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Refusal to acknowledge RfC closure

An RfC[1] has been closed on Tulsi Gabbard by Red_Slash, yet one editor, SashiRolls, refuses to acknowledge the validity of the closure and edit-wars to remove content agreed-upon in the closure. What should be done? (I posted about this on two other boards before being instructed that this was the right board for this) Snooganssnoogans (talk) 18:35, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

First of all, @Snooganssnoogans: please notify SashiRolls (as required). Second, please provide diffs when making accusations. Thirdly, the main question here seems to be whether Red Slash's closure of the RfC is correct. Based on what was said at the Help Desk, it seems several users disagree. If SashiRolls has edit warred, then you should file a report at WP:AN/EW.

I didn't advise you to come here, but I advised SashiRolls to do so (sorry if I wasn't clear). According to WP:CLOSE, WP:AN is the venue that should be used for challenging RfC closures. Therefore, I propose that you file a report at WP:AN/EW if you wish to do so, but otherwise, that this section is used to discuss what seems a point of contention: was Red Slash's closure of the RfC a correct determination of consensus? I will notify Red Slash. --MrClog (talk) 22:33, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

IMO especially since it's been ~12 days, there's no point us having a discussion on the whether the closure was fair until and unless someone actually brings it here to challenge. Since Snooganssnoogans does not appear to disagree with the closure, there's no reason for us to discuss it solely due to their concerns. So either SashiRolls or someone else who disagrees brings it here then fair enough. The one exception would be Red Slash since it's well accepted that closers can bring their closure for discussion if they feel there are concerns or if they're unsure or just want a sanity check. Nil Einne (talk) 08:38, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

If SashiRolls want to challenge a close, they should first speak to the closer, then bring it here. If they are edit warring over the close, this would be a problem, but as MrClog said, we need diffs and frankly I'm not seeing the problem. They did undo the close once about 12 days ago [2] and as per my earlier comment I don't think this was the right way to challenge the close, but given it was a single time, not something us worth worrying about on AN even if it just happened. Someone could have just told them it's not the right way to challenge the close and revert which ultimate is I think what happened. After they reverted the close, they added some further comments [3], if the close had been properly undone this would not be a problem but since it wasn't really they shouldn't have but ultimately this stemmed from the way they undid the close so not worth worrying about. They posted one addition after the close was redone [4], again not worth worrying about especially since it seems to have been part of challenging a hatting. (I assume changing nbsp of someone else's comment was either a mistake or they were replacing a unicode one with that.) Since then, there has been little on the talk page. Recently there was this Talk:Tulsi Gabbard#WP:SYNTH problems [5] but whatever it is, it's not part of challenging or disputing the previous RfC. I had a quick look at the article, and none of the recent edits by SashiRolls seem to be related to the RfC either. E.g. [6] [7] mention India and Modi, but are not something dealt with in the RfC. I didn't check the edits on 15th or earlier since they're too old to worry about. So yes, I'm very confused why this is here, as I'm not actually seeing any active problem. If SashiRolls does not wish to properly challenge the close, then they will have to accept the result, but they don't seem to have really done anything on either the article or the article talk page that we need to worry about in recent times. (At least as viewed in the scope of the problem you highlighted.) Nil Einne (talk) 08:30, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Nil Einne, SashiRolls has challanged the outcome at the Help Desk, which is not the proper place. I told them AN was the right place, but they haven't challanged it here. I agree that the situation is stale unless SashiRolls explicitely challanges the RfC closure here. --MrClog (talk) 08:52, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I added part of my full opinion on the talk page at the time. But I think the close, the re-close, any reliance on the close, and the RfC in it entirety, are all sub-par. If anyone specifically requests it, an admin should probably jump in to do a proper close. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 09:27, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

(EC) @MrClog: Well I would put Wikipedia:Help desk#What to do when an editor refuses to abide by RfC closure? a bit different. Although SashiRolls did comment there, like this thread it was started by Snooganssnoogans. I don't understand why Snooganssnoogans feels the need to bring this up at all since as I said, I see no active editing against the RfC even if SashiRolls appears to disagree with it. SashiRolls, is ultimately entitled to keep that POV, they just can't act on it until and unless they properly challenge the close.

Snooganssnoogans mentioned bringing this to multiple boards before finding the right one, but ignoring they're still at the wrong board since there is no right board, when I see the Help Desk discussion I'm even more mystified. I thought maybe when Snooganssnoogans first brought this up it had only been a day or 2 since the RfC closure undone etc so they thought it was pertinent and didn't reconsider when they finally thought they'd found the right board. But that discussion on the Help Desk was only about 1 day ago. I didn't bother to find the first discussion, but I now think Snooganssnoogans really needs to clarify what they mean since they've accused SashiRolls of edit warring against the RfC yet it doesn't look like any such thing has happened for at least 10 days.

Even ~10 days is a stretch. I had a more careful look at the article itself, and the only thing I found which could in any way be said to be possibly against the RfC is [8]. A single edit. So all we really have is a single attempt to revert the close and a single revert to the article all over 10 days ago. So yeah, I really have no idea why this is here. Or at the help desk.

I would note in any case the RfC closure specifically noted at least two of the proposals needed to be reworded so ultimately some more discussion is needed somehow. Even for the final one, while it did not say it had to be re-worded it did not say there was consensus for the proposed wording so discussion on that also seems fair enough. I'm not necessarily saying reverting that edit was the right way to go about it, but it is even more reason for me to go, why are you wasting our time by bringing this here?

Nil Einne (talk) 09:45, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Nil Einne, I didn't bring this here originally, I only commented on it after Snooganssnoogans brought it here, based on what was said at the Help Desk. --MrClog (talk) 09:49, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

P.S. To be clear, I have no problem with your attempts to guide the editors. My only concern is that Snooganssnoogans seems to be making claims which don't seem to be well supported all over the place, and IMO wasting our time in so doing. Nil Einne (talk) 09:51, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Nil Einne, true, which is why I asked for diffs. Thanks for looking into the issue. Take care, MrClog (talk) 09:55, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I brought this here, because I don't want to edit-war with SashiRolls on the Gabbard page (which is covered by DS, 1RR and enforced BRD), which was inevitably where this was heading. I wanted to make sure that I was in the right to follow the closure of the RfC before I reverted SashiRolls's revert of the RfC text. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 10:19, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I have been harassed since Aug 2016 by Snoogans, it seems to me to be their methodology whenever they want to force their views on BLP through despite significant opposition to their one-sided negativity. This was and has been the case on Jill Stein, which they have largely written, this was and has been the case on Tulsi Gabbard. If administrators wish to discourage such harassment, I would appreciate it. (In the past two days, I've received notifications from them from the Village Pump, the Help Desk, AN, and my talk page. I have also received threats of imminent DS actions for reverting a sloppy reversion they made of another editor's contribution related to Jill Stein where I see frequently blocked Calton has come running to help restore Daily Beast in wiki-voice to 3 sentences in a sequence of 6 sentences. This strikes me as promotional editing for a corporate entity. Neither Snoogans nor Calton has discussed on the TP... but that's the usual order of business...)🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 11:11, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

This strikes me as promotional editing for a corporate entity.

And this rationale strikes me as nuts -- or, given SashiRolls long history, a clumsy throw-it-at-the-wall-and-see-if-sticks excuse. --Calton | Talk 07:16, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

You've been blocked recently for similar aggressive comments about contributors rather than content. If you wish to comment as to why you think is it not promotional editing to include the names of muckraking newspapers in wikitext instead of attributing the opinions expressed in an article to its author, the discussion you ignored is at Talk:Jill_Stein#We_cite_the_news_outlet,_not_the_reporter. This is not the place to continue that debate; I invite you to comment on the TP if you wish to defend the multiplication of references to the Daily Beast on a BLP rather than sticking to the facts, as proposed.🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 13:36, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

NORE garbage thrown at the wall to distract. ...blocked recently for similar aggressive comments about contributors... is particularly rich because a) that's exactly what you're doing; and b) you were blocked indefinitely for your behavior, so you don't get to gas on about that.

If you wish to comment as to why you think is it not promotional editing to include the names of muckraking newspapers in wikitext instead of attributing the opinions expressed in an article to its author

Nope, because that's a false spin of a standard "attribution to reliable sources", no matter how many pejoratives you lard it with, a speciality of yours. It's the "promotional" part that's a new --albeit ridiculous on its face -- twist. --Calton | Talk 11:08, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

• WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior by SashiRolls noted: [9] (The arbcom case was rejected as premature and referred to ANI.[10]) Related: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive303#Unblock appeal by SashiRolls. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:55, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Whatever. There is a double-standard at the Signpost. People criticized in mainstream publications have their pseudonyms protected, whereas those brought up on frivolous charges at ArbCom (quickly rejected) are pilloried in the first sentence of the Arbitration report. For those interested in what Wikipedia is actually supposed to be about (i.e. verifiability) here are three examples of wikitext Snoogans has added in the last two weeks that are unsupported by the sources (2 of which are whoppers): [11] I will walk away from Snoog's ownership behavior for their TP section title, despite it being a violation of Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#Behavior_that_is_unacceptable as noted on the TP. For someone who doesn't want to edit-war... there they are bullying, again. Anyone want to tag-team me? 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 13:00, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Your altering of the header[12] makes my comment completely and utterly incomprehensible. Furthermore there is no legitimate reason for altering the header (it's an undisputed RS description). Your altering of the header is a perfect example of disrupting and harassing behavior (not even mentioning the creepy rambling "can someone please get Snooganssnoogans sanctioned?" collection of off-topic disputes that you dug up on off-wiki forums for disgruntled Wikipedia editors about me and decided to spam on an unrelated article talk page), yet you're now here whining about it? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:37, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the #1 whopper listed is one I discovered last night checking something you were edit warring with someone else over on the Tulsi Gabbard page: the arrest of an Indian consular official. That had been in the article for so long I just assumed it was true, that she must have criticized the arrest. But in fact I'd been led astray by your spin. She did not criticize the fact that the official was arrested. Not at all. She criticized how she was arrested (strip-searched despite consular immunity), because it threatened to lead to quite a diplomatic rift between India and the US.

The arrest and strip search of the Indian diplomat escalated into a major diplomatic furor Tuesday as India's national security adviser called the woman's treatment "despicable and barbaric."

source: AP It is true that your deliberate misreadings are attracting attention and making many a good Wikipedian ashamed that such behavior is seemingly tolerated encouraged by the power structure here. That said, I probably wouldn't have pointed it out had you not been rude to yet another person on the TP. 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 15:12, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Request for reclosure of RfC on Tulsi Gabbard's BLP (Assad/Modi)

I would like to formally ask that an administrator determine whether the RfC closed by Red Slash on 11 July 2019 properly analyzed the consenus or lack thereof and provided sufficient guidance for editing the text going forward. On the talk page, I asked Red Slash to justify the close which took no account of at least half of the written opinions, but was summarily dismissed. I apologize for not having had the time to look for the proper bureaucratic procedure to properly revert a bad close. I assumed the matter was settled when 2 people agreed with me, but apparently there is a need to have the proper paperwork done...

I see that the person championing the addition of negative phrasing (Snoogans) has already been reverted by an IP from Ireland. (I am not in Ireland.) It is true that in 2017, Gabbard expressed skepticism about Assad's use of chemical weapons, which -- as I understand it -- she walked back once sufficient information became available. The use of the present tense (has expressed) rather than dating the skepticism to 2017 and using the past tense seems to me transparently disingenuous. This is what NPR does in the citation:

In 2017, she expressed skepticism that Assad had used chemical weapons, and in a CNN televised town hall in March, when asked whether Assad is a war criminal, she hedged, saying, "If the evidence is there, there should be accountability."

source

As stated above (previous section) and in the section devoted to the RfC one admin has reviewed the close and found it lacking. Another opinion is requested.🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 11:11, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

My determination would be as follows:

• A: The main question seems to be whether A adheres to the NPOV policy and is properly sourced. Snooganssnoogans, LokiTheLiar, Kolya Butternut and MrX support the current wording of A. Scottmontana (an SPA), TFD, SashiRolls and Darryl Kerrigan oppose the wording. Msalt says the wording is acceptable, yet could be improved. What I find particularly important here is that TFD brings an argument as to why it is not NPOV. TFD states that, despite A being possibly accurate, it is presented in a misleading way ("The problem with using the quote, which presumably could be reliably sourced, is that saying it is an expression of support for Hindu nationalists is synthesis. Obama, the Clintons and Trump have expressed more praise for Modi than Gabbard, yet it would be misleading to say they expressed support for Hindu nationalists. That's the sort of writing one would expect in polemical writing. It would be accurate however that they like Gabbard supported normal relations with the Indian government."). This is particulrly important because, if true, it would be a violation of BLP (WP:BLPBALANCE). This has not been responded to. Because it seems that opinions are fairly balanced regarding A, and !oppose brings a compelling argument based on one of Wikipedia's core policies, which is not responded to, I am inclined to say that there is no consensus to include A.
• B: Snooganssnoogans and Darryl Kerrigan support the wording of B. LokiTheLiar and Kolya Butternut support B if it were to be reworded. MrX, SashiRolls and Scottmontana (in part—I discarded their comment about Vox, as Vox has been determined to be reliable, see WP:RS/P) oppose B. It remains unclear how such a rewording should look and when it becomes acceptable for inclusion without violating WP:NPOV. NPOV is a core policy and it is vital that all text in the article adheres to this policy. I would as such say that this should be closed as no consensus for inclusion of B without prejudice to a reworded text, if there is conensus that that version does adhere to NPOV.
• C: Snooganssnoogans, LokiTheLiar, Kolya Butternut, MrX and Darryl Kerrigan support C. SashiRolls and Scottmontana oppose C. While Scottmontana brings a reasonable argument which is not responded to, the clear support for C shows that it was not strong enough to convince other reasonable Wikipedians. The rest of the comments are mostly "NPOV" and "not NPOV". As such, I would say there is consensus to include C.

I invite other editors to share their view as well. (Non-administrator comment) --MrClog (talk) 12:32, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Regarding #A, TFD presents nothing to support the argument that other political figures are more supportive of Modi and Hindu nationalists than she is. The language is supported by reliable sources such as the LA Times[13], Guardian[14], NY Mag[15], Vox[16], and Intercept[17]. Why is it incumbent on other users to rebut TFD's unsupported arguments? And even if other political figures are, what does that have to do with Gabbard? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 12:46, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

The argument's central premise is that the text is biased (failing WP:BLPBALANCE) because the text suggests she expressed support for Hindu nationalists in a way that can convey the wrong message (that her support is more than just "standard diplomacy"). Regarding the sources: I was only able to find the Guardian source, Vox source and the Intercept source brought up during the discussion, but if I missed the others, feel free to point me where they were. If they haven't brought up during the discussion, I won't consider them, because I am judging the debate that took place at the RfC. About the sources: the Guardian only mentions "nationalists", not "Hindu nationalists". Vox says that reports mentioned "worrying ties" to Hindu nationalists (not support) and that she is supported by Hindu nationalists (but again, not that she supports Hindu nationalists. While the Intercept mentions that she supports Hindu nationalists in the title, it seems to be more nuanced in the article. The main point of criticism from TFD still stands, by the way, that the fact that she supported certain Hindu nationalists is presented in an unfair way in the sentence, suggesting she supports all or most Hindu nationalists. (Non-administrator comment) --MrClog (talk) 13:13, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

MrClog, I do not see A: "Gabbard has expressed support for Hindu nationalists, including Indian prime minister Narendra Modi" as suggesting she supports "all or most" Hindu nationalists. In context it sounds like there were specific instances of expressing support for particular Hindu nationalists. Jacobin, which The Intercept linked to, was brought up in the RfC discussion in response to TFD: "Gabbard has been one of Modi’s most prominent boosters in the US. 'He is a leader whose example and dedication to the people he serves should be an inspiration to elected officials everywhere,' she said of Modi in 2014."[18] And why is the title of The Intercept story, "TULSI GABBARD IS A RISING PROGRESSIVE STAR, DESPITE HER SUPPORT FOR HINDU NATIONALISTS", not enough? Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:11, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

• There is nothing in the RfC close that prevents editors from improving upon the proposed wordings. It just says there's consensus to include, and actually explicitly encourages rewording. So when looking at Sashi Rolls objection to #C (that it incorrectly implies that Gabbard still doubts chemical weapons were used in Syria) that can be remedied by a slight rewording. By the way, I opened the source (from 2019) at the end of the sentence, and it confirms that Sashi Rolls is correct on this point. It says: "Gabbard has also expressed skepticism about the Assad regime’s widely reported and confirmed use of chemical weapons against its own people. As an Iraq veteran, Gabbard said, she wants solid evidence before weapons of mass destruction are used to justify intervention, citing the false reports of WMD in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003...Gabbard said Wednesday she does believe chemical weapons were used in Syria." ~Awilley (talk) 13:22, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

• No, the body of the article clearly explains that since February 2019, she has changed her opinion on whether Assad used chemical weapons (I added that content as soon as she made the change[19]: she doubted that Assad used chemical weapons until February 2019). If someone holds a view at one point and changes it later, we cover both and delineate the chronology. We wouldn't remove that Hillary Clinton supported the Iraq War just because she later said that the Iraq War was wrong. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:32, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
• @Awilley: I doubt that a reworded version won't lead to another dispute, seeing that apparently there is the need to organise RfCs about whether to include certain sentences. --MrClog (talk) 11:27, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

• This RfC was started because Snoog failed to get consensus for their edits to the BLP back in February and March 2019. TFD, in the first comment on the RfC, characterized it -- in my view correctly -- as a biased attempt to enforce a particular POV. To respond to the previous comment, I do *not* believe that a version of C which accurately represents her position before the facts were established would be contested as long as it is made clear that once the facts were established her position changed, precisely because the facts were then established. As I said in my initial oppose, the only problem with C was that it misleadingly used the present (perfect) tense. I agree with your reading of no-consensus for A & B. I agree that if we change the wording of C to reflect that it was a position taken until evidence was established, for me at least, the problem with C is resolved.🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 13:56, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

• I am incredibly disinterested in the whole ordeal and frankly uninterested at this point. I closed a long-overdue RfC, checked back and noticed that the close was just reverted out of thin air, and re-closed. I have no opinion on Ms. Gabbard as a person or as a candidate, and I only tried to determine a consensus based on logical arguments and reliable sources. Is there anything y'all need from me? Red Slash 16:32, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

• Red Slash, I would suggest giving a summary of why you believe consensus was the way you assessed it to be, unless you already provided such at a talk page (in which case a link is fine). The current closing statement only mentions what the consensus is, but not how you came to that conclusion. --MrClog (talk) 17:25, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I felt that consensus was clear that A and C were accurate, concise, neutral and well-backed by sources. I felt that it was less clear on B, so I requested B be reworded to be less argumentative. Red Slash 03:20, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• {{Do not archive until}} added. Please remove the {{Do not archive until}} tag after the review is closed. (I am adding this because RfC closure reviews frequently have been archived prematurely without being resolved.) Cunard (talk) 00:35, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Snoogansnoogans wrote, "TFD presents nothing to support the argument that other political figures are more supportive of Modi and Hindu nationalists than she is." First, when criticizing me, I would appreciate it if you would notify me. Second, you misrepresented what I wrote: "Obama, the Clintons and Trump have expressed more praise for Modi than Gabbard, yet it would be misleading to say they expressed support for Hindu nationalists."

Obama invited Modi to the White House and visited him twice in India. Here is part of the text from their first meeting:

It is an extraordinary pleasure to welcome Prime Minister Modi to the White House for the first time. I think that the entire world has watched the historic election and mandate that the people of India delivered in the recent election. And I think everyone has been impressed with the energy and the determination with which the Prime Minister has looked to address not only India’s significant challenges, but more importantly, India’s enormous opportunities for success in the 21st century....the Prime Minister shared with me his vision for lifting what is still too many Indians who are locked in poverty into a situation in which their lives can improve....we discussed how we can continue to work together on a whole host of issues from space exploration, scientific endeavor, to dealing with humanitarian crises like Ebola in West Africa....And throughout this conversation I’ve been impressed with the Prime Minister’s interest in not only addressing the needs of the poorest of the poor in India and revitalizing the economy there, but also his determination to make sure that India is serving as a major power that could help bring about peace and security for the entire world...."[20]

I can find similar statements from Bill and Hillary Clinton, who visited Modi when he came to New York, and by Trump when Modi visited Washington.

If you don't know anything about U.S.-India relations, then you shouldn't add criticism about politicians for their views on it.

As far as I can see, this request is merely a content dispute and suggest we close it.

TFD (talk) 17:16, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

• Overturn this close. I agree completely with MrClog's analysis above. I can't imagine how anyone can come to the conclusion that "B" had consensus. Red Slash writes in the RfC closure, "A, B, and C should all be included.", but only two !voters thought that B should be included. (!Voters who were in favor of changing B are, by definition, not in favor of including B as written.) I also agree with the comment in the post-close discussion on the article talk page that there are two ways to deal with a rejected close: one is to say shut up how dare you, the other is to ask how any problems can be satisfactorily resolved. Disappointed that Red Slash chose the former. I would appreciate if Red Slash, in closing something like this, gave a breakdown of their thinking similar to what MrClog wrote above. Otherwise, don't close RfCs if you don't want to give more than a couple sentences of explanation for your close. – Levivich 16:14, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
• Uphold Red Slash's closure. Red Slash found consensus for A and C, and Red Slash stated that "B [...] should [...] be included [... and] B should be slightly reworded." I infer this to mean that a consensus should be found for new wording for B before it is included. Red Slash's comments above support this interpretation. It is clumsy, but I don't see that as a reason to overturn the close. Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:30, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

  Notice: user !voted in the RfC. --MrClog (talk) 22:05, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Request for lifting editing/creation restriction

It would be nice if these very old restrictions could be removed. I feel they are a dead letter. (Indeed the creation was supposed to be temporary.)

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:42, 11 August 2019 (UTC).

• For clarity, I believe we're talking about these two discussions: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive218#Rich Farmbrough's persistent disregard for community norms and (semi-)automated editing guidelines and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive666#Automated creation of incorrect categories. The restrictions are as follows (taken from Taken from WP:EDR):

  Regardless of the editing method (i.e. manual, semi-automatic, or automatic; from any account), Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely prohibited from making cosmetic changes to wikicode that have no effect on the rendered page (excepting those changes that are built-in to stock AWB or those that have demonstrable consensus or BAG approval). This includes but is not limited to: changing templates to template redirects, changing template redirects to templates (see here for AWB stock changes on this item, with the understanding that bypassing template redirects will only be done when there is a substantive edit being done), changing the spacing around headers and ordered lists (except to make an aberration consistent with the rest of the page), and changing the capitalization of templates. Furthermore, prior to orphaning/emptying and deleting categories or templates, the appropriate processes (WP:CFD/WP:TFD) should be engaged.

  Imposed October 2010, and

  Regardless of the editing method (i.e. manual, semi-automatic, or automatic; from any account), Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely prohibited from mass creating pages in any namespace, unless prior community approval for the specific mass creation task is documented. The definition of "mass creation" and the spirit of the restriction follows Wikipedia:BOTPOL#Mass article creation.

  Imposed January 2011. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 19:49, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
• What reason does the community have to lift those restrictions? --Izno (talk) 20:47, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

• It acts as a scarlet letter, and serves no useful purpose. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:55, 11 August 2019 (UTC).
  

• You say that they were "supposed to be temporary", but they are both indefinite, which means that no one thought they were temporary at the time they were imposed, except perhaps for yourself, or they would have had a time limit placed on them. You give no reason for lifting them, except, basically, that you don't like them. Considering that you have been the subject of quite a number of sanctions over the years, included a de-sysopping for cause [21], there's no particular reason that the community should lift these sanctions absent a very good reason to do so. Please provide a rationale for their removal which is pertinent. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:23, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

• I did not say they were supposed to be temporary, I said the creation one was:

I would expect the restriction to be temporary by virtue of soon being superseded by an amendment to Wikipedia:BOTPOL#Mass_article_creation. I would be heartily grateful if (a) we didn't waste any more time on this particular case of this problem; (b) Rich accepts the amendment; (c) someone else does the heavy lifting on moving forward the policy change. If/when it happens, the new restriction should be removed as redundant.

— RD232 [the editor who imposed the sanction]

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 07:43, 12 August 2019 (UTC).

• One editor speculating that a sanction would be superceded is not the same as a general expectation that the creation sanction would be "temporary". As I said, if they thought it would be temporary, they would have written it that way. They did not, they made it indefinite. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:54, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Related:

• Block log.
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive227#Rich Farmbrough violating editing restriction
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive229#Review of Rich Farmbrough's cosmetic changes restriction
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive241#Rich Farmbrough's editing restriction
• desysopping
• failed re-RfA
• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive128#Rich Farmbrough
• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive131#Rich Farmbrough
• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive149#Rich Farmbrough

--Guy Macon (talk) 22:45, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

• Note: "desysopping" and "failed re-RfA" added by me. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:54, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

• Desysopping was as a result of a vacated arb case. And the RFA was not failed but went to 'crat chat which closed as no consensus at my request. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 07:50, 12 August 2019 (UTC).
  

• You aren't helping your case by misrepresenting easily-checked facts. The 'crat chat you linked to above starts with "We have an RfA that is numerically shy of the 70% expected for the typical discretionary range". That's the definition of a failed RfA. Also, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Rich Farmbrough 2 has the result "The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a request for adminship that did not succeed." You had your chance to withdraw before the RfA closed. You didn't and the RfA failed. At this point our page at Law of holes may be helpful. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:35, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

• I was referring to this. And I have amended my statement above to be more accurate. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 08:27, 13 August 2019 (UTC).
  

• Oppose Thanks for the handy links, Guy Macon. I had already gone over the Arbcom ruling and amendments. Rich's block log was, ah, informative. I won't say never but it would take a lot of convincing for me to go along with changing Rich's current restrictions. Old they may be but I'd say earned from the evidence. Cheers, Mark Ironie (talk) 00:02, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose The restrictions were earned through Rich's actions and after much discussion. They serve the useful purpose of preventing the resumption of those actions. If Rich wants to explain why those actions were wrong and to assure the community that they will not resume and to agree that an immediate block would be the proper outcome should any of them occur again then I might reconsider this. MarnetteD|Talk 00:16, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support my interactions with Rich have led me to believe that he is here in good faith and I therefore favor giving him another chance by removing these sanctions from eight years ago. Lepricavark (talk) 00:23, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
• My question to Rich would be whether he intends to do either of the following: "making cosmetic changes to wikicode that have no effect on the rendered page" or "mass creating pages in any namespace, [without] prior community approval for the specific mass creation task".
  I'm mindful of a recent discussion where it was suggested that we could lift a TBAN where the editor in question wasn't intending to go do the stuff that was banned would agree that he'd abide by the TBAN even though it was removed from the rolls (WP:AN#Request to remove Topic ban). In other words, the editor was agreeing to have an off-the-books TBAN, which struck me as improper for a few reasons. My way of thinking is that if Rich has no interest in doing those things but does want the bans lifted so, for instance, there's no concern with things that might be edge cases (i.e., whether a handful of articles means "mass creation", or whether the occasional cosmetic wikicode change merits being dragged to AE/AN/ANI), there should be little problem with this request provided there's no recent (say within 6 months-2 years) issues with violating them. I would not make that exactly a binding guarantee since, as I said in that other thread, it's tantamount to an off-the-books editing restriction, which we shouldn't be doing. Rather, I'd consider Rich immediately going back and doing the same stuff that got him these restrictions, we could reasonably infer that he had lied in order to get out of this restriction, and reimposing/blocking would be appropriate. And if he does go back and start disrupting but beyond "immediately", the same restrictions can be reimposed.
  Another idea would be to add a sunset provision to both restrictions. Something like: "Effective on [date of closure], this editing restriction is suspended. On [date of closure + six months], if a community discussion does not reach a consensus to renew this editing restriction on the basis of Rich's conduct over the period since [date of closure], this editing restriction will automatically lapse. This paragraph is not intended to limit the community or an uninvolved administrator's ability to impose appropriate sanctions for disruptive conduct that is incidentally covered by the suspended editing restriction." Thoughts on this? —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 00:24, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

• Comment I'm not a fan of the off-the-books restrictions and conditions either. I prefer a clearly defined set of conditions, explicit in the details. This is the current status quo. The sunset arrangement has problems as well, particularly if there is a delay on it (closure + six months or whatever.) This puts a burden on others to check up on Rich at a later time. Overriding some Arbcom decisions makes me a little queasy. There are levels of AFG and giving people another chance that I have trouble with. This is one of those times. Cheers, Mark Ironie (talk) 04:24, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

• Mark Ironie This is not an arbcom provision, it was imposed by [[User:RD232], who left the project seven years ago, without a !vote. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 07:43, 12 August 2019 (UTC).
  

• Right, my thought with the sunset provisioning is more if people think there's reason to give Rich a shot (i.e., if he's not violated the sanctions in a long time) but don't want to risk a full lifting right now. I'm with you as there being an added burden to watch for problems, but I'm really not sure how much of a burden that would be. People subject to long-running sanctions—Rich had both community-based and Committee-imposed ones (the latter having been vacated entirely in 2016)—tend to have no shortage of folks checking up on them as a matter of course. Here's an alternative thought though: "After [date of closure + six months], Rich may open a community discussion on WP:AN to request that his status be reviewed and a determination made as to whether the restriction is still needed. If this discussion, having duly considered whether the restriction is still needed, does not reach a consensus to renew this editing restriction on the basis of Rich's conduct over the period since [date of closure], this editing restriction will automatically lapse." That way, the burden is on Rich to ask at the end of the probationary period before the restrictions will be vacated. I'm certain that the AN regulars would provide a robust discussion. Anyway just my thinking on how to approach this procedurally if it's decided to be worth trying. I'm still not decided on whether it's worth trying at all. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 06:02, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

• I would have thought 9 years is probably a long enough sunset provision.... All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 07:43, 12 August 2019 (UTC).

• As far as I am aware, there is no such thing in Wikipedia policy as a "sunset provision", so citing it as a reason for lifting these sanctions is an invalid argument. Perhaps there should be sunset provisions. If so, then someone should propose it at WP:VPP and get it approved by the community. Until then, sindefinite sanctions stay in place indefinitely. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:47, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Mendaliv I do not intend to make non-rendering changes which do not have consensus. Page creation as described is now written into policy, which, of course, I do not intent to break. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:11, 12 August 2019 (UTC).

• Oppose - No reasonable rationale provided for removal. As demonstrated by the links above, RF has a history of being sanctioned, and a further history of then violating those sanctions, which means he simply cannot be trusted. Lifting the sanctions still in place leaves him free to take the same kind of actions that got him restricted in the first place. I don't trust him, and do not think that the community can afford to place its trust in him, any more than it did when he applied to be an admin again, and his RfA failed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:53, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

• Approximately 70% of the community supported my RFA. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 08:35, 12 August 2019 (UTC).
  

• Which put it in the discretionary range at the time, and the 'crats -- who are, after all, part of the community -- decided against promoting you. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:38, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

• No they didn't. To avoid placing them in an invidious position, and to avoid an adminship tainted by being a close call I asked them to close as no consensus. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:05, 12 August 2019 (UTC).
  

• The 'crat chat you linked to above starts with "We have an RfA that is numerically shy of the 70% expected for the typical discretionary range". In other words, a failed RfA. Also, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Rich Farmbrough 2 has the result "The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a request for adminship that did not succeed." BTW, good job getting Beyond My Ken to agree that both of you stop WP:BLUDGEONING this page and then continuing to post comments after he stopped. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:01, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

• In fairness, here's the timeline: Rich agrees to stop, BMK says he has no more good faith for Rich, and then BMK says he'll stop. Not sure it was nice of BMK to take a parting shot like that, although he could have wrote it before seeing Rich's agreement to stop. Lepricavark (talk) 02:50, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

• Actually, it wasn't a "parting shot". I made two (maybe 3??) comments, including one about the lack of good faith, turned my attention to other stuff (no edits, but a five minute gap in activity, according to my contrib log), and then came back to re-read the thread, which is when I saw Golden Ring's remark and immediately agreed to his suggestion. So, the history may look damning, but it doesn't actually indicated a parting shot, which it was not. In fact, I distinctly remember thinking that I wish I had seen Golden Ring's suggestion before I had added the previous comments, just for the sake of appearances. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:15, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

• That's fair. Stuff often gets overlooked in these conversations. Lepricavark (talk) 22:01, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support in the absence of evidence that the banned conduct has been a problem in the last, I don't know, two years? Eight years on, IMO we should be giving someone the chance to show they've changed enough in that time that the restriction is no longer necessary; if eight years is not enough, I don't see any way that these could ever be lifted. I don't object to the sunset clause proposed above, but don't particularly support it, either. GoldenRing (talk) 10:21, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support per WP:Bygones (this page should exist). Seriously, restrictions from 2010??? I trust Rich to be wise enough not to be disruptive today, especially not in the manner he was disruptive nine years ago. — JFG ^talk 10:36, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support Eight years is long enough for these restrictions to be lifted.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 12:11, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

• An indefinite sanction is not "infinite", but it does stay in effct until it is lifted. It does not dissipate, or fade away over time, it is just as much in effect at this moment as it was the second after it was imposed. These "support" votes seem to be saying that the evidence the sanctions should be lifted is the fact that the sanctions have done their job well, so we no longer need them. Someone attempting to get a restraining order lifted on the basis that they had stayed away from the person for the 8 years the order was in place would be laughed out of court - the fact that the restrainimg order worked is the evidence for the restraining order continuing to be necessary. Add to that that other people are providing rationales for the sanctions to be lifted, while RF has made no argument of substance at all, and you have more than enough reason to reject this frivilous and unnecessary request. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:38, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

I have seen this Procrustean argument before. "It worked, so it was necessary. Had it not worked, a stronger sanction would have been necessary." By this logic indefinite is infinite.

Moreover there are side effects, people oppose granting of bits based on things like this.

I don't think that calling my request "frivolous and unnecessary" is WP:AGF - but then little you have said here is.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:03, 12 August 2019 (UTC).

You are correct. Your behavior ran out every possible bit of AGF I had regarding you years ago. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:33, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose lifting the cosmetic restriction, as it was being broken as recently as Jan 2019. Primefac (talk) 15:24, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
• Comment Could Rich Farmbrough and Beyond My Ken stop trying to bludgeon this request to death and let the community review it please? GoldenRing (talk) 15:36, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

  I'm game. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:57, 12 August 2019 (UTC).
  

  Sure, I'll refrain from further comment. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:38, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

  Thank you both. GoldenRing (talk) 12:16, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

• Support I don’t see any need for these to remain in effect. Mr Ernie (talk) 19:13, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

  Mr Ernie, I respect your opinion/!vote, but have a question - regardless of whether it's a "good" restriction (i.e. let's put aside whether it's appropriate for the ban to be in place), do you think someone under a restriction should be violating it before they have it lifted? Primefac (talk) 19:23, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

  What was the negative effect to the project from breaking the violation? Mr Ernie (talk) 20:26, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

  In the case I listed above, and in general, hundreds of pointless edits and flooded watchlists. Primefac (talk) 20:50, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

• support per WP:ROPE and the spirit of WP:UBCHEAP. The violation Primefac brings up is noted, but Rich's explanation was actually quite reasonable even if it violated the letter of the restriction. It's been nearly a decade; I think it's worth seeing how things go without the restrictions. Wug·a·po·des​ 22:59, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose: I wasn't going to take a stand on this, limiting myself to providing some related links, but since then I have taken a deep dive into the edits in question. Too many errors of the type caused by poorly-written automated tools combined with a failure to preview the edits and fix obvious screwups by the automation. Things like nuking a ]] without removing the matching [[. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:42, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Just for clarity, this restriction does not apply to the type of edit you describe, only to edits which make no rendered difference. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:47, 14 August 2019 (UTC).

• Oppose as these restrictions really apply to all users. But most do not step over the line. Any mass action should have consensus. Our appealer here has not indicated that compliance will be observed, just that it is not nice to have restrictions. Mass editing requires mass checking and mass errors need mass fixing so much more care is required. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:51, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose I see no evidence of a benefit to the community. Automated mass edits are difficult to safeguard on a good day, and user has not demonstrated a need to make them or the ability to make them safely. ROPE is not a good reason-- the user should convince the community the sanction is no longer needed before removing the sanction.-- Deepfriedokra 00:24, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
  • I don't disagree, necessarily, but I guess my question is how Rich would show he can make these edits if he cannot make them? That's really the point of my rationale. If this is as recurring a time sink as Guy below says, perhaps the efficient route is to give Rich one last chance to prove us wrong, and if not we can resolve this quickly at that time. I'm fine maintaining the restrictions, I just think that, at this point, perhaps an ultimatum will save further drama in the future. Wug·a·po·des​ 00:56, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support per Graeme Bartlett. If these restrictions really apply to all users, what's the point of marking Rich with the aforementioned scarlet letter? By this token, you might ban someone from worse things, like "no replacing pages with obscenities" or "no disruptive sockpuppetry". If policy prohibits something, applying special restrictions to a certain person basically just gives enemies "gotcha" opportunities, which it definitely seems to me has been the situation with Rich. Just look for interaction between him and Fram, including five of the six "Related" links given by Guy Macon at 22:45, 11 August 2019. Nyttend (talk) 11:50, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
  • PS, for years I've noticed that Fram was frequently (maybe almost always) the one filing complaints about Rich. It's one thing if you edit in an esoteric area and one other person is basically the only one who has the chance to notice, but when you edit in a very public manner and one person is making most of the AN/ANI/AE/etc. complaints about you, to me it looks very much like you're being targeted, because if you really were the massive problem that's alleged, lots of people would have made such complaints. We shouldn't treat one person's persistent complaining as if it were truly representative of what most editors think. Nyttend (talk) 12:01, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

    Just as a minor note, I might not have been raising anything at ANI or AE, but I've noticed a lot of these issues over the years (as can be seen in Rich's talk page archives) - this is primarily because I'm an AWB/bot user and Rich edits in the same areas that I do. Just because no one has put something on a noticeboard doesn't necessarily mean they don't notice; I just preferred to discuss the issues with them on their talk first. Primefac (talk) 13:02, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

    • I think that whether the complaints lead to sanctions is a key point. If editor A keeps reporting editor B and pretty much every time editor B gets a warning or a block, that's one thing. If there is a long string of the result being no violation, content dispute/not an ANI issue and/or boomerang, that's another thing entirely. Either situation is a problem -- somebody isn't responding to feedback. If I kept being reported and warned, I would figure out what I was doing wrong and stop. If I kept reporting someone and my reports didn't result in any action, I would give up and stop reporting that user. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:22, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Very much like in the other case on this board, people with this sort of block log would need to give a very good reason for why we should explicitly allow them to do things that all users should not do in any event, and I'm not seeing it. Sandstein 18:42, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
  • I am not asking for that, I am asking for special restrictions to be withdrawn. These have a tendency to be hair-trigger, as you know. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 11:49, 15 August 2019 (UTC).
    
• Oppose I'd like to see a taking of responsibility for the original bad acts before restrictions are withdrawn. Not breast-beating, but a meaningful discussion of what the editor did wrong, and a statement of how the editor proposes to avoid the behavior which caused the block in the future. Not "It acts as a scarlet letter, and serves no useful purpose". I note the number of years that have elapsed since the restriction was imposed. All the more reason for an indication the editor understands the reason for the restriction and isn't just saying "Yeah, yeah, let's get on with it" before getting the keys to the road grader again.--loupgarous (talk) 01:06, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
• Suport There is enough water under the bridge for us to be able to vacate restrictions that are now covered by policy and applicable to everyone. There may well be times when changing a poorly named template redirect to the template name is a valuable improvement for editors of an article. The change from {{Ill}} to {{Interlanguage link}} is an obvious example: my old eyes really can't make out the former, while the latter is very clear. If any other editor had made this edit, would we be complaining about it? I desperately hope not. I'm not encouraging Rich to make those sort of edits, but I'd forgive him for making that cosmetic(?) change, which makes such an improvement for editors like me. There really is no longer any need to treat Rich differently from any other prolific contributor (especially one with 1.5 million edits over 14 years). --RexxS (talk) 20:53, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose There's no need for such permissions at this time/per other opposes. Buffs (talk) 22:08, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

• There's no request for permissions. Peter James (talk) 16:40, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

• A request to edit is asking for permission. Buffs (talk) 04:47, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

• Support: I see many comments above about the OP's block log, so I reviewed it. The last block was in 2017; unblocking was swift and accompanied by a trout for the blocking admin. Before that were two 2013 AE blocks that disturb me for a number of reasons: in both cases, the same two people respectively reported and imposed sanctions; the block time escalated very rapidly (59 days then one year); and the violations in question do not seem especially clear-cut to me. While Rich certainly has more blocks to their name that is desirable, they have a long recent history of not being (justifiably) blocked. I accept the argument that there is no point in special restrictions that align with current policy. I also accept that Rich is justified in fearing that being under such restrictions will lead to "gotcha" sanctions for marginal violations. And I also accept that indefinite restrictions imposed a long time ago can reasonably be asked to justify their continued imposition. Bovlb (talk) 23:53, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Per pretty much everyone who has opposed above. I would say the restrictions serve a useful purpose in that they prevent the editor doing the things that caused the restrictions to be placed. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:33, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support If there is disruptive editing the existing policies apply and can lead to sanctions. Peter James (talk) 16:40, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

  ​ There was disruptive editing, and sanctions were enacted. This discussion is about lifting those sanctions, not imposing them. Primefac (talk) 18:22, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

  It's about reviewing whether the sanctions should remain or not; is there recent evidence in favour of keeping them? Peter James (talk) 18:39, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

  I posted evidence, as have others, indicating that these sanctions should stay in place. Primefac (talk) 18:43, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

  The recent evidence in favour of keeping them is that RF is not editing in the manner that brought them about. RF hasn't really acknowledged that the editing was a problem and made no commitment to not resume that kind of editing. Thus leaving them in place is the only way to prevent further disruption. 09:17, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

  Editing in a manner that brought the restrictions would be the only alternative; is that what you recommend? Peter James (talk) 14:25, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

  No - I was clearly answering your question "is there recent evidence in favour of keeping them?" I'm not sure how you came up with anything else. Neither I nor anyone else posting here want the disruptive editing to start up again. MarnetteD|Talk 17:43, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

  The only way for that to no longer be true is for RF to resume editing disruptively. If you don't advise that, is your advice to edit in a manner you are saying is evidence against lifting the restrictions, or is there another alternative I have missed? Peter James (talk) 14:29, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. I can see no benefit either to Rich Farmbrough or to Wikipedia to lifting these restrictions. If Rich Farmbrough doesn't intend to go back to causing disruption, then keeping the ban in place causes absolutely no inconvenience, but we've unfortunately learned from long experience that this is an editor who consistently interprets "this isn't specifically forbidden" as "the fact there's nothing in writing explicitly banning this means I'm entitled to do it no matter how much disruption it causes". ‑ Iridescent 14:43, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

• Note, just as a reminder, both WP:MASSCREATION and WP:COSMETICBOT (as well as WP:AWB's logic with respect to WP:GENFIXES) have had significant overhauls since 2010/2011, and are now much more restrictive / clear as to what they encompass. It's certainly possible that the restrictions are no longer needed in light of those updates. As for myself, I'm mostly indifferent either way. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:54, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support per Headbomb and Nyttend since both are more or less applicable to all users anyway, the only difference I can see is that it doesn't apply to pages not designed to be viewed by readers and so that small change doesn't seem like a bid difference so I'm sure WP:ROPE would apply anyway. As a side note I have been looking at having articles created by a bot which I think is a good idea but we indeed need to be careful with the possibility of errors. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:28, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Proposed additional restriction (withdrawn)

Proposal withdrawn: not getting any traction. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:22, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Proposed: If the above appeal fails, Rich Farmbrough is not allowed to appeal or otherwise ask again that his restrictions be lifted until January 1st of 2020. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:35, 12 August 2019 (UTC) Edited 23:52, 12 August 2019 (UTC) Support as proposer. The previous requests have been a major time sink. Note: If this passes, he makes another request after Jan 1. and it too gets shot down in flames, I intend to request a one year extension of this restriction. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:35, 12 August 2019 (UTC) @Guy Macon: Is this requested often? It's the first one I remember seeing (a poor metric), but if this is a recurring time sink, I'd be inclined to agree with you. Wug·a·po·des​ 00:25, 13 August 2019 (UTC) Oppose seems less than ideal to make this suggestion before the above thread has been closed, especially in light of the fact that it is not exactly SNOWing up there. Lepricavark (talk) 23:44, 12 August 2019 (UTC) Added the phrase "If the above appeal fails". I probably should have specified that from the start. Does that address your objection? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:52, 12 August 2019 (UTC) It kinda addresses it, but at the same time I don't believe such a restriction is necessary unless there's a recent history of Rich filing these appeals too frequently. Otherwise, it almost seems like piling on. To be sure, you could reasonably contend that this proposed restriction is preventative rather than punitive, but is it something we normally formally do? Lepricavark (talk) 02:44, 13 August 2019 (UTC) Not formally and not normally. There is an explicit six months before an appeal will be considered that is added on to many arbcom and ANI decisions, but there are plenty of times (I would guess more often than not) when this is not done. And of course any such time limit can be undone if, for example, new information completely exonerates the blocked user. That would be a legitimate situation to invoke WP:IAR. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:24, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

2019 Arbitration Committee pre-election RfC

A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2019 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules. Mz7 (talk) 21:34, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Going forward (discussions proposal)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Moved from #Going forward (discussions proposal) (moved) above Primefac (talk) 19:22, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

As was mentioned above, it would be nice to get a full consensus on just the matter regarding any future changes to the citation module. The proposal was as follows:

• "Require that all future changes to the citation module be advertised at WP:CENT, wherever they are discussed."

I think this is pretty straightforward and do not want it to be lost in the conversation here as a lot of other proposals are lumped together.

• Support - As re-introducer. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:13, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support - That's self-explanatory.Tvx1 16:17, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
• No. A) This is the wrong place. AN is not for content-making decisions. You want VPPRO/VPPOL (pick your poison). B) Every change advertised when proposed is insane. You would require or desire the same level of oversight for a bug fix, or a minor feature, as something in this case which affected many many articles. There might be some reasonable discussion on how much oversight is enough, and when, but it's not here, and it's not this. --Izno (talk) 16:28, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

  This module isn't changed that often as it effects millions of pages, we need a fix to the problem and not editors making major decisions through casual chats. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:33, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

  It doesn't change that often because we don't want to break the wiki job queue with thousands of small but livable changes for each release. It's not changed rarely because the changes that are made don't exist. --Izno (talk) 16:37, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

  The point is that this could happen again if discussions are not done ahead of time with the releases. What do you propose be put into place so something similar doesn't happen again? The facts are changes were made without broad consensus which has angered a lot of editors here on Wikipedia. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:41, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

  If you want to have that discussion, let's take it out of the high-stakes scenario you're putting us in by having an RFC on AN where it is also misplaced. I was planning to start a normal talk page discussion about it at Help talk:CS1 (with perhaps some invitation at WT:CITE and WP:VPPOL), where it is both in-scope and highly-relevant, since I agree that we seem to have caught people by surprise, and I doubt anyone wants to relive the past 24 hours. As I said, here and now is not the right time or place to have that discussion. --Izno (talk) 16:45, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

  I have removed the RfC, I cant speak for other editors but I share the frustration going on. One person should not be making these changes without consensus per our normal practices. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:47, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

• No I expect that the smart people dealing with the CS code should be able to make bug fixes without having to seek out consensus. But at the same time, they should be aware when a change will affect a large segment of existing citations and should seek CENT-type consensus building then, or recognize that when there is a situation like this (a change after the fact turns out to be disruptive), to back off the non-bug fixes and then reseek consensus. Nothing that can presently enforced through admins through. --Masem (t) 16:39, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
• Meh, advertising would not have solved anything that happened with this rollout. Not really against, but that seems like pointless WP:BUREAUCRACY to me. If you really care, then watch Help talk:CS1. if you're interested in CS1 templates. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:40, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
• No. Yes, major changes to the way citations behave should be discussed centrally, but that is already true for major changes of anything. There doesn't need to be an additional requirement specifically for the templates and I am sure going forward large changes will have wider discussion. The major problem that turned up here wasn't mentioned in the update description at Help talk:CS1#update to the cs1/2 module suite after 2 September 2019, so advertising that wouldn't have helped. Otherwise that description was very clear and linked to the discussions where the changes were considered. StarryGrandma (talk) 17:05, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support - I proposed this originally (somewhere up the page). Changes to citation modules potentially affect every article on the project, there should certainly be some means of notification even if it's just a message like "on <upcoming date> we're rolling out changes to the citation modules, here's what you need to be aware of". If not CENT then a watchlist notice maybe? I mean, otherwise, editors have pretty good reason to be angry when their hard work on constructing a professional-quality article is suddenly and unexpectedly covered by new error messages all over their references, through no fault of their own. I don't expect devs to seek community preapproval for every little bug fix or feature standardization or whatever, but clearly it was intended that this change would produce error messages, and it would have been better to know in advance. At least someone could have stepped in beforehand and said, "you know what, you're going to piss people off doing this, why not hide the error messages or have some kind of transition period?" Otherwise we get AN discussions like this one with mobs demanding blood, and everything goes backwards. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:03, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

  @Ivanvector: re 'someone stepping in'. This would not have happened, because the test suites didn't show these behaviours. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:08, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

  Well, fair enough, but that suggests testing was not sufficiently rigorous. I mean, was it not expected that changing the periodical name parameters to requirements and adding visible error messages would, you know, produce visible error messages if a cite was missing the parameter? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:30, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

  What was expected was that {{cite journal}} / {{cite magazine}} and other periodical citations throw errors when they didn't have |journal=/|magazine=/|work= set, because either that is clearly a critical omission (or the wrong template used). What wasn't expected was that {{cite web}} would be throwing missing periodical errors, because websites aren't periodicals. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:44, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

  So, today, we do publish a notification of intent to push the sandboxes to the live modules approximately a week in advance. That notification usually occurs on a few pages: Help talk:CS1, WT:CITE, WT:AWB, offhand. It looks like Ttm didn't do so for this release outside of HT:CS1. So that's one gone-wrong. I think maybe that list of pages might be too short and perhaps we should include VPM or VPT or VPPRO? Possibly also UT:Citation bot/UT:InternetArchiveBot? So that might be a second gone-wrong. --Izno (talk) 19:16, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

• This is the wrong place to make such a proposal. Raise it at WP:VPT or the module's talk page. There's been a lot of latitude in these off-topic threads, but I think it's time to start closing them and/or moving them to the appropriate place. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 19:50, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support, and for style issues, Wikipedia talk:Citing sources should also be notified. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:54, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support, would save precious time of editors wasted in trying to get disruption to millions of article reverted in the face of unprecedented stonewalling. It would also ensure changes to be made with consensus not with imposition and invoking of fait accompli. I also disagree with those who think this is not the right venue, same can be said for the original discussion. Since this where it started it better end here, nothing is going to be broken because of holding discussion anywhere. The arguments put forth is what matter. – Ammarpad (talk) 06:44, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose as written but support in principle. "All future changes" is too broad. I'd support "all changes to require or unrequire parameters" being listed at CENT, and there are probably other types of "major" changes that should be listed at CENT. I think this issue needs further discussion before being proposed in an RfC (and I agree such an RfC shouldn't be at AN). – Levivich 21:14, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Initially supported, but on further consideration, 'all future changes' is broad. Should narrow down to major or breaking changes. robertsky (talk) 04:15, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per robertsky. There are plenty of minor and technical changes that happen in that template module. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:36, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
• Something needs to change, but I'm not convinced it's this. My day job is making changes to production systems. Tolerance for risk varies from organisation to organisation, but in every case there is a requirement to be able to roll back any potentially impactful change. I was disturbed by the resistance to rollback here, and by the implication that there were multiple dependent changes which made simple rollback unachievable. When an impact occurs during a change it's normal to have a discussion over rollback v. fix-forward, but with something that has this scale of impact the bar to rollback is normally low. I think we should look at improving the change management and incident management processes around high impact changes in line with normal practice for customer-facing services everywhere. Guy (help!) 09:45, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
  • ^^^^ this. Ultimately, this whole giant thread was arguing about removing four words from the module code. Yet, it took four days and something like 100 editors' time. In those four days, the new update could have been rolled back, adjusted, and re-implemented, without needing 100 editors to !vote on anything. I think the most important thing is to make sure this doesn't happen again. – Levivich 14:59, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
• Closure This page is for "information and issues of interest to administrators" and the suggestion does not require admin permission nor assistance. On the other hand, the wp:CENT is not meant for Announcements nor Topic-specific discussions so the suggestion should not be enforced as it stands. Further voting is thus non-productive and the discussion should be closed.

The module is edit-protected and most changes are made by a few users, with prior discussions and announcements. In the bigger discussion, the suggestion and support seems to be asking for a respect for consensus as well as a wider engagement in the module discussions. There is no dispute on that part, and whenever appropriate, wp:CENT and Wikipedia talk:Citing sources may be used to attract needed attention. A more open-ended discussion on how to assure compliance for this module is welcome at CS1 talk page. JAGulin (talk) 10:55, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

OAbot

I've recently noticed a lot of uses of User:OAbot making semi-automated edits at a fairly high volume. This is reminiscent of recent activity of IABot. This time, it seems to be spread out over multiple users (some of which seem to be trying to make legit-looking user pages and edit only at certain times of the week) possibly in an attempt to make it seem less suspicious. Also, while IABot directly makes the edit, OABot doesn't, so I don't know how to check who's been using it. Anyway, this all seems fairly fishy, and I thought it might be worth it to raise the issue here. Thanks, –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 03:47, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand. As you say, the bot's edits don't state who, if anyone, requested that it operate on a specific page - so what do you mean about "legit-looking user pages"? ST47 (talk) 05:51, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Never mind, I see what you mean. Is there any way to get a better list of those edits though? The Recent Changes only shows the most recent 500. ST47 (talk) 06:00, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

@Deacon Vorbis: I went ahead and notified the bot operators (Pintoch and Nemo bis) about this thread. OhKayeSierra (talk) 06:13, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. It's not clear to me what's the perceived problem. The currently active users look like different people to me, from the interaction I had (different communication styles and so on). They also have distinctly human behaviour. If you doubt they might be sockpuppets, I suggest you open a request at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations. I hope this helps, Nemo 06:21, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

{{Checkuser needed}} I believe that Deacon Vorbis has found himself a ring of sockpuppets which are engaged in paid editing. The purpose of the bot edits is either to make it harder to see the pattern of their paid work in their contribs, or to game one of the confirmed statuses, or maybe just to produce accounts with a Contributions page that looks like an "established" account. The list of accounts using the bot in this way can be found using this Quarry query. In particular, the following users have disclosed paid editing tags on their userpage:

• ContentNerd (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) (498 bot edits, recently extended-confirmed)
• Marnie Hawes (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) (1355 bot edits, recently extended-confirmed)
• PedjaNbg (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) (2687 bot edits, recently extended-confirmed)
• Tashdeed (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) (only 28 bot edits, but links to Marnie Hawes from their user page and has the same paid editing tag, and also has one edit on bnwiki like Marnie Hawes)
• Davykamanzi (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) (only 2 bot edits, but also discloses being paid through upwork in the past - potentially the master?)

Some of the accounts have history on other projects as well, so it's possible that this is either cross-wiki abuse, or recycling of compromised accounts - PedjaNbg has history on srwiki and Marnie Hawes has some on bnwiki. ST47 (talk) 06:23, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

If the objective was gaming the system, I'd say it didn't achieve much: scrutiny of their edits worked. But I agree, let's wait for a CheckUser. Nemo 06:28, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Marnie Hawes and Tashdeed are on the same IP address and are very  Likely. The others are scattered about in various countries. I doubt anyone is compromised. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 13:25, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. I see they declare to be siblings on the userpage. Nemo 13:47, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

@OhKayeSierra: thanks for the ping. If any change to the OAbot web app is required let me know. − Pintoch (talk) 17:52, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Blacklist move

There is a WP:RM/TR move (permalink) that only admins may perform due to a title blacklist. ToThAc (talk) 18:01, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

@ToThAc: That isn't true. Page movers and template editors are also permitted to override the title blacklist. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:27, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Pppery is right, page movers like myself can override the title blacklist. With that said,  Done. SkyWarrior 19:55, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm guessing that this request results from seeing MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-custom-pagemove, which currently says This page move has been blocked by the title blacklist because the new title contains characters, words, or phrases commonly used in page-move vandalism. If you think this has been done in error please leave a message on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. If this is not the right place for such requests, then we should change the message accordingly. Bovlb (talk) 17:29, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

The messages suggests that you should come to AN if you disagree that the page was put on the title blacklist in the first place, which if that's the case AN would be the right place for such requests. However, that is not the case here, and I think this specific request is here simply because ToThAc thought only admins can override the title blacklist, which is incorrect. SkyWarrior 20:26, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Chris.Sherlock/Letsbefiends unblock request

• Chris.Sherlock (talk · contribs · blocks · count · rollback · admin · logs)
• Chris.sherlock (talk · contribs · blocks · count · rollback · admin · logs)
• Letsbefiends (talk · contribs · blocks · count · rollback · admin · logs)
• User talk:Chris.sherlock

I'm bringing this here after unilaterally declining it because I think it's may be worth having community review. The text of the initial appeal is

You don't know the back story. I was editing under User:Letsbefiends, but in case you haven't noticed this account was pretty much automatically created across wikis. It is remarkable that the admin blocked this account, yet User:Letsbefiends is no longer used, and never will be again. My other accounts were User:Ta bu shi da yu and User:Tbsdy lives, in which I did important work on Wikipedia. For instance, I created , wrote articles that got to the main page, etc. I canned those accounts and won't be using them any more, and I am unlikely to do very much except perhaps the odd spelling error. It doesn't exactly make sense that you have blocked this account. There are no other accounts. And I point out that the original blocker has stated they don't do much on Wikipedia any more, so not sure how you want me to reach out to them if it's unlikely they will respond in a timely manner (I have done this already via email). Incredible how dismissive you were though. Gotta love a user who writes on their user page that they are open to being emailed, yet I find they have turned off that feature. Thanks Yamla! - 218.215.23.155 (talk) 13:24, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

There is more on the user talk. Note, I am giving my permission as a CheckUser for an administrator to unblock the Chris.Sherlock account if there is consensus here to do so.

I personally oppose an unblock for two reasons:

1. There is CU confirmed block evasion logged out a few months ago
2. Special:Contributions/Chris.Sherlock is unquestionably a sock created after the block of Letsbefiends, and the abuse he leveled towards DeltaQuad during the unblock request would likely be worth an indef in it's own right. The other commentary on the initial edits from that account also very much don't look like someone I'd advocate unblocking.

That being said, it's controversial on the talk page, and other administrators were advocating IAR before the CU findings. I'm open to letting the community decide this one, so I'm bringing it here. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:08, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

• This is Ta bu shi da yu, first edit June 2004, who is part of the infrastructure of this place. He's the creator of {{citation needed}} [22] and WP:AN, [23] and lots of good articles, most memorably Exploding whale. He is funny and kind, and he was very helpful in his day to lots of editors. His real name is Chris Sherlock (he outed himself years ago), and at some point he ran into emotional problems and had to leave. There have been a couple of attempts at returning, none successful. As I understand it from Tim Starling's recent post on User talk:Chris.sherlock, [24] Chris has undergone psychotherapy and would like to come back. I strongly support that, and I hope the community will too, on the understanding, of course, that he uses only one account. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:28, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose for now: The unblock request is still missing the essential parts: understanding what they did wrong and convincing us (well, the reviewing admin) that they'll do better. I see a history of their contributions followed by some combative behavior. I respect their significant past contributions to the project, but I'm definitely a "nobody is above the law" type. Oppose, potentially revisited if they at least meet the minimum requirements for an unblock request. creffett (talk) 02:09, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Weak oppose, per this rant, as mentioned above. It would be stronger if I didn't suspect I was missing a large part of the back story here. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:03, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support When Tim Starling and SarahSV support an unblock, the only reasonable procedure is to agree with them. Apparently there were problems and of course, like all unblocks, there may be problems in the future. However, the intentions are good and the rant mentioned above is not a rant. Further, the editor is known to have created good content. Johnuniq (talk) 04:02, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support for the same reasons. DGG ( talk ) 04:39, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support somewhat conditionally, per SarahSV's and Tim Starling's comments. TBSDY needs to take things slowly, because many things have changed since he needed to step away for health reasons; it would be helpful if a few of his longtime colleagues undertook to help him transition back in (I'm sure several of them are reading right now and will gladly step up). Chris needs to be aware that there's nowhere near the tolerance within the community of "characters" or eccentricity that was commonplace when he was more active, and it would be wise of him to temper his behaviour accordingly; he should willingly take and follow advice from colleagues willing to mentor him. He will be on a pretty short leash, and of course should be restricted to one account. Risker (talk) 04:45, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support per all, and at the very worst WP:ROPE. I hope Mr. Sherlock feels better! :) – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 05:02, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support per above, emphasising that it would be best if Tbsdy could stick to a single account. —Kusma (t·c) 10:04, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. No matter this user's past merits, their conduct is incompatible with participation in Wikipedia, and any unblock request would need to recognize this and address it, as per Creffett. Sandstein 10:51, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support, we should always be willing to give people a second chance. Fish+Karate 11:35, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support We should give a user who has contributed much to the project in the past and has had some health issues another chance.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 12:24, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support giving them another chance per all the reasons above. – Ammarpad (talk) 16:23, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support The unblock request is reasonable unlike the original block which was excessive. I understand that there hasn't been a sufficient amount of public groveling from the blocked user to satisfy some of the admins here but that's entirely their problem. Iaritmioawp (talk) 16:31, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Chris is good people. I know a lot of the back story outside of Wikipedia, I am not concerned. And I miss him here. Yes, he needs to take it steady, for reasons some of us understand, but I don't see any reason he'd be a risk here right now. Guy (help!) 16:58, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. His response to the unblock request does not give me any faith he's actually going to be a productive contributor again. If he cannot state in his own words the specific issues that led to him being blocked, and has been socking recently, that's further reason not to consider his request. If he had emotional issues I'm hopeful they're taken care of, but that's outside the realm of consideration. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 17:08, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps if the admin who blocked him had done so, we might all know why he was blocked in the first place. Orderinchaos 03:06, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose His response or diatribe at the unblock request should be enough of an indicator that this will result in issues. To me it shows an astounding lack of WP:AGF. --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 17:30, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Mainly per Guy. A valued contributor in the early years ran into emotional difficulties. Of course we consider that. This is a real person, not an abstract avatar, and we need to be kinder to our fellow editors. Anyone who has contributed so much in the past deserves to be given help and opportunity to contribute again, especially given Tim's assessment that they are now past their problems. --RexxS (talk) 00:22, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose primarily due to the discussion that has already occurred at the user's talk page and the user's block evasion sockpuppetry. Would support extending the WP:SO. ST47 (talk) 01:38, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support Net benefit to the encyclopaedia. The issues over which he was blocked were ridiculous - he was accused of breaches of policy, but these were never substantiated, and seemed to fly in the face of the facts relating to the subject of the article being disputed. And we do not generally give indefinite blocks for WP:NOR. One health issue three years ago - recovered from - does not define a person, and I also think that editing under his real name, by his own choice, imposes a degree of personal accountability. Orderinchaos 03:06, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

  We definitely do indef block editors for persistent or egregious BLP vios, especially if the editors start editing logged out to get their way. As we should. I haven't and won't look into the content details of the block since frankly I don't feel it has great bearing on what we should do now at least at this time. And it's likely to be difficult anyway given changing sources. But BLP should be taken seriously and if there are significant concerns it is often better to leave the content out until it is clear there are no reasonable concerns. Any editor who goes against that may reasonably be blocked maybe even indef with the recognition indef is often not meant to be permanent but to require an editor understand the problem with their editing before they edit again. Edit: It seems the content was on a sandbox which looks to have been deleted so not possible for us peons to review. But definitely someone using primary sources like ASIC, court cases etc would be a strong concern per WP:BLPPRIMARY. I will make one final comment which is that UNDUE relating to a LP is by definition a BLP concern even if as with all BLP matters how we handle it will depend on the details. Nil Einne (talk) 01:35, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

• Support - as has previously been a dedicated user. Hence fair chance of being net benefit. I know parts of the back story and can forgive some venting. If there are future problems I am sure they can be dealt with accordingly. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:22, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support giving another chance to improve. This is WP:ROPE anyway. starship.paint (talk) 04:57, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Chris is clearly someone who cares about the project and has contributed very positively in the past, but he's suffered from some personal problems. Thankfully he seems to be well along the road to recovery, and wouldn't it be nice if his friends here could help with that process? I know about the "not therapy" thing, but it's for our benefit too, because it looks like we'll get a great contributor back. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:29, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support, per WP:ROPE mostly. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:56, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support. I have have fond memories of Ta bu shi da yu, I know he has the potential to be a real plus to the community. I know he had problems, but if Tim Starling, SarahSV, and most importantly Guy are willing to give him another chance, then I am. Guettarda (talk) 20:28, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
• Reluctant oppose despite the strong support from some respected contributors above, I can't support based on what they've said. They have my strong sympathies for the problems they've faced in life and for whatever mistakes we made in dealing with them. But ultimately we have to protect Wikipedia. I don't expect grovelling. I do expect an understanding of stuff like our sockpuppetry policy. There's also a wide chasm between grovelling and the rants they've left. Nil Einne (talk) 00:25, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

  Should mention that I'm fine with the editor using whatever single account they want if unblocked. Even if they hadn't scrambled the other account it's never seemed necessary to me to be too fussy about which account provided all accounts are properly declared. With reason of course. Nil Einne (talk) 00:56, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

• Tentative support I am not worried about "harm" to Wikipedia, I am however worried about Wikipedia resulting in harm to Chris. Wikipedia is often a fairly rough place and can cause editors a great deal of stress. Chris are you sure you want this? And do you agree to reach out for help if needed / take a step back again if it becomes to stressful? And most importantly continue to take care of yourself? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:37, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose To be blunt, this person was blocked 2 days ago for block evasion. That alone should give everyone pause. And the rant in his request seals the deal for me. He should be commended for his previous work and I wish him all the best in the future, but I do not believe a block should be overturned at this time. Buffs (talk) 16:35, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
• Conditional oppose unless there are specific, written, agreements that any editor can order him to stay off their talkpage and failure to do so will result in an immediate and indefinite block, and that any admin can impose a full interaction ban between him and any other editor if they consider it justified and failure to comply with it will result in an immediate and indefinite block. Yes, I'm familiar with the background here, but regardless of the circumstances this editor rightfully earned a well-deserved reputation as a vicious and aggressive bully (much of the history has been hidden owing to the out-of-process deletion of his talk page, but see the most recent entries at Special:Contributions/Tbsdy lives, for instance), and regardless of how much he's changed it's not reasonable to expect anyone who had dealings with his previous incarnations to be forced to interact with him against their will. ‑ Iridescent 19:49, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose in part per Buffs: Block evasion should not be rewarded with an unblock a few days later. But more than that, my observation is that the main supporters here are supporting on the grounds of recalling someone with a good track record or understanding this person's struggles and a personal knowledge of improvement. That's all well and good and could absolutely support someone on those grounds were I in the same place. But treating editors equally, on objective grounds, and on the public record, should be the basis for deciding whether to unblock. And looking at this case objectively, without knowledge of who this user is other than what's presented about the post-block conduct, does not provide adequate support for an unblock. The discussion quoted by TonyBallioni above does not inspire confidence that Chris understands and accepts why he was blocked. If there is a recent record of positive contributions outside of enwiki then those may be relevant for consideration. I think Chris should seek reentry to the community via the standard offer in six months' time. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 20:01, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Based off the odd showing of pure nepotism above. It's obvious some of the supports above want to disregard the socking policy because they knew this editor a long time ago. As someone who doesn't, I don't see the user showing any understanding to why they were blocked in the first place and the TP shows they don't even know how what they did can be perceived as socking. Its simple: they were blocked for not following the BLP policy. Wasn't unblocked when they made a new account to start editing again, and was blocked when caught. So oppose till the user can tell us how they understand why they're blocked and what they can do in the future to not run into the same problems that got them to be blocked in the first place. Valeince (talk) 20:40, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
• Comment Involved user User:TonyBallioni is attempting to silence Chris's attempt to hold the blocking admin to account on his own talk page, the only place where he has edit access at this point. Orderinchaos 02:59, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
  • I am not involved: I reviewed a CU block and when I determined their was block evasion, blocked one of the socks, and then brought it here for review. When you and the user appealing decided to continue harping on DeltaQuad rather than raise issues here, I hatted the discussion as disruptive. See also my response on my talk. I see another administrator has restored the hatting now. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:08, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

She was asked to justify her actions, and as the thing wore on, it became increasingly obvious she had incorrectly used the powers the community had vested in her and imposed novel rules. Powers on here are not a gift of absolute power, and if they're wrongly applied, they deserve to be questioned. The conversation there is also on a rather different topic to here - it's more about the original block than about this unblock request of this account. Makes sense to keep them separate. Orderinchaos 03:38, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Just noting that there's been considerable progress on Chris's wall, underscoring the positives of keeping that discussion open. Closing it prematurely would have prevented the apology that resulted. Orderinchaos 03:57, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose - The editor in question is edit warring, and displaying OWNership issues on their talkpage, [25], [26]. I think Orderinchaos should probably back off a bit here from sinking to accusations of bad faith repeatedly. SQL^{Query me!} 03:26, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Firstly, while I accept talk pages aren't "owned", accusing someone of edit warring on their *own* talk page is kind of stretching the intended purpose of the edit warring policy. Secondly, It wouldn't have been so had you not edit warred yourself [27] [28]. Thirdly, there is a theme of people not reading policies here, but WP:AGF explicitly says that the policy "does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of obvious evidence to the contrary". I expressed my opinion earlier in the piece in favour of Chris's rehabilitation on the project, and was initially prepared to leave it at that, but the actions of some here have utterly disgusted me and reminded me exactly why I only occasionally edit these days despite having been one of the site's most prolific article writers on Australian topics for several years in the past. Orderinchaos 03:32, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

That obvious evidence to the contrary being....? Also, I take offense to being accused of edit warring. I would like to see that evidence as well, please? SQL^{Query me!} 03:45, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Second part first - easy. The two diffs I linked above show you reasserting someone else's earlier edit, then doing it again, on the encouragement of the original (asserter? for want of a better word). [29] First part - I'm loath to prosecute that now that there's been positive developments on the other talk page (another thing that demonstrates why it was good to keep it open), but I've been here long enough to know how pile-ons work. Hell, back in the IRC days I was probably part of a few, although that doesn't make it right. Orderinchaos 03:52, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

I edited the user_talk page ONCE, then gave an opinion without even approaching reinstating my last edit nowhere even remotely close to reasserting someone else's earlier edit, then doing it again. That doesn't even come close to edit warring. Please retract your claim immediately. SQL^{Query me!} 04:00, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Partial retraction as noted with relation to the second edit, and apologies for getting that one wrong. But your first edit (third overall) has a cosine similarity of 0.501 against the original edit, with even a quote directly from it. Orderinchaos 04:11, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

*Support unblock. It seems Chris was a productive editor in the past and I believe, from his responses, that he intends to continue being a productive editor. From my perspective WP:AGF applies. I don't see the rant as a rant - it seems he was understandably frustrated. He has indicated that he will use only one account going forward, so that issue seems to be resolved. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 08:45, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

• Support It would have been better & simpler for all had Chris.sherlock applied to return under WP:Standard offer -- & likely would have been unremarkably successful had he did. Had he done this, he would have avoided the mistake which appears to be the reason for this accusation of sock puppeting. But to insist that he use this method now that he has returned is little more than process for process sake. Chris.sherlock has proven to be a valuable contributor in the past: he is probably the only editor to merit a Signpost article upon his departure the first time, many years ago. However, as Risker pointed out above, things have changed & he needs to return the community slowly & with mentoring in order to successfully re-acclimatize. -- llywrch (talk) 17:00, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
  • little more than process for process sake I find it astounding that this is grounds for dissent in a post-WP:FRAM world. Adherence to process, whether for the sake of process or (as is the case here) in order to demonstrate equal treatment and encourage appropriate behavior, is the single most important thing we need to be doing on Wikipedia right now. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 17:31, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
    • So you doubt that if Chris.sherlock were to drop this, wait 6 months, then approach any of at least a dozen admins, he wouldn't be allowed back into Wikipedia? After which, there will not be some outcry of favoritism & corruption, & perhaps no requirement that he receive some help & spend some time familiarizing himself with all of the changes? It saves us time not going thru those hoops, instead deciding here & now if we want him back, than to repeat this discussion 6 months from now, & reach the same conclusions. (And WP:FRAM was about an outside group telling us how to handle our people, not the community deciding how to handle this case.) -- llywrch (talk) 07:13, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
      • I think that if he came back in six months and sought an unban (since this will become a CBAN upon its failure) under the standard offer, not having engaged in block/ban evasion in the meantime, I think that the request will get a reasonable evaluation based on the evidence presented at that time. And, no, WP:FRAM is not simply about how WMF handled Fram, as the outcry over the Arbitration Committee's bungling of the situation has proved. It's about equal treatment under policy and fairness of process. As another commenter has stated, the arguments that Chris should be allowed back in because he's part of the old guard and did some good things in the past is the most disgusting display of nepotism I've seen outside of WMF board members. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 20:30, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
    • No, the single most important thing we need to be doing on Wikipedia right now, and for all time, is to treat people with empathy, decency, and compassion, and when process gets in the way of that, we ignore the process and just do the right thing. --Jayron32 12:54, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
      • And here, the right thing is to follow the process. Irregular, "out-of-process" actions, especially administrative actions, are what got us into and perpetuate the WP:FRAM mess. Crying IAR or NOTLAW every single time a rule gets in your way is a slap in the face to everyone who routinely gets an unblock request denied because they don't have friends, or who has an article deleted on notability grounds, or any number of other routine things. Chris is neither unique nor does he present special circumstances over any other blocked editor. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 20:30, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose mainly per the user's belligerent comments on his Talk page and, in particular, the personal attacks against Amanda, the substance of which is often ludicrous.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:18, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support The main crux of the block seems to me to be over the socking issue, and yet I don't see the intent to deceive or avoid scrutiny. These accounts are in the open, were never meant to avoid scrutiny or discipline, etc. Some of the lashing out seems problematic, but does not arise to the level of blocking IMHO. --Jayron32 18:19, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose I changed my Ivote from Support to Oppose. As @Bbb23: has noted, the comments on the talk page have become quite belligerent from two users who are not Amanda. This is exactly the kind of disruptive behavior that results in being blocked or banned. They appear to be seeking some sort of justice for past wrongs that happened three years ago. It is time to drop the stick and stop trying to confront a number of Admins about this. (Chris Sherlock pinged four Admins on issues that have already been discussed [30], [31], [32], [33]). Also, it is not appropriate to accuse @TonyBallioni: or Amanda of a bad faith block or other nefarious motives.---Steve Quinn (talk) 18:40, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

There was an apology from Amanda on the page yesterday, following which the tone has significantly changed in a positive way. IAR is a good thing to have always as a backup, but it does not entitle admins to make up policies on the run and block people indefinitely for them, then (initially) refuse to engage constructively when their behaviour is questioned. I don't see how raising this is belligerent. Wikipedia literally would stop functioning if more admins behaved in that way. Some would argue it already has - there's been huge changes since my main active period, pretty much none of them positive. I apologise if you were offended by the outcome of my incredulousness at what I was seeing and my feeling that someone needed to say something. Orderinchaos 03:41, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

I appreciate the apology. And I think there was no IAR involved. It is policy to block sockpuppet accounts. Fortunately one Admin decided to allow the community to decide. What I saw on the talk page were two editors repeatedly confronting Amanda until she apologized - for something that occured three years ago. I think that was taking advantage of WP:ADMINACCT. Maybe I'm not perceiving this correctly, but this is what see right now. Also, editing from the perspective of trying to right great wrongs does not seem to be effective (imho). ---Steve Quinn (talk) 05:57, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

• Comment I think the CU block is a good call and being blocked for sockpuppetry is a good call. It amounts to the same thing. Recommend return in six months per WP:Standard offer due to the aforementioned behavior and sockpuppetry, which resulted in going around a block to continue editing. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 01:03, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Ta bu shi da yu, the creator of this very noticeboard, is something of an icon to those of us who were around then. Now he wishes to edit under his real name (Chris Sherlock). I'm in favour of drawing a line under the chequered history in between, not least because it's too complicated to disentangle; because I don't see any real attempt to avoid scrutiny; and because, though I daresay Ta bu was at fault, it looks like others may have been too. I'd like to welcome him back and see how it goes. With a plea to Ta bu / Chris to take it slow getting into his stride and to look forward, rather than back to old grudges. Do you think you can do that, Chris? Bishonen | talk 01:53, 13 September 2019 (UTC).
  • Wow, that is ironic; here is WP:AN's earliest history. Johnuniq (talk) 05:34, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
    • Ironic, indeed. I second that WoW. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 06:03, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Dicklyon pushing for the mass-renaming of pages through a small-scale consensus

Dicklyon (talk · contribs) is pushing to have "The" removed from the disambiguator of all band articles on Wikipedia per this discussion (closed by User:The Gnome). However, there was no clear consensus. For something very controversial like this, less than 10 participants shouldn't be able to form a consensus. It was more or less 55%-45%. I think a community consensus is needed to go ahead with the mass renaming of pages on Wikipedia.

I would like to ask for a review of the closure of the discussion and if there is consensus to carry out the Wikipedia-wide renaming of pages. Warm regards. 69.9.33.228 (talk) 02:26, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

• I've been moving along, a band at a time, manually, and so far have heard no pushback. I posted after the linked closed discussion (where 16 people had responded) that I'm working on it, and got no response in 9 days. Moving forward does not appear to be controversial. Dicklyon (talk) 02:34, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• I also agree these moves are not controversial and they are also in line with WP:CRITERIA (namely WP:CONCISE). I'd also suggest the IP use his account to register his complaint, instead of doing so anonymously. Calidum 04:48, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Agree with that last bit. Amazing how a new editor knows the background to this case, and is able to log an issue on this board. Maybe they'd like to login with their everyday account? Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 07:20, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
    • I would take issue with the false idea that being logged out means being new … were it not that the geolocation tool and some checkers tag 69.9.33.228 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) as a proxy, a spam source, and a compromised server on the day that these edits were made. Uncle G (talk) 09:49, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• This IP is part of Atlantic Metro's server farm. Please note that both alternative accounts and logging out to edit are not allowed in project space. Please log into your main account if you really think this is an issue.  IP blocked with a rangeblock on the server farm. Reaper Eternal (talk) 13:29, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

• I wouldn't mind an independent review of the close before moving forward on this. I don't want to go ahead if it's viewed as controversial. I'm in discussions about getting some bot help to get it done. Dicklyon (talk) 14:53, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Perhaps this report should be closed per WP:DENY/WP:RBI. And, going further, perhaps deleted, so that it's not archived, so it doesn't end up being misconstrued as a "black mark" on Dicklyon's record. – Levivich 16:30, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

  Well, if someone's searching the archives for black marks about me, I'd rather they find this one than some of the others ;^}. Dicklyon (talk) 22:47, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

• I think an independent review of the close should be carried out. I don't agree that there was clear consensus whatsoever, and just because there has been no pushback so far doesn't mean there won't be or that users don't (still) disagree. I do, and I had no idea this discussion to remove "the" inconsistently from article names (even when most sources use a 'the') even took place until several days ago when I was notified about Closer (Chainsmokers song). Again, there are probably plenty more examples even Dicklyon can't think of to rename, so it's not going to be consistently implemented anyway. The sooner this is revisited and reviewed, the better. Ss112 20:48, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

  If it's agreed that it's not controversial, I can pretty much guarantee that we'll do it consistently; I've got a quarry query that identifies all articles with disambiguators "(The X song)" etc., and a short list of exceptions, and we'll get those reviewed before executing via bot assistance. The point of doing some by hand first is to elicit any opposition, if there is any, so we can resolve it. Dicklyon (talk) 02:03, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

  Also note that Ss112 is really just here because he got annoyed about an unrelated topic that we discussed on his talk page. Dicklyon (talk) 02:12, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

  Also note that Dicklyon is adding that addendum because he couldn't get the last word in at my talk page and kept harassing me, disregarding my request to stop posting at my talk page. You know, I already explained, but let me try again for you: I was notified days ago when an IP editor connected "Closer (Chainsmokers song)" to the Wikimedia data page and I wondered how it had gotten there, and saw you moved it because of a discussion without a clear consensus and saw you were going around doing the same to what looked like every artist you could think of that have "The" in their name. It really looks like you couldn't wait to move a bunch of pages to incorrect titles. What for? To rack up an edit count? Wouldn't surprise me. It wouldn't be the first time someone had done that here; Koavf was accused of doing so quite recently. Even if I was here for the reason you said, it doesn't invalidate my opinion, regardless of what you may think. Ss112 02:18, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

• That needs a far better and in-depth discussion than that one (and also one with a better consensus). There are so many examples where removing "The" is wrong (The Fall, The The, The xx, The 1975, The Alarm, The Who, The Used, The Firm, The Darkness, The Streets, etc. etc. Black Kite (talk) 00:56, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

  Yes, I would welcome a discussion of whether some of those should be added the exceptions list, which currently is only The The and The 1975. And of course, exceptions can easily be introduced after the fact, too, with minor hassle. Personally, I think that moving Change (The Alarm album) to Change (Alarm album) would be a good thing. Dicklyon (talk) 02:03, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

  Until/unless someone organizes such a review or expanded discussion, I will assume the recently closed RFC represents consensus. Dicklyon (talk) 16:35, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

• You'll also need to be careful where there are bands called "Whatever" and "The Whatever" - for example The Streets and Streets. (There aren't actually any disambiguated titles by The Streets, just giving an example.}Black Kite (talk) 19:58, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

• FWIW I think the closer got the RfC close right (and it was a detailed closing explanation), and this report misstates the issue. It's not "The" removed from the disambiguator of all band articles on Wikipedia, it's "The" being removed from the disambiguator of song and album articles, which is a big difference. "The" gets dropped when the band name is being used as an adjective. For example, we say, "Revolver is a Beatles album", we don't say, "Revolver is a The Beatles album." "Tommy is a Who album," not "Tommy is a The Who album." "Coexist is an xx album." So it's correct to have Revolver (The Beatles album) → Revolver (Beatles album), Tommy (The Who album) → Tommy (Who album); Coexist (The xx album) → Coexist (xx album). There are some exceptions where this would be confusing, such as for the bands The The and The 1975, and there's an exceptions list for this. It seems like some safeguards are in place for soliciting exceptions and having review of the list prior to using a bot. I'm not seeing a problem here that needs to be at AN. – Levivich 17:40, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

  You might just about get away with The Who example, but The xx are never called just xx. Try the Google search xx band -the. Also, your example above doesn't actually work. Of course we wouldn't say "Coexist is a The xx album" because language doesn't work like that - we'd say "Coexist is an album by The xx". Black Kite (talk) 19:58, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

  Here we see "This stark xx song" and "number one xx song" and "this invigorating xx song". There are others where "The" is dropped from xx. Dicklyon (talk) 00:23, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

  Together with 31 mentions of "The xx" in the same article! This is the problem really, no sources are going to be completely consistent. On the other hand though, our Pixies article refers to them in the text as "The Pixies" despite the fact that not a single item of their output contains the word "The" on the cover. So it goes both ways... Black Kite (talk) 00:31, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

  But zero "The xx song", which is what we're talking about. Similarly, here you find "an xx album" but no "the xx album". Dicklyon (talk) 00:38, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

  BK, you're not accounting for the noun-vs-adjective distinction. "The" is (almost always) dropped when the noun is used as an adjective. As for The xx are never called just xx:

  "the new xx album" NYTimes

  "the new xx album" LATimes

  "the new XX album" Boston.com

  "the new xx album" Spin

  "the second xx album" Irish Times

  "it is, after all, an xx album" Sydney Morning Herald

  "still distinctly and deeply an xx album" Spin

  "since the last xx album" Paste magazine

  "Jamie XX Talks New XX Album" The Fader – Levivich 00:52, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

  Certainly agree this is not something that needs admin attention. I assume that if someone cares enough they'll open a new RFC some place and let me know; otherwise I'll go with the apparent consensus. Dicklyon (talk) 01:34, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

• Not controversial? This is incredibly controversial. The mass renaming of music articles needs a far lengthier and more in-depth discussion that just a handful of editors. Clearly, the RfC was not publicized widely enough, since I would imagine a few dozen editors would have weighed in. I've got other irons in the fire, but if an RfC is begun, I hope I'd be notified. --Tenebrae (talk) 14:43, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

  It doesn't seem particularly problematic to me. In order to be a problem, it would have actually led to an article being incorrectly renamed. Can you point to any of the renames done under this purview, by Dicklyon or anyone else, that should NOT have been done? --Jayron32 16:31, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Trend toward more inappropriate AIV reports

I've noticed lately that there seems to be more and more reports at WP:AIV that are not consistent with the guidelines in the green box at the top of the page. While there has always been a certain level of inappropriate reports there, this currently occurs to an extent that I haven't seen in my >12 years a regular patrolling admin at AIV. Examples include: IPs reported for routine vandalism without having being warned; reports for a single vandal edit for which they were given a first warning and then immediately reported before making another edit; editors adding their social media accounts to their user page being reported as promotion-only accounts; content dispute/edit warring between an IP and a registered user where the IP only gets reported for vandalism; etc. These types of edits are of course problematic, but are not really immediately blockable offenses. I feel we are becoming more and more bitey toward new editors in this regard. Some of the fault here lies with the editors making the reports, but I also see lots of these reports resulting in admins blocking which further encourages this type of reporting. If we are going to be more strict in the way we deal with new users' problematic editing, I think we need to get consensus and change the guidelines first. Otherwise, I would suggest that admins be more proactive in declining reports that are not consistent with our current guidelines. What do other admins think? -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:05, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I've also noticed some admins will block even after a report is declined. Reaper Eternal (talk) 13:12, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Reaper Eternal, Hm - do you think SQLBot's timing should be tweaked to remove un-actioned reports sooner? SQL^{Query me!} 22:19, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I've been thinking it wouldn't hurt to shorten it a bit. Leaving reports for a bit is nice feedback for reporting users, but they don't need to linger too long. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:56, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Amorymeltzer, Any specific suggestions on how the algorithm should be tweaked? SQL^{Query me!} 01:30, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Oh I don't know. I think 4-8 could be 3-6, but looking over the discussion for its implementation, it seems 8 was a pretty agreed-upon value, but that's for un-replied-to reports right? Is it the same for replied-to reports? Maybe those with a single declined reply could be removed quicker. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:18, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

• Additions along those lines clearly shouldn't be there - are they generally being raised by those who should know better, or by early counter-vandals who aren't sure about the process? @Reaper Eternal: - could you give any examples of that occurring, that would be a more serious concern than some unwarranted posts Nosebagbear (talk) 14:49, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Although there is always a low level of inappropriate reports from new users (which is understandable and manageable), the trend that I'm observing in general involves experienced users. -- Ed (Edgar181) 15:17, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I've called those users out on it in the past (commenting that the report is inappropriate). They tend to get very mad at me because "I'm not an admin and it's not my business". Frankly though, I think the comments are valuable to give the admins a head's up. -- Rockstonetalk to me! 22:42, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I've had a long-standing beef with CSD U5 being used frivolously for any new editor who posts ANY personal information about themselves on their user page. We have long-standing editors with elaborate bios on their user pages stating their interests but I've seen new editor user pages just stating something simple like "I am a student at X university where I'm studying science. I love Facebook and editing Wikipedia!" being deleted as "not a web host" and sometimes "self-promotion". I spoke with others at WikiMania about this and am ready to post about this on the Village Pump. I think some admins are not evaluating rationales for deleting user pages and considering whether the criteria are even appropriate. I think there is a rush to delete and, in your case, Edgar, to block over infractions that, in the past, would have involved a conversation with an editor first. First, we need to get across to our reporting editors that they need to be more judicious before they tag pages and report "vandals" and talk to our our admins who spend most of their time deleting to question tagged user pages and not just automatically delete them. I can't think of a quicker way to drive away new editors than deleting their user pages that might contain simple biographical information about them. I'm not talking about wanna-be djs, models, actors and marketers but just new editors introducing themselves by telling us who they are. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:14, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Liz, since you and I have had differences of opinion in the past about this, how would you suggest editors improve their tagging of sandbox pages as U5? My understanding is that you don't speedily delete sandbox pages as U5 if they're plausible article drafts, whereas I think that even if it's a plausible article draft, a vanity autobiography is U5 material. ^creffpublic _{a creffett franchise} (talk to the boss) 13:07, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Creffett I wouldn't call the type of page Liz is describing a "vanity autobiography". One's userpage exists to introduce oneself to other editors. "I am a student at X university where I'm studying science. I love Facebook and editing Wikipedia!" sounds to me like a perfectly appropriate example of the intended use of one's userpage. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 13:13, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

ONUnicorn, well, yes, and I wouldn't U5 that (probably should have made that clearer). I was talking more about a place where Liz and I have disagreed in the past, where I have marked a sandbox page for speedy deletion under U5 and she declined it as a plausible draft. ^creffpublic _{a creffett franchise} (talk to the boss) 13:16, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Okay, my point is nothing without examples so here are two user pages that admins can check out that were just deleted in the past few minutes that I think should be perfectly fine: User:Mohamed Abdullahi ibrahim isack and User:Rezoanul basher. Both editors created a user page within 30 minutes of creating an account with a little bit of biographical information about themselves. Nothing egregious, they weren't talking about their DJ business or a company they worked for. Maybe it is not ideal to include a social media account but I am sure are respected editors who include this as well.

Think of some of our most veteran editors and the amount of information they include about themselves on their user page and ask yourself why we have one standard for experienced editors and a different one for newbies. I was talking with Doc James about this and he asserted that it was important for editors to share information about themselves so we know if they have a COI regarding the subjects they write about.

And I can't see how an article draft written on a user page can be activity unrelated to Wikipedia...it's an article draft for goodness' sakes! It might be promotional and it might not meet our notability standards. But how can it be "not a webhost" content when an editor is drafting an article? That's exactly what we keep telling editors that they should be spending time on.

Sorry to rant, I'll try to come up with a solid proposal regarding this to bring to the Village Pump but it bugs me every time I wander into CSD territory and see some of the pages are speedily deleted without question. How many of us started of our Wikipedia editing careers with sterling editing? I think we have to provide editors with room to try, learn and improve. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:54, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

• I'd just like to comment here as my spambot requests often result in confusion. Some new users are just telling about themselves however a good portion of spambots appear to be innocuous new users but are, well, spambots in the ntsamr category. They often look like this:
• My name is Emilia from Court-At-Street studying Law. I did my schooling, secured 76% and hope to find someone with same interests in Sewing. source
• I am Beatriz from Zonhoven doing my final year engineering in Theatre. I did my schooling, secured 77% and hope to find someone with same interests in Home automation. source
• Hello, dear friend! My name is Carolyn. I am pleased that I can unify to the entire world. I live in Germany, in the south region. I dream to go to the various countries, to obtain familiarized with fascinating individuals.
  
  Visit my page - link redacted source
• My name is Brice Youngblood. Researching fashion could be the thing I really like most. For years I've lived in Virgin Islands hence there is no love every day living in the following. I am currently a filing assistant. Go to her website identify out more: link redactedsource
• I am Jamel and was born on 10 October 1977. My hobbies are Seashell Collecting and Footbag.
  
  Also visit my blog url redactedsource
• 28 yr oⅼd Equipment Employ Manager Benton fгom Dolbeau-Mistassini, ｒeally loves garage saleing, redacted link escorts ɑnd fashion. Ϝinds tһе charm in traveling tօ spots ɑround thе entire world, reϲently ϳust returning fгom Wieliczka Salt Ⅿine.source

I could list hundreds, if not thousands more from here and from every other project but I'm hoping that the pattern is a little more clear.

Here is a series of different spambots:[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]and this one is a scam/spambot

And this will certainly explain some of the reports Liz pointed out above and the increased numbers of reports you're seeing, as there is an influx of bots but I cannot stress enough that these are not naive editors or even spam-editors, they are spambots, they will never become productive editors and they cannot be reasoned with...because they are not sentient, but I see all too often that we're told to warn spambots like this which is quite frankly a waste of everyone's time and if it's problematic that they're being reported at AIV or if you think it should be reported elsewhere, maybe an RFC needs to be started to remove "spambot or compromised account" from the default selection at AIV. Of course this doesn't address the inappropriate vandalism reports but I just wanted to point out the spammer/u5 stuff is often overlooked. Praxidicae (talk) 16:20, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

they cannot be reasoned with...because they are not sentient that's what they want you to think... ^creffpublic _{a creffett franchise} (talk to the boss) 17:14, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Sometimes they do remove speedy tags though...they also like to have an identity crisis every now and then and change the fake name they use. Praxidicae (talk) 17:23, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

In order to reduce any potential confusion regarding this specific type of report at AIV, I would recommend adding a link in your report to m:NTSAMR to make it clear to any patrolling admins that it is part of a larger pattern of abuse. -- Ed (Edgar181) 18:30, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment) The problem certainly exists—see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indian politics‎‎ #Edit war in Communist Party of India for example of a deceptive “vandalism” report—but my observations suggest that it is not as bad here in en.Wikipedia as elsewhere. I have an impression that an average sysop here understands what is vandalism and what is not – certainly not the case for Commons. As a tangential comment, IMHO vandal fighters should be able to distinguish several scenarios. For a casual vandal e.g. on a generic dynamic IP – yes, warn, wait for next edits, and then block. But there are also vandal IP ranges; in that case it isn’t necessary to warn the last active IP especially if user_talks of individual IP already have a plenty of warnings. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 21:21, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

A Village Pump RfC was archived without closure

The following Village Pump RfC was automatically archived without closure: RFC: Formalize Standing of Portal Guidelines as a Guideline (18 July 2019). I would like to request that an uninvolved admin either closes it officially or reopens it by moving it back to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), with a Bump template added to prevent further accidental archival of the topic. --Hecato (talk) 09:05, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't know, it looks like that discussion died a natural death. If someone really wants to I wouldn't object, but I'm not sure it's necessary either. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 15:03, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Oh, I probably should have mentioned somewhere that I requested a closure at WP:ANRFC not too long ago. While I agree that it died a natural death, having a definitive close from an uninvolved editor is worthwhile as I think it will prevent edit warring over what tag to apply. Wug·a·po·des​ 01:14, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

I also think that a formal closure of the discussions there is in order. Otherwise, the matters being discussed there remain in an uncertain limbo, which defeats the purpose of the RfCs occurring in the first place. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 04:22, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

False accusations against my good name in English version

Dear administrator, I was shocked realizing that someone published in Wikipedia my "portrait" with evident lies and false accusations: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Gust%C3%A1v_Mur%C3%ADn I am asking You to DELETE this fake news + hoax before I will be forced to the legal action. I contrary to that the Czech version is correct: https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gust%C3%A1v_Mur%C3%ADn It means that somebody misused Your project to humiliate my person by pure lies. Please, act as requested above. Many thanks for You kind understanding. Gustáv Murín

P.S. Here is my CV that is showing my real public activities as writer and scientist: https://gustavmurin.webgarden.cz/rubriky/biography/comments-to-writing — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.216.151.21 (talk) 10:55, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I blanked out some content that was clearly violating BLP. 137.71.23.54 (talk) 11:17, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I added revdel and semi-protection. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:07, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

And we just let the legal threat go unpunished?--WaltCip (talk) 13:01, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I can't see the original content, but I'm willing to assume good faith and call this WP:DOLT case. ^creffpublic _{a creffett franchise} (talk to the boss) 13:13, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, it was pretty DOLTy, and clearly english isn't their primary language so that likely contributed. 137.71.23.54 (talk) 13:22, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Fair enough.--WaltCip (talk) 13:28, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

User:Enlightened 762

Have removed this users ability to edit. They have struggled to 1) use references 2) format properly 3) not copy and paste from sources / add material which is not a copyright problem. As I have been involved with cleaning up much of the concerns happy for others to review my block. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:37, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Doc James, Just curious, does a CCI need to be opened? 💵Money💵emoji💵^💸 13:40, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

User:Money emoji I think clean up is basically done. They have not edited that much. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:43, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

If you look through Enlighteneds edit history you will see other editors, including me, have had to clean up quite a few edits as well.---- Work permit (talk) 05:05, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Temporary block of User:Citation bot

See also: User talk:Citation bot § Better batch/queuing handling revisited, and User talk:Citation bot § Category/batch whitelist

Citation bot has been unleashed on Category:CS1 errors: missing periodical, containing over 330K articles in it as of writing. This is downright nuts and prevents the bot from being used by anyone else. Please block the bot, this should kill that process and hopefully restore access to the bot for other editors. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:42, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Appears to have been activated by User:Ost316. Ost316, any comment on this? — xaosflux ^Talk 17:55, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm fine with canceling it and I apologize for causing a problem. In previous runs, it seemed like it was stopping after a certain amount of time on other categories (I assumed it was when my OAuth token expired), but thanks for letting me that it blocks others; I can certainly be more prudent and cautious in the future. —Ost (talk) 18:06, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

• @Headbomb: a one-hour block has been placed on this bot. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:13, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Shorter might also work, and it's possible that this doesn't restore access just yet, but we'll see how things go. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:15, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

The gadget works again now. Not sure if the background process was killed, but we'll see soon enough I suppose. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:27, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Headbomb, please read the mandatory warnings given above: When you start a discussion about an editor, you must notify them on their user talk page. A passing comment to someone else is not a proper notification!!!  :-) Nyttend (talk) 22:01, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I started a discussion about block of User:Citation bot and left a notice at User talk:Citation bot. I'm not sure what more you want. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:11, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Pretty confident he was kidding. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:21, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Correct. If I were serious, I wouldn't use small text or a smiley. Nyttend (talk) 03:24, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

#subtlesarcasmwastoosubtle Buffs (talk) 16:22, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

And, again, a massive run on Category:Dynamic lists by @Ost316:. A temporary 5 minute block would be sufficient I believe. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:17, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

The reason doesn't really matter, but I missed the leading digit on the article count when I accessed this category from a parent, and I when I clicked through it shortly later, I feared that I may have caused an issue. I mentioned this on my talk page as I knew I was going to be away, but I did not escalate it here because I did not notice the blocking behavior (there were intermediate edits by the account). I support the prospect of a short block; a longer block would make the bot just as unavailable as it is now, and it only needs stop long enough to kill my thread. —Ost (talk) 03:20, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

 Done. It might be worth looking into a non-blocking method of shutting the bot down. Primefac (talk) 12:35, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Requesting deletion of a redirect page for a move

Hello. I'm trying to remember where do I request to have a redirect page deleted to make way for a move to that page. This is an uncontroversial move.

I intend to move "Ensisheim (meteorite)" to "Ensisheim meteorite." The second mentioned page is the current redirect. There is no need for parentheses in the title, such as what the article page has. "Ensisheim meteorite" is the name of this object and, therefore the subject. Anyway, where do I go on Wikipedia to request that a redirect page be deleted in anticipation of a move? I can easily do the move myself after the redirect is deleted. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 22:13, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

@Steve Quinn: You can tag such redirects with {{db-g6}} in the future, but I've deleted Ensisheim meteorite so you can complete the move. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:19, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks very much. I will keep in mind {{db-g6}} - that makes it easy. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 22:22, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Resignation of Courcelles

Effective immediately, Courcelles (talk · contribs) has resigned from the Arbitration Committee. He has also relinquished the CheckUser and Oversight permissions. The Committee sincerely thanks Courcelles for his service and wishes him well.

For the Arbitration Committee,

Worm^TT(talk) 22:58, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Resignation of Courcelles

Possible undisclosed paid editing by User:جواد

Hello. In case you don't know me, I am a sysop, bureaucrat and checkuser on Persian Wikipedia (fawiki). I want to bring to your attention that we recently found out that User:جواد has been engaging in paid editing without proper disclosure, thereby violating Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure. This seems to have happened both on English Wikipedia (enwiki) and on fawiki.

We learned about this amidst a larger ongoing investigation of other undisclosed paid editing (UPE) activities on fawiki (many of which done through socks). While I have no reason to believe جواد has been part of the same UPE ring, I think I should still give you a warning. Some enwiki CUs are aware of (and have helped me with) the CU investigations we ran on those socks, and should have the ability to check that data against edits by جواد if deemed necessary.

I also want to point out that جواد is a formersysop on wikidata (from 2013 to 2014), and was a sysop on fawiki from June 2012 to September 2012 (when he took a hiatus) and from January 2013 until around May 2013 when a complaint against him was submitted to fawiki's ArbCom-equivalent body (the "Supervising Committee", hereafter referred to as SC); the SC decided that he should be desysoped, but before it was enacted جواد requested to be retired from adminship on fawiki. Since then, he has been blocked several times. The point is to emphasize that (a) جواد is an advanced user with high level of familiarity with Wikipedia processes, and (b) he does not have a completely clean history.

The evidence we have about his UPE activities comes from the website ponisha.ir which, in my words, is an Iranian alternative to TaskRabbit. We know that there are several "freelancers" on Ponisha who have been paid for successful completion of fawiki-related activities (such as article creations, or assistance with AfDs). The specific piece of evidence I want to bring to your attention is here (archived here). Since it is in Persian (Farsi), I think providing some translation would be useful: the requester states that an article is created on fawiki here and asks for the enwiki version of this article to be created. Going to the fawiki artcile and following its interwiki link to enwiki gets you to Bahman Kazemi. The Ponisha task is completed by a Ponisha user named javadyousefi. This implies a first name of Javad and a last name of Yousefi. Of note, Javad is the English transliteration of جواد and User:جواد also publicly states that his real name is Javad Yousefi (see wikidata:User:جواد). (Historically, he used the account User:Javadyou until it was renamed to User:جواد). Finally, https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Bahman_Kazemi&action=history shows this page was created by User:جواد (originally in User:جواد/sandbox2 and later moved to the main namespace).

This page (archive) shows a list of tasks completed by Javad. This includes references to two pages on fawiki which we confirmed were created by جواد without proper disclosure of paid work; as a result, I just blocked him indefinitely on fawiki. To my knowledge, the only article on enwiki for which we have evidence for UPE is Bahman Kazemi. That said, I still felt obligated to report this to enwiki admins.

If you have any follow-up questions, kindly {{ping}} me in your response. Respectfully, huji—TALK 00:18, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Additional info: I just found out that here he was paid to create Shahram Jahansooz. So now we have evidence of at least two articles being created by him in form of UPE. huji—TALK 11:30, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Statistics from his contributions, in case anyone finds them useful:

• His last edit was on 4 August 2019
• His last edit to mainspace was on 2 August 2019
• His last 50 edits go back to August 2018
• His last 50 edits to mainspace go back to December 2017
• His last 50 page creations go back to April 2013
• He's created 47 pages in mainspace, including some that were the result of moving a page.

If you exclude pagemoves and the creation of redirects, it looks like he's created 5 pages in mainspace, beginning in 2012. Nyttend (talk) 03:18, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Requesting a copy of a deleted page

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Last night, as I was working on expanding and improving the article on Nancy Navarro. The discussion was closed and the page deleted while I was editing it. It had been at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nancy Navarro. Ad Orientem has graciously place a redirect where the page was. Would someone please take the last version of the article and place the code here: User talk:Evrik/draft2. I can find the text here: "Nancy Navarro". wikimili.com., but want to avoid the work of wikifying the text. Thank you. --evrik ^(talk) 18:36, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Please see this discussion on my talk page. I have already received and declined this request, a point which evrik failed to note. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:40, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Actually, I linked the discussion, User talk:Ad Orientem#Nancy Navarro, in my post. I am cleaning up the first post and making it clear that we have talked about it. Thank you. --evrik ^(talk) 18:46, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC on user rights of (site) banned users is now underway

An RfC relating to user rights of (site) banned users is now underway at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User rights of (site) banned users. Please feel free to participate. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 20:22, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Bird Sanctuary

Does Anyone Have Any Idea What The Heck Is Going on here? Is this an LTA I don't know about or just a bunch of spammers? HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 07:25, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

It doesn't look like spamming, maybe a prelude to spamming. It looks a bit sockpuppet- or class-project like. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 07:37, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) I think something odd is definitely occurring. Might an SPI be in order? Invalid^OS (talk) 15:30, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) To me it looks like these accounts were created as part of a Wikipedia editing course of some kind. Looks like they are trying out Wiki markup with generic placeholder text. Probably harmless. --Hecato (talk) 15:43, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) There's a list of all the sockpuppets I found at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Prabhak582. This seems to have been going on for a while and have been disrupting Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary. TheAwesomeHwyh 21:54, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Holy fifty visitor comment book entries, Batman!!! This has been going on since 2017. And some of the scribbling hasn't been caught. Uncle G (talk) 00:20, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Then there's the edit history of Talk:Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary. Uncle G (talk) 01:27, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

For what it is worth: if the pattern of past years is anything to go by, 1 month of protection is not going to be long enough. Let's see what happens. Uncle G (talk) 10:46, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

While investigating, I came across this very interesting edit [42]. Anyway, in case people haven't noticed, this isn't just one article. See e.g. Mandagadde Bird Sanctuary which hasn't been affected as bad but shows similar stuff [43] e.g. [44]. Likewise the talk page [45] [46]. As both of these are bird sanctuaries in Karnataka, I looked at Category:Bird sanctuaries of Karnataka. From there I found Gudavi Bird Sanctuary which while even less affected (none this year so far) shows similar signs [47] e.g. [48]. Again also the talk page [49] e.g. [50]. BTW, although Mookambika Wildlife Sanctuary was mentioned on some of the above user talk pages, it doesn't look like it's been affected yet. Anyway, personally I'm leaning towards this being some extremely misguided class project or edithon rather than classic paid editing, but it's hard to say. I did come across [51] Special:Contributions/117.192.115.16 and [52] Special:Contributions/117.247.19.26 which look to be logged out edits in the same vein, both belong now to the telco Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and geolocate to Mangalore, Karnataka. Nil Einne (talk) 14:40, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree that this looks like a (second edition of a?) misguided editathon from some school out of Kenjar near Mangalore as one user name suggests. Shyamal (talk) 16:26, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Request for topic ban

This notification is to report behaviour by Snooganssnoogans (S) on the Brexit article and request a topic ban.

A few days ago I had an edit to that article reverted several times by S. I took it to the relevant talk page and the discussion about it is here. I added my edit was back in, there being a clear majority in my favour. 4:1, no-one was on S's side. I made the point that S had lied in his or her edit summary of one of the reversions. [here]. This falsehood continued in the discussion. When S said "There was a RfC (the most embarrassing one I've ever witnessed on Wikipedia) where editors decided not to include a peer-reviewed study on this very subject." s/he was referring to this But editors didn't decide one way or another - there was an even split, followed by administrator judication.

Brexit is a highly contentious subject, which makes it one over which editors must pay special attention to fairness and their allowing information to be presented which they disagree with. Unfortunately, with the edit under discussion there, S appeared to disagree with that concept, writing that "a working paper, which flies in the face of the broad assessment by economists, should not be included..." But the working paper was not just a snappy judgement by whoever, it was a survey undertaken by the Central Bank of Ireland. Therefore. the fact that it came to a conclusion contrary to information already presented in the article and supported by academic surveys (forecasts) is not relevant. Wikipedia is all about fairness and balance. We all know this.

So there were major problems with S's arguments.

Now all this would be something not unheard of it were not for the following. Other editors have raised the question of WP:OWN in relation to S. Octoberwoodland did so in the discussion linked above, while the comments of PaleCloudedWhite in the same place also relate to it. Futhermore, PCW drew attention to this unsolicited post by another editor on his Talk page, which says: "Don't bother editing the Brexit article, Snooganssnoogans will revert you. He owns the article (WP:OWN). Just look at his talk page to get an idea of his conception of a collaborative encyclopedia. The only way to shut him up would be to make a consensus building talk, as I think that most people agree that the Brexit page cannot only rely on academic studies..."

Not surprisingly, S refuted the idea of him or her being involved in WP:OWN, but then said "As someone who has added pretty much every academic study to this Wikipedia article..." - which kind of flies in the face of that refutation.

I also draw attention to the last comment on the Talk discussion about my edit, wbich says: "Got to laugh about the warnings on the talk page. I did a similar thing in User:Knox490's talk page when he started editing saying "Just to give you a heads up, there is a long history of people raising similar points to you about this page.....and a long history of people giving up due to the aggressive a relentless push back from a small group of editors. Not to discourage you, but be prepared to put in a lot of time and effort if you want to change anything." " Surely Wikipedians should not have to put up with the kind of behaviour being talked about? It is wearing. It puts good editors off of Wiki, sometimes permanently.

A day or so ago, in that same discussion, I wrote: "I feel that should there be the same kind of activity again here on the Brexit article, it really should be reported." S duly "obliged" with more reversions. I had by then read a lot of S's talk page, which shows this (discussion with an Admin about avoiding a ban) and a multitude of 3RR warnings.

I am of course far from being the only editor who has had edits to the Brexit article reverted by S. Asarlaí has also experienced it. See here. And I should add that IMO Asarlaí's contributions are exemplary, far superior to mine.

I would like it to be possible to make good edits to the Brexit article without there being any risk of reversion for spurious reasons by S.

Two more edits by me were reverted by S overnight. One in particular I am bringing to attention. This is the comparison. S uses wording in his or her edit summary which frankly I find distasteful. But much more important is the problem with the reversion. A study which makes a forecast of something is a forecast. It cannot be anything else, no matter how reputable the people or organisation responsible. So the phraseology "It forecasted that Brexit would ..." (my words) is correct. Whereas the statement "The study found that Brexit would..." (S's words) cannot be anything other than incorrect, because the study is a forecast, and therefore saying that something would happen, when it is only what the study says, is a misrepresention. This may be considered a minor point - I disagree. I wouldn't and couldn't of course make the following point in the article, due to SYNTH , (although if I noticed an RS that made the point I'd include it) but there were a multitude of pre- and post-referendum forecasts and studies which said that a pro-Brexit vote would be next to cataclysmic. Yet employment in Britain has as it stands right now never been higher. So study after study turned out to be so much waste paper. And therefore to say that something will or would be the case in the future wrt. Brexit is itself a contentious thing to say. But saying something is forecasted, no problem with that. I have not taken this to Talk:Brexit as talk discussions take up a lot of time. This has, too, but it's far more important.

I feel that there is a major issue with S. By coincidence, at the very top of this noticeboard, in this discussion, yet another editor is alleging harassment by S. And that's on top of all that I have already written about. How many reports are needed? There are probably more that I haven't seen. I regret that I have to ask for a topic ban on Snooganssnoogans for Brexit-related articles. Thank you. Boscaswell talk 08:08, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

• I haven't examined all the points raised, but it's hard to fault the revert by Snooganssnoogans at 12:07, 12 September 2019. The edit summary was "remove partisan commentary used as a rebuttal to academic research" and examining the edit suggests that summary is very accurate. From the ref, "new analysis was conducted by researchers at Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in the Netherlands, rated the world’s top university for agricultural research". The ref also said that a fisherman who had founded the Fishing for Leave group, disagreed. Articles should be based on the best available sources. Johnuniq (talk) 10:03, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
  • I haven't time to post anything of substance, but would request that this thread is not closed down quickly without thorough examination of the situation. As I have stated on the article talk page, my belief is that Snooganssnoogans is only interested in the Brexit article presenting a negative view of Brexit, and is hostile to material contrary to that perspective. I suspect that there are several editors who no longer edit the article due to the aggressive stance of Snooganssnoogans, who, in my view, edits the article so it is not "Brexit", but rather "Wikipedia's assessment on whether Brexit is a good thing or a bad thing". PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 10:15, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
    • Significant investigation would be needed to check that, but on this one point (which I found by looking at recent edits), it is standard procedure for an article to state X where X is an assertion backed by academic research from (according to the ref) a leading authority on the topic. Johnuniq (talk) 10:25, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
    • This is rich. In a recent RfC, PaleCloudedWhite argued that a peer-reviewed study on this topic should be excluded.[53] However, when a working paper on the very same subject that reached an opposite conclusion was being considered for inclusion on the talk page, PaleCloudedWhite failed to stick to his principled position and he did not advocate for the exclusion of the working paper.[54] A principled consistent editor would stick to the same position, regardless of whether the research in question reached a pro- or anti-Brexit conclusion. One example why editing on the Brexit article is dysfunctional. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 12:38, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

• I am happy to topic ban Boscaswell as requested for advocating barely-sourced polemic in a contentious article. Yes, the Brexit article is, overall, negative towards Brexit. When the government's own research shows the likelihood of massive disruptions to trade, interruptions in the supplies of key medicines and food, and inflation, and every single mainstream economist puts the impact at between 5% and 10% shrinkage of the UK economy, and when there's a risk of reigniting the Troubles and the Cod Wars, it's really quite hard to say much positive about it (unless you arte a tax exile hedge fund investor and are have massive short positions on the pound and UK companies, of course, in which case it's looking pretty rosy). Guy (help!) 11:47, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

• The WP:OWN accusations stem from the fact that various editors hate the fact that the Brexit article clearly and comprehensively explains the consensus in the economic literature that Brexit will harm the British economy, and have forcefully argued that the article should omit this relevant fact - when they try to scrub this content in the absence of consensus, I revert them. When editors are not arguing for scrubbing peer-reviewed research, they want to include rebuttals by politicians of the peer-reviewed research (e.g. "Studies XYZ say Brexit will adversely the British economy, but Boris Johnson says it will make the British economy stronger") - when they do in the absence of consensus, I revert them. See this Wired article for a decent summary of the discussions on the Brexit page.[55] That Wikipedia should rely on peer-reviewed research and academic assessments, and that academic research should not be rebutted by partisan actors are long-standing principles that I've applied consistently across Wikipedia. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 12:38, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

• As for the specifics in OP, my stance is very simple: We cannot include a working paper that reaches conclusion A on issue X if we exclude a peer-reviewed study that reaches conclusion B on the same issue. That's a brazen violation of WP:DUE and WP:NPOV. Either both are included or neither. I explicitly said in the talk page discussion that my preferred position was to include both. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 12:38, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

I regret that Snooganssnoogans is continuing to cloud the issue, by re-stating his or her anger about the exclusion of “a peer-reviewed study that reaches conclusion B on the same issue”. I made the point several times in the Talk page section above-mentioned that the peer-reviewed study under contention was one of the possible effect on investment values. Yet the subsection that it was eventually excluded from was the UK financial sector, which an industry - not the same thing. At least one editor made that point in the discussion of whether or not it should be included. Further, there was no uconsensus in that discussion, so no precedence was established. Ergo, the argument is invalid. Boscaswell talk 17:03, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

You should stop regurgitating comments made by random Wikipedia editors (OP is full of 'random users XYZ said this about Snoogans"). This study[56] is about the UK financial industry, regardless of what some random editor who did not read the study claimed on a talk page once. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 17:25, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Guy, you wrote “I am happy to topic ban Boscaswell as requested for advocating barely-sourced polemic in a contentious article.“

1. I wasn’t aware that any such request had been made?

2. You would topic ban an editor for one such transgression?

Or was the comment a curious case of sarcasm? I’m confused. Boscaswell talk 17:03, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

1. Could be referring to the heading of this thread. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:24, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

^This, and/or Guy could be referring to the Boomerang; as for the OP, without prejudice to either position at this time, I'd refer you to the fact that we needn't give equal validity to viewpoints to satisfy NPOV, nor should we as it appears in this case. In any event I still think this is mostly a content dispute. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:17, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

But then the over-riding concept must always be, as stated in the guideline you quoted, John M Wolfson, Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without editorial bias. Thinking along those lines, of fairness in particular, in the case of the legal establishment in the US, judges who have strongly-held views on a subject must disqualify themselves where their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Does the same principle apply in Wikipedia disputes? Boscaswell talk 20:40, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, fairly as described by reliable sources, not by politicians or the general public. And there is a form of recusal here on Wikipedia, but it applies only to actual conflicts of interest, paid editing, and/or close personal connections, rather than merely having a strong opinion on something. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:49, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Also, WP:INVOLVED for users with advanced permissions or acting as such. Uninvolved users may also be summoned to close RFCs, and depending on the contention in the RFC, should generally be the ones to do so. --Izno (talk) 20:53, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

None of which situations apply to the underlying dispute at hand, IMO, which is about potentially-tendentious editing and nothing more. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 21:03, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

The fundamental problem is one of false balance. The supermajority view of professional economists is that Brexit will be economically damaging to the UK. There are, to be sure, a handful of dissenters, and some primary research which lies in the long tail of the normal distribution of estimates, but there's no way to argue that the median is anything other than a substantial economic detriment.

Leavers have discounted these predictions since day 1, calling them "project fear". Before the advisory referendum it was predicted that some major UK car makers - Ford, Honda, JLR, Mini, Nissan , Toyota and PSA/Vauxhall all of which are foreign-owned - would scale back UK operations. This was dismissed as "project fear". Since the vote, investment in the sector has fallen from a run-ate of £2.5bn per annum or thereabouts to £90m, according to the SMMT. Honda is not jusrt scaling back, it is closing its Swindon plant. PSA is closing Ellesmere Port. Ford is closing Bridgend, the largest engine plant in Europe. Nissan has dropped plans to build new models in the UK. JLR is moving Land Rover production to Slovakia. So the realities, even before the deadline, are actually considerably worse than original forecasts. And that will affect, for example, the University of Birmingham, a significant proportion of whose engineering graduates go to Ford and JLR.

So yes, you can cherry-pick the occasional rosy estimate, but when the government's own Yellowhammer documents, the IMF and numerous other sources all predict 5%-10% shrinkage oft he UK economy, you don't get to offset that with a single document by the Irish central bank that thinks maybe UK banking won't be that hard hit for example. Especially when the big accountancy and consulting firms are all predicting large profits helping banks to move out of London to Dublin, Frankfurt and Paris. No passporting? No deal. The determination of hard Leavers to be outside of the free movement zone is a killer for international banks with European hubs in London (i.e. my customers), and you can bet your life that Frankfurt and Paris, especially, will be falling over each other to offer them deals, because they have been eyeing these prizes for a long time.

In fact, I have yet to see a single tangible benefit of Brexit proposed. Even Leavers coned it could be 50 years before the economy recovers. There are no sunlit uplands to be had. A few businesses will profit by lower wages and destruction of employment rights, and perhaps the more speculative goal of Leavers to set up Europe's offshore tax haven might come to fruition, but Europe is clamping down on that and I don't see them giving us a free pass. The Russian mob will be happy to hoover up some London real estate, of course, but for the majority of Brits it's going to be brutal, and the currency markets agree: the pound is at a historic low against the Euro and the US Dollar, albeit on a slide that started with the manifestly ineffective Austerity policies.

Now, you can still decide that you hate the EU so much that it's a price worth paying. That would be an ecumenical matter. Straight bananas, and all that. But Wikipedia is about the mainstream view, representing all significant views according to their weight, and the mainstream view, for all that half of the UK is in denial about it, is that Brexit is an economic clusterfuck. So this is really very much akin to the creationists arguing for equal weight in evolution articles. Guy (help!) 21:32, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @JzG:, I agree with the policy related part of the above (on a personal basis I agree with all of it, but the latter part is not particularly relevant to the TBAN discussion), but dear god...paragraphs, man! Nosebagbear (talk) 21:25, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Soz. Kept getting ECd and shit. @Guy (help!) 21:32, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

I have inserted paragraph breaks into Guy's long comment, to increase its readability. Guy, if you object, feel free to revert. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:20, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

As Nosebagbear commented, that spiel was not particularly relevant. It also clouded the issue of that one content dispute. And was misleading. Unless one wishes to blame every problem concerning UK industry on Brexit.

Clouded the issue? Yes, because that one edit was pertinent only to the UK financial sector, not to the rest of UK industry, service or otherwise.

Misleading? Yes. Taking some of those vehicle manufacturers one by one, JLR had to close plants for long breaks some time ago, due to collapsing demand. Nothing to do with Brexit. Nissan models: it is manufacture in Sunderland of their luxury Infiniti brand which is to be shut down - it hadn’t been a success and they are pulling out of Western Europe altogether. Again, nothing to do with Brexit. PSA: this company took over the Vauxhall brand and plant. This has had falling sales for years, decades even. Very little to do with Brexit. Ford closed down its UK vehicle manufacturing operations years and years ago. I presume that this was because some execs with incredible foresight realised that Brexit was inevitable. See what I mean?

Again I ask, is it legitimate - as asked on my next previous edit - for Wikipedian Admins with very, very strongly-held views to make judgments on those with whom they disagree strongly on content matters? This question was not the purpose of my original post. I thought that there was going to be a “fair hearing”, I had some faith in the “judicial” machinations of Wikipedia. As things stand at the moment, it looks as if I was wrong. That faith I had has been severely shaken, if not completely destroyed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boscaswell (talk • contribs) 19:14, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Please make a substantive response to the points raised above. I was the first to comment and mentioned a recent edit that I had investigated. Do you agree with what I wrote? If so, please state that so we know the boundaries of the situation. If not, please respond to the substance of what I wrote. Similarly for JzG's comments—respond to the substance rather than using debating tactics to deflect. Johnuniq (talk) 23:24, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

It's not about content, it's about conduct. You came here to complain about Snoogs and showed evidence that he had made unambiguously correct edits. That suggests to me that Snoogs ain't the problem here.

My views on Brexit are not exactly a secret, but have nothing to do with the well established fact that anything claiming benefit or zero detriment to the UK economy from Brexit is an outlier. Just watch the FOREX markets. Every time exit is pushed out or becomes less likely, the pound rises, and when no-deal became a real possibility after BoJo took over, the arse dropped out of it completely. The huddled masses can be fooled (we know this from the history of early 20th Century Russia and Germany). The currency markets are much harder to hoodwink. That's why George Soros is a billionaire, that's how Rees-Mogg is cashing in right now, and the truly bizarre thing is that the Tory Party, the party of the Blessed Margaret, can see the market positions and is putting its fingers in its ears and chanting "Laa laa laa I can't hear you" - the last time we tried this was withthe ERM, and that did not end well (though a friend of mine bought an E-type with the bonus he made betting against the pound that week).

As one who grew up in the late 70s and 80s, at one of the oldest and most conservative schools in the world, I find this stunning. About the only thing on which Thatcher and Ted Heath agreed was that membership of the EU was a good thing for the economy. Thatcher got us far and away the best deal of any member state, in fact. And the most troubling part for me is that it is not actually possible to work in or close to any area directly affected by Brexit without realising it's going to be bad. I work around banks and fintech. My friends are musicicans, doctors, professionals in IT and the motor industry. All these areas have seen brutal impacts already and expect far worse once we actually leave. Again, you can take the view that this is a price worth paying, that's not our problem to fix, but to deny that the price will be paid, and is already being paid, demands intellectual dishonesty, and that is our problem. Guy (help!) 14:28, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

The argument that has gained traction at the Brexit article (espoused particularly by Snooganssnoogans) is that academic economic literature is the 'best quality' and must be used in preference to other sources regarding predicted economic effects of Brexit. This sounds very reasonable to the average Wikipedian, but it is a false narrative here, as Brexit is not a purely economic entity; indeed, it is primarily a political one, albeit with economic implications. But the insistence on citing economic studies has helped create an unbalanced and unwieldy article that is not likely to answer the fundamental question of readers as to why people voted to leave despite all the predictions of doom and gloom. That is the heart of Brexit, and this article barely addresses it. It should not be the purpose of the Brexit article to make an assessment on which side of the Brexit debate is 'right' by focussing on predictions of economic outcomes - particularly as economics is a social, not natural, science. Currently about 30% of the article is taken up by an "impacts" section, with significant text about the economic 'impacts', even though the UK hasn't actually left the EU yet. There was general support to split much of this off into a separate article, yet when it was split off recently [57], Snooganssnoogans reverted the text back in, stating that "this text should not be forked" [58]. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 03:36, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

It's hard to take Boscaswell seriously after the first couple of paragraphs. That RFC that's being referred to concluded with "maintain the status quo until a consensus is formed", which was to keep the peer reviewed study out. To accuse Snoogs of lying because "well ackshully there was no consensus and that's why the study can't be included" is at least as misleading. So then we get to the banking scenario. It does not fill me with confidence that in a dispute over reliable sources and neutrality, Bos cited a press release instead of the actual study. And looking at that study, the way it was included definitely makes Bos look like a tendentious POV pusher. In brief, that study was clearly included as a counter to dismal estimates of Britain's economic future. "Early estimates predicted [bad stuff]; however, a new study predicts the financial industry will be okay." However, by citing only the headline finding that "London will remain a large global financial center" and probably not even reading the actual study, key context is being missed. What the authors are concluding is that London's GFCI ranking will barely change, reflecting that it will remain one of the world's top financial centers in terms of competitiveness, even if 20% of its clients flee the country and/or the economy contracts by 3.8%. Using this as some kind of contrast with earlier research, Bos is either trying to push a POV or he didn't actually understand what he was citing. I'll allow him to let us know which it was. Either way, to have gotten so far as to drag another editor to ANI for disputing the inclusion of such indefensible content, I have to support Guy's suggestion that Boscaswell is topic banned from Brexit. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:41, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

So it looks like I’m gonna be topic-banned for an edit for which I didn’t actually read the survey, as proposed by an admin who abhors Brexit and brings up inaccurate bleuuggh about it, seconded by another who also misleads (this is WP:AN and not WP:ANI; I raised a series of points, not just one.) Anyway, my raising a series of points has been conveniently ignored. Into the too hard basket with it, let’s penalise that confounded bugger who dared raise the issue, eh? WP:OWN? Not just raised by me, there are several editors who did so, and are most likely, like me, completely over it. Anyway, go ahead, topic-ban me for a. having the nerve not to be a remainer while b. kicking up a fuss over a steamroller editor. Disgraceful behaviour. And by the way, if you’re gonna start topic-banning editors who don’t read surveys, there’ll be virtually no-one left. Snooganssnoogans, self-confessed king of the survey-citing editors, will be kicked out the door before you can say ‘Remoaner’. (Though I doubt that any of you guys will use that word.) So maybe this hadn’t been such a bad thing after all. Boscaswell talk 06:43, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your “consideration” of the points raised. Please don’t imagine that I’ll be responding further, or even reading any further comment here. It’s not possible to close my Wiki account, but if it was I would. As o said, my faith in the probity of Wikipedia has been destroyed. It was fast diminishing, and is now no more. All that having been said, it would be good if investigation could be given to the points raised by PaleCloudedWhite - who expresses him or herself exceedingly well and therefore deserves credit and an ear that both hears and listens - in addition to those raised by me re. Snooganssnoogans. “It would be good” I write. Go on, surprise yourselves. Boscaswell talk 07:01, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

As a point of information, it's not possible for anyone at Wikipedia to "close" your account, but you always have the option of scrambling your password. And, of course, you can always just walk away and do something else.

Just be careful, though, if you scramble your password and come back to edit with another account, you have to either declare who you once were, so that you won't be accused of sockpuppetry, or stay completely away from articles and subject areas you edited with this account, as well as avoiding old disputes with other editors, as you would be making a "WP:Clean start", and those are the conditions for that. If you walk away, and then come back and continue editing with the same account, there are no conditions. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:31, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Oppose all Tbans here First, Snooganssnoogans's editing style can be abrasive. They seem to work in topics with a few other like minded editors in such a way that editors without a compatible POV are shut out. That doesn't mean they have broken any rules or even that they won't listen to alternatives. Like minded editors are allowed to work on the same articles. If they are shutting out good edits then we have dispute resolution procedures to help. Like representatives democracy it's not always perfect but it's so hard to find a benevolent dictator these days. Boscaswell certainly should not be Tban'ed. There isn't strong evidence here of anything other than understandable frustration combined with inexperience. Sadly my feeling is the Tban suggestion had more to do with silencing a voice that didn't agree vs any reasonable protection of Wikipedia (the reason why we have tbans). From the outside looking in it seems like you have a ground of experienced editors who don't want their view of the subject challenged. That challenge is coming from an editor who has much less experience navigating the Wikipedia ways and thus is both getting frustrated. That frustration, combined with less experience may be getting near a problem but our first resort should be understanding this is a good faith editor thus give them a hand rather than push them off the ladder. This complaint is a great example of needing a hand. I would suggest we close it, let them talk to an experienced, uninvolved editor or admin then decide how to best get consensus to fix the things they see as wrong with the Brexit article. If their posts on the Brexit page are like the opening post here, well I can see why they aren't getting any traction. Springee (talk) 14:50, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Website selling Wikipedia articles

I did a quick search on Google for "wiki.riteme.site", and the first advertisement I saw was from "Wikispecialistllc", and the description said that "Improve Your Wikipedia Presence: We'll Create, Optimize & Protect Your Pages! Deals for First 100 Users. Additional 30% Discounts.". This may be a violation of the Wikimedia terms and conditions, as they might as well not reveal that they are paid editors. They also said that they would make sure that their client's Wikipedia page isn't "misedited", which may mean either removal of fake information (which is ok) or removal of negative sourced information. According to their website, Abel Cullum is one of the articles they made. The article was made by Kind Herb, an undisclosed paid editor they employ. Another example of an article they claim to have made is Maliina Abelsen, by Algkalv, who is an autoreviewer. The website claims that they comply with Wikipedia's rules, but they didn't disclose their paid editing. The H Collective and Ballard Spahr were also apparently made by them. Nigos (talk • Contribs) 08:55, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Dishonest spamming firms like this are known for lying about what articles they wrote. See Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_143#Wiki_Specialist_LLC. MER-C 09:06, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

The H Collective was created by User:Erik, who is also its major editor. [59]. Erik has been around since 2005, and I know him from when he was Coordinator for WikiProject Film, and I was working on a lot of film articles. I respect Erik, despite our occasional disagreements, and highly doubt that he is paid editor.

Ballard Spahr, which already has a paid editor tag on it, was created by User:Eastlaw, another long-term editor (2006), whom I do not know. Eastlaw is the major editor, with two IPs, 72.37.171.60 and 174.141.199.182 the next two in line.

You said that these two articles were "apparently" made for Wikispecialistllc. Where did your information come from? Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:10, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Beyond My Ken, they claimed that they made these. Nigos (talk • Contribs) 09:15, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Ok, I see now. The company is probably lying about some of these or just edited the articles and claimed they made it. I'll see if I can report their ad. Nigos (talk • Contribs) 09:18, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah. I'm inclined to believe two things. First, they are indeed doing undisclosed paid editing here (or at least trying to) and (B) that some of their claims are bull. Still, worth investigating. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:20, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

I reported their ad on Google just now. Nigos (talk • Contribs) 09:25, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

About their FAQ:

Q: Is Wiki Specialist LLC affected by Wikipedia’s policy on paid editing and other related bans? A: No company or individual can make any changes to its wiki page which leaves an open opportunity for the competitors to make wrong edits and add misinformation to defame the brand’s reputation. Wikipedia has banned many individuals and brands for disregarding this strict policy of the platform. Wikipedia clearly states that “If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.” Wiki Specialists LLC updates and edits the page content as the outsourcing company in order to avoid any rule violation.

What they are doing isn't really helping the encyclopaedia, so ignore all rules doesn't apply here.

They even said that the Wikipedia article about their clients belong to their clients, which violates the fact that no one owns any articles here. Nigos (talk • Contribs) 09:32, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Not to mention indicating that by outsourcing it that somehow avoids our rules on it. And they would seem to be directly editing the articles. Not to mention that it's embedded into the TOS as well as local policy. Wonder if we can get the nice people at WMF Legal to send another C&D letter Nosebagbear (talk) 10:36, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Paid editors lie about their past articles, and Wikipedia policy, continually. For a recent example from just last month, see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 148#"The Digital SEO". And this notice is on the wrong noticeboard. As MER-C pointed out, this paid editor has already appeared on the correct noticeboard. Uncle G (talk) 10:40, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

It would be nice if Google inserted a link to WMF's "you don't have to pay..." above every ad for article writing services. Guy (help!) 14:32, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Hello, regarding The H Collective, I created it of my own volition. I did not do it for anyone and certainly not for pay. My takeaway is that coverage of the company has been pretty basic, and the article is detailed and structured enough to warrant an outside party making a claim to writing it. If the company gets bad press, I would gladly include that in the article. Other editors are welcome to review the content and provide feedback to ensure that the article is encyclopedic. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 15:56, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

I don;t think there's a scintilla of evidence there's anything untoward about the article or Erik's editing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:31, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

• Apart from paid editors lying through their socks, just from force of habit, at least one of them has claimed authorship of a few articles (quite visibly, which seems an odd strategy for a rather secretive business) and then complained about them on here, all just to discredit one (unpaid) author who had created them. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:37, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Kafka Liz's personal threat against MJL

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Kafka Liz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) wrote at User talk:MJL (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs) (who has disclosed on their talk page they are from Connecticut):

What good fortune that I have family and friends in Connecticut. I’ll make sure they know your name and what you stand for.

This was shortly after a comment at Eric Corbett's talk page that self-important pseudo-moralizing (in the words of another editor) was "#NotAllNewEngland; more like [redacted geographical opinion that wouldn’t be helpful]. Cunts any road." (diff) The "redacted geographical opinion" is Connecticut, a state that is part of New England. Prior to that, Kafka Liz wrote that the block of Eric Corbett was a "shit move" and "Without transparent proof, I simply don’t believe that. I know there’s some sort of nasty cull going on, but I hadn’t believed you all would stoop so low. May you get the editors you deserve from this." (diff) While it's understandable for the friends of Eric Corbett to blow off some steam, there's a line, and the "I have friends in Connecticut" threat at MJL's talk page was way over that line. The community tolerated previous instances of this from others, and so of course it has not only continued, but now escalated. We need to put an immediate stop to the harassment of MJL. I'm requesting appropriate administrator intervention, please. – Levivich 16:35, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Would you please stop tweaking so I can post a response without edit conflicting? Jehochman ^Talk 16:50, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Since your edit was successful that's a non-sequitur. WP is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit - and at any time. Levivich, Connecticut has a population in excess of 3.6m. Leaky caldron (talk) 16:53, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

I asked you to stop pestering me. Please do try to ignore me. Jehochman ^Talk 17:01, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Me pestering you! Until you turned up on my TP the other day impertinently demanding me to revert an edit, I'd never even heard of you! I have engaged with Levivich and MJL a few times. On ya bike! Leaky caldron (talk) 17:05, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Your comment was egregious gravedancing. I still recommend that you strike it and not make comments like that again. Jehochman ^Talk 17:18, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

I have redacted the original comment because it is prone to being misconstrued. Obviously it's not that offensive since you chose to re-post it here, rather than provide a diff or contact WP:OVERSIGHT. MJL is a candidate for political office, which is announced on their talk page. Your statement that they are "from Connecticut" leaves out that important fact. Kafka Liz appears to declare that she will exercise her constitutional right to campaign against him, which she is free to do, but preferably not on Wikipedia. If Kafka Liz does not dispute my action, we are done here. Jehochman ^Talk 17:06, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Constitutional rights, yeah, sure – right to bring on-wiki disputes into the real world? No, never. See, e.g., the Jytdog case. Threatening to interfere with an editor's employment (which is what running for office is) because of on-wiki actions is not appropriate. Threatening to get people to vote against an editor's real-life candidacy, because of on-wiki actions, is also not appropriate. As for oversight, hiding this is not the answer. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. I have reverted your premature attempt to close this. – Levivich 17:12, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't think soapboxing about a real-world election on WP is a great move either. Two-way street. - Sitush (talk) 17:14, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

If I mention on my user talk page in a conversation with another editor that I'm going to be away for a while because I'm running for office, that makes it OK for some editor who's mad at me for something I did on-wiki to post a threat to derail my candidacy? This is the Wikipedia you want to work in? – Levivich 17:25, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

You're making false assertions of fact and strawman arguments. Nobody has said that the comment was okay. Moreover, serving on the Cromwell Board of Assessments Appeals committee is (if like my nearby town) an unpaid, part time position that helps citizens raise their profile, which can have secondary business benefits. Only voters in Cromwell have a say. If Kafka Liz has relatives in Stonington or Salisbury, or any of the other 166 Connecticut towns that are not Cromwell, they won't get to vote against MJL. This is a tempest in a tea cup. Please drop it. Jehochman ^Talk 17:49, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Wouldn't bother me but I'm not the sort of sanctimonious, virtue-signalling person who gets wound up about that sort of stuff: I'm reasonably thick-skinned and, while capable of empathy, will only empathise if it seems justified (see here). As Jehochmann says, people are allowed to exercise their constitutional rights and if MJL opened the door by raising their candidacy on-wiki then it is unrealistic to anticipate that they could do so in a vacuum. If they hadn't opened that door, there would have been no excuse for KL's comment. Whether KL can act on it is another matter entirely, and definitely outside the scope of Wikipedia. - Sitush (talk) 17:52, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

• Don't see how that can be perceived as harassment; Jytdog was different ball-game altogether. And, Jehochman's and Sitush's views quite-aligns with my own. ∯WBG^converse 17:58, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
• I counsel calm.
  • I suspect KLiz realizes she’s had a narrow brush with a block, and won’t be repeating such behavior.
  • I seriously doubt she knows anyone in Connecticut who (a) cares what she thinks and (b) is in a position to affect MJL’s electoral prospects.
  • I think MJL has shown great poise in the face of extensive provocation in this matter, and if I were a constituent of his I’d be more, not less, likely to vote for him as a result.

It will be some time before Eric Corbett’s sycophants get over the loss of their one-eyed king, so let’s just try to roll with it. Further threats of off-wiki action — and this certainly was such — should however be met with blocks. EEng 18:07, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Do "I counsel calm" and "Eric Corbett’s sycophants" really go together? Regardless, the way I see it, if someone willingly discloses personal information on-wiki, they should be also be willing to live with the consequences. So, for MJL, rule number one, don't disclose personal stuff here. For the rest of us, I suggest taking any claims of off-wiki ambitions with a large grain of salt. Other than that, this thread is a waste of time.--regentspark (comment) 18:54, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

• Do "I counsel calm" and "Eric Corbett’s sycophants" really go together? – Yes they do. The sycophants will be letting off steam for a while, and the rest of us need to remain calm while that runs its course. (If you prefer I’ll say “cult members” instead.)
• if someone willingly discloses personal information on-wiki, they should be also be willing to live with the consequences – That’s stupid. If someone edits under their real name (let’s say) that’s not carte blanche to harass them IRL.

EEng 19:58, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Unless your name is Eric Corbett, presumably? I think you're getting into more of a muddle here, EEng. - Sitush (talk) 20:01, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Whatever you may want to pretend about what happened to poor victim Eric Corbett on wiki, AFAIK no one's claimed he's been harassed off wiki. The muddle's all yours. EEng 00:01, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Comment. @Jehochman, Levivich, and EEng: please amend your statements to reflect my preferred choice of pronouns.
Honestly, I didn't think me taking a wikibreak would be the cause for so much drama. Levicich has it right that I was just telling people the exact reason why I would be busy. I can't edit nor check Wikipedia as much until after November 5th.
It is fine if people know where I am from, what I do IRL, and know any COI I may have with a given subject (I WP:AGF they won't abuse this knowledge). The only thing I have an issue with is just referring to me by my IRL name on-wiki. I don't want that disclosed to any extent possible. I consider revealing my name, phone number, street address, and email all varying degrees of WP:OUTING. I messed up by not going by MJL until this March, but I can't change what I did in the past.
The town I live in, what office I am running for, and the political party I am in... those are all fair game. I think that helps with establishing whether I have a WP:COI for any given subject.
I really would appreciate it though if people don't use my openness and trust to carry their onwiki disputes with me into real life. Just because I am a relatively transparent person doesn't give people the complete right to start screwing with me personally just because they feel like it.
This is not a job I am running for; it's a local position that (1) doesn't pay, (2) meets only two months out of the year, and (3) doesn't do anything besides mediate tax assessment disputes. If I didn't edit so much all this summer, I wouldn't have needed to take a wikibreak. I did, so here I am.
On another note, I am rather surprised that Kafka Liz would say those mean things about me. I've only had pleasant experiences with her, and until I read this report I assumed she was trying to wish me good luck.
Either way, people are going to hate me for the exact reasons Swarm said here. That's fine. I don't mind being hated for good reasons, but let's not pretend that this is anything less than sad to watch. I'm a 21 year-old-kid; I use big words and try to act mature. I'm not exactly running for President nor should I have to expect to be held to higher standards than anyone else.
Let face facts; I just make a convenient punching bag for some people in this community. If me being one even when I am not actively editing somehow improves the encyclopedia, then I don't really care because that is more important. It's irrational though, so no one should feel the need to accept it just because I have personally. (edit conflict) –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:53, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

RFC underway regarding proposed inclusion of existing practice in TPE policy

An RfC regarding the inclusion of the existing practice (at administrator discretion) of granting template editor user rights on a trial/temporary basis in the procedural policy itself is currently underway. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 20:12, 14 September 2019 (UTC)