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::Additionally as with any review it is also dependent on admins and others being willing to review closures, which frankly doesn't seem to be happening. -- [[User:Eraserhead1|Eraserhead1]] <[[User_talk:Eraserhead1|talk]]> 17:22, 18 November 2012 (UTC) |
::Additionally as with any review it is also dependent on admins and others being willing to review closures, which frankly doesn't seem to be happening. -- [[User:Eraserhead1|Eraserhead1]] <[[User_talk:Eraserhead1|talk]]> 17:22, 18 November 2012 (UTC) |
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:::I'm going to step in here and disagree respectfully, but strongly, with SlimVirgin's statement "If the first close was a non-admin closure, you can ask an admin to endorse or overturn it." That is a completely and totally wrongheaded view of what adminiship is. Admins are not given special magical override power on anything at Wikipedia, and that includes closing discussions. Admins have tools that allow them to block, delete, and protect. '''And that is all'''. Admins don't have a "override closure" tool. If a closure by any editor is believed to be in error, the correct procedure is a) ask the editor to reconsider and b) ask the community to review it. There is no special administrator power to overturn a closure unilaterally. --[[User:Jayron32|<font style="color:#000099">Jayron</font>]]'''''[[User talk:Jayron32|<font style="color:#009900">32</font>]]''''' 23:46, 18 November 2012 (UTC) |
:::I'm going to step in here and disagree respectfully, but strongly, with SlimVirgin's statement "If the first close was a non-admin closure, you can ask an admin to endorse or overturn it." That is a completely and totally wrongheaded view of what adminiship is. Admins are not given special magical override power on anything at Wikipedia, and that includes closing discussions. Admins have tools that allow them to block, delete, and protect. '''And that is all'''. Admins don't have a "override closure" tool. If a closure by any editor is believed to be in error, the correct procedure is a) ask the editor to reconsider and b) ask the community to review it. There is no special administrator power to overturn a closure unilaterally. --[[User:Jayron32|<font style="color:#000099">Jayron</font>]]'''''[[User talk:Jayron32|<font style="color:#009900">32</font>]]''''' 23:46, 18 November 2012 (UTC) |
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::::The closing editor (a non-admin if that matters) was asked about their close and they stood by it. However, they were more than happy to have the closure reviewed. It has been brought here twice and archived without resolution twice. The first time one admin offered to close it under certain conditions, but the person filing the review request did not appear to accept those conditions (not sure whether that was the reason it went no further). The second time it did not attract a single comment. Here is the diff of the latest question,[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard&diff=522697810&oldid=522696505] to which the answer appears to be that no one is willing to take it on (understandable, but not very useful). I don't know what the next course of action in this situation is. [[User:Aircorn|AIR<font color="green">'''''corn'''''</font>]] [[User talk:Aircorn|(talk)]] 02:15, 19 November 2012 (UTC) |
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[[Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive772#Is_it_reasonable_to_have_my_integrity_questioned_and_my_edits_reverted_because_I_am_an_ip.3F|Recent discussion on ANI]] -- closing by {{User|Kim Dent-Brown}} included statement: "The more complex question that emerged about who can close and/or reopen RfCs does not seem to have been answered ..." I haven't seen compelling evidence the concept admins have special status in '''RFC'''s (not Afd, not move discussion, etc.) is supported by any community wide consensus. I've started [[Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment#Review ]]. <small>[[User talk:NE Ent|NE Ent]]</small> 17:33, 18 November 2012 (UTC) |
[[Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive772#Is_it_reasonable_to_have_my_integrity_questioned_and_my_edits_reverted_because_I_am_an_ip.3F|Recent discussion on ANI]] -- closing by {{User|Kim Dent-Brown}} included statement: "The more complex question that emerged about who can close and/or reopen RfCs does not seem to have been answered ..." I haven't seen compelling evidence the concept admins have special status in '''RFC'''s (not Afd, not move discussion, etc.) is supported by any community wide consensus. I've started [[Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment#Review ]]. <small>[[User talk:NE Ent|NE Ent]]</small> 17:33, 18 November 2012 (UTC) |
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Revision as of 02:15, 19 November 2012
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Use the closure requests noticeboard to ask an uninvolved editor to assess, summarize, and formally close a Wikipedia discussion. Do so when consensus appears unclear, it is a contentious issue, or where there are wiki-wide implications (e.g. any change to our policies or guidelines).
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Administrative discussions
Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1156#Boomerang_topic_ban_proposal_for_User:Hcsrctu
(Initiated 21 days ago on 9 May 2024) Ratnahastin (talk) 03:35, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
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Requests for comment
RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes?
(Initiated 76 days ago on 15 March 2024) Ready to be closed. Charcoal feather (talk) 17:02, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
new closer needed |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
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WP:RSN#RFC:_The_Anti-Defamation_League
(Initiated 53 days ago on 7 April 2024) Three related RFCs in a trench coat. I personally think the consensus is fairly clear here, but it should definitely be an admin close. Loki (talk) 14:07, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
- FYI this discussion can now be found in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard
/Archive 439. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:22, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Enforcing ECR for article creators
(Initiated 52 days ago on 8 April 2024) Discussion appears to have died down almost a month after this RfC opened. Would like to see a formal close of Q1 and Q2. Awesome Aasim 00:11, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Brothers of Italy#RfC on neo-fascism in info box 3 (Effectively option 4 from RfC2)
(Initiated 52 days ago on 8 April 2024) Clear consensus for change but not what to change to. I've handled this RfC very badly imo. User:Alexanderkowal — Preceding undated comment added 11:50, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Comment: The RfC tag was removed the same day it was started. This should be closed as a discussion, not an RfC. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:03, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Mukokuseki#RfC on using the wording "stereotypically Western characteristics" in the lead
(Initiated 49 days ago on 11 April 2024) ☆SuperNinja2☆ TALK! 09:41, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
- See Talk:Mukokuseki#Close Plz 5/21/2024 Orchastrattor (talk) 20:34, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
Talk:SpaceX Starship flight tests#RfC: Should we list IFT mission outcome alongside launch outcome?
(Initiated 40 days ago on 20 April 2024) An involved user has repeatedly attempted to close this after adding their arguments. It's a divisive topic and a close would stop back and forth edits. DerVolkssport11 (talk) 12:42, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
- To clarify, the RfC was closed in this dif, and an IP editor unclosed it, with this statement: "involved and pushing"
- In just over an hour, the above editor voiced support for the proposal.
- I reclosed it, and the same IP opened the RfC again, with this message: "pushing by involved users so ask for more comments".
- I reclosed once more. And then the editor who opened this requests opened it. To avoid violated WP:3RR, I have not reclosed it, instead messaging the original closer to notify them.
- The proposal itself was an edit request that I rejected. The IP who made the request reopened the request, which I rejected once more. They then proceeded to open an RfC. Redacted II (talk) 12:58, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Hunter Biden#RfC: Washington Post report concerning emails
(Initiated 36 days ago on 24 April 2024) There's been no comments in 5 days. TarnishedPathtalk 03:20, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
Place new discussions concerning RfCs above this line using a level 3 heading
Deletion discussions
V | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Total |
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CfD | 0 | 0 | 9 | 21 | 30 |
TfD | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
MfD | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
FfD | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
RfD | 0 | 0 | 4 | 28 | 32 |
AfD | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 27#Category:Unrecognized tribes in the United States
(Initiated 53 days ago on 7 April 2024) This one has been mentioned in a news outlet, so a close would ideally make sense to the outside world. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 13:56, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 May 13#Genie (feral child and etc.
(Initiated 51 days ago on 9 April 2024) mwwv converse∫edits 18:02, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Stress marks in East Slavic words
(Initiated 24 days ago on 6 May 2024) * Pppery * it has begun... 17:30, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Amina Hassan Sheikh
(Initiated 24 days ago on 6 May 2024) If the consensus is to do the selective histmerge I'm willing to use my own admin tools to push the button and do it. * Pppery * it has begun... 17:07, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
Place new discussions concerning XfDs above this line using a level 3 heading
Other types of closing requests
Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake#Talkpage_"This_article_has_been_mentioned_by_a_media_organization:"_BRD
(Initiated 44 days ago on 16 April 2024) - Discussion on a talkpage template, Last comment 6 days ago, 10 comments, 4 people in discussion. Not unanimous, but perhaps there is consensus-ish or strength of argument-ish closure possible. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- It doesn't seem to me that there is a consensus here to do anything, with most editors couching their statements as why it might (or might not) be done rather than why it should (or should not). I will opine that I'm not aware there's any precedent to exclude {{Press}} for any reason and that it would be very unusual, but I don't think that's good enough reason to just overrule Hipal. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 01:01, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Press_Your_Luck_scandal#Separate_articles
(Initiated 28 days ago on 2 May 2024) Please review this discussion. --Jax 0677 (talk) 01:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Agroforestry#Merge_proposal
(Initiated 27 days ago on 3 May 2024) As the proposer I presume I cannot close this. It was started more than a week ago and opinions differed somewhat. Chidgk1 (talk) 13:46, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Republican_Party_(United_States)#Poll:_Should_the_article_include_a_political_position_for_the_Republican_Party_in_the_infobox?
(Initiated 16 days ago on 14 May 2024) The topic of this poll is contentious and has been the subject of dozens of talk page discussions over the past years, so I am requesting an uninvolved editor to close this discussion. Cortador (talk) 20:28, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
Place new discussions concerning other types of closing requests above this line using a level 3 heading
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I've just speedily deleted and salted that nightmare out of process rather than let it exist for search engines to lead to while an AfD went on.
It is, at best an horrible BLP nightmare and coatrack; the definition of what would have gotten on this page is a timebomb, and given the lack of context it's would never have been possible to keep it away from undue weight. And, given the very high danger of name collision, it's immensely problematic even as search result extracts! Can you even think what this could do to someone whose name pops up a page named "List of pedophiles" on a search without enough clear context to quickly figure out it's someone else?
I welcome review of what I did or a DRV on the matter if needed, but I'm not going to let that page be recreated without an overwhelming consensus. — Coren (talk) 16:23, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Agree. Collect (talk) 16:27, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Yup. Common sense to act preemptively. There are no circumstances where such a list could be justified. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:31, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Such sex offender lists are maintained by government entities, but their lists can't be edited by just anyone. Useight's Public Sock (talk) 16:35, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- And their definitions, at least, are predictably consistent. — Coren (talk) 16:37, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- LOL. But I agree with the deletion. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:45, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Oh, I certainly wasn't disagreeing with the deletion, I was merely mentioning that sex offender lists exist - but in a manner mentioned by Coren. Useight's Public Sock (talk) 16:59, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- LOL. But I agree with the deletion. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:45, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- And their definitions, at least, are predictably consistent. — Coren (talk) 16:37, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Such sex offender lists are maintained by government entities, but their lists can't be edited by just anyone. Useight's Public Sock (talk) 16:35, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- I agree with the immediate action, but to play devil's advocate, I would also argue that, ignoring the logistical nightmares of maintaining said list per BLP, that it technically is an encyclopedically valid list, akin to something like List of rampage killers. Of course, I would demand that sourcing be the highest reliable sources, and likely to only people with articles already. I would also consider, in terms of maintenance that the list would be locked down to only admin editors with editrequests used to make changes. --MASEM (t) 17:06, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Any such list (even "list of people charged with child sex crimes") would be a daily victim of students who think they're hilariously funny, and even some adults with similar levels of intelligence and humour (✉→BWilkins←✎) 17:11, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Due to the nature of this type of article, this would be a case where we would use permanent admin-only protection to stop such actions. --MASEM (t) 17:20, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Full-protection would almost certainly be needed, but I'd suggest a title of "List of people convicted of child sex crimes" rather than simply charged. Useight's Public Sock (talk) 17:23, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Due to the nature of this type of article, this would be a case where we would use permanent admin-only protection to stop such actions. --MASEM (t) 17:20, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Any such list (even "list of people charged with child sex crimes") would be a daily victim of students who think they're hilariously funny, and even some adults with similar levels of intelligence and humour (✉→BWilkins←✎) 17:11, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- (e/c x 3) I think the concept is flawed even in principle; what constitutes a "convicted paedophile" varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, is disjoint of what psychiatry defines as "paedophilia" (which would also be a reasonable expectation from the page title), and has has nuances that a list format cannot accommodate. Lumping in a 20 year old who had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend (yes, there are jurisdictions where that will get you a conviction and posting on sex offenders lists) with someone who has raped prepubescent children over years is inflammatory beyond the capacity for a list disclaimer to fix. Individual articles can go into enough detail to understand the context, a list cannot – no matter how well sourced. — Coren (talk) 17:14, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Sounds like censoring this article from Wikipedia is easier than fixing Wikipedia's problems - like constant vandalism, pov pushing by anonymous editors, being used as the worlds largest defamation engine and so on. Way to to go, morons. Why don't you all take a break and upload some pictures of your wieners. That, at least, still seems to be celebrated under the banner of anti-censorship. --OppositeMan (talk) 17:10, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Just a note - based on the contributions of OppositeMan (harassment, vandalism, NPA's), I have indeffed as WP:NOTHERE. Feel free to change the block if you disagree (✉→BWilkins←✎) 17:16, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- It looks like a violation of WP:SOCK too. Reaper Eternal (talk) 17:25, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Just a note - based on the contributions of OppositeMan (harassment, vandalism, NPA's), I have indeffed as WP:NOTHERE. Feel free to change the block if you disagree (✉→BWilkins←✎) 17:16, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, its encyclopedic and essentially no different to any other type of crime in terms of notability. I think maybe a List of people prosecuted for sexual abuse of children or something along those lines, since charges can be dropped at a later point. Betty Logan (talk) 17:14, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- absolutely NOT "prosecuted" - it would need to be "convicted" to have any potential as a valid wikipedia subject. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:22, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Prosecutions often generate just as much coverage as convictions, so in terms of notability I don't think we can set a higher threshold than what is generally perceived as good enough to be considered notable. Betty Logan (talk) 17:25, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, but that's insanely irresponsible. People's lives are routinely ruined with accusations of child abuse – even when they were unsubstantiated and they were fully cleared of all charges. Even if there was overwhelming consensus to make a list of people who had actual convictions, a list of people just prosecuted would be downright evil. — Coren (talk) 17:32, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- your "insanely irresponsible" is much kinder response that I was coming back with. Thank you for the edit conflict which saved me from an WP:NPA violation! -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:35, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- I'm not saying it's morally justified, I'm just pointing out that prosecutions are usually no less notable than convictions, in terms of the RS coverage they generate. Wikipedia includes tons of stuff that people would probably prefer to be left out of their articles, but being nice and decent isn't the criteria for inclusion, notability is. Betty Logan (talk) 17:42, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Then, at best, this is a good argument that neither list belongs on Wikipedia. — Coren (talk) 17:49, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- (e/c)But we are Wikipedia, an encyclopedia, and not Wikipillory or a tabloid searching for screaming headlines to draw readers in for the 24/7 news cycles. We can be better than them with very little effort and no loss of encyclopedic quality or content. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:51, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- But how are these arguments any different to WP:IDONTLIKEIT? Betty Logan (talk) 17:55, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- while you are correct that I don't like the idea of Wikipedia being used to "name and shame", particularly those who have not been convicted, my dislike is fully backed by policy of WP:NOT and WP:BLP. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:23, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- If you cannot see what is problematic with a bare list of pedophiles in an encyclopedia, then honestly you have no business being here. On another note, kudos to the block of "OppositeMan" above, I had dealings with this obvious sock recently. Tarc (talk) 18:02, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- (e/c) We are one of the top-10 web sites of the world, and arguably the primary source of encyclopaedic information for much of the anglosphere. What pops up in search results can ruin people's lives. Inclusion critera be damned (not that they actually support your argument; what may be good in the body of an article may not be acceptable as an isolated bullet point in a list) – we have a responsibility as human beings to avoid doing harm to bystanders our of sheer irresponsibility and lack of thought to the impact of what we do. — Coren (talk) 18:05, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Again, completely as devils advocate (all the reasons to delete make 100% sense) - we already disclaim ourselves as not reliable, not for medical advice, not for legal advice, etc. etc. If people are expected to be able to take an accusation made on a WP - at worst unsourced - as the basis to ruin someone's life in a legal manner, I would think they are far far outside any basis to follow this up, no worse than a random post in some blog or forum somewhere. We would only be including such incidents that a reliable source has already published - with the person's name - ergo we're not rumor-mongering ourselves. --MASEM (t) 18:16, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Right – in the context of an article, that's a reasonable assumption. The problem with a list is that you're stripping most of that context away. I'm not saying your argument is unreasonable, but that the benefit of a list like this to the encyclopaedia is so marginal that the very real prospect of expectable harm from it popping up in search results tip the balance (far, IMO) on the side of "no". — Coren (talk) 18:21, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Again, completely as devils advocate (all the reasons to delete make 100% sense) - we already disclaim ourselves as not reliable, not for medical advice, not for legal advice, etc. etc. If people are expected to be able to take an accusation made on a WP - at worst unsourced - as the basis to ruin someone's life in a legal manner, I would think they are far far outside any basis to follow this up, no worse than a random post in some blog or forum somewhere. We would only be including such incidents that a reliable source has already published - with the person's name - ergo we're not rumor-mongering ourselves. --MASEM (t) 18:16, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- But how are these arguments any different to WP:IDONTLIKEIT? Betty Logan (talk) 17:55, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, but that's insanely irresponsible. People's lives are routinely ruined with accusations of child abuse – even when they were unsubstantiated and they were fully cleared of all charges. Even if there was overwhelming consensus to make a list of people who had actual convictions, a list of people just prosecuted would be downright evil. — Coren (talk) 17:32, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Prosecutions often generate just as much coverage as convictions, so in terms of notability I don't think we can set a higher threshold than what is generally perceived as good enough to be considered notable. Betty Logan (talk) 17:25, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- absolutely NOT "prosecuted" - it would need to be "convicted" to have any potential as a valid wikipedia subject. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:22, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Good to kill it. Add to the above reasons the variability in definitions. For example, an 18 year old having sex with her 17 year old future husband is a pedophile in many jurisdictions. North8000 (talk) 17:19, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Well done Coren. Dougweller (talk) 18:42, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Yes. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 19:24, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Ditto. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:26, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Unnecessary endorsement from Philosopher Let us reason together. 19:41, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Good call. --Rschen7754 19:46, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Agree with this deletion. In my personal capacity, though I have little doubt that my professional capacity would not differ. -Philippe (talk) 19:58, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Meh. Rklawton (talk) 20:07, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Definitely deserved deletion. As I've stated before (and as touched on above by Coren), pedophilia is accurately defined as the primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children (including those who look prepubescent), not as sexual attraction to those who have clearly developed secondary sex characteristics. Additionally, there are no laws against pedophilia. There are child sexual abuse and statutory rape laws, of course. But despite the media using "convicted pedophile" interchangeably with "convicted sex offender," there's no such thing as someone convicted of pedophilia. Unless you count Kansas v. Hendricks, which is about sexual offense in addition to the mental disorder, no country has any law against the mental disorder. Specifically, these laws are against the acts of sexually abusing prepubescent children or engaging in sexual activity with adolescent and/or teenage minors. It's age of consent and age of majority that vary from one jurisdiction/country to the next. If Coren hadn't brought up the "20 year old who had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend" example, I would have...as I've given such examples before (on and off Wikipedia) when trying to educate people on what pedophilia is and isn't. I never can grasp how people act as though there is some drastic physical and/or mental age difference between 16 and 18-year-olds and especially not when comparing 17 and 18-year-olds. There's not much difference in a 20-year-old being romantically/sexually involved with an 18-year-old as opposed to a 17-year-old. All three individuals are biological adults; it's just that, for most countries, one of them (the 17-year-old) still has yet to achieve legal adulthood. Flyer22 (talk) 20:42, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- FWIW I agree - but are admins aware that there is also Category:Pedophilia, that includes some living people (such as Gary Glitter) and some dead and unconvicted people (such as Jimmy Savile). Is there support for removing them? Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:07, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Righteous delete per Coren. NE Ent (talk) 21:58, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse deletion. Just out of interest, was that in response to the thread here? Andreas JN466 22:23, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- It was the right call. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:46, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- 100% agreement. Well done Coren. Daniel (talk) 23:50, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
I was just reading a bio of a fellow who committed suicide after being accused of such things and 100 years later folks are still arguing about it. I am glad that you nipped this in the bud right away. einar aka Carptrash (talk) 01:29, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- A notice of further developments: The aforementioned deletion review was opened by User:Dream Focus at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 November 18#List of pedophiles some hours ago. This being a noticeboard after all, let's have all of the discussion there, not here, please. Uncle G (talk) 10:06, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Courses extension is up and running
The Education Program extension for structured course pages for classes is now live. (It's actually been deployed for a few weeks, but unrelated platform updates introduced a critical bug that it took us a little while to fix.) Per the RfC on using the extension, it's now available for use by US and Canada Education Program, as well as whatever other courses the community chooses to use it for. See Special:SpecialPages#Education for the various features and lists of courses.
Admins now have the ability to create (and delete) institutions and courses, and to assign the user rights for "course coordinators" (non-admins who will be able to create and remove courses, mark people as instructors or volunteers, and use the rest of the extension features), "online volunteers" or "campus volunteers" (people helping out with courses, such as Online and Campus Ambassadors), and "course instructors".
I'll be beta testing it with one of the current classes, Education Program:University of Guelph-Humber/Currents in Twentieth Century World History (2012 Q4), as well as building up the documentation for course pages. Now's also the time to figure out how we want to use this for independent classes; it should make it easier to keep tabs on classes and catch problems early, so trying it out by offering it to a few classes that we discover editing on their own might be a good first step.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 17:52, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- How was this enabled when it was rejected by the community? 140.247.141.146 (talk) 21:23, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Need the help, from admin
- The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
I have tried to make a minor edit to a page in relation to the 2012 US house elections. My edit kept getting un done. So I put in the talk page why I kept putting it back PLUS other pages which has the same edit to prove it common policy.
Page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2012 bottom one....
But what caused this to be placed here? Some editor made some rather rude remake, and is trying to whitewash common policy. I could have made that edit 10 sec but I was polite and give other people plenty if time before I put them back in. Not because I had run out of edits. Even if all editors disagree it goes against making sure wiki stays neutral --Crazyseiko (talk) 22:43, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- I am not an admin, and it is not an admin's help you need. Admins use a mop and bucket to clean up messes, they don't intervene in disputes about content.
- If you want your opinion to win the day you need to build consensus with care and politeness, and then abide by the consensus even if it goes against you. Complaining about things is not usually helpful. Feel free to complain if that is what you want to do, but please try to resolve things like this without involving others. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 22:57, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- it makes a mockery if it not changed to be inline with all other wiki pages in the same subject matter.--Crazyseiko (talk) 23:41, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Article on user needs to be considered again....
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.
A blacklist seems to be associated with that name. I don't understand why, as the person/character is noteworthy of an article on this site, and I've contacted some lawyers along with myself to resolve this issue. I hope anyone here is willing to reconsider allowing the article for open creation and edits. Thank you!
- Lawyer — Preceding unsigned comment added by ALawyerIsGood (talk • contribs) 02:28, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- I've indeffed the reporter for legal threats and probable sock puppetry. The article referred to was speedily deleted for vandalism.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:38, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
G7 Speedy deletion request
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Per this MfD post, Liverpoolmylove wants User:Liverpoolmylove/twinkleoptions.js deleted. The page is protected and won't allow any speedy delete tags from others. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 12:04, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Review of RFC closure
Could some uninvolved editors please review the closure of the above RFC. The discussion had been archived off the page for some time. The last comments were made 26 September, and at that point, there were 2 full supports of the proposal (the proposer and 1 other), 2 partial supports, and 8 fully opposed to the proposal. User:Eraserhead1 went out of his way to unarchive the discussion, close it, and enact the proposal as having consensus, in his words "consensus in favour". I know that consensus discussions are not a vote, but even being generous we have at best a 33% support to 67% oppose. That's not a consensus. When approached to reconsider by myself and several people, he has steadfastly refused to reconsider his closure, dismissing all of the oppose votes save one as "complete rubbish" (his words). Thanks to anyone who looks this over. --Jayron32 20:02, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- Of note this discussion was listed in the "requests for closure" section at the top of this page as a discussion awaiting closure - that's why I closed the discussion.
- With regards to why I closed it that way. Well I didn't see even a weak argument to explain how the previous position was protecting us from attracting libel cases (which is the point of WP:BLP). Additionally the sources in question which are all among the world's highest courts, seemed like the sort of sources that people would use anyway, so the prohibition seemed particularly counterproductive. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:35, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- The opposes did have clear, logical, policy based rationales, however. When you close a discussion, you aren't supposed to give your opinion on the question at hand, you're supposed to give a summation of the comments others have made. When you close an discussion based on your own opinion regarding answering the initial question, that's what WP:SUPERVOTE means. It's fine to vote on the discussion if you care about the outcome, but you shouldn't close discussions where you have a feeling one way or the other. The way you closed it makes it clear that you had an opinion of your own. You can't just discount people who oppose the proposal as "rubbish", and there were many reasons to oppose the proposal: libel concerns were NOT the only valid reason to oppose it. Several people opposed on other grounds; you can't just discount those reasons. Merely because there are people who argue differently that you would have doesn't mean their arguments are invalid. You need to give weight to all reasonable sides to the argument, and if you can't, you should vote for yourself and leave the closing to someone who can. --Jayron32 20:59, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- If the opposes really have "clear logical policy based" rationales then it should be trivial for you to explain to me how the old way of doing things was protecting us from attracting libel cases. Given we are talking about the BLP policy here, what other rationales could be relevant?
- With regards to opinions, I had no opinion on the matter before closing the discussion. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:14, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- Again, you're stance here is that any oppose which isn't about "protecting us from attracting libel cases" is invalid. That makes no sense. One could argue (as several did) that the use of unanalyzed primary sources represents WP:UNDUE weight to those sources, which is against Wikipedia policy on both original research WP:SYNTH and presenting a point of view that exists in secondary source WP:NPOV. None of those arguments has anything to do with Libel, but are squarely grounded in Wikipedia policy. And those were the sorts of arguments you called "rubbish". Again, merely because the oppose votes weren't about "protecting us from attracting libel cases" doesn't mean they were invalid. Also, there were only two people who wholeheartedly supported the measure as proposed. Two. Changing a policy like BLP should be done on sturdier ground than the support of two people and the lukewarm support of two more. --Jayron32 21:28, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- If there are issues with the use of these sources which are covered by other policies why exactly do we need to repeat ourselves in WP:BLP? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:47, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- Again, you're stance here is that any oppose which isn't about "protecting us from attracting libel cases" is invalid. That makes no sense. One could argue (as several did) that the use of unanalyzed primary sources represents WP:UNDUE weight to those sources, which is against Wikipedia policy on both original research WP:SYNTH and presenting a point of view that exists in secondary source WP:NPOV. None of those arguments has anything to do with Libel, but are squarely grounded in Wikipedia policy. And those were the sorts of arguments you called "rubbish". Again, merely because the oppose votes weren't about "protecting us from attracting libel cases" doesn't mean they were invalid. Also, there were only two people who wholeheartedly supported the measure as proposed. Two. Changing a policy like BLP should be done on sturdier ground than the support of two people and the lukewarm support of two more. --Jayron32 21:28, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- The opposes did have clear, logical, policy based rationales, however. When you close a discussion, you aren't supposed to give your opinion on the question at hand, you're supposed to give a summation of the comments others have made. When you close an discussion based on your own opinion regarding answering the initial question, that's what WP:SUPERVOTE means. It's fine to vote on the discussion if you care about the outcome, but you shouldn't close discussions where you have a feeling one way or the other. The way you closed it makes it clear that you had an opinion of your own. You can't just discount people who oppose the proposal as "rubbish", and there were many reasons to oppose the proposal: libel concerns were NOT the only valid reason to oppose it. Several people opposed on other grounds; you can't just discount those reasons. Merely because there are people who argue differently that you would have doesn't mean their arguments are invalid. You need to give weight to all reasonable sides to the argument, and if you can't, you should vote for yourself and leave the closing to someone who can. --Jayron32 20:59, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- I went to go look at it, but the legalese seems to be above my head : )
- That said, if no one else looks it over, I'll see if I can figure out what the discussion consensus is. But I'd rather someone a bit more fluent in the verbiage would look it over. - jc37 20:49, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- If you can find a coherent argument in the opposition feel free to close it differently. I couldn't see one. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:53, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- Well as I suggested at the top, the legalese verbiage is a bit beyond me. (IANAL). that said, I've re-read the discussion several times, and I think I see several arguements from both sides of the issue - Though to me, I see some other sub-"sides" to this as well. It seems one of the issues at hand is that quite a bit of things are combined into a few sentences on the policy page. At least a few of the opposers seem to agree with part, but disagree with part.
- All that said, this is not an easy discussion to read : )
- I think I'm going to have to re-read it a few more times... - jc37 21:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- Incidentally, I really dislike ever using the term "supervote" when discussing a closure. For one thing, I (like most closers) have been accused of it myself in the past, (when I clearly was assessing the discussion and closing based upon it). Sour grapes after a close is not uncommon. That said, the wording of this closure is unfortunate in that it really does appear to look like a "vote" rather than an interpretation of the discussion. If nothing else, I might suggest rephrasing the closure. - jc37 21:26, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- If you can find a coherent argument in the opposition feel free to close it differently. I couldn't see one. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:53, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)There was an RFC. Discussion ground to a halt on 26 September. Nothing happened for 30 days when a bot moved the still open and ignored discussion into the archives on 26 October. On 5 November a request was posted the requests for closure subsection of this page (watched by 3600), where it lingered, untouched, for 11 days. Eraserhead1 reviewed the situation and made a decision. Now it's opposed by a participant in the discussion with a rationale including the self-contradictory arguments that it's not a vote while presenting the tally of the votes. Wikipedia:Rfc#Ending_RfCs states "it can be formally closed by any uninvolved editor. " As amplified by WP:CLOSE "If discussions involve several individuals the discourse can become lengthy and the results hard to determine.. After a while, it is time to close the discussion so that the community can move on." (emphasis original) There's no policy provision for admin review of a content discussion (RFC). Unless evidence of involvement by the closer is presented, the community should support the work of a volunteer willing to close a discussion; If editor(s) are unhappy with the closure, I'd recommend a new RFC, perhaps with the question reworded for clarity. NE Ent 21:32, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- This is a key issue (how to use primary sources) in a key content policy. A significant change can't be pushed through by two or three people when there's clear opposition. So the close is moot, because it can't as it stands be enacted. We could go through the process of finding an admin to endorse or overturn the closure -- or we could just remove the closure and re-archive the RfC -- but I hope Eraserhead will take into account the opposition to his closure on the BLP talk page, and will himself withdraw it. It seemed so obvious to me that this was a failed proposal that I didn't even add an oppose myself, and I may not be the only person who acted that way, so this is in every sense an unexpected and unfortunate conclusion to the discussion. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:39, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- I'm perfectly happy to rephrase the closure so that it doesn't override other policies aside from the change to WP:BLP.
- With regards to not participating in the discussion, frankly that is your problem.
- With regards to RFC closes it seems that WP:RFC offers no immediate right of appeal, perhaps you should focus your efforts on changing that policy so there is a formalised review option. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:47, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- If you could close it to summarize and reflect the consensus (which can't ignore numbers), rather than adding an opinion yourself, that would be appreciated. As for appealing, there is no formal anything. As things stand, your closure won't be enacted, and anyone can ask any admin to re-close. But I hope you won't make us jump through that hoop. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:30, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- According to which policy or guideline? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:38, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- If you could close it to summarize and reflect the consensus (which can't ignore numbers), rather than adding an opinion yourself, that would be appreciated. As for appealing, there is no formal anything. As things stand, your closure won't be enacted, and anyone can ask any admin to re-close. But I hope you won't make us jump through that hoop. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:30, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Note: All closes are subject to review at WP:AN through long common practice. We just also have the benefit of some review processes like DRV or MRV for certain kinds of closures. If that isn't codified into some policy page, it should be. - jc37 21:54, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- The fundamental problem even with review here is that every single time you close something remotely difficult you get whining about it. Frankly in the small number cases where an RFC gets closed incorrectly without a formalised review option spelt out in WP:RFC the easiest and simplest way forward is probably for another RFC to be held. That is probably the best way to avoid making the closer lose face and unfortunately probably the best way to avoid wasting too much time.
- At the end of the day if I and the very small number of other closers stop closing discussions then the project will completely grind to a halt. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:10, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- But in this case the issue had settled itself. The proposer had not gained consensus, and had allowed the RfC to be archived. This is a key part of a key content policy. It can't be changed so casually when there are more objections than there is agreement. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:30, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- According to which policy or guideline does a proposal which gets archived automatically get closed as no consensus? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:38, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- But in this case the issue had settled itself. The proposer had not gained consensus, and had allowed the RfC to be archived. This is a key part of a key content policy. It can't be changed so casually when there are more objections than there is agreement. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:30, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- Oh I agree a follow up RfC would be fine. (The more I read the discussion, the more I think it's difficult to see a clear consensus for anything from that discussion.) I merely was informing of common practice.
- And I believe I noted about sour grapes after a close, above.
- And while I might like to think I'm an important cog in the Wikipedia machine, we're all merely Wikipedians here, and can be replaced. (This speaking as a closer myself : ) - jc37 22:22, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
The close seems all wrong, as it ignored what seems to be consensus to oppose. But I don't really care about the close of a conversation that I didn't participate in; I just don't want to see such odd and unique provisions being added to policy, on the suggestion of a few and the opposition of many. Dicklyon (talk) 22:29, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- "odd and unique provisions" - this is the best opposition argument so far. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:38, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- A couple comments:
- I generally think Eraserhead1 does a good job handling the backlog at AN/RFC
- this isn't going to be enacted no matter how the discussion is closed
- Ignoring some comments may be appropriate sometimes; for instance if someone argues that we need to label all tomatoes as suspension bridges per BLP
- Eraserhead1 asserts that the point of WP:BLP is "...protecting us from attracting libel cases"
- The possibility of harming the subject is codified into the lead of the BLP policy ("...the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment.")
- Ignoring comments that argued that BLP is, at least partially, about protecting living persons was not based in policy
- I see no alternative but to overturn the closure and remove the current summary at the top. I think archiving the discussion with a simple "no change" result would be sufficient. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 18:38, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Side step
Instead of getting heavily involved in a back and forth discussing appropriateness of the closure, I think we can sidestep all of this and cite Wikipedia:Deletion_process#Non-administrators_closing_discussions, and suggest that the discussion falls under "close calls and contentious discussions", which the page suggests "are best left to an administrator".
I personally would prefer to not unilaterally revert the closure under this guideline, but if others concur, we can just revert, and leave it for someone else to close. To paraphrase WP:ADMIN: "There's always another closer" - jc37 22:45, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- If Eraserhead won't agree to remove the close himself, it seems clear that there's consensus enough for someone else to do it (in fact I think everyone commenting so far has said there was no consensus). It would be best if it were done by someone who did not comment during the RfC. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:51, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Given Dicklyon has presented an opposition argument that actually makes sense lets change the close to no consensus to avoid further drama. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:58, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- The policy for deletion process is not applicable to RFCs. NE Ent 23:11, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- That is merely one place where this common practice concerning closures is codified. That said, I would welcome it if you wished to start a discussion for codifying a standalone guideline for non admin closure. WP:NAC is currently merely an essay. - jc37 23:15, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- More urgently we need a review process codifying - and really a change to WP:CONSENSUS to clarify whether a supermajority automatically counts as a consensus would be good too. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:22, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- WP:NOTAVOTE - jc37 23:24, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- So if supermajorities aren't automatically a consensus, barring Dicklyon's comment above, why was this even raised for review here? At best all we can say is that consensus was weak - which I think was a fair point. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:30, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- I didn't raise it for review here, so I'm probably not the one to ask. I'm merely attempting to helpfully follow up on what others have asked. - jc37 23:36, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- So if supermajorities aren't automatically a consensus, barring Dicklyon's comment above, why was this even raised for review here? At best all we can say is that consensus was weak - which I think was a fair point. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:30, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- "By convention, administrators also normally take responsibility for judging the outcome of certain discussions, such as deletion discussions, move discussions, and move-review discussions" RFC is not on that list. The policy pages are pretty clear. The logical long term consequences of admins feeling entitled to simply overturn the good faith efforts of editors closing RFCs is they'll (non-admin editors) stop doing it. Given this RFC had fallen, unclosed, off the radar, this would not be beneficial for the Encyclopedia. The net effect is that "consensus" will be determine by the most persistent editors, willing to filibuster discussion until they succeed in getting their version in place, not by uninvolved volunteers acting in the best interests of the Encyclopedia. NE Ent 23:41, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- Given in this case about two editors presented a decent argument in favour, and one presented a reasonable one in opposition (albeit here in the review rather than in the original RFC) I think it isn't worth fussing too much.
- Frankly the comments about "consensus" being determined by the most persistent editors has been going on for ages - see the endless list of baseless challenges to my closures on my talk page and the endless list of discussions to close at the top of this page. The only really shocking aspect of this particular case is that the editors who have argued here have all been around forever and really should know better. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:57, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- It seems to me that the original closure statement [1] was effectively a !vote - which makes the entire closure inappropriate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:11, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- The closure, in fact, asserted a positive "consensus" - if one wishes to assert a "consensus" there dang well should have been one. If a closer wishes to say "policy requires this close" and thus does not invoke "consensus" that would be a different matter - but the closer specifically said that a consensus existed, which was quite unapparent to all the folks who gave opinions. Cheers. Collect (talk) 00:17, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- It seems to me that the original closure statement [1] was effectively a !vote - which makes the entire closure inappropriate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:11, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- That is merely one place where this common practice concerning closures is codified. That said, I would welcome it if you wished to start a discussion for codifying a standalone guideline for non admin closure. WP:NAC is currently merely an essay. - jc37 23:15, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
The problem is that when weighing up the arguments you are perfectly entitled to ignore positions that you don't think are valid, and in fact you should do that - otherwise you are just treating the matter as a vote. Additionally it seems from the above discussion that I was right to ignore their positions as while they managed to make some policy based arguments, all of them would be directly covered by other policies and thus didn't need repeating in WP:BLP which is all about preventing us getting sued for libel.
The only real point that perhaps I should have done better is that a consensus which only essentially involved 3 people or so should have been closed as no consensus by definition. Additionally I'm sorry my closure statement wasn't particularly well worded. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:45, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- No, you're not entitled to ignore arguments just because you personally don't think they are valid. That's clearly supervote behaviour - the discussion essentially becomes a contest to convince the closing administrator that their side is right, not to produce a consensus. You are allowed to discount clearly flawed or logically fallacious arguments, but not reasonable arguments that you don't find persuasive. It isn't realistic to expect participants in discussions about changing policy to cite policy to support their viewpoints. Otherwise it would be impossible to change any policies. Hut 8.5 11:32, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- With regards to arguments I expected them to refer back to the point of the policy which is to avoid libel claims - which they utterly failed to do - thus the points weren't really valid.
- Besides if you aren't allowed to discount arguments that aren't persuasive how are you supposed to assess a WP:CONSENSUS? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 16:50, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- An argument not being persuasive to you doesn't mean it isn't a valid position. The closer has to reflect the consensus of the discussion, not impose an opinion, and while numbers alone don't determine consensus, they can't be ignored either. If any single editor could close any RfC in any direction by discounting every opinion as unpersuasive to him personally, there would be no point in holding RfCs. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:01, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Any close will be "imposing an opinion" at some level - that's what's being requested as we aren't closing discussions as a vote. What is important is that the closer doesn't come into the discussion with a pre-existing bias.
- Ultimately to avoid bias from individual closers you need a healthy and sensible review option - and that is something we currently don't have. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:05, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Discussions are a vote to some extent. Your mistake was to ignore the numbers completely. And it looked as though you did have a bias, or at least a misunderstanding of the policy. You wrote: " It seems pretty obvious that this group of international courts are going to be impartial and serious ..." when (a) it's not obvious at all; and (b) that is not the point. The point is whether issues discussed by a court are notable, i.e. whether secondary sources have discussed them. That is part of the point of BLPPRIMARY -- to prevent editors from adding original research to BLPs based on issues raised only in court documents. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:20, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- An argument not being persuasive to you doesn't mean it isn't a valid position. The closer has to reflect the consensus of the discussion, not impose an opinion, and while numbers alone don't determine consensus, they can't be ignored either. If any single editor could close any RfC in any direction by discounting every opinion as unpersuasive to him personally, there would be no point in holding RfCs. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:01, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
With regards to consensus as per WP:CONSENSUS "In determining consensus, consider the quality of the arguments, the history of how they came about, the objections of those who disagree, and existing documentation in the project namespace. The quality of an argument is more important than whether it represents a minority or a majority view. The arguments "I just don't like it" and "I just like it" usually carry no weight whatsoever." - so WP:CONSENSUS in fact explicitly states that majority/minority views shouldn't be taken into account. If the community feels that you should take numbers into account to some extent then WP:CONSENSUS needs updating accordingly first.
It is also true that in general primary sources are worse than secondary sources, however when the primary source is one of the world's highest courts that doesn't seem likely to be a bad source - and therefore it isn't really going to protect the project from libel claims to explicitly prevent such sources from being used is it? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:30, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- It does not say that minority/majority views shouldn't be taken into account. It says that the numbers on each side are less important than the quality of an argument. This doesn't mean that the numbers on each side can't be taken into account. The barrier to discounting or assigning reduced weight to an arguments is considerably higher than "the closer doesn't agree with it". Arguments can be discounted for being logically fallacious, for being convincingly rebutted, for contradicting longstanding principle or wider consensus, or for many other reasons, but not simply because the one editor who is closing the discussion doesn't agree with them. The role of the closer is not merely to provide an previously uninvolved view of the situation (that's what participants do), and consensus is, at least in theory, independent of whoever closes the discussion. The last paragraph you wrote above strongly suggests you should have contributed an opinion to the RfC instead of closing it. Hut 8.5 17:47, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Fair point. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:03, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
So what happens with disputed closes
Sorry to semi hijack this thread, but a similar case was virtually ignored. So in a general sense what is the process for dealing with disputed RFC closes. I assumed it was to bring them here, but if they are ignored here what is the next step. Does the original close stand, does it revert to a no consensus one or do we simply open up the RFC again and wait for another closer? AIRcorn (talk) 10:10, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- In different ways all of those options are terrible (leaving the original close to stand is bad if the close was bad, and the other two lead to a minority being able to prevent anything other than no consensus by complaining - even if it is meritless), as is leaving it to rot here. so the simple answer is you're fucked.
- At least until Jimbo and/or Arbcom imposes a sane solution on the community or the community grows up enough that they will accept some sort of improvement beyond the current status quo. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 10:43, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Aircorn, if the first close was a non-admin closure, you can ask an admin to endorse or overturn it. If it was an admin closure, you can ask two others (admins or experienced editors) to look at it again, or a bureaucrat (if it's an important policy issue, for example), and so on in effort to gain consensus. There are no rules about this; it's a question of common sense, and I have never seen a case where it didn't work out, so long as enough people were involved.
- It's unlikely the requests for review would be ignored if worded clearly and posted to the right places, though it might take some time for people to respond. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:10, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Although this seems fairly sensible this is all something that you've made up, and isn't in any way codified, so really it is up to the discretion of the individual closer.
- Additionally as with any review it is also dependent on admins and others being willing to review closures, which frankly doesn't seem to be happening. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:22, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- I'm going to step in here and disagree respectfully, but strongly, with SlimVirgin's statement "If the first close was a non-admin closure, you can ask an admin to endorse or overturn it." That is a completely and totally wrongheaded view of what adminiship is. Admins are not given special magical override power on anything at Wikipedia, and that includes closing discussions. Admins have tools that allow them to block, delete, and protect. And that is all. Admins don't have a "override closure" tool. If a closure by any editor is believed to be in error, the correct procedure is a) ask the editor to reconsider and b) ask the community to review it. There is no special administrator power to overturn a closure unilaterally. --Jayron32 23:46, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- The closing editor (a non-admin if that matters) was asked about their close and they stood by it. However, they were more than happy to have the closure reviewed. It has been brought here twice and archived without resolution twice. The first time one admin offered to close it under certain conditions, but the person filing the review request did not appear to accept those conditions (not sure whether that was the reason it went no further). The second time it did not attract a single comment. Here is the diff of the latest question,[2] to which the answer appears to be that no one is willing to take it on (understandable, but not very useful). I don't know what the next course of action in this situation is. AIRcorn (talk) 02:15, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
- I'm going to step in here and disagree respectfully, but strongly, with SlimVirgin's statement "If the first close was a non-admin closure, you can ask an admin to endorse or overturn it." That is a completely and totally wrongheaded view of what adminiship is. Admins are not given special magical override power on anything at Wikipedia, and that includes closing discussions. Admins have tools that allow them to block, delete, and protect. And that is all. Admins don't have a "override closure" tool. If a closure by any editor is believed to be in error, the correct procedure is a) ask the editor to reconsider and b) ask the community to review it. There is no special administrator power to overturn a closure unilaterally. --Jayron32 23:46, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Recent discussion on ANI -- closing by Kim Dent-Brown (talk · contribs) included statement: "The more complex question that emerged about who can close and/or reopen RfCs does not seem to have been answered ..." I haven't seen compelling evidence the concept admins have special status in RFCs (not Afd, not move discussion, etc.) is supported by any community wide consensus. I've started Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment#Review . NE Ent 17:33, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- (ec; reply to Eraserhead) I haven't made it up; I've been here for years and that's how I've seen RfC reviews being handled. It's a process that's rarely needed and seems to work well -- the problem with writing it down is that it would become inflexible.
- I agree that there's a problem with getting people to close things. I think this is partly caused by people not structuring RfCs clearly. When I open one, I open a section for non-threaded replies (for "the vote," which our ideology says doesn't matter, but of course it does), and a second section for threaded discussion. I do that to save the poor closer having to wade through everything trying to pick out the key comment from each person. I've looked myself a few times at the AN/RFC board intending to close a few, but I end up not doing it because of the mass of comment I'd have to read. If we could persuade editors to streamline their RfCs a bit more, I think more people would be inclined to close. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:37, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- With regards to your first comment, I disagree. It might be OK for you to not have it written down, as clearly you have a strong personality. However for people with weaker personalities, or for newer closers, it would be of great benefit. I'm also not really clear on what benefits there are in this case of being flexible that you wouldn't be able to use WP:IAR for.
- With regards to structure I'm sure that is an issue - but it is also an issue that can be easily addressed. Simply add a list of example well structured RFC's to the policy and/or templates people use. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:48, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Personally, I might be inclined to review a massive wall of text if I didn't know that anyone who didn't like my conclusion could just go whining "it wasn't closed by an admin." The statements "It's a process that's rarely needed and seems to work well" and "there's a problem getting people to close things" are incoherent. NE Ent 17:57, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Aside from the first time, after which it was pointed out that there were no admins willing to make closes, no-one has made any reference to any closure being made by a non-admin. I'm not really convinced that you wouldn't get exactly the same treatment as an actual admin, and that is why so few admins are willing to close discussions. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:09, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- The non-admin status of the closer was a key element of discussion in the ANI discussion I linked above. NE Ent 18:47, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Aside from the first time, after which it was pointed out that there were no admins willing to make closes, no-one has made any reference to any closure being made by a non-admin. I'm not really convinced that you wouldn't get exactly the same treatment as an actual admin, and that is why so few admins are willing to close discussions. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:09, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- I agree that there's a problem with getting people to close things. I think this is partly caused by people not structuring RfCs clearly. When I open one, I open a section for non-threaded replies (for "the vote," which our ideology says doesn't matter, but of course it does), and a second section for threaded discussion. I do that to save the poor closer having to wade through everything trying to pick out the key comment from each person. I've looked myself a few times at the AN/RFC board intending to close a few, but I end up not doing it because of the mass of comment I'd have to read. If we could persuade editors to streamline their RfCs a bit more, I think more people would be inclined to close. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:37, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Possible BLP issue?
A user Cmp10111 (talk · contribs) has just posted "Please can this page be deleted as it is almost entirely untrue and part of an elaborate prank? Many thanks" in an AfD discussion for a child actor's BLP. However, it's not the original page creator. Previously the same account was used to blank the page [3], but that was reverted by a bot. Just bringing this to attention in case it's an issue. Not sure how these things are handled. §FreeRangeFrog 23:08, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
- It seems highly unlikely to be a prank, since PBS credits him on their website as appearing in one of their programs, but it does look like a lot of content was recently chopped from the article, presumably that is what they were talking about. For the record we do have a dedicated noticeboard for BLP issues at WP:BLPN. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:05, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) First, a reminder to notify users when you begin a discussion on AN about them (even if you're not requesting a block or other action against them). That said, he seems to object to the previous content of the article, and rightly so. He unsuccessfully attempted to remove unsourced and absurd content twice([4], [5]), before eventually being saved from 3RR by TRPoD [6]. That said, the article itself need not be deleted because of that content, and if the AfD debate determines that the article is notable then it will stay (though I rather doubt that will happen). I don't think any action needs to be taken, especially since the article's already in AfD, but someone could explain to Cmp10111 what's going on, since he seems to be confused and urgently seeking a deletion. Coppaar (talk) 00:17, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- I have revdeleted the versions of the article that contained all the unsourced content as it did contain some pretty serious BLP violations. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:22, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Really old RfD backlog
The Redirects for discussion backlog has unclosed discussions from October 19. It would be much appreciated if some admins could work on this. Thanks, Ego White Tray (talk) 06:22, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Actually, it looks like it's back to October 3 Ego White Tray (talk) 06:26, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Yet more evidence that we need to completely reform the closure process. FWIW RFC's have a backlog to the beginning of September.
- And seriously if the project isn't going to die then we actually need to solve this problem. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:47, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- You think the project is going to die if old "Redirects for discussion" and "Request for comments" aren't closed? Really? Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:12, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- If we can't make decisions about anything how can the project survive? Redirects may not matter, but RFC's, AfD etc etc. all do. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:16, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Thousands, if not millions, of decisions which affect the encyclopedia are made and executed every single day, by individuals and by group consensus. That a limited number of - perhaps thorny, but also perhaps trivial - questions haven't been closed out is not, in my mind, of such great consequence that it threatens the survival of the project. Yes, it would be nice if things got done, but it's hardly of such urgency as you portray. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:58, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- How can we know that? Roman Empires, Soviet Unions, Myspace, Yahoo (close to), Hostess Brands -- lots of longstanding institutions can suddenly reach their tipping point. WP has a a quarter million unreferenced articles. Getting stuck on an issue, requesting help with an RFC and getting no help is not encouraging to editors. At some point a critical mass of dissatisfaction could snowball. It's arrogant to think that Wikipedia is invulnerable to the same force of histories that tend to sweep away complacent organizations. NE Ent 19:11, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- I had not previously come across the theory that unclosed "Redirectionum ad Discussionem" had brought down the Roman Empire. I though it had something to do with lead in the dishes and barbarians at the gate. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:29, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Incidentally, just as it's more important that discussions are closed correctly than that they are just closed, it is more important that articles be factually correct than that they are referenced. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:33, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- I had not previously come across the theory that unclosed "Redirectionum ad Discussionem" had brought down the Roman Empire. I though it had something to do with lead in the dishes and barbarians at the gate. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:29, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Comparing Wikipedia to societal or political collapses, or even underwater companies, seems a tad dramatic. This really isn't a big deal; backlogs, even severe ones, are nothing new whatsoever, and this particular issue isn't even that daunting; RfDs are still being routinely closed, it's just that no one's bothering with the more contentious ones. Now that it's brought to our attention, I'll start taking a look and I'm sure other admins will as well, and we'll get it resolved. Swarm X 19:26, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- How can we know that? Roman Empires, Soviet Unions, Myspace, Yahoo (close to), Hostess Brands -- lots of longstanding institutions can suddenly reach their tipping point. WP has a a quarter million unreferenced articles. Getting stuck on an issue, requesting help with an RFC and getting no help is not encouraging to editors. At some point a critical mass of dissatisfaction could snowball. It's arrogant to think that Wikipedia is invulnerable to the same force of histories that tend to sweep away complacent organizations. NE Ent 19:11, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Thousands, if not millions, of decisions which affect the encyclopedia are made and executed every single day, by individuals and by group consensus. That a limited number of - perhaps thorny, but also perhaps trivial - questions haven't been closed out is not, in my mind, of such great consequence that it threatens the survival of the project. Yes, it would be nice if things got done, but it's hardly of such urgency as you portray. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:58, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- If we can't make decisions about anything how can the project survive? Redirects may not matter, but RFC's, AfD etc etc. all do. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:16, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- You think the project is going to die if old "Redirects for discussion" and "Request for comments" aren't closed? Really? Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:12, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Caught up a bunch. Backlog now only to Oct 30. - jc37 19:41, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- well, thanks for the help. I posted here already some weeks ago without response. I wouldn't say that noon has been bothering to close contentious ones, rather since summer with a few regulars we've been shifting this backlog merely over.[7] One point at RFD is low participation so they stay often open to see if some has a new argument or in sight . --Tikiwont (talk) 20:34, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Range blocks
Could an admin familiar with range blocks take a look at Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Broadway Hoaxer and see if anything can be done with blocking this person? I'm concerned that what we're catching of his vandalism might be the tip of the iceberg, and articles are being distorted with his misinformation without being discovered. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:39, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- From which IPs has this vandal most recently been active? AGK [•] 20:04, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- 71.183.177.19, 71.183.182.212, 96.224.19.69, 96.224.16.71 and 96.224.17.19 are some that I am aware of. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:13, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Kiranreddy9999
Kiranreddy9999 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been engaged in the creation of multiple low-quality articles about the location of India where he apparently resides. It's incredibly difficult to deal with these as they come up in NPP. I've fixed a few, PRODed a few, and posted in his talk page asking him to examine the article creation process and MOS to improve his contributions. Is there some kind of "timeout" that can be imposed on users so they take notice about the problems their contributions are creating? This is not a new user, he has a long history of contributions but as far as I can see he/she does not respond to notices in the talk page. A few examples:
- Nizamabad Sportspersons
- Nizamabad Film Artists
- Nizamabad Politicians
- Dichpally Ramalayam
- Tadpakal Pushkaram
- Village Development Committes in Nizamabad Andhra Pradesh
- Kandakuthi Triveni Sangamam
- Sirnapally Waterfalls
Thanks. §FreeRangeFrog 17:27, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Looks like the Foundation is trying something new and worth bringing to the attention of the admin here. Wikipedia:Merchandise giveaways/Nominations is the page with actual nominations. As someone who is a bit focused on editor retention, I would ask admin to stop by, take a look, perhaps nominate someone and drop off a vote. This is one of those situations where we have a chance to simply and publicly show a little appreciation to the people who actually create content (or admin, it isn't limited), via a kind and sincere comment. The key is keeping it a positive experience. I personally think it is a good morale booster, even for those who don't walk away with a free t-shirt. My understanding is that this is just the first of many give-aways. While being held on enwp, it isn't limited to enwp editors. Please consider spending a few minutes to participate. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 20:21, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Of possible interest, I have started a proposal to close English Wikinews. 86.152.61.18 (talk) 01:15, 19 November 2012 (UTC)