust and safety but they probably won't get involved here) have the technical ability to assign the right. That fact doesn't really matter much here as I'm sure if whatever the community decides is the process for this is followed sufficiently one of them will be happy to oblige. * Pppery * it has begun... 04:20, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- This situation also reminded me of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/lustiger seth. It's rare, but there's definitely precedent for us to RFA someone who's already trusted elsewhere and use adminship in highly technical situations. Not sure how much this applies here though. Soni (talk) 06:08, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- All three +researcher were performed by the WMF, and the first team at least were intended to be temporary, but never removed. MarcGarver (talk) 10:59, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- In fact, based on the page at Meta, created by the WMF team, EpochFail and Jtmorgan can have the rights removed without further discussion as they were clearly only granted until 1 September 2011. MarcGarver (talk) 11:10, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- All three +researcher were performed by the WMF, and the first team at least were intended to be temporary, but never removed. MarcGarver (talk) 10:59, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Short answer: You'd apply via WMF. This community didn't ask for this permission to be built here, it was forced by the site owners, who control it. — xaosflux Talk 12:20, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
WP:BN
User:NoSeptember/Argumentorium/Header
Desysop request (The Night Watch)
The Night Watch (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs (blocks · rights · moves) · rfar · spi · cci) I'd like to hand in my bit for the time being. I'll stick to content and working with newbies since they always make me feel better. I'd like to retain autoreviewer, rollback and page mover if possible. Thanks, The Night Watch (talk) 15:56, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Done thank you for your prior service. — xaosflux Talk 16:45, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you, The Night Watch. English Wikipedia appreciates your efforts over the years, and we perfectly understand the desire to work without the mop for a while. BusterD (talk) 16:55, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
WP:CN
This was the community sanction noticeboard. This forum was previously used for the discussion of community bans, prior to consensus at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Community sanction noticeboard (second nomination) that another venue would be better.
Though the history is retained so that previous cases may be referenced, new issues should be raised at Administrators' noticeboard (for new ban discussions or other long discussions) or Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents (for more specific incidents relating to previous sanctions).
WP:AN
Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection
A user has requested removal of talk page content at Talk:Oldest people
A dispute over whether to include a deceased person in Oldest people, and with what details, resulted in edit-warring (see May 14 in the edit history), blocking and, in one case, an eventual indef for one user. Some of the content on the talk page has already been struck but an editor claiming to be a relative of the deceased person has requested that all comments about the person be deleted. This would (presumably?) require striking of much of the content of Talk:Oldest_people#Corrections: and some of Talk:Oldest_people#Page_protection_request. It might be necessary to pin a notice to ensure the person is not mentioned again or included in the article, though how this could be done without the person's name beats me, unless it is possible to flag the name for bot detection. Cheers, DerbyCountyinNZ (Talk Contribs) 02:52, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- This just looks like reliable sources. The person claiming to be family says we have the dob wrong. Where did we get the dob? We only use published sources. Secretlondon (talk) 05:06, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- The dispute was over which of 2 equally reliable sources should be used as they had conflicting information. The solution, agreed by consensus, is to omit the person until such time as the sources agree. The relative wishes all reference to the individual removed. I was under the impression that could be done under a privacy policy (not that I can find an appropriate policy). If there are no grounds under policy for the material to be removed from the talk page (and in future, from preventing their relation from being included in the article), could an admin explain that to the user? DerbyCountyinNZ (Talk Contribs) 07:43, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- You and I both have been going at this topic for more than a decade now, and still I sometimes find discussions that take lameness to a new level. Given that the two sources in question have vastly different details about this marginally-notable-at-best person, and that these are the only two sources for a topic that has a well-documented history of fraudulent claims, there's no reason Wikipedia should be propagating this. I also, incidentally, note a lot of threats being bandied about on the talkpage, people making them need to stop it immediately. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:42, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe it would better if we tried to be an encyclopedia based on notable topics, rather than the Guinness Book of Records. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:37, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- Alas, there seems to be some disagreement among users as to what "notable" means. Donald Albury 20:58, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- I feel like I'm missing something here. The discussion appears to center around a disagreement between sources, and someone claiming to be the descendant of the person written about in those sources is asking us to delete the entire conversation because it is insulting to her ancestor? Is that right? Because if it is I don't see any grounds for being upset at Wikipedia about it. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 21:50, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- Greetings, I asked to delete all inappropriate comments about my grandpa Ilie Ciocan. Later, I deleted my comments because I listed my contact email there so I was worried because it is publicly available. Namely, on the page talking about the oldest people, various comments and arguments appeared where users argued about whether to add or delete grandfather from the list. My family is appalled after reading these comments, a friend of mine sent me a link to this site. I requested the deletion of all comments where my grandfather is mentioned, because I think he did not deserve to have this type of public discussion about his age. As for publicly available sources, there is no disagreement about the date of birth, the LongeviQuest page confirms that he was born on May 28, 1913, as well as the Gerontology Research Group page. Anyway, it doesn't matter to us if he's on the list or not, it's important to us that all comments about him are deleted, it's unacceptable and we feel upset about it, it's humiliating for my sister and I who for over a decade we take care of him, it is very difficult for us, but we will not give up on him. You can see my comment in the change history. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Oldest_people&diff=prev&oldid=1229004322
- Sincerely, Camelia Ciocan, Ilie Ciocan's youngest granddaughter Camelia249 (talk) 06:34, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- A number of revisions have already been suppressed (if you look in the edit history, the revisions which are doubly stricken are suppressed). These cannot be seen by anyone other than a very small group of trusted editors. Are there still comments present which you regard as problematic? Simply not liking a comment is not grounds for its removal. I have admittedly only taken a cursory glance through the thread but I don't notice anything libelous or otherwise problematic. If you think any content is libelous, your best option would probably be to contact the oversight team (see Wikipedia:Oversight) with the diff links of the comments you think require suppression, or contact Wikimedia (see Wikipedia:FAQ/Article subjects) detailing your concerns. You could post what content you want removed here, but this is a high-traffic noticeboard and the content in question is likely to be seen by yet more people (for example, I would never have come across the comments in question if it hadn't been posted about here). Adam Black talk • contribs 07:49, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Camelia249 I'm one of the small group of oversighters and also, as mentioned above, familiar with this topic area. If there's any other concerning material still visible and/or if anything that's been removed is reposted, you can send me an e-mail and I'll remove it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:48, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- A number of revisions have already been suppressed (if you look in the edit history, the revisions which are doubly stricken are suppressed). These cannot be seen by anyone other than a very small group of trusted editors. Are there still comments present which you regard as problematic? Simply not liking a comment is not grounds for its removal. I have admittedly only taken a cursory glance through the thread but I don't notice anything libelous or otherwise problematic. If you think any content is libelous, your best option would probably be to contact the oversight team (see Wikipedia:Oversight) with the diff links of the comments you think require suppression, or contact Wikimedia (see Wikipedia:FAQ/Article subjects) detailing your concerns. You could post what content you want removed here, but this is a high-traffic noticeboard and the content in question is likely to be seen by yet more people (for example, I would never have come across the comments in question if it hadn't been posted about here). Adam Black talk • contribs 07:49, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I feel like I'm missing something here. The discussion appears to center around a disagreement between sources, and someone claiming to be the descendant of the person written about in those sources is asking us to delete the entire conversation because it is insulting to her ancestor? Is that right? Because if it is I don't see any grounds for being upset at Wikipedia about it. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 21:50, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- Alas, there seems to be some disagreement among users as to what "notable" means. Donald Albury 20:58, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe it would better if we tried to be an encyclopedia based on notable topics, rather than the Guinness Book of Records. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:37, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- You and I both have been going at this topic for more than a decade now, and still I sometimes find discussions that take lameness to a new level. Given that the two sources in question have vastly different details about this marginally-notable-at-best person, and that these are the only two sources for a topic that has a well-documented history of fraudulent claims, there's no reason Wikipedia should be propagating this. I also, incidentally, note a lot of threats being bandied about on the talkpage, people making them need to stop it immediately. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:42, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- The dispute was over which of 2 equally reliable sources should be used as they had conflicting information. The solution, agreed by consensus, is to omit the person until such time as the sources agree. The relative wishes all reference to the individual removed. I was under the impression that could be done under a privacy policy (not that I can find an appropriate policy). If there are no grounds under policy for the material to be removed from the talk page (and in future, from preventing their relation from being included in the article), could an admin explain that to the user? DerbyCountyinNZ (Talk Contribs) 07:43, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
Block review User:Jamiesonandy
Jamiesonandy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Blocking admin: Orangemike (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
The blocked user is clearly an elderly person who misunderstands what Wikipedia is. It was explained to him at the help desk, and he stopped editing. Ten hours later, Mike indef blocked him. I feel like this is far from the first time I have seen Mike come late to a situation and substitute his own judgement for that of others who already adressed the situation. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 21:36, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- Egregiously bad block What the hell? Not a single warning on the user's talk page, not a note from the admin prior to jumping to a block, and an indef block at that? For a newbie who seems confused and needs some direction? Have we forgotten WP:BITE and WP:BLOCKP? I daresay I hope Orangemike is able to defend their actions, because I'm not seeing any reason they should be blocked indefinitely for a few questions on the Teahouse and Help Desk (two places designed for people to ask for..wait for it...help!). Not to mention, Orangemike mentions the editor being "belligerent" in the block reason, which I see absolutely zero evidence of, and the rest of their block reason of WP:NOTHERE seems to be a very unsubstantiated position to take. EggRoll97 (talk) 22:39, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- The belligerency was when he demanded, I asked a question; where is your answer? The guy was just not getting it, was using both the Teahouse and Help Desk as general information sources for UK banking questions, and clearly was not going to accept that this was not the place to seek help on this question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Orangemike (talk • contribs)
- It wasn't just one out of place question. It was several on both the Teahouse and the Help Desk, and it didn't seem like the user was ready to give up asking. RudolfRed (talk) 23:27, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- Definitely not a good block. I've taken a look at a number of Orangemike's NOTHERE blocks (I didn't look at others), and there were a number of very bad blocks:
- Special:Contributions/Studio_Atinati, one-edit no warning block
- Special:Contributions/Caroline.j.ashleyy, another one-edit no warning block
- Special:Contributions/Mrpoopbenji, user who stopped editing after warning, blocked more than a day later
- Special:Contributions/Wilburthewigga, no warnings whatsoever; this is not a good deletion either
- Nearly half of the blocks I looked at were like this. Orangemike really needs to stop doing these no-to-little-warning blocks. —Ingenuity (t • c) 23:52, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- If my colleagues really feel that I'm being quick on the trigger, I will accept your collective judgement and take my trouting like a mensch; but I genuinely doubt that any one of these accounts had any intention of contributing to our project in the way that somebody like Sideways [nee Beeble] does every day. Two spamming accounts with spammy usernames, one poop joke, one racial epithet username, and our confused British gentleman who thinks we can put him in contact with a bank account dead for over half a century...... --Orange Mike | Talk 00:37, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I haven't looked into any of your blocks and so have no opinion whether or not you have acted appropriately, but I would say that the fact that you
genuinely doubt that any one of these accounts had any intention of contributing to our project
does not override Wikipedia policy, specifically the policy on blocking. The intention behind Wikipedia was to create an encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. Policies which temporarily (even indefinite blocks shouldn't be considered permanent) remove an individual's ability to contribute to the project exist only to limit damage and disruption to the project and should generally be considered a last resort, not the first tool you pull out. I am not and have never been an administrator on this or any other Wikimedia project, but I have been an administrator or bureaucrat on multiple MediaWiki installations through my work and can tell you from experience that biting the newcomers in such a way may temporarily put a stop to vandalism or disruption but long-term only harms the project. Adam Black talk • contribs 02:08, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I haven't looked into any of your blocks and so have no opinion whether or not you have acted appropriately, but I would say that the fact that you
- If my colleagues really feel that I'm being quick on the trigger, I will accept your collective judgement and take my trouting like a mensch; but I genuinely doubt that any one of these accounts had any intention of contributing to our project in the way that somebody like Sideways [nee Beeble] does every day. Two spamming accounts with spammy usernames, one poop joke, one racial epithet username, and our confused British gentleman who thinks we can put him in contact with a bank account dead for over half a century...... --Orange Mike | Talk 00:37, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- None of these 4 blocks make any sense, and while I think Mike's explanations are genuine, this is a base breach of the blocking policy, and at least a couple of those user's blocks are concerning. The first, for User:Studio Atinati, based on the contributions looks like they need to be redirected to a different language content project (Google tells me it's Georgian?). The second user, User:Caroline.j.ashleyy, just needs an extra dose of the introduction to Wikipedia, not a block for heaven's sake. The third user, User:Mrpoopbenji, based on their contributions just seems like they need some help getting started, something the Growth Tools like mentorship are supposed to help with. Finally, the fourth user, User:Wilburthewigga, is the only one I'll say should probably be blocked, but not for WP:NOTHERE. If anything they should have been blocked for a UPOL violation, but not for their contributions or whether they are HERE or not. To be quite honest though, their edits are just to their user page then a question to their mentor. Of those edits to their userpage, they didn't seem to have any malicious intent either. In addition, they appear to have responded to the block notice, stating they would
learn from it
, which isn't typically a trait associated with blocks for WP:NOTHERE. On just a closing note as well, the deletion, unless something else had been added that was horridly obscene other than the page creation with "Woo!", I would say that's a violation of WP:DELTALK and the deletion policy in general. Based on the API result here, there doesn't appear to be any other edits to the page, though. Just out of curiosity, Ingenuity, would you (or of course any other administrator) be able to confirm if there's still a deleted revision on User talk:Wilburthewigga? If there is, I wonder if it would be possible to restore that revision, as it doesn't appear to be a proper use of the deletion tool. EggRoll97 (talk) 01:12, 16 June 2024 (UTC)- I remember encountering Mrpoopbenji (talk · contribs) through WP:UAA, and discovered that all of their edits were created by a large language model. Ther sandbox was deleted for this reason. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 17:55, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Someone with a username that's slang for "white nigger" needs only a swift kick in the ass out the door. I'd have blocked on sight as well. As to the others: one is an obvious username violation, with another the text being in Georgian is the least of the problems given it was an obvious attempt to hijack an article with blatant spam about an entirely unrelated subject, and the last was as flagrant a case of noble cause syndrome as it gets. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:10, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Just wanted to point out that the blocked editor did not stop editing once it was pointed out (not only on May 14th, which they may have not seen, but also on Jun 14th at 18:34, again at 18:34, at 18:35, and at at 18:44) that wikipedia, including the Help desk and Teahouse, was not an appropriate place for their query. Rather, 20 minutes after that last response, the editor reposted the question asking for legal/financial advice on the userpage. Secondly, while the editor said that they had "contributed to Wikipedia for a number of years" at least this account seemed to be dedicated to a single purpose that was not that of building an encyclopedia. Finally, as Girth Summit eloquently explained on this page a short while back, albeit in a different context, one motivation for applying an indef block is to get assurance from the blocked editor that the problematic behavior will not be repeated.
- Hence, while I understand that the Jamiesonandy block was still a judgement call, and that it is natural to feel sympathy for a senior citizen in distress, I can also see Orangemike's thinking in applying the NOTHERE block. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 01:39, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Comment I've noticed for years that Orangemike is quick to block, often without any talk page warnings but I generally have trusted their judgment. I'd ask them to ease up on the trigger finger and try communicating with an editor before laying down the ban hammer first. Liz Read! Talk! 03:34, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Generally speaking, in my view, a NOTHERE indef block is admissible (although not necessary) if none of the user's edits indicate an ability or intent to improve our articles. This seems to be the case here. It's then up to the user to convince us, in an unblock request, that they are indeed able and willing to edit constructively. Sandstein 08:27, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- A quick show of hands: y'all do realize that the "reason" you fill in at Special:Block isn't just for the entry in the block log, but is shown to the user every time they try to edit, yes? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:22, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- The thing here for me is that the Teahouse and the Help Desk are exactly where we want users to go when they are lost or confused as to the purpose of Wikipedia. I don't think anyone is defending this users actual edits, but he hadn't posted anything in many hours and the situation seemed to have settled itself when Mike just indef blocked out of nowhere. Mike, like myself, has contributed for many years at WP:UAA Personally, I don't even think most of the thousands of accounts I've blocked at UAA were here in bad faith, they, like this person, just didn't get it and tried to use Wikipedia in ways it isn't intended to be used. So, they use an WP:ORGNAME and write upa draft article on said organization, and the usual response is that we delete the draft and soft block the user, explicitly allowing them to just start a new account and try to edit within the rules. Looking at some of Mike's blocks, he treats "being lost and confused on help forums" the same way most admins treat "actively disrupting article space." I just don't think being clueless in WP space is what NOTHERE hard indef blocks are for, it is for people who come here to push the content to suit their own needs, not for people who ask deeply misguided questions. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 18:31, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'd add that if you look at the language at WP:NOTHERE there's a lot of wording like "long-term history...Extreme lack of interest in working constructively...Major conflicts of attitude, concerning Wikipedia-related activity..." and so on. It doesn't say anything aboout "asks clueless questions at help forums, because help forums are there, at least in part, to help clueless users get some clue. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 20:57, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- I get that in general, but this particular account was going well beyond that. I count 4 separate instances of being told, in various ways, that Wikipedia is not a forum for handling personal bank squabbles that date back to something from 1950s British probate court (!); to respond to said warnings with this tells me that, in a very literal sense, this user was not here to build an encyclopedia. I'm American and even I could point out that a solicitor, not an online community devoted to building an encyclopedia, would be who to ask these questions. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:35, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'd add that if you look at the language at WP:NOTHERE there's a lot of wording like "long-term history...Extreme lack of interest in working constructively...Major conflicts of attitude, concerning Wikipedia-related activity..." and so on. It doesn't say anything aboout "asks clueless questions at help forums, because help forums are there, at least in part, to help clueless users get some clue. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 20:57, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
RFC at RSN desperately needs to be closed
Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RFC: The Anti-Defamation League has been droning on forever and is literally causing the RSN, an already high-activity page, to slow down and malfunction. The discussion has become stagnant and bloated and needs an uninvolved closer badly just because it’s making it difficult to actually use the noticeboard. Dronebogus (talk) 19:45, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Would you say that its droning is... bogus?
- Sorry, I'll see myself out. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 21:53, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- *finger pistols*
- (But seriously, it's been months now. And it's not like any section of it is that complex. If you really feel it's necessary, assemble a three-person team or something, but clearly it needs to be closed.) Loki (talk) 18:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'll pay extra cabal dues this month if someone can get it done. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:49, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I pity whoever has to close that cesspit of an RFC. The sheer amount alone, my gosh. EggRoll97 (talk) 21:14, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Request for review of Draft:Hassan Nisar Haripur
A request for review of the draft article for Hassan Nisar Haripur, an award-winning Pakistani entrepreneur, YouTuber, and philanthropist, is being made. Despite meeting Wikipedia's notability guidelines, the article has been rejected multiple times by Saqib.
Hassan Nisar Haripur's achievements and coverage in reputable sources demonstrate notability:
- Award-winning entrepreneur (references: [1] [2])
- Featured in top Pakistani publications, including The Dawn and The Tribune (references: [3] [4])
Wikipedia's policy on award-winning individuals states that they are eligible for a Wikipedia page (WP:NATIONALAWARD) .
High-quality sources have been provided to support the article's notability, but Saqib has consistently rejected the draft. A review of the article is requested to assess whether it meets the necessary criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia.
Please review the draft article and references to ensure a fair evaluation. Uohabacasu (talk) 08:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Not sure why you are posting this here, Draft:Hassan Nisar Haripur has been declined three times and now rejected, the topic is simply not notable. Theroadislong (talk) 08:56, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- And it is not correct that
Saqib has consistently rejected the draft
. Three different editors declined the draft, and then Saqib rejected it after looking for more sources. Meters (talk) 09:01, 18 June 2024 (UTC)- While the draft's notability is still disputed, the clarification provides context to the review process. However, the core concern remains: the draft's notability is evident, yet it has been rejected. A reevaluation of the article's notability, considering the reliable sources and Wikipedia's policies, is still requested. Uohabacasu (talk) 09:06, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Forgot ot include that Saqib was one of the three who rejected it. Meters (talk) 09:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- The post was made here to request a review of the draft article's rejection, as the decision seems inconsistent with Wikipedia's notability guidelines. The repeated rejections despite the provision of high-quality sources, including award recognition and coverage in top Pakistani publications, raise concerns about the fairness of the review process.
- The statement "the topic is simply not notable" is subjective and contradicts the evidence provided. Notability is determined by the presence of credible sources, which have been abundantly provided in this case. A reevaluation of the article's notability, considering the reliable sources and Wikipedia's policies, is requested.
- A more detailed explanation of the rejection, beyond a simple statement, would be appreciated. Additionally, a review of the article by a different editor, without the assumption that the topic is not notable, is requested. Uohabacasu (talk) 09:02, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- And it is not correct that
- No evidence of notability has been provided. Bonadea -- a fourth editor -- went painstakingly through the sources too, found none of them to contribute to making the article subject meet GNG, and I don't see any I'd dispute. This is not a suitable article for English Wikipedia. And this is a very poor forum for this as well; administrators are editors entrusted with advanced tools by the community, not content supervotes. In any case, the explanation of the rejection was thoroughly explained, completed with the aforementioned source analysis, and the primary issue appears to be that you don't like the explanations, not that they are improper. You should drop WP:DROPTHESTICK. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 16:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
I was supposed to be informed about this discussion on my tp. --Saqib (talk I contribs) 10:18, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- OP has shown us consistent COI editing, chatbot-generated communication, resistance to attempts at instilling a clue on two different boards, and this probably isn’t their only account. Even in the unlikely event that they’re not socking, they’re clearly not here to build an encyclopedia and should be blocked accordingly before they waste more editors’ time. --Finngall talk 12:40, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have blocked both Uohabacasu (talk · contribs) and Thekhyberboypk (talk · contribs), who seemed to be acting in concert along with IPs 39.41.131.130 (talk · contribs), 39.41.180.193 (talk · contribs) and 39.41.181.140 (talk · contribs) to promote a YouTube personality on wikipedia, and ignoring feedback. Will leave the possible speedying of the drafts Draft:Hassan Nisar Haripur, Draft:Hazara Waterfalls Jab Valley, and Draft:Metrix Pakistan to other admins more familiar with the standards applied in draftspace. Abecedare (talk) 18:29, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Starlink and dynamic IP's
Quite recently I noticed this [10] on the Starlink website after hearing about "dynamic IP's" from this [11] discussion. Considering these IP's do not flag as proxy's, are they a issue in regards to Sockpuppets? Fantastic Mr. Fox (talk) 11:23, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Generally speaking, Starlink is not so different to any other mobile ISP, of which there are plenty, or for that matter most non-mobile ISPs. There are lots who rotate IPs very rapidly (as some editor pointed out in that discussion, switching ISPs is not actually a dynamic IP issue). As an added bonus, Starlink provides a list of their IP ranges per geolocation, for example in Atlanta, GA. Is there a sockpuppetry or PROJSOCK issue in this case? Probably. Is Starlink the issue, probably not. -- zzuuzz (talk) 12:42, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
RfC at United States
Hi, is my conduct on United States appropriate? I'm trying to purge the dysfunction from the rfc I did but I'm struggling to gauge whether it's appropriate to have another topic on redesigning it for relisting. I don't plan on engaging in a relisting Alexanderkowal (talk) 14:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Alexanderkowal. Can you give us a summary of what conduct you've done? Maybe include some WP:DIFFs? –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:49, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Talk:United States#RfC: foreign relations with developing countries, Talk:United States#RfC: How should the US' relations with developing countries be summarised in the body?, and Talk:United States#Workshopping a relisting of the rfc. I'm trying to rectify the dysfunction partly caused by me. When I made the initial edit per WP:BRD I received successive personal attacks which made me defensive and combative, affecting my conduct in the rfc. Multiple editors then derailed the rfc with some valid points and I'm trying to address those so it can be relisted for further input. Alexanderkowal (talk) 21:55, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
EXTRA EYEs on AIV and Recent Changes please
There is a racist troll running amok. I have blocked them twice. They create new accounts and make rapid fire edits to random pages with vile edit summaries that require individual revdeling. Any help appreciated. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:33, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Contested RfC non-admin partial close
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This RSN RfC on the Anti-Defamation League has been partly (as in, only a part of it) closed by TrangaBellam, with the summary: I see a consensus for Option 3
[generally unreliable regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict] — going by the numbers (roughly, 3:1) as well as the relative strength of arguments — and note that most of the participants were okay-ish with deprecation too.
BilledMammal went to Tranga's Talk to say that they oughtn't have closed, since their Talk Page is decorated with a quote by Nishidani (a participant in the RfC, who voted in alignment with Tranga's close), which includes: ...I sympathise with the silenced underdog in so many conflicts, be they Aboriginals or Palestinians or Tibetans. This as far as I am aware does not translate into being uncomfortable with my country of origins, or antisemitic, or hostile to Chinese. ...
. Tranga disagreed; Dcpoliticaljunkie and FortunateSons agreed and asked Tranga to revert; Tranga declined.
Back at RSN, My very best wishes challenged the close, writing that an RfC should not be partially closed, that this RfC is so long and big that it should be closed by an admin, and that the provided justification (just a head count) was doubtful.
. A brief discussion took place before being hatted by ScottishFinnishRadish, who directed towards AN.
I hope this post is not malformed—I've never posted here before. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Ah, and a little discussion on FortunateSons' Talk. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:40, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Participants
- Overturn, per WP:INVOLVED. If you are partisan about the conflict to the extent that you feel you need to have quotes expressing that partisanship on your user talk page then you are too partisan to be closing RFC’s about the conflict. BilledMammal (talk) 21:40, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn, in line with the arguments made in the discussions. This is a controversial and significant RfC in a contentious area, and the non-admin closer has a quote by one of the participants about the topic area on top of his talk page. Even if one were to excluding the issues with a partial close (acknowledging that the RfC is quite long), the style of closure (including the heavy reliance on !vote count) is not even close to appropriate in this area, and the closer being an experienced editor should have known that. Close should be reverted and closer trouted. FortunateSons (talk) 22:08, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- In line with BADNAC Nr. 2, it is my belief that exclusively an admin closure would be appropriate here. FortunateSons (talk) 22:11, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse. The spirit of WP:NOTBURO would discourage us from overturning an overdue and badly needed closure on mere technicality (and a technicality that is a stretch since TrangaBellam did not participate in the RFC) and with limited sense that the outcome could be different. As TrangaBellam observed in the user talk page discussion (permanent link),
There is no way that the discussion could have been closed differently by someone else, short of supervoting
. Additionally, OP calls TrangaBellam's closure reasonjust a headcount
but this is a misrepresentation. The full closure reads,I see a consensus for Option 3 — going by the numbers (roughly, 3:1) as well as the relative strength of arguments — and note that most of the participants were okay-ish with deprecation too
(italics added). Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 22:32, 18 June 2024 (UTC) - Endorse - why would anyone waste time asking for this to be re-closed? It's 3:1 for pete's sake. Make an argument for why this was anything other than an "option 3" close, and then maybe you have reason to challenge. Otherwise, you're literally wasting other volunteers' time by asking someone else to make the same edit that Tranga made (an Option 3 close). Levivich (talk) 22:44, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
|
- Endorse - A user page should have little to no bearing on the outcome of the RfC, and the closure was non-controversial (in the sense that the margin of support for the decision was very clear). An admin closure would almost certainly come to the same decision, as Levivich said, and this contestation doesn't provide any argument that the outcome should have been different. The consensus was overwhelmingly in favor of option 3. As an aside, I have noticed a pattern of users in this topic area relying on userpages to get others into trouble. I don't want to cast aspersions, and I am trying to avoid any generalizing or unfair statements. I know that @BilledMammal, who makes a userpage based argument here, was involved in a similar effort to contest the content on @JDiala's userpage, which was ultimately put forth as an argument in a later procedure which saw them topic banned. I know that this was not the first time an editor has been dragged to one noticeboard or another over pro-Palestinian sentiment on their userpage. As someone who likes having a userpage, and likes reading the userpages of others, I worry about the chilling effect these efforts have on Wikipedians' self-expression, which is a fascinating and valuable part of the editing and community experience of the website in my opinion. Unbandito (talk) 23:10, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse and overturn. I agree with the closure, and I agree that the closure represents consensus, but for a discussion as gigantic and heavily controversial as this one, in the interest of propriety it should be closed by somebody who is beyond question uninvolved; as much as the tripartite panel closes can be groan-inducing, this seems like a good case for one. jp×g🗯️ 23:57, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- concur Buffs (talk) 15:55, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- To be clear: for the sake of avoiding silly bureaucratic pissantery, it should not be overturned until such a time as the aforementioned knight(s) in shining armor are willing to make a formal close with proper bells/whistles/hoohas -- since people seem to overwhelmingly agree with the fact of the close itself. jp×g🗯️ 21:43, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Close the entire RfC, rather than a section by uninvolved administrator(s). I think this should be an admin closure per guidelines [12] #2, i.e. "The outcome is a close call ... or likely to be controversial." Saying that Anti-Defamation League was a "generally unreliable source" is controversial. Commenting on the closure itself, the 3:1 description was fair, but the "strength of the argument" was not. To say that the source was generally unreliable, one should show it was not just biased, but publish incorrect information on a regular basis. I believe this is not at all the case for this source after looking at the entire discussion. That's why I think this RfC should not be closed "by parts". My very best wishes (talk) 02:55, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Please do not misrepresent the close; it held the source to be "generally unreliable" for a narrow topic area than for everything under the Sun. TrangaBellam (talk) 05:47, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I know that some discussions end up with the conclusion that source X frequently publish misinformation in one subject area, but not in others. I think in all such cases the source as a whole should be regarded as unreliable. If they are liars, they can not be trusted. If this is not a reputable organization, then it just is not. However, in this case I did not see examples proving that they are liars. Of course I may be wrong. Hence we are having the community discussion that needs to be properly closed. My very best wishes (talk) 13:41, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Plenty of sources are reliable for some things but not others. Consider Noam Chomsky, highly respected as a linguist, but with rather controversial political views. GRuban (talk) 15:16, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think we need to prohibit closing RfCs "by parts", as a matter of policy. My very best wishes (talk) 14:24, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- It's not "by parts", it's 3 RFC's and was set up that way from the start "editors expressed concerns regarding the ADL's current status as a generally reliable source in several topic areas. I'm breaking these topic areas into different RFCs, as I believe there's a reasonable chance they might have different outcomes." Selfstudier (talk) 15:16, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- So you believe that issues of Israel-Palestine conflict, antisemitism and hate symbols can be separated? No, of course not. My very best wishes (talk) 15:43, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- It's not a question of what I believe, I am referring to the way the RFCs were set up, months ago, which no-one objected to at all until now, when the result turned up something people didn't like. Let's face it, looking at this filing, it is a group of option "1" voters, disputing a pretty clear cut result, with any grounds that might work. Personally, I don't mind if it is reclosed, the result will be the same, even if there are more words. Selfstudier (talk) 15:53, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- @My very best wishes multiple commenters have expressed different opinions in the different RFCs, so very clearly people do believe the three can be separated. Thryduulf (talk) 15:56, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Well, this is just a matter of simple logic and fact. The are numerous subjects and publications that simultaneously belong to all three or two of the mentioned categories (the conflict, and antisemitism and hate). And of course they are closely connected. Here is a random example [13]. Yes, someone set up the RfC in such way. But it was wrong set up and a reason to say this is an incorrectly framed RfC. This has noting to do with anyone liking or disliking the outcome. I voted "2" in all parts of the RfC, but I am very much comfortable with any outcome. My very best wishes (talk) 19:05, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- So you believe that issues of Israel-Palestine conflict, antisemitism and hate symbols can be separated? No, of course not. My very best wishes (talk) 15:43, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- It's not "by parts", it's 3 RFC's and was set up that way from the start "editors expressed concerns regarding the ADL's current status as a generally reliable source in several topic areas. I'm breaking these topic areas into different RFCs, as I believe there's a reasonable chance they might have different outcomes." Selfstudier (talk) 15:16, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I know that some discussions end up with the conclusion that source X frequently publish misinformation in one subject area, but not in others. I think in all such cases the source as a whole should be regarded as unreliable. If they are liars, they can not be trusted. If this is not a reputable organization, then it just is not. However, in this case I did not see examples proving that they are liars. Of course I may be wrong. Hence we are having the community discussion that needs to be properly closed. My very best wishes (talk) 13:41, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Please do not misrepresent the close; it held the source to be "generally unreliable" for a narrow topic area than for everything under the Sun. TrangaBellam (talk) 05:47, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse: This RFC needed closing, and if a piecemeal approach is the way it occurs, so be it. The close was sound and perfectly adequately reasoned. As has been noted elsewhere in the subsequent discussion, closing it any other way would have required a supervote. The closer was meanwhile not an involved participant by any standard reading of the guidelines. Never before have I seen the notion applied whereby "having an editorial compadre in the discussion" qualifies as being involved. Given how many Wikipedia editors are well familiar with each other, that would be a ridiculous bar to apply across the project (and this is probably why it doesn't exist). Iskandar323 (talk) 05:09, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse This was a difficult decision on a contentious RfC but clearly closed in GF and within the bounds of reason. Chetsford (talk) 05:36, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse The coverage of the ADL is obviously vary varied (anti-Zionism vs. other content vs. hate speech database) and it is unsound to group them altogether and put coverage advocating against genuine (albeit from, in my opinion, a flawed organization) and horrifying manifestations of antisemitism in the same category as ideological drivel used to racism-jacket those who oppose what is credibly accused as a settler colonial state formed on ethnic cleansing that is currently committing genocide. Furthermore, the RfC has obviously gone on far too long and should be closed at this point, even if it is broken apart. GLORIOUSEXISTENCE (talk) 05:41, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse (as closer) - To repeat what I wrote at my t/p,
3 of 4 participants [almost none of whom were flyby SPAs or the like] were convinced that Option 3, at the very least, was necessary. There is no way that the discussion could have been closed differently by someone else, short of supervoting.
Now, I can append a paragraph on why, notwithstanding the numbers, the argument offered by the numerically superior side carried the day but I doubt it would have convinced anyone to not relitigate it. TrangaBellam (talk) 05:53, 19 June 2024 (UTC) - Overturn - The extensive engagement and presence of an admin in the RFC (who was doing far more nuanced analysis of both the arguments and the players than a mere headcount) should have been sign enough that *any* non-admin editor (most especially one with clear and public WP:BIASED concerns) should not have thought it appropriate to step in and take charge on closure matters after an admin (with clear and established track record in the topic space), had studied the arguments extensively, and did not feel there were clear grounds to close in this way. If there were grounds to close on headcount alone (which usually there aren't) it would have been closed by the admin on those grounds - and it wasn't. In fact, the admin did not consider any consensus to have been found in the RFC, called the overall discussion a "dumpster fire" and provided a link reminding editors (who were pushing for a close and bombarding the board) to "allow administrators to enforce structured discussions." The closing non-admin, non-involved editor's sudden arrival and action in the discussion, lack of adherence and deference to existing and active admin assessment and recommended guidelines, and general unwillingness to engage in conversation as to their reasoning on closing (or be challenged on it) reeks of a bad faith hijacking of a process that clearly (and was clearly communicated) should only have been overseen to its conclusion by an uninvolved admin. Mistamystery (talk) 14:27, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Mistamystery: Perhaps I am misreading, but it appears you are openly accusing TB of bad faith, in rather obvious violation of WP:AGF. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:15, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- My statement has been revised for further clarity, and in line with evidentiary concern that there may have been violation WP:AGF in the closure process and subsequent appeal process/discussion. Mistamystery (talk) 17:12, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Just like determining the direction of a close, overturning one requires valid, policy arguments. The many editors here who are opining that an Admin should have closed this discussion are enunciating value preferences, not policy. Admins have no special closing rights and our WP:CLOSE clearly states "any uninvolved editor may close most of them – not just admins", reserving closing for Admins only in cases where it's been requested by some party ("if you want to request closure by an uninvolved administrator"), something that did not happen here. Whether TrangaBellam is uninvolved or not (I believe they are) is probably a valid source of debate here. However, the idea that they may or may not be an Admin is irrelevant to an analysis of whether the close was handled properly and is an expression of a value preference that would have been properly addressed pre-close, not post-close. Chetsford (talk) 17:22, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Mistamystery: Perhaps I am misreading, but it appears you are openly accusing TB of bad faith, in rather obvious violation of WP:AGF. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:15, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse This RfC has been sat in closure requests for over a month, and no admin had stepped forward to close it. So while I agree with the arguments that an admin should have closed it, or a group of partipants, not one person stepped forward to do so (despite suggestions for the latter); hence Part 1 was eventually closed by a non-admin. Despite the initially short and inadequate summary for the close, I still believe it represented the consensus of the discussion. Notably the summary has been expanded and further explains how the consensus was reached, in order to justify the closure. The fact the user in question has quoted a participant in the RfC is far from evidence of WP:INVOLVED, and there has been no evidence provided (that I'm aware of) that the user was involved in the dispute. If evidence were provided, I'd likely change my opinion. I'm otherwise certain that this closure would have ended up at ANI, if the result was GUNREL, simply for different reasons. CNC (talk) 16:23, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- If no one wants to close this RfC, this is fine an understandable. Then let's just archive it and let this matter remain undecided. This is frequently happens with other RfC. My very best wishes (talk) 19:24, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Utter waste of time - they were/are not WP:INVOLVED, but more importantly I see almost nobody is claiming that this would not be (re-)closed as a 3. Unless you think that an overturn would come with a different result, and I personally think it beyond obvious that it will not, this is a complete waste of time and space. But if yall want to waste the time then I suppose I cant come up with words wise enough to convince you not to. But there is a very obvious consensus for 3, and overturning it will only result in spending more time to end up with the same result. nableezy - 19:47, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Reluctant endorse, or endorse and overturn - For INVOLVED reasons I'm not a fan of the user in question closing it themselves, but the editor consensus is fairly obvious and I feel as though overturning it only to re-close would be a waste of time and effort. Suggest leaving it up to admin discretion, however - I concur with Jxpg above. The Kip (contribs) 20:32, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse both because I'm not convinced the "INVOLVED" argument holds water (I broadly agree with what Iskandar323 above and Newimpartial below have said), and because NOTBURO, if most people here seem to acknowledge there's no other way it could've been closed without the closer impermissibly supervoting. -sche (talk) 21:35, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse. Firstly, admins are not special and have no magical ability to be better closers than non-admins - indeed many non-admins are better closers of discussions than many admins. Secondly I remain completely unconvinced by the arguments that TB was INVOLVED. The closer read the discussion (which more than the OP here has done), summarised the close (not ideally at first, but adequately and subsequently improved) and arrived at the consensus that pretty much every neutral party agrees was the right one. Thryduulf (talk) 22:21, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse-ish, basically per Black Kite below: in a vacuum, I'm not a huge fan of this closure. Ideally I would have preferred a totally uninvolved admin or a panel of such admins close all three sections. However, the consensus in section 1 is extremely clear, and this RFC has stayed open for months without closure. If we vacate the close, whoever closes it is going to close it the same way (because there's no other reasonable way to close Section 1, it's an overwhelmingly clear consensus), and it's likely going to take months to do, which temporarily restores a status quo that there's an overwhelming consensus against. So I don't see a dedication to procedure to be worth it here. (But if whoever closes the other two sections wants to take over the section 1 close, I wouldn't be opposed to that.) Loki (talk) 01:35, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Non-participants
- Overturn. I agree that this is such a long and potentially impactful RfC that it'd better be closed by an admin—and I echo BilledMammal's assessment here that an editor who has partisan quotes about an RfC's topic area (especially a quote from one of the RfC's participants) is just not the right person to close the RfC in question. I don't know if partial closes ever happen, but I've never seen one before, and I'm not a fan—it'll certainly have an impact on the unclosed discussions and their outcomes. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:44, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Seriously? The very point of creating three RfCs was to allow the possibility of different resolutions to be reached on different aspects and, that you have never seen one before, please consult Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase I. TrangaBellam (talk) 05:44, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah man, seriously. I'd never seen one and I think it was a bad idea. I'm not saying that's your fault, and if it's moot then it's moot—my stance on the close still stands, considering the scale of the RfC, your apparent passionate POV on the topic, your one-sentence summary, and my reading of how that discussion went. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 05:56, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Perhaps then, you can present me with a multiple-part-RfC whose components were closed by the same admin/non-admin/panel simultaneously? And, no, I do not have a "passionate POV" on the topic. As to "your reading of the discussion", you claimed to Levivich about "ofcourse" not having read the entire discussion; so, yeah. In any case, feel free to have the last word. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:02, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Don't talk to me like that. I brought points raised by several editors to the appropriate venue, where a number of editors are taking the stance that your close ought to be overturned. We're not all bad-faith actors who deserve to have such limp jabs thrown our way as
feel free to have the last word
. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 06:07, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Don't talk to me like that. I brought points raised by several editors to the appropriate venue, where a number of editors are taking the stance that your close ought to be overturned. We're not all bad-faith actors who deserve to have such limp jabs thrown our way as
- Perhaps then, you can present me with a multiple-part-RfC whose components were closed by the same admin/non-admin/panel simultaneously? And, no, I do not have a "passionate POV" on the topic. As to "your reading of the discussion", you claimed to Levivich about "ofcourse" not having read the entire discussion; so, yeah. In any case, feel free to have the last word. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:02, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah man, seriously. I'd never seen one and I think it was a bad idea. I'm not saying that's your fault, and if it's moot then it's moot—my stance on the close still stands, considering the scale of the RfC, your apparent passionate POV on the topic, your one-sentence summary, and my reading of how that discussion went. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 05:56, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Seriously? The very point of creating three RfCs was to allow the possibility of different resolutions to be reached on different aspects and, that you have never seen one before, please consult Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase I. TrangaBellam (talk) 05:44, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn. I didn't participate in the RFC (and aren't an admin myself) but anything that long and controversial should be closed by an admin (barring a WP:SNOW case which is clearly not relevant here). Full stop. This is especially the case for radioactively controversial topics that editors have strong views on to avoid them becoming polls of "Which side of this conflict rallies the most supporters". SnowFire (talk) 22:33, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse This is pointless. No one would've closed it differently, and it has been open for two months, for gods sake. The idea that expressing SYMPATHY for Palestinians somehow makes you unfit to close such a landslide RFC is frankly ludicrous. This is bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy and the only way someone should overturn this is if they commit to closing it themselves. If not, we're just admitting why no one is stepping up to make this obvious close. Parabolist (talk) 23:13, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
we're just admitting why no one is stepping up to make this obvious close
I am missing the implication here. Why is that? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 23:23, 18 June 2024 (UTC)- Because so many of the closes in this topic area are subject to tedious bureaucratic objections. Parabolist (talk) 23:31, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Gotcha, thanks. I have a feeling that an uninvolved admin providing a detailed summary in their close wouldn't have their close brought to any noticeboard, but I don't know for sure. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 23:33, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe we could get a panel of admins, then? They could set up a discussion, take a week or two because of their different time zones, and then we could get the same close, but we would've wasted hours and hours of editor time in the process. Parabolist (talk) 23:54, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Or we can just get one uninvolved admin to do the herculean task of sensitively reviewing this gigantic RfC and providing a detailed summary to explain the consensus to the community and how it was reached—something that nobody, including this non-admin closer, has done yet. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:06, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- So are you claiming they didn't read the discussion, didn't read the discussion "sensitively" (What does this mean?), or didn't provide enough detail? Because if it's just the latter, why aren't you simply asking them to just flesh out the close? You started this discussion claiming that the problem was that they were less qualified to close this discussion than an admin (Why?), but all of your replies since then have made it clear that your issue with the close is actually that you think they chose the wrong option. You need to pick a lane, here. Parabolist (talk) 00:59, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I ask you, with love in the air, to please be a little more chill with me.I brought this here because it had been raised in three separate places, and directed twice to AN. My opening comment is just a summary of events and quotes from other editors with none of my own input. My personal view is that the RfC was not apparently well-read enough by the closer, who wrote a one-sentence, totally non-specific summary citing a rough vote ratio and made no acknowledgement of the most prominent counterarguments to the apparent consensus vote, which is that a lot of them had nothing to do with reliability in the Israel/Palestine topic area, but were instead related to the topic of antisemitism. This may be due to the closer's bias on the topic, as the original complainants have raised. I don't care so much about that; I care about votes being satisfactorily read for policy-based substance and treated with apparent care, which in this case (I think) they were not. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 01:07, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Parabolist: If Zanahary is claiming that TB didn't read the discussion, then that's no more than they already admitted to Levivich, that Zanahary had also not re/read the discussion before opening it up for further discussion here *facepalm* ...in other news, I guess WP:BLUDGEON might also make them profitable reading. ——Serial Number 54129 13:19, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- For the record, I read the entire I/P discussion after Levivich encouraged me to do so. You can scroll up to the hatted discussion between us to see a more in-depth discussion of votes I found problematic. I am now, though, unsubscribing from this discussion, in which I've made myself heard and there's clearly no shortage of opinions to take it to its end. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 19:10, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- So are you claiming they didn't read the discussion, didn't read the discussion "sensitively" (What does this mean?), or didn't provide enough detail? Because if it's just the latter, why aren't you simply asking them to just flesh out the close? You started this discussion claiming that the problem was that they were less qualified to close this discussion than an admin (Why?), but all of your replies since then have made it clear that your issue with the close is actually that you think they chose the wrong option. You need to pick a lane, here. Parabolist (talk) 00:59, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Or we can just get one uninvolved admin to do the herculean task of sensitively reviewing this gigantic RfC and providing a detailed summary to explain the consensus to the community and how it was reached—something that nobody, including this non-admin closer, has done yet. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:06, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe we could get a panel of admins, then? They could set up a discussion, take a week or two because of their different time zones, and then we could get the same close, but we would've wasted hours and hours of editor time in the process. Parabolist (talk) 23:54, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Gotcha, thanks. I have a feeling that an uninvolved admin providing a detailed summary in their close wouldn't have their close brought to any noticeboard, but I don't know for sure. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 23:33, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Because so many of the closes in this topic area are subject to tedious bureaucratic objections. Parabolist (talk) 23:31, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn The responsibility of closing an RFC in such a sensitive, controversial area should be done by an admin, ideally one with a great deal of experience closing RFCs. It's not pointless bureaucracy; the more people respect a process, the more people will respect the result, which is something necessary on this topic. If only the end results of the process, not the justice of the process, mattered, then there would be no reason to care about insults, harassment, etc. beyond their impact to the content. I'm not in favor of a trout for the closer, not even a minnow; they made the closure in good faith, I just think it was unwise. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 23:28, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn, per others here (especially CoffeeCrumbs). But also because there were many !votes for option 1 (or rarely 2) that expressed the fact that no evidence of unreliability has actually been presented, which I broadly agree with - the evidence that was presented was evidence of bias - but we're yet again dealing with the question "does bias = reliability" on RS/N right now for the Telegraph. And it seems that the consensus on WP still is, as evidenced by that discussion, that bias does not equate to unreliable. A closure by an uninvolved, experienced administrator which adequately takes into account the fact that at least a significant minority (if not majority) of option 3 !votes were based on the users' opinions rather than verified proof of deliberate inaccuracies in their reporting would be merited for such a controversial topic. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- The close has been updated since my comment. It still is insufficient, and in fact it continues the “vote counting” that plagued the original close. It then interjects the closer’s personal opinion over whether the rebuttals are sufficient to show bias rather than unreliability. This makes the close even more of a supervote than it was before. And this is exactly why contentious closes should be done by an editor who reads the whole discussion and can concisely summarize the points in the discussion, rather than someone looking for an “easy” close based on the numbers. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:37, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse largely per Parabolist and Levivich. I'd first like to emphasize the point that there is nothing magical in and of itself about an admin close. No disrespect to any admins, but I have no doubt that there is some subset of experienced non-admins who are 'better' closers than some subset of admins. Still, I understand that there's a certain value to the optics. Beyond that, while Wikipedia is not a court of law, I find an analogy here irresistible: in common law systems, procedural problems generally do not constitute reversible error unless some prejudice can be shown to a litigant. That's what I see here. It's difficult to see how a reasonable closer (admin or not) would come to a substantially different conclusion. Was it wrong for TrangaBellam to close? No, I don't think so. Was it suboptimal? Yes, I would say it was. But Wikipedia does not demand perfection--the crooked timber of humanity, and so on. I do not doubt Zanahary's good faith, and I honestly don't mean this as a criticism, but this feels a bit like a relitigation rather than a challenge to the close. As ever, reasonable minds can certainly differ. Cheers to one and all. Dumuzid (talk) 00:42, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Rerunning a legal process due to some marginal procedural error can be prohibitively costly and overall terrible and inhumane, while reclosing this RfC in specific is either a trivial expenditure of community resorces if the close was materially fine or it is simply needed regardless of cost if the error is not procedural and is in fact material. So it should just be done, since people are complaining now, and they're doing an acceptable job complaining frankly. There's a perception. Path of least resistance is quickly vacating. —Alalch E. 01:15, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Vacate. This RfC should be closed by an administrator who is at the same time an editor who seems less involved, and if the close challenged here was a correct finding of a relatively obvious consensus, as claimed by some, it will be especially easy for a less-involved-seeming administrator to close it, meaning that the expediture of volunteer resources will be especially low and worth it, because avoiding this sensitive RfC remaining closed for perpetuity by a closer who is not such a great editor to close due to a perception of being involved is worth said very low cost of reclosing, and if the close was not a correct finding of consensus, then the outcome needs to be different, and an average admin is a bit more likely to find consensus correctly than an average non-admin and to deliver an appropriate closing statement, as needed. I recognize that per WP:NACRFC, a
non-admin close of an RfC should not be overturned if the only reason is that the closer was not an admin
, but the closer not being an admin is not the "only reason" as said reason is compounded by there existing a perception of them being involved so my recommendation is consistent with the spirit of Wikipedia:Closing discussions#Closure procedure:Generally, if you want to request closure by an uninvolved administrator, it's expected that the discussion will have already been open at least a week, and that the subject is particularly contentious or the outcome is unclear.
(The subject is inherently particularly contentious; some editors are subsequently requesting a close by an uninvolved administrator as they have concerns about the close by the not-fully-uninvolved-seeming non-administrator). Worth the extra bother. Vacating and reclosing shouldn't be seen as a big deal.—Alalch E. 01:04, 19 June 2024 (UTC) - Vacate I like Alalch E.'s term here. Looking at the numbers suggests 3 is the correct answer but the analysis of the arguments was extremely superficial. It's not just about the answer, it's about the process as well. It should be followed. Springee (talk) 01:48, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn Having a good process is important (regardless of whether or not the decision was correct) and this wasn't such. North8000 (talk) 03:05, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse Per User:Unbandito statement above. The vote and arguments in favor were strong. A profile quote in no manner outweighs the clear consensus reached through the discussion. Detsom (talk) 04:36, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Closing statement too short. The RfC, according to my device, is approximately 600 million scrolls long. It was closed with a statement of thirty-three words. What did people say? What were the arguments made? I don't have an opinion on the propriety or practicality of the close, but the quality of the close is very poor. Folly Mox (talk) 06:09, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Just fwiw, this was a three-part-RfC, only the first of which was closed. As to the content of the RfC: multiple editors presented multiple evidences of ADL's unreliability on the topic; most of the participants were convinced by this evidence but a minority claimed that atleast some of the evidence — if not all — can be, at worst, re-classed under "bias" (which I didn't find convincing, even ignoring the numerical strength) and hence cannot be perceived as grounds for unreliability. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, appended to the RfC close. Thanks, TrangaBellam (talk) 06:13, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn This is basically equivalent to the Fox News RfC, due to its political contentiousness. It cannot merely be judged based on numbers alone. It needs to be closed by (preferably a panel) of non-partisan administrators. As the person who originally opened the first ADL RfC, I don't have a strong enough opinion about whether the result was correct, but the justification is way too short. Hemiauchenia (talk) 09:17, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse, but only because I can't see that anyone else would have closed it any differently. Such a contentious RfC should have been closed by an admin, and it should have been closed by someone who couldn't be accused of bias in the CTOP area. It was a poor idea for TB to close it; but the actual result is correct. Black Kite (talk) 11:01, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse per NOTBURO, there's no point in wasting time reopening the discussion in orde for it to be reclosed the same way (which is all that would happen); policy does not allow for closers to be dictated by parties external to the project; and while the topic may be controversial, the discussion was not. ——Serial Number 54129 11:26, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse The claim that quoting someone previously that has since participated in an RFC makes someone involved is like claiming someone is best friends with Kevin Bacon. It's such a long reach as to be patently nonsensical. Also, admins have no special powers with regards to closing RFCs. It's expected that we have a good understanding of policy and are trusted by the community, but a decent RFC closure is a decent RFC closure whether and admin makes it or not.--v/r - TP 13:38, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn such an important, high-visibility action, which has already received widespread media attention, should be carried out by an uninvolved administrator, not an involved non-administrator. Coretheapple (talk) 14:24, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- What makes TrangaBellam involved? Thryduulf (talk) 14:31, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- The talk page quote is more than sufficient to disqualify this particular non-admin. If it was okay for him to close the discussion, then it would have been ok for me to close it. I didn't participate in the RSN discussion, and until today I never edited the ADL article and I don't have statements on my user page evincing a point of view on the subject area. Something quite this contentious requires a nonpartisan administrator if we're going to kick sand in the face of a reputable civil rights organization. Coretheapple (talk) 14:49, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
if we're going to kick sand in the face of a reputable civil rights organization
and of course this quote doesn't make you involved at all, right? Selfstudier (talk) 15:08, 19 June 2024 (UTC)- Exactly. That quote would be sufficient. Thank you for proving my point. Coretheapple (talk) 15:14, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- What part of WP:INVOLVED are you referencing here? I'd happily change my endorse if any evidence was provided of the closure being involved in the dispute, past or current conflicts with involved editors, or disputes on related topics. Per policy, simply having a perceived bias is not enough to accuse someone of being involved. CNC (talk) 16:48, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
disputes ... about which they have strong feelings.
- Personally, I believe that you have strong feelings about a dispute if you feel the need to say you support one side of the dispute at the top of your user talk page. BilledMammal (talk) 17:12, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- And not just because one has !voted option 1, lol. Selfstudier (talk) 17:16, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I suspected this would come up, as it's easily misinterpretable, the full context is:
"In general, editors should not act as administrators in disputes in which they have been involved. This is because involved administrators may be, or appear to be, incapable of making objective decisions in disputes to which they have been a party or about which they have strong feelings."
(emphasis added). Quite clearly the "strong feelings" is in reference to editors involved in disputes, not in reference to closures generally. You still need to provide evidence that the closure is involved in a related dispute, and I'm still patiently waiting for that. Your personal opinion that having strong feelings is involvement is not WP policy. CNC (talk) 17:22, 19 June 2024 (UTC)- I disagree; I interpret it as saying that having strong feelings on a topic makes an editor involved.
- Personally, it doesn't make sense to me otherwise. Consider an editor who has a user box saying "This user believes marriage is only between a man and a woman", but has never edited articles related to WP:GENSEX. Should they be closing RfC's related to homosexuality?
- Of course not, because the community would have no faith that they would make
objective decisions
- even though they haven't been involved in the specific disputes. BilledMammal (talk) 17:28, 19 June 2024 (UTC)- That's not what the text says. It says that if you are involved, objectively, it can create perceptions of XYZ. It's not a generic filter for bias, because all editors have ubiquitous personal biases, whether conscious or subconscious. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:40, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Saying one has sympathy for the Tibetans and the Palestinians does not demonstrate strong feelings related to the ADL or the Israeli Palestinian conflict. That’s just silly. nableezy - 02:10, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- What part of WP:INVOLVED are you referencing here? I'd happily change my endorse if any evidence was provided of the closure being involved in the dispute, past or current conflicts with involved editors, or disputes on related topics. Per policy, simply having a perceived bias is not enough to accuse someone of being involved. CNC (talk) 16:48, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Exactly. That quote would be sufficient. Thank you for proving my point. Coretheapple (talk) 15:14, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, it technically would have been ok for you to close it. Based on your statement, you might have wanted to recuse yourself from it if you felt too close to it, but based on feels more than policy – just as some have suggested that TB might have wanted to stay away from it (but not that they should have done, per policy). As it stands, TB did nothing wrong and by most estimations closed in the only way possible. So there's nothing obviously wrong with the close, and even if there were, there's a strong clamour that the close is correct (so WP:NOTBURO comes heavily into play). Iskandar323 (talk) 16:06, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- It's never BURO to vacate+reclose by an uninvolved admin when a perception that the non-admin is insufficiently uninvolved exists, because reclosing (not rerunning the process) is cheap: if the consensus is obvious the effort is a trivial one, and if the consensus is not obvious it's highly justified and worth it that someone less involved-seeming and more trusted as a closer closes instead. When there are real gains, it isn't BURO territory. —Alalch E. 16:23, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Except the closer here simply wasn't involved (by the standard definition) – the "perception" is one of perceived bias, or in other words the presumption that the closer was sufficiently compromised by bias that they couldn't close correctly – an assertion that is solely bad faith and otherwise unsupported. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:36, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- It's never BURO to vacate+reclose by an uninvolved admin when a perception that the non-admin is insufficiently uninvolved exists, because reclosing (not rerunning the process) is cheap: if the consensus is obvious the effort is a trivial one, and if the consensus is not obvious it's highly justified and worth it that someone less involved-seeming and more trusted as a closer closes instead. When there are real gains, it isn't BURO territory. —Alalch E. 16:23, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- The talk page quote is more than sufficient to disqualify this particular non-admin. If it was okay for him to close the discussion, then it would have been ok for me to close it. I didn't participate in the RSN discussion, and until today I never edited the ADL article and I don't have statements on my user page evincing a point of view on the subject area. Something quite this contentious requires a nonpartisan administrator if we're going to kick sand in the face of a reputable civil rights organization. Coretheapple (talk) 14:49, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- What makes TrangaBellam involved? Thryduulf (talk) 14:31, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Vacate + have someone else close it Zanahary's concerns and Coretheapple's remarks sum things up nicely and no need to repeat. Someone else needs to close it, not a partisan. I recognize it may not change the outcome and while I acknowledge the ratio of those who want to mark them as generally unreliable, I highly question their logic and evidence. Someone uninvolved needs to take the time to read this stuff and assess how valid the claims are. Such a downgrade will have major political and social implications and will likely be featured prominently in national news. I urge people to slow down and make an unquestionable decision. Personally I think the ADL oversteps its bounds, but I think the criticism that they changed their methodology and came up with new numbers isn't nefarious as some people are claiming ("They changed their numbers from 310% to 176%!!!"). That's what reliable sources do when they change methodology. They update their numbers. Much of the other evidence is practically leftist propaganda and/or "Trump is bad!" logic. Buffs (talk) 15:54, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Describing someone having a quote saying you have sympathy for the oppressed people of the world as a "partisan" is baffling to me. Parabolist (talk) 19:20, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Describing "I sympathise with the silenced underdog in so many conflicts, be they Aboriginals or Palestinians..." as just "sympathy for the oppressed people" is not an accurate characterization. It presupposes
- The Palestinians are actually oppressed. The Palestinians in Gaza have been given billions in international aid and still struggle to form an effective government/local control that doesn't squander the money on creating a state bent on the destruction of their neighbor rather than helping their people.
- They are silenced at all. They seem to be rather well-voiced at every level.
- That such sympathy is warranted.
- That this is the crux of the discussion and/or is germane to the discussion (ARBPIA applies), the person closing this shouldn't be someone so prominently advocating against Israeli/Jewish interests. There is an inherent conflict of interest there. Buffs (talk) 21:05, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- While I don't consider the statement quoted by the closer to indicate INVOLVED status (see my !vote below), I think the following definitely does:
The Palestinians in Gaza have been given billions in international aid and still struggle to form an effective government/local control that doesn't squander the money on creating a state bent on the destruction of their neighbor rather than helping their people.
- Whatever the line is between "not really INVOLVED" and "too INVOLVED", I think it runs somewhere between an expression of sympathy for a national, ethnic or religious category, and blaming that whole category of people for the actions (presented without context) of their quasi-governments. Buff's statement (the latter kind) is the equivalent of holding "Jews" or "Zonists" responsible for the foreign policy of rhe state of Israel, but enwiki has pretty reliably demonstrated that the latter is well over the line. Newimpartial (talk) 21:16, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Describing "I sympathise with the silenced underdog in so many conflicts, be they Aboriginals or Palestinians..." as just "sympathy for the oppressed people" is not an accurate characterization. It presupposes
- Describing someone having a quote saying you have sympathy for the oppressed people of the world as a "partisan" is baffling to me. Parabolist (talk) 19:20, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- The discussion just really sucked. Both sides were talking past each other, !votes were functioning more as flag-planting than actual attempts to substantively engage with the question, lots of "gotcha" links were thrown around with little sign of anyone attempting to perform a neutral survey of the evidence. Under these circumstances I don't think it makes much sense to be talking about whether to endorse or overturn any sort of close: the most honest conclusion a closer could draw is "the community has collectively proven it lacks the capacity to properly answer the question at this time". – Teratix ₵ 16:14, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Then call for a reclose and if it happens, see if the new closer agrees with you. Fwiw, I wouldn't agree. Selfstudier (talk) 16:26, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Vacate and have a panel of 3 admins re-assess and re-close it. This is more about the procedure than the outcome in my view. EvergreenFir (talk) 17:21, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think that's the ideal solution. This needs to be a bulletproof decision, unless of course we don't want it to be. That's the choice here. We can do the right thing or we can tell critics of this decision that all our fantastic procedures were followed and that's all we really care about. Coretheapple (talk) 17:37, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Another thing to take into consideration is the impact of having three respected, truly uninvolved admins making the same decision. People who are hopping with joy over this outcome should think about that. Coretheapple (talk) 18:38, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for volunteering. Charcoal feather (talk) 19:40, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I assume that wasn't directed at me! I am not an admin. But your general point is not incorrect. Admins have tended to avoid this subject area. Coretheapple (talk) 19:59, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Vacate Agree this is more about procedure than outcome. Just because a RFC is sitting at WP:CR for a long time doesn't mean we throw procedure out the window. It probably just means it's going to need an experienced closer to review it. Nemov (talk) 17:54, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn. The closer participated in an Israel–Hamas war RFC. RAN1 (talk) 19:44, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- And, what's the insinuation, here? To the best of my knowledge, I have put in a couple of RfC votes (maybe a comment or two, even?) but that's my involvement with IPA at best. TrangaBellam (talk) 19:48, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse, primarily per WP:NOTBURO - the correct option was found to have consensus, and the arguments for a "procedural" overturn are against the spirit of the project; the most likely impact of an overturn would be a "chilling effect" on NACs, and an emboldening of editors to seek "procedural" overturning of closes because they just don't like the outcome. Wikipedia needs more NACs of obvious consensus results, not fewer.
- I would also point out that editors who think
..I sympathise with the silenced underdog in so many conflicts, be they Aboriginals or Palestinians or Tibetans
is evidence of bias do not seem to be to be reflecting what the INVOLVED principle actually means. I can't imagine that we would be having this discussion if the passage quoted were along the lines of "..I sympathise with the silenced underdog in so many conflicts, such as victims of antisemitism" - but yet, here we are. As I have seen in other discussions within ARBPIA, this seems to be a deployment of FUD about bias to contest an outcome that some editors find distasteful. - Also, in passing, I find the argument that a discussion with a clear outcome requires a nuanced closure because of
BLUDGEONINGcomplex argumentation from the discussion's participants to be, once again, against the spirit of a project. To vacate the close citing this ground would only encourage additionalBLUDGEONINGunproductive pseudo-dialogue in future RfCs. Newimpartial (talk) 20:03, 19 June 2024 (UTC)- The "chilling effect" on NACs is a feature, not a bug, for discussions like this. They absolutely shouldn't be closed by non-admins and we shouldn't be encouraging that, lest we just invite more giant discussions overflowing to AN/ANI from the "losing" side. The whole point of these RFCs is to generate a strong consensus that is respected and has legitimacy, even in the eyes of those who disagree, so that they respect the decision and don't challenge it (like happened here!). If you think the outcome was that clear, prove it by letting an uninvolved admin close it. I also find it boggling to claim the result was "obvious" here in such a trainwreck. One side is claiming that some of the votes should be discounted as essentially cheerleading their "side" in a dispute without engaging with the topic at hand. Maybe that's true, maybe that isn't, but assessing that claim in a manner that is respected requires an admin, maybe even a panel of admins. This is a YESBURO situation even if you agree with the result of the current close, because a future close will be stronger and more respected if it comes from an unimpeachable source. SnowFire (talk) 21:45, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn - a sensitive RfC like this should only be closed by an uninvolved admin. Rlendog (talk) 20:22, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Vacate while I sympathize with concerns about excessive bureaucracy, I think the community needs to take a hardline against controversial non-admin closes. While I'm not fully convinced that we can concretely say that TrangaBellam was INVOLVED, it would have been better for the discussion to be closed by someone else. So let's have someone else do it. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 21:37, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse. So it appears that the closer did highlight some comments from known ARBPIA participants that could reasonably be seen as biased. Closure like that will absolutely benefit from longer rationale, because anyone looking at it should more or less understand the "why" of the decision and main arguments. I tend to be verbose in RfC closures so that if I'm an ass, at least everyone sees it, but it's me. I guess at least two hallmarks of WP:BADNAC are here: probable involvement and controversy. However, BADNAC is part of an essay. We are not a court of law. It isn't like recusal must be automatic, though it is desired.
- Now the thing is that this closure would have been appealed no matter what, even if a panel were to summarise it. In discussions of this size and degree of controversy, it's inevitable. Because closing RFCs is largely an admin thing, one would expect the closer, whether admin or not, to face accountability, so here we are, grilling TB at RfC closure review. I guess that's more than enough scrutiny, so that's one reason against using technicalities to overturn.
- Now WP:CLOSECHALLENGE asks people to point out what's wrong with the closure. It seems the JTA agrees, and a lot of voices to overturn do not say they would have closed it otherwise, or say how the summation did not reflect consensus, or which argument should have carried more weight. Sure, if the problem with likely INVOLVED closes in edgy cases persists then TrangaBellam should have some talking to, including RfC closure bans or ArbCom intervention, as INVOLVED is policy. However, the overall result is correct as far as the discussion is concerned, so it's a pass for me. INVOLVED is meant to prevent biased closures, and maybe the closer was biased but the closure wasn't, which I think is all that matters for CLOSECHALLENGE purposes.
- They attempted an enormously difficult task, their explanation should have been more detailed. But they did OK. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:12, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse Seriously? This isn't a bureaucracy (despite us having "bureaucrats"). Just because a close was performed by a non-admin does not mean it is any less respectable or any less legitimate. Anyone arguing that a non-admin close is less of a close because the closer doesn't have the all-fanciful admin bit, needs to re-read WP:NOBIGDEAL. It's almost shameful that having the admin toys is considered an endorsement of ones opinion. There's plenty of admins who were given the tools in the olden days and just kept them up to now, but they were only ever put through RFA with a few people, when adminship was actually seen as the lack of a big deal that it should be seen as today. Maybe we need to step back on how we see admins as some god-like figures, and see them more as humans, just like every editor on this platform. EggRoll97 (talk) 22:36, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- That is a great speech about the all-fanciful admin bit, can you do one about the all-fanciful admin-and-also-not-having-quotes-on-your-talk-page-about-how-you-think-one-of-the-sides-is-right bit? jp×g🗯️ 23:16, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- It does no such thing, and I feel like I'm going insane with people saying this. The actual quote is the most mild sentiment imaginable. Is Tranga now disqualified from closing RFCs about Tibet, or Aboriginal issues? Parabolist (talk) 02:48, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- That is a great speech about the all-fanciful admin bit, can you do one about the all-fanciful admin-and-also-not-having-quotes-on-your-talk-page-about-how-you-think-one-of-the-sides-is-right bit? jp×g🗯️ 23:16, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Vacate This is far to controversial an RFC for a non-admin close. If it the decision is not seen as having come from somebody uninvolved (even if they actually aren't INVOLVED in a literal sense) then it leaves room for endless Wikilawyering about how strong a consensus was every time the topic comes up. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 22:39, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse good close, INVOLVED argument not convincing, no admin is magically going to produce a better one just because they've gone through an RfA. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:50, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse per NOTBURO. I share Newimpartial’s impression of FUD; I can’t speak to anyone’s motives but I object to undermining a close other than on the basis that it was wrongly concluded. Innisfree987 (talk) 01:12, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Warning of meatpuppetry
Potential meatpuppets incoming: Article in Israeli website --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 07:34, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- This discussion falls under ARBPIA, so any comments from non-ECR accounts or IPs can be removed. Black Kite (talk) 11:02, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- It would be useful (and minimally bitey) to put a template or other note at the top of this discussion noting that fact. Thryduulf (talk) 11:17, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Good idea. Done. Black Kite (talk) 11:34, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- It's got quite a bit of Jewish media coverage. [14] Secretlondon (talk) 20:46, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Counterintuitively, the discussion did see a bunch more !votes come in just after the press coverage (and after discussion had otherwise slowed), but it was largely from people critical of the ADL rather than supportive. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:53, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Or, intuitively, WP, does in fact, have it right, that's several sources I have seen now implying that. Selfstudier (talk) 21:19, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Counterintuitively, the discussion did see a bunch more !votes come in just after the press coverage (and after discussion had otherwise slowed), but it was largely from people critical of the ADL rather than supportive. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:53, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- It's got quite a bit of Jewish media coverage. [14] Secretlondon (talk) 20:46, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Good idea. Done. Black Kite (talk) 11:34, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- It would be useful (and minimally bitey) to put a template or other note at the top of this discussion noting that fact. Thryduulf (talk) 11:17, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
For those interested, here[15] is a video of Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, discussing this decision and Wikipedia in general. He seems to me to have some understanding of Wikipedia, but not enough to avoid error. Happy Friday to all. Dumuzid (talk) 16:44, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
A quick job for someone?
At Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates, the entry under June 15 for Kevin Campbell has been marked ready for over two and a half days now, even while other stories have been posted. I can't post it myself as I nominated it. Could someone do the honours? Thanks, Black Kite (talk) 10:36, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Done WaggersTALK 10:47, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks. Black Kite (talk) 11:16, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Black Kite: for future reference, there is also a template {{@ITNA}} which pings admins who typically post to ITN. Natg 19 (talk) 16:17, 20 June 2024 (UTC).
- Thanks. Black Kite (talk) 11:16, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
weird edit war and discussion
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- [16] I make a small change to an article with an edit summary explaining why
- [17] Dahn (talk · contribs) reverts without explanation
- [18] I revert asking what happened, maybe it was a misclick?
- [19] Dahn reverts again with a weirdly confrontational edit summary
- User talk:Dahn#links to Raab - I ask the user to explain this disruptive behavior, and in turn get an escalation
Apparently there's a fair bit of disdain there for Wikipedia:Editing policy, Wikipedia:Ownership of content, Wikipedia:Civility, Wikipedia:Casting aspersions: they're entitled to reverts without explanation, I was making frivolous and cosmetic changes without explanation, on something that they specifically created, all these discussions are a waste of time, they're now being harangued, and apologies for my hurt feelings...?!
In general, sure, it's a weird disagreement about odd little details. But what came next does not quite strike me as a normal discussion. --Joy (talk) 14:24, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I view this as a content dispute (by now bordering on WP:DRAMA), in which one user claims that I did wrong, then proceeds to lecture me that I need to revert myself/accept their edit, then calls me disruptive when I do not. I may have been confrontational about the scope of the edits, by calling them frivolous (changing a valid link to a redirect, under what I see as a potentially serious misinterpretation of the stylistic guideline). But let it be noted that I was then harangued on my talk page, beginning with a claim that I should recognize my edit as "disruptive (and) just to make some sort of a point". In the diffs provided above, you can see Joy escalating the matter by already suggesting, on my talk page, that I should be blocked, and calling my response to their claim about how I'm being "disruptive", and my rather detailed response as to how the guideline was being miscited, a "rant".
- (As a side note: it cannot be a "weird disagreement about odd little details" (another way of saying frivolous details), in which either editor may be right, and in which the detail is simply irrelevant, but then also a case of me being "disruptive". If the detail being edited was frivolous, then there was no point to the accusation that I was being "disruptive".)
- To address another accusation brought up against me in the package above: I do not imagine I "own" the article, but I see absolutely no reason for the original edit, and do not see how it improved the quality of the prose (in that sense, it was "frivolous" -- I also clarified that I mean "frivolous" in relation to Joy's other pursuits). Dahn (talk) 14:34, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- You made a revert of an explained edit without any edit summary, which is bad practice. This was followed by a revert with an obviously rude edit summary, which is likewise bad practice. I followed up with moving it to a talk page and trying to figure out what's wrong. That was my attempt to deescalate a budding edit war, not vice versa. And that in turn was met with even more flippant responses. If this is supposed to be the normal level of editor interaction, we're doing something wrong. --Joy (talk) 16:36, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I mean, if edit summaries are on the discussion table, [20]'s condescension doesn't really place it high in the quality rankings. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:08, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- What condescension? I just casually addressed a random new editor who in my mind made a mistake and with whom I don't remember ever interacting before so I wanted to extend a welcoming expression for a start. Why would you assume that I wanted to be condescending by simply saying dear editor? --Joy (talk) 16:27, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Incidentally, I am not a new editor, just like I am the creator of the content you were modifying (and not, as you persistently argued, someone who intervened to change the link on "Gyor" -- the link on "Gyor" was there from the beginning). The condescension here is in not conceiving of a way in which you could simply be wrong -- wrong in your reading of that guideline (which in no way suggests we should add links to redirects, let alone links piping to redirects, where they don't exist), wrong in your assumption that this type of edits helps readers (which is why I have asked you kindly draw up a scenario in which it would help a reader), or wrong in your assumptions about my motivations for reverting your edit. The moment I disputed your edit, you simply went into proclaiming that I was being "disruptive" (which has a very specific meaning) -- just like you also construed my comment, the one about your edit being frivolous, into a personal attack. Hopefully, once you realize I am not a cretin or a noob or a vandal who is out to revert your infallible edits, we will be over this impasse. Dahn (talk) 17:47, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- First of all, I have drawn up that scenario immediately after you asked. In return, you apparently ignored that and kept flaming me. (Edited to add: I noticed [21] only after writing this, thank you for addressing that finally, though as one might imagine, I don't quite find phrases like
Is the assumption here that our readers, who have to rely on the "helpful caption", are idiots?
to be a consensus-building discussion.) And this pattern is obviously continuing. - Once again, you didn't merely "dispute" my edit, you undid it without the need to explain why and when prompted, said
do you seriously imagine "Raab, Hungary" is dissimilar to "Gyor"? im sure you can find other less frivolous pursuits to perform on wikipedia
. I was not making assumptions about your motivations for reverting, I just asked why, and you responded with such agitated language, it's as if I made some sort of an ad hominem attack. - Once again, if my "dear editor" was what prompted this, it was absolutely not meant to, and I apologize for not using more careful language there. Regardless, even if you thought I was provoking you, I still don't see the sense in responding as blatantly passive aggressive as that - if you felt the way I used "dear editor" was not respectful or inconsiderate, why not simply address that, instead of escalating?
- This is why I described these actions as disruptive -
"Editors may be accidentally disruptive because they don't understand how to correctly edit, or because they lack the social skills or competence necessary to work collaboratively."
In general, the discussion seems to have reinforced this impression, especially after the statementI want to have no particular argument about it, and I view all these kinds of discussion as a waste of time
- how else do we interpret this other than a blanket refusal to work collaboratively? And yes, I realize now that this in turn will necessarily sound condescending. Sadly, that's my good-faith interpretation of all these various emotional and/or hyperbolic statements. For example, in this latest round, I've no idea why would you ever imply that anyone thought you were acretin
. --Joy (talk) 21:41, 20 June 2024 (UTC)- This is really starting to look like filibustering and an attempt to coach admins into how they should read banal comments as something else (because you, as an involved party, apparently really have the energy for this, in a dispute you yourself have earlier classified as over minor stuff). Maybe you can reared my comment about the "waste of time" (which you claim cannot be read as anything other than a refusal on my part to "work collaboratively") as addressing precisely this kind of fabricated over-the-top drama, and why I have absolutely zero appetite for it. It seems that your core assumption is that I have a duty to not dispute your edits (lest I be unitentionally disruptive and "non-collaborative", in articles I actually expanded and improved, and in which you have made exactly one, minuscule, cosmetic and utterly questionable, edit), and then also a duty to explain my every reaction to you, so that you then misconstrue it for the audience you imagine is here for this act. Go on, if you must, just let's end the part of this charade where I am expected to respond. Take up all the time the community can still spare on this farce, by all means. Dahn (talk) 22:44, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- No, we only have a duty to follow the applicable policies. It's confounding to see such blatantly aggressive flamewar posts coupled with an appeal against drama. --Joy (talk) 07:09, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Joy: Since you insist on litigating this beyond what is acceptable: Your claim is that policy valudates you adding links to redirects in articles that did not use redirects. There is absolutely no policy that would validate that, and not one of the greentext quotes is even about that. The policy only advises that we should not go out of our way to "correct" links that already redirect to the target articles, and that we should also consider redirects with potential -- as in: the possibility that "Raab, Hungary" may develop into an article dofferent from "Gyor", which is prima facie a ridiculous proposal. (Let me also note that you seem to realize that much, since you claim, falsely so, that the orginal link was on "Raab", and that I changed to "Gyor". This seems to be an awkward attempt to interpret my edit as a crusade against redirects, insteaf of what it was, namely a refusal to introduce a redirect just to humor you and your novel approach to this issue.) Dahn (talk) 07:31, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Moreover, as pointed out by another user here, the policy standard would favor (though not necessarily impose) adding the mpdern name as a parenthetical after the link, with the link on it, or in the same link as the old name. Let me ask you this: why did you never propose a solution that would reflect that standard, instead of producing all this grief and instead of passing your quaint preferences for "policies"? Dahn (talk) 07:35, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- No, we only have a duty to follow the applicable policies. It's confounding to see such blatantly aggressive flamewar posts coupled with an appeal against drama. --Joy (talk) 07:09, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is really starting to look like filibustering and an attempt to coach admins into how they should read banal comments as something else (because you, as an involved party, apparently really have the energy for this, in a dispute you yourself have earlier classified as over minor stuff). Maybe you can reared my comment about the "waste of time" (which you claim cannot be read as anything other than a refusal on my part to "work collaboratively") as addressing precisely this kind of fabricated over-the-top drama, and why I have absolutely zero appetite for it. It seems that your core assumption is that I have a duty to not dispute your edits (lest I be unitentionally disruptive and "non-collaborative", in articles I actually expanded and improved, and in which you have made exactly one, minuscule, cosmetic and utterly questionable, edit), and then also a duty to explain my every reaction to you, so that you then misconstrue it for the audience you imagine is here for this act. Go on, if you must, just let's end the part of this charade where I am expected to respond. Take up all the time the community can still spare on this farce, by all means. Dahn (talk) 22:44, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- First of all, I have drawn up that scenario immediately after you asked. In return, you apparently ignored that and kept flaming me. (Edited to add: I noticed [21] only after writing this, thank you for addressing that finally, though as one might imagine, I don't quite find phrases like
- Incidentally, I am not a new editor, just like I am the creator of the content you were modifying (and not, as you persistently argued, someone who intervened to change the link on "Gyor" -- the link on "Gyor" was there from the beginning). The condescension here is in not conceiving of a way in which you could simply be wrong -- wrong in your reading of that guideline (which in no way suggests we should add links to redirects, let alone links piping to redirects, where they don't exist), wrong in your assumption that this type of edits helps readers (which is why I have asked you kindly draw up a scenario in which it would help a reader), or wrong in your assumptions about my motivations for reverting your edit. The moment I disputed your edit, you simply went into proclaiming that I was being "disruptive" (which has a very specific meaning) -- just like you also construed my comment, the one about your edit being frivolous, into a personal attack. Hopefully, once you realize I am not a cretin or a noob or a vandal who is out to revert your infallible edits, we will be over this impasse. Dahn (talk) 17:47, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- What condescension? I just casually addressed a random new editor who in my mind made a mistake and with whom I don't remember ever interacting before so I wanted to extend a welcoming expression for a start. Why would you assume that I wanted to be condescending by simply saying dear editor? --Joy (talk) 16:27, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I get the distinct impression that neither Dahn nor Joy are open to outside opinion about how they could both be at fault for this small interaction going bad, so unless one or the other explicitly asks for feedback on their own actions, I suggest we ignore them. both. No benefit to everyone else to get drawn into a conflict of their own making, unless it starts affecting other people. Let them make each other miserable. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:24, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Talk about disruptive comments and casting aspersions, wow. --Joy (talk) 16:38, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, that's not a nice comment to you, but Joy, it's hard to understand how this dispute between experienced editors got escalated to WP:AN for all administrators to review. Liz Read! Talk! 20:27, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Let me put it this way: I can't imagine another real-life situation where a comparably innocuous action would be met with a such a blunt reaction, instant incivility, and then further rule-breaking afterwards. It seems to be only online communities with anonymous participants that consider such a thing tolerable. --Joy (talk) 21:13, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I find myself agreeing with both Liz and Joy here. Floquenbeam's comment was unnecessarily harsh. Given this project is run entirely by volunteers, editor retention should be one of our primary concerns and it disheartens me every time I see an unpleasant comment such as this. @Joy, you and Dahn have 41 years of Wikipedia editing experience between the two of you. Surely you could have reached an resolution without coming to AN. Perhaps WP:3O or an RfC regarding the changes in dispute, or even WP:DISENGAGE. I have no opinion on which, if either, of you is in the right here but it is disappointing to see two very experienced editors locked in a dispute. Adam Black talk • contribs 21:59, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Let me put it this way: I can't imagine another real-life situation where a comparably innocuous action would be met with a such a blunt reaction, instant incivility, and then further rule-breaking afterwards. It seems to be only online communities with anonymous participants that consider such a thing tolerable. --Joy (talk) 21:13, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, that's not a nice comment to you, but Joy, it's hard to understand how this dispute between experienced editors got escalated to WP:AN for all administrators to review. Liz Read! Talk! 20:27, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Talk about disruptive comments and casting aspersions, wow. --Joy (talk) 16:38, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I thought the silly season started a little later, but it seems to be upon us already. There’s simply nothing actionable here, and the thread should be closed forthwith. — Biruitorul Talk 19:09, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I suggest all parties to cease discussion here as nothing is actionable. Regarding the content dispute I propose the following solution: "Raab (now Győr)". I agree with Joy that the difference in the text and the link it leads to may result confusing to unfamiliar readers, that it is the German name could easily slip one's eyes as I think it happened to Joy because it's only explained with two words, though a redirect shouldn't have been linked as that didn't really change anything. I think this practice is beneficial, lest we have, say, "Kolozsvár", as a random example, sitting by itself all over Wikipedia. Super Ψ Dro 23:14, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I do not view the parenthetical as absolutely necessary in this case -- and in many such others, paricularly since this practice may flood pages in "x (now y)" samples that are simply atrocious when they clutter up. (Incidentally, I do not see how a piped link would have in and of itself confused readers -- unless we assume that those readers are idiots; but if they are idiots, they presumably haven't made it that far in the text for them to even find the link and need to click on it. To clarify: I also do not believe that this actually happened to Joy, and therefore I don't consider Joy an idiot or anything similar.)
- But I wouldn't have objected to the parenthetical, had it been added by Joy or by any other user. It seems superflous to me, but I'm not the one called upon to impose a standard; I would gave accepted that as a consensus.
- What was however being proposed here was pushing the redirect in lieu of the definitive link, an absolutely bewildering, ad-hoc "solution" to a non-problem, with the most overreaching, astounding, reading of a guideline being suggested as the applicable norm, and with the holier-than-thou party suggesting that anyone opposing such an experimental twist on our policies is incompetent. That could not have stood. Dahn (talk) 23:32, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- When using historic English place names WP:NCPLACE#General guidelines point 3 does recommend following with the modern English place name in parenthesis on first occurrence when doing so is not otherwise detrimental to style. That however is a content matter and should be discussed at Talk:Aaron the Tyrant. This is not intended as a comment of any kind on the original dispute regarding a cosmetic change to a piped link. 2601:5CC:8300:A7F0:2DE1:276C:E8BE:5A3A (talk) 04:35, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- As stated, I have some private reservations as to whether the parenthetical mention can work in any article on Eastern Europe (it can easily explode in countless parentheticals). However, I would not have objected at all, let alone reverted, had this been the style proposal in the text, for Gyor or for any other city mentioned therein. Dahn (talk) 07:19, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- When using historic English place names WP:NCPLACE#General guidelines point 3 does recommend following with the modern English place name in parenthesis on first occurrence when doing so is not otherwise detrimental to style. That however is a content matter and should be discussed at Talk:Aaron the Tyrant. This is not intended as a comment of any kind on the original dispute regarding a cosmetic change to a piped link. 2601:5CC:8300:A7F0:2DE1:276C:E8BE:5A3A (talk) 04:35, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Request for intervention concerning User:Aearthrise
Original request for assistance containing examples of insults/communication style and individual difflinks
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In little under two years time, a single user (Aearthrise) has basically claimed sole editorship of the Pennsylvania Dutch-article. If statistics are to be believed, Aearthrise has since become the author of over 50% of the articles content and is responsible for 83% of all edits to the article within a two year timeframe. [22] Now there is of course nothing wrong with a single author being prominent or more involved in an article, but I'm afraid that in this particular case it has resulted in significant damage to Wikipedias reliability, neglect of its principles and a severe lack of respectful communication. In practice Aearthrise adds what he wants, deletes what he wants and does so in a manner which I can only describe as browbeating or just plain bullying. Any attempt to engage in a meaningful discussion concerning the articles content is impossible as all of these discussions follow a basic pattern: a question is asked by another user or Aearthrise himself; which is soon followed by a large amount of green quotes from various websites and Google Books. Any attempt to bring in professional literature with an alternative POV is ignored or waved away and the discussion quickly gets unnecessarily personal and unpleasant. Exploring or questioning the validity or reliability of the green quotes is equally not appreciated. Regardless of arguments made, sources provided or discussed: Aearthrise does what he wants. Currently there are 4 talk page discussions involving Aearthrise, which I've tried to describe and summarize below. I've added diff links and excerpts which (I hope) give a good idea of the problem at hand, but would advise anyone involved to read the talk page itself and check the recent article history to get the complete picture; especially concerning the first one as I feel it illustrates Aearthrises attitude and debating style as no other. In the first talk page discussion involving him, Aearthrise reverts an edit made by @47thPennVols: several times and then posts a comment on the talk page, asking for a source on how ″Dutchman″ can be considered a slur for some Pennsylvania Dutch. The entire discussion can be read here. At one point 47thPennVols, who remains friendly and professional throughout the entire conversation, curiously asks why Aearthrise (a user who claims to be a French Louisianian from New Orleans) has such an intense interest in Pennsylvania Dutch history. To which Aearthrise replies:
Reacting to this and the issue at hand, 47thPennVols posts a comment which can really only be described as heartfelt, well-meaning and constructive. In this comment she gives her condolences, tries to make a personal connection and goes on to explain why he wants to address the issue raised and explicitly says he wants to reach a workable middle road.[24] It receives a single sentence reply: What is your citation that "Pennsylvania Dutchman" is a derogatory term for the PA Dutch people? [25] — despite the fact that 47thPennVols already gave her citation. To his credit, 47thPennVols stays on topic and expresses her concern with the 5 quotes that Aearthrise previously provided. 47thPennVols explains that the publisher of some of these sources (Stackpole Books) has come under scrutiny on Wikipedia over the years and is not considered to meet Wikipedia quality standards. He also goes on to cite an academic review of one of the sources provided by Aearthrise, which said the source contained ″numerous errors″, ″interpretive and rhetorical overstatements″ and ″needs to be handled with care″.[26] Instead of reflecting on the sources used, Aearthrise doubles down, writing:
and;
47thPennVols then writes:
Aearthrise responds twice to this, in a manner which speaks for itself:
and;
Regrettably but understandably, 47thPennVols gave up his attempts to edit and improve the article. The second talk page discussion involving Aearthrise concerns a long bilingual quote that Aearthrise has added to the article. The quote is very wordy (in fact the quote has a higher word count than the section its in) but the main point of disagreement is that Aearthrise insists that the original Pennsylvania German quote (from a book published in 1903) should use the Fraktur font — which 𝔴𝔥𝔦𝔠𝔥 𝔩𝔬𝔬𝔨𝔰 𝔩𝔦𝔨𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰 and is something highly uncommon if not nonexistent on Wikipedia and in professional literature. When @Theodore Christopher: addressed this, a very unpleasant discussion again unfolds, which can be read here in full but contains remarks directed at Theodore Christopher such as:
Theodore Christophers edit were repeatedly reverted by Aearthrise and he (once again, regrettably but understandably) stopped engaging with the article. When I joined this discussion some time later and wrote I fully supported Theodore Christophers changes and argumentation, this too was ignored or waved away and edits reverted multiple times. The third talk page discussion involves a NPOV-dispute concerning the etymology of ″Dutch″ in ″Pennsylvania Dutch″. There seem to be two main trains of thought: one is that Dutch was used in an older broader meaning, the other that is an anglicization of the Pennsylvania Dutch word for themselves ″deitsch″. Both views have reputable academic publications behind them and are widespread among scholars. Per WP:NPOV, both views should be represented in the article, as they were in the past and are represented on other Wikipedias. Aearthrise opposes this, considering one view to be ″the truth″ [39] and the other nonsense and again and again [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] removed the second view from the article. The pattern described at the beginning again appears: large amounts of quotes are spammed on the talk page. Most are from travel blogs, personal websites or books that are well over a hundred years (1900, 1870) old, followed by insulting or suggestive remarks:
I came to the same conclusion as 47thPennVols before me in realizing that a discussion with Aearthrise wasn't going to go anywhere, so I made a Request for Comment-request to try and persuade others to voice their opinions on the matter. As I'm writing this, I don't think that RfC is going to be very successful as it immediately got spammed with large amount of green texts and personal remarks which have nothing to do with the purpose or subject of the RfC. At one point, he started adding large amounts of text to comments that had already been replied to [49] and despite explicit requests and warnings not to do this, he continued anyway [50]. In the fourth discussion involving Aearthrise an anonymous IP asked the perfectly normal question if there was a source for the claim that Elon Musk is of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry, to which Aearthrises replied:
He has my sympathies for losing his Pennsylvania Dutch grandfather, but this has clearly resulted in a case of WP:OWN with regards to this article. Aearthrises behavior has resulted in many unreliable and/or outdated material finding its way into the article, it's been tailored to his personal preference to the point of the fonts used and the talk page and article history clearly show that he is unwilling to accept additional or alternative points of views, even when valid and reliable sources are clearly provided. In addition to the harm being done to the reliability and neutrality of the article, his aggressive, insulting and bullying style of communicating is driving other committed users away from an article which is not very well known or has many involved editors to begin with and is preventing improvements or changes to the article being made. This needs to stop before it gets out of hand even more than it already has. Wikipedias principles on personal attacks, proper use of sources and NPOV need to come out on top and I would therefore kindly ask you to intervene in this matter. Vlaemink (talk) 21:37, 20 June 2024 (UTC) |
Original response indicating Vlaemink's attempt to avoid direct argumentation
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Vlaemink has continually made poor arguments not based on hard evidence; every single point i've made in our discussion includes evidence. Vlaemink added false information to the article, and also attempted to make an anecdotal argument equal to one that is filled with a plethora of hard evidence. Vlaemink has showed he doesn't want to argue and has deleted my arguments several times on the discussion page; he would rather play a game of ego rather than prove that his information is correct through well-reasoned arguments. All of my edits are based on citations and evidence that are reasonable and well-sourced. Vlaemink here has cherrypicked four arguments, one from 47thPennVols that was completely based on his personal opinion, and which he could not provide evidence for. He tried to talk around the issue instead of providing evidence. The second, from Theodore Christopher whose whole argument was based on treating a specific Fraktur variety of Pennsylvania Dutch language, that was made to be rendered in Fraktur for historic reasons, the same as German language, which I argued was incorrect and should be treated differently, due to the circumstances around this form of language, and that Pennsylvania Dutch language is completely separate to German language. He kept returning to the same point about how we treat standard German without addressing any of the points of contention I gave. The third is Vlaemink's own argument about adding content that, partially was misleading, and another part completely false; I talked to him about how parts of his added content were misleading, but he didn't want to address the argument. The fourth is an anonymous IP who said "The section talking about famous folks of PA Dutch decent says family of Elon Musk. Is this correct? Can this be substantiated with any evidence?", with a source of evidence right next to the word Elon Musk. I produced 4 more quotes in addition to that one, and wrote my response in a way to show the hubris of taking the time to write a whole section on the talk page, but not taking easy steps to view the evidence already provided, which is why I called it lazy. Vlaemink wants to say that I claimed ownership of the article, but that's not true at all. I improved the article's quality and content with cited material. He claims "signficant damage" to Wikipedia, but includes no evidence for this claim other than points of his bruised ego from himself having not made good arguments for his addition of content. He wants to make you believe that this whole article is questionable now on nothing more than his word. |
Hello admins, I ask you to intervene in a matter concerning Aearthrise and the article Pennsylvania Dutch, which I believe is harming Wikipedia. I made a previous request which was too long and detailed; it can be found in the above collapsable for specific insults and more difflinks and here is article's talk page.
In under two years, Aearthrise has dominated the Pennsylvania Dutch article, contributing over 50% of its content and making 83% of all edits.[52][53] While single authorship isn't inherently problematic, in this case, it has led to significant damage to Wikipedia's reliability, neglect of its principles, and a lack of respectful communication. Aearthrise adds and deletes content as he pleases, often in a bullying manner. Meaningful discussions about the article’s content are impossible. Attempts to introduce alternative perspectives are ignored, and discussions quickly become personal and unpleasant. Regardless of the arguments or sources provided, Aearthrise does what he wants. Four talk page discussions illustrate these issues.
In the first discussion, Aearthrise reverted edits by @47thPennVols:: and demanded a source on how "Dutchman" can be considered a slur. 47thPennVols provided a citation and raised concerns about Aearthrise’s sources, which were aggressively and unilaterally dismissed. 47thPennVols eventually gave up on editing the article.[54][55][56] [57][58][59][60][61] The second discussion involves a long bilingual quote added by Aearthrise in Fraktur font, highly uncommon on Wikipedia. When @Theodore Christopher:: addressed this, a very unpleasant discussion ensued. Aearthrise made derogatory remarks and repeatedly reverted Christopher’s edits. My support for Christopher’s changes was also ignored.[62][63][64][65][66][67][68] The third discussion is a NPOV-dispute about the etymology of "Dutch" in "Pennsylvania Dutch." Both views should be represented, but Aearthrise opposes one view and repeatedly removes it, despite valid sources. He spams the talk page with quotes from unreliable sources and insults, questioning others’ motives. An AfC was similarly spammed, deterring other participants.[69][70][71] [72][73][74] In the fourth discussion, an anonymous IP asked for a source on Elon Musk’s Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. Aearthrise responded insultingly and added text from questionable websites.[75]
Aearthrise’s behavior has led to unreliable and outdated materials in the article. His aggressive, insulting, and bullying style drives committed users away, preventing improvements. This must stop before it worsens. Wikipedia's principles on personal attacks, proper use of sources, and NPOV must prevail. I kindly ask you to intervene in this matter and hope my description of the problem is now brief enough to be workable. Vlaemink (talk) 06:57, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm condensing this section because Vlaemink has edited his original post to make it smaller, and is making different claims now.
- He claims that 1.my challenging 47thPennVols insulted him, so it scared him away; this is untrue, as I asked for evidence for the opinion he was presenting, but he did not produce anything beyond a weak quote unrelated to the topic.
- 2. Vlaemink claims I made derogatory remarks and reverted Theodore Christopher comments; none of those links he added shows "derogatory remarks", it's just long-winded debate, and for the reversion, it's because Theodore Christopher completely removed content, which I challenged the removal, and we subsequently discussed it.
- 3.Vlaemink's problem is not the addition of content (beyond the false content he added), but rather the misleading nature of equating a consensus based on an abundance of hard evidence with an anecdotal folk etymology debunked by experts on the topic.
- 4. Vlaemink says I insulted the anonymous IP by calling him lazy for asking for evidence, when evidence was already present on the article, attached directly to the information he read; the anonymous IP didn't at all make the post about reliability. Now, on this thread, Valemink is now claiming these are questionable websites. Forbes is a questionable website? I don't think so, and if it is this isn't the place to discuss that, it should be done the article's talk page. Aearthrise (talk) 22:02, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Vlaemink and @Aearthrise these are both quite extensive walls of text. It is far more than I and many other editors or indeed administrators (all of whom, remember, are volunteers contributing in their spare time) will have time to read. I'm sure you both carefully crafted your comments and were aiming for completeness but I'd urge you both to condense your concerns down to the most salient points. Adam Black talk • contribs 22:10, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I can condense this whole argument: Vlaemink is mad that because he can't argue with hard evidence, he would rather make an ego-filled post here to administrators about how my words could hurt people's feelings, instead of actually providing well-sourced proof for his arguments. Vlaemink wants an administrator to step in and save him, rather than address the points of discussion. Aearthrise (talk) 22:17, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- This type of combative WP:BATTLEGROUND response doesn't exactly defend yourself well from the complaints above. The Kip (contribs) 23:19, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- That's your opinion, but it doesn't change the fact that this whole post is about how Vlaemink says my words may hurt other people's feelings, and that he made it here because he wasn't willing to wait for comment on the article's talk page (he already put in a request for comment); his arguments weren't convincing through discussion and evidence, which is why he is taking the route of notifying administrators- his actions show that he's not confident that he can win with his own arguments. Aearthrise (talk) 09:28, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is not about ″winning arguments″, it's about finding sources and finding consensus. The fact that I asked for a third opinion, RfC and now have taken to the Administrators Noticeboard is anything but a sign that I do not believe in the validly of my sources and the need for their inclusion.Vlaemink (talk) 13:25, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is about showing what is verifiable and true, and that is "winning arguments"; Wikipedia is all based on evidence. There is no evidence that Dutch is just a corruption beyond that people have said it. The consensus on the origin of Dutch has an abudance of evidence to show why it's correct, and that's the view scholarship accepts. Aearthrise (talk) 15:16, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Any Wikipedian familiar with Wikipedia's principles can tell (and show you) why that is completely false: Wikipedia does not show what is ″true″, it repeats and summarizes what has been written about a particular issue by reliable and valid authors. And if there are multiple views, then multiple views are to be mentioned to provide the reader with the full scope of an article. This an encyclopedia, not a bundle of personal essays. Vlaemink (talk) 18:44, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is about showing what is verifiable and true, and that is "winning arguments"; Wikipedia is all based on evidence. There is no evidence that Dutch is just a corruption beyond that people have said it. The consensus on the origin of Dutch has an abudance of evidence to show why it's correct, and that's the view scholarship accepts. Aearthrise (talk) 15:16, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is not about ″winning arguments″, it's about finding sources and finding consensus. The fact that I asked for a third opinion, RfC and now have taken to the Administrators Noticeboard is anything but a sign that I do not believe in the validly of my sources and the need for their inclusion.Vlaemink (talk) 13:25, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- That's your opinion, but it doesn't change the fact that this whole post is about how Vlaemink says my words may hurt other people's feelings, and that he made it here because he wasn't willing to wait for comment on the article's talk page (he already put in a request for comment); his arguments weren't convincing through discussion and evidence, which is why he is taking the route of notifying administrators- his actions show that he's not confident that he can win with his own arguments. Aearthrise (talk) 09:28, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- This type of combative WP:BATTLEGROUND response doesn't exactly defend yourself well from the complaints above. The Kip (contribs) 23:19, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I can condense this whole argument: Vlaemink is mad that because he can't argue with hard evidence, he would rather make an ego-filled post here to administrators about how my words could hurt people's feelings, instead of actually providing well-sourced proof for his arguments. Vlaemink wants an administrator to step in and save him, rather than address the points of discussion. Aearthrise (talk) 22:17, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Vlaemink and @Aearthrise these are both quite extensive walls of text. It is far more than I and many other editors or indeed administrators (all of whom, remember, are volunteers contributing in their spare time) will have time to read. I'm sure you both carefully crafted your comments and were aiming for completeness but I'd urge you both to condense your concerns down to the most salient points. Adam Black talk • contribs 22:10, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- That is 2000 words. You'll need to cut that down by like 75 percent at least. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:07, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- While this is far too long, I'll just say that from inspection, Vlaemink raises some good points, and Aearthrise needs to adjust their behavior even if they're right (which I don't think is a given). In #4, an IP address asked a harmless question, and Aearthrise was pointlessly rude and insulting, and even made their case seem worse by linking some truly awful sources like random websites with "A brief biography of Elon Musk for young kids" (looks obviously AI generated! Terrible formatting, alien wording! [76]). See WP:BITE, there's no need to be hostile to a standard question, just politely link your source and move on, or ignore it. (And frankly, given Musk's reality distortion field, it wouldn't shock me if it was at least possible that someone just made it up in the past, so there is an interesting question here.) For #2, We absolutely don't do fancy Fraktur fonts because it was contemporary, and I don't think the Miller quote is worth including at all, let alone 4 full paragraphs of it that is extremely partial (I'm sorry, but Eastern Pennsylvania was not the "model of the world" for agriculture, the good professor was deluded, why are we quoting this guy). Aearthrise claims that German nationalism only existed in the "late 19th century" (diff), which is 1000% false to anyone who knows anything about the German question. For #1, I'd argue that one Aearthrise has a point on the merits, but he was still needlessly hostile on the talk page, seeming to invoke ownership rather than finding some compromise, like a footnote discussing the issue from both sides. Similarly, for #3, even if we grant for a moment that Aearthrise is correct (we'd need someone uninvolved to examine the literature), then there's probably an interesting missing section about the "folk etymology", its supporters, and reliable sources on why it's wrong. Instead of just deleting it outright. SnowFire (talk) 23:35, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Well, I read all of the comments here and Aearthrise, if you can honestly read all of this evidence and blame it all on a "hurt ego", it shows to me that you are taking this too personally and refusing to address the merits of the complaint. Of course no one likes to be criticized but there is some unreasonable and uncivil behavior on your part that you can't wave off with a "hurt ego" comment. Liz Read! Talk! 03:39, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I addressed the merits of the complaint, but my point of contention was that Vlaemink was misleading people by equating anecdotal evidence with the consensus explanation of "Dutch" by linguists and experts, proven by an abundance of hard evidence. Vlaemink refused to revise the content he wrote, and included false content at the same time. Aearthrise (talk) 09:19, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Well, I read all of the comments here and Aearthrise, if you can honestly read all of this evidence and blame it all on a "hurt ego", it shows to me that you are taking this too personally and refusing to address the merits of the complaint. Of course no one likes to be criticized but there is some unreasonable and uncivil behavior on your part that you can't wave off with a "hurt ego" comment. Liz Read! Talk! 03:39, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- You can repeat this time and again, that etymology A consists of ″anecdotal evidence″ and etymology B does not — but it doesn't make it so. It's a debate tactic, it's not based on the sources provided. The talk page contains numerous publications by reputable authors which subscribe to etymology A, and this alone shows that a ″consensus explanation proven by an abundance of hard evidence″ does not exist. One of the authors supporting etymology B even explicitly mentions the fact that etymology A is mainstream among nonscholars and scholars alike. A Wikipedia editor is supposed to report on relevant view from reliable publications, we are not here to create our own preferred version of reality. This is the core issue here. Vlaemink (talk) 13:21, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- You show you don't want to cooperate on this article, because you ignore the points of contention and want to make the claim based on anecdote equal to the one based on heavy evidence, and is the consensus view on the origin of Dutch.
- You don't want to acknowledge how equating these arguments is misleading, and that's the whole problem, not whether we include the information at all. Aearthrise (talk) 15:11, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- You can repeat this time and again, that etymology A consists of ″anecdotal evidence″ and etymology B does not — but it doesn't make it so. It's a debate tactic, it's not based on the sources provided. The talk page contains numerous publications by reputable authors which subscribe to etymology A, and this alone shows that a ″consensus explanation proven by an abundance of hard evidence″ does not exist. One of the authors supporting etymology B even explicitly mentions the fact that etymology A is mainstream among nonscholars and scholars alike. A Wikipedia editor is supposed to report on relevant view from reliable publications, we are not here to create our own preferred version of reality. This is the core issue here. Vlaemink (talk) 13:21, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @SnowFire: I didn't claim German nationalism only existed in the "late 19th century" as you're claiming from that revert link, but if it is a point of contention, it can be easily discussed and proven or disproven with proper evidence. I didn't revert Vlaemink's revision because of when German nationalism started, it was because he deleted a lot of content, and for his inclusion of false information, that High Dutch was a calque of "Hochdeutsch", false and not substantiated by the sources added, and misleading content which was saying there was confusion by linguists about an anecdotal folk etymology while there is consensus of the historic of use of "Dutch" backed by an abundance of hard evidence. There is no problem with adding a footnote, but Vlaemink did not want to change his position on the way of writing the content, because he wanted to present them as equal arguments.
- You talk about the quotes for Elon Musk, which as I said were all easily found on a quick Google, and you only mention one, being the last quote. The others are Forbes.com, Industrytap.com, etc.
- As for the Fraktur, which you're trying to dismiss in the same way as Theodore (who called it ridiculous), and Vlaemink who called it (ludicrous), i've spoken at length on the discussion page why it should presented in that form, as it is a classical literary variety of Pennsylvania Dutch written specifically in Fraktur as a way to fight against the complete loss of German education in Pennsylvania. The Fraktur wasn't only a circumstance of being written at that time as you want to claim, it was consciously written like that to be an opposition to fight against the "Englisha rule" Pennsylvania Dutch, which was simply the spoken language of the time written in an English way, and part of the reason it was ridiculed.
- For the quote by Daniel Miller itself, it painted very well the feeling of the prejudice faced against the Pennsylvania Dutch community, and that was the point of the paragraph. Your nitpick is on how Dr.Miller showed that emotion towards the prejudice, and are making an argument about his words aimed at uplifting a marginalized people.
- As for invoking ownership, there is no proof for that claim, unless you're basing it on the passion i've shown to make this a quality article. I always want people to challenge content on Wikipedia, but the content should well-sourced, and if there is confusion about content, it can be discussed until a resolution is made, based on the best argument and best evidence. Aearthrise (talk) 09:17, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Leaving aside a literal declaration of ownership, there is plenty of clear evidence that you are behaving as if you own this article:
- Over half of the current article content was added by you in less than two years and your edits make up 83% of the total during that period. [77] — and these edits did not come about in a collaborative and constructive way: you are unnecessarily aggressive and insulting.
- Prior to 2022 you did not edit this article. You described yourself as a Louisiana Cajun living in New Orleans, and a professional translator proficient in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Greek, Italian and Romanian.[78].
- After 2022, you stated that your grandfather was Pennsylvania Dutch and claimed to speak Pennsylvania German.[79] You started to edit the article intensely and at one point even claimed that you yourself were in fact Pennsylvania Dutch, as evidence by a remark in which you accused a fellow editor of ″not even speaking the language nor knowing our cultural traits″ [80] and explicitly stated that you edit the article because it ″helps you to connect with my German heritage″ [81].
- And therein lies the problem, because that's only half the story. It's clear to me (and I hope also to others) that it's not just your desire to connect or explore your heritage but also a clear desire to shape your claimed heritage to your own personal liking. If you were truly interested and invested in this article, you would welcome every possible view, nuance and sourced addition to the article. Instead, you seem to exclusively want to see your own personal views and preferences in the article page and get abusive as soon as anyone dares to challenge or even as much as doubt it. That's a clear example of WP:OWN-behavior and I really do not see how you can objectively deny this given all the evidence and examples provided. Vlaemink (talk) 10:02, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Vlaemink, as someone who agrees with you, Aearthrise's cultural background is irrelevant, and I'd recommend dropping the topic. Judge by actions here, not possible motives. The sole thing that matters is refusing to work with others to improve the article and instead insisting on "their" view. SnowFire (talk) 10:10, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @SnowFire: You are right, I should have stuck to the refusal to cooperate and ignoring of alternative POVs.Vlaemink (talk) 13:28, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- The refusal to cooperate is on your side. You don't want to listen to opposition and work towards a solution; it's not about ignoring alternative points of view, it's about making points of view that are weak equal to ones that are very strong, based on hard evidence. Aearthrise (talk) 15:27, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @SnowFire: You are right, I should have stuck to the refusal to cooperate and ignoring of alternative POVs.Vlaemink (talk) 13:28, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- The problem being identified in the discussion of personal background is the rather blatant inconsistency of the claims, suggesting strongly a history of dishonesty. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 11:19, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- You want to purport that sharing self-identity on the talk page this platform is supposed be an "inconsistency of the claims", and say the writing self-identity on the talk pages "strongly suggests a history of dishonesty". This is an incorrect statement, and users should be able identify however they want on their talk pages, without being harassed about it. Aearthrise (talk) 14:59, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Vlaemink, you are doing everything to try to save face. You claim WP:OWN, but your only evidence is that I added more than over 50% of the current content on the article, that my talk page identifies me in a certain way, and finally a cherry picked quote from the discussion about treatment of Pennsylania Dutch language in the Fraktur discussion with Theodore Christopher, which his whole argument was based around how we treat standard German.
- You're using personal information now to try to prove that I claim ownership on the article, but all you're doing is making a discussion of who I am as person. Aearthrise (talk) 10:11, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Vlaemink, as someone who agrees with you, Aearthrise's cultural background is irrelevant, and I'd recommend dropping the topic. Judge by actions here, not possible motives. The sole thing that matters is refusing to work with others to improve the article and instead insisting on "their" view. SnowFire (talk) 10:10, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Leaving aside a literal declaration of ownership, there is plenty of clear evidence that you are behaving as if you own this article:
- (de-indent, reply to Aearthrise above, but it seems Vlaemink decided to reply there instead): I'm going to try to keep this brief. A), Yes you did make such a claim on German nationalism, it's right in the linked diff above (and the incorrect statement wasn't in the version of the article in 2022 before your revisions), but if you're saying it was a good edit of Vlaemink's accidentally swept up in the undo, fine, glad we agree. B) Okay, so your sources are right and Vlaemink's are wrong on etymologies. Put a pin in this. C) You clearly aren't understanding The Problems in what I wrote on the IP's Musk question. C1) How would you react if someone on a talk page asks what is in your view a simple and easily answered question in the future? The same way or different? Why? C2) I agree that the Forbes article is the real source. I was saying you only should have linked that before. Instead you linked obvious chatbot splurge as "proof" as well. This suggests you thought it was real proof. This does not speak well for your discerning judgment in figuring out which sources are reliable and which aren't - do you understand that? Everybody makes mistakes, it's no big deal, I've personally trusted some awful sources in retrospect. But an editor who makes mistakes, refuses to acknowledge them after they're pointed out, and then basically invokes their own judgment on which other sources are reliable (say in case B on etymologies) as unquestionable is treading on thin ice. (SnowFire, interjection by Vlaemink)
- @SnowFire: I hope you don't mind me placing this small comment in between your comment, but the sources I've provided on etymology A are valid, reliable, and cited in full on the talk page. Also, Aearthrise is trying his utmost to frame this as ″my theory″, but I've provided sources on both etymologies and have no personal preference; my POV is that both should be mentioned as they both appear in the scholarly field.Vlaemink (talk) 13:15, 21 June 2024 (UTC) (SnowFire again:)
- That was meant only as a summary of Aearthrise's argument that I'd loop back to (hence the "put a pin in it"). I'm not saying he's actually right about everything and you're wrong about everything. SnowFire (talk) 13:21, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for clarifying that, I misunderstood. English is not my native language and I think I got my idioms mixed up.Vlaemink (talk) 13:33, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- You claim i'm trying to frame this as your theory, but show no proof of it. The point of contention, and we've repeated this several times, is the consensus around the origin of the word "Dutch" in English. The other theory has been debunked by experts of the topic, and the debunking is based on a plethora of hard evidence.
- You haven't tried to revise your work as of yet, and you still want to present them as equal arguments. Wikipedia is based on what you can prove, and you can prove that some people mention it as the etymology of Dutch in English, but it has no evidence behind it beyond anecdote.
- Oxford for example lays the term out perfectly
"from Middle Dutch dutsch ‘Dutch, Netherlandish, German’: the English word originally denoted speakers of both High and Low German, but became more specific after the United Provinces adopted the Low German of Holland as the national language on independence in 1579."
. Oxford on the same page explicitly mentions the Pennsylvania Dutch as an example that falls under the historic use:The German language, in any of its forms. Obsolete except in High Dutch n. A.1a; Low Dutch — Pennsylvania Dutch, a degraded form of High German (originally from the Rhine Palatinate and Switzerland) spoken by the descendants of the original German settlers in Pennsylvania.
Aearthrise (talk) 15:08, 21 June 2024 (UTC)- At this point I think there can only be two options: either you never understood what is being discussed to begin with or you did but are now purposely creating a smoke screen: nobody is contesting that the word ″Dutch″ at one point had an older, broader meaning in English which, in today's terms, could also include Germans. I wouldn't be able to name a single professional etymological or historical linguistic publication that has ever disputed that. That's not what being discussed here: the issue is not whether ″Dutch″ had additional meanings in the past, but why the ″Pennsylvania Dutch″ are called ″Dutch″ — and that question has at least two possible answers. Yoder in his 1980 article assumes ″Dutch″ is a relic of an earlier meaning surviving in American English, another explanation found in reliable sources is that its an Anglicization of ″deitsch″ or ″deutsch″. That's two theories, both of which should be mentioned in the article. The fact that (etymological) dictionaries prove that ″Dutch″ had a more diverse meaning the past does not mean they validate or prove Yoders hypothesis, it merely means Yoder used a historical dictionary as part of his explanation. Your quote from an 1897 Oxford Etymological dictionary entry (which also defines Pennsylvania Dutch as ″degraded German″) is in the same ballpark: it supports Yoder, but this has no relevance on the fact that other scholars hold a different view and that this view should be included per WP:NPOV. Louder already explicitly mentioned the popularity of the alternative among scholars, proving its relevance and further casting doubt on your continually repeated claim that a ″total consensus″ exists on the matter. Vlaemink (talk) 18:26, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for clarifying that, I misunderstood. English is not my native language and I think I got my idioms mixed up.Vlaemink (talk) 13:33, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- That was meant only as a summary of Aearthrise's argument that I'd loop back to (hence the "put a pin in it"). I'm not saying he's actually right about everything and you're wrong about everything. SnowFire (talk) 13:21, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @SnowFire: I hope you don't mind me placing this small comment in between your comment, but the sources I've provided on etymology A are valid, reliable, and cited in full on the talk page. Also, Aearthrise is trying his utmost to frame this as ″my theory″, but I've provided sources on both etymologies and have no personal preference; my POV is that both should be mentioned as they both appear in the scholarly field.Vlaemink (talk) 13:15, 21 June 2024 (UTC) (SnowFire again:)
- On Fraktur, I'm sorry, but unless the passage is specifically on fonts or art, it isn't how things are done on Wikipedia, and the other editors were correct. We don't have Kulturkampf in Fraktur despite it being the contemporary font in 1870s Germany. Maybe we need an explicit passage in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting forbidding this but I think this just has never come up before. On the very long Miller quote, it's very, very common chest-thumping that thanks to its language only gets seen by its intended community. You could find near-identical statements in Norwegian in 1903 Minnesota, or in Yiddish in 1903 New York, or in Guarani in 1903 Paraguay, talking about how wonderful a local group is and how people look down on them but they're totally wrong and we're actually awesome. It's all standard cheerleading written a million times before, not just the wild claim on agriculture. But this is more a vanilla content dispute. Suffice to say you haven't made the case that this is really a worthy quote to include both the translation AND the original text.
- Your final comment on demanding "proof" ownership is occurring is very strange. What do you think the purpose of this AN thread is? SnowFire (talk) 10:10, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I agree that German nationalism was a just swept comment, and if it needs to be corrected, it should be. The focus of the reversion wasn't about when German nationalism took place.
- As for the quotes I added, I simply added four extra web pages (in total 5 with the Forbes quote already present on the article, and the next four web pages after it) to demonstrate that it was easy to make a Google Search to find the information.
- On the Fraktur point, the literary Fraktur Pennsylvania Dutch should be given consideration due to its history and unique circumstances, and should be treated in the same way other languages are uniquely written for their circumstances (I mentioned Yiddish and Coptic Greek for example). Nevertheless, the whole paragraph on prejudice against the Pennsylvania Dutch is unnecessary on the article and can be removed; the removal of content so far has been about how the language information was presented.
- As for the final point, I asked for proof of ownership, because the only points Vlaemink provided are my passion for the quality of the article, how much of the article i've contributed, and who I am as a person. Aearthrise (talk) 10:22, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- For your Musk quotes: AN is a little tense for a "learning experience", but you still don't seem to be engaging with the problem here. It doesn't have to be a big deal, exactly, but you seem to think that more quotes is better and the other person was very lazy (your words, not mine) for asking the question. Did you read what I wrote above that "you made your case seem worse by linking some truly awful sources like random websites"? If someone asks what the capital of Illinois is and you link a terrible AI-generated source, it makes it look like you don't know what you're talking about, even if the source is accurate. If you couldn't be bothered to critically examine the websites at all and were literally just pasting Google links, maybe don't do that? To back up a little here, your enthusiasm in researching the Pennsylvania Dutch article is a good thing. But learning what sources are reliable and what aren't is a key Wikipedia skill - one that frankly most of the world is bad at (most people believe memes shared on Facebook uncritically). Please click on your own links. Discarding sites like that are the basics of learning how to source. If you agree that those non-Forbes sites weren't useful, then great, we can move on to tougher questions like when to trust old sources from 1878 or whatever. But if you still don't see the problem, then nobody is going to believe on your judgment anywhere else.
- On that note, you didn't answer my C1 question above. If someone asks an in-your-view "easy" question in the future, how would you respond?
- It's moot, but for future reference, you will want to distinguish fonts and language scripts. Yiddish and Coptic are written in non-Latin scripts. Pennsylvania Dutch, like German and English, is written in the Latin script, of which Fraktur is one font. Varying up the script to match a language is fine; varying up fonts within a script is very unusual and not done just because it would have been contemporary without a very good reason.
- On ownership: I think Vlaemink has made his case. I think you have two ways you can defend yourself: A) Actually, everyone else IS really wrong, and you were just performing good stewardship by stopping these wrong editors. But given some of errors so far in your preferred versions, you're not making this approach the easy one. B) You commit to accepting feedback and not reverting and working with others. If you commit to B, and then actually follow through, that'll actually be the happy case - but you have to understand that you will sometimes "lose" and other editors will put in the "wrong" stuff and you'll need to develop a consensus on the talk page otherwise, politely, and without bludgeoning. Are one of these doable? SnowFire (talk) 11:37, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
A general observation regarding Off-WP calls to "investigate" editors
I would like to draw to our attention recent off-Wiki activity undertaken by an organization that was at the center of a contentious RSN RfC that is now closing.
The organization which is the subject of the aforementioned RfC is asking their supporters to mass email a template letter to the WMF with demands to "launch an investigation" into "attacks by some editors" against it.
Obviously, there's nothing to "investigate". Nonetheless, the very existence of a request with this illiberal and threatening tone may have a chilling effect on the frank and honest nature of our discussions and the Community Culture Statement requires we "support people who have been targeted" by "hostile and toxic behavior".
The reason I bring this up is for aid of context to demonstrate the "need" requirement of WP:IPEC, if editors who participated in the RfC in question -- particularly those quoted in recent news reports -- were to request WP:EXEMPT. Chetsford (talk) 00:09, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for that info. We can probably also expect an influx of "questions" about this, such as this one at the Teahouse: [82] RudolfRed (talk) 00:39, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I believe your quotations misrepresent the situation slightly. The template says the sender is writing to "express [their] deep concern and utter dismay regarding the attacks by some Wikipedia editors on ADL’s reliability on the topic of antisemitism" and much later asks the Wikimedia Foundation to "immediately launch an investigation into this effort and the motivations behind it". The way you have worded your report suggests they are asking for an investigation into individual editors and I can't say I support this assessment. I agree that this is of note to contributors to the English language Wikipedia project and we should be aware of it, but I have concerns about the way you have represented the template's contents. Adam Black talk • contribs 01:43, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- It depends on how one interprets demands for the WMF to "take action" in regards to the "some editors" the ADL is accusing. SilverserenC 01:45, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think there's
a whole lot ofany ambiguity as to the meaning of this letter. The phrase "immediately launch an investigation into this effort and the motivations behind it" is clearly directed at individual editors since the motivation for any edits on WP is individual in nature. But I appreciate your perspective. Chetsford (talk) 01:57, 21 June 2024 (UTC); edited 01:58, 21 June 2024 (UTC)- I appreciate your perspective too, however I still believe they way you quoted the form letter is somewhat problematic. If we were to cherrypick and reorder quotes in such a way in an article it would quite rightly be challenged. Particularly when the majority of editors are unlikely to either be willing to provide an American address and mobile number or fabricate them (as I did, there's no option for non-US readers) in order to actually read the contents of the form letter (that really irritated and annoyed me, being compelled to give out personal information before I knew exactly what I might be signing my name to - obviously I didn't hit send though, I do not endorse the contents). On
the motivation for any edits on WP is individual in nature
, yes I agree with that but this is about an RfC which is an attempt to gain consensus and I'd argue that's a form of groupthink making the exact motivations slightly less clear cut. To be clear, I do not agree with the form letter or the attempt to interfere with internal Wikipedia editorial process. Adam Black talk • contribs 02:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I appreciate your perspective too, however I still believe they way you quoted the form letter is somewhat problematic. If we were to cherrypick and reorder quotes in such a way in an article it would quite rightly be challenged. Particularly when the majority of editors are unlikely to either be willing to provide an American address and mobile number or fabricate them (as I did, there's no option for non-US readers) in order to actually read the contents of the form letter (that really irritated and annoyed me, being compelled to give out personal information before I knew exactly what I might be signing my name to - obviously I didn't hit send though, I do not endorse the contents). On
- Is this a parody? There are probably more counterproductive responses, but this is not an action that is going to enhance any impression of being a reliable source. CMD (talk) 02:32, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Intimidating editors who see through their lies isn't something I want in a source labeled as anything but deprecated. They should be blacklisted for this. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 02:50, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- For those who don't want to click through their form, this is the default message that they recommend everyone send to the members of the WMF Board of Trustees:
Full text
|
---|
I write to you as an ADL supporter to express my deep concern and utter dismay regarding the attacks by some Wikipedia editors on ADL’s reliability on the topic of antisemitism and other issues of central concern to the Jewish community. Fundamentally, if these editors are successful, Wikipedia will be stripping the Jewish community of the right to define the hatred that targets our community. It is impossible to imagine any other community having its own definition of hatred questioned or challenged in this manner. ADL is a leading global authority on antisemitism, and the Jewish community has, for decades, relied on ADL’s data and resources to help us and society at large understand the nature, scope, and magnitude of antisemitism in the U.S. and around the globe. ADL is consistently attacked from both the far left and far right, demonstrating its commitment to calling balls and strikes in a nonpartisan way, based on data and evidence. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (“IHRA”) Working Definition of Antisemitism is the preeminent and most widely accepted definition of antisemitism today, embraced in the 2023 U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism and adopted or endorsed by more than half of the U.S. states as well as the District of Columbia. It is also used by over 1,000 other governments, universities, NGOs, and other key institutions, demonstrating a clear international consensus. An attack on any Jewish communal organization's reliability over its use of the IHRA definition and advocacy on behalf of the Jewish people is an attack on the entire Jewish community. Antisemitism is one of the oldest and most pernicious forms of hate, and it is also in many ways one of the most often misunderstood. ADL has studied, monitored, and worked to counter antisemitism for decades. ADL – indeed the entire Jewish community – should be given the deference and respect to define anti-Jewish oppression – the same respect other communities are afforded. I am deeply concerned that if these editors are successful, it will enable others to undermine the Jewish community’s claims or charges of antisemitism and simultaneously use Wikipedia as cover to perpetuate antisemitism. At a time when antisemitic attitudes are increasing and antisemitic incidents are skyrocketing, this is simply unacceptable, and it puts our entire community at risk. I urge you to immediately launch an investigation into this effort and the motivations behind it, and to start the process for administrative reconsideration. I hope that you will simultaneously speak out clearly and unequivocally in support of the Jewish community’s right to define and defend against antisemitism - and that of all marginalized communities as they both define and grapple with the hate they face. |
- The trustees might want to set up an email filter for a while to move these out of their inboxes. The real question is if the WMF will do anything to support the community if individual editors receive any harassment. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:54, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- That RfC was a dumpster fire that mostly consisted in both sides planting their flags, offering bare assertions, and picking out a few links to justify their impressions. External scrutiny into our processes for deciding on reliable sources is overdue. We should welcome it rather than close ranks. Yes, the ADL complaint should be taken with a heavy dose of "well they would, wouldn't they?" – but let's not pretend Wikipedia is squeaky-clean here. – Teratix ₵ 03:05, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- So we should welcome harassment of Wikipedia editors because they agreed that a source was unreliable? What's wrong with you? SilverserenC 03:11, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Bothsidesism? When the ADL called for harrassment? For real? LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 03:13, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is a loaded question which no doubt I will regret responding to, but just because I have said the RfC was a poor-quality discussion does not mean I automatically agree with anything or everything the ADL or any other critic says or does in response to it. Don't find me guilty by association. – Teratix ₵ 04:01, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Well he would, wouldn't he?, one of our featured articles I felt could have been linked in your reply. I think it equally applies to both sides. Well the ADL would complain about the RfC, wouldn't they. Well, Wikipedia contributors would object to the interference, wouldn't they. Neither side are entirely right, neither are entirely wrong, but both responses are to be expected. Adam Black talk • contribs 03:14, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe I gave the ADL higher credit than both of you, but no I would not have assumed the ADL would launch a mass email campaign targeted at WMF to complain about Wikipedia editors. CMD (talk) 03:19, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't entirely agree with the campaign, I am certain there are better ways they could have gone about this, but surely it's understandable that a publication would seek to defend themselves against being declared an unreliable source. As much as I loathe the Daily Fail, their article in response to their deprecation is entirely understandable even if quite problematic (riddled with factual errors, merely highlighting to anyone who's taken even a cursory glance at that particular RfC why the Daily Fail is unreliable). Adam Black talk • contribs 03:30, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- If they had just written an article we would not be having this conversation. It is very poor that that is being declared equivalent to setting up a targeted email campaign against volunteer editors. (And an advocacy campaign to protest an RfC which partially hinged on the ADL being more advocacy group than academic source, just a terrible response all round.) CMD (talk) 04:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't entirely agree with the campaign, I am certain there are better ways they could have gone about this, but surely it's understandable that a publication would seek to defend themselves against being declared an unreliable source. As much as I loathe the Daily Fail, their article in response to their deprecation is entirely understandable even if quite problematic (riddled with factual errors, merely highlighting to anyone who's taken even a cursory glance at that particular RfC why the Daily Fail is unreliable). Adam Black talk • contribs 03:30, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Well, Wikipedia contributors would object to the interference, wouldn't they.
I'd like to think we're capable of not just acting on reflex like this – "oh, these outsiders are complaining about us treating them unfairly, I had better stand by my in-group" – and notice when our processes are flawed. – Teratix ₵ 03:30, 21 June 2024 (UTC)- I'd like to think the same, but unfortunately that's just not the reality. There are hundreds of thousands of different people contributing to Wikipedia from across the globe and from all walks of life, and we're all going to have a different perspective on everything on this project. Adam Black talk • contribs 03:39, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe I gave the ADL higher credit than both of you, but no I would not have assumed the ADL would launch a mass email campaign targeted at WMF to complain about Wikipedia editors. CMD (talk) 03:19, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I agree regarding the flag-planting (and that's a good term for that behavior, I've never been able to find one). I strongly believe that it would be a major improvement if we looked through the major Palestine–Israel discussions, found which editors always !vote in a way convenient to their side, and just tbanned the lot of them. If they can't put their emotional attachment to the subject aside, they're harmful to the project. But I disagree that we should consider this or anything like it to be "external scrutiny". It's a reactionary partisan response, planting their own flag no differently than the Palestine–Israel CPUSH trolls. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:15, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Sure, we're not dealing with an unbiased critique here. That's a big reason why it's so tempting to dismiss. But biased critiques can still end up highlighting genuine problems. The fact ADL is obviously biased on this matter does not "bleed into reality" and make any issues with Wikipedia less serious than they would otherwise be. – Teratix ₵ 03:50, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- (ec)Well, more threats, that doesn't help this discussion at all. Let's step back from proposing mass topic bans and consider this situation calmly and not be reactionary ourselves. I appreciate knowing about this campaign but it's up to the WMF how they want to deal with it and this discussion shouldn't be an opportunity to vent about the organization which doesn't resolve anything about this issue. Liz Read! Talk! 03:54, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I agree completely with Liz.
My intent in opening this thread was not to initiate a general discussion of ADL's call for revenge but merely to attention the community to it so that, where appropriate, specific protective measures could be extended to those editors who may be impacted. As I said, I believe anyone who participated in the RfC and !voted in a way that subjects them to the potential for off-Wiki harassment should be granted block exemption so that they may edit through a VPN, if they so desire. More abstract and philosophical discussion on this topic may be better continued in a different forum than AN. Chetsford (talk) 04:19, 21 June 2024 (UTC)- IP block exemptions would not provide editors with any sort of protection here. The ADL are requesting that the WMF investigates editor intentions, not that the WMF gives the ADL access to IP address data, either current or future. If the WMF investigates (and I am not saying that they would or should), those editors' IP addresses are already logged and available to inspect against all edits and retained for a certain period of time. Future editing via VPNs would not erase existing logs. So, I do not understand what would be gained by requesting IP block exemption. I say this as someone who has worked on MediaWiki installations and inspected the IP addresses used by problematic logged-in editors. Adam Black talk • contribs 04:38, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I couldn't disagree more. They're retained for 90 days. Extending IP block exemption now, while not erasing the past three months of data, would instill confidence in our editors that personally identifiable information might not -- in the future -- be disclosable through subpoena from frivolous litigation or a malign internal actor motivated by ADL's call for revenge. "I say this as someone who has worked on MediaWiki installations and inspected the IP addresses used by problematic logged-in editors." I say this as someone whose IP address data has previously been subject to a legal preservation request. Chetsford (talk) 04:43, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- IP block exemptions would not provide editors with any sort of protection here. The ADL are requesting that the WMF investigates editor intentions, not that the WMF gives the ADL access to IP address data, either current or future. If the WMF investigates (and I am not saying that they would or should), those editors' IP addresses are already logged and available to inspect against all edits and retained for a certain period of time. Future editing via VPNs would not erase existing logs. So, I do not understand what would be gained by requesting IP block exemption. I say this as someone who has worked on MediaWiki installations and inspected the IP addresses used by problematic logged-in editors. Adam Black talk • contribs 04:38, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I agree completely with Liz.
- I’d theoretically back this as well, problem is said prominent POV editors are skilled-enough Wikilawyers that’s they’d get any TBAN overturned swiftly. It’s a shame, and the area will continue to be a disaster as a result. The Kip (contribs) 16:49, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
<- Am I missing something? The ADL's statement looks pretty innocuous to me. The way individual people choose to respond to it is not under their control. The 'Full text' section is not ADL, it's just some random angry person, isn't it? Anyone who edits in the PIA topic area for long enough is very likely to be subjected to off-Wiki harassment at some point. Simply following Wikipedia's policies and guidelines is enough to make you a target. Comes with the territory, unfortunately. It's not ADL's fault that some of their supporters will be angry irrational people. Sean.hoyland (talk) 05:16, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
The 'Full text' section is not ADL, it's just some random angry person, isn't it?
- Did you really come in here and make up this claim without even bothering to go into the very website you linked? If you add in the Details information, it takes you to the next Messages tab, which includes the full text quoted above. It is directly from the ADL, but thank you for acknowledging that the text is akin to some random angry person. That is what the ADL is at this point. SilverserenC 05:24, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- The call for revenge contained in "Full Text" is, in fact, the official, corporate voice of the ADL. This is the template text they are directing their followers to barrage blast the Trustees with. The email system does, however, allow users to modify the template text to be something even more hostile and threatening if they so choose. Chetsford (talk) 05:37, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Silver seren:, yes, apparently, I did do that, or thereabouts. So, I guess it's lucky I included the "Am I missing something?" and "...isn't it?" questions or else I might look even more foolish. Thank you for the extra details. There is no way I would have discovered the myself because it involves filling out a form. Either way, it's unsurprising. Wikipedia editors will be 'investigated' and harassed with or without ADL's efforts. People will use it as another excuse to ignore the Wikimedia Universal Code of Conduct, ignore the EC restrictions, ignore Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, justify the use of deception via sockpuppetry, and all of the many ways a determined subset of Israel supporters have discovered to trap themselves in a cycle of self-defeating behavior. Sean.hoyland (talk) 06:25, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- The default full text and the form explanation were given by Thebiguglyalien above. I'm not sure whether the surprise is relevant, it is specifically the ADL's fault if others use the preprepared ADL statement ADL is asking others to use. CMD (talk) 06:50, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Well, having edited in the Arab-Israeli topic area for a long time, I'm very cynical. Whether what happens is ADL's fault or not doesn't really matter. It would happen anyway. There is a large reservoir of easily manipulated and exploited people out there primed to act. The Wikipedia community made a decision. There will be consequences for Wikipedia and individual editors because there are plenty of angry irrational people. That's just how it works for anything related to Israel-Palestine. There is apparently very little that can be done about it. If the ADL burn themselves down in the process, so be it. Maybe some good will come out of it, a better ADL. For me this is just more tears in rain. Sean.hoyland (talk) 07:38, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- The default full text and the form explanation were given by Thebiguglyalien above. I'm not sure whether the surprise is relevant, it is specifically the ADL's fault if others use the preprepared ADL statement ADL is asking others to use. CMD (talk) 06:50, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Silver seren:, yes, apparently, I did do that, or thereabouts. So, I guess it's lucky I included the "Am I missing something?" and "...isn't it?" questions or else I might look even more foolish. Thank you for the extra details. There is no way I would have discovered the myself because it involves filling out a form. Either way, it's unsurprising. Wikipedia editors will be 'investigated' and harassed with or without ADL's efforts. People will use it as another excuse to ignore the Wikimedia Universal Code of Conduct, ignore the EC restrictions, ignore Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, justify the use of deception via sockpuppetry, and all of the many ways a determined subset of Israel supporters have discovered to trap themselves in a cycle of self-defeating behavior. Sean.hoyland (talk) 06:25, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- So much for staying calm. Please stop anticipating worse case scenarios, if they happen ("IF"), then they can be dealt with. Bashing ADL just plays into this Them vs. Us, no win scenario. We have no idea and no control over whether people will send out these letters or how WMF would respond. This thread has basically been an announcement and it should be closed since there is nothing admins can do about this. Better to move this discussion to an off-Wikipedia site like that website that should not be named where editors can vent. But AN is not an appropriate place for fear and speculation, that's not what this board is for or what admins have the ability to deal with. Liz Read! Talk! 06:03, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- While I agree the thread should be closed and this prolonged discussion is not appropriate at AN (as I've previously stated, in fact [83]), I'm unclear if this -- "Bashing ADL" -- refers to some statement or action I've done and, if so, what that statement or action is. I can't, for the life of me, find any instance in which I've "bash[ed]" the ADL either here or elsewhere. Chetsford (talk) 06:10, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- "Antisemitism" according to the ADL:
- Criticism of Zionism =
antisemitism
- Criticism of Israel =
antisemitism
- Criticism of the ADL =
antisemitism
- Criticism of Zionism =
- At least they're consistent. I hope the WMF informs the ADL that among the dozens of editors who voted that the ADL is unreliable are Jewish editors, Israeli editors, editors whose parents and grandparents died in the Holocaust, editors who have been the victims of actual antisemitic attacks, editors who don't appreciate the ADL purporting to speak on behalf of all Jews, and editors who are profoundly disappointed that the ADL has lost its way. Levivich (talk) 12:15, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Unblock request: Willbb234 (2)
Willbb234 (talk · contribs) A few months back I invited editors to comment on an unblock request that Willbb234 posted on their talk page. My post did not attract the intended audience and the appeal was closed as unsuccessful due to lack of participation. Willbb234 has posted a new request, pasted below:
In December I made a nasty comment and I would like to apologise for said comment and for the distress it caused. I would also like to apologise to those that had to read the comment. I promise that this won't happen again. In my nearly five years of editing this is what I believe to be the first personal attack I have made, and so it is certainly not like me to make such a comment, and I have learned and changed from this block. I would also like to acknowledge the seriousness of my comment and the fact that I have read through the resources given on my talk page and have given thought to what they have said. Passing off sexual harassment as a joke is completely inappropriate.
There was a lack of consensus for unblocking in the community discussion on my talk page, which comes down to the fact that two of the users participating there had previously had disagreements with me. I think a community AN discussion would allow for wider participation hopefully from users who can view the situation with an unbiased perspective. Thank you, Willbb234 23:02, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Please discuss the new request here. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 12:22, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Support unblock This was a first block for WP:NPA and I choose to believe the remorse expressed in the unblock request is genuine. I read through the unblock discussion hosted on Willbb234's talk page. The edit warring concern was a tangent that was not a consideration when making the block and should be dealt with on its own merits if that behavior recurs. Schazjmd (talk) 14:09, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Support, per WP:ROPE. I am prepared to give the user some mild benefit of the doubt in the episode that got them blocked, since the editor they were abusive about was trying to put a really bad BLP violation into an article. However, they really need to edit productively from now on, and that means no edit-warring as well. Black Kite (talk) 14:14, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'd probably support, except... I feel like I recall this at the time it was happening, and if so it was probably at a noticeboard, but there's no link to that discussion here. A little help, so that everyone doesn't have to do their own detective work? --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:56, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm beginning to think there was no noticeboard discussion; all I can find is the block thread on their talk page, which they annoyingly removed at the time, and which does not include an AN/ANI notice. So I guess I knew about this because their page was already on my watchlist for some reason? I don't think I've ever posted there. Weird. Anyway, at this stage I think we have to either say "support" or "never". The request seems honest, and complete, and more clueful than the first requests that happened at the time. I can't imagine what more we would want. Also, the edit warring is kind of a red herring; that wasn't edit warring, as the BLP exemption applied. So I'd support an unblock, with a short leash. Floquenbeam (talk) 16:07, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1145#Willbb234 for reference. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:11, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you! Floquenbeam (talk) 16:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Support per Wikipedia:Standard offer. We'll be less forgiving if it happens again. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:42, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose Note: I have had a previous dispute with the user, but those who know my contributions know that I am fervently against restricting editors just because you don't like them, so I do not believe this is a conflict of interest. What it does do is gives me knowledge that their behaviour is routine, this isn't a one-off, and while I would probably support unblocking if it was just the indecent message, I am swayed to oppose because of why the indecent message was sent. Will can say they have never made a personal attack before, but IIRC this is far from true. The indecent comment was Will's response to a basic-level warning, and while more severe than any other of their replies, it's this pattern that concerns me. So I'll repeat my thoughts from their last appeal:
in a regular pattern of behaviour, they are unwilling or unable to actually discuss anything at all. (I.e. they made that comment in response to a warning, rather than discuss the edit.) It's vital to collaborative editing, and I'd like to see an acknowledgement that their tendency to edit war or insult their way out of disputes is inappropriate, and some kind of pledge that they will make an effort to reach out and discuss first in future if they even think about either.
Kingsif (talk) 17:23, 21 June 2024 (UTC) - Oppose Frankly, this is a problem. While the talk page isn't a wall of shame, it's not exactly favorable to make people look through the history to find the actual block, much less that comment. I would expect a bit more of a concrete plan on change before considering supporting the unblock of someone with such a checkered history. EggRoll97 (talk) 19:24, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- For any admins interested, this is the relevant diff I believe. It's been revdelled. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:29, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
WP:ANI
Conduct dispute against Geogene and SMcCandlish in Cat predation on wildlife
I have been unable to reach understanding with Geogene who persists in reverting my contribution to the Cat predation on wildlife article and has received full partisan support from SMcCandlish. I reject their unsubstantiated claim that my contribution has contravened Wikipedia guidelines and suggest that their actions are driven by a partisan point of view regarding the article content. The article is closely related to a scientific (and in part NGO-driven) controversy about the global impact of cat predation on wildlife and biodiversity, and effectively replaces an objective coverage of this debate on Wikipedia. Geogene and SMcCandlish, who profess complete agreement on the matter, deny that such a debate has any scientific merit and seek to foreclose any discussion of it, as they happen to side with one extreme of it. They have produced no direct evidence (to counter that cited by myself) that the debate has either not existed or been resolved. Their claims rely on a selective original interpretation of sources (i.e. they echo the claims of one side to have won and to be the only "scientific" one).
Geogene raised an original research objection against properly sourced content and made bad faith allegations that I am trying to push a fringe viewpoint and that I am effectively "watering down or discrediting the modern viewpoint on cat predation". That is something that ought to be demonstrated through adequate citation of evidence. Equally objectionable is their pattern of dismissing entire sources based on their date (without additional justification as per guidelines), arguments advanced, perceived influence etc. This appears to be a way in which Geogene and SMcCandlish have exercised their effective ownership of the article this far. Such a priori judgments about the reputation of a source constitute a personal viewpoint (POV) and if they were to be included in the article, they would constitute original research (OR).
Geogene and SMcCandlish not only represent an extreme stance in the debate, but also deny that any debate is legitimate. They have sought to outright disqualify my contribution and any sources I have cited based purely on their opinion and by attributing a nefarious agenda to it, and invoked either a local editorial consensus between the two of them or an unproven scientific consensus in support. An eyebrow-raising claim they uphold is that "modern science" only dates from the year 2000. There is a considerable scientific literature omitted from the article due to its one-sidedness. (There would also be no ground on which essays, opinion pieces or journalism can be flatly excluded - not least because such sources are already cited.) Judging from their behaviour so far, Geogene and SMcCandlish will dismiss information based on sources that contravene their viewpoint out of hand.
The discussion history can be found on the article's talk page and on the NORN noticeboard. The talk page section in which SMcCandlish seeks to discredit a source may also be relevant.
As far as I am concerned, the only way to assess various claims is through adding verifiable content, and the way forward is for everyone involved to focus on building the article, rather than edit warring and making unsourced claims. I have not been able to persuade Geogene or SMcCandlish about this, however.
Due to their persistent refusal to recognise any evidence that contradicts their viewpoint and to engage in editing the article instead of edit warring, I consider the actions of Geogene to be vandalism, committed in defence of their POV and their effective ownership of the article. I think it is more than stonewalling because the guidelines on OR and OLDSOURCES were twisted to fit a purpose, and because Geogene has resorted to action despite the failure to evidence their claims or offer persuasive arguments in discussion. I am concerned about the two editors' propensity for escalating unfounded accusations and treating them as proven from the start, and about their shared habit of seeking to discredit sources a priori.
I am asking for an investigation of the conduct of the two editors, since it is their attitude and not a dispute over content (i.e. they prefer to focus on reputation and general outlook over the detail of evidence) that stands in the way of resolution.
To be clear, I am far from arguing that my contribution was beyond criticism. It is the resistance with which it met that was unwarranted and gives ground to suspecting that any further attempts to edit the article will be met with the same hostility. I am requesting an intervention to restore the possibility of constructive engagement with the article. VampaVampa (talk) 20:22, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- While your message isn't entirely about a content dispute, a lot of it is and that's not the sort of thing this noticeboard is for. I did my best to read and comprehend that talk page discussion and I just keep coming back to the same question: why hasn't anyone tried an RFC yet? City of Silver 20:49, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- I understood that RFC is not suitable for disputes in which more than two editors are involved.
- I grant that it may look like a content dispute. However, what I encountered was a wholesale revert and an attempt to paint me as a conspiracy theorist, therefore I fail to see what specific question in the content of my contribution could be the subject of an RfC here. The question of the existence of the debate has emerged as the underlying point of contention, but please note that this was not covered by my contribution and its sources. The broad framing of the entire conflict is something that was imposed on me by the two disagreeing editors. To address that larger question comprehensively, a whole new edit would need to be proposed - and I would actually happily spend time preparing one, but I want some assurance I am not going to be met with unjustified edit warring again. VampaVampa (talk) 22:43, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- @VampaVampa, that's part of the instructions of things to try before opening an RfC (use WP:DRN if more than two editors). Schazjmd (talk) 22:46, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- I know. I did not think it was a content dispute but if there is a general agreement here that it should be treated as one, then I could try to open either an RfC or a DRN discussion. However, would there be sufficient space to cite the evidence in support of my position in the RfC or DRN summary? I cannot expect all contributing editors to do their own reading. As I tried to explain above, the matter is not covered by my contested contribution. The literature is substantial and not discussed on Wikipedia to my knowledge. I will appreciate your advice. VampaVampa (talk) 22:58, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- @VampaVampa, it is a content dispute. I've read through the discussion on the article's talk page. My personal advice is to drop it. If you choose to pursue DRN or an RfC, I strongly suggest that you learn to summarize your argument succinctly. Schazjmd (talk) 23:12, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- On what grounds please - (1) content dispute, (2) drop it, (3) summarise succinctly? VampaVampa (talk) 23:35, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- @VampaVampa, you asked for my advice; I gave it. I don't know what more you want. Schazjmd (talk) 23:36, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- With all respect, I have asked you for advice with how to tackle the fact that I am expected to defend myself from exaggerated charges that are not really covered by my edit, since RfC or DRN was suggested. I did not ask for advice on whether you think I should accept emotional blackmail and character assassination from other editors.
- Since we are a community on Wikipedia your advice has as much value as your insight into the matter. Therefore I asked to know why you think what you think. And if you think my case has no merit, then it is even more necessary for me to learn why that should be the case. VampaVampa (talk) 23:50, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- On what grounds please - (1) content dispute, (2) drop it, (3) summarise succinctly? VampaVampa (talk) 23:35, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- @VampaVampa, it is a content dispute. I've read through the discussion on the article's talk page. My personal advice is to drop it. If you choose to pursue DRN or an RfC, I strongly suggest that you learn to summarize your argument succinctly. Schazjmd (talk) 23:12, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- I know. I did not think it was a content dispute but if there is a general agreement here that it should be treated as one, then I could try to open either an RfC or a DRN discussion. However, would there be sufficient space to cite the evidence in support of my position in the RfC or DRN summary? I cannot expect all contributing editors to do their own reading. As I tried to explain above, the matter is not covered by my contested contribution. The literature is substantial and not discussed on Wikipedia to my knowledge. I will appreciate your advice. VampaVampa (talk) 22:58, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- @VampaVampa, that's part of the instructions of things to try before opening an RfC (use WP:DRN if more than two editors). Schazjmd (talk) 22:46, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- Geogene's actions are not vandalism, and I suggest you refrain from describing them as such. This is a content dispute, not a conduct one, so there is very little that administrators can do here. If you want to add your changes to the article, get consensus for them first, possibly through an RfC. —Ingenuity (t • c) 20:53, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- I understand that you disagree with my description of Geogene's actions as vandalism but could you offer any reasoning for this? As for RfC I considered it but decided it was not appropriate (as explained in my reply above). I will appreciate your advice on how to frame it as an RfC. VampaVampa (talk) 22:46, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- @VampaVampa Edits made in good faith, even if they are disruptive, are not vandalism. Vandalism implies a wilful intent to harm the encyclopedia, and if such intent is not obvious, then continuing to call edits vandalism constitutes a personal attack. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 00:03, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- Perhaps I am wrong on this, but for me to assume good faith means that I can add information to the article without being asked to meet the two arbitrary conditions suggested by Geogene in their opening post of the discussion:
- (1) use sources more recent than the cut-off date for whatever Geogene considers "modern" in every instance, and
- (2) censor myself to avoid "watering down or discrediting the modern viewpoint on cat predation" at any cost (i.e. twisting everything to suit a predefined viewpoint).
- If these two arbitrary conditions are not attempted to be enforced through edit warring then indeed I can work together with Geogene. VampaVampa (talk) 00:22, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- I don't want to dispute the vandalism point unnecessarily, but it would seem to follow from a relevant guideline that if "Even factually correct material may not belong on Wikipedia, and removing such content when it is inconsistent with Wikipedia's content policies is not vandalism", then removing content when it is not inconsistent with policies may constitute vandalism. I explained in the discussion on the talk page why I reject the charges of WP:OR and WP:OLDSOURCES and was not persuaded that I was wrong. VampaVampa (talk) 00:31, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- Vandalism is like griefing: if someone thinks that their edit is improving the article it's not vandalism. It literally means, like, when somebody replaces the text of an article with "loldongs" et cetera. What you are referring to is "disruptive editing". jp×g🗯️ 05:54, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- @JPxG: Are you saying my edits are disruptive? Any ambiguous statements on that are likely to encourage further problems here. And isn't the
I explained in the discussion on the talk page why I reject the charges of WP:OR and WP:OLDSOURCES and was not persuaded that I was wrong.
evidence of the real problem here? Geogene (talk) 06:58, 31 May 2024 (UTC)- @Geogene: Yes -- the thing that VampaVampa is accusing you of is "disruptive editing", not "vandalism". I am not VampaVampa and have no idea whether this is true or not. jp×g🗯️ 10:08, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for the clarification - I was wrong about the definition of vandalism. Geogene's conduct is much more sophisticated than that. As far as disruptive editing is concerned, I think it is intentional. VampaVampa (talk) 15:57, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- VampaVampa, I'm glad you have accepted (albeit after some significant repetition) the feedback of the community here regarding what does and does not constitute article vandalism--though I do very much suggest you take a look at Formal_fallacy#Denying a conjunct, because with regard to your proposition here, your conclusion does not follow from your premises. However, it is actually your last sentence in said post (
"I explained in the discussion on the talk page why I reject the charges of WP:OR and WP:OLDSOURCES and was not persuaded that I was wrong."
) that I think still needs addressing. Because it is no way required that you be convinced that you are incorrect before your edits can be reverted--and in suggesting as much, you are actually turning the normal burden of proof and dispute resolution processes on their head. Rather the WP:ONUS is on you to gain clear consensus for a disputed change, and WP:BRD should be followed in resolving the matter. Now, I haven't investigated the article revision history in great detail, but from what I can tell, the article has somewhat been in a state of flux over recent years, reaching the current "Cats are the greatest menace to biodiversity of the un-wilded world" state relatively recently. Neverthless, your changes were to fairly stable elements of the article that had at least some existing consensus support from the then-active editors of the article. When your edits are reverted in these circumstances, you are required to overcome the presumption of a valid reversion by gaining consensus for your addition/preferred version of the article. It is not always a fun or easy process, but it is the standard for how article development and dispute resolution proceed on this project. SnowRise let's rap 20:47, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
- VampaVampa, I'm glad you have accepted (albeit after some significant repetition) the feedback of the community here regarding what does and does not constitute article vandalism--though I do very much suggest you take a look at Formal_fallacy#Denying a conjunct, because with regard to your proposition here, your conclusion does not follow from your premises. However, it is actually your last sentence in said post (
- Thank you for the clarification - I was wrong about the definition of vandalism. Geogene's conduct is much more sophisticated than that. As far as disruptive editing is concerned, I think it is intentional. VampaVampa (talk) 15:57, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Geogene: Yes -- the thing that VampaVampa is accusing you of is "disruptive editing", not "vandalism". I am not VampaVampa and have no idea whether this is true or not. jp×g🗯️ 10:08, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- @JPxG: Are you saying my edits are disruptive? Any ambiguous statements on that are likely to encourage further problems here. And isn't the
- Vandalism is like griefing: if someone thinks that their edit is improving the article it's not vandalism. It literally means, like, when somebody replaces the text of an article with "loldongs" et cetera. What you are referring to is "disruptive editing". jp×g🗯️ 05:54, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- @VampaVampa Edits made in good faith, even if they are disruptive, are not vandalism. Vandalism implies a wilful intent to harm the encyclopedia, and if such intent is not obvious, then continuing to call edits vandalism constitutes a personal attack. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 00:03, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- I understand that you disagree with my description of Geogene's actions as vandalism but could you offer any reasoning for this? As for RfC I considered it but decided it was not appropriate (as explained in my reply above). I will appreciate your advice on how to frame it as an RfC. VampaVampa (talk) 22:46, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
- User:VampaVampa - If you have been editing Wikipedia long enough to know what vandalism is, you have been editing Wikipedia long enough to know what is not vandalism. Yelling Vandalism in order to "win" a content dispute is a personal attack. This is a content dispute, compounded by conduct. I don't know what the merits of the content dispute are. I can see that the conduct includes the personal attack of yelling vandalism. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:10, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you, that is clear enough and I stand corrected - there is indeed nothing in the list of vandalism types that corresponds to what I reported Geogene for. I engineered it backwards by proceeding from "removing content when it is inconsistent with policies is not vandalism" to "persisting in removing content when it is not inconsistent with policies (and argued repeatedly not to be so) may be vandalism", but I realise that has no logical purchase and is nowhere close to any of the definitions. I retract the charge of vandalism and apologise to Geogene for the unjustified accusation on this particular point. VampaVampa (talk) 01:30, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- I looked at the last discussion of the talkpage and stopped reading details in the first paragraph when one of the editors described the RSPB as holding a 'fringe scientific view' on cat predation on birds in the UK. There is little point in even entering a discussion with someone who says that, as you are never going to convince them by reasoned argument. If you are in a content dispute revolving around sourcing with an editor who is never going to change their view, your options available are a)move on, b)Try and get a neutral third opinion, start a clearly worded RFC and advertise it widely to draw in more than the usual niche editors. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- It is, however, useful to actually read the material and the cited sources before pronouncing that specific editors are "never going to be convinced by reasoned argument"... because the RSPB in the past has indeed been pleased to throw their weight behind badly reasoned minority interpretations of the science on this topic. That is the point of this dispute. Please spare the stentorian pronouncements if your time is too precious to read up on the material. - That being said, there seems to be no reason for this discussion to continue here, as multiple avenues for expanding the discussion on the article's talk page do exist, and the editor has indicated that they want to pursue them. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:13, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you very much for the advice. Depending on the outcome of this incident report, I will consider an RfC and find suitable places to advertise it through. Elmidae seems to be suggesting that a potential RfC could revolve around how the respective positions of RSPB and Songbird Survival on cat predation of wildlife should be introduced in the article. However, as is clear from Elmidae's comment, this would likely end up triggering a much broader dispute about the respective merit of the current "majority" and "minority" conclusions drawn from available scientific evidence (assuming all of this evidence is methodologically unproblematic to either side), which could easily be the subject of a book. I think everyone's energy could be spent much more productively in editing the article, but if the only option is to debate the extensive literature in a talk page then so be it. I am open to any option that involves a careful examination of the evidence and the arguments. VampaVampa (talk) 16:17, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- Just a quick word re the amount written hare and on the Cat predation talkpage. I've learnt over the years through my own errors, less is more. Boynamedsue (talk) 15:23, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you, I will try to learn from my mistakes. VampaVampa (talk) 16:17, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- Aside from not being an ANI matter, this proceeding is also redundant with an ongoing WP:NORN proceeding involving the same parties and material (specifically here). I.e., this is a WP:TALKFORK. "Geogene and SMcCandlish not only represent an extreme stance in the debate, but also deny that any debate is legitimate" is blatant falsehood on both counts. The first half of that is what the NORN thread is about, with VampaVampa attempting to rely on 1970s primary research papers and a defunct advocacy website (and later an "attack other academics" op-ed that is the subject of the long thread of RS analysis immediate above VV's repetitive PoV-pushing thread at the article talk page), to defy current mainstream science on the topic. The second half is just made-up nonsense. In point of fact, at the article's talk page, I specifically suggested that we might need a section in the article about the history of the public debate about the subject. But to the extent that VV may instead mean entertaining perpetual opinion-laden debate on Wikipedia about such topics, see WP:NOT#FORUM and WP:NOT#ADVOCACY. We are here to reflect what the modern RS material in the aggregate is telling us, not cherrypick half-century-old surpassed research claims that someone likes the sound of, and argue circularly ignoring all refutation, in an "argue Wikipedia into capitulation" behavior pattern, which is what VV is bringing to this subject.
PS: VV is completely incorrect that "RFC is not suitable for disputes in which more than two editors are involved", and has simply misunderstood all the material there. RFCBEFORE in particular makes it clear that RfCs should be opened after extensive discussion has failed to reach a consensus. That process almost always involves more than two parties. Where "more than two" appears on that page, it is simply noting that another potential venue one may try, for trying reaching consensus without an RfC, is WP:DRN (and VV notably ignored that advice and ran to ANI to make false accusations instead). The section below that, RFCNOT, certainly does not list "disputes with more than 2 editors" in it as something RfCs should not be used for, and that would be absurd. However, an RfC would not be appropriate at this moment, while the NORN proceeding is still open. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:38, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- As to the WP:NORN, we have reached a dead end there:
- (1) no party uninvolved in the dispute has intervened,
- (2) you have not replied to my last post,
- (3) most crucially, in this last post of mine I invited you again to build the article and warned that I would report your conduct to the administrators if one of you reverts again, which Geogene proceeded to do. You left me no other option.
- As to RFCNOT, you are probably right and I am happy to be corrected on procedures. But at this point my dispute is with your and Geogene's conduct. VampaVampa (talk) 16:31, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- The purpose of such noticeboards is to patiently solicit uninvolved input. There is no deadline, and starting talkforks at other noticeboards is not conducive of anything useful. Under no circumstances am I obligated to respond to your circular attempts to re-re-re-argue the same matters endlessly, and doing it at NORN would be counterproductive. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
- One user against two shouldn't be able to preserve their disputed content indefinitly just by bludgeoning the talk page until the opposition is tired of arguing. That's the disrputive editing here Geogene (talk) Geogene (talk) 16:48, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- There is a policy about consensus which says polling is not a substitute for discussion. VampaVampa (talk) 19:10, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- Also see WP:NOTUNANIMITY. Geogene (talk) 19:31, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- For that good faith would have been required. VampaVampa (talk) 20:20, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- VampaVampa, after nearly being WP:BOOMERANGed for arriving here with false accusations of "vandalism", has now turned to demonizing those they disagree with via false and undemonstrable accusations of bad faith. That is not exactly a wise move. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
PS: It's actually worse than I thought, with VV more recently accusing someone else (EducatedRedneck) of having "a nativist agenda" [85]. At this rate, I don't think we're very far away from simply removing VV from the topic area. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:34, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
- VampaVampa, after nearly being WP:BOOMERANGed for arriving here with false accusations of "vandalism", has now turned to demonizing those they disagree with via false and undemonstrable accusations of bad faith. That is not exactly a wise move. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
- For that good faith would have been required. VampaVampa (talk) 20:20, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- Also see WP:NOTUNANIMITY. Geogene (talk) 19:31, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
- There is a policy about consensus which says polling is not a substitute for discussion. VampaVampa (talk) 19:10, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
An editor's claim that an RFC about content is unnecessary because they're right is prima facie proof that an RFC is necessary. The decision as to whether or not an RFC happens should be made with zero input from VampaVampa, SMcCandlish, and Geogene.
Much to the surprise of nobody, the NORN discussion is going nowhere because the three involved editors are bickering there exactly like they have been here and at the article's talk page while nobody else has weighed in on the actual content dispute. (As an aside, any of these three who has complained about anyone else running afoul of WP:WALLOFTEXT is a massive hypocrite.) An RFC will compel these three to state their cases in far fewer words, which will be nice, but much more importantly, it'll attract uninvolved editors who'll review the content issue and work towards a consensus on the content, which in the end is all that's supposed to matter. These threads won't accomplish anything because none of these three editors has shown a willingness to compromise to any extent and their tendency to link policies, guidelines, and essays across multi-paragraph messages ad nauseum guarantees they'll keep speaking past each other. City of Silver 01:05, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
- @City of Silver: Re
nobody else has weighed in on the actual content dispute
Three editors (@EducatedRedneck:, @Elmidae:, @My very best wishes:) have weighed in on the article's talk page since this thread was opened. Still no evidence of support for VampaVampa's revision. Your "blame all sides" is not helpful. Geogene (talk) 01:12, 1 June 2024 (UTC)- @Geogene: Before anything else, edit your message to strike the quotation marks around "blame all sides" and add a note saying you were wrong to quote me as saying that. In your note admitting you falsely ascribed words to me, please include my username so it's clear to others. I never came even close to saying there were sides in this issue because I absolutely do not believe there are. You, VV, and SMcCandlish are all on the same side, the side of improving the website. I also entirely disagree that any substantial part of any discussion has been anything more than two people talking past one person and that one person talking past those two people. But if you've got consensus, why not start an RFC? City of Silver 02:08, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
Before anything else, edit your message
Edit your message to remove the personal attacks, including "hypocrits".I never came even close to saying there were sides in this issue because I absolutely do not believe there are.
I said you are blaming all sides, which you are. I put that in scare quotes to express my disagreement with them.You, VV, and SMcCandlish are all on the same side, the side of improving the website
thank you for that. I find editing Wikipedia to be an extremely thankless enterprise, this thread being a great example of it.I also entirely disagree that any substantial part of any discussion has been anything more than two people talking past one person and that one person talking past those two people.
and then the one flings bad faith assumptions at the other two at ANI to try to eliminate them from the topic area.But if you've got consensus, why not start an RFC?
Normally it's the one who wants content added who starts the RFC. I noticed above you said,The decision as to whether or not an RFC happens should be made with zero input from VampaVampa, SMcCandlish, and Geogene.
I don't recall stating any opposition to an RfC. Geogene (talk) 02:20, 1 June 2024 (UTC)- And see also Brandolini's law; if someone text-walls with rambling claims that are a mixture of personal belief, repetition of and reliance on a defunct advocacy website, and OR extrapolation from and other reliance on ancient primary research papers from the 1970s, then later adds in op-ed material from one academic personality-smearing another and badly confusing public-policy political arguments with scientific evidence, then the response to this is necessarily going to be detailed and lengthy, because it involves multiple forms of refutation of multiple wonky claims and bad sourcing. The alternative is simply ignoring VV's input entirely, but that would be rude and less constructive. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
- Responding because I've been pinged. I agree with City of Silver that it feels more like people are talking past each other rather than to them. It's hard not to respond to what one hears, rather than what is actually said, when a debate has become drawn-out. Based on the most recent exchange with VV, which SMC alluded to above, I fear that now includes me as well. (Accusing me of a "nativist agenda" is making it harder for me to view the matter dispassionately, and I'm not sure I'm hearing what VV is trying to say at this time.) EducatedRedneck (talk) 22:12, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for this post because I could see from it that you genuinely tried to mediate, and it perhaps just so happens that with regard to the "objective" differences in worldview, which we have to somehow work past on Wikipedia, you seem to stand closer to Geogene and SMC, without necessarily having been aware of it. So I offer apologies for the accusation.
- I also declare myself ready to work with Geogene and SMcCandlish on the condition that none of us tries to seize the upper hand in advance of putting in the work to edit the article. I should make clear that to me that involves seeking to discredit sources that do not unambiguously contravene Wikipedia guidelines (not to exclude genuine debates on the talk page, that's a different thing). I regret but I cannot compromise on this point. VampaVampa (talk) 03:29, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Geogene: Before anything else, edit your message to strike the quotation marks around "blame all sides" and add a note saying you were wrong to quote me as saying that. In your note admitting you falsely ascribed words to me, please include my username so it's clear to others. I never came even close to saying there were sides in this issue because I absolutely do not believe there are. You, VV, and SMcCandlish are all on the same side, the side of improving the website. I also entirely disagree that any substantial part of any discussion has been anything more than two people talking past one person and that one person talking past those two people. But if you've got consensus, why not start an RFC? City of Silver 02:08, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
- @City of Silver: Thank you for this - even though I don't think I claimed I was right.
- With regard to Geogene's reply, can I just point out that the impartiality of such third-party interventions cannot be assumed? VampaVampa (talk) 01:48, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
- @VampaVampa: Please don't make edits unless you think they're right. And I hope you don't expect "impartiality" from other editors. My very best wishes hasn't said a single thing that could get them excluded from an RFC and neither has anybody else who's weighed in. City of Silver 02:08, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you! I mostly agree with your comments and comments by Geogene and SMcCandlish above. As about user VampaVampa, they obviously made this posting to get an upper hand in a content dispute. That does qualify as a WP:BATTLE, in my opinion. That user is clearly not working collaboratively with others, at least in this dispute about feral cats. My very best wishes (talk) 02:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
- @VampaVampa: Please don't make edits unless you think they're right. And I hope you don't expect "impartiality" from other editors. My very best wishes hasn't said a single thing that could get them excluded from an RFC and neither has anybody else who's weighed in. City of Silver 02:08, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
- Holy mother of walls of text... I strongly agree with the most useful feedback that has been given here: this is clearly the stage at which RfC is not only warranted, but arguably the only path forward if one side or the other is not prepared to give way. That said, I strongly suggest the involved parties attempt torecruit a neutral to word the RfC prompt and that the most vociferous single parties from each side (and I would hope you both know who you are) exercise some considerable restraint in not bludgeoning the resulting discussion (either in terms of volume of response or the length of individual posts). As in, your positions having been well established already on the talk page, you should each make your contributions to the RfC roughly on the scale of 1/30th of what you've had to say so far. Given the relatively small number of sources being debated, the existing diatribes are way out of proportion and, bluntly, well into WP:disruptive territory at this point. And I say this as someone who isn't exactly always the soul of brevity themselves here at all times. SnowRise let's rap 05:22, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
- Detailed analysis of material and claims based on them requires a considerable amount of text. But I've already done the work, so of course I have no need to do it all over again, especially at the same page. Any politicized subject (see, e.g., virtually any major thread at Talk:Donald Trump and its 169 pages of archives) is going to be longer than some people like, both due to the detail required and due to someone trying to get their contary-to-RS viewpoint promoted being likely to recycle the same claims repeatedly, leading to recurrent refutations; rinse and repeat. This is a common "try to wear out the opposition" tactic, in which refutation is ignored and the same claims are re-advanced (proof by assertion fallacy). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
- My friend, McCandlish, this isn't Donald Trump's BLP, and even if it were, what you have been doing on that talk page was clearly excessive. You added 24KB (31 paragraphs!) of text in one post, most of it dedicated to micro-analyzing every aspect of one source, down to caption summary of the careers of everyone involved with it. At the time you posted it, it was larger than all of the rest of the comments from all other editors on the talk page in all threads, put together. All to support an argument that said source was more editorial than a typical MEDRS primary source, and should be afforded less weight accordingly--an adequate case for which could have been made with one paragraph, and an excessive one with two. Nor is it the only titano-post from you or VampaVampa, who I think only slightly trails your numbers. Look, I think you're an often-compelling participant in discussions, in part because of your propensity for thoroughness. But there's practical limits before it becomes a WP:Bludgeon issue (however inadvertently). And whatever compelling interests you may feel that you have to press your reading of the sources, they can't come close to justifying the extent of the wordcount arms race you and VV entered into. SnowRise let's rap 05:13, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
- WP:BLUDGEON refers to re-re-re-responding to every or nearly every post in a discussion (RfC, etc.) with many participants. It does not refer to producing a source analysis that a particular person disapproves of because of its detail level. And you're not getting the chronlogy right. That material long preceded VV's participation at that page; notably, when VV attempted to recycle the same bad source, I did not post a lengthy re-analysis of it, but referred to the one already done. My responses to VV have been directed at unrelated claims and sources put forward by that editor, and when they turned to circular argumentation that ignored prior refutation, I walked away rather than continue. So, there is no "wordcount arms race". We are at ANI now because one particular person, VV, refuses to drop the stick, despite there already being two (article-talk and NORN) discussions open trying to resolve the underlying content-and-sources matter. Whether this subject rises to the subjective importance level of, say, Donald Trump is irrelevant; it is certainly as polticized and emotive, attracting the same kind of misuse-bad-sources PoV pushing, which is the point I was making.
In the spirit of what I just wrote regarding circular argument and just walking away, I am not going to respond here any further unless pinged directly. There is no ANI matter to settle, except possibly VV's renewed personal attacks in the same subject area (see diff of one against EducatedRedneck above). VV's ANI is WP:asking the other parent. Either NORN will address the sourcing problems, or will not and then we'll have an RfC, but ANI is not for content disputes. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:32, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
- WP:BLUDGEON refers to re-re-re-responding to every or nearly every post in a discussion (RfC, etc.) with many participants. It does not refer to producing a source analysis that a particular person disapproves of because of its detail level. And you're not getting the chronlogy right. That material long preceded VV's participation at that page; notably, when VV attempted to recycle the same bad source, I did not post a lengthy re-analysis of it, but referred to the one already done. My responses to VV have been directed at unrelated claims and sources put forward by that editor, and when they turned to circular argumentation that ignored prior refutation, I walked away rather than continue. So, there is no "wordcount arms race". We are at ANI now because one particular person, VV, refuses to drop the stick, despite there already being two (article-talk and NORN) discussions open trying to resolve the underlying content-and-sources matter. Whether this subject rises to the subjective importance level of, say, Donald Trump is irrelevant; it is certainly as polticized and emotive, attracting the same kind of misuse-bad-sources PoV pushing, which is the point I was making.
- My friend, McCandlish, this isn't Donald Trump's BLP, and even if it were, what you have been doing on that talk page was clearly excessive. You added 24KB (31 paragraphs!) of text in one post, most of it dedicated to micro-analyzing every aspect of one source, down to caption summary of the careers of everyone involved with it. At the time you posted it, it was larger than all of the rest of the comments from all other editors on the talk page in all threads, put together. All to support an argument that said source was more editorial than a typical MEDRS primary source, and should be afforded less weight accordingly--an adequate case for which could have been made with one paragraph, and an excessive one with two. Nor is it the only titano-post from you or VampaVampa, who I think only slightly trails your numbers. Look, I think you're an often-compelling participant in discussions, in part because of your propensity for thoroughness. But there's practical limits before it becomes a WP:Bludgeon issue (however inadvertently). And whatever compelling interests you may feel that you have to press your reading of the sources, they can't come close to justifying the extent of the wordcount arms race you and VV entered into. SnowRise let's rap 05:13, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
- Detailed analysis of material and claims based on them requires a considerable amount of text. But I've already done the work, so of course I have no need to do it all over again, especially at the same page. Any politicized subject (see, e.g., virtually any major thread at Talk:Donald Trump and its 169 pages of archives) is going to be longer than some people like, both due to the detail required and due to someone trying to get their contary-to-RS viewpoint promoted being likely to recycle the same claims repeatedly, leading to recurrent refutations; rinse and repeat. This is a common "try to wear out the opposition" tactic, in which refutation is ignored and the same claims are re-advanced (proof by assertion fallacy). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Two Unpleasant Comments
I have not tried to read the content discussion, and don't know what the content details are. I have two mostly unrelated comments that are not about content, but this is not a content forum.
First, multiple posters have posted overly long posts, that were literally too long, didn't read, which is one reason I haven't studied the content. However, I can see that the original poster has misread two Wikipedia policies, and posted based on their misreadings, and has since backed off from their original comments. One of the guidelines was worded in a complex way because it is complex, and so it could have easily been misread. The other policy could not possibly have been misread by anyone who read it with an intent to understand it, because it is very clear about refuting misconceptions. The first was that User:VampaVampa said that RFC was not applicable if there are more than two parties. That is part of a sort of flowchart-like guideline, and could easily be misread, and was misread. The second was that User:VampaVampa said that Geogene had engaged in vandalism. The vandalism policy is very clear on what is not vandalism. It is sufficiently clear that anyone who argues that overzealous editing in a conduct dispute is vandalism hasn't read the policy. They obviously know that vandalism is one of the worst things that an editor can do, but they haven't read what it is and is not. In other words, VampaVampa insulted the other editor first, and only read what the insult meant after being called to account. So, if I do read the content details, I know not to give much weight to what User:VampaVampa writes, because they are an editor who makes sloppy claims. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:12, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
Second, the dispute has not been addressed except by the original parties at the No Original Research Noticeboard because WP:NORN is a dormant noticeboard. It apparently has no regular editors, and it is very seldom if ever that anything is resolved at WP:NORN. It is a noticeboard where content disputes go to fester and die. The suggestion was made, and not followed up on, that perhaps it and one or more other noticeboards should be merged. So VampaVampa is not asking the other parent here. There is no parent at WP:NORN. But they appear to be following a policy of post first and think second. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:12, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
- I find your comments fair, with one exception. I wish to contest the reputational charge that I am "an editor who makes sloppy claims", which is a generalisation from two instances, for one of which you have found extenuating circumstances. (Incidentally, a generalisation is also at the heart of the content dispute.) This criticism of yours comes after I have already admitted having overreacted, in the spirit of seeking reconciliation. In my defence I also plead inexperience in raising matters for dispute; I suspect that many a user with no exposure to procedural affairs would have been intimidated by the sheer conduct of Geogene and SMcCandlish to drop the content dispute. I finally wish to use my freshly learned lesson in logic to note that even if I were to be wrong in all of my claims it still would not follow that the other party to the dispute cannot be seriously wrong in theirs. VampaVampa (talk) 18:29, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
- User:VampaVampa - It is true that whether you have been right or wrong is independent of whether Geogene and SMcCandlish have been right or wrong. You have stated that they have been guilty of serious conduct violations. You have stated that they have been guilty of serious conduct violations. You have used many words in making that statement. However, I have not found your argument to be persuasive. You haven't made your case, at least not to me, and I am not planning to read your walls of text again, especially since I have already seen that you made two mistakes, one of which suggests that you post first and think second. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:06, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
- Suggests that you post first and think second. .. Does this imply a lack of good faith on the part of this editor ? Botswatter (talk) 20:41, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
- I am not questioning the good faith of User:VampaVampa. Posting first and thinking second is not bad faith, although it is sloppy and undesirable. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:11, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Botswatter This is your 4th edit. Your 3rd as to add yourself as in training at DRN - something you aren't doing and have no experience to do. I don't know why you inserted yourself here, but there is a saying "good faith is not a suicide pact". There can come a time when good faith no longer be offered, and this looks like one. Doug Weller talk 09:25, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- I am however agreeing with User:Doug Weller in questioning the good faith of User:Botswatter. I wonder whether they inserted themselves here and also at DRN in order to snipe at me. I wonder if they have a grudge against me from some previous unsuccessful mediation at DRN, perhaps one that ended with them being indeffed. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:11, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Suggests that you post first and think second. .. Does this imply a lack of good faith on the part of this editor ? Botswatter (talk) 20:41, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
- User:VampaVampa - It is true that whether you have been right or wrong is independent of whether Geogene and SMcCandlish have been right or wrong. You have stated that they have been guilty of serious conduct violations. You have stated that they have been guilty of serious conduct violations. You have used many words in making that statement. However, I have not found your argument to be persuasive. You haven't made your case, at least not to me, and I am not planning to read your walls of text again, especially since I have already seen that you made two mistakes, one of which suggests that you post first and think second. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:06, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'd like to share VampaVampa's latest diff, continuing to personalize the content dispute [86]. I had just reverted a POV rewrite of the lead that was sourced in part to a likely front group. Yes, there are apparently front groups out there on the web pushing scientifically dubious views on outdoor cats. This controversy may not rise to Donald Trump levels of importance, but neither is Scientology or Young Earth Creationism. That doesn't mean it's unworthy of the Wikipedia community's concern. Geogene (talk) 16:33, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Your action in reverting that edit is illustrative of the conduct that I have submitted a case against above (i.e. seeking to exercise ownership of the article and to prevent the representation of legitimate views by falsely construing them as fringe and denialist). This is not the place to enter into content disputes. However, you are using your experience to discourage new contributors to engage with the article through unnecessary hostility. I am not sure why you should seek to draw more attention to your behaviour yourself, but that is welcome as far as I am concerned. VampaVampa (talk) 00:22, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
- Law of holes comes to mind here, VampaVampa. What you're claiming as ownership is not, and in fact that claim is making it more clear you do not understand our rules and guidelines. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 16:48, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
- HandThatFeeds What do you propose calling it instead? Eight of the last 50 edits on the page are Geogene reverting something, most of which in my opinion would have improved the article and the rest still had some merit to them. (3 in an edit war with VampaVampa, the rest from various different editors.) Iamnotabunny (talk) 14:11, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'd say you need to propose changes on the Talk page & get consensus first, rather than just bludgeoning ahead to get those changes into the article. Especially since they appear to be an attempt to insert a POV into the article, something you're going to find is frowned upon in Wikipedia. Enforcing our NPOV rule is not OWNership. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 15:09, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, Geogene is doing such a good job of enforcing neutral point of view that he immediately removed the maintenance tag about "Too few opinions".
- When I made those 2 edits, I was unaware of exactly how controversial the article was. As you can see, all of my edits since then have been to the talk page rather than to the article. And let it be clear that I dispute that the article currently has a neutral point of view, which is a matter for the talk page and not for here. I assumed Geogene's claim that the source I used was a "front group" was so obviously false (it does not even speculate who is secretly behind them!) that it would boomerang on him without me doing anything. Iamnotabunny (talk) 17:07, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'd say you need to propose changes on the Talk page & get consensus first, rather than just bludgeoning ahead to get those changes into the article. Especially since they appear to be an attempt to insert a POV into the article, something you're going to find is frowned upon in Wikipedia. Enforcing our NPOV rule is not OWNership. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 15:09, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
- HandThatFeeds What do you propose calling it instead? Eight of the last 50 edits on the page are Geogene reverting something, most of which in my opinion would have improved the article and the rest still had some merit to them. (3 in an edit war with VampaVampa, the rest from various different editors.) Iamnotabunny (talk) 14:11, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
- Law of holes comes to mind here, VampaVampa. What you're claiming as ownership is not, and in fact that claim is making it more clear you do not understand our rules and guidelines. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 16:48, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
- Your action in reverting that edit is illustrative of the conduct that I have submitted a case against above (i.e. seeking to exercise ownership of the article and to prevent the representation of legitimate views by falsely construing them as fringe and denialist). This is not the place to enter into content disputes. However, you are using your experience to discourage new contributors to engage with the article through unnecessary hostility. I am not sure why you should seek to draw more attention to your behaviour yourself, but that is welcome as far as I am concerned. VampaVampa (talk) 00:22, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
Short Summary
A short but not unbiased summary of this whole thing, as I see it.
0. Earlier article edits that set the scene, June 2022 and December 2023: Xhkvfq (previously went by the username StrippedSocks) makes edits that are reverted by Geogene. Xhkvfq adds a source Lynn et al 2019. On the talk page, SMcCandlish describes the source as, among other things "a butt-hurt rant".
1. Article editing happens. Geogene reverts many things (to me, looks like based on whether they are pro-cat or anti-cat rather than whether they match the sources). SMcCandlish edits the article to more closely match what the sources say. Geogene and VampaVampa revert each other a bunch.
2. The NORN noticeboard. Geogene opens a question regarding one of VampaVampa's edits. SMcCandlish answers in the affirmative, goes on to call Xhkvfq a drive-by editor, and complains about people who are okay with bird species going extinct as long as feral cats don't get culled. There seems to be an implication that VampaVampa is one such person, which I don't think is accurate nor warranted.
3. VampaVampa opens this discussion here, beginning with an accusation of vandalism due to a misunderstanding of wikipedia policy. Once that was explained, VampaVampa changed the accusation to disruptive editing my mistake, "status quo stonewalling". Many words about both wikipedia policy and article content have been written here, but not much has been said.
4. Not knowing any of this, I come across the article, attempt to make an edit, and get dragged into this discussion. GG's mention of that edit here was to complain about VV's reply "personalizing the content dispute" by saying GG's revert was based on unevidenced assumptions, but if that's a personal attack then so is GG's claim that my edit was "profringe". Something being "profringe" implies it is based on unevidenced assumptions.
5. With the help of other editors to keep the discussion on track, VampaVampa and Geogene are able to have a mostly civil conversation (compared to previously) on the talk page about the content of the article.
My own experiences involving Geogene have been quite negative (edit: perhaps there was some misunderstanding going on), but as it appears he and VampaVampa are currently making progress on article content, perhaps it is not worth bringing them up. Iamnotabunny (talk) 16:42, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
Adding on: I just realized the above makes it look like VampaVampa is blameless. That was not what I intended, but I feel that part of things is already covered quite thoroughly earlier in this thread. Iamnotabunny (talk) 19:04, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
Closing Options ?
I think that this has gone on long enough, and that nothing new is likely to happen, so it is time for some sort of close. User:VampaVampa is the original poster of this thread, and says that there have been serious conduct violations by User:Geogene and User:SMcCandlish. I haven't seen any evidence of conduct violations by Geogene or SMcCandlish, either in VampaVampa's walls of text or on my cursory look at the article talk page. There have been two specific conduct allegations. The first was a claim that Geogene's editing of a content dispute was vandalism. The second conduct allegation is that Geogene and SMcCandlish have asserted article ownership. It appears that what they have actually asserted is that they have a rough consensus, and two-to-one really is a local rough consensus. There haven't been any other conduct allegations that I could parse. I don't intend to try to read the excessively long post, because I know that VampaVampa is not a good judge of good and bad conduct. So no action should be taken against Geogene or SMcCandlish.
I see three possible options with regard to VampaVampa:
- Close this thread, doing nothing.
- Close this thread with a warning to User:VampaVampa for the personal attack of a bad allegation of vandalism.
- Close this thread by topic-banning User:VampaVampa, at least from this article.
What do the other editors think? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:07, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
- There is a consensus that the accusations by VampaVampa about other contributors were ungrounded, and he admitted this himself. However, option 3 might be an overkill. If there are any problems with the editing by VampaVampa, this is their tendency to produce walls of text and argue to infinity on multiple pages, not just that page. But option 2 seems to be warranted based on the discussion above. My very best wishes (talk) 03:25, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
- One further conduct allegation I have made was status quo stonewalling, which I wrongly claimed was vandalism when premeditated. I think a cursory look would not have detected that, so I can cite relevant passages if needed. I was concerned with the immediate accusation of "fringe" views against me and with the caricaturing of my arguments and intentions. That said, I am more aware now of various policies such as WP:BRD and the requirements for gaining consensus, so I can partly see where my opponents were coming from, at least procedurally. Having since participated in some RfCs and talk page discussions, I remain concerned about the amount of leeway for editors to keep dismissing reasonable arguments under superficial excuses, and I still do not think my defence of my edit had been given a fair hearing by Geogene and SMcCandlish before they sought to force-close the debate and escalate it from the specific edit to my agenda. But I am prepared to accept that succinct evidence-based discussion and RfC would be worth trying. VampaVampa (talk) 06:34, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
Wow, this thread is still open? I got pinged back here, so I'll respond. For my part, I'm not one to assert that two editors against one at a poorly watched page actually constitutes much of a "local consensus", just as a thing in and of itself. What's far more important here is that we have WP:Core content policies and they apply equally to this article as any others, and VV's PoV edits are not in compliance with them (or if you prefer, multiple editors have raised multiple policy concerns about them). The WP:ONUS is on VV, and VV has not addressed much less dispelled these concerns. VV's position appears to basically boil down to assuming they have a right to make the changes they want, and anyone who disagrees is just some vandalistic stonewaller.As for WP:SQS, VV apparently has either not read that page, even its first line, or has serious difficulty understanding it. (Cf. also apparent severe trouble understanding WP:RFC, WP:VANDAL, the content policies themselves, and the meaning and relative import of the source material; this is starting to look like a WP:CIR issue.) Let's quote directly:
Status quo stonewalling is opposition to a proposed change without (a) stating a substantive rationale based in policy, guidelines and conventions or (b) participating in good-faith discussion.
Both Geogene and I have raised very detailed substantive rationales based in policy, and our participation in good-faith discussion has been so extensive that various parties above have vented about it being too detailed and long-winded. VV has utterly failed to demonstrate that any sort of SQS happening.PS:
WP:NORN is a dormant noticeboard.
I was not aware of that (and it seems weird and unfortunate). Given that RfCs are expensive of community time and attention, probably the thing to do would be to close this ANI, close the going-nowhere NORN thread, and re-open the matter at WP:NPOVN or WP:RSN; all of these policies and guidlelines are implicated in inter-related ways in this issue, so either venue will do, really; it would just be matter of writing it out in a way that pertains more to one noticeboard or the other. That's assuming a T-ban doesn't happen. I think one could arguably be justified because of the repeated incivility and other problems evidenced above after this ANI was opened. But I'm also not one to seek to "silence the opposition". I give benefit of the doubt (sometimes maybe more than I should) that an editor may prove to be productive on the project in other ways despite a recent WP:DRAMA flare-up. And in this case, I really have no policy-and-sourcing doubt about how the underlying content and sourcing dispute is going to turn out in the end. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 11:12, 12 June 2024 (UTC)- Option 2 for now, with the assumption that VV will read the room and drop the stick. I feel warnings are most effective when people can trust the good faith efforts of the editor to heed the warning. If this topic continues with more walls of accusational text, then I think the topic ban becomes necessary. The late, poorly document allegations of WP:SQS are not helping matters at all here. Geogene and SMcCandlish should have the right to not be in a position where they have to continually defend against amorphous allegations. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 05:16, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
Option 2. Option 3 EducatedRedneck (talk) 22:09, 19 June 2024 (UTC) My experience has been that VampaVampa has, several times, assumed bad faith, leaping to conclusions about my intentions, alleging bias, and displaying a battleground-esque mentality. I maintain they are a net positive to the project, and have demonstrated that they are WP:HERE, but believe that the warning for personal attacks should be construed to include a caution against WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:ABF. It should also include a caution against WP:WALLOFTEXT. I'm often guilty of that myself, but dang. EducatedRedneck (talk) 19:49, 15 June 2024 (UTC)- I changed my !vote for the following reasons: I have attempted to carry on a discussion with VampaVampa. All that has come out of it is that I have determined that, whatever VampaVampa's intentions, the were not about actually improving the article. They have deflected a discussion away from criterion for source inclusion, and back toward whether or not a view is categorized as fringe. In that time, they have added 76,833 bytes of text in 25 days. The next highest, SMcCandlish, added 47,714 bytes over 9 months. (I am in third, with 34 kB in 20 days. I'm trying to trim my responses down.) VampaVampa has made 54 edits to the talk page. The next highest is Geogene, with 38 edits since the dispute began. I believe VampaVampa is WP:BLUDGEONing, that the walls of text are disruptive, and that they have difficulty discussing topics related to the article without hijacking the conversation to be about... whatever it is they are trying to talk about. I do note that I have not seen any more WP:ABF or WP:PA lately, and don't believe the disruption would move to elsewhere in the encyclopedia. N.b.: I am involved in the discussion. EducatedRedneck (talk) 22:09, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I appreciate your objectivity. I think your comment about battleground approach goes a long way towards explaining what I did wrong, and it resonates with what was said by some initial responders to this case. It is not a new situation within the "cat wars" topic that two parties cannot hear each other.
- You proposed to resolve the core dispute on the basis of what the review articles say. I believed there would be only one or two relevant review articles, or none if relevance was interpreted very scrupulously, so being concerned about nuance I made multiple attempts to clarify or qualify the criteria. What helped me see your opinion above as fair and objective was the simple step of searching the sources I have found so far for the word "review" in their title, instead of relying on my memory. There turned out to be at least five more review articles that are global in scope, which should mean that your criteria can be used to provide a nuanced answer to the disputed question. It does look I was trying to reinvent the wheel and I am sincerely sorry for having wasted your time.
- Based on the acknowledgment that the battleground approach clouded my judgment, I also withdraw the charge of stonewalling (SQS) and apologise to Geogene and SMcCandlish for this excessive and I now believe false interpretation of intentions behind their comments about my motives and about the supposed agenda behind the view I sought a representation in the article for. VampaVampa (talk) 03:26, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I changed my !vote for the following reasons: I have attempted to carry on a discussion with VampaVampa. All that has come out of it is that I have determined that, whatever VampaVampa's intentions, the were not about actually improving the article. They have deflected a discussion away from criterion for source inclusion, and back toward whether or not a view is categorized as fringe. In that time, they have added 76,833 bytes of text in 25 days. The next highest, SMcCandlish, added 47,714 bytes over 9 months. (I am in third, with 34 kB in 20 days. I'm trying to trim my responses down.) VampaVampa has made 54 edits to the talk page. The next highest is Geogene, with 38 edits since the dispute began. I believe VampaVampa is WP:BLUDGEONing, that the walls of text are disruptive, and that they have difficulty discussing topics related to the article without hijacking the conversation to be about... whatever it is they are trying to talk about. I do note that I have not seen any more WP:ABF or WP:PA lately, and don't believe the disruption would move to elsewhere in the encyclopedia. N.b.: I am involved in the discussion. EducatedRedneck (talk) 22:09, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I would like to be able to vote option 1, based on "I retract the charge of vandalism and apologise to Geogene for the unjustified accusation on this particular point." If the charge of stonewalling is also withdrawn, I will be happy to do so, but for now I vote
AbstainNot 3now Option 1 as per situation specified, see VampaVampa's comment just above. Iamnotabunny (talk) 14:21, 16 June 2024 (UTC) - Option 2 and/or option 3, as I think both have a role to play in this editor's behavioral development on the English Wikipedia. The need for civility by avoiding aspersions is not met by a restriction from their trigger article, and vice versa ——Serial Number 54129 13:30, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2 or Option 3 would work. ‹hamster717🐉› (discuss anything!🐹✈️ • my contribs🌌🌠) 23:39, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Edit warring, BLP coatrack and POV issues: Harold the Sheep
Harold the Sheep (talk · contribs)
At Steven Hassan, this user has been edit warring (breaching 3rr [87][88][89][90]) to include opinions about the general topic of 'cults' in the article. They added it to the article a few months ago alongside some salient content.[91] This was raised previously as a POV issue by another editor.[92] Harold the Sheep then edit warred to keep even the maintenance tag off the article[93][94].
This is a problematic ownership issue, with the article being used as a coatrack for the views of academics in a different field about the general topic of 'cults' and the use of the word 'cults'. Cambial — foliar❧ 08:47, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- You should perhaps have also mentioned the discussion here which, to my mind at least, resolved the previous issue. However, I'm happy to continue the discussion on the talk page of the article. Harold the Sheep (talk) 23:27, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- The discussion to which you link was over the same issue. There is no resolution in that topic: you simply stopped responding. To you that (combined with edit warring the maintenance tag) resolved the issue? Behaviour like that is why we ended up here. Cambial — foliar❧ 06:00, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Cambial, can you explain why this issue can't be resolved via WP:RfC or another one our general dispute resolution processes? Other than the brief edit warring (to which you contributed more or less equally), this looks entirely like a garden variety content dispute at the moment. I've reviewed the talk page and most recent archive and found a slight (and I mean very slight) tinge of battleground tone in some of HTS' responses. But ANI is for serious, intractable behavioural issues; it should not be your first stop immediately after entering into a conflict over content and before you've attempted any discussion or process to resolve the matter or form consensus. It seems you waited about three quarters of an hour after making your first talk page comment before you made this filing. Given that Harold seems to have been heavily involved on that talk page for some time, don't you think it would have been more pro forma and potentially productive to have waited for a response there before escalating the matter here? Please try discussion, and if neither of you succeeds in affecting a change of perspective on the other, and a middle ground solution does not seem viable or appropriate, then seek additional community perspectives on the content issue to achieve a consensus--including via RfC if necessary. In my opinion, your diffs do not come close to establishing strong evidence of an ownership issue under the relevant policy, so please WP:AGF for the time being and pursue the normal dispute resolution process. SnowRise let's rap 07:23, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Snow Rise: I just now came across this discussion. I am the "other editor" who added the {{POV}} tag on the Steven Hassan article in November 2023 with the edit summary "Recent additions use generalized anti-deprogramming rhetoric to color and frame this article, not specific to this BLP subject". This was after a long series of dozens of edits by Harold the Sheep (current Who Wrote That? tool shows HaroldTS had authored over 1/3rd the article content as of that day). At the same time, I posted my reasons on the talk page (Talk:Steven Hassan/Archive 3 § POV issues), and the following day I posted Talk:Steven Hassan/Archive 3 § COI. Though I engaged in discussion with HaroldTS, I don't feel there was any resolution. I found HaroldTS rude, insulting and uncollaborative. Eventually I quit engaging with the user and unwatchlisted the article. Last year didn't involve Cambial Yellowing, but it's the same issue CY brings up this week—HaroldTS adding generalized cult-topic information not specifically related to a BLP, and using a BLP as a coatrack for POV-pushing. Looking back on the prior month (Oct'23) when I had first tussled with HaroldTS at Talk:New Cult Awareness Network § Notes re Foundation for Religious Freedom, it seems clear he has been obsessively focused on presenting negative content about deprogramming and anyone who had ever been involved in it (despite common practice ending around 3 decades ago), and has been less interested in discussing content of the article subject or focusing his edits on the article subjects. Just my two cents, for what it's worth. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 03:12, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- It's surprizing how thin-skinned you are about this. Both you and Cambial seem to be pretty assertive and uncompromising editors, at least in your approach to talk pages, edit summaries and ANI reports, but faced with a bit of pushback you're suddenly the victims of an insulting, uncollaborative, obsessively-focused, bludgeoning, article-owning, edit-warring, coat-racking monster who has personally attacked you in egregious fashion and maybe even slept with your wife. The discussion at Talk:New Cult Awareness Network just seems like a robust discussion to me. What exactly are you complaining about? And the only pertinent edit I made to the article actually supported your initial thesis on the talk page. On the Steven Hassan page, the repeated assertion was that the recently added material was general anti-deprogramming criticism that did not specifically address Hassan. That was false, and passages from the sources, which were clearly specifically focused on Hassan, were provided. There was no response from you at all to that. A "yes that is specific to Hassan" or a "no that is not specific to Hassan", or perhaps a "well, on the face of it, I can't deny that they are directly addressing Hassan, but it must be some other Hassan" might at least have given me a basis for continuing the discussion. Harold the Sheep (talk) 22:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
suddenly the victims of an insulting, uncollaborative, obsessively-focused, bludgeoning, article-owning, edit-warring, coat-racking monster who has personally attacked you in egregious fashion and maybe even slept with your wife
What a bizarre response – the misjudged sarcastic hyperbole reads like someone playing the victim. Your "everyone else is the problem" attitude explains your (not unanticipated) failure to participate at article talk. The passages of anti-deprogramming/cult-apologist rhetoric are not about any individual, neitherclearly specifically
nor obscurely, which is precisely the problem. That's why three different editors have sought to trim or otherwise address the off-topic content you arbitrarily added to the page. Cambial — foliar❧ 23:11, 18 June 2024 (UTC)- "insulting", "uncollaborative", "obsessively-focused", "bludgeoning", "article-owning", "edit-warring", "coat-racking" were all terms used by you or Grorp in your edit summaries or comments here; the rest was just a bit of humour. The content removed by Parakanyaa was not originally added by me, I just altered it so that it actually conformed to the source. As it happens, I more or less agree with Parakanyaa's reason for removal. Harold the Sheep (talk) 00:30, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- It's surprizing how thin-skinned you are about this. Both you and Cambial seem to be pretty assertive and uncompromising editors, at least in your approach to talk pages, edit summaries and ANI reports, but faced with a bit of pushback you're suddenly the victims of an insulting, uncollaborative, obsessively-focused, bludgeoning, article-owning, edit-warring, coat-racking monster who has personally attacked you in egregious fashion and maybe even slept with your wife. The discussion at Talk:New Cult Awareness Network just seems like a robust discussion to me. What exactly are you complaining about? And the only pertinent edit I made to the article actually supported your initial thesis on the talk page. On the Steven Hassan page, the repeated assertion was that the recently added material was general anti-deprogramming criticism that did not specifically address Hassan. That was false, and passages from the sources, which were clearly specifically focused on Hassan, were provided. There was no response from you at all to that. A "yes that is specific to Hassan" or a "no that is not specific to Hassan", or perhaps a "well, on the face of it, I can't deny that they are directly addressing Hassan, but it must be some other Hassan" might at least have given me a basis for continuing the discussion. Harold the Sheep (talk) 22:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Snow Rise: I just now came across this discussion. I am the "other editor" who added the {{POV}} tag on the Steven Hassan article in November 2023 with the edit summary "Recent additions use generalized anti-deprogramming rhetoric to color and frame this article, not specific to this BLP subject". This was after a long series of dozens of edits by Harold the Sheep (current Who Wrote That? tool shows HaroldTS had authored over 1/3rd the article content as of that day). At the same time, I posted my reasons on the talk page (Talk:Steven Hassan/Archive 3 § POV issues), and the following day I posted Talk:Steven Hassan/Archive 3 § COI. Though I engaged in discussion with HaroldTS, I don't feel there was any resolution. I found HaroldTS rude, insulting and uncollaborative. Eventually I quit engaging with the user and unwatchlisted the article. Last year didn't involve Cambial Yellowing, but it's the same issue CY brings up this week—HaroldTS adding generalized cult-topic information not specifically related to a BLP, and using a BLP as a coatrack for POV-pushing. Looking back on the prior month (Oct'23) when I had first tussled with HaroldTS at Talk:New Cult Awareness Network § Notes re Foundation for Religious Freedom, it seems clear he has been obsessively focused on presenting negative content about deprogramming and anyone who had ever been involved in it (despite common practice ending around 3 decades ago), and has been less interested in discussing content of the article subject or focusing his edits on the article subjects. Just my two cents, for what it's worth. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 03:12, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Cambial, can you explain why this issue can't be resolved via WP:RfC or another one our general dispute resolution processes? Other than the brief edit warring (to which you contributed more or less equally), this looks entirely like a garden variety content dispute at the moment. I've reviewed the talk page and most recent archive and found a slight (and I mean very slight) tinge of battleground tone in some of HTS' responses. But ANI is for serious, intractable behavioural issues; it should not be your first stop immediately after entering into a conflict over content and before you've attempted any discussion or process to resolve the matter or form consensus. It seems you waited about three quarters of an hour after making your first talk page comment before you made this filing. Given that Harold seems to have been heavily involved on that talk page for some time, don't you think it would have been more pro forma and potentially productive to have waited for a response there before escalating the matter here? Please try discussion, and if neither of you succeeds in affecting a change of perspective on the other, and a middle ground solution does not seem viable or appropriate, then seek additional community perspectives on the content issue to achieve a consensus--including via RfC if necessary. In my opinion, your diffs do not come close to establishing strong evidence of an ownership issue under the relevant policy, so please WP:AGF for the time being and pursue the normal dispute resolution process. SnowRise let's rap 07:23, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- The discussion to which you link was over the same issue. There is no resolution in that topic: you simply stopped responding. To you that (combined with edit warring the maintenance tag) resolved the issue? Behaviour like that is why we ended up here. Cambial — foliar❧ 06:00, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- HaroldTS: Your show of incivility is astonishing with you starting right off with
it's surprizing how thin-skinned you are
, since this thread is discussing you, not me. Likewise, there is no reason to lump me together with Cambial. It doesn't require lengthy discussion threads to conclude that someone will never budge with polite logical discourse. After I tried that and received a few insults in return, I had you pegged. It would have been better for the project had we resolved the issues last year, but instead I decided those articles weren't worth the hassle and I walked away. I'm not one bit surprised that another editor has independently encountered the same problems with your work and attitude. No one called me or tagged me to join this thread; I was browsing ANI and instantly recognized your username... that's how much of an impression you made on me last year. I get involved in a lot of talk page discussions over many topics and I rarely remember someone else's username, but I did yours. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 00:20, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- HaroldTS: Your show of incivility is astonishing with you starting right off with
- Harold, for what the observation of an un-involved party is worth, I too see incidents where your comments have reflected excessive antagonism to opposing view points, and have even come off as attempts to gatekeep discussion on the talk page (as when you classified one of Grorp's posts as a "dumping ground" for unrelated observations, even though his comments were not really any more voluminous than your own and were pretty well focused on the subject at hand, to my eye). To be fair, those complaints are largely stale, as they concern your interactions with Grorp six months ago more so than your current dispute with Cambial. Now, as regards both you and Cambial, I think you both are starting to drift towards needlessly personalizing the dispute with discussion here at ANI, but I don't see much in the recent talk page discussions (or the edit summaries of the revision history for the article itself) that I would call WP:disruptive. Again, I am completely mystified as an outside observer as to why this discussion is continuing along personal lines here and still no one has made the least effort to pursue the typical and appropriate content dispute resolution methodologies on the actual article talk page. As of your most recent post on the talk page today, it seems you are prepared to accede to consensus on at least some of the disputed content. If that proves to be the resolution to the dispute, all well and good--nothing more need be said. But if you still plan to dispute elements of the content in question, it is well past time to bring in outside community input to break the deadlock and form a firm consensus. If I am honest, as of the most recent thread, there is arguably already a small but uniform consensus against your read. But to the extent the issue can be said to still be unresolved, you (and Cambial) need to start applying our standard dispute resolution processes, and quite it with this personalized back-biting here which is accomplishing nothing but wasting community time.Now, in the spirit of fairness, Cambial Yellowing, while I understand some of your frustrations, I would also describe your behaviour as at least a little suboptimal, and in more or less similar ways to Harold's. You made virtually no effort to resolve this issue (on the talk page or elsewhere) before escalating the matter to ANI; your talk page contributions up until that point involved one post, less than an hour before you made this filing (well before a reasonable amount of time for a response from Harold had elapsed). Your own tone here has been as combative and uncharitable towards Harold as his is to you, and your over-simplified framing of the issue (suggesting that all of the concerns that arise out of ethical questions surrounding deprogramming practices and the moral panic in which they arose can be laid at the feet of "cult apologists) raises questions about your own neutrality and perspective on the editorial question--not the least because it takes focus away from the actual WP:WEIGHT test that ought to be controlling of the open editorial questions. In short, there has been a spectacular amount of failure to WP:AGF on all sides here. More to the point, there seems to be a basic lack of comportment with the processes available to the disputants to resolve this issue well before it needed to come anywhere near ANI. Bluntly, this is not rocket science: WP:RFC this matter. If you all instead continue to just attack one-another here and consume community attention without availing yourself of a simple process that could resolve the content matter conclusively, I for one am going to start viewing this as a WP:CIR issue for both camps, and will happily support a page ban for at least two of the parties here. SnowRise let's rap 05:22, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I reject the notion that the sentence "
The passages of anti-deprogramming/cult-apologist rhetoric are not about any individual, neither clearly specifically nor obscurely, which is precisely the problem.
" – which is about the sourcing and content not being about the article subject, and is the only mention I make of the phrase ‘cult apologists’ – suggests "that all of the concerns that arise out of ethical questions surrounding deprogramming practices and the moral panic in which they arose can be laid at the feet of "cult apologists"
". This is a massive extrapolation into views I do not share. I will take your other comments on board. Cambial — foliar❧ 05:58, 21 June 2024 (UTC)- Fair enough. While we're on the subject of specific sources, I think part of the problem here is that the sources in dispute (and their precise and relevant content being referenced) are not well-summarized on the talk page: there was some discussion during HotS's original talk page disagreement with Grorp about doing that. And subsequent comments by Harold suggest he feels that was substantially accomplished. But in neither the archived discussion nor the current live talk page do I see that, despite the fact that so much turns on the question of how directly the sources were discussing the article's subject when criticizing certain elements of the historical deprogrammer movement. That didn't matter very much too me, insofar as I wasn't looking to provide an opinion on the content issue. But if I was, I must say I would be very much on the fence between the perspectives of the two "sides" here. All of which is to say, if the dispute does continue, and an RfC remains necessary, it might be worth it for someone to present the relevant quotes from the involved sources at length. I think it will greatly benefit the follow-up discussion if RfC respondents have that to work with from the start, rather than having to disentangle the multiple previous threads to identify (and then independently find) the relevant sources. Just a suggestion, mind you--it's not incumbent upon anyone to do that. But I think it would help cut through the noise, moving forward. SnowRise let's rap 08:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I reject the notion that the sentence "
- Harold, for what the observation of an un-involved party is worth, I too see incidents where your comments have reflected excessive antagonism to opposing view points, and have even come off as attempts to gatekeep discussion on the talk page (as when you classified one of Grorp's posts as a "dumping ground" for unrelated observations, even though his comments were not really any more voluminous than your own and were pretty well focused on the subject at hand, to my eye). To be fair, those complaints are largely stale, as they concern your interactions with Grorp six months ago more so than your current dispute with Cambial. Now, as regards both you and Cambial, I think you both are starting to drift towards needlessly personalizing the dispute with discussion here at ANI, but I don't see much in the recent talk page discussions (or the edit summaries of the revision history for the article itself) that I would call WP:disruptive. Again, I am completely mystified as an outside observer as to why this discussion is continuing along personal lines here and still no one has made the least effort to pursue the typical and appropriate content dispute resolution methodologies on the actual article talk page. As of your most recent post on the talk page today, it seems you are prepared to accede to consensus on at least some of the disputed content. If that proves to be the resolution to the dispute, all well and good--nothing more need be said. But if you still plan to dispute elements of the content in question, it is well past time to bring in outside community input to break the deadlock and form a firm consensus. If I am honest, as of the most recent thread, there is arguably already a small but uniform consensus against your read. But to the extent the issue can be said to still be unresolved, you (and Cambial) need to start applying our standard dispute resolution processes, and quite it with this personalized back-biting here which is accomplishing nothing but wasting community time.Now, in the spirit of fairness, Cambial Yellowing, while I understand some of your frustrations, I would also describe your behaviour as at least a little suboptimal, and in more or less similar ways to Harold's. You made virtually no effort to resolve this issue (on the talk page or elsewhere) before escalating the matter to ANI; your talk page contributions up until that point involved one post, less than an hour before you made this filing (well before a reasonable amount of time for a response from Harold had elapsed). Your own tone here has been as combative and uncharitable towards Harold as his is to you, and your over-simplified framing of the issue (suggesting that all of the concerns that arise out of ethical questions surrounding deprogramming practices and the moral panic in which they arose can be laid at the feet of "cult apologists) raises questions about your own neutrality and perspective on the editorial question--not the least because it takes focus away from the actual WP:WEIGHT test that ought to be controlling of the open editorial questions. In short, there has been a spectacular amount of failure to WP:AGF on all sides here. More to the point, there seems to be a basic lack of comportment with the processes available to the disputants to resolve this issue well before it needed to come anywhere near ANI. Bluntly, this is not rocket science: WP:RFC this matter. If you all instead continue to just attack one-another here and consume community attention without availing yourself of a simple process that could resolve the content matter conclusively, I for one am going to start viewing this as a WP:CIR issue for both camps, and will happily support a page ban for at least two of the parties here. SnowRise let's rap 05:22, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Widespread disruption on election articles
Following the Twitter storm mentioned in the section above, there is now widespread disruption on a large number of election articles – editors driven by the Twitter stuff are ignoring an RfC at 2022 Italian general election (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and 2018 Italian general election (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (on the 2022 article, one editor has reverted again despite being made aware of the RfC); made-up election results that were removed are being blindly reverted back into numerous French election articles (e.g. edits like this and this (exactly the same as was happening at the time of this ANI report from January. Can someone please step in – restore the Italian articles to the RfC-approved infobox and lock them and look at what is happening on the French articles. Cheers, Number 57 01:14, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Wow, disappointed in several long-standing editors actively working with the newly made WP:SPAs to go against a consensus that was established over an entire year. To start with calling out just one from the first article you linked, Μαρκος Δ, explain yourself. Because this is a really bad look for someone who's been here a decade. SilverserenC 01:25, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- RfC was achieved through the consensus of four editors. Not to say that it should be gone against, but I think it deserves a new one, given how volatile this issue is and how many editors care about it, currently. Lucksash (talk) 01:40, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- First of all, please mind your tone and remain civil and respectful. Do not ping me and say "explain yourself". I voiced my support for reopening the discussion, and that is all. I have not partaken in any edit-warring on any article, unlike several others here. So what exactly is it that you wish to "call out"? I have been opposed to the transition to the new legislative infobox since the very beginning, but have been railroaded by the user above you, and I am therefore happy to see others now wishing to reopen the debate. I voiced this opinion on the talk page in question, as is my right. What part of that, exactly, is it that you need me to explain to you in greater detail? Μαρκος Δ 19:15, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- 2022 Italian general election is an absolute shitshow right now. It should be reverted to the RfC-approved version when consensus was established, and then locked to prevent continued disruptive editing. Bgsu98 (Talk) 01:28, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I've reverted the most recent disruption and locked the page for 48 hrs. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:53, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks, you might want to do the 2018 one as well. Cheers, Number 57 01:56, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Recommend adding the same level of protection to 2018 Italian general election as well for the same reasons. Bgsu98 (Talk) 02:02, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- And what happens if the consensus has changed? Siglæ (talk) 05:38, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Consensus can indeed change, but has it? A new RfC would be required (and I say that as some who favours the older, TIE infoboxes). — Czello (music) 07:35, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- We don’t know if consensus has changed yet, that is why some people, including me, are proposing a new RfC. Whereas other, notably people who favour the new format, believe that it is unnecessary because they believe that new discussion arises from “extra-wikipedian reasons” (and I don’t get how that invalidates anything) and consensus has already been established (which also does t make any since, since consensus can change) Siglæ (talk) 07:38, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Indeed, consensus can change – so personally I'd be in favour of a new RfC. Note, however, that new accounts or accounts accused of meat puppetry are likely to have their comments discounted. — Czello (music) 07:47, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I hope I am misunderstanding and you actually aren’t insinuating that my account is sock puppet. That is ridiculous, as you can see that it has been active on the Italian Wikipedia since weeks before this debacle Siglæ (talk) 07:59, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I am making no accusations to any single editor, no – I'll always AGF. Regardless, it's undeniable that there is a prominent set of twitter threads that are drawing other users here, and a new RfC would undoubtedly be attractive to them.
- What I'm saying is, if you want to start a new RfC you'll need to ensure you can depend on established users rather than people who might have been canvassed. — Czello (music) 08:14, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I hope I am misunderstanding and you actually aren’t insinuating that my account is sock puppet. That is ridiculous, as you can see that it has been active on the Italian Wikipedia since weeks before this debacle Siglæ (talk) 07:59, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Indeed, consensus can change – so personally I'd be in favour of a new RfC. Note, however, that new accounts or accounts accused of meat puppetry are likely to have their comments discounted. — Czello (music) 07:47, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- We don’t know if consensus has changed yet, that is why some people, including me, are proposing a new RfC. Whereas other, notably people who favour the new format, believe that it is unnecessary because they believe that new discussion arises from “extra-wikipedian reasons” (and I don’t get how that invalidates anything) and consensus has already been established (which also does t make any since, since consensus can change) Siglæ (talk) 07:38, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Consensus can indeed change, but has it? A new RfC would be required (and I say that as some who favours the older, TIE infoboxes). — Czello (music) 07:35, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I've reverted the most recent disruption and locked the page for 48 hrs. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:53, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I would like to challenge the slander coming from some users. The people who are noticing problems coming from certain editors are also wiki users or editors or contributors. You can complain about their means but don't slander their cause. That's unbefitting of y'all. The people who are rightly indignant that Number 57 and the sort are messing around with election pages, seemingly without reason, and especially WITHOUT consensus, are doing it out of love for a particular community on this website. Talleyrand6 (talk) 01:59, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I would like to point to the French legislative election pages for this. I haven't got a clue about the Italy situation. If there's an RFC decision for that it should be restored. I would however add that maybe a review of it should happen mostly on procedural grounds. Technically a consensus was formed but from...what...four people? There's clearly popular angst with it. I would reckon that interested parties should be allowed to level representations for that issue. AFIK an RFC decision isn't set in stone. Talleyrand6 (talk) 02:03, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- There is a way to challenge a RFC, and perhaps the Italy one might change, but the edit-warring at the Italian articles is for sure not the way to go about it. Bgsu98 (Talk) 02:06, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I agree! I'm just explaining more of the situation. Talleyrand6 (talk) 02:10, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Number 57's edits to French legislative articles are particularly egregious because he cites a consensus for his decisions that doesn't exist. A friend of his cites a discussion (well, actually, three different discussions) where a consensus was supposedly formed except actually for those with eyes to see, the opposite is true. A consensus formed against his proposed edits. My personal opinion is that his actions are driven more by his opinions and tastes than actual consensus. As such, others noticed this happening, yes, on Twitter, but then most (there maybe be exceptions) of the revisions and edits came from wiki editors and those edits (going against Number 57's proposals) seemed to garner a real consensus. Talleyrand6 (talk) 02:12, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- There is a way to challenge a RFC, and perhaps the Italy one might change, but the edit-warring at the Italian articles is for sure not the way to go about it. Bgsu98 (Talk) 02:06, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- It's not without consensus. The last major discussion was held last year and led to the current accepted consensus. Of course, consensus can change, and I'm saying this as someone who preferred the old infobox style myself.But the fact is, the amount of outside interference going on means that it is currently the worst possible time to hold a new discussion on this, and what 57 (and others, including myself) are doing is just trying to keep pages in line with the last RfC consensus, until a new one can be made at a better time. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 02:06, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I agree! But 57's changes aren't limited to where there is a legitimate decision. Talleyrand6 (talk) 02:11, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I am only speaking to the Italian articles. If someone is taking the RFC from the Italy consensus and then trying to use that to justify changing infoboxes on election articles of other nations, then there is a problem. Bgsu98 (Talk) 02:15, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Talleyrand6, you just became indef-unblocked, after an impressive series of blocks for edit warring and personal attacks (pinging your last blocker/unblocker, Deepfriedokra), and here we find you being part of what seems to be an orchestrated edit war, and making comments that violate AGF. I think you are skating on thin ice. Drmies (talk) 02:23, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Drmies:. Thin ice? The unblock log reads zero tolerance for personal attacks and edit warring. Please feel free to reblock at will. Best -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 02:50, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have not being edit warring.
- I made one (1) edit. Talleyrand6 (talk) 03:21, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- And nor have I 'orchestrated' anything. Talleyrand6 (talk) 03:23, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- But you are casting aspersions which is a form of personal attack. Assume good faith and stop seeing conspiracies. Liz Read! Talk! 03:50, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have never claimed its a conspiracy. I think his decisions are simply misguided. Talleyrand6 (talk) 04:12, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- There are no conspiracies when there are facts. Beside the case of the Italian general elections (for which I believe we should acknowledge that consensus may have changed, but that is another discussion) most of other edit wars have been caused by number 57 changing things without consensus and then him or someone other who agrees with him appealing to an established consensus which doesn’t simply exist. Siglæ (talk) 05:42, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I wholeheartedly apologize if my words came off as crass. There was no intention from me to tarnish the character of any admin. If I may be allowed a brief defense, all of my actions were and are singularly focused on the info boxes and related edits. I will be more mindful to avoid giving the wrong impression. Best, Talleyrand6 (talk) 18:14, 16 June 2024 (UTC)!
- But you are casting aspersions which is a form of personal attack. Assume good faith and stop seeing conspiracies. Liz Read! Talk! 03:50, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- And nor have I 'orchestrated' anything. Talleyrand6 (talk) 03:23, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Drmies:. Thin ice? The unblock log reads zero tolerance for personal attacks and edit warring. Please feel free to reblock at will. Best -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 02:50, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I agree! But 57's changes aren't limited to where there is a legitimate decision. Talleyrand6 (talk) 02:11, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I would like to point to the French legislative election pages for this. I haven't got a clue about the Italy situation. If there's an RFC decision for that it should be restored. I would however add that maybe a review of it should happen mostly on procedural grounds. Technically a consensus was formed but from...what...four people? There's clearly popular angst with it. I would reckon that interested parties should be allowed to level representations for that issue. AFIK an RFC decision isn't set in stone. Talleyrand6 (talk) 02:03, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- (Maybe this is outside of the scope of this thread, but as we're here...)
- Clearly there seems to be a question here about which articles have a consensus for TILE over TIE. Italy seems to have consensus for TILE. There's been much discussion about France – where's its consensus? What about other countries? — Czello (music) 07:43, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Italy doesn’t have consensus for TILE, as for example in 2013 and before (until 1992) they use TIE (and IMO TILE should be used in Italy only before 1992. Other countries are case by case basis IMO (Eg. Israel should use TILE, but South Africa shouldn’t) Siglæ (talk) 07:56, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- If I'm reading this correctly, Italy does have a consensus for TILE
for most Italian elections
(though later on it says TIE isoff the table and should not be used for any Italian elections.
). — Czello (music) 08:21, 16 June 2024 (UTC)- Note that the discussion you cite was limited to
the last two general elections in Italy
and that the RfC closer clarified the result of the discussion asfor most infoboxes within the scope of the RFC, which are most Italian elections after 2018
. That discussion was definitely not directly appliable to elections before 2018. Impru20talk 08:25, 16 June 2024 (UTC) - Exactly, most (1946 through 1992). Between 1992 and 2013 uses TIE instead. Consesus for 2018 and 2022 was established last year, but a case can be made that it may have changed, or at least it is worth reopening the discussion. Siglæ (talk) 08:32, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- One thing I will note concerning that specific consensus regarding Italian infoboxes is that it seemingly has a WP:GAME violation in that it was done with solely 6 editors involved and only 4 in favour. There was a short discussion on it and a new RfC hasn't been opened to discuss this consensus on it despite a clear showing in change on this consensus, including that very clearly WP:CCC has occurred, and consensus has very significantly changed. A 4 editor in favour out of 6 consensus might work on an extremely often not browsed page on an obscure topic, but for such an extremely focused on topic of a recent election such a consensus is extremely negative to have such a low interaction from users. CIN I&II (talk) 03:44, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Note that the discussion you cite was limited to
- If I'm reading this correctly, Italy does have a consensus for TILE
- Italy doesn’t have consensus for TILE, as for example in 2013 and before (until 1992) they use TIE (and IMO TILE should be used in Italy only before 1992. Other countries are case by case basis IMO (Eg. Israel should use TILE, but South Africa shouldn’t) Siglæ (talk) 07:56, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Stepping in to give my two cents. Just as I commented at Talk:2024 South African general election#Infobox legislative election instead of Infobox election, I was alerted of this issue because of my watchlist becoming full of edit warring notices and the Twitter thread on the issue reaching my personal Tw TL due to it becoming viral. Off wiki attacks on Number 57 are egregious and should receive condemnation, but there are other non-insulting comments and arguments which have been brought forward, which are not without merit and which relate to my own experience for years in election Wikipedia (and, from what I see, to that of many other users). I appreciate Number 57's work to improve election articles for many years. We have both been engaged in clashes and in collaborative efforts aimed at improving election articles. But it is clear that their changes from TIE to TILE across vast swathes of articles (often supported by two or three other users) were, at many times, far from uncontroversial.
- Indeed, I can acknowledge to those that keep reverting those articles that specific consensuses were reached for the UK (for future elections only, and only until they happened) and Italy (though as far as I am aware this was limited to 2018 and 2022 according to the specific RfC on the issue, which addressed a particular situation involving the electoral system used for these two. Why was this enforced to other Italian election articles?). But while these were specific, they were often cited by TILE enforcers as some form of general consensus for changing other articles, clearly overextending the scope of the original consensus. For other articles, discussions were either absent, far from reaching a clear consensus or even openly hostile to change, yet many changes proceeded anyway, often citing other similarly-edited articles as justification (when these were edited by the same users) or citing some "new standard" (which was proven as false when you warranted evidence for it) or even justified on the basis of WP:BOLD (which is ok, but then when other users were "bold" and reinstated TIE they were reverted for being "disruptive" or demanding from them a clear consensus for such reversion, something which had not been attained to secure the first controversial edit). Some other cases I can remind of involved reverting users that were blocked by other behaviours, with this being taken to the advantage of TILE's supporters to re-impose their edits as they were not going to be contested by those who were blocked.
- Behaviour has been far from exemplary. Number 57 et al.'s proceeding has been to subtly and patiently introduce the TIE/TILE change (many times in smaller, lesser edited articles), then revert anyone who attempted to undo the change, most of the time with very vague edit summaries and in a semi-concerted effort (I am sure there is no "conspiracy" here, but you do not need one: it is not unfrequent for an editor to join another one's cause in any given article when they see it coming, without any explicit concert). I contested some of these throughout the years, but in the last times I mostly let them be as it became a tedious task to contest every single one of these and I was going to be reverted anyway. That did not mean I supported the change, just that I did not have the time to spend it contesting every single of them on my own. It was exhausting. This said, the issue was obviously going to explode some day as opposition mounted, the sense of imposition kept growing and as changes started spilling over to larger articles, and this is what has happened here when this was attempted at 2024 South African general election: the TIE/TILE imposition was attempted with a discussion still underway on the issue, without any consensus being formed, and this seemed to be the last straw for many. Tensions accumulated for many years by many users suddenly unleashed against the latest attempt at imposing a seemingly unpopular edit. Canvassing aside, when you have a whole thread going viral in Twitter, a Youtube video created and such a massive in-wiki response across vast swathes of articles, using sensible arguments and involving not just new accounts but also long-standing users, it is obvious that something is amiss. Impru20talk 08:22, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- As already said, wholeheartedly agree Siglæ (talk) 08:28, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- You've put this extremely well. The best way to diffuse the situation is to allow for local consensus to return without the imposition a small number of experienced wikipedians attempting to WP:BOLD to impose a new consensus across hundreds of articles, then cite distrupiton to maintain it when others attempt to WP:BOLD to restore existing consensus. It all reads of WP:GAME which evidently leads to controversy and when left festering, to unnecessary hostility and distrust towards the small group of otherwise compitent editors. Bejakyo (talk) 16:55, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Could not agree more, the backlash is unfortunate but an extremely clear sign that these years-long series of edits are imposing the views of a few individuals upon the entire site. I've dealt with a similar situation where Number 57 and aligned accounts acted in ways that toe the line of bad faith gaming of the system (stalling, misrepresentation, ghosting) to force through changes that they wanted without proper discussion. Much like many others have said, it got to a point where I just gave up trying to stop it. Almost more egregious have been imposed removals of "members elected" in the name of 'clarity' and 'removing clutter' — there is a common factor (a small group of users) in all of these disputes. This must change or these "disruptive" backlashes will continue to plague election pages (and the disruptors will have a strong point). Watercheetah99 (talk) 20:05, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Second all this. This whole situation has gotten wildly out of control, and will probably continue to happen again and again until something changes. CainNKalos (talk) 03:11, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- +1 on Impru's comment. Vacant0 (talk) 00:06, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Personal attacks on Number 57 are entirely inappropriate, and they should be protected from a social media mob. However, I also think this issue has reoccurred repeatedly for a reason - there's clearly a gap between the preferences of a small group of experienced elections Wiki editors, and readers/the public as a whole. We have a difficult time understanding the opinions of readers, and they have a difficult time expressing it, but in some instances, like this one, it becomes clear that they have a different perspective. I think it's worth organizing a larger RfC aiming for broad participation on election infoboxes generally, so that the general community of Wikipedians can weigh in, beyond the few who regularly edit election infoboxes. —Ganesha811 (talk) 11:23, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- There have been several public death threats made against Number 57 in Twitter: 1, 2, 3, 4. This situation has become alarming Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 14:44, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is all about the infobox?? Not the far-right, or anything meaningful? Secretlondon (talk) 14:48, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- There have been uhh...incidents like this over a map or maps Talleyrand6 (talk) 22:04, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Like someone mentioned further up, I think a sound course of action would be to let this entire issue rest for a little while, and then open a civil discussion about it in the not-too-distant future, once the dust from this has settled. Because now, for some reason, it is clear that a lot of users (and non-users as you show us here), feel very strongly about this topic, and it is stirring a lot of overly heated and, in some cases, violent speech, which I think we can all agree is not acceptable. Nobody should face harrassment for their opinions or preferences on any issue on site. I can not see this discussion leading anywhere productive in the current climate, so again, my opinion is that we should all let it rest for the time being. Μαρκος Δ 19:26, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I concur FWIW Talleyrand6 (talk) 22:03, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Aside from the one that is now deleted those just seem like lame jokes, they wouldn't fly on Wikipedia, sure - but we don't need to give any thought nor heed to them. Just ignore them and move on.
- A wider RfC is definitely in order given that it was a low turn out RfC hosted on a single article's talk page and the amount of people who disagree with.
- What User:Impru20 and User:Watercheetah99 have posted is somewhat alarming about 57's behaviour. Traumnovelle (talk) 06:03, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is all about the infobox?? Not the far-right, or anything meaningful? Secretlondon (talk) 14:48, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- There have been several public death threats made against Number 57 in Twitter: 1, 2, 3, 4. This situation has become alarming Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 14:44, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, so that's why the IP from earlier was doing that. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 22:07, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
Semi-protection for all effected pages, would be start. GoodDay (talk) 15:09, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Affected pages by #57? Or just the Italy and France ones? Hyraemous (talk) 15:52, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
So this widespread disruption is contagious: look at the completely unexplained series of reverts by User:Luentez, who appears out of nowhere to throw oil on the fire. Drmies (talk) 21:10, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Basically the definition of an WP:SPA. Less than 10 edits prior to this and even those were six months ago. Then they show up now to do a bunch of repeated mass reverts and no attempts at talk page discussions whatsoever. I say admins should block and forget for these types showing up. SilverserenC 21:29, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- User:Silver seren, I agree, and I'm hoping some admin will pick this up--but since a couple of the reverts were of my edits (which I thought were valid given the existence of this very thread), I can hardly do this myself. Plus, one wonders if this is perhaps someone's alternate account. Drmies (talk) 21:34, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Comment I don't see any reason why a discussion on the talk page couldn't override an earlier consensus for 2022 Italian general election; and in fact some editors are engaging in such a discussion. But some of the SPAs are engaging in harassment and edit-warring, and should be blocked for those behaviors. The dispute ultimately does come down to consensus; whether the infobox has pictures of parliamentary leaders is a topic where questions like "what do reliable sources say" will resolve the dispute. Walsh90210 (talk) 21:49, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Recommend a block for User:Luentez until he learns how to communicate. Also recommend all of his reversions be rolled back due to lack of explanation or edit summary. Bgsu98 (Talk) 23:05, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Support Proposal above. The lack of edit summaries are crazy. ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 23:16, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Note: I did leave a notice on User:Luentez' talk page advising him of this thread, in addition to the warning template left by User:Drmies. Bgsu98 (Talk) 23:20, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Note: I mass reverted all of Luentez's edits reverting drmies on June 16. ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 04:33, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Anyways, I'm sure this issue wouldn't have been out of control if it weren't for people throwing a barrel of oil into a small fireplace by making exaggerated videos on youtube and making death threats on Twitter. Can those people freaking get themselves together and understand that such actions don't help at all to resolve this controversy? Can they just go back to watching random videos or making shitposts on Twitter? (Also, weren't death threats a criminal offense? Why not report them?) ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 05:05, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Note: I mass reverted all of Luentez's edits reverting drmies on June 16. ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 04:33, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- There has been consensus about how wikipedia infobox should look and how it looks in articles about election in other countries. How many people of election wikipedia community were involved in making this changes? Luentez (talk) 09:17, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Luentez, there has? Where? Why didn't you reference this in your edit summaries? Where were your edit summaries? Do you have any idea how rude it was what you did? Drmies (talk) 13:18, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Articles about the Italian elections in 2018, 2022, 1983, 1979, 1976, 1972, 1968, 1963, 1958, 1953 have different info boxes than the others. The format I reverted them to was used for a long time in most elections before a user named Number 57 decided, along with several other users, to change this formula even though many people did not express their opinion on this topic. This is absolutely unacceptable and needs to be fixed as the wider community was not consulted. Luentez (talk) 16:51, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- You didn't answer what Drmies asked you. Did you acknowledge the importance of edit summaries when doing things like this? ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 23:19, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- You should also consider that, for example in the 1968 election, when the infobox was changed from TIE to TILE on the 25th of October 2023 nothing was written in the edit summaries, neither on the talk for that page, so it shouldn’t be a problem to revert that edit because there wasn’t an edit summary nor explanation of sort Siglæ (talk) 06:17, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- You didn't answer what Drmies asked you. Did you acknowledge the importance of edit summaries when doing things like this? ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 23:19, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Articles about the Italian elections in 2018, 2022, 1983, 1979, 1976, 1972, 1968, 1963, 1958, 1953 have different info boxes than the others. The format I reverted them to was used for a long time in most elections before a user named Number 57 decided, along with several other users, to change this formula even though many people did not express their opinion on this topic. This is absolutely unacceptable and needs to be fixed as the wider community was not consulted. Luentez (talk) 16:51, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Luentez, there has? Where? Why didn't you reference this in your edit summaries? Where were your edit summaries? Do you have any idea how rude it was what you did? Drmies (talk) 13:18, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- There has been consensus about how wikipedia infobox should look and how it looks in articles about election in other countries. How many people of election wikipedia community were involved in making this changes? Luentez (talk) 09:17, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
I blocked Talleyrand6 in my role as a CU for off-wiki canvasing as well as persistent disruptive editing and edit warring --Guerillero Parlez Moi 02:17, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
I just spotted (and reverted) three cases where unilateral edits to change TIE to TILE were done (without properly addressing the changes in the edit summaries or seeking an explicit consensus for it): 1989, 1991 and 1993 Polish parliamentary elections. One of these was done in April 2023, the other two were done in the last couple of months (effectively placing them out of consistency with other Polish election articles). I am particularly appalled at these since I myself opposed similar edits to these articles in 2021, recommending a wider consensus to be reached first (since they affected a large number of articles and looked like they were being conducted when they were not being looked upon). The users conducting the recent changes were aware of such opposition and that conducting such a change would be controversial, yet they did it anyway a few years later without even properly specifying such changes in the edit summaries. Obviously, no attempt was made at contacting me or other users opposing them in the past. Impru20talk 11:00, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- It's disappointing how many of these edits seem to have taken place without discussion or consensus, seemingly because of personal preference, by editors who have a long enough tenure to know better. I've added these articles to my watchlist. — Czello (music) 11:13, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Good catch, Impru. Vacant0 (talk) 11:24, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Not commenting on the rest of the dispute here, but it does seem like changes to election infoboxes should be discussed in WP:WPE&R going forward. Allan Nonymous (talk) 02:41, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Proxy IPs conducting disruptive edits
181.117.93.235 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
1.21.121.126 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
112.184.132.153 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
180.35.109.165 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
124.144.93.137 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
Related to WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1157#IPs that persistently harass me and WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1157#Another Proxy IPs that are conducting disrputive edits. 117.53.77.84 (talk) 06:31, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
disruptive proxy IPs
14.51.145.60 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
106.172.176.108 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
180.144.64.200 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
220.211.71.134 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
Another Proxy IP list that are conducting disruptive edits. Related to WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1157#IPs that persistently harass me, WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1157#Another Proxy IPs that are conducting disrputive edits, #Proxy IPs conducting disruptive edits. 117.53.77.84 (talk) 02:49, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Both the content and harassment make it reasonably clear that this is WP:LTA/INTSF. Courtesy ping Bbb23, who wondered in a previous section what was going on. CMD (talk) 11:02, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
JackkBrown further disruption
JackkBrown (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) I don't want to be here, but it is clear that Jack has not learned from the prior advice, blocks:
- Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1143#User:JackkBrown (November block}
- Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1145 (archived without action)
- Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1148#JackKBrown_again (one month block)
Questions about minutiae (cannoli (and a move request here based on the continued English/Italian confusion, pronunciation, ingredients despite being told multiple times that this is not what HD/Teahouse are for and to use the Talk. He has also moved on to deletion without an understanding of policy.
I don't know if it's IDHT or lack of competence, but it's clear the behavior isn't going to change if it hasn't for the last 9 months+.Is there a p-block that would work since they seem to need a physical blocker to stop them from the HD. Thoughts? Suggestions? Star Mississippi 15:57, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Star Mississippi: I did my best to improve, I also respected the maximum of two/three questions per month at the help desk; to claim that I haven't improved much is strange. JacktheBrown (talk) 16:02, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Star Mississippi: ingredients: I never asked this question, as I removed it a minute later; with all due respect, bad idea to report this. JacktheBrown (talk) 16:04, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, the ingredients thing was quickly fixed, but that kind of highlights the general problem: you're still editing far too quickly and sloppily. And that leads to things like making 20 rapid-fire minor edits to an article or non-constructive PRODs. You're also spending way too much time turning British English into American English and a bunch of editors have been pulling out their hair on your talk page over your intransigence about taking WP:ENGVAR seriously.
- It's really unfortunate, too, because unlike a lot of people who end up here regularly, you're definitely here to build an encyclopedia and I don't have any doubts that you have the best of intentions. With your Italian language skills and your apparent love of food, there are so many great contributions that few here could make as well. Valereee even suggested a couple places where your skillset would be most appreciated: Ark of Taste and List of Italian food and drink products with protected status have so many red links and you have the ability to do immense good here. But instead, you're doing things like moving Pignoli (cookie) to Pignoli (biscuit) which don't make the encyclopedia better.
- One good, clear, substantive edit is far more valuable than 20 slipshod ones. Wikipedia loses out when you're blocked from editing, which is why the community has been so patient with you. But nobody's patience is endless. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 17:12, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- @CoffeeCrumbs: thank you. I have made many substantial changes; see, for example, the list of Italian foods and drinks page, of which I'm the largest contributor, and the huge improvements in all Italian foods and drinks. The changes that bothered you represent, perhaps, 1/2% of all my edits. JacktheBrown (talk) 17:44, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- @CoffeeCrumbs: I also improve articles on other nations and cultures. JacktheBrown (talk) 18:01, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'd been keeping an eye on JacktheBrown (Jack) for a while, but had to take his page off my watchlist due to the pure volume of edits. I think list of Italian foods and drinks page exemplifies both the benefit Jack brings and simultaneously the unmitigated problems Jack presents.
- That page shows that Jack is the only non-bot editor for over a month, which shows how they contribute to underserved areas of the encyclopedia. It also shows the pattern of many small edits in quick succession (e.g., 6 edits within 3 minutes on June 7, 5 within 3 minutes on May 7). I remember trying to assist Jack by explaining what cosmetic edits were and why to not make them, and then a later discussion on WP:ENGVAR. I am concerned that each time one problem area is addressed (whitespace, Engvar), the disruption seems to move to a different area.
- It's disappointing that Jack seems to spend so much effort on the form of Wikipedia (managing lists, copyediting, changing image sizes), tasks which any English speaker could do, and seems to spend relatively little time on the substance of it, such as finding Italian-language sources for articles, a task of which few of our volunteers are capable. Of Jack's past 100 edits, 40 have been to article or talk space. Of those, I found only two (5%) that I would consider substantial, removing one unsourced passage, and discussing pronunciation on a talk page. There's nothing wrong with housekeeping Wikipedia, but Jack seems ill-suited for the task, and yet spends 95% of their edits on such things. I concur that Jack is very much WP:HERE for the right reasons, but their many small edits seem to cause frustration for other volunteers. If others are like me and have unfollowed a page because of the watch list spam, it seems like the best intentions may be harming the encyclopedia. EducatedRedneck (talk) 19:30, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- The flood of inconsequential cosmetic edits make up a lot more than one-per-200 of your edits. A wide assortment of people have commented on these problems. And nobody is saying you don't make substantial changes, but that your insubstantial ones, and frequently ones that are not ideal to make with someone's second language, are overshadowing the very good contributions you do make. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 20:23, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- @CoffeeCrumbs: I'm sad and also disappointed about it; with myself. JacktheBrown (talk) 20:27, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I note here that Jack moved one of their comments, changing which one my post replied to. I wrote enough that the intended context is clear, but have seen discussion in which this could've caused great confusion. The move edit summary was
in the correct place
, and demonstrates the same misplaced confidence shown in their copyediting and unfamiliarity with policy that are causing concern here. EducatedRedneck (talk) 22:34, 16 June 2024 (UTC)- @EducatedRedneck: the comments you refer to are part of the same comment, but I decided to write them in two comments (for more order); so I thought it was a mistake of the (kind) user who answered me. Try to understand that in this place (ANI) I'm in a panic. JacktheBrown (talk) 22:55, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm sorry you are feeling panicky. Secretlondon (talk) 09:00, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- @EducatedRedneck: the comments you refer to are part of the same comment, but I decided to write them in two comments (for more order); so I thought it was a mistake of the (kind) user who answered me. Try to understand that in this place (ANI) I'm in a panic. JacktheBrown (talk) 22:55, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Some of this seems to be about unwritten rules. How do we treat ENVAR? Does it matter if its a cookie or a biscuit? Which rules are more important than others? These can be hard for some people. Secretlondon (talk) 09:06, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm confused. MOS:ENGVAR seems very much written. Am I misunderstanding you? EducatedRedneck (talk) 14:09, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, but SecretLondon is talking about ENVAR, which remains unwritten. EEng 16:01, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- (content comment therefore off-topic and *sigh*) It matters because biscuit means different things in different varieties of English, whereas cookie (even if primarily a North American word) is unambiguous. Compromise in cases like this is how we help readers find what they're looking for. Did I mention that I'm a Brit? Narky Blert (talk) 17:39, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Since I posted about something else, I might as well post here. I think what EducatedRedneck and others mentioned is is highly relevant in this discussion. However much importance various editors may attach to Engvar issues, a key point is that JackkBrown apparently (I have not independently looked at the evidence) is largely doing copy-editing. In that case, getting engvar right is far more important especially when it comes to introducing new errors. If JackkBrown was adding significant new content and in doing do introducing engvar mistakes; I expect editors would be far more tolerant to such mistakes. (To be clear, this would only apply to such changes. If they did that stuff while simultaneous copying editing existing content and making engvar mistakes, they'd probably still cause a high level of annoyance.) Copy editing where some of your changes are a net positive and some are a net negative tends to be viewed poorly for good reason. Nil Einne (talk) 13:22, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- P.S. Adding new sources to existing content is another area that occurred to me but I excluded it because it's unlikely to lead to Engvar issues but perhaps improving content to better match sources as opposed to simple copyediting is another area where there would be more tolerance. Nil Einne (talk) 13:25, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Since I posted about something else, I might as well post here. I think what EducatedRedneck and others mentioned is is highly relevant in this discussion. However much importance various editors may attach to Engvar issues, a key point is that JackkBrown apparently (I have not independently looked at the evidence) is largely doing copy-editing. In that case, getting engvar right is far more important especially when it comes to introducing new errors. If JackkBrown was adding significant new content and in doing do introducing engvar mistakes; I expect editors would be far more tolerant to such mistakes. (To be clear, this would only apply to such changes. If they did that stuff while simultaneous copying editing existing content and making engvar mistakes, they'd probably still cause a high level of annoyance.) Copy editing where some of your changes are a net positive and some are a net negative tends to be viewed poorly for good reason. Nil Einne (talk) 13:22, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- (content comment therefore off-topic and *sigh*) It matters because biscuit means different things in different varieties of English, whereas cookie (even if primarily a North American word) is unambiguous. Compromise in cases like this is how we help readers find what they're looking for. Did I mention that I'm a Brit? Narky Blert (talk) 17:39, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, but SecretLondon is talking about ENVAR, which remains unwritten. EEng 16:01, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Right, and in a collaborative environment the best tact to take when something is difficult for you is to recognize that, and perhaps exercise additional caution when that thing crops up—in so doing, preventing yourself from making more of the same work for others over and over. It's difficult to make Jack aware enough of very specific points to change his behavior, but he does not seem interested in extrapolating any larger norms from what other editors tell him. It's an exhausting game of whack-a-mole, and it's beyond our remit at this point to solve the endless new puzzles of how to adequately explain a thing to him—often related to things already explained to him.Remsense诉 18:00, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have a question and a comment. First, @JackkBrown: has anyone ever suggested that you take your questions to the reference desk instead? Second, I was annoyed when you started an RfC over comments I had made at Talk: Pied-noir because it seemed like a recipe for drama I was trying to avoid, but while drama did ensue, the spelling problem I was complaining about did get resolved as a result, so thank you for that. Elinruby (talk) 22:32, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Elinruby: you're welcome, the important thing is the end result; however, I apologise to you. JacktheBrown (talk) 23:40, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Neither expected nor required; I may have expressed some annoyance at the time is all, But seriously, well-done. Elinruby (talk) 23:54, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Elinruby: I'm very satisfied, thank you! JacktheBrown (talk) 00:01, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- So did anyone ever tell you to take your strange questions to the Reference Desk? They like strange questions there, and they once even took a heroic shot at "what's the word on the tip of my tongue?" so it's worth a shot. As far as the rest of this goes, maybe lay off a bit on the espresso? I dunno. Hope these suggestions help. Elinruby (talk) 23:59, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Elinruby: I think, and hope, that I will definitely stop asking questions, even important ones, except in the article discussion pages. JacktheBrown (talk) 00:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I would hate to think that the thing to do is not ask the important questions. Are the ingredients of cannoli an important question? Elinruby (talk) 00:11, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Elinruby: it would be better to tagliare la testa al toro (Italian way of saying) and exclude any type of question, except in the article discussion pages. JacktheBrown (talk) 00:15, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think think that is the wrong takeaway. Why did you wikilink "Italian" there? Did you wonder whether you should do that? Do you know how to look that up? See, sometimes questions are important. By the way, you didn't answer mine. Did anyone ever suggest asking questions at the Reference Desk? Elinruby (talk) 00:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Elinruby: let's continue the discussion in my discussion page, the response space is really narrowing too much. JacktheBrown (talk) 00:40, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think think that is the wrong takeaway. Why did you wikilink "Italian" there? Did you wonder whether you should do that? Do you know how to look that up? See, sometimes questions are important. By the way, you didn't answer mine. Did anyone ever suggest asking questions at the Reference Desk? Elinruby (talk) 00:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Elinruby: it would be better to tagliare la testa al toro (Italian way of saying) and exclude any type of question, except in the article discussion pages. JacktheBrown (talk) 00:15, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I would hate to think that the thing to do is not ask the important questions. Are the ingredients of cannoli an important question? Elinruby (talk) 00:11, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Elinruby: I think, and hope, that I will definitely stop asking questions, even important ones, except in the article discussion pages. JacktheBrown (talk) 00:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Neither expected nor required; I may have expressed some annoyance at the time is all, But seriously, well-done. Elinruby (talk) 23:54, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Elinruby: you're welcome, the important thing is the end result; however, I apologise to you. JacktheBrown (talk) 23:40, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have a question and a comment. First, @JackkBrown: has anyone ever suggested that you take your questions to the reference desk instead? Second, I was annoyed when you started an RfC over comments I had made at Talk: Pied-noir because it seemed like a recipe for drama I was trying to avoid, but while drama did ensue, the spelling problem I was complaining about did get resolved as a result, so thank you for that. Elinruby (talk) 22:32, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm confused. MOS:ENGVAR seems very much written. Am I misunderstanding you? EducatedRedneck (talk) 14:09, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
probably also annoying some watchlists. We can do that. But I think the question about the reference desk might be important; could you please answer it? Elinruby (talk) 00:48, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Elinruby: if I remember correctly it was recommended to me, yes, once or twice. JacktheBrown (talk) 00:57, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- so why didn't you do that? Elinruby (talk) 01:00, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Elinruby: I did it for references, two or three times. JacktheBrown (talk) 01:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- so why didn't you do that? Elinruby (talk) 01:00, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I really, really don't think redirecting Jack's questions to another venue is going to resolve any issues, and RD is not going to be appropriate for all the wiki-specific ones anyway. We shouldn't be encouraging these kinds of questions at all. JoelleJay (talk) 02:14, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Well either he is supposed to ask questions at the help desk or he is not. I take no position on the matter since I don't answer questions at either board. (well, rarely, at the Reference Desk, if something comes up like Vichy or medieval Church law or the like.) But I think right now his impression is that he is "not" supposed to ask questions anywhere and I can't say I blame him. But that way lies a CIR for sure. I told him (at his user page) to find and read the Manual of Style with particular attention to what it says about the dialects of English, because the editor talking about cookie vs. biscuit has a point. And to find a large and active project if he wants to discuss stuff. Dude needs a Wikiproject: Italian food but there isn't one. If any of what I said was wrong then please let me know and I will tell him so, or just talk to him yourself. I am not certain whether he listened to me or whether I did any good, sure. That was me trying.
- But at least now he knows that the Reference Desk isn't just for references. And that there are places to look stuff up. I suspect he has been told both those things before, so I take no position on what should be done here; depends on how often, maybe. But I really hate to see someone conclude that the way to flourish at Wikipedia is not to ask questions. Usually most people have to be told most things more than once, and I haven't really been tracking how many times it takes with him. But I looked at the list of Italian foods, and he was told there to only include "encyclopedic" foods. English is my mother tongue, but I'd be confused by that too. (But by the way that list should be broken up into sublists or something) Elinruby (talk) 06:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- No one would be complaining if the questions he asked were generally reasonable. Even if they weren't reasonable I doubt there'd be as much of a problem if they weren't very frequently just different shades of the same question, or if the answer wasn't so often "SOFIXIT" or "go to the talk page". Jack has suggested in the past that he struggles to control his compulsion to ask questions. Since the current HD/TH restriction was placed, he's been very good about limiting his questions there. Giving him a new place to indulge in that behavior just seems like an invitation for an indef down the road. JoelleJay (talk) 17:38, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- But at least now he knows that the Reference Desk isn't just for references. And that there are places to look stuff up. I suspect he has been told both those things before, so I take no position on what should be done here; depends on how often, maybe. But I really hate to see someone conclude that the way to flourish at Wikipedia is not to ask questions. Usually most people have to be told most things more than once, and I haven't really been tracking how many times it takes with him. But I looked at the list of Italian foods, and he was told there to only include "encyclopedic" foods. English is my mother tongue, but I'd be confused by that too. (But by the way that list should be broken up into sublists or something) Elinruby (talk) 06:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I am definitely in favor of JackkBrown being allowed to ask questions 'somewhere' (I have no opinion about the 'where'). That's what I and others had been asking for in December ANI thread and in his talk page when he started editing here. I get his constant questioning can be annoying and frustrating, but the alternative would be having JackkBrown being bold, piling up dozens of mistakes and creating a great deal of additional work to fix them (something we already experienced). How about setting a limit to the questions, eg. JackkBrown being allowed to ask questions just twice a week, so that he himself will be more selective between trivialities like cannoli ingredients and important questions? Or even better, finding a volunteer to serve as some sort of mentor/supervisor and be willing to answer his questions on their talk page? JackkBrown is sometimes problematic (eg. here) and his edits are sometimes unhelpful, but at this stage I don't see a situation requiring blocks or bans. Cavarrone 10:25, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- What I was having trouble understanding was why, if the helpdesk keeps sending him away, we want to limit his options on where he can ask questions. Most of the questions are on point. Elinruby (talk) 23:43, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Cavarrone: regarding the question limit, I'm already respecting the limit of 2 (maximum 3) per month (of course it concerns the month, so they could both be in the same week). JacktheBrown (talk) 13:49, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- He has already had a question limit, and his track record makes it very doubtful if anyone will have the time or energy to mentor him (unless you're offering). Looking increasingly intractable, unfortunately. Ingratis (talk) 13:33, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Indeed. I'm worried about a WP:CIR block. Jack is clearly both enthusiastic and has niches in which his contributions would be invaluable. The trouble is getting him to those niches. Gentle redirection has not seemed to be effective. Perhaps the community could come up with a well-defined area (e.g., "Adding sources or sourced content to articles") and obtain a commitment from him to stick to such an area? We'd have to workshop it if others believe the idea has merit. EducatedRedneck (talk) 15:47, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Like herding cats. I don't know if a set of TBANs would help make such a commitment more likely to stick - I doubt if it would otherwise, based on past history. Ingratis (talk) 16:27, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- We should treat young editors and those with special needs with kid gloves when possible. It's clear that they are trying despite not being aware of concerns raised in a combative atmosphere. Moxy🍁 19:21, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not unsympathetic, but am mindful of the extremely slow and disruptive progress of the measures regarding John*Pack*Lambert, and how long they dragged on. This did no-one any good, including JPL. Just a thought - perhaps you could express your concern in a practical way by, for example, offering to take on a mentoring role. Ingratis (talk) 07:17, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- We should treat young editors and those with special needs with kid gloves when possible. It's clear that they are trying despite not being aware of concerns raised in a combative atmosphere. Moxy🍁 19:21, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Like herding cats. I don't know if a set of TBANs would help make such a commitment more likely to stick - I doubt if it would otherwise, based on past history. Ingratis (talk) 16:27, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Indeed. I'm worried about a WP:CIR block. Jack is clearly both enthusiastic and has niches in which his contributions would be invaluable. The trouble is getting him to those niches. Gentle redirection has not seemed to be effective. Perhaps the community could come up with a well-defined area (e.g., "Adding sources or sourced content to articles") and obtain a commitment from him to stick to such an area? We'd have to workshop it if others believe the idea has merit. EducatedRedneck (talk) 15:47, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Evru200 adding unsourced content
I've tried to engage USER:Evru200 on their talk page [95] about not adding unsourced content to pages and adhering to NPOV reporting of election results, but their behavior persists. The opposing team wins in "a mild upset"[96] while next time around the home team wins "in a landslide"[97] although there's no RS that uses there terms to describe the results. They have also been admonished to follow the WP:MOS, but they continue to make edits like this [98]. BBQboffingrill me 23:50, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yikes. Just a brief review of their edits shows that, in addition to the NPOV issues, their changes introduce all sorts of grammatical and mechanical errors--random capitalizations, sentence fragments, etc. Grandpallama (talk) 00:53, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Links: Evru200 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) Northern Moonlight 02:10, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- So...I don't see anyone trying to get their attention, so what happens next? BBQboffingrill me 03:08, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Moving all body images into a gallery
In this August 2023 change, Devokewater moved all 32 body images into a new gallery with a misleading edit summary "tidy up". This was contrary to general Wikipedia 'house style' (MOS:IMAGES), wp:gallery and wp:image relevance.
The images are without relevance, having been removed from context, hence, IMO, also contrary to wp:burden by creating an extensive, random, gallery without a rational foundation.
I consider this to be disruptive editor behaviour, not a content dispute. Editor has failed to respond to a polite message (13 June) at User talk:Devokewater#Moving images; I consider this to be passive dissent.
Devokewater also had also removed article Talk content with a bogus edit summary "Fixing style/layout errors"; this was self-reverted within 10 minutes of my specific mention when posting at User talk:Devokewater, and editor has subsequently randomly edited daily.
At the time of creating the gallery, the article was being surveilled by members of the Wikiproject Geography which made no representation, hence posting here.
I don't intend to laboriously manually re-site 32 images, and I'm unsure if any utilility (TW, HG) would facilitate this.
Would an admin please instruct Devokewater to put this article to rights? It's now 2:19AM in England and I'll be off-Wiki for around 12+ hours. Thank you.--82.13.47.210 (talk) 01:19, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- You’re bringing an edit from August 2023 to this noticeboard, when it is explicitly for “urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems”? Bgsu98 (Talk) 01:43, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- The article was very messy, there were just too many photos, (in reality many photos should have been removed, however I personally do not like removing other peoples photos) tried to tidy them up with little or no effect so in the end the best option was to put them in a gallery, see my edits on Ulverston for another example where I tidied up a very messy wikipage. Regarding the talk page the comment made no sense it appeared to be an IP editor playing around.--Devokewater 07:49, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Devoke, despite the IP's protestations, I think this very much is a content issue, and from all appearances your changes were made in a good faith effort to improve the article. I don't even really have to AGF to come to that conclusion: it seems self-evident. So I think you can feel comfortable that no one is going to grant the IP's request that an admin force you to "set the article to rights" (the IP really needs to familiarize themselves with WP:VOLUNTEER if they don't understand why their demand is a non-starter) and that no sanction is forthcoming. ...But all that said, in terms of community consensus on the style, formatting, and general content issues, you truly are way out on a limb here. It is absolutely very common practice for articles of this sort (and indeed most articles with large amounts of photos) for such media to be placed in the main body of the article. Galleries are sometimes used when there's an excess of images, but even then the gallery is in addition to the in-line photos, not to their exclusion. I've never seen an article wherein the approach you have used here (all of the photos pushed into a gallery at the end) was endorsed by the community of editors working on an article. I don't know what your definition of "messy" is, but if it's "any inline photos", I don't think it aligns with the community's general stance on such issues, nor the relevant policies/style pages. Especially considering the length of this particular article. All of which is to say, I think I'd save yourself and everyone else a lot of trouble by not going to the mat on this one; in my opinion, if your force an RfC over this, it's a forgone conclusion that your style preference here is going to lose. Nobody is going to make you put all the images back, but if your goal is tidy up the article and arrive at a stable version, I would consider working with the IP towards a compromise version. Leaving somewhere between 10-50% of the images in the gallery but moving the rest back into locations where they have contextual significance sounds perfectly reasonable to me (what the exact proportions should be is hard for me to predict without deeper study of the revision history and the previous locations of the images, but in principle I don't see why a middle ground solution can't work here. If you really do think that the gallery is in the best interest of the article, it would behoove the article for you to reach a compromise, since I think the IP stands to win consensus if the broader community weights in. SnowRise let's rap 13:50, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, I should hasten to add that, I agree that anywhere between 3-7 of those images probably aren't relevant enough (that is necessary enough to illustrate a crucial aspect of the article's subject matter) to be included at all. But any such cuts would also best be achieved via a consensus discussion as well. SnowRise let's rap 14:01, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks, when I first saw the article, it was a photo gallery with a wikipage attached to it, there was just too many photos all over the place, I tested different scenarios on my test page and in all honesty the gallery was the best option. Quite happy for other editors move these photos back to the main article, however I emphasise that when I started editing it was a mess. I never went to the talk page because this wikipage appeared to be "abandoned" unlike say Middlesbrough where there are very active regular editors who edit the page with passion.--Devokewater 14:07, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- In your opinion, which you didn't test by raising the matter on talk. This edit seems highly disruptive to me. I note that your comments in this section seem from your edit history to be the largest in byte terms in your 6 years of editing. Johnbod (talk) 14:38, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Devokewater was under no obligation to raise the matter on the talk page if he genuinely felt the article was a mess. Like any user, he is welcome to edit the article. Likewise, if someone disagrees with his edits, they are also welcome to revert, edit, or question. Nevertheless, this matter explicitly does not belong here since this noticeboard is for "urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems" - as shown above - which this most certainly is not, being a content disrupte from August 2023. Take this matter to the talk page and let an administrator close this discussion. Bgsu98 (Talk) 15:59, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- In your opinion, which you didn't test by raising the matter on talk. This edit seems highly disruptive to me. I note that your comments in this section seem from your edit history to be the largest in byte terms in your 6 years of editing. Johnbod (talk) 14:38, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks, when I first saw the article, it was a photo gallery with a wikipage attached to it, there was just too many photos all over the place, I tested different scenarios on my test page and in all honesty the gallery was the best option. Quite happy for other editors move these photos back to the main article, however I emphasise that when I started editing it was a mess. I never went to the talk page because this wikipage appeared to be "abandoned" unlike say Middlesbrough where there are very active regular editors who edit the page with passion.--Devokewater 14:07, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, I should hasten to add that, I agree that anywhere between 3-7 of those images probably aren't relevant enough (that is necessary enough to illustrate a crucial aspect of the article's subject matter) to be included at all. But any such cuts would also best be achieved via a consensus discussion as well. SnowRise let's rap 14:01, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Devoke, despite the IP's protestations, I think this very much is a content issue, and from all appearances your changes were made in a good faith effort to improve the article. I don't even really have to AGF to come to that conclusion: it seems self-evident. So I think you can feel comfortable that no one is going to grant the IP's request that an admin force you to "set the article to rights" (the IP really needs to familiarize themselves with WP:VOLUNTEER if they don't understand why their demand is a non-starter) and that no sanction is forthcoming. ...But all that said, in terms of community consensus on the style, formatting, and general content issues, you truly are way out on a limb here. It is absolutely very common practice for articles of this sort (and indeed most articles with large amounts of photos) for such media to be placed in the main body of the article. Galleries are sometimes used when there's an excess of images, but even then the gallery is in addition to the in-line photos, not to their exclusion. I've never seen an article wherein the approach you have used here (all of the photos pushed into a gallery at the end) was endorsed by the community of editors working on an article. I don't know what your definition of "messy" is, but if it's "any inline photos", I don't think it aligns with the community's general stance on such issues, nor the relevant policies/style pages. Especially considering the length of this particular article. All of which is to say, I think I'd save yourself and everyone else a lot of trouble by not going to the mat on this one; in my opinion, if your force an RfC over this, it's a forgone conclusion that your style preference here is going to lose. Nobody is going to make you put all the images back, but if your goal is tidy up the article and arrive at a stable version, I would consider working with the IP towards a compromise version. Leaving somewhere between 10-50% of the images in the gallery but moving the rest back into locations where they have contextual significance sounds perfectly reasonable to me (what the exact proportions should be is hard for me to predict without deeper study of the revision history and the previous locations of the images, but in principle I don't see why a middle ground solution can't work here. If you really do think that the gallery is in the best interest of the article, it would behoove the article for you to reach a compromise, since I think the IP stands to win consensus if the broader community weights in. SnowRise let's rap 13:50, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- The article was very messy, there were just too many photos, (in reality many photos should have been removed, however I personally do not like removing other peoples photos) tried to tidy them up with little or no effect so in the end the best option was to put them in a gallery, see my edits on Ulverston for another example where I tidied up a very messy wikipage. Regarding the talk page the comment made no sense it appeared to be an IP editor playing around.--Devokewater 07:49, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
I've temporarily hidden File:But he's never had a pint of Mansfield.JPG and File:Not Much Matches Mansfield Beer.JPG as per Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria#Policy (No. 8). Because the images are stuck in the gallery there does not, to me, appear to be any contextual significance. Devokewater if you move those two back to the correct section they should be OK. CambridgeBayWeather (solidly non-human), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 17:49, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is a content issue, and even if it wasn't it is far too stale to bring up at this noticebard. Just discuss it at Talk:Mansfield. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:32, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- OK, attack me folks, I expected it. I raised it as soon as I saw it. The polite Wikiquette would've been to raise a talk section. Again, the polite Wikiquette would be to respond to an editor-talk section.
- The article has been grossed-out by repeated input/changes over several years by a series of IP/sock/block evader edits (that's what the deleted talk section referred to
). A new username was registered as a way of getting around the block(s) preventing uploads, then IPs were used to place (at least some) images. I raised it with a cu off-wiki in Feb 2023 (from memory), but I cannot commit time to ongoing drama. Of course, I know the SPI and can recognise the tell-tale traits exhibited. I haven't followed up (in one edit summary I advised wp:deny), but File:Rosemary Centre 1.jpg (upload 23 April 2023) is an example of a sock/commons identity, and here (diff, 28 April 2023) an IP placed the cropped/zoomed/contrived image showing how only Iceland was left open in the building (now gone). The sockmeister learned how to get round things.
- The article has been grossed-out by repeated input/changes over several years by a series of IP/sock/block evader edits (that's what the deleted talk section referred to
- Hope that generally throws some light onto matters - yes, over-zealous inexperienced editors = messy. I've just had to deal with an AfD caused by a newbie cut/pasting my 1500 bytes section content months back into a premature stand-alone article (thanks due to the bot for notifying me) - I got a 'helpful' editor shouting ownership and soapboxing at me......
- IMO it is disruptive, drive-by, editor behaviour going against Wiki-precepts, which is why I brought it here. I am very capable but choose not to volunteer my limited time in this situation caused by a cavalier attitude; I will help anyone when/if I can, but not when disrespected by no response to a polite talk message. As the saying goes: 'there's only one chance to make a first impression'. Thanks for your inputs.--82.13.47.210 (talk) 23:02, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Just to note that over 3 edits, I have restored the appearance of the article to resemble what it was before Devokewater moved the images into the gallery. I put one or two images in different places, left 7 in the gallery, and also made quite a few changes to the wording (including moving, consolidation, and in-text mentions with refs of things shown in images) and the references. It took a while, so I didn't also look at Commons for better or additional images. After the second edit, I started a section on the talk page (#Pictures). Yngvadottir (talk) 23:31, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
User:Swam Hossain
- Swam Hossain (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
This user has been persistently submitting poorly made drafts. They are about topics that already have articles and suffer from problems like poor sourcing, poor style/formatting and even blatantly false information. Draft:Huricihan Sultan is a particularly egregious example, which passes a fictional character from a historical TV series as a real historical figure. I have warned them (diff), but they have continued with resubmitting Draft:Nurbanu Sultan and Draft:Fatma Nur Sultan. I therefore believe that most of this user's editing history has constituted disruptive editing, and that they have not responded or changed after warnings, so they should be blocked. Air on White (talk) 17:53, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think we generally penalize new editors for writing poorly made drafts. In fact, they are expected and Draft space is a place for editors to learn how to write better articles. I dare say that there are more poorly made drafts in Draft space than well made drafts or they wouldn't be in Draft space. Editors are given a lot of leeway here. Is there something problematic about the content that requires immediate admin attention? Honestly, Air on White, sometimes it seems like you go looking for problems to "solve" that aren't that serious. Granted I haven't examined all of these drafts but "poorly made drafts" is really not a problem. Liz Read! Talk! 02:30, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is a straw man, I am not suggesting a block for writing poorly made drafts. I am suggesting administrative action for repeatedly spamming AfC with bad drafts, including hoaxes, without showing signs of understanding why the drafts get declined. This user is just wasting reviewer time and shows no signs of communication. Their few mainspace contributions seem unproductive too. A combination of disruptive editing, lack of communication and incompetence after multiple warnings from different users is a sufficient reason to block. If you expect communication, improvement and awareness from this user, it just ain't happening. Air on White (talk) 03:15, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- User turned out to be a sock puppet and was blocked by Girth Summit. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:08, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is a straw man, I am not suggesting a block for writing poorly made drafts. I am suggesting administrative action for repeatedly spamming AfC with bad drafts, including hoaxes, without showing signs of understanding why the drafts get declined. This user is just wasting reviewer time and shows no signs of communication. Their few mainspace contributions seem unproductive too. A combination of disruptive editing, lack of communication and incompetence after multiple warnings from different users is a sufficient reason to block. If you expect communication, improvement and awareness from this user, it just ain't happening. Air on White (talk) 03:15, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Wikihounding report
I'm probably too involved, hence I won't take administrative action but will leave it to others to decide. The users Panamitsu and Alexeyevitch don't get on with one another, which is a shame as they both live in New Zealand and their Wiki interests are similar. In December 2023, I told Alexeyevitch off for following Panamitsu around. My observation is that the warning was heeded, and Alexeyevitch stopped following Panamitsu's contributions. That hasn't stopped the bickering between those two editors. I do have the impression that Panamitsu is following Alexeyevitch's contributions in turn. To put a stop to that, I asked both users to stay away from one another earlier this month. Panamitsu is not listening, and openly admits that he goes through Alexeyevitch's contributions. That's WP:WIKIHOUNDING.
Panamitsu is a productive editor, but this hounding has to stop and he's not listening to me. I invite other admins to weigh in. Schwede66 00:42, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- That is correct, I have been following his contributions in the past day. This is because I noticed that he was intentionally replacing New Zealand spellings with American ones, for example here, here, here and here. To undo any further damage, I had to look through his contributions to find any more spelling errors he had introduced. Because I was following the user's contributions for a reason, I personally did not consider that wikihounding, but I could be wrong.
- I realise that in the past I had taken it a bit too far, such as my comment on Talk:Christchurch yesterday. I later realised that this was an inappropriate place to talk to the user and which is why I left a message on the user's talk page this morning instead. Because I had spent dozens of hours fixing spelling errors on New Zealand articles, and Australian ones, I became frustrated that my work was being undone. This, and offwiki events have made me increasingly frustrated recently and I have become agitated. This has been a problem with me in the past and I decided that I would take a wikibreak, but this has proved impossible for me and I am starting to believe my Wikipedia use is entering the territory of an addiction.
- In the conversation that Schwede mentioned from December 2023, I showed that Alexeyevitch added the location of an image I took. It was of a nondescript petrol station in Paraparaumu, a smallish town in the country, and I had not written anywhere where it was located. Each time I would copyedit his contributions to Christchurch suburbs, I would notice that he would edit articles relating to the area, notably Paraparaumu College, presumably with the belief that I live there and a way to scare me off. At first I thought this was a coincidence, but I made several tests and he continued to do it. ―Panamitsu (talk) 01:08, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Schwede66 - I said last month that I do not want to get invovled in disucusions with this user and genreally not to engage with him - but I feel like this is important.
- A copule weeks ago I mentioned to Mr. Roger that "we later shifted to Papanui", a few hours later Panamitsu editied the Papanui High School article (I don't think this is a coincidence). This is no longer true that I live in Papanui - a part of my family lives there.
- Panamitsu gets too invloved in the pages I edit (this started since the start) - this is not making editing enjoyable and I think he needs to realize that the main goal is to build an online encyclopedia not NCEA teachers feedback or criticism.
- I regereted my actions prior to December 2023 - In fact I didn't even know about hounding, I do now and I think he needs to realize that this is hapening to me now.
- Ultimately, I think this user should relax about following me on the Christchurch-related pages and I would do likewise and avoid editing pages the he edits.
- I think the best resolution to this conflict is to stop all contact between us immediately and entirely. Alexeyevitch(talk) 02:02, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- That is not a correct interpretation of events regarding Papanui High School. Look on its edit history. 26 minutes before I made my edit, an IP had edited a paragraph and I then removed it. It was on my watchlist, added through AutoWikiBrowser, as proven by my edit on 14 April. ―Panamitsu (talk) 02:15, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Uhh so you're suggesting an interaction ban? ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 02:33, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Hi, I just read Wikipedia:Banning policy#Interaction ban and I support putting one in place. Do other individuals also support this? Alexeyevitch(talk) 02:43, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- The diffs bear out Panamitsu's explanation:
- April 14, 2024: Panamitsu edits the Papanui High School article, which presumably watchlists it.
- June 6, 2024: An IP edits the Papanui High School article.
- June 6, 2024: Panamitsu removes the paragraph the IP had been editing.
- As this means Panamitsu has been watching Papanui High School since well before Alexeyevitch's comment to Mr. Roger, while the claimed alarm is something I can understand and would've felt were I in those shoes, I think it's reasonable to think what happened here was not actually untoward and was just coincidental.What's harder to square as simply coincidence is Alexeyevitch's behavior regarding Paraparaumu topics, brought up by Panamitsu. Here's a timeline of a handful of events:
- September 18, 2023: Panamitsu edits the article Paraparaumu, which Panamitsu had also done before that.
- September 19, 2023: Alexeyevitch for the first time edits the article Paraparaumu to revert Panamitsu's edit. A few minutes later, Alexeyevitch reverts his own revert. Alexeyevitch's most recent edit to the article was June 9, 2024.
- October 19, 2023: Panamitsu adds an image of a Pak'nSave fuel station to the article Pak'nSave. Panamitsu uploaded that image, self-attributing it as the photographer, to Wikimedia Commons. Neither the Commons page nor Panamitsu's caption of the image mention any location.
- November 9, 2023: Alexeyevitch for the first time edits the article Pak'nSave.
- November 14, 2023: Alexeyevitch adds to the caption of the aforementioned fuel station image, added by Panamitsu, that the station pictured is in Paraparaumu. The Wikimedia Commons page for the image at that time still did not (and currently does not) provide any location information.
- December 9, 2023: Alexeyevitch for the first time edits the article Paraparaumu Railway Station. Alexeyevitch's most recent edit to the article was June 16, 2024.
- January 13, 2024: Alexeyevitch for the first time edits the article Paraparaumu College. Alexeyevitch's most recent edit to the article was June 7, 2024.
- Looking at these diffs, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that Alexeyevitch's apparent interest in articles related to Paraparaumu emerged upon discovering Panamitsu's interest in Paraparaumu and then—more unsettlingly—possibly leaping to a conclusion that Panamitsu is tied to Paraparaumu. It's hard for me to escape thinking of the possibility Panamitsu raised: that
Each time
[Panamitsu]would copyedit his
[Alexeyevitch's]contributions to Christchurch suburbs
[...]he would edit articles relating to the area, notably Paraparaumu College, presumably with the belief that
[Panamitsu]live
[d]there and
[as]a way to scare
[Panamitsu]. If this is what's happening, I can't help but find such behavior disturbing.Banning Alexeyevitch from interacting with Panamitsu seems like a minimal sanction for such harassment. I would ask administrators reading this thread to remember that"following another user around", if done to cause distress, or if accompanied by tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behavior, may become a very serious matter and could result in blocks and other editing restrictions
. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 02:58, 18 June 2024 (UTC)- I regret those actions and apologized twice - I had to removed my second apology because he started to rapidly edit Christchurch suburb articles at the time and felt like every NZ article I edited it would be fixed in a matter of minutes, I suggest him doing this stops since this is obviously making editing unenjoyable - Schwede66 gave somewhat of a 'stop' message to him because I raised concern about this.
- I recognized the Pak'N Save was in Paraparaumu because I was there in 2022. Alexeyevitch(talk) 04:24, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Aranui, Southshore and Opawa are examples - I feel like there still might be a negative motive to their edits here. I suggest they slow down on this topic because it is upseting me. Alexeyevitch(talk) 04:30, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Uhh so you're suggesting an interaction ban? ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 02:33, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- That is not a correct interpretation of events regarding Papanui High School. Look on its edit history. 26 minutes before I made my edit, an IP had edited a paragraph and I then removed it. It was on my watchlist, added through AutoWikiBrowser, as proven by my edit on 14 April. ―Panamitsu (talk) 02:15, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think Panamitsu's recent activity is wikihounding. Panamitsu's central complaint that got this brought to ANI is correct: Alexeyevitch changing the spelling in articles about New Zealand to American English en-masse is disruptive, and they should stop. MOS:TIES/MOS:ENGVAR is well established. (I note on their talk page they say they do not like New Zealand English, but that is not an excuse to make en-masse disruptive edits). Panamitsu reverting that wide-scale disruption from Alexeyevitch is not problematic; the wikihounding policy states
Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles
, which is what happened here. Endwise (talk) 03:27, 18 June 2024 (UTC)- I (or schwede66) inteded intended to fix them a day or two later -- we wanted to see if there was some-form of monitoring which there kind of. And most (but not all) articles were stubs or starts which he didn't edit prior. Otago Central Railway was fixed by him - not edited by him prior to my edit. Alexeyevitch(talk) 03:52, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
I (or schwede66)
[...]intended to fix them a day or two later -- we wanted to see if there was some-form of monitoring
: What do these statements mean? Do you mean you (or even you and Schwede66?) privately collaborated to contribute edits contrary to MOS:TIES and MOS:ENGVAR as—what? Some deliberate 'experiment' to 'entrap' Panamitsu? Wikipedia is not a laboratory, and experiments thatnegatively affect articles—even temporarily—are not allowed
. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 04:03, 18 June 2024 (UTC)- I emailed Shwede66, I think 2-3 times this week and all emails were addressing my concern for his behavior towards my editing, Schwede66 said that they had a large watchlist after AWB edits, so there was a suggestion to do that - Schwede66 selected a few pages and after editing 44 Parachute Regiment (South Africa), we confirmed I was stalked. I edited a few (4 NZ pages also). I don't want to pressurize Shwede66, but the point was somewhat proven. My edits prior to these emails were using NZ english when appropriate. Alexeyevitch(talk) 04:15, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I noticed the other day that you also emailed Marshelec. I have his userpage (and Schwede66's) on my watchlist because we have collaborated a small bit in the past, such as on Kapiti Island. Given that Schwede66 was contacted about my editing behaviour, Marshelec, could please indicate whether or not Alexeyevitch contacted you for a similar reason? I hope I'm not forum shopping here, and if I am, I apologise. ―Panamitsu (talk) 04:39, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think this is forum shopping on your part, Panamitsu; it seems more as if Alexeveyitch may have been 'admin shopping'. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 05:03, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- My email correspondence with Alexeyevitch is solely associated with content suggestions and possible sources related to the Southshore, New Zealand article. The context is that I have some knowledge of the area from the time of my youth in Christchurch. Nothing about other users or other articles is included in those email exchanges._ Marshelec (talk) 05:40, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
confirmed I was stalked
: Alexeyevitch, to be frank, all that seems confirmed to me is that you have been stalking Panamitsu and that along with that you've been deliberately introducing MOS:TIES/MOS:VAR-contrary content into articles. As Endwise explained above, cases where using an editor's history is not considering houndingincludes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles
. In the 44 Parachute Regiment (South Africa), you changed "minimise" (British English spelling) to "minimize" (American English spelling) for an article about a South African military unit and in your edit summary you called itfix
[ing]a spelling error
. Some twelve hours later, Panamitsu restored the spelling of the word per MOS:TIES. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 05:02, 18 June 2024 (UTC)- Fair point. Alexeyevitch(talk) 05:11, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I noticed the other day that you also emailed Marshelec. I have his userpage (and Schwede66's) on my watchlist because we have collaborated a small bit in the past, such as on Kapiti Island. Given that Schwede66 was contacted about my editing behaviour, Marshelec, could please indicate whether or not Alexeyevitch contacted you for a similar reason? I hope I'm not forum shopping here, and if I am, I apologise. ―Panamitsu (talk) 04:39, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I emailed Shwede66, I think 2-3 times this week and all emails were addressing my concern for his behavior towards my editing, Schwede66 said that they had a large watchlist after AWB edits, so there was a suggestion to do that - Schwede66 selected a few pages and after editing 44 Parachute Regiment (South Africa), we confirmed I was stalked. I edited a few (4 NZ pages also). I don't want to pressurize Shwede66, but the point was somewhat proven. My edits prior to these emails were using NZ english when appropriate. Alexeyevitch(talk) 04:15, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, I do recall finding the Otago Central Railway spelling mistake by looking through your contributions. This is because I noticed another spelling change and had a look to see if you had made more of those types of changes. ―Panamitsu (talk) 04:10, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I (or schwede66) inteded intended to fix them a day or two later -- we wanted to see if there was some-form of monitoring which there kind of. And most (but not all) articles were stubs or starts which he didn't edit prior. Otago Central Railway was fixed by him - not edited by him prior to my edit. Alexeyevitch(talk) 03:52, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Not an admin, but jumping in to comment that from my observations working with them on NZ articles, that both editors contribute productively to Wikipedia. However they are maybe too productive. It strikes me that both take their role here as editors very seriously, to the point that it has stopped being fun for them. A major part of the conflict is that they are both heavily active in similar areas of Wikipedia, so there is naturally some treading on toes.
- Some things I have learned lately that might be of benefit to both editors:
- You do not need to watchlist every article you edit.
- You certainly do not need to review every edit to every article on your watchlist.
- You do not “own” any article or area on Wikipedia.
- None of us are as important as we might think in the grand scheme of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is huge, and it will never be finished. You are not a legendary knight defending Wikipedia from barbarous hordes. You are an unpaid internet janitor.
- We are all volunteers, and we are all doing our best. Always assume good faith.
- Do not attribute to malice what you can attribute to misunderstanding.
- If you can’t assume good faith, and you think someone else is the problem, then you are the problem.
- You can - at any time - walk away from Wikipedia for 24 hours if you are finding the experience less than fun.
- You do not need to reply immediately to every message or edit you see.
- Think carefully about what you say to others and how they might interpret your words.
- Be humble. Always blow on the pie.
- Please do whatever it takes to resolve this conflict. I would prefer to see both of you continue to contribute productively to Wikipedia, rather than either of you fall victim to a block. I look forward to continuing to collaborate with both of you. David Palmer//cloventt (talk) 11:52, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, there isn't much to say from me from now on since I have already made my point here (and an apologization) along with a few other places. Both of us commit to stop following each others edits entirely. "This way would avoid any bans and stop any further reasons for conflict." And also stop contact (which I have already commited to). I understood what Shwede66 said aswell. Alexeyevitch(talk) 12:18, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Alexeyevitch, if you're not prepared to use NZ English per [99] then perhaps your time would be better spent not editing NZ articles.
Panamitsu This edit [100] is not a good look. It takes two to edit war. Daveosaurus (talk) 05:53, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I will keep this in mind Daveosaurus, and I regret some of the odd choices I made earlier. In the Opawa article I prioritized using NZ English (e.g "The suburb's main retail area is centred on Opawa Road" not "The suburb's main retail area is centered on Opawa Road") I spelled "traveling" once in this article but this was not deliberate. Although I did this: "further development in Woolston, which soon began to [[urbanization|urbanise]] the suburb" it is rendered as "urbanise" for NZ readers I just did this to avoid a redirect. Alexeyevitch(talk) 06:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Do I read this right? Has an admin (Schwede66) deliberately tried to bait an editor by conspiring with another editor to deliberately make disruptive edits, and then brought the baited editor here for sanctions when they actually improved the articles by reverting the disruptive edits? If this is a correct summary, then please block and desysop Schwede66, as that is truly terrible behaviour. Fram (talk) 08:35, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I mainly hold responsibility for the actions -- Schwede66's suggestion was for me to edit 44 Parachute Regiment (South Africa) and see if Panamitsu edits this page after me. All my edits prior to Panamitsu added a message to my talk page were using NZ English and now I use NZ English in the sutible articles (e.g Opawa). I think they've all been reverted since it's appropriate. I also suggest putting an interaction ban between me and Panamitsu to prevent this from happening. Alexeyevitch(talk) 08:48, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I've had the impression for a while that Panamitsu is following Alexeyevitch around. That's impossible to prove with New Zealand articles, as they may both have them on their watchlists. Hence, after the latest complaint to me via email, I gave Alexeyevitch some random (four, to be precise) articles to edit, asking to introduce little mistakes. Alexeyevitch edited two of those and Panamitsu tidied up one of those mistakes soon after (the South African article). But that did not have to be used as proof because Panamitsu then complained on Alexeyevitch's talk page, stating that they are following their contributions. For the record, I've had the impression that their contributions have been followed for quite some time; not just "in the past day". Hence me filing this report. Also for the record, the situation was the other way around last December, but after issuing a warning to Alexeyevitch, that behaviour appeared to have stopped.
- Alexeyevitch, you absolutely cannot introduce American English to New Zealand articles. I had not seen that happening before, but Panamitsu's four examples in his first post above are clear. That cannot continue as it's disruptive. Schwede66 09:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for clarifying and confirming, but that's really a terrible approach to take. You know that editor X is correcting the spelling errors / MOS issues introduced by editor Y, so you agree with editor Y that they should introduce spelling errors in other articles, helpfully labeling them "spelling correction", so that if X corrects these as well, you can ask for X to be sanctioned? That's really way, way below the conduct which I would consider acceptable for an admin (or any editor for that matter). Fram (talk) 10:00, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Understood, your message and the MOS:TIES policy. I have a prefernce to use American English in talk pages/discussions and I understood that NZ articles use NZ English. This is behavior that I have exhibited these past two days is ridiculous and I should of known better. I am shameful and sorry for these actions and I assure you all that I won't do this again. Alexeyevitch(talk) 10:45, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I note they did edit 44 Parachute Regiment (South Africa) after you, again they reverted your incorrect spelling. Checking an editors edits for mistakes they repeatedly make us not harassment. Banning them from correcting you mistakes wouldn't be helpful. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Fair point ActivelyDisinterested, I understand what your saying here. Alexeyevitch(talk) 10:20, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe a solution would be for Alexeyevitch to commit to stop making spelling corrections in articles until they have a better understanding of English spelling variations, and both editors commit to stop following each others edits. This way would avoid any bans and stop any further reasons for conflict. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Okay, I amicably agree to these terms. Alexeyevitch(talk) 10:58, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't believe it is as simple as that. Schwede66 warned Alexeyvitch in December 2023 and while he has stopped following me on non-New Zealand articles, he has continued with this Paraparaumu thing. After telling him about a month ago that I may report him to this noticeboard due to his thing with Paraparaumu, Schwede66 suggested that we avoid contacting each other. Following this, I did make some copy edits, such as on Foveaux Strait (I had edited/watchlisted this article last year) and it did not go too well after I made copyedits and added a maintenance templates and Alexeyevitch told me to "fix it myself" when I didn't know how, the conversation diff is here. I now wish that I had left it as that and not gone to the talk page. I also copyedited some of his edits on Southshore (I found this from the good article nominees on the article alerts). After "Mr. Roger" (Roger 8 Roger) had made complaints about his edits needing copyeding on suburbs, I added the suburbs to my watchlist so I could copyedit them, and followed with copyedits; this is something I now regret. Due to this Paraparaumu thing, I continued making copyedit tests to check if they were coincidences or not -- they were not coincidences.
- I don't believe it is just an incompetence with spellings, but rather some dislike of New Zealand spellings, illustrated the message on his talk page, his previous use of New Zealand spellings rather than American ones on articles, him creating a word salad of American spellings and then indirectly writing that he may ignore comments that are in New Zealand English after I informed him about comma splices. ―Panamitsu (talk) 11:12, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Alexeyevitch themself doesn't use New Zealand English, please consider using American English or the Oxford Spelling on their talk page. They might not to respond to comments deliberately avoiding this suggestion.
(from the last diff in Panamitsu's comment: Good heavens, literally expressing an intention to ignore comments written in a variation of English not Alexeyevitch's own? Is there such a thing as linguistic chauvinism? This seems contrary to the Universal Code of Conduct's injunction to be collegial and empathetic withWikimedians of different backgrounds
. And the word salad seems like an attempt by Alexeyevitch atmockery, sarcasm, or aggression
against Panamitsu, mocking Panamitsu's use of New Zealand English spelling. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 13:42, 18 June 2024 (UTC)- Alexeyevitch's behavior has clearly been inexcusably childish, and they cannot be allowed to continue acting like this. Remsense诉 14:19, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I was frustrated at the time. Mr. Wilke told me to step of Wikipedia for a bit if I was frustrated. I regret this. Alexeyevitch(talk) 21:15, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Alexeyevitch's behavior has clearly been inexcusably childish, and they cannot be allowed to continue acting like this. Remsense诉 14:19, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I just want to clarify this previous reply of mine as I was replying to multiple comments at once. In the first paragraph I was attempting at explaining where I believe Schwede66's belief of
I've had the impression that their
[Alexeyevitch's]contributions have been followed for quite some time; not just "in the past day"
came from. As no diffs or examples had been provided, I'm not exactly sure where Schwede66 got this idea from so I don't know if I've addressed everything. - As conversation appears to have dried up, is there anything else I have to do? I'm not familiar with this noticeboard so I'm not sure if it just gets archived after 72 hours or an admin will close the discussion. ―Panamitsu (talk) 22:38, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
both editors commit to stop following each others edits. This way would avoid any bans and stop any further reasons for conflict.
: This is premised on a false balance. What Schwede66 and Alexeyevitch call "following" and hounding has been Panamitsu noticing a widespread pattern of violating—in a few cases apparently deliberately, according to Alexeyevitch and Schwede66—MOS:TIES and MOS:ENGVAR and making fixes in accordance with an overtly permitted use of contribution histories:Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles.
Meanwhile, Alexeyevitch has mocked non-U. S. spelling, has expressed intent to ignore talk page comments not written in American English, and has harassed Panamitsu (more precise diff not possible because of an unrelated thread getting oversighted, but see the timeline of events I created) by following them to Paraparaumu topics seemingly after potentially coming to the belief that Panamitsu had an off-wiki connection to Paraparaumu.With this level of hostility toward non-U. S. English and this depth of attempted harassment against Panamitsu in play, I'm not convinced that asking for a mutual commitment will prevent future guideline and policy violations by Alexeyevitch. Getting Panamitsu off their back seems to be precisely what Alexeyevitch has wanted, so as to be able to eliminate New Zealand spellings from articles without scrutiny from an editor like Panamitsu. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 14:02, 18 June 2024 (UTC)has been Panamitsu noticing a widespread pattern of violating ... MOS:TIES and MOS:ENGVAR
this is exactly the content of my original response, I'm not disagreeing. I was just hoping to find an informal way to settle the dispute. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:51, 18 June 2024 (UTC)be able to eliminate New Zealand spellings
– to be honest, I've never seen that myself. And if I were to see that, I'd put a stop to that straight away. There are plenty enough editors in New Zealand who would have zero tolerance to such antics. Schwede66 05:12, 19 June 2024 (UTC)- I totally agree with you, Hydrangeans. There is nothing abusive about an editor systematically going through another’s consistently non-constructive edits in order to clean up the mess they’ve been making. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 09:00, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe a solution would be for Alexeyevitch to commit to stop making spelling corrections in articles until they have a better understanding of English spelling variations, and both editors commit to stop following each others edits. This way would avoid any bans and stop any further reasons for conflict. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Fair point ActivelyDisinterested, I understand what your saying here. Alexeyevitch(talk) 10:20, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
I am not part of this extensive ongoing spat and I don't want to be. I will say though that I am trying not to be affected by Alexeyevitch's numerous changes to Christchurch suburbs and other articles. See today at Opawa and Heathcote Valley. I raised to topic on the Christchurch talk page, to no avail, and I'll raise it here again. His edits are of such a poor quality, in numerous different ways, that they all require a lot of work to put right. He's been an editor long enough to understand the basics of what to do, such as no original research. Look at his Opawa church section and see what the source says (I added a link). I think he should slow down and concentrate on some basic skills, if that is even possible. Unless something changes IMO his editing could be seen as disruptive. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 10:09, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think this is the sutiable place to post this... what would you like see changed? I hope there is no negative motive behind this - this is causing me distress. I am trying my best on these pages and I want a resolution to this conflict - I regret my actions, apologized and stated my commitments. Please let's focus on building an encyclopedia - I will add more sources/improve content to that area of interest.
- See this diff compared to most recent - I think this is an improvment IMO. Alexeyevitch(talk) 10:33, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Plz. I have learned my lesson and this behavior cannot continue... a block is totally appropriate if I fail and continue to make irresponsible edits.
- I will do better, I promise. Alexeyevitch(talk) 11:36, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't know anything about you except that are presumably American. I think you should have a mentor to show you what to do and why. And it isn't just the mechanics of how to operate the WP site. As before, a good place to start is to slow down and focus on one task at a time, such as why some references are good and others are bad or unsuitable. You have an idea in your mind about what should be/you want to written and then go out looking for sources to use. Turn that around - read the sources first and use what they say about a topic. However, it does look as though that won't change anything because you keep repeating the same patterns of behaviour even when others point them out or make corrections. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 19:38, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Okay, I understood. Alexeyevitch(talk) 21:08, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't know anything about you except that are presumably American. I think you should have a mentor to show you what to do and why. And it isn't just the mechanics of how to operate the WP site. As before, a good place to start is to slow down and focus on one task at a time, such as why some references are good and others are bad or unsuitable. You have an idea in your mind about what should be/you want to written and then go out looking for sources to use. Turn that around - read the sources first and use what they say about a topic. However, it does look as though that won't change anything because you keep repeating the same patterns of behaviour even when others point them out or make corrections. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 19:38, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
This has been an interesting thread to read through. The conclusion I'm drawing at this point is:
- Panamitsu hasn't done much wrong at all, certainly nothing requiring any further admin action
- Alexeyevitch has done quite a bit wrong but seems apologetic, willing to learn, and has promised (multiple times) to try harder
- Schwede66 did the right thing in bringing this here. He is an administrator and has been trying to resolve the problems between the above two editors. In doing so, at one point he encouraged Alexeyevitch to deliberately vandalise multiple articles (" I gave Alexeyevitch some random (four, to be precise) articles to edit, asking to introduce little mistakes."). I have to agree with Fram, that's actually the most concerning thing in this whole affair. WaggersTALK 15:08, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Editors removing formatted citations for bare URL citations
This seems to be the best place to report this, given a recent edit summary saying this situation is “standard practice”.
Several (experienced) editors have manually removed formatted citations and replaced them with bare URL citations on 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.
Timeline:
- 22:33, 17 June 2024 — HikingHurricane adds a “current storm information section” (brand-new level 4 header section), cited entirely by three bare URLs.
- 23:26, 17 June 2024 — WeatherWriter (myself) removes the bare URL and replaced them for formatted citations (2 of the three bare URLS)
- 00:06, 18 June 2024 — Drdpw removes one reference and reduced the citation on the other, including removing the archival information.
- 00:42, 18 June 2024 — WeatherWriter restores the 2nd reference removed by Drdpw and restores the full citation information for the first reference.
- 00:44, 18 June 2024 — Drdpw reverts back to the smaller citations/removes the 2nd reference
- 00:46, 18 June 2024 — WeatherWriter adds a “unreferenced section” tag to the “Current storm information” section. Drdpw removed all citations present in that article in the last reversion.
- 01:01, 18 June 2024 — Drdpw removes the “unreferenced section” citation and re-adds the three original bare URL citations originally added by HikingHurricane.
- 01:24, 18 June 2024 — WeatherWriter removes the three bare URLs and replaced them with less-linked, but formatted citations.
- 01:33, 18 June 2024 — HikingHurricane restores the three bare URL citations and stated it is “standard practice”.
Is this actually allowed? Even though Wikipedia:Bare URLs isn’t a formal citation, experienced editors seem to indicate that bare-URLs are “standard practice” over formatted citations on 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. Per Wikipedia:Citing sources (policy), specifically WP:CITEVAR, in the Generally considered helpful
section, it states “improving existing citations by adding missing information, such as by replacing bare URLs with full bibliographic citations: an improvement because it aids verifiability, and fights link rot;
”. I am bringing this to the administrators attention not to get someone warned or blocked, but since there seems to be experienced editors saying something different than policy, and every attempt to remove the bare URL citations is being reverted. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 02:00, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- The bare URLs in question are not citations. Their purpose is for the reader to be able to access the latest NHC products directly. What WeatherWriter has done is replace these links to live webpages with archive links, which obviously do not link to the live webpages. I have nothing against adding these citations to the end of the section, but they do not substitute for the live URLs. ~ HikingHurricane (contribs) 02:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Per what you just said "the bare URLs in question are not citations", then the section is still unsourced. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 02:39, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have no problem with adding a citation to the paragraph from the latest advisory, with the advisory-specific url, so long as it gets updated (every 6 hours) with the information. Drdpw (talk) 03:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Embedded links should be avoided, WP:CS:EMBED. Surely these should be in the 'External Links' section. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:51, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't see anything against citing the archived advisories at the end of the paragraph like I said, but the links to the live NHC webpages should still be there. Only including the archived references means counting on editors to update the references every time an advisory is released. Instead, the live URLs can just link to the up-to-date webpages directly. ~ HikingHurricane (contribs) 13:24, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- No they shouldn’t. External Links/Bare URLs should not be in the middle of an article. They go in an external link section at the bottom of an article. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 14:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- It makes the most sense for those links to go in the storm's section. Putting them in the external links section makes them harder for the reader to find and gets increasingly confusing if there are multiple active storms. ~ HikingHurricane (contribs) 15:00, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- We're not a news site. We're not a weather advisory site. We do not need people to be able to get live information or updates on a storm. We're an encyclopaedia, not a 24 hour weather channel. No those links shouldn't go into the storms section as per all of the above. Having updated live information isn't what we're here for. Canterbury Tail talk 15:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Perhaps not what we are here for, but it is, nonetheless, what is done for active tropical cyclones in the form of 'Current storm information' and 'Watches and warnings' subsections. Drdpw (talk) 16:19, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Agree with Drdpw here. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, yet people still use it to stay up-to-date on weather events. I see no harm in linking to the latest official information in a storm's section. ~ HikingHurricane (contribs) 16:39, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- That isn't how Wikipedia is formatted though. Wikipedia isn't a place for "current"/"live" updates. Even though you both seem to say citing sources is ok, both attempts I did at actually adding citations to the sections (current watches/warning & "current storm info") were reverted directly by both of y'all and you both added the external links inplace of the citations. That is what started this discussion. Basically, why are external links in the middle of an article being used as citations over formatted citations. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 16:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Agree with Drdpw here. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, yet people still use it to stay up-to-date on weather events. I see no harm in linking to the latest official information in a storm's section. ~ HikingHurricane (contribs) 16:39, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Perhaps not what we are here for, but it is, nonetheless, what is done for active tropical cyclones in the form of 'Current storm information' and 'Watches and warnings' subsections. Drdpw (talk) 16:19, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- We're not a news site. We're not a weather advisory site. We do not need people to be able to get live information or updates on a storm. We're an encyclopaedia, not a 24 hour weather channel. No those links shouldn't go into the storms section as per all of the above. Having updated live information isn't what we're here for. Canterbury Tail talk 15:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- It makes the most sense for those links to go in the storm's section. Putting them in the external links section makes them harder for the reader to find and gets increasingly confusing if there are multiple active storms. ~ HikingHurricane (contribs) 15:00, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- No they shouldn’t. External Links/Bare URLs should not be in the middle of an article. They go in an external link section at the bottom of an article. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 14:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have no problem with adding a citation to the paragraph from the latest advisory, with the advisory-specific url, so long as it gets updated (every 6 hours) with the information. Drdpw (talk) 03:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Per what you just said "the bare URLs in question are not citations", then the section is still unsourced. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 02:39, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
This may be a better suited question at WP:MOS: Are external links allowed mid-article or not? Anyone else agree? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 16:47, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- It is not adding citations to the end of the section that could be an issue, it's removing the external links. You can add citations to the end of the paragraph and editors can update them when they update the current storm info, but the live URLs should stay too. ~ HikingHurricane (contribs) 16:57, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I may have missed something in this thread, but isn't WP:EL fairly clear on that? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:08, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yup, we're quite clear in several areas. Just because it's "what is done" doesn't mean it should be. ELs should not appear in articles at all other than maybe the infobox and external links section. There are few exceptions and providing live coverage of an event is very much not one of those exceptions due to the fact we're an encyclopaedia not a news site. We are not a place for people to get those kind of updates, nor do we want to be. Canterbury Tail talk 17:18, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Agree. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:20, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Then no weather article, let alone tropical cyclone article, should be presenting current storm information or watches and warnings. Drdpw (talk) 17:26, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Agree. Canterbury Tail talk 17:32, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Nothing should go into an article that isn't intended to be there in the final form and that isn't intended to be read by a reader in 10 years time. Canterbury Tail talk 17:43, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Current is too soon. Also probably incorrect, since editors do other stuff than editing, and a section like "Current situation" is likely to promise more than it delivers. If there is an up-to-date event-dedicated weather-site or something like that, it may fit the EL-section. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is correct. They should not. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 17:38, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Well, now we have a problem. Despite a clear non-involved editor consensus that external links & current storm info should be removed (as done in this edit minutes ago), Drdpw has, once again, reverted that edit, saying WP:Weather is the best place to discuss removing external links, basically ignoring AN/I and this discussion. Can an administrator do the removal? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:47, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Agree. Canterbury Tail talk 17:32, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Please voice your issue with weather articles presenting current storm information and watches and warnings at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Weather. Drdpw (talk) 17:48, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Respectfully, Drdpw, this isn’t a WikiProject Weather issue, since it was raised on the administrators noticeboard. AN/I seems appropriate since this involves a policy issue, not a content issue. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:52, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- For a discussion on WP:EL, WP:ELN would be a better place. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:52, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Wikiprojects cannot override the MOS, policies or guidelines. They have no say in this. See this very important part people miss about Wikiprojects "WikiProjects are not rule-making organizations, nor can they assert ownership of articles within a specific topic area. WikiProjects have no special rights or privileges compared to other editors and may not impose their preferences on articles. A WikiProject is fundamentally a social construct: its success depends on its ability to function as a cohesive group of editors working towards a common goal." Canterbury Tail talk 17:57, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Then no weather article, let alone tropical cyclone article, should be presenting current storm information or watches and warnings. Drdpw (talk) 17:26, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Agree. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:20, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yup, we're quite clear in several areas. Just because it's "what is done" doesn't mean it should be. ELs should not appear in articles at all other than maybe the infobox and external links section. There are few exceptions and providing live coverage of an event is very much not one of those exceptions due to the fact we're an encyclopaedia not a news site. We are not a place for people to get those kind of updates, nor do we want to be. Canterbury Tail talk 17:18, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
For what it’s worth, there have been hurricane season articles for a good 20 years, including information such as the advisories and ongoing watches and warnings. If this is the official place to complain about it, then I’d rather Wikipedia continue to be a source of ongoing information. If there’s some official rule that precludes this, then I’d like to invoke ignore all rules for the sake of consistency and being beneficial for the public. Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 18:07, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Pinging Jasper Deng here as they have restored the current storm information & external links to the Wikipedia article. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:08, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Comment - The CSI sections have been discussed numerous times over the years in one form or another. Personally I don't like them much as on the whole they aren't updated with each advisory package outside of the NHC AOR, however, I strongly suspect that they would just be added straight back in by other editors who feel rightly or wrongly feel that they are doing a service to our readers by adding the information in. As a result, I am neutral on if they should or shouldn't remain in hurricane articles.Jason Rees (talk) 18:17, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Quick side-note: Per Hurricanehink, this process of adding external links mid-article on tropical cyclone pages goes back two decades to 2004. Honestly, I am wondering if an ArbCom policy clarification request should be filed, given, at least what appears visually to me as basically a recurring problem of ignoring policy. ArbCom is the final resort for dispute resolution, and since this is a multi-year (multi-decade even) ignoring policy issue, they might be best to solve it and clarify if external links are permitted mid-article. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:24, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Just making sure, is the issue with the external link, or the fact of including current information in general? Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 18:29, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- To me, if I interpret the discussion correctly, it started out regarding only the external link issue, but evolved into adding the current storm information into the discussion. I would be fine trying to solve only the external link issue to begin with, since that is what this was opened up for in the first place. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:31, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Then ignore the rules for the sake of public safety and be ok with the external links ;) They’ll only be there when the storm is active. Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 18:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think in-text EL:s adds any public safety. Can't cite it, though. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:36, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- “
They’ll only be there when the storm is active.
” — That straight up violates Wikipedia:Recentism, also known as the 10-year test. If you are adding information to the article that is garunteed to not be in the article in a week or so (let along 10 years), it should not be in the article. Simple as that. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:44, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Then ignore the rules for the sake of public safety and be ok with the external links ;) They’ll only be there when the storm is active. Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 18:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Speaking for myself, I have no problem with a WP:EL-valid link in the EL section. On WP promising "current" info, I think that's problematic and I don't trust us with it, to put it in shortcuts MOS:CURRENT, WP:NOTNEWS. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Quick clarification: By “EL section” do you mean a true headed section named “external links” or as they are presented in this version? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:38, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- The customary EL-section at the bottom of the article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:40, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- See WP:EL.
With rare exceptions, external links should not be used in the body of an article.
This has a footnote which statesLinks to Wiktionary and Wikisource can sometimes be useful. Other exceptions include use of templates like , which is used only when non-free and non-fair use media cannot be uploaded to Wikipedia.
This is not one of the exceptions and the rationales so far put forward do not stack up with established policy and so these external links should be purged from all such articles in favour of proper in-line citations and an external links section. - @Hurricanehink mobile Wikipedia is not a news source and we do not exist to promote public safety. This is an encyclopaedia. WP:ARBCOM may be the place to go if this has indeed been going on since 2004. Adam Black talk • contribs 18:48, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Adam Black (talk · contribs), I believe a potentially significant hurricane capable of widespread destruction would be one of those links. Same story if an asteroid was threatening to hit Earth. Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 18:55, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Is there any precedent to support this claim? ✶Quxyz✶ 19:02, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- If a significant hurricane is about to affect parts of the United States, the Emergency Alert System will inform those of our readers who need to know via their smart phones, radio and television broadcasts, and the activation of sirens in a far more timely manner. I am sure Canada has a similar service. Wikipedia does not exist to warn our readers of upcoming cataclysmic events and we should never be expected to provide this information. There are far more appropriate channels for such warnings. Adam Black talk • contribs 19:03, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- And indeed, the nature of Wikipedia is such that it creates a massive risk that it would inadvertently supply misinformation or outdated information in such events. The public safety argument lies, at best, in Wikipedia signposting the appropriate official sources of information for each emergency. It is dangerous to try to duplicate such information. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:08, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Adam Black (talk · contribs), I believe a potentially significant hurricane capable of widespread destruction would be one of those links. Same story if an asteroid was threatening to hit Earth. Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 18:55, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Adam Black and WeatherWriter: I know I'm late to the game but since both of you mention ArbCom, and also considering it as a last resort, would an RfC at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Weather or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tropical cyclones be sufficient? Especially now with several templates nominated for deletion there will need to be a discussion on what information should or should not be included on active storms. TornadoLGS (talk) 19:08, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- This has been going on since 2004 in part because the policy has evolved since then. In 2004, the concern was avoiding links to paywalled sites or those requiring Flash. In early 2005, the policy was expanded with the main concern being to weed out spam/promotional links. In 2007, after a small Talk discussion the idea of no external links in the main article text was first implemented, again with spamming or acting as a web directory being a central concern. Since then the exact wording of that exclusion has changed from "should not be used" (2007) to "should not normally be used" (2008) to the addition of an "exceptions are rare" footnote (2010), which in 2017 was moved out of the footnote and "normally" removed from the text. The discussions here appear to be the first time the question has come up about whether or not these sorts of links should be considered among the exceptions to the WP:EL policy. That they have been used since 2004 and haven't come up in the past two decades seems to imply a level of appropriateness to include them in the manner in which they are being used. Regarding WP:NOTNEWS, the bits that are relevant here are 1) original reporting, which these bulletins are not, and 2) news reports, which these might quality as; however, the NOTNEWS also encourages including "current and up-to-date information within its coverage," which these links provide. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 12:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- (@ TornadoLGS) Consider another venue than a Wikiproject for a less topic-focused audience, Wikiprojects can be appnoted. This seems to be mostly WP:WEIGHT issue, so WP:NPOVN may be an ok place. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:49, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Gråbergs Gråa Sång: Okay, I'm not entirely sure that's the right place, but I'll ask about that on the talk page there. I mentioned the possibility of an RfC on the Wikiproject since they are usually handled at the relevant article talk page, but this would affect multiple articles under the same project. I would rarther have this done sooner than later since the Atlantic season is underway and this will likely lead to edit wars if there is not a clear-cut procedure. TornadoLGS (talk) 01:25, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- See WP:EL.
- The customary EL-section at the bottom of the article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:40, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Quick clarification: By “EL section” do you mean a true headed section named “external links” or as they are presented in this version? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:38, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Those links don't belong in the text of the article, for all the word salad reasons that editors have noted. They should be in a separate 'External links' section, at the end of the article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- To me, if I interpret the discussion correctly, it started out regarding only the external link issue, but evolved into adding the current storm information into the discussion. I would be fine trying to solve only the external link issue to begin with, since that is what this was opened up for in the first place. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:31, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Just to clarify, if the links were converted into citations, then that’s fine? It seems like there are two points about this discussion, the links, and the fact that articles usually mention current info, like storm intensity/movement/warnings. The current information can easily be cited with actual links. Would that still be in violation or not? Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 19:25, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- If the external links were converted into citations, that would not be a violation of the external link policy. That, is actually what I did, prior to the AN/I. Your reversion of that was the last link in the timeline part at the very beginning of the AN/I. That alone would address the external link issue: I.e. removing the “
For the latest official information, see:
” and “The NHC's latest public advisory on Potential Tropical Cyclone One
” and replacing them with full citations. The formatted (full) citation you added for Intermediate Advisory Number 4A in this edit is perfect! In fact, that external link for the “public advisory” is the exact same thing. That is actually what this discussion was opened up for originally. Per policy, the NHC “latest info” shouldn’t be external links, but rather in full/formatted citation form. - As to the current storm info, that is a different topic inserted mid-discussion. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:35, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Assuming that cite checks out, that takes care of EL-bit, leaving the current/news bits([101]). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:39, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- The archive link to an archived public advisory is not the 'exact same thing' as the refresh link to the public advisory. Citing the archived public and forecast advisories and discussion necessitates that editors update the section and citations every time an advisory is released. For the NAtl this is very realistic, but what about other TC basins? Can we guarantee that the citations will always be up-to-date for an active system? No. Why not just include the refresh links at the end of the section? ~ HikingHurricane (contribs) 19:50, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Citations to be used for what? Context matters. A "latest updates on local hurricane" website wouldn't be a very useful cite, would it? What lasting article-text would you cite to [102]? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:36, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Indeed, the citation url would need to change along with the information cited, every 3–6 hours, linked to, e.g. Potential Tropical Cyclone One Public Advisory Number 1, Potential Tropical Cyclone One Public Advisory Number 1B, Potential Tropical Cyclone One Public Advisory Number 2, etc., not to the refresh link. Drdpw (talk) 19:51, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have actually used TWOs and discussions in articles to show that the NHC did or declared something, e.g. designated as an invest, a warning being declared. ✶Quxyz✶ 19:42, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- As in "On friday, NHC recommended people to get the hell out of Kentucky."? Good enough. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- It'd probably be somewhere like Martinique instead. Regarding the invest, I used a Tropical Weather Outlook (TWO) in June 2024 South Florida floods to state that the NHC began monitoring the disturbance. ✶Quxyz✶ 19:52, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- And you link to the archive url when citing things. Drdpw (talk) 19:59, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, if anything it seems like it should be treated the same as a book. One must cite the specific pages used to back up information from a book, ergo, one must use the specific advisory. However, it is worth noting that I was not using the TWO to cite current information. ✶Quxyz✶ 20:03, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- And you link to the archive url when citing things. Drdpw (talk) 19:59, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Yup, it’s called a hurricane warning, and would likely be a coastal area. Also we don’t use days of the week, it would be, “Late on August 25, the NHC issued a hurricane warning between X and Y locations.” And then include that citation. It’s important because some procedures happen when there is a hurricane warning, often including evacuations, closures, etc. All of the current info can be cited. I don’t care if it’s external links or cite web, as long as the info is there. Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 19:54, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- It'd probably be somewhere like Martinique instead. Regarding the invest, I used a Tropical Weather Outlook (TWO) in June 2024 South Florida floods to state that the NHC began monitoring the disturbance. ✶Quxyz✶ 19:52, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- As in "On friday, NHC recommended people to get the hell out of Kentucky."? Good enough. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Deb, admin, and violations of WP:COI, WP:ADMINACCT
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I am making this post LOUT to remain anonymous. I have concerns with Deb, a Wikipedia legacy administrator since 2003.
Deb has disclosed on her user page that she is Deborah Fisher, the author. She wrote Princesses of Wales and Princes of Wales, both published by the University of Wales Press. The page University of Wales Press was created by Deb, an undisclosed violation of WP:COI.<redacted>
Another issue is the abundance of incorrect deletions, just see her talk page for the many just this year. Not happy with some of her replies, like this. Admin Pppery warned them to be careful, and Deb's response was "luckily, I don't value your opinion." I don't see this as Pppery's opinion at all, but rather a GF attempt at ensuring administrators maintain conduct (this "opinion" resulted in an overturn, like many other Deb-related DRVs). Sorry Pppery, that musn't have been nice. This severely fails WP:ADMINACCT, and Stifle agrees. Deb then threatened to head to ANI...
Final thing I noticed in a quick search were several accusations of WP:HOUNDING, but unsure about this vein.
For the aforementioned reasons, I find Deb unfit to be an en~wp administrator. This overall conduct could very well result in some kind of a block, but the super mario effect is real. 70.112.193.22 (talk) 02:44, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Deb does not meet the definition of "legacy admin" the community usually uses (that term more often applies to admins who are mostly inactive for long periods, not people who have been continuously active since). And digging up ancient (2006!) dirt and off-wiki evidence some of which had to be oversighted really does not help your case. And undisclosed accounts should not be opening threads at ANI anyway per WP:PROJSOCK. * Pppery * it has begun... 03:06, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- IP editor, you dug up an edit Deb made in 2022, 22 years ago, where she declared her real name. You dug up the fact that she created two articles about companies she worked for in 2005 and 2006. Have you used your prodigious research skills to learn what the COI policies and guidelines were 18 to 22 years ago, and what the attitude of the community was back them about writing articles about one's notable employer? Have you discussed your concerns with Deb? Can you explain why you are editing logged out? Are you trying to evade scrutiny? Cullen328 (talk) 03:12, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- 70.112.193.22 here (dynamic IP). There is more COI that was redacted that took place recently during employment. Unsure why it was oversighted as it is public but I'll leave it be. I am editing anon, as I know taking admins to ANI can be troublesome and I don't want to get too involved. 129.222.85.112 (talk) 03:17, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- In other words, you either don't want to get your primary account blocked for personal attacks or your primary account is already blocked, maybe by Deb. There are several reasons that may explain your anonymity, but none that give us reason to believe you. Verifiability is one of the non-negotiable policies of Wikipedia, and it applies not only to articles but also to reporting. Robert McClenon (talk) 07:54, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- What sort of dynamic IP changes your ISP? – 2804:F14:80D0:4F01:DC8C:3E45:EB65:B7BD (talk) 03:19, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- OP/IP/logged out editor, you are very much involved now. Will you please answer my specific questions? Thanks in advance. Cullen328 (talk) 03:23, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Sorry, I'm not very familiar with all this IP stuff, all I know is that it changes mine so that is won't be linked to my current account. COI was looked down upon at the time of University of Wales Press, but you're right that it wasn't as much as it is nowadays. The other recent COI company was, however, during employment, when we expected people to disclose it on their user page / talk page. 174.80.151.166 (talk) 03:35, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Part of opening an ANI case is allowing yourself to be scrutinized in the context of the case. Using a IP to evade such is a serious violation of WP:SOCK policy and there are people on this site who have tools to find people who do it.
- I will take a stab at this 'dynamic IP changer'. Is your network provider Starlink? Fantastic Mr. Fox (talk) 07:31, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Sorry, I'm not very familiar with all this IP stuff, all I know is that it changes mine so that is won't be linked to my current account. COI was looked down upon at the time of University of Wales Press, but you're right that it wasn't as much as it is nowadays. The other recent COI company was, however, during employment, when we expected people to disclose it on their user page / talk page. 174.80.151.166 (talk) 03:35, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- OP/IP/logged out editor, you are very much involved now. Will you please answer my specific questions? Thanks in advance. Cullen328 (talk) 03:23, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- 70.112.193.22 here (dynamic IP). There is more COI that was redacted that took place recently during employment. Unsure why it was oversighted as it is public but I'll leave it be. I am editing anon, as I know taking admins to ANI can be troublesome and I don't want to get too involved. 129.222.85.112 (talk) 03:17, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Does someone have Mole-Be-Gone to pour in these pop-up mole holes?? Robert McClenon (talk) 07:55, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- IP editor, you dug up an edit Deb made in 2022, 22 years ago, where she declared her real name. You dug up the fact that she created two articles about companies she worked for in 2005 and 2006. Have you used your prodigious research skills to learn what the COI policies and guidelines were 18 to 22 years ago, and what the attitude of the community was back them about writing articles about one's notable employer? Have you discussed your concerns with Deb? Can you explain why you are editing logged out? Are you trying to evade scrutiny? Cullen328 (talk) 03:12, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I've been tagged into this by the reporter. I confirm my view that Deb has made several improper G6 deletions over time and that I consider the one case cited above to be a failure of WP:ADMINACCT. I express no further opinions, about the conflict of interest situation or otherwise. Stifle (talk) 07:51, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Hi. As you all know, I've been an admin for a very long time and I don't doubt I've made mistakes in that period. I've also done things that other administrators disagree with. I've done them all in good faith. I do a lot of deletions, which has made me many enemies. There was a time when, not only was COI not a problem but even advertising your own qualifications wasn't against the rules. I could name you several administrators who still do this on their user pages. I don't.
- I don't see that there was anything wrong with my using a published book as a reference. It happens that I wrote one of the few titles on this subject, and as I had the page number and ISBN details to hand, I used it. Another user took this up at the time, and there was a brief discussion, with other participants giving the blessing to its inclusion. The main issue with COI editing is bias. I'm not sure what the issue is with my employment but I am assuming this was to do with the fact that I wrote an article about Dane A. Miller, who at the time was a former director of the company I worked for. Miller had been a very notable figure in the industry, and it's true that I only knew about him because of my employment, but if there was anything in that article that did not comply with the NPOV policy, I can't see it.
- As for threatening another user with ANI, I mentioned ANI as a warning in response to this poorly-veiled threat made to me. Deb (talk) 08:28, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for the response Deb and I understand that past policy was different. I have zero issue with you citing your own book(s) in accordance with policy because you are a subject matter expert. There are multiple instances of more recent editing (1-9 years ago) however where the COI is stronger (when policy had long mentioned that you should disclose) but I don't know if I can bring examples up without oversighters swooping in. You do stick relatively to NPOV from what I can see. I think you should be more careful, especially as admin. The conduct relating to DRV and replies to other editors was what brought me here though (note that I am involved as a Deb DRV voter). 65.60.240.77 (talk) 08:54, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Does this mean you still think that this was an acceptable answer, even when considering WP:ADMINCOND? Nobody (talk) 09:06, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Hmph. It's blunt, but it's not way out of line. In fact, I've done the same myself when I once ran out of patience with an editor that was accusing me of terrible adminning. Black Kite (talk) 14:14, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- As for threatening another user with ANI, I mentioned ANI as a warning in response to this poorly-veiled threat made to me. Deb (talk) 08:28, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I can't not say anything, but firstly I must also own to my own COI. When I was a relatively inexperienced editor Deb took me under her wing and acted as an unofficial mentor. She tried to instil into me the tenets by which she edited herself and demonstrated every day through them—good faith and goodwill. Whether I was inculcated successfully, everyone will be their own judge—I'm sure a few eyebrows were raised at the suggestion!—but she tried. Anything that improved my approach was down to her, and anything that did not was on me. Clearly she continues to edit by those tenets. As has been pointed out, she's not a legacy admin at all, just an old-school one. And if the old school have anything in common, it's that they speak their mind. While she no doubt spoke abrasively to Pperry, it was hardly egregiously uncivil, particularly in the context of having just been told that, after over 20 years editing,
You really need to do better
. I'm sure there were... more nuanced ways of expressing that? Unlike many editors, she also recognizes when she crosses a boundary. For example, in 2017, having been involved in a minor edit war, completely trivial as these things are, in response—instead of just going quiet as she could have—Deb self-blocked. Also unnecessarily as her critics noted at the time! And a 17-year unblemished blocklog...well, blemished. TLDR; I suppose my basic view is that what she is 'accused' of is pretty generic for highly active admins, and while I also don't see this as a malicious use of WP:LOUTSOCK—probably a misunderstanding of the policy rather than an intentional breach of it—the whole comprehensive caboodle in a caboose—from allegation, to response, to defence—is absolutely a Gale in a Goblet. ——Serial Number 54129 12:55, 18 June 2024 (UTC)- Your link to the blocklog is malformed and so doesn't actually show Deb's self block so I am posting a correct link here so that it can be easily referred to: Blocklog for "Deb" . Adam Black talk • contribs 13:21, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Having read the comments and taken a cursory look at Deb's actions and edits, it appears to me this is an experienced, good faith administrator who occasionally makes the wrong call. There is not a single editor or administrator on this project who is perfect and has never made a mistake. Anyone who says otherwise is misguided at best. That being said, comments like the one directed at Pppery may not be a direct violation of WP:CIVIL but definitely go against the spirit of that policy. A friendlier approach in future would be preferable.
- The only real policy violation which needs to be addressed here is the use of multiple IPs by a logged out user to evade scrutiny. There should not be any fear of retribution when reporting an administrator. Any improper action of that kind would lead to outcry from the community and probably a desysoping. Therefore, I can only conclude that in hiding their identity the editor aimed to avoid scrutiny of their own actions. Adam Black talk • contribs 14:22, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Don't we have a rule somewhere that you can't log out to make complaints about people on noticeboards? Like you can't use a WP:SOCK to do so, so why would you be able to do so while logged out? If truly fearful, the complaint should be directed to arbcom or trust and safety. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:31, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- WP:PROJSOCK was mentioned above. This behaviour does immeasurable damage to genuine good faith IP editors. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
69.121.182.83
User is engaging in edit warring and IDHT as shown here, here and here. Augu Maugu ♨ 04:56, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Probably should've gone to WP:EWN, but it's a slam-dunk ECR violation nonetheless. The Kip (contribs) 06:49, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Why had nobody been able to tell me exactly how the edit does not reflect the article? 69.121.182.83 (talk) 11:55, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Please refer to WP:ECR and the templates on your talk page. You cannot discuss or edit about the Arab/Israel conflict unless you have an account that is 30 days old and has made 500 edits. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:01, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Why had nobody been able to tell me exactly how the edit does not reflect the article? 69.121.182.83 (talk) 11:55, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- User seems to have resorted to personal attacks [103] Wiiformii (talk) 15:10, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Your removal of their comment from their own talk page was unnecessary and predictably aggravating to the situation. I wouldn't say that ending a conversation with
Whatever you say keyboard warrior.
really constitutes a personal attack requiring deletion from their own talk. It's incivility and name-calling at worst. GabberFlasted (talk) 15:27, 18 June 2024 (UTC)- I agree, as the user seems to want attention solely and aggravation won't help. Incivility describes it better as I couldn't find the exact word Wiiformii (talk) 15:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Sometimes it's best to let people scream into the void. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:36, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I agree, as the user seems to want attention solely and aggravation won't help. Incivility describes it better as I couldn't find the exact word Wiiformii (talk) 15:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Your removal of their comment from their own talk page was unnecessary and predictably aggravating to the situation. I wouldn't say that ending a conversation with
User:Sathyalingam - Repeated edit warring without communication
- Sathyalingam (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
There seems to be four blocks by C.Fred from 17 April, 2022 for Disruptive editing/ edit warring. Sathyalingam is now edit warring at Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam. There are no edit summaries or responses to the talk page discussion that I initiated and I see that they haven't used their talk page to communicate even once since 2021. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeraxmoira (talk • contribs)
- Not just edit warring, adding election boxes for election taking place in 2026 so Sathyalingam is here for the long haul. The Banner talk 07:58, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- A note about the four blocks. They were:
- 17 Apr 2022: 72 hour partial block from article namespace: Edit warring - changing sourced information without explanation or discussion
- 5 Jun 2022: 1 week siteblock: Disruptive editing - persistent changes to movie grosses without sources
- 7 Jul 2022: 1 month partial block from article namespace: Disruptive editing - refusal to use edit summaries or explain edits - this allows user to request edits via talk page and communicate
- 11 Sep 2022: 3 month partial block from List of highest-grossing Tamil films: Edit warring - persistent addition of problematic content with no attempt to discuss
- Since there is a pattern of the user refusing to discuss, I think at this point, if there are problematic edits with no discussion, an indefinite siteblock is in order. —C.Fred (talk) 18:00, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
USER:LibStar is continually and incorrectly deleting content from Greystanes
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
USER:LibStar is not editing or redistributing content, but instead, deleting factual content, multiple times now. I am doing my best to contribute to the Wiki project for my hometown, and have put alot of time doing the best job I can. The issue here is not citation but the deletion. For example, for "Notable People".
Instead of taking the facts of this page and updating the notable people's respective articles, does USER:LibStar instead believes that those articles need to form the basis of this article. Why is that? And if these other articles are incorrect (which they are)? Some articles say Sydney - AND, Greystanes is a suburb of Sydney!!!
Furthermore, Amanda_Farrugia - User:LibStar deleted from Greystanes stating "Notable residents: her article doesn't mention this suburb, rm under WP:BURDEN".... But her article clearly states that she's from Greystanes, and of Maltese descent too. You clearly are attacking and discriminating this article and it must stop.
This is not a good enough reason, to form the basis of the content deletion, especially when I can give you addresses and school photos and birthday parties of these notable people, who lived in this area. Your reason being "his/her article doesn't mention this suburb . Rm under WP:BURDEN" - You should update his/her article then, and stop being a WP:BURDEN on this article!
Also, I don't appreciate USER:LibStar's tone. Ownership is not being assumed, I have taken alot of time to edit this article and have done an incredible job here. And does USER:LibStar believe that have the right to come and just delete content that is correct, without researching before they delete? That is vandalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Annamaria.dmrt (talk • contribs) 09:20, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- can you provide some diffs? It's not clear at all which articles you're talking about. Orange sticker (talk) 09:40, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Appears to be a content dispute. scope_creepTalk 09:47, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- is it possible for you to please check and compare the history?
- Notable people are being removed when they are from Greystanes.
- The last edit for example:
- [[Amanda Farrugia]] - User:LibStar deleted from Greystanes stating "Notable residents: her article doesn't mention this suburb, rm under WP:BURDEN".... But her article clearly states that she's from Greystanes, and of Maltese descent too.
- He is removing people whose articles say they are from Sydney. Greystanes is in Sydney.
- These articles might be wrong, and why should that be the basis of the facts in this article? Annamaria.dmrt (talk) 09:55, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- hey Scope Creep, there seems to be an error on the page, from a change you made. I don't want to touch it though, in case you are in the middle of something??? Annamaria.dmrt (talk) 10:00, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Really sloppy referencing without and incorrect page numbering. I've fixed what I can. scope_creepTalk 10:11, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Annamaria.dmrt is a very very new editor. scope_creepTalk 10:15, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I am now Scope Creep, and thank you for your help with this, but there is still an error. Your reference is showing on the frontend.
- The grand mansion was demolished in 1946, but its gates still remain intact on Greystanes Road.ref"Cumberland Historical Timeline" (PDF). Cumberland City Council. p. 31.</ref> Annamaria.dmrt (talk) 10:20, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- new* Annamaria.dmrt (talk) 10:20, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I just fixed that reference up. was missing the opening <ref Annamaria.dmrt (talk) 10:22, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Really sloppy referencing without and incorrect page numbering. I've fixed what I can. scope_creepTalk 10:11, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- The very issue for why I posted this to begin with, <nowiki>user:theroadislong</nowiki>] goes and starts deleting notable people as well. I just don't get why content get's removed? Carissa Walford has content all over the net about being from Greystanes. Do I need to update people's bio's too? No thanks. But just cause other articles on Wiki are incorrect, does that mean we use them as the basis on the way moving forward, so that all future content remains incorrect?
- I am happy to address the citations and delete what cannot be referenced. But the notable people should be researched by the one wanting to delete it, and then if it's found that the person is from Greystanes, the other article should be update. True?
- Also, Greystanes IS Sydney. So if it says someone is from Sydney, that is actually impossible. Because Sydney is not a suburb. Greystanes is a suburb of Sydney, so why delete it, if someone's article says "Sydney". It doesn't make my notable people list incorrect. Annamaria.dmrt (talk) 10:31, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- You are getting close to being blocked, the onus is on the person adding the content to include the source. Theroadislong (talk) 10:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- being blocked? For what? More threats. I haven't said or done anything wrong to you, and instead of threatening, stop being aggressive and educate! We all contribute to Wiki, you are not an owner, but a contributor like myself.
- All of my citations added for Notable People were removed by Scope Creep, because it's ridiculous and you know it. Show me an article where notable people are referenced? If your Wiki articles do not match my new content, then it is your responsibility if you like, to research that person and update and reference that specific article. Not delete proper and good content from my edits.
- Have a think about it. Because you are not making much sense. Annamaria.dmrt (talk) 10:40, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- You are not being threatened, merely informed that your behaviour is such that you may receive a block from an administrator.
- If you'd like to see an article where notable people are referenced visit Derry#Notable people. This is how all articles should look. All content on Wikipedia must be backed up by a reliable in-line citation, except patently obvious stuff (e.g. we wouldn't provide a reference for "the sky is blue"). Just because other editors have failed to provide references elsewhere does not excuse policy violations elsewhere. WP:VERIFY states
Any material that needs an inline citation but does not have one may be removed.
Adam Black talk • contribs 10:48, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- You are in violation of the three revert rule. I can see five reverts by you in the past hour alone. You must stop reverting other editors. I know it can be frustrating seeing your work reverted, but violating Wikipedia policy may lead to a partial block, where you can't edit specific pages, or a full block, where you can't edit at all, even if you weren't aware of the policy. However, I can see that your latest revert came after @Theroadislong issued you with a warning for edit warring.
- My best advice would be, take a break from this article for now. Take the time to read some of Wikipedia's policies, particularly WP:VERIFY, WP:3RR and WP:MOS then come back to this article and make the changes in such a way that it is unlikely to be challenged by another editor. Theroadislong is correct above in saying that the onus is on you to provide an in-line citation for any content you add to an article. Adam Black talk • contribs 10:41, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Ok no worries, I actually didn't see my talk page, and only just saw it now.
- I will provide citations on all notable people then.
- Thanks to all for your time on this. I will sort it out.
- Instead of deleting, can maybe next time, there be a Citation Needed added?
- And also, Amanda Farrugia was deleted as a notable person, but her article clearly says she is from Greystanes. Which is what really frustrated me the most. Annamaria.dmrt (talk) 10:52, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, her article doesn't clearly say she is from Greystanes:
Farrugia was born and raised in the western suburbs of Sydney in New South Wales. Her parents are of Maltese descent and she attended Our Lady Queen of Peace Primary School, Greystanes.
- It only mentions that she attended a primary school in Greystanes, not that she is from Greystanes. Attending a primary school in an area does not necessarily mean someone is from that area. For example, my close friend grew up in the Earnock area of their hometown but attended a primary school in Hillhouse.
- I prefer to use cn tags and try to return after a few weeks to remove the content if it hasn't been sourced, but editors are free to remove unsourced content immediately. In fact, there is an unsourced statements drive going on right now in which the objective is to either provide sources for content tagged with citation needed tags or remove the unsourced statement entirely, so you may find that this month an unsourced statement with a tag is somewhat more likely to be removed. Adam Black talk • contribs 11:11, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks Adam mate, understood. I have a job on my hands it seems!@Adam Black
- I will sort all the citations out. Thanks for the clarification and for being nice and civil about it all, and sorry for ruffling some people's feathers. Annamaria.dmrt (talk) 11:38, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- You are welcome and I wouldn't worry too much about ruffling feathers. We can all be guilty of it from time to time and as long as you follow Wikipedia policy going forward there shouldn't be any issues.
- I haven't taken an in-depth look at your edits, but if any of the notable people you were trying to add are more historic then Trove can be an excellent source for pre-1950s coverage of Australians. There are several more recent newspapers and magazines on Trove as well, but there are over 1,800 digitised Australian publications dating from the early 19th century to roughly the mid-50's. If you need any help finding references, feel free to post a message on my talk page and I'll help out if I can. Adam Black talk • contribs 12:26, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- As an editor of 17 years experience and over 90,000 edits this is a hilarious ANI frankly, I've never been accused of vandalism before. The ANI has only focussed attention of the practices of Annamaria.dmrt as per WP:KETTLE. They clearly need to read WP:V, WP:OWN, WP:3RR and WP:BURDEN. I agree that of this aggressive ownership and failure to abide by Wikipedia policy by Annamaria.dmrt is getting them close to be being blocked. I'll let admins decide that. If an article says someone is from Sydney that does not automatically mean they are from Greystanes. All notable people must have a verified source that they actually lived in this suburb. Finally, Annamaria.dmrt would be best served by editing a broader range of articles to better understand how Wikipedia works. LibStar (talk) 18:38, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I appreciate this report was originally about you, but it does seem as though the user has accepted the advice and explanations given and they will hopefully be contributing in-line with Wikipedia policy from now on so I think it would be best just to let this matter lie, unless any further problematic behaviour occurs. I would definitely agree with your suggestion, however, editing a broader range of articles would I'm sure provide a better understanding of our policies and guidelines. Adam Black talk • contribs 18:56, 18 June 2024 (UTC) *reply moved here by 2804:F1...30:B3FD (talk) 02:40, 20 June 2024 (UTC) (original diff)
- I thought you were just trying to make life hard and to just in some ways, prove a point User:LibStar. And cause I took you the wrong way, I got off on the wrong foot in the beginning by being abrupt in my feedback to you. I now fully understand the situation, and whilst it is really frustrating, and time consuming, I will get this article to the standard it needs. It makes life hard when you and User:Theroadislong still continue to delete details on the page, and dont' put a citation tag. Cause I want to do my best to have the opportunity to cite every notable person, but instead I need to compare revisions, to find who has been removed.
- So, all in all, thank you everyone for your time. Sorry for false accusations against you LibStar when you were correct. My bad on that. And it's also annoying that facts can be lost forever, if they cannot be properly cited via online sources, I have alot of other info on the area and surrounding areas, that there are no online sources for. It is original content, like old colonial letters that have facts about the area in early settlement. And it hasn't been documented elsewhere before. It would have been good to contribute to Wikipedia with these facts, but I cannot cite them. This for me is a shock. Even people who are from Sydney, and from Greystanes, if it is not anywhere else online, well then, we cannot add it. I received a confirmation from Brad McGee yesterday on whatsapp, that I can add Greystanes to his personal article and to this Greystanes article. But again, how do i cite that.
- Anyway, I will do my best to cite all i can, and what get's deleted, get's deleted.
- Thanks again, sorry about all the fuss, especially to LibStar. Thanks for being really kind and civil about it all @Adam Black. Annamaria.dmrt (talk) 12:03, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I did a thorough Google search for the names I removed and nothing came up, sources do not have to be online but they do need to have been published. You cannot add Bradley McGee to the article without a source either, personal communication is NOT encouraged or useful, unless he can give you a suitable source. Theroadislong (talk) 12:18, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Theroadislong but you've removed Frank Cefai and Lawrence Dimech, who have numerous online sources, indicating that they are notable to the community. Does a person need to have a Wikipedia article dedicated to them, to be in the Notable People list? Annamaria.dmrt (talk) 14:32, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I did a thorough Google search for the names I removed and nothing came up, sources do not have to be online but they do need to have been published. You cannot add Bradley McGee to the article without a source either, personal communication is NOT encouraged or useful, unless he can give you a suitable source. Theroadislong (talk) 12:18, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- As an editor of 17 years experience and over 90,000 edits this is a hilarious ANI frankly, I've never been accused of vandalism before. The ANI has only focussed attention of the practices of Annamaria.dmrt as per WP:KETTLE. They clearly need to read WP:V, WP:OWN, WP:3RR and WP:BURDEN. I agree that of this aggressive ownership and failure to abide by Wikipedia policy by Annamaria.dmrt is getting them close to be being blocked. I'll let admins decide that. If an article says someone is from Sydney that does not automatically mean they are from Greystanes. All notable people must have a verified source that they actually lived in this suburb. Finally, Annamaria.dmrt would be best served by editing a broader range of articles to better understand how Wikipedia works. LibStar (talk) 18:38, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, her article doesn't clearly say she is from Greystanes:
- You are getting close to being blocked, the onus is on the person adding the content to include the source. Theroadislong (talk) 10:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Appears to be a content dispute. scope_creepTalk 09:47, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes otherwise they are not a "notable" person in Wikipedia terms. Theroadislong (talk) 14:36, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Adam Black, or someone else, are you able to confirm what @Theroadislong is saying here?
- There are 2 notable people of the community, which have multiple sources online to cite, and according to Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists, section "Lists of People", it has the following exceptions:
- There are some common exceptions to the typical notability requirement:
- If the person is famous for a specific event, the notability requirement need not be met. If a person in a list does not have a Wikipedia article about them, a citation (or link to another article) must be provided to: a) establish their membership in the list's group; and b) establish their notability on either BLP1E or BIO1E.
- In a few cases, such as lists of people holding notable positions, the names of non-notable people may be included in a list that is largely made up of notable people, for the sake of completeness. Can these exceptions apply here? Is it really that bad to have 2 very notable people of the community, cited, in the notable list... without having an article on them? I think this is going abit too far to be fair. @LibStar is still deleting content after I have asked multiple times not to, in order to give me a chance to cite what needs to be cited. Like honestly, calm down mate, you're abit over the top.
- Annamaria.dmrt (talk) 22:07, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- You have spent an extraordinary amount of time here complaining and attacking other users, if you have the sources please just present them here or on the article talk page. Theroadislong (talk) 02:22, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Theroadislong I don't see any attack/complaint, and I didn't spend an extraordinary amount of time. I simply made reference to an article where the rules are. Is that okay, or is that unusual for you?
- I am asking for another opinion as you have stated that notable people, are only notable on Wikipedia, if they have an article. And I want to double check the exceptions to that.
- I have asked if content can stop being deleted in order to give me a chance to check and cite everything. And I had to do that to deleted people, who many of which, were readded. But alot of people have been removed from the article now.
- Annamaria.dmrt (talk) 07:27, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Annamaria.dmrt This is not the correct location for this discussion please take it to the article talk page and provide your reliable sources for including non notable people in the list. Theroadislong (talk) 07:41, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Theroadislong I don't see any attack/complaint, and I didn't spend an extraordinary amount of time. I simply made reference to an article where the rules are. Is that okay, or is that unusual for you?
- @Theroadislong is correct, yes. A person does need to have a Wikipedia article or they need to meet the notability criteria set out in WP:NBIO and be eligible for an article to be listed in the notable people section. If you are certain that an individual meets Wikipedia's eligibility criteria, you may add them to the list as a red link but if challenged you should be able to demonstrate why they meet the criteria.
- The WP:STANDALONE policy only applies to list article, such as List of prime ministers of Australia, List of Australian criminals and List of Indigenous Australian historical figures. It doesn't necessarily apply to lists within articles. When it says non-notable people can be included in lists for completeness, this is in the case of definitive lists rather than subjective ones like this. For example, the article for a university which has had multiple notable chancellors may list all of the university's chancellors for the sake of completeness.
- I have purposefully not yet read the article (other than checking a few diffs), in an attempt to remain impartial and provide advice based entirely on policy rather than opinion. I cannot say whether any of the notable people listed belong there.
- In order to give you more time to properly cite the content, I have copied the article to your sandbox (User:Annamaria.dmrt/sandbox) where you can edit it without worrying about other editors removing uncited contributions. Once you've got references for the content you want to add you can merge it into the article yourself or ask a more experienced editor for help doing so.
- This thread is now quite off topic from what should be discussed at ANI and so I'd ask that an uninvolved editor closes this discussion. The original reason for this report has been dealt with and this conversation would be better continued elsewhere. Adam Black talk • contribs 09:32, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- You have spent an extraordinary amount of time here complaining and attacking other users, if you have the sources please just present them here or on the article talk page. Theroadislong (talk) 02:22, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
User: Alexanderkowal on United States
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hi, is my conduct on United States appropriate? I'm trying to purge the dysfunction from the rfc I did but I'm struggling to gauge whether it's appropriate to have another topic on redesigning it for relisting. I don't plan on engaging in a relisting Alexanderkowal (talk) 13:13, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Perhaps this would be better placed on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard? Remsense诉 13:59, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, sorry thank you Alexanderkowal (talk) 14:36, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Tendentious editor on Sonny Liston
TheManTheyCallAdam is engaged in slow-walking reverts of content against guidelines, in this case MOS:THENICKNAME. At an earlier point, I and this editor discussed this matter, although they expressed that their view of how the English language works means that Sonny Liston's nickname "the Big Bear" must have have 'The' capitalized. On their talk page and in the article's talk, I showed them the guideline that shows 'The' is not to be capitalized. It is in the middle of a sentence as well.
I realize that the specific matter at hand is very minor, that it's just the casing of a word. But the problem as I see it is TheManTheyCallAdam is acting as someone who 1) pushes their opinion over that of the wiki guideline, with no acknowledgement there even is a guideline that covers it; 2) uses a slow-walking WP:TENDENTIOUS editing approach to ensure their opinion wins; and 3) based on their editing pattern, mostly focused on this matter, they aren't really here to build an encyclopedia. Most of what they're "doing" is waiting to change it back again.
I considered treating this as a content dispute and going through other channels first, but I have come to look at this as straight-up problematic editor behavior, disruptive in nature, with an apparent unwillingness to accept that the Wikipedia is written with guidelines in mind. New editors who so openly refuse our guidelines at least need to be reminded that we take them seriously, and that willy-nilly changing something to be their way is disruptive, if not unsavory behavior. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 02:54, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Both of you have been engaged in an editing war since at least April. It also appears that you have been watching the page since around last year. Augu Maugu ♨ 04:04, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- That could well be the appearance at a superficial level but I have tried to explain my edit and the other party stopped trying to, and is simply reverting me. Also, let's review that my position is based on the MoS. The bottom line is the other party is required to discuss if they disagree. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 04:07, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Whether or not this is edit warring (WP:3RR doesn't appear to apply), if you or anyone would like to lay out a solution, I would like to consider it (why I'm here). I am not interested in having a conflict. I just would like the other editor to understand we have guidelines here, and move on to other articles to work on if they so choose. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 04:13, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I completely understand and have looked at the matter a little more closely. Given the typical options, I would imagine the kindest conclusion would be for an independent admin to give a warning and block if it occurs again..
Well thats what I thought until i found this: User:TheManTheyCallGaryColemanFan. I could be wrong, but this user appears to be evading a block from 2009.Augu Maugu ♨ 05:26, 19 June 2024 (UTC)- I’m on mobile (desktop view) so it’s difficult for me to request for a checkuser. Also, given that the accounts were made 14 years apart its possible ISPs wouldn’t match anyways. Augu Maugu ♨ 05:42, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Give me a bit to review that case to confirm what you're laying out, and if I see the same problem, I will make a request. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 05:45, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have reviewed this. Beyond the username being similar to the suspected sockpuppet and there being an apparent shared subject interest, I don't see hard evidence connecting them, and it has been seven years since the last sock in this case has appeared, with the long-term case closed with "Long-gone LTA". Of course, there could be something I'm not seeing. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 06:21, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Okay, I will strike my comment then as I am not here to cast aspersions. Augu Maugu ♨ 06:51, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for helping here. If the issue is limited to what I stated above, I am fine with a warning or at least an informational reminder about the MoS and ensuring they understand to consider the other party's views in a discussion. If it's more than that, and is a block evasion, that would of course merit something stronger. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 05:42, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I’m on mobile (desktop view) so it’s difficult for me to request for a checkuser. Also, given that the accounts were made 14 years apart its possible ISPs wouldn’t match anyways. Augu Maugu ♨ 05:42, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Per the "watching" part, I have watched it for the usual reasons for watching, and has nothing to do with this matter. I watch because I am interested in subjects related to Muhammad Ali and there have been problematic edits to review over this period of time. Just thought I would respond to that element. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 04:19, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- What's funny is that this is far from being the worst issue in the article, where the back and forth on the subject's birth date sometimes is problematic, to put it mildly. I am going to resolve this by no longer watching or working on the article. Sometimes in life, you have to let things go, especially when they eat into your productivity and sanity. That I'm not getting support on this smaller matter tends to make such a choice the wise one. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 19:53, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- He has blatantly ignored this ANI as can bee seen here and has continued to war, i support an indef. I think the point was proven by this that he is WP:NOTHERE, as sad as that is. Augu Maugu ♨ 10:44, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I believe that is the edit that was the last straw for me that led to this report. But there's no question he ceased discussing this and has ignored this ANI. His recent contributions show he has given up on wiki productivity just to lie in wait to recap a word that shouldn't be capped, when experienced, serious editors would acknowledge the guideline involved and move on (or in rare cases, challenge the guideline). This is all really just a fancy way of saying this editor is intentionally being a pest via tendentious editing. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 18:44, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- He has blatantly ignored this ANI as can bee seen here and has continued to war, i support an indef. I think the point was proven by this that he is WP:NOTHERE, as sad as that is. Augu Maugu ♨ 10:44, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Trolling vandalism
Rantoodle seems to be a purely vandalism and trolling account. They received multiple warnings earlier this month for their vandalism and practically all article edits they've made have been reverted. Then they just made this bigoted talk page comment. Very clearly a case of WP:NOTHERE. SilverserenC 03:19, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- As I responded on my talk page, you’ll see that I haven’t made any edits of the kind that other people expressed concerns about. I’m honestly confused as to what was wrong with the edit request I made, too. I’m not understanding how it was bigoted but I’m open to being corrected if perhaps I don’t understand something. Rantoodle (talk) 03:28, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- If you don't understand why that comment was (Redacted) inappropriate, frankly I don't know how we can help you. I am not going to repeat it here and advise you to refrain from doing so also as it was wholly inappropriate. Adam Black talk • contribs 03:40, 19 June 2024 (UTC) Edit: redacted and replaced part of my comment, mindful of WP:NPA. Adam Black talk • contribs 03:45, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have reverted the linked comment and warned the user (not that it's likely to make much difference). Together with adding the word
niggardly
to the article Gravity Falls (diff) and then claiming they didn't (diff), I agree this is clearly a case of WP:NOTHERE. Adam Black talk • contribs 03:37, 19 June 2024 (UTC) - What's happening here is POV pushing at best but quite obvious they are making a statement, not to actually improve an article, but to cause a ruckus. I agree their behavior here is not welcome. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 03:41, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- And I'll note that I personally find their statement to be (Redacted) intended to arouse vitriol via inappropriate, obviously unobjective language. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 03:43, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Again, I would appreciate an explanation of how my request was perceived to be bigoted. Nowhere did I make any derogatory remark? Rantoodle (talk) 03:51, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I believe you know that the statement is (Redacted) intended to arouse vitriol via inappropriate, obviously unobjective language. Don't play this here. (Redacted) Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 03:52, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Silver seren, @StefenTower I've redacted that particular word from my own comment above, realising it probably falls foul of WP:NPA, and you may also wish to do so yourselves. I completely agree the comment was objectionable but we should all observe policy. Adam Black talk • contribs 03:51, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have revised my statements. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 03:58, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- “Intended to arouse vitriol”? Excuse me, that in itself is an objectionable accusation. Im being called a vandal and said to be intending to arouse vitriol just for asking a question anyone can simply say “no” to and explain why not? Im sorry but this is quite hostile and I would appreciate an apology. I haven’t once been uncivil to you. Rantoodle (talk) 04:00, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Your question is reasonably seen to be uncivil and I believe you know it is. I am done here. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 04:02, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- And how could my question “arouse vitriol”? I’m seriously confused here. Please help me understand why it seems I am being ganged up on. Rantoodle (talk) 04:03, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- You are not confused. Again, don't play us here. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 04:04, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- In response to this, and your latest edit summary
Please simply engage in discussion and refrain from making unfounded accusations that I am acting in bad faith (I am not)
, I am willing to believe you may not have been acting in bad faith when you first posed the question. However, at least four editors (including another on your talk page) have told you that this was not appropriate and the chances of anyone assuming good faith with you are getting very slim. Adam Black talk • contribs 04:05, 19 June 2024 (UTC)- I would just like to discuss this and get to the bottom of what you are all perceiving as objectionable and why, so I can understand it and avoid it in the future. It doesn’t have to be here, it can be on the article talk page and I would in fact prefer that to this noticeboard. Rantoodle (talk) 04:08, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I do not believe you genuinely can't understand what is objectionable, but on the off-chance you genuinely don't, please see MOS:GENDERID. This policy is concerned with article content rather than comments on talk pages but should go some way to explaining why we object. WP:NQP is an essay, not an official policy or guideline, but it may also help your understanding. Adam Black talk • contribs 04:18, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I would just like to discuss this and get to the bottom of what you are all perceiving as objectionable and why, so I can understand it and avoid it in the future. It doesn’t have to be here, it can be on the article talk page and I would in fact prefer that to this noticeboard. Rantoodle (talk) 04:08, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Again, I would appreciate an explanation of how my request was perceived to be bigoted. Nowhere did I make any derogatory remark? Rantoodle (talk) 03:51, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- And I'll note that I personally find their statement to be (Redacted) intended to arouse vitriol via inappropriate, obviously unobjective language. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 03:43, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is an LTA with a familiar pattern of editing. Indeffed. DanCherek (talk) 04:22, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you. I noticed things they further said on their talk page before they were reverted and their talk page edit privileges zapped. There is no mistaking this user's malevolence and intention to inject a POV into wiki content. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 18:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Revoke TPA
User:Ace Travel Sri Lanka seems to be reinserting promotional content in talk page after being blocked years ago, and I request TPA removal of the mentioned user. ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 06:00, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Done EvergreenFir (talk) 06:09, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Persistent addition of unsourced content/overlinking
50.205.182.253 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Keeps adding unsourced content/overlinking, continued after final warning (and hasn't responded to warnings), has been blocked four times previously for disruptive editing in the last 2 years. Examples of addition of unsourced content/overlinking: 1, 2, 3. Waxworker (talk) 06:21, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I've blocked them for a year. It's not usual to block an IP address indefinitely but that might be the only solution in this case. Deb (talk) 15:41, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Revoke an IP's TPA
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
2607:FEA8:86DF:FD5C:6D48:690A:7D35:DC25 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
Making bogus unblock requests, which I removed because they're not worth entertaining, and calling me slurs. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 07:02, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Looking through it, I can definitely understand the edits they made were very disruptive, but this edit summary that you made in my opinion, wasn't very respectful. Let's see what the administrators have to comment. NoobThreePointOh (talk) 07:07, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Buddy, that edit summary is nothing compared to blatant transphobia... and the antisemitism that got them blocked. I think "fuck off" is mild compared to them putting triple parentheses around the ADL's name. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 07:08, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Done, and revision-deleted the bigotry and abuse. Black Kite (talk) 07:11, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Oh well, I'll just assume good faith and think that what you wrote is indeed milder compared to the slurs they wrote. NoobThreePointOh (talk) 07:13, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I can assure you that "fuck off" was an extremely mild reaction to what they wrote. Black Kite (talk) 07:16, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- True, I used to think "fuck off" was extremely rude, but there's a lot of ruder expressions than this. God, I really need to understand that more often. NoobThreePointOh (talk) 07:19, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I can assure you that "fuck off" was an extremely mild reaction to what they wrote. Black Kite (talk) 07:16, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Oh well, I'll just assume good faith and think that what you wrote is indeed milder compared to the slurs they wrote. NoobThreePointOh (talk) 07:13, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Problematic edit summaries
Can someone take care of the edit summaries left by Flearoyuoi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? (For the record, I did not inform this user of this discussion; they've already been blocked for flagrant abuse.) WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 17:26, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Someone has removed the edit summaries already. ‹hamster717🐉› (discuss anything!🐹✈️ • my contribs🌌🌠) 18:02, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Possible sockpuppet "keep" votes at AfD listing for Rarri Dream
There are currently three comments suggesting inclusion for the article Rarri Dream at its AfD nomination, all featuring the same run-on-sentence-with-zero-punctuation writing style. When checking the edit history for commenter Firstsail, you'll find that they've only edited the aforementioned page along with the AfD listing itself; the IP address that voted "keep" has similarly only posted on the AfD listing. I have the feeling that this is sockpuppetry in motion. joeyquism (talk) 17:44, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Can you please help
Courtesy link: Help desk question related to the same matter
Abused online via wikapedia.org. Person using this to bully and abuse me I am scared for my family. Can administrator person responsible please email me to discuss further and in more detail mark Sullivan formb Marksullivanformby (talk) 20:52, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- meta:Trust and Safety is what you are looking for, I believe. --Yamla (talk) 20:58, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- (Non-administrator comment)@Marksullivanformby: It's hard to figure out from your account's contributions' history what specific Wikipedia pages you're referring to, but all of the pages you've edit so far seem to be related to sex work/prostitution in the UK. The content you've been removing with your edits so far seems a bit randon and otehrwise only related to someone who died in 1888; moreover, Wikipedia has several articles about persons named Mark Sullivan. You posted at the Wikipedia Help Desk that you noticed this problem when you type your name. Are you saying that when you do an Internet search of your name, a particular Wikipedia article shows up first in the search results? Is the Wikipedia article about you or is it about someone else you might have the same name as you? If the article is about you, it would be helpful if you could provide the name of the article so that someone can review it. If the article is about someone else, then there's not really anything that Wikipedia can do about it showing up in Internet search results. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:05, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Counter request-Blocking OP
I'm requesting to block OP, since they are clearly not here to build. All edits can be considered as disruptive or vandalism. I didn't find anything related to harm them on wiki and they are incompetence for communicating. I suspected someone may post something on miraheze? wikia? about them, but they came to the wrong place. -Lemonaka 02:04, 20 June 2024 (UTC) - The OP has stated at the Help Desk that they have a lawyer looking into this, and has been provided the info email there and a link to T&S on their talkpage. CMD (talk) 02:14, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Repeated WP:GS/AA violations
On June 13, I informed User:Göycen about the WP:GS/AA extended confirmed restriction and explained what it meant.[104]
Göycen still made several POV pushing edits in Armenia-Azerbaijan articles after the warning.[105][106][107][108][109][110][111]
On June 17, Rosguill gave Göycen another contentious topics warning.[112]
More reverting and POV pushing in AA articles after second warning.[113][114][115] KhndzorUtogh (talk) 21:39, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- @KhndzorUtoghI have not been warned by you. that was a mistake as you wrote on the page Talk:Caucasian_dragon_carpets. I have not changed anything on the pages, only reverted the changes from the block-evading sockpuppet IP address, by going through 100s of edits on my free time as stated on each edit did not reverted changes by other users or bots. Everything can be traced.
- As an extended confirmed user and a person who is more informed about Armenian topics than I am, you have the right to revert my changes instead of creating a complaint. I also told Rosguill that I have not made any political changes. Every edit I made was from the same user, who is well known for changing sources according to his gut feeling. Göycen (talk) 22:17, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- So, given that the edits since the CTOPS warning appear to have been limited to reverting an IP that was itself violating GS/AA, I'm a bit disinclined to sanction. That having been said, Göycen, GS/AA (and all other topic restrictions) are broadly construed--they are not limited to "political" edits. You are expected to stay away from topics relating to Armenia or Azerbaijan entirely until you are extended-confirmed. signed, Rosguill talk 22:30, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I understand. In case of future IP edits, I will let @KhndzorUtogh and others know to either revert the changes or review them until I receive my extended confirmation. Göycen (talk) 22:52, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Is Goycen WP:GAMING the rules by making over a hundred useless article move edits in the past day to reach 500 edits, then going straight to reverting AA articles again? Göycen used the same "misspelled"/"misunderstandings" edit summary for all of these moves, a lot of which were counterproductive (there was only one article called Gerdibi so it did not need to be moved to Gerdibi, Aladağ). KhndzorUtogh (talk) 21:39, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, that is clear GAMING, and many (potentially even all?) of the page moves are clearly in contradiction to our article title policies. EC status revoked indefinitely as an arbitration enforcement action, appealable no sooner than 3 months. I would add that correcting any erroneous page moves will be considered favorably on appeal. signed, Rosguill talk 21:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have been reviewing many of Göycen's edits and they aren't constructive to say the least. From unexplained removal of sourced content, removing relevant hyperlinks, and POV pushing by removing anything referencing "Armenia" or "Armenians" on several articles. This is quite concerning. I believe stricter action is required at this point. Archives908 (talk) 23:05, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Hey, according to Wikipedia guidelines, I have the right to make those edits. Since the person who was writing had a POV, it is normal for you to see those words. By "Goycen's edits," you most likely mean my reverts of a banned (evaded many times) sockpuppetted source, which, according to this topic, have to be reverted. What you are doing by reverting my changes without changing anything inside is simply saying that the above-mentioned IP address had the right to do all he wanted. Göycen (talk) 23:40, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Could you please go through edits of @Augmented Seventh, because today he also rightfully reverted same person. You might wanna take your stricker action against him as well, instead not doing anything to obviously proarmenian pov pushing ip adresses edits in last 6 months. it is really easy to write WP:GS/AA. I am wondering what were you guys doing last 6 months.
- my only obviously sided edit was on borchaly sultanate page which i did not reverted because i know where i was wrong. for the future edits i took always third opinion. Göycen (talk) 23:50, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- For the record, it is not a requirement to remove the edits of a banned sockpuppet. Sometimes, those people actually added useful, sourced info. What the editors you're complaining about have done is effectively endorsed the edits as valid information. Your next step is to go to the article Talk pages to dispute the information, not to clamor for other editors to be punished. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 16:35, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Hey, according to Wikipedia guidelines, I have the right to make those edits. Since the person who was writing had a POV, it is normal for you to see those words. By "Goycen's edits," you most likely mean my reverts of a banned (evaded many times) sockpuppetted source, which, according to this topic, have to be reverted. What you are doing by reverting my changes without changing anything inside is simply saying that the above-mentioned IP address had the right to do all he wanted. Göycen (talk) 23:40, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have been reviewing many of Göycen's edits and they aren't constructive to say the least. From unexplained removal of sourced content, removing relevant hyperlinks, and POV pushing by removing anything referencing "Armenia" or "Armenians" on several articles. This is quite concerning. I believe stricter action is required at this point. Archives908 (talk) 23:05, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, that is clear GAMING, and many (potentially even all?) of the page moves are clearly in contradiction to our article title policies. EC status revoked indefinitely as an arbitration enforcement action, appealable no sooner than 3 months. I would add that correcting any erroneous page moves will be considered favorably on appeal. signed, Rosguill talk 21:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Note that this may be at least partially related to #Reverting pages to vandalized version, Pov pushing Archives908, below. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:31, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Boogi wu and their hoaxes
Though Boogi wu (talk · contribs) has been blocked and locked years ago, I found some of their hoaxes are still in the current article.
For example
- Flags of the Holy Roman Empire, section of 14th century, the banner are still the one they added as "King of the Romans"
- Church of Greece, the founder are still the one they changed as Dionysius the Areopagite (tradition)
Is there any sysop or common user who are familiar with history can reviewed their edits one by one? These hoaxes are scattered on Middle Age history. Or, where should I post this notice on? -Lemonaka 01:30, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- If you feel certain that you see hoax or false information in an, article, you are free to remove it yourself, no need to wait for an admin. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:59, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- You should notify WikiProject Middle Ages of this cleanup, where the notice should last at least 30 days instead of 3. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 00:17, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- That project is likely inactive, I wondered who may see this notice? -Lemonaka 01:05, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
LTA MakaveliReed 3
- Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/MakaveliReed
- 2601:240:DE00:740:31D0:D727:BE95:9FDE (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
Back from the last block, now that it ended. AstonishingTunesAdmirer 連絡 04:43, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
AmechiUdoba1
Since its creation two months ago, the user AmechiUdoba1 (talk · contribs) has made a series of questionable edits on pages related to Nigeria. Although there have been a few simple mistakes typical of new editors, there appears to be a concerted effort by this account to remove or diminish notes of non-Igbo ethnic groups and their languages.
To cite a few examples of AmechiUdoba1's conduct:
- South East (Nigeria) and South South: For context, these two regions are a "geopolitical zones" in Nigeria; the SE roughly lines up with Igboland but includes a few other ethnicities while the South South is extremely ethnically diverse. AmechiUdoba1 first came to my attention when the account (and an aligned IP) removed a language from the South East page without reason. This is a common tactic that has been employed several times before on geopolitical zone pages, with ethnic jingoist accounts associated with major ethnic groups removing the languages of minorities (examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). It is a good mark for a user that is not here to build an encyclopedia and was a key piece of evidence in the eventual blockings of two similar users (1, 2). On the South East page, the account first removed English from the page before deleting almost all non-Igbo languages yesterday. To continue this trend of ethnically-charged edits, on the South South page AmechiUdoba1 just removed two languages without reason — likely a slight against ethnic Yoruba people (another large Nigerian ethnicity) and a denial of the Ogba language's existence (Igbo jingoists often attempt to categorize all Igboid languages as Igbo).
- Similar AmechiUdoba1 edits are now afflicting other pages: Ngwa people (replacing Ngwa dialect with Igbo language) and Ilorin (removing Yoruba as its language despite adding Igbo for a dozen cities).
- Akwa Ibom State and Cross River State: For context, these two states are mainly non-Igbo but were included in the Igbo-dominated breakaway state of Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War. Both pages had a sentence stating that Biafran forces persecuted inhabitants due to their ethnicity — backed up by a journal source which AmechiUdoba1 did not remove or contest; AmechiUdoba1 twice switched the words on the pages, changing it to "Nigerian forces." Not claiming that Nigerian forces did not commit atrocities, but the removal of Biafran crimes is a not not-too-subtle attempt to whitewash one side's wartime atrocities.
- Rivers State: A combination of the ethnic and linguistic edits by simply trying to remove the Ikwerre group and their language from the page. Ikwerre is another group alternatively classified as either a related ethnic group or an Igbo subgroup so AmechiUdoba1's goal seems to be denying their existence.
Although this is a relatively new account, there is reason to fear further disruptive and biased editing as its already graduated to inflating population statistics (another common vandal move on Nigerian pages). Similar accounts left without sanction have led to havoc on Nigerian pages with editors having to revert months of sourceless changes once they were finally found out. There needs to be some form of action against this user, this is a clear and concerted campaign of ethnically-biased edits. Thank you, Watercheetah99 (talk) 05:15, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
User:DTParker1000's tendentious editing of Rio Grande 223
ArbCom may be the only dispute resolution forum in Wikipedia in which the boomerang principle does not apply, in which the editor who files a bad complaint will not have their own conduct scrutinized. This is about an editor who is disruptively filing Requests for Arbitration concerning a historic train.
- DTParker1000 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Rio Grande 223 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
The problem seems to have started on 27 February 2024 when DTParker1000 expanded the article on Rio Grande 223, and included material about the historical importance of railroads in the American West in the nineteenth century. Other editors, including User:Xboxtravis7992, removed much of this material as being off-topic. In my opinion, it was information that should be in the encyclopedia, and probably is in the encyclopedia (but I did not research whether it was), but was off-topic for the article. Xboxtravis7992 then filed a DRN request on 11 March 2024: Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_242#Rio_Grande_223. . I declined it, but said that another request could be filed in 48 hours. Then there was edit-warring, and DTParker1000 was partially blocked from the article in question, indefinitely. They requested unblock, which was declined. JTParker1000 then filed a Request for Arbitration on 19 March 2024, [[116]], and the request was declined by ArbCom on 20 March 2024. JTParker1000 then filed a DRN request on 7 April 2024: Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_244#Rio_Grande_223. I closed that request as vexatious litigation. JTParker1000 has now filed a second Request for Arbitration, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Rio_Grande_223, with no mention of the first request, and an otherwise fragmentary record of previous dispute resolution.
ArbCom traditionally does not sanction editors for filing stupid, frivolous, or vexatious cases, so I am asking the community to take action against a disruptive editor and vexatious litigant. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:50, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- This guy is an absolute menace. He can't be reasoned with - I would know, because I'm among the many who tried. He continues to labor under the mindset that if he appeals high enough, surely someone will intervene in his favor, which is nonsense since the matter is a content dispute, and every other editor who has weighed in disagrees with him. That he continues to waste everyone's time in this manner rather than doing literally anything else shows he is not compatible with Wikipedia, because he cannot work with other people. Take a look at the giant wall of WP:IDHT he wrote at Talk:Rio Grande 223/Archive 1. He needs an indef. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 13:27, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Other than in regards to this incident, DTParker1000 has never been blocked. Their one block is a partial block for the article in question. While their edit count is low, they've been on the project for 14 years. Longevity does not confer special treatment, but I think it's a bit of a leap to go from a partial block to a sitewide block without a final warning. I've given them the final warning, but they've not edited since. I think it's sufficient to leave it at that. If they persist in their behavior, myself or another administrator will likely indef them until they agree to drop the stick and move on. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:49, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- We can wait and see for the moment, but I'm very skeptical we will see any change in behavior. If this continues any further, I think an indef will become the only option. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:15, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not convinced that an indef is the only option. It might or might not be the best option, but a topic ban from discussing Rio Grande 223 anywhere on Wikipedia (excluding replies to explicit questions about it in discussions about their conduct) with enforcement by the usual method of escalating blocks is at the very least an option and one I think worthy of consideration. Thryduulf (talk) 20:30, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I've asked them on their talk page if they would agree to voluntary tban, but upon looking further it seems clear that they often make a few edits and then go inactive for a few months. That being the case, I think an involuntary topic ban is the appropriate sanction. If they break it, blocks will follow. It looks like their edits outside of this one area are fine, they just need to drop the stick on this issue. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 20:33, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not convinced that an indef is the only option. It might or might not be the best option, but a topic ban from discussing Rio Grande 223 anywhere on Wikipedia (excluding replies to explicit questions about it in discussions about their conduct) with enforcement by the usual method of escalating blocks is at the very least an option and one I think worthy of consideration. Thryduulf (talk) 20:30, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- We can wait and see for the moment, but I'm very skeptical we will see any change in behavior. If this continues any further, I think an indef will become the only option. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:15, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Other than in regards to this incident, DTParker1000 has never been blocked. Their one block is a partial block for the article in question. While their edit count is low, they've been on the project for 14 years. Longevity does not confer special treatment, but I think it's a bit of a leap to go from a partial block to a sitewide block without a final warning. I've given them the final warning, but they've not edited since. I think it's sufficient to leave it at that. If they persist in their behavior, myself or another administrator will likely indef them until they agree to drop the stick and move on. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:49, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Is this acceptable?
This edit Special:Diff/1229910692 looks to me to be more than a bit racist. Daveosaurus (talk) 06:39, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- In the context of that discussion this is fair enough responding to an earlier remark. If you think the statement is incorrect you can argue about it on the RSN. But it is relevant to the debate there. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:24, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Massive edits by suspected sockpuppet Ip adress
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hi, I already filed a sockpuppet investigation due to the size of the edits made by Special:Contributions/93.199.244.40. To ensure a quick response, I would like to file a complaint here. I would appreciate it if an admin could review the changes currently being made by this user. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Göycen (talk • contribs) 09:13, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I just revert your vandlism. Most of these versions have already been accepted by administrators and even been accepted in talk pages of the articles, like in Pastirma. Your approach is awful. @KhndzorUtogh can check our edits and see who is right, now stop edit warring Göycen. 93.199.244.40 (talk) 10:01, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- The report is at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/2003:EA:4F00:0:0:0:0:0.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:27, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
User:Jomadodgh possible block evasion
- Jomadodgh (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
This user has made three edits so far to the pages Dodol, Bilqis Prasista and Ketoprak (dish). In all three cases, the edit summary was yama nene
or a variation upon it.
User:Kumananah was blocked on 30 April 2024 and User:Its oke wae was blocked on 2 April 2024 both for making similar edits which used the same edit summaries. Other accounts have engaged in the same editing behaviour, particularly at the Bilqis Prasista article but I am listing the most recent diffs for expediency.
Based on these edits, I think it is reasonable to assume that this is an attempt at evading a block and that these accounts are all sockpuppets of each other. Adam Black talk • contribs 10:25, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- This should be reported at WP:SPI.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:24, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Of course it should have been, sorry. Will move it over to there shortly. Adam Black talk • contribs 13:54, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
SurrealDB speedy deleted after significant changes
Hello, I am the author of SurrealDB which was recently deleted after an AfD. I was able to undelete the page and draftify it for the purposes of improving the article and moving it to mainspace after the database had received enough notability.
Interestingly, shortly after the article was deleted, the company raised $20m USD after another investment round, alongside the launch of their "Cloud" beta announcement. Plus I found a number of new sources further establishing notability.
I don't blame anyone, because it was recreated quickly after the AfD so I can understand why it might appear as circumventing the AfD process - however my intention was not to do that, and I believe the article would now survive an AfD since the article had undergone more significant changes, and addition of new sources.
I would like to have this article undergo a new AfD instead of speedy deletion. Mr Vili talk 10:29, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is not the proper forum for this request. Bgsu98 (Talk) 11:07, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I restored it to draft for you to work on, however it should now go through WP:AFC. Black Kite (talk) 11:30, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Black Kite I can't seem to find it, can you link? Mr Vili talk 11:38, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Sorry, to clarify, I believe you undeleted it after it was moved to mainspace by another user, but then after making improvements to the page, I believe I moved it to mainspace again, and was deleted by another admin (I believe incorrectly) under WP:G4 Mr Vili talk 11:39, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I also believe WP:G4 was not properly used here, as the article was significantly changed from the version deleted through AFD. I've restored the article and moved it to Draft:SurrealDB again. As previously advised, please submit this article through the AFC process; if it's recreated in mainspace again without being approved by an independent AFC reviewer, it most likely will be deleted again. I have protected both pages only to save the admin work if you bypass this process again. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:22, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you @Ivanvector Mr Vili talk 23:34, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I also believe WP:G4 was not properly used here, as the article was significantly changed from the version deleted through AFD. I've restored the article and moved it to Draft:SurrealDB again. As previously advised, please submit this article through the AFC process; if it's recreated in mainspace again without being approved by an independent AFC reviewer, it most likely will be deleted again. I have protected both pages only to save the admin work if you bypass this process again. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:22, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Can I ask on what grounds Mr vili considered it in any way appropriate to remove multiple sections of comment from the draft talk page, without archiving: [117] AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Looks to me like they copied the source table from the AFD, and overwrote the existing discussions by accident. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:05, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- My ability to AGF with regards to this particular contributor is somewhat strained. An 'accident' that removes significant negative feedback from contributors seems a little too convenient to me. At least it does, after taking into consideration some of the other problematic behaviour I've seen. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:14, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Furthermore, the source table was not copied from the AfD. [118] The source table there (created by another AfD participant) was entirely different, and demonstrated how the sources then being cited were in no way sufficient to demonstrate notability. There are a few sources cited in both tables, though now with Mr Vili's positive spin, rather than the original critique. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Looks to me like they copied the source table from the AFD, and overwrote the existing discussions by accident. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:05, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'd also like to see what people here think of this comment by Mr Vili on the draft talk page: [119] Little room for AGF there... AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:12, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- There’s no way there’s no COI. Bgsu98 (Talk) 21:48, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- It's possibly a case of very enthusiastic advocacy, but when I last ran into the SurrealDB article in January I had serious doubts too. I don't know. StereoFolic (talk) 02:06, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @StereoFolic that claim was based on the growth in GitHub stars, which I had no issue removing. It is true I am enthusiastic about SurrealDB. There is no COI Mr Vili talk 08:42, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- It is true you deleted that after some back-and-forth on the talk page, however I was disappointed to you see you make that exact same claim during the AfD discussion when I thought we had reached an understanding that the claim was from an unreliable source (a reprinted press release) and not a meaningful metric for determining notability. Honestly, noticing you repeating that claim is the only reason I still follow this dispute (that and you keep on recreating the page so it keeps on showing up in my watchlist). Given your activity on other pages makes it clear you are not a WP:SPA, I am inclined to believe you have no COI, but please try to understand why everyone is so skeptical. StereoFolic (talk) 11:39, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @StereoFolic that claim was based on the growth in GitHub stars, which I had no issue removing. It is true I am enthusiastic about SurrealDB. There is no COI Mr Vili talk 08:42, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- It's possibly a case of very enthusiastic advocacy, but when I last ran into the SurrealDB article in January I had serious doubts too. I don't know. StereoFolic (talk) 02:06, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- If you look at our interaction history, its constantly you arguing and criticising every action I take. You are acting against the interests of the encyclopedia. Please find something new to do @AndyTheGrump. Mr Vili talk 23:33, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Doubling down, I see. As for the interests of the encyclopaedia, we can talk about that if you like. Starting with your persistent use of it to promote imaginary countries , and your inability to understand Wikipedia sourcing policy. Do you really think that if you keep citing it often enough [120][121] people will think that a website (lightsquare.org) run by the 'Government of Lumina' (see [122]) is a reliable source for anything but complete bullshit? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:50, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- There’s no way there’s no COI. Bgsu98 (Talk) 21:48, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I did not overwrite the discussions, they were not recovered when the page was undeleted by an administrator, the talk page I created was initially empty Mr Vili talk 23:31, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- The diff says otherwise. [123] AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:03, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'd also like to see what people here think of this comment by Mr Vili on the draft talk page: [119] Little room for AGF there... AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:12, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- For further evidence of problematic editing by Mr Vili, see Claude-3.5, created by him today. And then compare the claim in the lede
"It is the first model to surpass GPT-4o in a majority of benchmarks, making it the current leading state-of-the-art general model"
with what the sources cited ([124][125][126]) actually say. The article is entirely promotional, regurgitating the developer company's claims as fact, and as far as I can see, utterly redundant, since we already have an article on Claude (language model). AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:54, 21 June 2024 (UTC)- @AndyTheGrump The claim is entirely credible. Please find any source that claims otherwise.
- We also have GPT-3.5 GPT-3 GPT-4 GPT-4o and so on. Clearly documenting the world's leading AI models is a very important topic. Mr Vili talk 08:38, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't <redacted> if you think the claim is 'credible.' You cannot use sources that state that the developer claims something for a statement in Wikipedia's voice that asserts that the claims are true. Never. Not ever. Not under any circumstances. We do not lie about what sources say. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:34, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't disagree, but please mind the tone. StereoFolic (talk) 11:44, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Redacted... AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:47, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't disagree, but please mind the tone. StereoFolic (talk) 11:44, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't <redacted> if you think the claim is 'credible.' You cannot use sources that state that the developer claims something for a statement in Wikipedia's voice that asserts that the claims are true. Never. Not ever. Not under any circumstances. We do not lie about what sources say. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:34, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Yet another garbage article from Mr Vili: Safe Superintelligence Inc. This is nothing more than a glorified press release. Someone is starting a company. That's all it tells us. Not the slightest claim to notability. Nothing. At this juncture I am beginning to suspect that Mr Vili is tying to provoke people, trying to make some sort of point. If it isn't that, it is gross incompetence.AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:27, 21 June 2024 (UTC)- To be fair, he didn’t create that one, but just added one line of text and a “source” to it. Bgsu98 (Talk) 14:10, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm unfamiliar with this thread, but i created the page. If you're unsure about the notability of my garbage, take it to AfD. NotAGenious (talk) 15:19, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Apologies for misattributing the article to Mr Vili, though my comments about the 'article' stand. We seem to have a serious problem with regard to notability criteria and sourcing requirements being ignored for IT companies. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:09, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I beleive the notability comes from the founder, Ilya Sutskever, whom has been key person to the progression of AI over the past 10 years. It is still early tho and nothing but announcement about the founding and a plan has come out. TagKnife (talk) 17:24, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- No, notability cannot be derived that way. That is just absurd. We don't create a new article for everything an 'notable' person does. Not remotely. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:54, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I beleive the notability comes from the founder, Ilya Sutskever, whom has been key person to the progression of AI over the past 10 years. It is still early tho and nothing but announcement about the founding and a plan has come out. TagKnife (talk) 17:24, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Apologies for misattributing the article to Mr Vili, though my comments about the 'article' stand. We seem to have a serious problem with regard to notability criteria and sourcing requirements being ignored for IT companies. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:09, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
sanitisation of page / heavy editing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Fischer
this page has recently been heavily edited and needs investigation. its been sanitised and is now inaccurate — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.125.110.236 (talk) 14:18, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- There is a clear an unambiguous conflict of interest here. The article subject has edited the article themselves and declared that they are the subject on the article talk page. I'm taking a look through the diffs and checking all of the edits were appropriate. At a glance, several edits need to be reverted. Adam Black talk • contribs 15:50, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- IP editor, please be aware of our stringent policy on biographies of living people. Gossip, speculation and innuendo are not permitted. I removed a BLP violation from the talk page. Cullen328 (talk) 15:56, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Adam Black, why did you restore the content sourced to Geni.com, a user generated genealogy record? Is that appropriate? It looks like original research to me. Cullen328 (talk) 16:03, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I restored the page back to before the COI editor started editing and then subsequently removed that portion. Unless I've missed a second use of that reference, I'll double check now. Adam Black talk • contribs 16:09, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I believe I've correctly removed that reference ([127]). I can't see any further use of Geni.com. I was going to now fully copyedit the article, verify the references, and make changes to comply with BLP policy as necessary but my partner has just arrived home early and I have to get started on dinner. I can finish doing so later this evening unless someone else wants to take a look at the article in the meantime. Adam Black talk • contribs 16:16, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks, Adam Black. I looks to me like IP editors are trying to portray this person in a negative light and she is trying to defend herself somewhat ineptly. Cullen328 (talk) 16:44, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Adam Black, why did you restore the content sourced to Geni.com, a user generated genealogy record? Is that appropriate? It looks like original research to me. Cullen328 (talk) 16:03, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- IP editor, please be aware of our stringent policy on biographies of living people. Gossip, speculation and innuendo are not permitted. I removed a BLP violation from the talk page. Cullen328 (talk) 15:56, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Contested RfC Close
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I wish to challenge the June 18 closure for parts two and three of Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RFC: The Anti-Defamation League. The RSN RFC for was closed by User: ScottishFinnishRadish on Jun 18, 2024. The editor invited challenges to the close on ANI. Despite the June 18 closure of the entire RfC, and after an ANI discussion was started that focused on part one, about 14 new editors went to “part two” and left additional responses to the survey. Clearly, these new editors felt there was still merit in further discussion.
But others, such as me, obeyed the dictate to not participate and waited for the challenge at ANI to resolve. We can’t know how many others refrained from participating. This is particularly germane in my case because the ADL just asked me for advice as an unpaid consultant last night. I refrained from posting on the RfC. Starting a separate challenge to the close on parts 2 and 3 seemed premature given there was still a very active discussion of part 1. User: The Wordsmith closed the discussion on part one on June 20. Wordsmith then went to part two and left this message: “Close in progress: The Wordsmith is in the process of closing this discussion. Please do not contribute further to it; the result should be posted within a day or so.”
Simply disregarding survey responses after June 18 does not seem wise given some of these responses are substantive. But other editors have now been warned twice - by Wordsmith and Scottish - to stop participating. I also went ahead and just left a comment now that I know 14 others already disregarded the closure admonition I would like to propose that the RfC for parts two and three be reopened for discussion, and any decision postponed until substantive discussion of the survey concludes. BC1278 (talk) 20:30, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- This seems like an attempt to WP:Wikilawyer by an editor with a declared COI and should be disregarded. Closure of a discussion that has been open for 2 months is overdue, not premature. signed, Rosguill talk 20:38, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- This statement is false:
The RSN RFC for was closed by User: ScottishFinnishRadish on Jun 18, 2024.
DanCherek (talk) 20:54, 20 June 2024 (UTC)- To clarify, I was just closing the out-of-place discussion on challenging the close of section 1. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:00, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
The RSN RFC for was closed by User: ScottishFinnishRadish on Jun 18, 2024
: There seems to be some misunderstanding. ScottishFinnishRadish only closed the subthread discussing the closure of part 1. Other un-closed subthreads remained open after June 18, and The Wordsmith posted the notice boxes about in-progress closures for parts 2 and 3 on June 20. I don't think The Wordsmith has expressed any plans todisregard survey responses after June 18
. I suppose don't know what would become of additional responses now that the closures are indicated to be in progress; the notices don't prohibit additional commenting, after all. I grant that I can't help but think that doing so seems like it'd be kind of impolite to The Wordsmith, who has committed to take on the time-consuming task of carefully reading the already very long threads, analyzing the arguments, and describing what the community's consensus is or isn't. Since all three parts had been have been open for comment from the Wikipedia community since April 7, and since this is building on other long discussions, it's hard to think that closure would be premature or that substantive discussion hasn't already taken place. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 20:58, 20 June 2024 (UTC)- A close review of discussions that haven't yet been closed... -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:18, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think this discussion should just be closed to avoid a WP:WASTEOFTIME. There is nothing to resolve as the RfC in question (Part 2 and 3) hasn't even been closed, as referenced above. The obvious suggestion would be to wait for the RfC to close before contesting, as there is otherwise no reason to contest the imminent closure of an overdue RfC because the subject has something to say. All I see is defamation of an admin, ie claiming they closed a contentious RfC when they didn't, as it still remains open. CNC (talk) 21:18, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
User:GenevieveDEon
@GenevieveDEon has attempted to accuse me of targeting them, over a basic CTOPS notice for climate change.
Notice on their talk page about climate change and a climate-change protest being a contentious topic: [128]
GenevieveDEon nominated a climate change protest article for deletion (Vandalism of Stonehenge, a protest by Just Stop Oil). The nomination was perfectly acceptable and allowed. However, in the nomination, GenevieveDEon focused on the article creator (myself) of WP:OWN, over a false accusation that I did not want the scope to be expanded. As a note, the single comment I made on the talk page ([129]) was replying to Ad Orientem who questioned the notability of the article. I stated it seemed to pass LASTING, but we should reassess in a week to see if it passes LASTING and the 10-year test. Not once did I mention "scope", and yet, I was accused of doing so in the AfD nomination.
When confronted regarding the false accusation, GenevieveDEon gave some interesting answers, including more accusations. GenevieveDEon responded that I was targetting them by giving them their first CTOPICS notice for climate change. I gave it for a very appropriate reason, (and editor with just over 500 edits who started an AFD on a climate change protest). In that same response, it was also stated as clear as day by GenevieveDEon: "I also note that WeatherWriter tagged me with the 'climate change is a contentious subject' talk page template. This isn't about climate change. I have no interest in the purported subject matter of the protest
(bolding my doing).
After this targeting accusation, I quickly alerted them that CTOPICS is just a required thing: "The tag on your talk page is a required thing per WP:CTOPICS. This was a protest related to climate change and as such, first-alert topics are given to editors in the field of articles regarding climate change. Nothing directed towards you.
" Despite that notice, GenevieveDEon continued pressing the matter and doubled down saying, "I regard it as rather targeted, because you didn't add the tag to the Vandalism of Stonehenge article itself when you created it, but only when you were tagging various places including my talk page, after I had made this nomination. And I'm not sure it's a sensible use of the contentious topics policy for you to create an unnecessary (and untagged) article about a very minor event somewhat connected with the contentious topic, and then start throwing around the template once someone challenges that creation.
"
After giving them a chance to strike their doubled down accusations, GenevieveDEon stood by their word saying, "No. It's about how you handled the marking of the article in question, and related pages, as being related to a contentious topic only when it served to criticise this deletion discussion. My comment stands.
"
This is a clear case of someone who doesn't understand CTOPICS and wants to personally attack people, even when it is stated that it is a required thing. GenevieveDEon just recently acquired their EC status (early June 2024 as far as I can tell), and they are editing heavily now in a contentious topic. Given they have directly stated a protest regarding climate change by Just Stop Oil is not related to climate change and that the standard CTOPICS notice was considered targeting to them, I believe they are not truly ready to edit in CTOPICS areas. My suggestion would be either a formal warning/alert that CTOPIC notifications are required and that a climate protest does indeed related to climate change (this is my preferred request) or if it is indeed felt by the community/others that GenevieveDEon is not ready for CTOPICS, that their EC status be revoked (I do not feel this is necessary). The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:20, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- It's late here, and I'm not particularly interested in wikilawyering. If contentious topic flags are mandatory, and you knew that, why did you not put one on the article that you yourself had created, until after I had nominated it for deletion? This just looks like a way to interfere with the AfD process. I already said that on closer examination the removals of large blocks of other content were to do with other users' POV-pushing, so you needn't worry that I'm still concerned about WP:OWN issues. But this is a lot of verbiage about a very insignificant article, about a very insignificant event. Please back down and let the AfD run its course. GenevieveDEon (talk) 21:28, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- ETA: The top of this page says "This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems." Which of those do you think my actions count as? GenevieveDEon (talk) 21:29, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Well, thank you for admitted that you are still accusing me of ownership (without providing a single Wikilink to my supposed ownership) over an article, which I myself supported to merge in the supposed AFD. Funny enough, after doing a count of direct comments in the AFD, you happen to have seven unique comments while I have five (three of which are in the coversation between myself and you) in the AFD). Now you have accused me of interfering in the AFD, OWNing the article, and accused me a POV-pushing. Lol. I want others to comment on your behavior, but I am tempted to switch my supported/proposed action away from a simple warning into more of a T-Ban. Please stop accusing me of things when I haven't done anything but follow the rules. You were not the only editor to receive a CTOPICS notice either. Several other editors did as well. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:35, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
thank you for admitted that you are still accusing me of ownership
- no, that's the opposite of what I meant. Byyou needn't worry that I'm still concerned about WP:OWN issues
I meant that I wasn't taking that line any more. I'd have done the same as you (and another editor) did with the additional content you removed. I also haven't said anything at all about you and POV-pushing; again, the mention of POV-pushing was in reference to the users who wanted to make the Vandalism of Stonehenge article into something to do with the road tunnel. But your level of aggression about this is wearisome. GenevieveDEon (talk) 22:22, 20 June 2024 (UTC)- I apologize, I misread what you put. You are correct, you seem to not be accusing me of anything anymore. Still sad it took opening a discussion at AN/I to get you to understand that. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 22:25, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- It seems like this is all talked out which is great. Weather Event Writer it looks like you are rather quick to escalate minor disputes into visits to noticeboards which can be unnecessary stressful for multiple parties and can be seen as a way of manipulating the understanding of how events unfold. I'd try talking more and don't expect editors to immediately understand the points you are trying to make. Most editors do not immediately warm to being corrected and you should expect some pushback. ANI should be your last resort, not a place you bring disputes that just haven't gone your way. And this is not casting aspersions I've just noticed that you have opened at least two cases here this week. Believe me, it's not a great thing to be seen as an ANI regular. Liz Read! Talk! 01:22, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Hey Liz, if I may ask a question, what should I have done differently in these type of situations? Talking it out didn't really happen until it was started at AN/I (as seen in the timestamps). To use this as an example, GenevieveDEon stood their ground, even after being linked to correct policy. Once it was brought here, GenevieveDEon talked it out. In those sitations, instead of coming to AN/I, where is the best place to do to get the "talking it out" to occur, if initial talks don't go anywhere and result in more escalation? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 01:57, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- It seems like this is all talked out which is great. Weather Event Writer it looks like you are rather quick to escalate minor disputes into visits to noticeboards which can be unnecessary stressful for multiple parties and can be seen as a way of manipulating the understanding of how events unfold. I'd try talking more and don't expect editors to immediately understand the points you are trying to make. Most editors do not immediately warm to being corrected and you should expect some pushback. ANI should be your last resort, not a place you bring disputes that just haven't gone your way. And this is not casting aspersions I've just noticed that you have opened at least two cases here this week. Believe me, it's not a great thing to be seen as an ANI regular. Liz Read! Talk! 01:22, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I apologize, I misread what you put. You are correct, you seem to not be accusing me of anything anymore. Still sad it took opening a discussion at AN/I to get you to understand that. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 22:25, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Well, thank you for admitted that you are still accusing me of ownership (without providing a single Wikilink to my supposed ownership) over an article, which I myself supported to merge in the supposed AFD. Funny enough, after doing a count of direct comments in the AFD, you happen to have seven unique comments while I have five (three of which are in the coversation between myself and you) in the AFD). Now you have accused me of interfering in the AFD, OWNing the article, and accused me a POV-pushing. Lol. I want others to comment on your behavior, but I am tempted to switch my supported/proposed action away from a simple warning into more of a T-Ban. Please stop accusing me of things when I haven't done anything but follow the rules. You were not the only editor to receive a CTOPICS notice either. Several other editors did as well. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:35, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Talk Page Access Needs Reviewing: Ironcurtain2
After being blocked for WP:NOTHERE and a declined request for an unblock [130], Ironcurtain2 has used their talk page mainly to go on screeds about administrator corruption [131]and to continue insulting Valjean [132]. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 21:31, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Also, in the interest of full disclosure, please note that I had a very brief communication with this editor, in that I earlier suggested to the editor that it would be a good idea to remove a particularly bad edit they had made to their talk page, so I am not completely uninvolved [133]. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 21:36, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- The talk page is turning into a regular clusterf##k of content unrelated to appealing the indef block. Please clear the excess and lock the page. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:44, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Looking now EvergreenFir (talk) 05:48, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- It is my impression that all the teapots have stopped whistling and that Ironcurtain2 has had their say. I see no need to block talk page access (yet). That said, it wouldn't take much more for me to support such a block. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:00, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- The talk page is turning into a regular clusterf##k of content unrelated to appealing the indef block. Please clear the excess and lock the page. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:44, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Harassment from VPN
I came online to check my watchlist and get notified that 16 of my edits have been reverted. Each reversion is to an individual article, and all of the articles are then immediately restored to the status quo ante. The edits originate from different IPs in Lagos, Nigeria, that correspond to a VPN provider, Zenlayer Inc.
- 98.98.197.162 (4)
- 98.98.197.194 (6)
- 98.98.197.216 (5)
That's just today.
Yesterday, we had three from 98.98.197.196, and the day before I had one from 98.98.197.215. On Monday there was one from 98.98.197.168 and two from 98.98.197.163. Thus far, that makes 22 reversions and restorations, all originating from IPs from the same company.
This may or may not be connected to the Bluebird207 situation at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1157#IP editor confessing to harassment on behalf of a registered user. In both situations, VPN-based IPs were involved.
Given that the person behind this is hopping IPs, please advise me on where/how I should attempt to notify them. I will notify Bluebird207's talk page as well. Imzadi 1979 → 22:35, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Add Contributions/174.206.169.95 to that list. Dave (talk) 00:15, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I've blocked 98.98.197.128/24 x 3 months. Moabdave has blocked 174.206.169.95 x 1 week. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:23, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I went with a shorter block as I wasn't 100% sure this was the same person. But it looks like they are the same person. I'll up my block to 3 months to match yours, unless someone objects. Dave (talk) 00:25, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Moabdave I based my block on the almost total lack of constructive editing within that range. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:30, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I went with a shorter block as I wasn't 100% sure this was the same person. But it looks like they are the same person. I'll up my block to 3 months to match yours, unless someone objects. Dave (talk) 00:25, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I've blocked 98.98.197.128/24 x 3 months. Moabdave has blocked 174.206.169.95 x 1 week. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:23, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Publius Obsequium disruption
Publius Obsequium (talk · contribs)
Publius Obsequium has been active since June 2024 adding unreliable content to many articles including Life satisfaction, Hypnotherapy, Gender dysphoria, Sex differences in intelligence, Flynn effect, Joseph of Cupertino, Driving while black, Intelligence (journal), race and genetics and others which is soaking up other users time by having to clean up after them. Often this user will either add fringe or primary sources to articles that fail WP:MEDRS or WP:NPOV. At first they started restoring their deleted content but now they simply ignore any advice they were given and go and find a new target article and add in more unreliable content. After their content is removed then they just move on to another article and do the same again. This has been going on now for nearly 3 weeks.
If you scan through their edits since early June almost every edit they have made has been reverted in mainspace. There is a consistent pattern of disruption here and I am surprised they have not been blocked before now. At least 5 users have explained them where they are going wrong, but they do not listen to said advice. Examples of warnings can be seen on their talk-page [134] [135] which they have not properly acknowledged.
I first encountered this user on the Joseph of Cupertino article where they were adding unreliable content which several users took issue with. The user has made it clear that they believe fringe science is a subjective opinion so they ignore WP:Fringe guidelines. This user only seems to want to edit controversial or fringe related articles related to race and intelligence, gender or fringe and alternative medicine.
If all this was just happening on 1 or 2 articles and they moved on and admitted to their mistakes it could be excused but it has been going on for far too long now. I am not convinced the editor has been acting in good faith. I believe that a topic ban on fringe related content would be appropriate here.
Just a few examples where they have added fringe/unreliable/undue content [136], [137], [138], [139], [140] Psychologist Guy (talk) 02:37, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have earnestly and in good faith been trying to learn how things work as I have not been active for a long time. I have shifted my edits on sources to include secondary work as has been recommended to me. Not all messages to me have been addressed but that is simply because I have forgotten to respond, as I have multiple people trying to talk to me.
- psychologist guy has not interacted with me previously beyond a couple of edit reversions, and now wants to escalate things to a topic ban. Fine, it appears I need to learn more about Wikipedia conduct before touching controversial topics. I do not wish to cause anyone frustration. Publius Obsequium (talk) 02:47, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- PO is formally aware of gender/sexuality and race/intelligence contentious topics, and their disruption in both is TBAN-worthy. If they are willing to take on a TBAN from both of those and fringe-related content, I'd be happy to see how they fare in less controversial spaces. The reverting without explanation needs to stop. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:49, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- i would rather just voluntarily desist from editing in any controversial topics. I think it should be noted that I did see the warning on my talk page about these topics being controversial and I avoided making further edits to them subsequently. Publius Obsequium (talk) 03:03, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Since the contentious topic notices on 11 June, you've made edits/comments related to multiple gender/sexuality topics (e.g., Gender dysphoria, Kenneth Zucker, Susan Coates, David Reimer) and race/intelligence topics (Nations and IQ, Flynn effect). I think the fact that you're so incorrect here is a sign that formal topic bans, and not voluntary restrictions, are necessary. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:13, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- With all due respect I did not make any edits to Nations and IQ. The Flynn effect is not a topic I would consider as falling under the umbrella of controversial. I think the only one that would be considered controversial is gender dysphoria, and yes I recognize that I should have seen that as being too controversial to jump into the fray on and I apologize for that. Publius Obsequium (talk) 03:34, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I agree entirely with Firefangledfeathers that voluntary restrictions are not enough — they rarely are. Publius Obsequium should not be the one to determine what topics or articles are controversial and then to avoid only those, as they attempt to do above ("The Flynn effect is not a topic I would consider as falling under the umbrella of controversial"). I support formal t-bans from gender/sexuality, race/intelligence, and pseudoscience ("fringe-related content", as Feathers calls it). As far as gender/sexuality and race/intelligence, it's not necessary to await a community consensus here, since PO was formally alerted to them as contentious topics on June 11. Firefangledfeathers, you know you can set those two tbans on your own authority as an uninvolved admin, right? I'd recommend it. Bishonen | tålk 10:36, 21 June 2024 (UTC).
- Sorry Bish, I'm hopelessly involved here. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 11:24, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, sorry, Feathers, I didn't understand that. Well, I invited you to do it more as a courtesy, because you were the first admin to comment; I'm certainly not involved, and can just as well do it myself. Done. Publius Obsequium has been indefinitely topic banned from gender/sexuality and race/intelligence. Bishonen | tålk 12:43, 21 June 2024 (UTC).
- The 'Zilla was released... and bright colours returned to the world :) ——Serial Number 54129 14:19, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Publius Obsequium has blanked their talk-page within half an hour of receiving notice of the the topic ban [141]. Obviously it is their talk-page and they can do what they want but this type of behaviour is just odd. Thanks for the help from admins. This issue has been resolved for now. Psychologist Guy (talk) 13:37, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Not odd at all. Others will assume that, having just been twice TBanned, they wish to draw a line under events and make a fresh start and new memories. ——Serial Number 54129 14:19, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, sorry, Feathers, I didn't understand that. Well, I invited you to do it more as a courtesy, because you were the first admin to comment; I'm certainly not involved, and can just as well do it myself. Done. Publius Obsequium has been indefinitely topic banned from gender/sexuality and race/intelligence. Bishonen | tålk 12:43, 21 June 2024 (UTC).
- Sorry Bish, I'm hopelessly involved here. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 11:24, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Since the contentious topic notices on 11 June, you've made edits/comments related to multiple gender/sexuality topics (e.g., Gender dysphoria, Kenneth Zucker, Susan Coates, David Reimer) and race/intelligence topics (Nations and IQ, Flynn effect). I think the fact that you're so incorrect here is a sign that formal topic bans, and not voluntary restrictions, are necessary. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:13, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- i would rather just voluntarily desist from editing in any controversial topics. I think it should be noted that I did see the warning on my talk page about these topics being controversial and I avoided making further edits to them subsequently. Publius Obsequium (talk) 03:03, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Talk:Square rig#Austronesian content June 2022 (our first interaction)
- Talk:Crab claw sail#Date of first crab claw sail July 2022
- Talk:Austronesian peoples#Ships and sailing section July 2022
- Talk:Austronesian peoples#Questionable statement July 2022
- Talk:Austronesian peoples#Nature of Austronesian farming July 2022
- Talk:Austronesian peoples#Origin of first settlement of Marianas August 2022
- Talk:Austronesian peoples#Arab lateen December 2022
- Talk:Austronesian peoples#lakana January 2023
- Talk:Austronesian peoples#Pottery section January 2023
- Talk:Austronesian peoples#The "long pause" with a possible maritime technology explanation January 2023
- Talk:Austronesian peoples#Substitute paragraph January 2023
- Talk:Austronesian peoples#Misrepresentation of references January 2023
- Talk:Austronesian peoples#Dates for domestic pigs, dogs and chickens as part of the "Austronesian package" February 2023
- Talk:Rig (sailing)#Junk rigs May 2024
- Talk:Austronesian peoples#Over-confident assertions June 2024
Examples of his edits (more numerous than talk page discussions). I don't have the time to hunt for all of them. I have never looked at his contribs before, so I'm probably missing a lot. Basically every edit he does on Austronesian-related topics since our first interaction.
- Sail
- Polynesian navigation
- Sailing ship
- Crab claw sail
- Trade route
- Lashed lug boat
- Junk (ship)
- Austronesian vessels
- Lug sail
- Maritime history
- Peopling of Southeast Asia
- Shipbuilding
- Maritime timeline
- Maritime Southeast Asia
- All of his edits on Austronesian peoples
We first interacted in Square rig, where we fought over his insistence that the scope only applied to European ships during the Age of Sail (because apparently other sails don't have English names). I let that go since I was in the minority. Afterwards, he started specifically going after Austronesian articles and my contributions. The most egregious of which are multiple topics he opened in Talk:Austronesian peoples, which is still ongoing. Apparently something about the fact that Austronesians crossed oceans thousands of years before Europeans (which I mentioned in our first dispute) ticked him off, and he's been attacking that fact ever since. He has been challenging literally everything he can challenge, by any means. Examples of his behavior:
- Changing the wording (prefering to keep it vague and noncommittal if possible, like claiming something was "over-long" as an excuse to remove things)
- Removing references he doesn't like (certain peer-reviewed papers/books he claims subjectively is "poor" or "old"). He recently attempted to enshrine this practice in our guidelines unilaterally while hiding his conflict of interest in using the method for content disputes.
- Attacking authors he doesn't like (he thinks if an author's hypothesis gets disproven from new data, that it means that everything the author has written, even unrelated, is now unreliable, this applies most notably to George Hourani)
- Attributing Austronesian technologies to everyone else but Austronesians (Europeans, Negritos, Papuans, Chinese), depending on what paper he happens to misread. He particularly likes one source, which he has repeatedly pushed, that claims Polynesians copied European ships (doesn't matter if it's fringe)
- Removing images and maps, pointedly changing captions like here, and here
- Tagging (necessitating me to reread sources I've forgotten for years, only to find out he just doesn't like the paraphrasing)
- Moving goalposts, he challenges a claim, when that doesn't work, he challenges the wording, challenges the references, challenges the author, and the most frustrating: just claims it's not really known because there's no direct evidence and the experts are just imagining things, etc.
Some misleadingly follow a procedure. Tagging something, then removing the entire thing after no one notices it. Or removing a reference for unrelated reasons, then removing the then unreferenced sentence. Or opening a topic in the talk, then removing it when no one replies. Impossible to prevent and challenge in time, given the number of articles he does this on. Unless I dedicate my entire time here just following him around. Which is probably the point.
I initially replied to his challenges, which often involved rereading lengthy sources, only to find out he's just misinterpreting, synthesizing, or making up nonsense. This discussion on his changes in the pottery section is typical of his challanges and his tendency to move the goalposts. He first inserted a sentence that misrepresented a source by omitting certain details from the authors' conclusions. When I corrected it and gave another source for rebuttal, he then claims it's now "too long."
This isn't a mere content dispute, given the scale of what he's disputing. He's disputing everything that I've written or is relevant to what I've written. He's throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. Once one does, or if he doesn't get replies, he then changes it everywhere else. It's not like he's validly tracking down the same errors on multiple articles. It ranges from sails, to boatbuilding techniques, the settlement of Guam, the Polynesian migrations, the settlement of Madagascar, pottery, dogs, pigs, and most recently, the domestication and dispersal of the banana. Some are valid that could have been fixed with a simple sourced edit, most are nonsense based on misreading sources or a general ignorance of the scholarship on the topic, some are outright based on nothing (often hyperfocusing on interpreting a single phrase from a single source). All are, comparatively, minor challenges that chip away one thing at a time (the caption dispute on the lakana for example), often with implied insulting assertions at my editing.
But they're all WP:TENDENTIOUS, with a very clear unifying theme: downplay Austronesian seafaring as much as possible. He has never contributed a single positive thing to the topic. Prior to our first interaction, he had no interest in articles on Austronesian seafaring, his main area of interest was and still is, unsurprisingly, European ships. I'm here to write articles. I have never once interfered with his editing. Until I checked his contribs prior to this report, I did not even know what he does usually on Wikipedia. I still don't.
I've read hundreds if not thousands of papers on this topic, writing much of our coverage on it over the years. Including the vast majority of articles like Austronesian peoples, Lashed-lug boat, Austronesian vessels, Outrigger boat, Domesticated plants and animals of Austronesia, and recently, the Maritime Silk Road. With extensive contributions to others like individual ship, plant, animal, and ancient seafaring articles. And that's only for these related topics (in case you get the mistaken impression that that's all I write about). I've done my best with keeping with the policies on RS on all of them, as I've done with all my contributions over the last nearly 15 years.
All of that to be challenged repeatedly by the same person on every single thing, every month, who has at most read 10 papers touching on this topic.
I hate all of this. I don't even know what's the solution for situations like this is. Leave me alone. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 04:01, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Serious TL:DR. Most of this is stale grievance collecting and Sea lioning. 182.228.179.154 (talk) 05:27, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Speak English. I don't hang out in ANI wallowing in drama. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 07:31, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- No, you seek attention. 182.228.179.154 (talk) 10:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- ANI is so far living up to its reputation. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 10:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Can an admin consider reblocking the above IP for WP:PA? This seems a continuation of the WP:NOTHERE behavior that got them blocked a week ago, and antagonizing Obsidian Soul is not helping to build the encyclopedia. EducatedRedneck (talk) 15:37, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Blocked for two weeks. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:43, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- No, you seek attention. 182.228.179.154 (talk) 10:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Speak English. I don't hang out in ANI wallowing in drama. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 07:31, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Without pronouncing on the content disputes (I don't have a week to spare to read all that material), what I see on Talk:Austronesian peoples is mostly ThoughtIdRetired making informed and constructive criticisms, and you proceeding to flip out on them in relatively short order. Now it is of course entirely possible that they are playing a pernicious long game of misrepresentation and agendas - that is impossible to tell for anyone not conversant with the topic, such as me - but that would have to be shown in detail. "I don't like being contradicted by someone who I believe has read fewer sources than I", which is the overwhelming vibe I am getting here, is not a good look, as the kids say. How about getting more of your subject matter peers involved rather than trying to flatten the other on behavioral grounds? I see lots of the two of you slugging it out on that talk page, and preciously few others weighing in. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 06:07, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- You think I have a week too? There are no subject matter peers. Do you see anyone else contributing significantly to those articles? You yourself have said there are "precious few" weighing in. I've endured this for three years. I've tried multiple times acquiescing to his bullshit. With the Paleolithic crossings, and the pottery section, only for him to move the goalposts further.
- "I don't like being contradicted by someone who I believe has read fewer sources than I": LOL, no. The simple fact is that he has NEVER touched a single article about Austronesians prior to our interaction. It isn't his lack of expertise that's the problem. It's the POV he's pushing with the handful of papers he's read.
- "that is impossible to tell for anyone not conversant with the topic, such as me - but that would have to be shown in detail". This "TL;DR" isn't detailed enough for you?! -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 07:31, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- He opened TWELVE topics, one after another. In one page. All with a theme. And you still somehow believe it's "constructive criticism". Which should I reply to first and spend at least a month discussing with him? Should I just stop writing articles and focus on that? What about his edits? Do I follow his every contribution?-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 08:10, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Opening twelve well-reasoned (at least it looks like this to me) discussions primarily seems to show commendable dedication to getting the article improved, and willingness to talk about it. Look, I'm pretty sure that the way to get rid of the perception that this is single combat between you two is to get other people involved in the content discussions. I can't believe there's only the two of you who care about this topic. Ask for input at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthropology, or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups, or one of the specific geographic wikiprojects? Start an RfC if there is a sufficiently specific contentious issue? You have clearly lost your cool and/or patience, based on the tone of the last few discussions on the talk page. You need to hand off some of that. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:36, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is not a content dispute. How many times must I say that? Ignore my anger. That's what WP:HOUNDING aims to do in the first place. And it obviously worked.
- ALL of his edits have a specific POV that attempts to completely discredit Austronesian voyaging. Pick an edit. Any from above. See what he's doing. Then pick another. Even someone who's not familiar with the subject will clearly see what he's trying to do. That's the reason I included the diffs and topics in the first place. Which you all refuse to read.
- Some of the issues he raises are valid. Like the Talk:Austronesian_peoples#Lateen section. Others are complete absolutely vague nonsense that I don't even know how to respond to. It's frustrating how I can't explain that here, because you also don't know anything about the topic, and will absolutely complain when I attempt to. But let me try, at least just to demonstrate how laughable your assessment of "commendable dedication" is. They seem reasonable at first glance, if you don't know anything about the subject.
- Take for instance Talk:Austronesian_peoples#Origin of first settlement of Marianas. This dispute is about a simple difference in different authors on WHERE the voyage that settled Guam might have originated. The paper he cites actually states that it may be the Southern Philippines or Eastern Indonesia, instead of the Northern Philippines as was originally in the article. Instead of simply adding those additional two possible origins as a normal editor would have done. He completely removes the mention of the voyage. While adding his own commentary that isn't part of the original paper he uses.
- Talk:Austronesian_peoples#Nature of Austronesian farming, here's another. He uses ONE source that vaguely questions the relative importance of rice cultivation in the Austronesian migrations. Again, something that could have been added to the article with a single sentence and proper attribution. I would have happily done that. He instead uses that paper to question everything about Austronesian agriculture. I have no idea what he actually means to say, that Austronesians had no crops? And he thinks this is enough to overturn the established scholarship and all the other sources used in the article. He includes other topics that were not in the scope of the original paper based on his personal misunderstanding of other sources. Dogs, pigs, chickens, etc. How do you think should I engage with that? Humor him and list the dozens of Austronesian domesticates with the hundreds of sources (which the article already does) one by one? The articles already explain their individual histories. Drop all of those sources in favor of the particular one he likes? I and another editor have already tried explaining WP:DUE to him, with no obvious results. What do you think I should do?
- He repeats this tactic when challenging the banana (Talk:Austronesian_peoples#Over-confident assertions), by misquoting a single phrase from the paper to make it seem like all Austronesian crops are suspect. Even after I provided a paper that clarifies the fact that Austronesians carried bananas as a crop in their migrations from Southeast Asia far more clearly, he refuses to accept that, and instead proposes that Africans may have cultivated bananas and transferred it to Southeast Asia. Something NOT in the paper, nor proposed by anyone I know in all the papers I've read. Again, what do I do with that?
- Or how about Talk:Austronesian_peoples#Substitute paragraph this section, where you can clearly see that I actually tried to humor him by expanding the section and clarifying how Papuans and Indigenous Australians must have crossed the Wallace Line. Does he accept it? No. He instead tries to argue that it was the Papuans all along who were the expert seafarers and invented all the ship technologies that Austronesians later use. Which is again, NOT in the paper he used to start the argument.
- Should I go on? Or have your eyes glazed over. Make the effort to understand what he's doing. I've gone through this circus before that got me my first block for trying to call out a racist editor. And it's the exact same situation apparently. You all just don't want to read long explanations and assume angry guy is bad guy.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 10:40, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, well, it can admittedly be really frustrating if other people are just Not Getting what the problem is, because it's too embedded in pages and pages of history. There's a certain species article that I shall never open again because of the perfect storm of bad actors and clueless enablers that happened there - I'd probably blow my top if I had to re-read that. So if that is the case here, sorry. But that makes it even more essential to go find other people who understand the material and the issues, and who have the wherewithal to judge the quality of the arguments. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:22, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- This isn't a balcony in Rome. Haranguing the readers won't help you. Your attitude alone is enough to engender sympathy for the person you're reporting and we haven't even heard from them yet. 182.228.179.154 (talk) 11:57, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Opening twelve well-reasoned (at least it looks like this to me) discussions primarily seems to show commendable dedication to getting the article improved, and willingness to talk about it. Look, I'm pretty sure that the way to get rid of the perception that this is single combat between you two is to get other people involved in the content discussions. I can't believe there's only the two of you who care about this topic. Ask for input at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthropology, or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups, or one of the specific geographic wikiprojects? Start an RfC if there is a sufficiently specific contentious issue? You have clearly lost your cool and/or patience, based on the tone of the last few discussions on the talk page. You need to hand off some of that. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:36, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't have time to peruse this entire wall of text, but Atholl Anderson is absolutely not "fringe" and I doubt that whatever he has written behind that paywall says what you are claiming it says. Daveosaurus (talk) 06:34, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Ah yes. Of course. What did I expect from Wikipedia. Actually read?
- And since you all insist on focusing on the content dispute aspect: Anderson's HYPOTHESIS that Polynesians borrowed the European lateen sail is not widely accepted. HE is a respected author, whom I've used multiple times. Different things. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 07:23, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- "I've tried multiple times acquiescing to his bullshit.", "Ah yes. Of course. What did I expect from Wikipedia. Actually read?", "I hate all of this. I don't even know what's the solution for situations like this is. Leave me alone."
- It looks like we've entered WP:NotHere territory. OS's reaction is way out of line and not justified by the matter at hand. He's basically claimed ownership and attacks anyone who doesn't conform to his line of thinking. 182.228.179.154 (talk) 10:18, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is a high volume noticeboard where readers lack relevant context. It's your responsibility to be mindful of that and to make your comments concise. Also, generally speaking, if a complaint requires an essay to establish there's probably no legitimate complaint. Local Variable (talk) 10:58, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for the opinion. Anyone else who hasn't read a single thing I wrote?-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 11:07, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- No valid complaint can be made angrily and long-windedly? What is the point of responding to something without engaging with its substance? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 15:31, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- No. If someone has a valid complaint, they can make it succinctly. There's a reason ArbCom requires complaints & responses to be limited in length, to avoid people dragging things out needlessly. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 17:18, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Just as a general rule of life the more agrily and long-windedly a complaint is presented the less seriously it should be taken. Hyperbole destorys credibility. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:23, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Ok, I have actually read most of what was posted and looked at the diffs provided to boot; I am completely uninvolved and I do not know anything beyond basics about the subject. Set the sentiments boiling over aside, and this feels like a rather slow edit war, essentially an extended content dispute. My guess is the topic eludes most people, and I do not think ANI is the place to find people who are actually able to judge about content. So I would want to get more eyes on this, my first port of call being WP:3O. If there is an adequate project who covers this, ask there. Disputants should keep in mind to AGF, and even to AAGF. Lectonar (talk) 11:16, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for at least reading it. I think I've emphasized enough how numerous and how vague his challenges are, and how it involves dozens of articles. This is not a content dispute. There's no single point of contention I can ask a third opinion on. Nor even a single article. Which is why it's so hard to explain it in the first place without writing that wall of text.
- If that's the only solution, I might as well just stop. Close this discussion. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 12:31, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I only said that's how it looks for one uninvolved and uninformed (me); my guess is that it might look like that for other uninvolved and uninformed people too (whereas for you it obviously looks clear as rain). As for showing a possible way forward: you listed some articles with disruptions above, let's take Polynesian navigation. An adequate WikiProject to ask might be WP:SAIL: make your point over there, but article by article, and concentrate on content, not on the behaviour of (one) other user. When consensus is on your side, it's much more difficult to refute your edits. Lectonar (talk) 12:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Going over his every challenge, point by point, defeats the purpose of trying to avoid his WP:HOUNDING and focus my attention on constructive things. There's so much more than the diffs I included. I wasn't joking when I said it's his every edit on Austronesian-related articles. It's not an edit war either, at least that would have been easier to explain.
- Engaging with him doesn't lead anywhere, he just moves the goalposts so far we end up debating the credentials of authors. If there really were enough people who could recognize what he's doing, there should have been someone else already responding to his edits.
- It's clearly pretty much just me. Since a lot of the articles affected are those I've worked on, and we clearly don't have a lot of representation of editors interested in it. (As an aside, Polynesian navigation is not one of them, I've never touched that article aside from adding a template 6 years ago. But his caption change and his reason is a typical example of how he undermines the topic with seemingly innocuous changes.)
- So it's done the job. I can not think of a way to ignore his minor but constant chipping away at the core of Austronesian seafaring, from someone who clearly wants to bury it. And I can't reasonably spend the rest of my time here on Wikipedia responding to him. I'm taking a break. Bet all my barnstars there'll be a dozen new topics if I come back, and the articles will all be saying we all swam to our islands. I appreciate you trying to understand the issue.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 13:53, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Obsidian Soul, you've written an enormous amount of text about this incident. If you want action on this, it's incumbent on you to try succinctly summarize every bit as much a possible to turn this into a digestible form. Nobody is being paid to read what you're writing. We're all volunteers here. You're asking us to set aside time from our lives to read what is now north of 3500 words of text in this section, 2400+ of which was added by you (nearly 70%)...nine printed pages...at averaging reading speed nearly 15 minutes of time...just to catch up enough to respond to the thread. When people take you to task about this enormous amount of text, you respond with
"Ah yes. Of course. What did I expect from Wikipedia. Actually read?"
, criticizing the very people who actually made some attempt to respond to this. Wow. Just wow. - You are best qualified to summarize what is going on. Remove unnecessary passages, drop sentences that don't elaborate, remove old diffs that do little to qualify what is happening, and keep cutting and cutting and cutting. Paraphrasing Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a good writer at WP:AN/I knows they have achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. Take that to heart, and retry this and make it clear what you think should happen. Otherwise, you will not get what you want out of this. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:48, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't get what's so bad about having to take fifteen minutes to read a complaint fully. After all, isn't fifteen minutes a relatively short period of time? WADroughtOfVowelsP 16:28, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm a fast reader and it took me about fifteen minutes to skim it, you must be an exceptionally fast reader if you read the diffs fully rather than skimmed them in fifteen minutes. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:27, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I didn't include the content of the diffs in my 15 minutes estimation. That, of course, would make it even worse. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:19, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm a fast reader and it took me about fifteen minutes to skim it, you must be an exceptionally fast reader if you read the diffs fully rather than skimmed them in fifteen minutes. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:27, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't get what's so bad about having to take fifteen minutes to read a complaint fully. After all, isn't fifteen minutes a relatively short period of time? WADroughtOfVowelsP 16:28, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Obsidian Soul, you've written an enormous amount of text about this incident. If you want action on this, it's incumbent on you to try succinctly summarize every bit as much a possible to turn this into a digestible form. Nobody is being paid to read what you're writing. We're all volunteers here. You're asking us to set aside time from our lives to read what is now north of 3500 words of text in this section, 2400+ of which was added by you (nearly 70%)...nine printed pages...at averaging reading speed nearly 15 minutes of time...just to catch up enough to respond to the thread. When people take you to task about this enormous amount of text, you respond with
- I only said that's how it looks for one uninvolved and uninformed (me); my guess is that it might look like that for other uninvolved and uninformed people too (whereas for you it obviously looks clear as rain). As for showing a possible way forward: you listed some articles with disruptions above, let's take Polynesian navigation. An adequate WikiProject to ask might be WP:SAIL: make your point over there, but article by article, and concentrate on content, not on the behaviour of (one) other user. When consensus is on your side, it's much more difficult to refute your edits. Lectonar (talk) 12:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Clearly I need to make some comment. This is a content issue. See the changes that I have tried to make to Austronesian peoples where sources do not support the article content – either a complete absence of support or a different level of emphasis.
Not all the complete "failed verifications" were the result of edits by OS. Nevertheless, they seem ideologically opposed to any criticism of any reference that they support, whilst labelling any that oppose their views as "fringe" (an example is identified by a commenter above i.r.o. Atholl Anderson).
Perhaps the most concise (but still lengthy) example of OS's support for a poor quality source is that following this edit[142] (and others similar edits made to a number of articles). The relevant edit summaries have a link to a review that is totally scathing. I received thanks from at least one other editor for drawing this to their attention. OS's reaction includes this[143] with Shaffer being reinstated as a source with the edit summary ...one review doesn't invalidate an RS...
. If you read the review at 2022 you will see that this is not some bad write-up on trip advisor.
The edit that reinstated the Shaffer reference also reinstated Hourani's Arab Seafaring. In another testing interaction with OS[144], we discover that they ...do not have access to that book
. Reading further on that talk page post, you will see that I finally realised that not only was Hourani a dated source, but the book makes no mention whatsoever of junk rig. This suggests to me that OS has never even read Hourani.
I don't know if I need to give more examples to make the point (you can find some on the talk page of Austronesian peoples), but it seems one has to check every reference they use (which, given the volume of their output, is well nigh impossible).
This is all coupled with an unhelpfully argumentative style, as can be found on any of the talk pages linked above. One in particular I find memorable:[145]. OS wanted an example of the sailing rig labelled "A" in [146]. The photo found on Commons is actually of the one labelled "B". To be fair, we were all at the mercy of Commons taking any picture that you can upload without breaching copyright, with any unverified caption you wish to use. But I think Commons's failing on verification allows us to do some WP:OR on the matter. There are ample videos(e.g.[147] which I have not watched to the end, but shows rig "B" being rigged) and pictures from Madagascar (a holiday destination for many at various times) that tell us exactly how the "old photo" rig works. There was never a word of thanks for finding the appropriate picture that is now in the article[148], which is very different from its predecessor[149]. Without the abrasive attitude, this would have been an engaging exercise in working out the correct content to put in Wikipedia. (OK, I appreciate that for those who do not have an interest in sailing rigs, this is a bit like reading the telephone directory!)
Clearly OS puts in many hours in editing Wikipedia. If only this would be done with a little more emphasis on both quality and co-operation. ThoughtIdRetired TIR 19:26, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Persistent changing of talk page comments and possible conflict of interest
This is regards to the users VikAl239[150], Dennis1986Savanah[151] and SigNbol[152]. I'm certain all three of these editors are the same person as the only edits they've ever made were on the article of actress Charlene Amoia and on the talk page[153]. I've mentioned that they're some contradictions regarding this actresses' DOB. However all three of these editors have either removed my comment[154][155][156] or edited it[157][158]. Even after they were asked to stop doing so.
The Dennis editor in particular claims that they want the comment removed for safety measures. Seeing as how it's just the talk page, I really don't understand why there would be any safety concerns. They also claim that they are the subject.[159]. I pinged the last couple of other editors that had been reverting those edits asking to stop removing talk page comments to see if a consensus on what to do can be made as this may be WP:COI. But neither of them have posted. Kcj5062 (talk) 09:08, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- If you're claiming that they are sockpuppets you really should take it to WP:SPI and provide appropriate evidence. TarnishedPathtalk 11:25, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Pointless edit-war potentially breaking guidelines
Doing some routine typos-fixing and formatting via AWB, I happened to edit Guardian angel, and Skyerise is quite-stubbornly edit-warring about it. We had a talk at User talk:Est. 2021#Removing spaces from citation templates, yet he went on reverting the page three times - then ironically noticing me about the three-revert rule at User talk:Est. 2021#June 2024. Whether I'm wrong or right, we clearly need some external action. Est. 2021 (talk · contribs) 11:36, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Note: Right after this, the aforementioned user started reinstating typos on other pages too, e.g. Yaldabaoth and Yamantaka. Est. 2021 (talk · contribs) 11:39, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- My revert is not pointless and has already been explained to the above editor, who is unecessarily removing all spaces from citation templates. Not all editors use visual editors. Those of us who don't rely on spaces to make the templates more easily readable and editable. This is an abuse of editing tools by the above editor. If they want to fix typos, there is nothing wrong with that, but removing spaces from citation templates with an edit summary of "fixing typos" is intentionally deceptive. Editor also doesn't seem to understand that their disruptive edits are violating policy to force the implementation of a (questionable) guideline, which are optional and may be ignored when there is a valid reason to do so per WP:IAR, which is itself policy. The edits disimprove the articles for those of us who edit wikicode directly, and the OP should desist. Skyerise (talk) 11:39, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos is a really long page (500,000+ bytes), can you quote the relevant passage and/or guideline on that page that states the white space in citation templates is a typo? Thanks. And for the record, I also agree you shouldn't be doing this with AWB. Isaidnoway (talk) 14:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Question: is the removal of spaces within the citation templates something that's specified in Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos, or something that Est. 2021 (talk · contribs) chose to do themselves? Mackensen (talk) 11:49, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Good question. AWB didn't used to do this, but it's possible that such functionality was added recently. If so, it should be removed because it makes problems for editors who edit wikicode directly. Also, users using such tools still need to listen to feedback about their edits. The fact that a tool is doing this don't justify the change. Skyerise (talk) 11:54, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Bots/Dictionary#Cosmetic edit specifically identifies citation templates without whitespace as "editor-hostile wikitext", which is to say that bots can be banned for doing this, and editing with AWB is largely subject to the same rules as editing by bot (or "in a bot-like manner"). Also, point 4 of the WP:AWBRULES says not to use AWB to make mass edits which have no effect on the rendered article. To put it more succinctly, Est. 2021: please stop doing this now. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 12:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- To be fair to Est. 2021, their edit to Guardian angel did have effects on the rendered article. I haven't evaluate other edits. Still, I land in the same place as Ivanvector, and I insist that Est stop the whitespace editing. In general, I'd say BRD is pretty much a must when using AWB, consider AWBRULES 3. I'm disappointed to see Est edit warring, and I hope we don't see it again. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:30, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- And just to save everyone a round-trip, let me clarify why I asked. If this is something that AWB added on purpose, then we should probably have a discussion about that. I prefer spaces myself in citation templates, and I wouldn't expect AWB to enforce one style over another. If AWB is doing this by accident, then it's a bug. If Est. 2021 is doing this themselves, then I agree with everyone else: don't do that, and definitely don't edit-war over it. I'm not aware of any guideline that speaks to spaces in template formatting. Mackensen (talk) 12:37, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I hope this is a bug with AWB, but it absolutely shouldn't be doing that. The no-spaces variant is much harder to read & parse in the source editor for no good reason, and helps readers not at all. Until the bug is fixed, editors using AWB shouldn't try to force through such changes. SnowFire (talk) 12:45, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I asked at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Removing spaces in citations. Testing indicates that this is not part of AWB's built-in functionality. NebY (talk) 15:24, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Okay so all this spaces items is just the editor enforcing their own personal preferences on pages. Well the edit summaries aren't indicating that so they're being disruptive at this point. Canterbury Tail talk 15:52, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I checked out a few pages with AWB as well and can confirm I wasn't having this issue. This was my edit to Guardian angel with AWB, so definitely something specific to how @Est. 2021 has things configured. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:44, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Okay so all this spaces items is just the editor enforcing their own personal preferences on pages. Well the edit summaries aren't indicating that so they're being disruptive at this point. Canterbury Tail talk 15:52, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I asked at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Removing spaces in citations. Testing indicates that this is not part of AWB's built-in functionality. NebY (talk) 15:24, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- To add to this discussion I just reverted this edit. The edit summary was massively misleading, it didn't just change a date format twice, but also replaced all non-breaking spaces with a template, made references harder to read and padded all headers with spaces. Editors are responsible for all edits conducted, even if the tool is making other items, and misleading edit summaries indicate that the editor is not actually paying attention to the changes that are being made. Not a single one of the hundreds of changes was fixing a typo. Canterbury Tail talk 14:36, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I also noticed the adding of white space to section headings, seen here [160], [161], [162]. They argue here in this edit summary that the white spaces in citation templates is "superfluous page weight", but yet add that superfluous page weight in the section headings. I'm not seeing any justification for removing the white spaces in citations or adding white spaces in the section headings. We need a commitment from Est. 2021 that they will stop these unnecessary edits. Isaidnoway (talk) 14:52, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think the big thing at the end of the day is these edits are, pretty much in their entirety, pointless. Pointless at best, and disruptively deceptive at worst. Canterbury Tail talk 15:20, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed, and there appears to be consensus in this thread that Est.2021 should stop using AWB for these edits, so a commitment, and acknowledgement from them would be appreciated. Isaidnoway (talk) 16:02, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Based on XTools, it looks like this was the second time they've ever used AWB on articles. It looks like they made 356 edits with it pages in main space today, again, based off Xtools only. I don't love the immediate doubling down on their changes, but let's see what they have to say. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:00, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed, and there appears to be consensus in this thread that Est.2021 should stop using AWB for these edits, so a commitment, and acknowledgement from them would be appreciated. Isaidnoway (talk) 16:02, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think the big thing at the end of the day is these edits are, pretty much in their entirety, pointless. Pointless at best, and disruptively deceptive at worst. Canterbury Tail talk 15:20, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I also noticed the adding of white space to section headings, seen here [160], [161], [162]. They argue here in this edit summary that the white spaces in citation templates is "superfluous page weight", but yet add that superfluous page weight in the section headings. I'm not seeing any justification for removing the white spaces in citations or adding white spaces in the section headings. We need a commitment from Est. 2021 that they will stop these unnecessary edits. Isaidnoway (talk) 14:52, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- As a longtime user of AWB, it's obvious to me that changes above and beyond AWB's typo fixes and general fixes is happening here. There are user-created find/replace rules being executed. Sometimes these are useful for addressing additional issues but if you're making a change that other editors object to, you either convince them it's justified, or cease using that find/replace rule. But a lot of the changes I'm seeing referred to in this discussion seem problematic for other editors (changing how citations are internally formatted) or otherwise cosmetic with no benefit to readers. I have had my own issues with using AWB in the past, and I've learned the hard way to be more conservative and be ready to justify any change I save. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 18:30, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Reverting pages to vandalized version, Pov pushing Archives908
- (Note:This is at least partially related to #Repeated WP:GS/AA violations, above. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:29, 21 June 2024 (UTC))
Hi, When a page vandalized, most natural thing to do is to revert latest stable version, but there is something else going here.
I would like to bring to your attention some recent edits made by Archives908. This user has been reverting my edits, which were reverts of vandalism by an IP address. For example, what is the reason for this revert? There is no source or explanation provided edit. In the page history, until the vandalism by the IP address, there was no mention of Armenians. Now, this editor is adding unsourced content to Wikipedia. Why does the definition have a POV, when it is an obvious case of POV pushing?
Additionally, this person reverts my vandalism-reverts again. They delete Azerbaijani information, which existed from the beginning, and the person is Azerbaijani, ironically. They revert to the obviously vandalized version. Here again they remove sourced content and add back unsourced IP vandalism which I reverted. Can you please check this?
Here is an example of section blanking which i reverted before.
Here is another one. What is the source and reason for adding the Armenian writing? This person's(the ip adress that i reverted) favorite act of vandalism is to go and change alphabets, which I have reverted many times. They add not only Armenian but also Azerbaijani, Polish, etc. According to their rationale, if a nationality has a name (they added an Armenian there), they should introduce the writing system as well.--Göycen (talk) 18:15, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
You do not appear to have attempted to discuss these concerns with them, can you try doing that first?– 2804:F1...87:A818 (talk) 18:20, 21 June 2024 (UTC)- When here according to the description, WP:RS is required (which is totally normal to ask for), how come this page does not require it and is simply reverted? Asking for a source is normal, but when it comes to POV, it is not. Göycen (talk) 18:24, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
WP:AE
Requests for enforcement
Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Pofka
Pofka's indefinite TBAN is narrowed to articles and edits about the Holocaust in Lithuania, broadly construed. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:53, 13 June 2024 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear and substantial consensus of uninvolved administrators" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action. To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).
Statement by PofkaHello, I was topic banned from Lithuania in early January 2024 (see: HERE) due to my expressed opinion in a discussion (see: HERE) in which I stated that the Holocaust in Lithuania was executed by Nazis (who occupied Lithuania) and Lithuanian Nazi collaborators, but not by the State of Lithuania, which at the time was occupied by Nazis. The request to sanction me (see: HERE) did not include any of mine changes in English Wikipedia's articles, so I was sanctioned purely for expressing my opinion there, but not for POV pushing in any articles. Moreover, I was never before sanctioned for Holocaust-related changes in articles/discussions and as far as I remember I was not even reported for that during over 13 years of participation in Wikipedia before this. I was previously sanctioned quite long time ago for wrongly describing other editors mass removal of content from articles as "vandalism" (and reverting it) and for personal attacks against a user with whom I did not agree in topics not related with the Holocaust (I still have active interaction ban with that user, which I did not violate). For contributing exceptionally high-quality content to the English Wikipedia about Lithuania (see examples: HERE) I was recognized in 2022 as one of only two best editors in "Lithuania" topic (see: HERE, the other identically recognized editor is sysop Renata3). Over 6 months had already passed after this sanction was applied to me and I did not violate it. However, my aim in English Wikipedia always was to contribute high-quality content about Lithuania and with this broadly construed sanction active I simply cannot contribute anything to English Wikipedia in a field where I have exceptional knowledge of information and sources (due to my extensive capability to research Lithuanian language sources, etc.), so for me this sanction is equal to a total block in English Wikipedia and I believe that it is too strict given all the circumstances. Sadly, with this broadly construed sanction in Lithuania's topic active I plan to quit Wikipedia completely. Consequently, I appeal this sanction and request to reconsider it and to allow me to again contribute exceptionally high-quality content about Lithuania. I would like to stress that I never had plans to POV push malicious content about the Holocaust in Lithuania and I fully condemn horrific crimes which were committed against Jewish people in Lithuania (including those that were committed by Lithuanian nationality representatives). If Barkeep49 and other participants of this request procedure think that I am not trustworthy enough to edit articles related with the Holocaust in Lithuania, I request to at least narrow this broadly construed sanction to "anything related with the Holocaust in Lithuania" because per report this imposed sanction is not associated with other Lithuania-related topics (e.g. Lithuanian sports, culture, etc.). -- Pofka (talk) 12:10, 8 June 2024 (UTC) Statement by Barkeep49Just noting that this sanction was placed by me, acting on behalf of ArbCom acting as its own AE. As such I think it can be appealed and considered as any other AE placed topic ban would be. A major factor here was what had occurred after a previous topic ban was lifted. Beyond that while I'm happy to answer questions, I'll leave it to uninvolved administrators to consider the appeal. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:12, 8 June 2024 (UTC) Statement by (involved editor 1)Statement by (involved editor 2)Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by PofkaStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by MKW100Pofka used contribute nearly endless HIGH QUALITY EDITS in the Lithuania topic and was OFFICIALLY RECOCGNIZED as a FINEST EDITOR in this topic. Banning him from the same is a contradiction. Since 99% of his overall edits happened to be in the Lithuania topic, of course this is the topic where any type of conflict could appear at all. Banning him from his topic of expertise equals like a global perma ban to him. Obviously, this punishment is way too harsh, and his finest editor status was not considered in the first discussion. (see) In this almost automatic process, nobody defended pofka's position in the first discussion. I hope we can get a different result this time. MKW100 (talk) 19:42, 8 June 2024 (UTC) Statement by (uninvolved editor 2)Result of the appeal by Pofka
|
Dylanvt
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning Dylanvt
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- BilledMammal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 13:50, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Dylanvt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel articles
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
Violated 1RR at:
- Nuseirat refugee camp massacre:
- 01:22, 9 June 2024 (partial revert of 00:01, 9 June 2024)
- 13:08 to 13:15, 9 June 2024 (reverts of various edits, including these)
- When asked to self-revert refused, and instead made another revert in violation of 1RR (13:02, 10 June 2024; reverted 08:01, 10 June 2024)
- 2024 Nuseirat rescue operation:
- 19:13, 8 June 2024 (reverted 18:38, 8 June 2024)
- 13:32, 9 June 2024 (reverted 04:40, 9 June 2024)
- When asked to self-revert refused, and instead made another revert in violation of 1RR (13:08, 10 June 2024; reverted 10:58, 10 June 2024)
- Only agreed to self-revert once an admin asked them to.
- Only agreed to self-revert once an admin asked them to; they were unable to as the page had been protected because of the edit warring.
- Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
- 12:03, 13 May 2024 Warned to
mind 1RR in the ARBPIA topic area, and remedy any violations as soon as possible when they are pointed out
- If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
- Alerted about discretionary sanctions or contentious topics in the area of conflict, on 07:36, 22 December 2023 (see the system log linked to above).
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
- @Dylanvt: I didn't raise the reverts at Tel al-Sultan massacre; that was HaOfa. BilledMammal (talk) 14:27, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Your talk page is on my watchlist; when you incorrectly claimed an exception to 1RR I tried to help by explaining what the actual exceptions are.
- Regarding Nuseirat refugee camp massacre, I only noticed the violations because I was trying to find the editor that introduced the WP:CATPOV issues; I then checked your recent contributions to see if it was an isolated incident and found it was not. BilledMammal (talk) 14:38, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Dylanvt: How did you expect an uninvolved editor or admin to
pass judgement
when you removed the requests to self-revert? BilledMammal (talk) 16:24, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Dylanvt: How did you expect an uninvolved editor or admin to
- @Ivanvector: For example, they deny that 01:22, 9 June 2024 and 13:02, 10 June 2024 at Nuseirat refugee camp massacre are reverts, but both
manually reverse other editors' actions
by (among other things) removing clarification that the Gaza Health Ministry is controlled by Hamas (Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry
→Gazan Health Ministry
,Hamas Health Ministry
→Health Ministry
) - Bright-line violations are disruptive by definition, but repeatedly removing clarification that multiple editors believe is required is disruptive even without that context. BilledMammal (talk) 15:24, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Ivanvector: That's not accurate. I've requested self-reverts from two editors who violated 1RR while removing it from that article, including Dylanvt, and one who violated 1RR adding it. As a general note, I'm good at noticing 1RR violations, but not perfect - I do miss some, although in this case you haven't linked any that I did miss. BilledMammal (talk) 15:50, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Ealdgyth: I bring them up to show a pattern, having previously been told that demonstrating a pattern is useful. In general, I do try to avoid coming here; had Dylanvt not removed my requests to self-revert I probably would still be on their talk page trying to explain why these edits were a violation. For an extreme example of this, see this discussion with Irtapil - where an admin in fact told me that I should have brought the issue here sooner. BilledMammal (talk) 15:55, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @ScottishFinnishRadish: You proposed the gentleman's agreement here; it was linked at the Irtapil discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 16:00, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Newyorkbrad: That it's so easy to accidentally breach 1RR is why I think ScottishFinnishRadish's gentleman's agreement is such a good idea; refusing to self-revert is, in my opinion, a strong indicator that there is an actual issue that needs addressing. BilledMammal (talk) 15:58, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Selfstudier: At the risk of engaging with content, as far as I know the only formal discussion regarding whether we provide context around the relationship between Hamas and the GHM found that we should. BilledMammal (talk) 17:15, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Dylanvt continues to violate 1RR at Nuseirat refugee camp massacre:
- 13:09, 11 June 2024 (partial revert of 08:01, 10 June 2024; "698 were wounded" → "400 were wounded" → "698 were wounded")
- 13:25, 10 June 2024 (partial revert of 08:01, 10 June 2024; "Gaza Health Ministry" → "Health Ministry in Gaza" → "Gaza Health Ministry")
- They have also still not self-reverted their previous violations, despite asking other editors to do so. BilledMammal (talk) 13:58, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Dylanvt: Your edit reverted that aspect of the article to a previous form, away from the format implemented by an editor you are in a dispute in. That is a revert.
- Even if it wasn't 13:09, 11 June 2024 would still be problematic as it is just 24 hours and 7 minutes after your 13:02, 10 June 2024 revert; very close to 1RR WP:GAMING. BilledMammal (talk) 14:22, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Discussion concerning Dylanvt
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Dylanvt
The edits billedmammal linked are not reversions, they are merely edits made to the articles. He even went scrolling back two weeks into my edit history to bring up old and already resolved actions. If you look at my edit history you will see I'm clearly not engaged in edit warring on any of the articles he linked.
- Nuseirat refugee camp massacre first "revert". An editor added "according to the Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry" and I later removed only "Hamas-run", not a revert, just a small contribution to an article that was about six hours old. And it is common practice in articles in this topic not to write "Hamas-run" before every mention of the health ministry.
- Nuseirat refugee camp massacre second "revert". Yes, this was a revert, and the only one I made on the page in a 24-hour span (specifically, re-adding the "reactions" section, and removing the "cleanup" tag).
- Nuseirat refugee camp massacre third "revert". First, this is 24 hours after the last one, so couldn't be a violation of 1RR. Second, it's not clear what this is a reversion of. The text removed was mathematically contradictory and nonsensical ("killing more than 30 people, including 12 women and children and around 30 militants"). When it was rewritten in a much clearer way shortly after I removed it, I didn’t touch it, because now it makes sense ("targeting 20-30 Hamas Nukhba militants... Local health officials reported the deaths of more than 30 people, including 12 women and children").
- 2024 Nuseirat rescue operation first "revert". Like the first one above, this is clearly not a revert. I merely replaced "Hamas-run" with "Gaza's". If that's a revert then every edit (that doesn't add new information) is a revert, since every edit is a change of something previously written.
- 2024 Nuseirat rescue operation second "revert". Also not a revert. I simply reworded to more neutral wording. The information added by David O. Johnson's edit (the IDF casualty claim) I did not touch. I simply adjusted the way it was introduced, from the less neutral "The death toll is disputed, with A claiming B and C claiming D" to the more neutral "A reports B. C claims D." Clearly not a revert.
- 2024 Nuseirat rescue operation third "revert". This is the first and only actual revert I've made on that page. In any case, I reverted to the status quo, which had been removed without discussion. It's now been removed again without discussion, so instead of reverting again, I've started a discussion which will result in it being restored.
- The other two articles were already discussed and resolved on talk page. No idea why they're being brought up again.
Ultimately I think everybody's time would be better served by making actual contributions to Wikipedia, instead of wasting everybody's time with petty punitive arbitration. When BilledMammal brought up the reversions I'd made at Tel al-Sultan massacre, e.g., it contributed nothing to the project and instead resulted in me being forced to move the article back to the wrong title in the middle of a move discussion, creating havoc in the talk page for everyone involved, when instead we could have just moved on and continued to do useful things for the project. Dylanvt (talk) 14:24, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Okay, he didn't raise the concerns, but he contributed to the discussion, joining in just 2 minutes after my initial reply. It seems pretty apparent that he's just waiting and watching for any inkling of a violation so he can swoop in and warn and report people. Dylanvt (talk) 14:32, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @ScottishFinnishRadish:, a gentleman's agreement would be great, I agree. Yet in every case I've waited for someone less involved (and/or an admin) to pass judgment, because I've seen that warnings like this are often weaponized, as you say, by people with opposing viewpoints and agendas. Dylanvt (talk) 16:21, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Okay. I didn't know that officially reporting people for abuse of 1RR complaints was an option before today. I'll do that in the future as needed. As anyone can tell from my edit history, I'm very new to "contentious issue" editing and also for pretty much all of my 12-ish years on Wikipedia have never been involved in any of this under-the-hood stuff. Dylanvt (talk) 16:38, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- I also still don't see how edits like this one count as reverts. If Editor A writes in a (very young and rapidly changing) article, e.g.,
Putin's government passed law X [ref1]
, and Editor B goes in many edits later and changes it toThe Russian government passed law X [ref1]
... That's really considered a revert? Because that's what the above edit was. Dylanvt (talk) 19:07, 10 June 2024 (UTC)there's a pretty significant difference between the two, same as attributing something to Putin rather than Russia, or Biden rather than the US
No there's very much not a significant difference. Hamas is a political party. Putin and Biden are leaders of political parties. Even if you think that difference is significant, I can just give an even more comparable example:According to the United Russia-run government media office
being changed toAccording to the Russian government media office
. There's no way it can be argued that that change is a "revert". If it were, then every edit would be a revert. Dylanvt (talk) 20:39, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- I also still don't see how edits like this one count as reverts. If Editor A writes in a (very young and rapidly changing) article, e.g.,
- Okay. I didn't know that officially reporting people for abuse of 1RR complaints was an option before today. I'll do that in the future as needed. As anyone can tell from my edit history, I'm very new to "contentious issue" editing and also for pretty much all of my 12-ish years on Wikipedia have never been involved in any of this under-the-hood stuff. Dylanvt (talk) 16:38, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- That’s not at all what I said. The difference between “Hamas-run” and “Gazan/Gaza’s” is significant. It’s the two scenarios that I said aren’t significantly different. Namely, the one in my edit (Hamas-run to Gaza’s) vs. the one in my example (Putin’s to Russian).
- (I’m writing this as a reply because I’m on mobile now and it’s complicated to do it the other way.) Dylanvt (talk) 21:28, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- jfc billedmammal what tf do you think you’re accomplishing here???? CLICK THE REFERENCE NEXT TO THAT SENTENCE. holy hell is this some asinine behavior on your part. Dylanvt (talk) 14:08, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- @BilledMammal: revert back to the initial comment I replied to. It is against policy (WP:TALK#REPLIED) to change comments after they have been interacted with. Dylanvt (talk) 14:15, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- And you genuinely cannot be serious claiming that "Health Ministry in Gaza" → "Gaza Health Ministry" is a revert. That is adding a link. You are not acting in good faith and I'm done interacting with you. Dylanvt (talk) 14:17, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- @BilledMammal: revert back to the initial comment I replied to. It is against policy (WP:TALK#REPLIED) to change comments after they have been interacted with. Dylanvt (talk) 14:15, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- jfc billedmammal what tf do you think you’re accomplishing here???? CLICK THE REFERENCE NEXT TO THAT SENTENCE. holy hell is this some asinine behavior on your part. Dylanvt (talk) 14:08, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Ivanvector
Posting up here because I suppose I'm involved - I initially restored the edit which Dylanvt is now accused of edit-warring over at Genocide of Indigenous peoples. I don't think any admin did advise them to self-revert; if BilledMammal is referring to my comments on the edit war I said that I was ignoring it and had started an RFC instead but I didn't tell anyone to do anything; the page was then full-protected by PhilKnight.
In looking for that warning I went to Dylanvt's talk page and reviewed this warning and discussion, which was regarding the edits listed above on Tel al-Sultan massacre, in which BilledMammal and ScottishFinnishRadish demanded that Dylanvt self-revert a page move which was a 1RR violation. It is accurate to say that Dylanvt refused, but that also grossly oversimplifies the situation: Dylanvt had good reason to refuse, as there was an ongoing discussion about the move and at least one other editor (Vanilla Wizard) objected to reverting because of the ongoing discussion. As Dylanvt tried to explain, a separate move review had directed that the article be kept at that title pending the result of the ongoing discussion, and had Dylanvt reverted their move someone else would just have to move it back per WP:TITLECHANGES. Eventually, after more IDHT and bullying from BM and SFR, Dylanvt did revert their move, which as predicted created a technical mess which had to be reverted again by a different administrator, who cited the exact rationale Dylanvt had been trying to explain the whole time. It was all a bureaucratic waste of everyone's time because two experienced editors care more about enforcing one particular rule because "it's teh rulez" rather than use some discretion and common sense (we have WP:IAR for a reason).
I see that trend repeating in the report here. BilledMammal has gone out of their way to classify these edits as "reverts" when, as Dylanvt also has tried to explain, they are edits in the course of constructing a rapidly developing article being edited by many editors at the same time, and happen to have changed information added by someone else previously. By that overly-broad definition, nearly every edit to these articles since their creation is a revert; of course they are not, this is just the normal editorial process. The 1RR rule is meant to limit disruption; these edits were decidedly not disruptive. The rule is certainly not meant to be a "gotcha!" rule whereby any two edits that look superficially similar can be used to eject an editor from a topic, nor is it meant to be used as a tool for harassment as seems to be happening here.
The edit war on Genocide of Indigenous peoples was actually a revert war (in that case Dylanvt was intentionally undoing a previous edit, as was I) but that situation was dealt with. We can waste more time bureaucratically arguing over whether or not the highlighted edits to the other pages are reverts to the extent that the policy is violated (they aren't) or we could skip all that and simply acknowledge that no disruption has occurred. In fact the situation would be greatly improved overall if BilledMammal were sanctioned against anything to do with 1RR enforcement in this topic. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:09, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- I also see that BilledMammal was warned in the closing statement of a separate report still visible on this page against "weaponizing arbitration enforcement". It should be observed that the dispute (which is hardly even a dispute) at Nuseirat refugee camp massacre is over whether or not to qualify the Gazan Health Ministry as being "Hamas-run". Dylanvt started a discussion on that article's talk page to seek consensus on the matter, in which BilledMammal is (as of this edit) the only editor suggesting that it should be qualified. Observe that BilledMammal has issued 1RR warnings to three editors besides Dylanvt who removed the qualification, and has issued no warnings to editors who added or restored it. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:43, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Newyorkbrad: (and others): by Ealdgyth's reading from the 3RR policy, yes, despite the interaction being entirely civil and constructive and arriving at a consensus stable edit, Y is in violation of this stupidly-defined bright-line rule. The idea that the proper approach to this normal and expected editorial process is to demand editor Y self-revert under threat of sanction and wait for someone else to make the obvious and not-contested compromise edit (or else wait 24 hours) is asinine. If that puts me in a position of "second guessing the Committee" then consider yourselves second-guessed. But we have a slightly different situation here anyway: we have an article with
A, B, and C.
and in a separate section,D, E, and F.
. Editor X changes the first bit toA.
, editor Y reverts, editor X restores their version, then both editors leave the section sayingA.
and move to the talk page to discuss. Then later the same day, editor Q changes the second part toD.
and editor Y reverts. Editor Y has reverted twice in the same day, though each is unrelated to the other. Now is editor Y in violation of 1RR? Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:19, 10 June 2024 (UTC) - @ScottishFinnishRadish: one more hypothetical, and then I promise I have a meeting to get to and won't keep on this. Say in the example above, editors X and Y have left the article reading
A.
and have discussed their compromise on the talk page, run a quick straw poll in which 100 editors support the compromise (it's the fastest and most well attended straw poll in the history of Wikipedia), and following an experienced and respected neutral observer closing the discussion as obvious consensus for the edit, editor Y implements the compromise; this all happens within 22 hours. For how long should editor Y, the monster, be blocked for this flagrant violation of the letter of 1RR? Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:59, 10 June 2024 (UTC) - @ScottishFinnishRadish: respectfully, that's an absurd way for an administrator to act, butting their heads into a normal editorial process and chastising a user for reaching an effective compromise and implementing consensus. I assert that the only disruptive action that occurred in that entire hypothetical interaction is the administrator's intervention itself - we're supposed to prevent disruption, not cause it. Wikipedia draws a lot of criticism that our admins behave like wannabe cops drunk with power to enforce our pantheon of confusing and often contradictory rules just for the sake of enforcing them, but even the real police are (or ought to be) trained not to needlessly escalate a conflict, and don't charge everyone with every conceivable offence just because of an act that technically meets the written definition of a crime. There are plenty of ways to resolve disputes without immediately threatening everyone who technically violates a rule, even "bright-line" rules; nuance and discretion are essential skills for administrators, especially those purporting to work in dispute resolution, and they are sorely lacking here. Clearly we're at odds in our approaches to this and neither of us is going to convince the other, so I'm bowing out. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:30, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Selfstudier
I know content is not the thing here but this nonsense with the GHM needs to be resolved once for all. Afaik, across various discussions at articles and at noticeboards, it has been resolved and the consensus is that the GHM is reliable and editors that persist in adding "Hamas run" in front of that are only intending to provoke/cast doubt on that assessment, attribution to GHM is all that is needed, nothing more. So on the behavioral front, while in general it would be better to ignore the provocation and start a talk page discussion, I do sympathize with removing the unnecessary. Selfstudier (talk) 17:12, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_418#Are Hamas and Gaza ministry numbers reliable? The sources are clear cut on this issue. Selfstudier (talk) 17:22, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
Statement by (username)
Result concerning Dylanvt
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- I'll start with a quick reply to Ivanvector about the request to self-revert. If we allowed every editor to break 1RR on the basis of policy as they see it then 1RR becomes worthless. WP:3RRNO and WP:CTOP outline what is exempt from 1RR and move-warring based on WP:TITLECHANGES isn't covered. If the issue was covered by policy and needed to be moved back it would have been moved by another editor (as it was) without anyone breaking 1RR.WP:CTOP also contains under Dismissing an enforcement request,
Administrators wishing to dismiss an enforcement request should act cautiously and be especially mindful that their actions do not give the impression that they are second-guessing the Arbitration Committee or obstructing the enforcement of their decisions.
The Arbitration Committee placed the topic area under blanket 1RR. Arbitration enforcement isn't the place to say, "sure, it's a 1RR breach but it's not very bad so meh." The threshold for not sanctioning a violation isthe consensus of uninvolved administrators is that exceptional circumstances are present, which would make the imposition of a sanction inappropriate
.The said I haven't taken the time to review these specific allegations of a violation, although I'll try to get to that soon as to avoid another multi-week clusterfuck. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:31, 10 June 2024 (UTC)- Dylanvt, what you do is self-revert right away and if it turns out it wasn't a violation and there's a pattern of that you come here and say "they're abusing requests to self-revert" and they get banned from 1rr reports or topic banned. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:28, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Ivanvector, yes. That is two reverts. Same as 3RR, reverts are by article, not by specific content. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:34, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Ivanvector, I wouldn't block for that, but I would expect them to self-revert if there was an objection and ask one of the hundred other editors engaged in the topic to make the edit, or wait a couple hours. No deadline and all that.
- Dylanvt, there's a pretty significant difference between the two, same as attributing something to Putin rather than Russia, or Biden rather than the US. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:34, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Dylanvt, if it isn't a significant difference then why did you change it? The fact that it's edit warred over is a clear demonstration that people believe the specific wording matters. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:16, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Okay, going by Wikipedia:Edit warring, under WP:3RR which defines the term "revert" for the WP:1RR rule, a revert is "any edit (or administrative action) that reverses or undoes the actions of other editors, in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material, and whether performed using undo, rollback, or done so completely manually". So, yes, this edit is the first revert - it changed the article partially back to a previous version. So when this edit was then made by Dylanvt within 24 hours of the first revert, it broke 1RR. The fact that I think the actual definition of a revert is stupid has no bearing on both those edits actually being reverts. I do, however, know that there is a great deal of confusion about this whole situation about what qualifies as a revert. (And I acknowledge that I may actually have this wrong, that's how screwy things are with this whole definition of revert) So I'm not thinking this needs any sort of giant punishment, but a warning is probably an acceptable situation. I'm not going to get into the other diffs raised because frankly - the edits from 27 May are old enough I'm not feeling the need to deal with them and they bring up point #2 I'd like to say.And that is, BilledMammal - on 4 June I addressed you with this diff at SFR's talk page where I advised you that you need to learn to let things go. The diffs you brought up here from 27 May are an excellent example of why I made that comment at SFR's talk page - these 27 May diffs feel like "someone trying desperately to find ANYTHING that can possibly stick". My advice is to .. not bring anyone to AE for a month. At least. You're overdoing it and frankly, you're about to get totally banned from AE reporting if you can't grasp that you need to learn to just let things go a bit. Ealdgyth (talk) 15:48, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- On the topic of
The fact that I think the actual definition of a revert is stupid has no bearing on both those edits actually being reverts. I do, however, know that there is a great deal of confusion about this whole situation about what qualifies as a revert. (And I acknowledge that I may actually have this wrong, that's how screwy things are with this whole definition of revert)
, that is why I suggested a gentleman's agreement back in (I think) December to request a self-revert on user talk pages, and to revert your own reported 1RR violations. Better safe than sorry, it's easy to make mistakes on fast moving articles, and it can be confusing. Unfortunately the BATTLEGROUND tendencies make this difficult because it's normally someone on "the other side" requesting a revert and how dare they! ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:54, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- On the topic of
- I am starting to think that applying the definition of "revert" developed for 3RR in the context of 1RR is problematic. Suppose an article under 1RR says
A, B, and C
. Editor X changes it to justA
. Editor Y reverts toA, B, and C
. Editor X reverts toA
with the edit summaryC isn't true
. Editor Y then changes it toA and B
with the edit summaryokay, we'll leave out C, but restoring B which no one disagrees with
. All this happens within the space of a day. Has Y violated 1RR, and if she technically has, would other admins feel the need to do anything about it? Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:13, 10 June 2024 (UTC)- Generally such compromises don't get reported. It is certainly an issue with fast moving articles, though. That's the rub with 1RR. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:27, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- (This is moving in the direction of a general discussion of enforcement philosophy rather than the specifics of this request, so I'd be open to moving it elsewhere.) There always remains the question of literal versus more flexible interpretation, especially where the letter of a ruling has been violated but its spirit has not been. It bears emphasis that no set of rules, whether simple or complicated, can anticipate in advance every situation that might later arise. As I have in the past, I refer everyone to my essay here, or better still to the best law review article ever. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:34, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- The solution isn't to make the rule more wishy-washy, and make editors unsure of it will apply. That's why it's a bright-line rule. If they had said no to the water at the beginning there wouldn't have been a problem. You're suggesting the path that leads to milkshakes. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:59, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Bright-line rules can be attractive, but as a certain online encyclopedia tells us,
critics often argue that bright-line rules are overly simplistic and can lead to harsh and unjust results
. And here the "bright-line" rule is illusory in any event; the current discussion on your talkpage reflects several ways in which our definition of "revert" remains ambiguous even after 20-plus years. - These ambiguities don't normally interfere with enforcement on the edit-warring noticeboard, because by the time one has made four edits on an article within 24 hours that could reasonably be considered reverts, there often (not always) is an actual problem. But it is far easier to make two borderline edits on an article within 24 hours while editing appropriately and in good faith, especially when editing a fast-moving article reporting on current events.
- I'm also not confident that innocuous edits and already-resolved disputes won't be reported; you and I can both recall at least one prior, troubling episode in a different 1RR topic-area where that is exactly what occurred. There is always going to be some element of administrator discretion in arbitration enforcement, and I believe there has to be.
- On the merits of this particular report, as with the next one below, I am actually less concerned about the debatable 1RR issues and more about potential POV editing, and not just by the editors on this thread. By this I don't mean blatant and blockable POV-pushing, but the understandable tendency of many editors to see everything on this group of articles from either one side of the conflict or the other. That being said, beyond the advice I gave 16 years ago, I don't have an easy solution for what is to be done about this problem: peace will not come to our Israel-Palestine articles until peace comes to Israel and Palestine. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:49, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- Bright-line rules can be attractive, but as a certain online encyclopedia tells us,
- The solution isn't to make the rule more wishy-washy, and make editors unsure of it will apply. That's why it's a bright-line rule. If they had said no to the water at the beginning there wouldn't have been a problem. You're suggesting the path that leads to milkshakes. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:59, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- (This is moving in the direction of a general discussion of enforcement philosophy rather than the specifics of this request, so I'd be open to moving it elsewhere.) There always remains the question of literal versus more flexible interpretation, especially where the letter of a ruling has been violated but its spirit has not been. It bears emphasis that no set of rules, whether simple or complicated, can anticipate in advance every situation that might later arise. As I have in the past, I refer everyone to my essay here, or better still to the best law review article ever. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:34, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Generally such compromises don't get reported. It is certainly an issue with fast moving articles, though. That's the rub with 1RR. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:27, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
KronosAlight
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning KronosAlight
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- Dylanvt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 13:24, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- KronosAlight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel articles
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
Well isn't this ironic.
Violated 1RR at:
2024 Nuseirat rescue operation
- 08:02, 11 June 2024 Partial revert of this and this.
- 20:55, 10 June 2024 Revert of this.
- 20:26, 10 June 2024 Combined revert of this and this.
- 14:03, 10 June 2024 Partial revert of this.
- 13:49, 10 June 2024 Partial revert of this.
- 13:46, 10 June 2024 Revert of this and partial revert of this and this and this and this and this.
- 07:39, 11 June 2024 Revert of this and this.
- 14:52, 10 June 2024 Combined partial revert of this and this and this and this and this.
Nuseirat refugee camp massacre
- 08:14, 10 June 2024 Partial revert of this.
- 08:01, 10 June 2024 Combined partial and complete reverts of this and this and this and this and this and this and this.
- Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
- 20:35, 28 March 2024 Indefinitely topic banned from "flood myths".
- If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
- Alerted about discretionary sanctions or contentious topics in the area of conflict, on 00:06, 11 June 2024 (see the system log linked to above). When I explained that they were constrained by 1RR and must self-revert their response was "No." They didn't dispute that they had violated 1RR or indicate that they did not understand it in any way. They simply flat-out refused.
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
KronosAlight also has a history of making incendiary, belligerent, aspersive, and off-topic comments on talk pages.
- lol. Some of the revisions, like 20:55, 10 June 2024, aren't even manual reverts. They're literal "I clicked the undo button to revert someone else's edit" reverts. I don't have time to deal with this further. The reverts and belligerent talk page behavior, and previous arbitration decision, all speak for themselves. Kronos can keep grandstanding for all I care, it doesn't change the facts. Dylanvt (talk) 13:54, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
here.
Discussion concerning KronosAlight
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by KronosAlight
None of these are 'reverts'. I removed your editorialising and filled out citation data in existing citations, and added new ones.
Editing an existing page, clarifying what the sources cited actually say, is not a revert and there is therefore nothing to answer for here.
You can avoid this problem in future by better complying with NPOV and related Wikipedia rules on editorialisation, bias, and editing wars.
By way of example, in the Al-Sardi school attack article, the complainant initially used the infobox: civilian attack, has repeatedly sought to editorialise it and similar articles, nor did their version include even one mention of the IDF's official statements in which they claimed to have identified at least 9 terrorists killed in the strike. One needn't take them at their word - their claims should be couched as just that, a claim, that cannot be independently verified. But to omit any mention of this? And to seek to revert edits clarifying that the Gaza Health Ministry are Hamas-run (without removing any of their claims) and make requests that articles about strikes be renamed as "massacres", suggests that this is simply a vexatious complaint by a user engaged in a political campaign with Wikipedia's neutrality the victim.
Wikipedia is not a place for you to wage political wars, it's a neutral space for information.
To be honest I wasn’t familiar with the 1RR before this complaint, I don’t usually edit articles about recent events. The policy seems a bit odd to me, just seems to let trolls off the hook, but yeah, I obviously didn’t comply with that rule. I’m happy to own that and ensure going forwards that my edits respect it. KronosAlight (talk) 14:14, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- If I may also add, a number of editors whom I (implicitly) referenced in some of those Talk comments have since been given indefinite bans on editing articles related to Israel-Palestine.
- I accept that I shouldn’t have spoken in that way, but in my defence, a number of administrators clearly ended up independently agreeing with me, substantively, that these users had in fact been editing in violation of NPOV and related rules.
- I don't accept that I was doing so, by the way. I was unaware that there had been any sort of high-level Admin/Editorial discussion relating to the Gazan Health Ministry claims, and am obviously willing to go along with that decision now that I'm aware of it.
- But I think if you look at the edits I actually made, they were absolutely neutral, they contextualised various claims made by each side, and they were actually designed to address the existing NPOV violations which subsequently got those users banned from further edits.
- Again, I accept it’s still not on to just accuse someone of that, but I wasn’t seeing anything being done about it (didn’t even know about some of these rules tbh), which felt frustrating and partly explains what happened there. KronosAlight (talk) 16:21, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- I’d also of course accept @Newyorkbrad’s request that I refrain from avoiding unnecessary commentary on Talk pages etc. It was counterproductive for me to do that and I certainly was not as polite as I should have been. KronosAlight (talk) 16:23, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Statement by BilledMammal
Kronos, going to the talk page. If an editor is routinely engaged in POV pushing and source distortion then that becomes a behavioral issue that can be addressed here, but it doesn't justify violating 1RR - and violating 1RR to address such issues can simply mean that you are sanctioned, rather than the editor engaging in POV pushing and source distortion.
I strongly encourage you to self-revert your violations now. BilledMammal (talk) 14:17, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- Do you mean simply reverting to the version of the article prior to any 'reverts'? KronosAlight (talk) 14:21, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- You need to reverse any of your edits that can still be reversed, but leave any changes made by other editors in place. On a very active page this can be difficult, but as long as you make a good faith effort to undo your violations I don't think the admins will hold it against you. BilledMammal (talk) 14:25, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- Okay, I've returned the School attack article to how it was before, i.e. the reference to Hamas removed.
- I’ll see what I can do about the rescue operation article. That’s obviously more complicated because a lot of edits have been made since that. KronosAlight (talk) 14:27, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you. BilledMammal (talk) 14:31, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- Okay, I'm pretty sure both articles are more or less as they were before this whole 'reverting' thing.
- That means there's claims on these articles which some other editor is going to have to inspect re NPOV etc., and some of which already have Talk threads about, but I'm going to keep away from it. KronosAlight (talk) 14:35, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you. BilledMammal (talk) 14:31, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- You need to reverse any of your edits that can still be reversed, but leave any changes made by other editors in place. On a very active page this can be difficult, but as long as you make a good faith effort to undo your violations I don't think the admins will hold it against you. BilledMammal (talk) 14:25, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Selfstudier
The 1R here is a slamdunk so no comment on that, the little BM/Kronos tete a tete above looks like a resolution. However I will just note that we are once again dealing with this GHM nonsense just as in the other complaint. I am convinced these edits are simply intended to provoke and kudos to complainant for refusing to be provoked this time. Selfstudier (talk) 14:58, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Statement by (username)
Result concerning KronosAlight
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- I have to say I assumed this report was going to be a tit-for-tat one given the fact that the OP is mentioned in a previous section; however, even a brief reading of the evidence strongly suggests that KronosAlight is not a very good fit for such a contentious topic area. This, this followed by this spectacular lack of self-awareness are not good. The refusal to revert after violating 1RR, and the response above which suggests they don't actually think 1RR applies to them at all (
"None of these are 'reverts'. I removed your editorialising"
- which is effectively saying "I reverted your edit, but it doesn't count as a revert because I was reverting something which I think is wrong") are merely supporting evidence of this. Black Kite (talk) 14:05, 11 June 2024 (UTC) - Since KronosAlight says he was previously unfamiliar with the 1RR restriction on these articles and from now on will comply with it, I would be content to resolve that aspect of the complaint with a warning. I am more troubled by the POV issue, and would also like KronosAlight also to promise to avoid unnecessary commentary and to edit neutrally if he is going to remain active in this topic-area. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:19, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- It seems there's no appetite for anything beyond warning here, and I think KronosAlight has made a fair effort to understand what's wrong and undertake to correct it. So, I would give a warning here, with a clear understanding that if this happens again, that won't be the outcome next time. Seraphimblade Talk to me 01:27, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Ltbdl
Ltbdl is indefinitely topic banned from post-1992 American politics and gender related disputes, broadly construed. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC) |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning Ltbdl
Discussion concerning ltbdlStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by ltbdli am aware of this, and have nothing to say. ltbdl (talk) 08:37, 13 June 2024 (UTC) Statement by FortunateSonsThis sort of conduct in a heated and contentious area is highly unproductive and should be appropriately sanctioned. FortunateSons (talk) 08:47, 13 June 2024 (UTC) Statement by SpringeeI'm concerned that this was an out of the blue uncivil action. If we had been debating or had a long interaction history and they made this claim, well that could just be frustration or opinion built up over time. However, when an account that per the interaction analyzer, I've never interacted with, starts throwing out comments like that, it makes me wonder why they needed a clean start and if granting it was appropriate. Certainly the replies here suggest they don't see an issue with the actions. I think some sort of action should be taken (warning, block, etc) so if this uncivil behavior continues other editors can see the behavior is part of a pattern. Springee (talk) 11:50, 14 June 2024 (UTC) Statement by Red-tailed hawkBecause I participated in the RfC where the comments were made, I'm going to write here rather than in the section for uninvolved admins below. This is an extremely clear case of a personal attack directed at an editor, and the behavior that taunts the personally attacked editor is... bizarre. I agree with SFR that this is unacceptable, but I'd only recommend a TBAN if there is some broader issue than this one incident, and I'm just not seeing those diffs here. If this is merely a personal attack/casting aspersions against Springee, perhaps a one-way I-ban or a block would be better than a TBAN. (If there were an apology, an acknowledgement that what they did was grossly out of line with WP:CIVIL, and they struck the personal attacks, I might even just recommend a logged warning for civility in the two topic areas. But I just don't see any remorse, nor evidence proffered that the allegations made by respondent against Springee are in any way substantiated, so I do think that something more restrictive is warranted.) — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 03:44, 17 June 2024 (UTC) Statement by (username)Result concerning ltbdl
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Riposte97
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning Riposte97
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- TarnishedPath (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 14:14, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Riposte97 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Wikipedia:AP2
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- 2:45, 10 June 2024 (UTC) Editor edits Hunter Biden to insert new sentence “The contents of the laptop was subsequently submitted in evidence in Biden's criminal trials” into the lead.
- 4:52, 13 June 2024 (UTC) New sentence is removed by myself from the lead.
- 6:26, 13 June 2024 (UTC) Editor reverts to reinsert sentence back into the lead. Hunter Biden article has active arbitration remedies. The notice on talk page states “You must follow the bold-revert-discuss cycle if your change is reverted. You may not reinstate your edit until you post a talk page message discussing your edit and have waited 24 hours from the time of this talk page message”.
- 6:36, 13 June 2024 (UTC) I started a new topic on the editor’s user talk advising that they’ve violated the active arbitration remedies which apply to the article and advise that they need to self-revert.
- 7:39, 13 June 2024 (UTC) Edit responds claiming that contrary to my advice that they have violated active arbitration remedies, that they reverted to restore consensus. No such consensus exists. Editor does not self-revert.
- User_talk:Riposte97#CT violation at laptop page A similar discussion concerning Hunter Biden laptop controversy in which the editor is advised by another editor that they have violated active arbitration remedies on that article. At that time the editor agrees to self-revert.
- If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
- Alerted about discretionary sanctions or contentious topics in the area of conflict, on 2:38, 19 September 2023 (UTC) (see the system log linked to above).
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
Editor has reverted to re-include material at Hunter Biden in violation of active arbitration remedies and then refused to self-revert when advised of their transgression. TarnishedPathtalk 14:14, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
@Riposte97 the very fact that I edited to remove your change demonstrates that there was no consensus for your change. Other editors editing about other things, regardless the location in the article, does not demonstrate consensus for your change. The fact is that no one has discussed that specific sentence in talk, so your claim of consensus is completely without merit.
The easiest thing would have been for you to remedy your violation of active arbitration remedies, by self-reverting, when I raised your conduct on your user talk. However you have refused to remedy your violation from the point when I raised it until the present time. So here we are and you are still refusing to remedy your violation of active arbitration remedies.
Ps, I am also on a mobile device as I am away from my home for at least another week. That's no reason for this discussion to stall or for you not to do the correct thing and remedy your violation by self-reverting. TarnishedPathtalk 02:46, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Riposte97, events have not overtaken us. You refused to self-revert while you had the chance and instead choose to engage in meritless arguments when it was crystal clear that you had violated the active arbitration remedies. That you can no longer self-revert does expunge you of responsibility. TarnishedPathtalk 05:10, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Riposte97, your argument that 3 days = long-standing and therefore consensus was implied is entirely unconvincing. You ought to have immediately self-reverted when your transgression was brought to your attention. If you had any doubt it would have taken moments to check exactly what active arbitration remedies on the article specify and then self-revert. Instead you choose to refuse to remedy your violation. TarnishedPathtalk 06:53, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
@ScottishFinnishRadish please note that as of Special:Diff/1228842988 Riposte97‘s ability to self-revert has disappeared. They were provided the opportunity to self-revert a clear violation, they refused and decided to engage in arguments which had no merit. TarnishedPathtalk 15:36, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Special:Diff/1228844302
Discussion concerning Riposte97
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Riposte97
Good morning,
I maintain that my revert restored consensus. As pointed out above, the sentence in question was inserted on 10 June UTC. A little over three days passed, before the submitter removed it. In that time, the page was edited dozens of times, and the lead extensively discussed on the talk page. I believed, and still do, that the circumstances illustrate consensus for the sentence.
If reasonable minds differ, I’d submit the easiest thing to do would be to raise the substance of any objection on the article talk page, rather than go straight to ANI.
Please note I am subject to the disadvantages of editing on mobile until I get home from work this evening.
Thanks.
- @ScottishFinnishRadish:, I am grateful to @TarnishedPath: for pointing out that events have overtaken us, and I can no longer self-revert. I would if I could. Thank you for clarifying the rules, and I don't expect to be back here in future. Riposte97 (talk) 04:45, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- I should note, that I did not realise that consensus on CTs could only come from affirmative talk page consensus. I have seen consensus inferred elsewhere by material merely being longstanding. I had thought three days sufficient to assume consensus in the circumstances.
- I did not revert after TarnishedPath's messages because he apparently believed that only a day had passed between insertion and deletion. (I attributed this to timezone confusion, but see now we are in the same city.)
- In any case, I have now read and understood the policy. Riposte97 (talk) 06:10, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- @SPECIFICO I now understand that consensus on CTs must be positively arrived at on the talk page. This won’t be an issue in future. Riposte97 (talk) 01:58, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Elinruby I don't think it's entirely appropriate for you to bring up an unrelated disagreement we've had (noting you were subsequently blocked for battleground behaviour), nor to apparently canvas support for a pile-on. I request that you strike. Riposte97 (talk) 10:24, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @SPECIFICO: to clarify, I understand I am here for violating the BRD restriction on the page. As I have attempted to explain above, I did so because I was operating under the misapprehension that I was restoring consensus. I thought that was permitted. I understand now that I was incorrect. Riposte97 (talk) 21:59, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Elinruby I don't think it's entirely appropriate for you to bring up an unrelated disagreement we've had (noting you were subsequently blocked for battleground behaviour), nor to apparently canvas support for a pile-on. I request that you strike. Riposte97 (talk) 10:24, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @SPECIFICO I now understand that consensus on CTs must be positively arrived at on the talk page. This won’t be an issue in future. Riposte97 (talk) 01:58, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
Statement by SPECIFICO
@Riposte97: To help advance this to a conclusion, could you please elaborate on your statement, I have now read and understood the policy
? SPECIFICO talk 21:56, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply, Riposte. While that is good practice, it is not why you were reported here. SPECIFICO talk 02:38, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
@Riposte97: stated that they had read and understood the policy. They then repeated their misstatement of the violation under review here. We'd all hope that a warning and Riposte's best efforts to adhere to CT would suffice. But so far, there's no sign that has begun, even with a careful reading of the matter on the table. SPECIFICO talk 15:45, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Elinruby
I would like to point out the editor's behaviour at Talk:Canadian Indian residential school gravesites where, based on an extremely unreliable source, the editor insisted on inserting into the lead a misleading statement that no human remains had been found in archaeological excavations at schools. (See RSN thread) He then rewrote large sections of the article over the protests of other editors:
after being reverted by @Ivanvector:In the table of suspected graves it describes the finding of the partial remains of a child in a grave at the Qu'Appelle residential school, sourced to [174]. The Spiked source that you provided, which is the successor of a magazine that was run out of business for denying the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides, really shouldn't be used as a source for any information about anything described as a genocide. Ignoring that, it does not say that no bodies were found: it says that none were found in the five specific searches it names, which does not include Qu'Appelle. It also gives its unqualified opinion that "no evidence has been found to support the claims of a ‘genocide’", which is highly suspect given their known history of genocide denial. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:20, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
Also:
it has become quite clear that you are repeatedly trying to remove neutral information and add inappropriately sourced opinions downplaying the significance of these events, as evidenced quite clearly by your repeated attempts to force in an inappropriately-sourced and provably false narrative that there are no bodies (e.g. [175],[176], [177], [178]) and removing sources that don't conform with that false statement. If you do not stop this, I will seek to have you banned from the topic. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:49, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
Elinruby (talk) 09:25, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
@Graham87 and DanielRigal: may also wish to comment based on an ANI thread linked at the user's talk page: [179] Elinruby (talk) 09:50, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
@Riposte97: I think this is highly relevant. The modus operandi of making changes while claiming consensus and adherence to policy is identical. And yes, indeed, I was blocked for a week in a series of events that began with removing the very claim Ivanvector describes above as "your repeated attempts to force in an inappropriately-sourced and provably false narrative". I have have own my thoughts on that block, but more to the point, you then removed a whole lot of reliably sourced information that you described as inaccurate and poorly sourced. This is a pattern, and by the way, it was nothing of the kind. As for canvassing: these administrators may be interested in commenting. There was an ANI case. This is relevant.
I will answer any questions admins may have but have no intention of responding further to this user. I note that my talk page diffs of other users protesting are broken; I am working on re-finding them right now and they should work shortly. TL;DR this is not someone encountering wikipedia governance for the first time who just needs a little guidance. Elinruby (talk) 10:49, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- The talk page at Kamloops Indian Residential School also appears to be relevant to claims of consensus and policy compliance: [180]. This article has just been indefinitely ec-protected finally. Elinruby (talk) 07:11, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- @El C: I do understand that residential schools are currently not a CT. The posts I made here were intended to demonstrate that the behavior TarnishedPath describes, of making changes over the protests of other editors while claiming to have consensus, is not limited to the Hunter Biden page and therefore maybe a warning is not enough. He certainly did not heed the warning he was given by Ivanvector. I am not asking here for remedies for that and never was. The Kamloops Indian Residential School article is being extensively discussed at RSN. I have not ruled out a post at ANI over the behaviour yesterday at Talk:Kamloops Indian Residential School. Also, I am interested in the history you mention; thank you, both for doing that and for mentioning it. I may ask you about that later, if you don't mind. But yeah, obviously Canadian residential schools are not American politics. I agree with you there. If you are required to consider behaviour in silos that way, well. This is not the place to discuss that either. Best, and thanks again. Elinruby (talk) 08:21, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @El C: Indeed. I can't quite parse the first sentence but I think you are saying that somebody could have, say, two blocks in whatever we are calling the Polish and Lithuanian genocide these days, but only get a warning if they transgress in let's say tree shaping? No reply needed if that is correct. As for mileage may vary, I agree. Elinruby (talk) 09:34, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @El C: I am not trying to 'invoke" anything. Or talking about Native Americans. But let's make this easy. I agree with what Red-tailed hawk proposed. Not that I think you need my approval. And I think I understand what you are saying about insularity. Elinruby (talk) 12:35, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- @El C: Indeed. I can't quite parse the first sentence but I think you are saying that somebody could have, say, two blocks in whatever we are calling the Polish and Lithuanian genocide these days, but only get a warning if they transgress in let's say tree shaping? No reply needed if that is correct. As for mileage may vary, I agree. Elinruby (talk) 09:34, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Statement by (username)
Result concerning Riposte97
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- This is a clear violation of the enforced BRD sanction on the page. A self revert should be the first step, followed by a demonstration that they understand the bounds of the sanction. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:27, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think a warning would suffice in this instance, though I'd strongly urge Riposte97 to study the policy further as it can be a steep learning curve. El_C 14:09, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- Briefly: the issues raised concerning residential schools are news to me. I would support a topic ban there, but it can't happen here because WP:AE is reserved for ARBCOM-authorized sanctions regimes only, of which Indigenous people are not included. And expressly not included under WP:AP2, which I know because I tried to encompass it under that regime years ago (when the cutoff was still 1932, before it was up'd to 1992), but was told no in no uncertain terms. So that'd need to be proposed at WP:AN, as a custom community-authorized TBAN. El_C 00:03, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Elinruby, yes, silo by definition or it would just apply, directly or by overlap. And, sure, Canadian, but there are tribes (like the Syilx, for eg.) whose territory straddles both countries. Regardless, I'm struggling to remember the setting in which I was denied. It may have been here at AE, or AN, or even by the committee at WP:ARCA. Anyway, unless I missed something, I'm not sure there's anything actionable here to the extent of meeting the requirement for sanctions, but other admins' mileage may vary. El_C 08:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Elinruby, a record of sanctions/warnings helps determine regular admin action, its severity or lack thereof. What I meant was that, for both ARBCOM-authorized and community-authorized sanctions regimes, one cannot for example (evidently), invoke WP:AP2 for disputes involving Native Americans in the United States (per se.), or conversely invoke WP:GS/UYGHUR for disputes involving Tibet (again, per se.). Because inherently, topic areas of sanctions regimes remain insular to subject matters that fall outside their scope. El_C 11:11, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- With respect to the stuff that is within the scope of the AE board: the user has stated that they acknowledge that they were incorrect to make the offending edit, and they have agreed to change their behavior going forward. For that reason, unless there is an objection within the next 18 hours or so, I will close this with a logged warning to the user to adhere to the restriction on Hunter Biden going forward. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:27, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Konanen
Konanen is indefinitely topic banned from Reiki, broadly construed. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:45, 18 June 2024 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning Konanen
User Konanen is civilly pushing a point of view, promoting false neutrality, and editing tendentiously on the alternative medicine topic Reiki. Konanen opened the NPOVN discussion linked above, in parallel to a discussion already occurring on the article's talk page, with a request to remove the term "quackery" because they personally found it offensive, and to omit "pseudoscience" because of the term being redundant due to its occurrence in a linked article. Several editors objected, and there was some discussion which led to copyediting some repetitive occurrences of "pseudoscience" and improving the attribution of "quackery", but no consensus is evident for either term's removal. The discussion basically concluded on 30 May, other than one editor who on 5 June added their own biased tally of votes supporting their position and began removing all instances describing the practice as pseudoscience from the article, as well as a large criticism section; the other editor was topic-banned in a different thread here. In the course of reverting the topic-banned user's disruptive edits, user Valjean restored an earlier revision and inadvertently removed the {{npov}} banner on 13 June. Konanen demanded that the banner be restored, referring to the false consensus and subsequent disruptive editing of the topic-banned user as evidence of ongoing discussion. When Valjean and Tgeorgescu responded essentially that two editors do not a consensus make, Konanen started the ANI thread reporting both users for personal attacks. At ANI, several users both involved and not observed that Konanen is pushing the same POV as the topic-banned user, and expressed frustration over Konanen's insistence on displaying the neutrality banner. Several editors commented that the NPOVN discussion was concluded (e.g. [181], [182]), that the tag should be removed ([183], [184]), and that Konanen should drop the issue (e.g. [185], [186], [187], [188]), with many already suggesting a topic ban. Valjean did restore the banner some time later in an effort to move on. Another editor then invited Konanen to identify the issue in a new talk page section. Konanen insisted that they didn't need to provide an explanation for the banner, and implied that the banner should remain until they were satisfied with the NPOVN discussion's outcome. I attempted to explain that cleanup tags are not meant to be used in this way and, referring to the opinion of ANI that the discussion was concluded, removed the banner again, suggesting that they should re-add it themselves only if they had another issue to discuss. Konanen still refuses to accept this, and this morning demanded that I self-revert or cite policy supporting the removal, which is blatant wikilawyering, and posted a new tally of votes at NPOVN which serves no purpose other than to tendentiously relitigate a discussion result they do not agree with. I therefore propose that they be banned from the topic. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:41, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
Discussion concerning KonanenStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by KonanenInteresting to find myself here when all I have done is to advocate for discussion and transparency (by way of a POV tag) about said discussion pertaining to a matter of NPOV. First of all, I object to the submitter’s falsehoods re I reject the accusation of tendentious editing. Precisely because I have an opinion on the subject matter, and because I do not think I could do a better job than previous editors in fixing the perceived POV issues, have I not dared edit the article in question except for adding the POV tag. If talking about the content of an article, and taking the matter to NPOV/N for wider input is considered tendentious editing, then I apologise ― I was not aware that its definition had such a wide scope. Valjean restored an early version, citing accidental removal ([189]), but they were terse and bordered on personal attacks when I asked them to restore, hence the decision to take the matter to ANI, instead of edit warring over the issue ( The discussion on NPOV/N began on the 29th of May ([190]), so alleging that discussion concluded on the 30th of May is disingenuous when there has been some activity since ([191] [192] [193]). I am partially to blame for the lull in activity between the 6th and 13th of June, but that should not stand in the way of the discussion’s legitimacy, considering that it has continued just fine without my input ([194] [195]) which is further proof that the matter was not laid to rest, and there was no consensus reached that article is NPOV, wherefore there were no grounds for the removal of the POV tag (which Valjean had agreed to reinstate yesterday during the ANI procedure, but above submitter saw fit to remove again, even though the matter had not concluded on NPOV/N nor on the article’s talk page, see diffs below). All that being said, since yesterday, there has been further opining about the article’s NPOV on its talk page as well as the noticeboard following Valjean’s substantial changes to the lead and my creating a summary of the discussion so far for a better overview ([196] [197] [198] [199] [200]). In my humble opinion, we have come to a good arrangement as to the lead. I am not interested in keeping the POV tag for the tag’s sake, and I think a good discussion has given way to an acceptable compromise less than an hour ago ([201]). I consider the matter satisfactorily discussed and remedied, and see no need for the POV tag to be restored at this time. Cheers, –Konanen (talk) 17:31, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
Statement by berchanhimezI believe that I may be the other user referred to by Ivanvector. I opened the talkpage section for the tag to give Konanen a chance (and any other editors, for that matter) to actually clearly state what NPOV issue was so prevalent in the article to merit a tag on the whole article. This way other editors could begin the process of improving any issues. Konanen replied that they Their behavior in the discussions leaves a lot to be desired - and whether they are well-intentioned or not, they've displayed their inability to constructively contribute to articles about pseudoscientific "medical treatments" on Wikipedia. I do not believe that a topic ban from all of medicine is merited necessarily, but a topic ban wider than reiki for sure. They started the discussion at NPOVN based on them finding the term pseudoscience "objectionable", and it is clear that early on they were on a crusade to legitimize reiki as scientifically sound and trusted. That alone should be enough evidence that they cannot contribute constructively to alternative medicine topics on Wikipedia, since they have admitted since the start that their personal objection is more important than the sources and discussion. A topic ban from alternative medicine need not be permanent, but the editor (who is still relatively new) should display their ability to have constructive and cooperative dialogue about article content before they should be allowed into the broader area again after this. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 01:11, 15 June 2024 (UTC) Statement by (username)Result concerning Konanen
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Rp2006
Rp2006 blocked indefinitely for repeated TBAN violations. As per standard, the first year of the block is an AE sanction, converting thereafter to a normal admin action. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:31, 17 June 2024 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning Rp2006
Facilitated communication has a Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism tag on the talk page and the first source is Skeptical Inquirer, and many other sources in the article are related to skepticism. There was also a minor BLPvio in the lead, linking a former NFL player as the
Discussion concerning Rp2006Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by Rp2006Statement by (username)Result concerning Rp2006
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WP:RFAR
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Wikipedia:Deletion review/Content review
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