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Requests for comment

RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes?

(Initiated 69 days ago on 15 March 2024) Ready to be closed. Charcoal feather (talk) 17:02, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

new closer needed
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Before I try to close this I wanted to see if any editors believed I am WP:INVOLVED. I have no opinions on the broader topic, but I have previously participated in a single RfC on whether a specific article should include an infobox. I don't believe this makes me involved, as my participation was limited and on a very specific question, which is usually insufficient to establish an editor as involved on the broader topic, but given the strength of opinion on various sides I expect that any result will be controversial, so I wanted to raise the question here first. If editors present reasonable objections within the next few days I won't close; otherwise, unless another editor gets to it first, I will do so. BilledMammal (talk) 04:43, 13 May 2024 (UTC) I am involved in the underlying RfC, but my opinion on the issue is not particularly strong and I am putting on my closer hat now. Per WP:INVOLVED, "[i]nvolvement is construed broadly by the community". In the Rod Steiger RfC, you stated: [T]o the best of my knowledge (although I have not been involved in these discussions before) every recent RfC on including an infobox has been successful. From this it is clear that the topic is settled, and insisting on RfC's for every article risks becoming disruptive. Although the underlying RfC was on a very specific question, your statement touches on the broader question of whether editors should be allowed to contest including an infobox in a particular article, a practice that you said risks becoming disruptive because the topic is settled. That makes you involved—construing the term broadly—because answering this RfC in the affirmative would significantly shift the burden against those contesting infoboxes in future discussions. That said, if you can put aside your earlier assessment of consensus and only look at the arguments in this RfC, I don't see an issue with you closing. It wouldn't be a bad idea to disclose this at the RfC itself, and make sure that nobody there has any objections. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:43, 18 May 2024 (UTC) Pinging @BilledMammal. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:45, 18 May 2024 (UTC) if you can put aside your earlier assessment of consensus and only look at the arguments in this RfC, I don't see an issue with you closing; per WP:LOCALCON, I don't see lower level discussions as having any relevance to assessing the consensus of higher level discussions, so I can easily do so - consistent results at a lower level can indicate a WP:IDHT issue, but it can also indicate that a local consensus is out of step with broader community consensus. Either way, additional local discussions are unlikely to be productive, but a broader discussion might be. Per your suggestion I'll leave a note at the RfC, and see if there are objections presented there or here. BilledMammal (talk) 02:37, 21 May 2024 (UTC) I don’t think that !voting in an RfC necessarily equates to being too involved, but in this case, the nature of your !vote in the Steiger RfC was concerning enough to be a red flag. Is it still your contention that “every recent RfC on including an infobox has been successful. From this it is clear that the topic is settled, and insisting on RfC's for every article risks becoming disruptive”? That was wrong (and rather chilling) when you wrote it and is still wrong (and still chilling) now, as the current RfC makes rather clear. - SchroCat (talk) 03:30, 21 May 2024 (UTC) Is it still your contention that “every recent RfC on including an infobox has been successful. From this it is clear that the topic is settled, and insisting on RfC's for every article risks becoming disruptive”? No. I've only skimmed the RfC, but I see that while a majority have been successful a non-trivial number have not been - and the percentage that have not been has increased recently. BilledMammal (talk) 04:13, 21 May 2024 (UTC) Part of my problem is that you said it in the first place. It was incorrect when you first said it and it comes across as an attempt to shut down those who hold a differing opinion. As you're not an Admin, I'm also not sure that you can avoid WP:NACPIT and WP:BADNAC, both of which seem to suggest that controversial or non-obvious discussions are best left to Admins to close. - SchroCat (talk) 06:44, 21 May 2024 (UTC) In general, any concern that WP:IDHT behavior is going on could be seen as an attempt to shut down those who hold a differing opinion. I won't close this discussion, though generally I don't think that raising concerns about conduct make an editor involved regarding content. However, I reject BADNAC as an issue, both here and generally - I won't go into details in this discussion to keep matters on topic, but if you want to discuss please come to my talk page. BilledMammal (talk) 07:53, 21 May 2024 (UTC) There was no IDHT behaviour, which was the huge flaw in your comment. You presumed that "every recent RfC on including an infobox has been successful", which was the flawed basis from which to make a judgement about thinking people were being disruptive. Your opinion that there was IDHT behaviour which was disruptive is digging the hole further: stop digging is my advice, as is your rejection of WP:BADNAC ("(especially where there are several valid outcomes) or likely to be controversial"), but thank you for saying you won't be closing the discussion. - SchroCat (talk) 08:10, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

WP:RSN#RFC:_The_Anti-Defamation_League

(Initiated 47 days ago on 7 April 2024) Three related RFCs in a trench coat. I personally think the consensus is fairly clear here, but it should definitely be an admin close. Loki (talk) 14:07, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Enforcing ECR for article creators

(Initiated 46 days ago on 8 April 2024) Discussion appears to have died down almost a month after this RfC opened. Would like to see a formal close of Q1 and Q2. Awesome Aasim 00:11, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Brothers of Italy#RfC on neo-fascism in info box 3 (Effectively option 4 from RfC2)

(Initiated 46 days ago on 8 April 2024) Clear consensus for change but not what to change to. I've handled this RfC very badly imo. User:Alexanderkowal — Preceding undated comment added 11:50, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

 Comment: The RfC tag was removed the same day it was started. This should be closed as a discussion, not an RfC. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:03, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Mukokuseki#RfC on using the wording "stereotypically Western characteristics" in the lead

(Initiated 43 days ago on 11 April 2024) ☆SuperNinja2☆ TALK! 09:41, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

See Talk:Mukokuseki#Close Plz 5/21/2024 Orchastrattor (talk) 20:34, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:SpaceX Starship flight tests#RfC: Should we list IFT mission outcome alongside launch outcome?

(Initiated 33 days ago on 20 April 2024) An involved user has repeatedly attempted to close this after adding their arguments. It's a divisive topic and a close would stop back and forth edits. DerVolkssport11 (talk) 12:42, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, the RfC was closed in this dif, and an IP editor unclosed it, with this statement: "involved and pushing"

In just over an hour, the above editor voiced support for the proposal.

I reclosed it, and the same IP opened the RfC again, with this message: "pushing by involved users so ask for more comments".

I reclosed once more. And then the editor who opened this requests opened it. To avoid violated WP:3RR, I have not reclosed it, instead messaging the original closer to notify them.

The proposal itself was an edit request that I rejected. The IP who made the request reopened the request, which I rejected once more. They then proceeded to open an RfC. Redacted II (talk) 12:58, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Hunter Biden#RfC: Washington Post report concerning emails

(Initiated 30 days ago on 24 April 2024) There's been no comments in 5 days. TarnishedPath^talk 03:20, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Deletion discussions

XFD backlog

V	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Total
CfD	0	0	11	55	66
TfD	0	0	0	1	1
MfD	0	0	0	4	4
FfD	0	0	0	0	0
RfD	0	0	5	18	23
AfD	0	0	0	3	3

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 27#Category:Unrecognized tribes in the United States

(Initiated 47 days ago on 7 April 2024) This one has been mentioned in a news outlet, so a close would ideally make sense to the outside world. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 13:56, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Stress marks in East Slavic words

(Initiated 18 days ago on 6 May 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:30, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Amina Hassan Sheikh

(Initiated 17 days ago on 6 May 2024) If the consensus is to do the selective histmerge I'm willing to use my own admin tools to push the button and do it. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:07, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Other types of closing requests

Talk:1985_Pacific_hurricane_season#Proposed_merge_of_Hurricane_Ignacio_(1985)_into_1985_Pacific_hurricane_season

(Initiated 115 days ago on 30 January 2024) Listing multiple non-unanimous merge discussions from January that have run their course. Noah, AA^Talk 13:50, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake#Talkpage_"This_article_has_been_mentioned_by_a_media_organization:"_BRD

(Initiated 38 days ago on 16 April 2024) - Discussion on a talkpage template, Last comment 6 days ago, 10 comments, 4 people in discussion. Not unanimous, but perhaps there is consensus-ish or strength of argument-ish closure possible. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to me that there is a consensus here to do anything, with most editors couching their statements as why it might (or might not) be done rather than why it should (or should not). I will opine that I'm not aware there's any precedent to exclude {{Press}} for any reason and that it would be very unusual, but I don't think that's good enough reason to just overrule Hipal. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 01:01, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2024 May#Multiple page move of David articles

(Initiated 23 days ago on 1 May 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:13, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Press_Your_Luck_scandal#Separate_articles

(Initiated 22 days ago on 2 May 2024) Please review this discussion. --Jax 0677 (talk) 01:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Agroforestry#Merge_proposal

(Initiated 21 days ago on 3 May 2024) As the proposer I presume I cannot close this. It was started more than a week ago and opinions differed somewhat. Chidgk1 (talk) 13:46, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2024 May#2018–2019 Gaza border protests

(Initiated 15 days ago on 9 May 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:13, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection

Report

Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (20 out of 7744 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Type Summary Admin User talk:Favonian/Archive 58 2024-05-24 18:14 indefinite edit,move Favonian User talk:Favonian/Archive 57 2024-05-24 18:13 indefinite edit,move Favonian President of Ukraine 2024-05-24 12:26 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction Lectonar User:Aviram7~alt 2024-05-24 12:18 indefinite create user request UtherSRG User talk:Aviram7~alt 2024-05-24 12:18 indefinite edit,move user request UtherSRG Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel 2024-05-23 22:04 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Safia Khairi 2024-05-23 21:06 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated: per RFPP Daniel Case Conservatism in Israel 2024-05-23 20:37 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Draft:Xxx 2024-05-23 20:31 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Justlettersandnumbers Future of Honor 2024-05-23 03:55 2025-05-23 03:54 edit,move restore ECP Daniel Case Israel-related animal conspiracy theories 2024-05-23 03:51 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Justin Stebbing 2024-05-22 22:39 indefinite edit,move Persistent disruptive editing: Substantive COI editing - propose changes on the talk page Anachronist Proximus Group 2024-05-22 13:44 2024-08-22 13:44 edit Persistent sock puppetry, COI editing, or both NinjaRobotPirate International Criminal Court investigation in Palestine 2024-05-22 12:55 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:PIA, WP:ECR El C Draft:Zard Patton Ka Bunn 2024-05-21 20:22 2024-11-21 20:22 create Repeatedly recreated: targeted by Nauman335 socks Yamla June 2024 Ukraine peace summit 2024-05-21 18:38 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: WP:GS/RUSUKR El C Template:English manga publisher 2024-05-21 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2500 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Draft:S S Karthikeya 2024-05-21 13:27 2025-05-21 13:27 create Repeatedly recreated Yamla Talk:Sexual and gender-based violence in the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel 2024-05-21 01:18 2024-05-28 01:18 edit,move Arbitration enforcement ScottishFinnishRadish Draft:Roopsha Dasguupta 2024-05-20 21:26 2029-05-20 21:26 create Repeatedly recreated Yamla

WP:AN/CXT

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is consensus to move forward with Mathglot's proposal (see #Proposal), which will cause a mass deletion of the pages on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review, with the option to save certain pages from deletion within a two-week window. As part of the proposal, there is also a consensus to amend WP:X2 in the manner S Marshall specifies in this edit.

Opposition to this change revolved around the argument that the articles which would qualify for mass deletion should be improved instead of deleted. Elinruby proposed alternatively that we should focus on recruiting editors fluent in foreign languages, Mathglot initially proposed to mass-draftify the articles instead of deleting, and Sam Walton argued that the articles contained valid content that didn't deserve mass deletion.

A majority of other editors, however, argued that many of the articles involved are poorly sourced BLPs that have the potential to harm their subjects if left unimproved. Given the large number of articles and low number of editors involved, it will likely be months before these articles are improved. Additionally, a user who is not fluent in both of the languages involved in a translation will not be able to adequately evaluate the validity of the machine-translated content; the article may appear unproblematic to such a user, but the content translation tool could have subtly altered the meaning of statements to something false.

In short, the consensus is that in the long run, the encyclopedia would be better off if these articles were mass deleted. Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 23:22, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Addendum: The process for working out how to cause the mass deletion has been established. To mark an article for retention, please strike it out. To unambiguously identify an article for deletion, include the word "kill" in the same line as the article. The articles will be deleted on or after June 6, 2017. Thank you for your patience. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:16, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

---

Hi, Wikipedians. I wanted to give you an update on WP:AN/CXT. Since that discussion was closed about eight months or so ago, we've cleared out about 10% of the articles involved, which were the easiest 10%. The work is now slowing down as more careful examination is needed and as the number of editors drops off, and I'm sad to report that we're still finding BLP issues. The temporary speedy deletion criterion, X2, is of little use because it's phrased as a special case of WP:SNOW and I'm not being allowed to improve it. The "it's notable/AFD is not for cleanup" culture at AFD is making it hard for me to remove these articles as well, so I'm spending hours trying to get rid of material generated by a script in seconds. I'm sorry but I'm discouraged and I give up. Recommend the remainder are nuked to protect the encyclopaedia.—S Marshall T/C 23:15, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

For more context on this issue, please see Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#X2 revision. Cheers, Tazerdadog (talk) 23:33, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Update: This link is now located at .../Archive_61#X2 revision. Mathglot (talk) 01:10, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on this, S Marshall, and I don't fault you for your choice. - Dank (push to talk) 19:49, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

• Isn't there some way to use the sortware to delete all of these in bulk, if only as a one-time thing? Seems like a huge waste of time if it's being done manually by hand. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 00:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

• Easily doable as a batch-deletion. I could have it wrapped up in 15 minutes. Unfortunately community consensus did not lean towards approving that option. In fact, most CXT creations which have been reviewed needed cleanup but turned out to be acceptable articles. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 21:00, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

I would support a nuke, a mass draftification, or some loosening of X2. The current situation is not really tenable due to the density of BLP violations. However, ultimately, the broader community needs to discuss what the appropriate action is under the assumption that we are not going to get much more volunteer time to manually check these articles. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:54, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

• No, the broader community doesn't need to discuss that. It's completely needless and the community has had a huge discussion already. All that needs to happen is for WT:CSD to let me make one bold edit to a CSD that was badly-worded from the get-go, and we'll all be back on track. That's it. The only problem we have is that there are so many editors who want to tell me how to do it, and so few editors willing to get off their butts and do it.—S Marshall T/C 19:34, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

• Restored from archive, as it's unhelpful for this to remain unresolved.—S Marshall T/C 17:30, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support systematic nuke/ revision of X2 to enable this mess to be cleared up. It's not fair that @S Marshall: is being prevented from improving the encyclopedia like this. Amisom (talk) 15:21, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support @S Marshall:'s revision or a nuke from orbit. I wasn't active when this situation was being discussed originally, but having now read over the discourse on the matter, it is clear that our current approach isn't working. No one else is stepping up to help S Marshall do this absurd amount of reviewing, leaving us stuck with thousands of machine-translated BLP violations. It's all well and good to say that AfD isn't cleanup and deletion solves nothing and we should let articles flower patiently into beautiful gardens, but if no one's pulling the weeds and watering the sprouts, the garden isn't a garden, it's a weed-riddled disaster. Give the gardener a weed whacker already. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 09:17, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support the bold edit required to X2; it's true, of course, that AfD is not clean up- but neither should it be a barrier to clean up. In any case, moving a backlog from one place to another is hardly helpful. — O Fortuna! ^{Imperatrix mundi.} 09:39, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• Question @Elinruby and Yngvadottir: As users who (from a quick glance) seem to have been active looking through these articles, do you think the quality is on average worse than a typical random encyclopedia article, and if so, bad enough that speedy deletion would be preferable to allowing them to be improved over time as with any other article? I don't mean to imply that this is necessarily the case, but I think it should be the bar for concluding whether mass speedy deletion is the correct answer. Sam Walton (talk) 11:22, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• (I wish I'd seen this earlier; thanks for the ping. I feel I have totally let down S Marshall; I just couldn't stand it any more.) On the whole ... yes. Support deletion of those remaining that have not been marked as ok/fixed. As I tried to explain in the initial discussion, the basic premise here is incorrect: as it states somewhere at Pages needing translation into English, a machine translation is worse than no article. It will almost always be either almost impossible to read, incorrect (for example, mistranslating names as ordinary nouns, or omitting negatives ...) or both. Some of these translations have been ok; many have been woefully incomplete (just the start of the lede), and they all require extremely careful checking. Yes, what lies in wait may include BLP violations. I sympathize with the article creators, and I am usually an inclusionist; I put hours of work into checking and improving some of these, and I'm not the only one. But please, enough. We'd wind up with decent articles faster if these were deleted, and the majority that are bad do a disservice to their topics. Yngvadottir (talk) 12:52, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

• You haven't let me down. You've given me a truckload of support with this.—S Marshall T/C 13:47, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

• Still oppose mass deletion -- @Sam Walton: What she said: Thank you the ping; this discussion was seeming a bit reiterative and I had mentally checked out. Like @Yngvadottir: I have put considerable effort into some of these articles. In fact, two or three of them are my own translations, which I would not have attempted without the translation tool, btw. Some are from my translations on French law, and I think 1) they cover important and previously missing topics and 2) they are high-quality technical translations. In most cases they speak for themselves. A couple are not perfect, reflecting the state of the French article, yes, and need work. But while these articles -- I am speaking here specifically of my own translations that appear on this list -- may be imperfect they are still reasonable stubs that can be built upon, and they also support more important articles by helping to prevent redlinks in some of the top-level articles on French law and also the French colonial legacy in Rwanda and the Congos etc. See Biens mal acquis for example. That was painful but I am proud of that translation. I have also encountered other people's translations on that list that made me proud of Wikipedia; the one on a cryptology algorithm for example comes to mind, or Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations. I am an inclusionist, I have to admit, and yes yes, great wrongs and all, but I do think it is important that (for example) articles on Congolese history mention that there have been civil wars (beyond "unrest", and no, I am not kidding). The worst BLP problems I am aware of are in the articles on Dilma Rousseff and I don't believe they are on this list or were created with the tool. Some of the worst PNT pages I have seen predate the translation tool, for instance Notre-Dame de la Garde, which took me years to finish, and Annees folles which is as we speak an incredible mess requiring research in addition to copy-editing and translation. Yngvadottir is correct in saying that inappropriately translated proper nouns is a frequent problem. I recall a Hubert de Garde de Vins who became "wine", and yes, this did reduce the sentence to gibberish. It's annoying enough to make me wanna regex. But. Not mass deletion. I suggest case-by-case intervention in the case of egregious problems with particular users. It's not as though more that a very few users even try to translate. Or perhaps we should revise the criteria for translation user privileges. But even there -- one of the people tagged as delete on sight has created a number of skeleton articles about Quebec. These articles should be be fleshed out not deleted; we should have articles about Quebec. Some of the authors are unquestionably notable, the equivalent in my small culture of Simone de Beauvoir or Colette or Andre Gide. It seems to me that an article that says: this author was born, drank coffee, won the Governor-General's award and wrote these books, is better than having nothing at all. The placeholder takes the topic from unknown unknown to known unknown, or little-known in this context, I guess. We do know a little more about the folk dances of Honduras because there is a very bad article, for which I have done what I could. There are many different problems with the articles on this list. Someone has created multiple articles about, apparently every madrassa in central Tunis. Who am I? Some of the articles I have rescued at PNT were about the medieval wines of Provence, which might seem equally trivial to some. Some of the important but very flawed articles I have noted maybe should not be in the article mainspace -- I am thinking of the ones about the Virgin of Guadeloupe, pretty much everything flagged Mexican historical documents, the Spanish procession of the flowers, etc)--but an interested Spanish speaker could build these out. These topics are unquestionably notable. We should have an article about the Virgin of Guadeloupe, really, people, we should. My suggestion would be recruiting. We desperately need a Portuguese speaker and additional help with Spanish. Some of the unreferenced BLPs sitting around appear to be very fine even though they are unreferenced, and may in fact veer into fluff. But they don't approach liability for libel if that's the concern. I avoid them, personally, because I have in the past deciphered Abidjan l33t about a beloved soccer player, only to be told that we don't as a matter of policy consider these leagues notable. Fine then, they should not be on the PNT to-do list. I'd love to see the translation workflow improved but we should be encouraging the people expanding our horizons is what I think. I am sorry for the very long answer but I appear to be a voice wailing in the desert on this topic and I have now said pretty much the above many times now. Nobody seems to care so oh well, it's not like I don't have other work I can do on the history of the Congo and figuring out what Dilma Rousseff had to say about her impeachment. Reliable sources say she was railroaded (NPR for one) and that is not included in the article at all right now. The articles on Congolese history airily write off genocide and slaughter as "some unrest". In a world where these things are true I really don't care whether on not we find a reference for that Eurovision winner. Someone who cares can do that and I think ethnocentrism is a bigger issue on Wikipedia that these translation attempts. Move the ones that don't meet a minimum standard to some draft space or something. Educate the people who are creating this articles instead of shaking your finger at them. The article creation process is daunting enough and I myself have had to explain to new page patrollers that this punk band is in fact seminal whether you have heard of them or not and whether or not they sing in a language that you can understand. But I have been here enough to do that and I assure you, most people will not. Wikipedia wants to know why its editors grow fewer cough cough wikipedia, lookee here. I will shortly wikilink some of the examples I mention above for easier show-and-tell, for the benefit of anyone who has read this far. Thanks. Elinruby (talk) 20:38, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support removal of these attempted articles (especially to avoid BLP problems laying around). Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:00, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support [1] I'd say "do a disservice to their topics" is a mild way of putting it. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:08, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose blanket deletion. Having just checked a bunch of the remaining articles I found plenty of perfectly reasonable, non-BLP articles here, and any bad articles I did find were certainly not in greater number than you would find by hitting Random Article, nor were they particularly awful; the worst offenses I found were poor but understandable English. There's a lot of valid content here, especially on non-English topics which we need to do a better job of writing about. FWIW I'll happily put some time into going through this list. Sam Walton (talk) 14:12, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Please take a look at the 20 articles I just reviewed here; none had any issues greater than needing a quick copyedit. Sam Walton (talk) 14:38, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
    • @Samwalton9: Thanks. It's been a long, hard slog. I appreciate it if any of these can be saved. However, did you check for accuracy? It's possible for a machine translation to be misleadingly wrong. And the miserable translation tool the WMF provides usually doesn't even attempt filmographies: look at that specific section of Asier Etxeandia. This is not acceptable in a BLP. Somebody who reads the original language (Spanish? Catalan?) needs to go through that article sentence by sentence and film by film. Unfortunately it's not a matter of notability (that's almost always attested to by the original article), it's a matter of whether we have time to save this article. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:27, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
      • That names of works likely don't get automatically translated properly is a good point that I hadn't considered, thanks for pointing that out. If that's one of the primary issues then I'd favour a semi-automated removal of "filmography" or similar sections, if possible. It just seems that there's a lot of perfectly good content in here. Sam Walton (talk) 15:47, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
        • I looked at the first one you listed, it is a mass of non-BLP compliant (non-neutral, no-inline source) material. Letting stuff like that hang around is not just bad for that BLP but as an example for other BLPs to be created and remain non-compliant. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:08, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
          • Sam Walton, you didn't answer Yngvadottir's question. Can you speak the source languages? Remember that because of the defective way that software feature was implemented, you cannot assume that the translator speaks English and in many cases they obviously couldn't. (In practice the source language matters a lot because the software accuracy varies by the language pair. Indo-European languages are often but not always okay, and Spanish-English translations have particularly high accuracy, approaching 80%. Japanese-English, for example, has much, much lower accuracy.) So the correctness of the translation must be, and can only be, checked by someone with dual fluency in the source language and English.

            In the real world you can establish some rules-of-thumb. For example, you can quite safely assume that everything translated by Rosiestep is appropriate and can be retained. The editorial skills of the different translators varied very widely.

            All in all the best solution is for a human who's fluent in the source language and English to look at each of these articles and form an intelligent judgment. The thing that's preventing this solution is that, having looked at the content and formed the judgment, I can't then remove a defective article, because the defective wording in WP:CSD#X2 encourage sysops to decline the deletion unless it's a WP:SNOW case... so I've got to start a full AfD. Every. Single. Time. The effort for me to clean up is out of all proportion to the effort editors put into creating the damn things with a script.

            If you don't want the articles nuked (and that's a reasonable position), then please support the X2 revision I have proposed.—S Marshall T/C 17:37, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

When you say "the first one you listed" are you talking about Tomokazu Matsuyama? Yes, if so. it is indeed an unreferenced BLP but... I suspect five minutes of quality time with Google would take it out of that category, and it's essentially a resume, something like the placeholder articles I mentioned above. I think that perhaps we are better off knowing that this Japanese contemporary artist exists. Why not do a wikiproject to improve these like the one we just had on Africa top-level articles? It does seem to me that you could use a break from this wikitask and a little gamification might well get er done. I share your sentiment that in some ways we have our fingers in the dyke here, but the dyke does serve a purpose I think...In short I respectfully disagree with the current approach to these articles. Elinruby (talk) 21:05, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Break

@Alanscottwalker: I found a reference for his influences in less time than it took to add the ref code....Elinruby (talk) 19:43, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Elinruby: Did you mean to ping me back here, many days after I commented, to tell me you found a pretty crappy commercial source? When I looked at it awhile ago, the article was filled with non-npov/non-referenced/BLP violating text. It is, thus, no comfort that since I commented, awhile ago, someone has according to their edit 'removed the worst of the puffery', and you added that crappy commercial source - its still not policy compliant (even if it is marginally better, since I flagged it) Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:03, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

@Alanscottwalker: I brought you back here to tell you that while it may be have been unsourced, fixing this is extremely trivial. I don't give a hoot about this particular article, but his gallery is not a "crappy commercial source" imho and if you want people to fix then article then you should enunciate your problem with it. Sorry if that doesn't fit your preconceptions Elinruby (talk) 00:51, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Adding a non-independent crappy commercial source is not fixing. It is selling. We are not in the business of selling. What you call "trivial" sourcing does nothing to fix just makes it worse - "trivial" should have tipped you off. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 08:25, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@AlanscottWalker: Um no.... I was using the term in its software development meaning. I apologize for picking the wrong dialect to make my point. I thought, since you were critiquing the software tool, you might know something about software even though you don't seem to be familiar with the features of this instance of it, or for that matter with a representative sample of its users. Commericial, hmm. The same could be said of my article about the thousand-year-old Papal vintages, you know. That vineyard is selling wine today. Is that article also commercial crap? Since it is a direct translation from French Wikipedia, are you saying that French Wikipedia is commercial crap? You really don't want to make me argue this point, seriously. Incidentally what is with the arbitrary insertion of a break in the discussion? Consider, for just a moment, that I might actually have a point. Entertain the notion for a minute. Why are you belittling my statement? Elinruby (talk) 21:57, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Critiquing software tool? No, I was clearly critiquing an article in English on the English Wikipedia. And I was referring to the crappy commercial source - you pinged me, remember, so that I would know you added it to the article. That was not done in French, it was done in English. As for break, that is your doing, why should I have any idea why you added the crappy source, and then wanted to tell me about it in this break. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:54, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@Alanscottwalker: Let me use small words. CTX is software. Bad translation can happen with or without software. Lack of sources can happen without software. In software development "trivial" means "easy". Do you see now? Be careful who you patronize next time. 01:07, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

@S Marshall:I'd consider supporting your proposal, perhaps, once I have read it, but could you provide a link for we mere mortals who don't normally follow these proposals? I also disagree that all of these articles require a bilingual editor; some just need a few references and/or a copy edit. But you know I disagree at this point. And if you do, god help us, nuke all of these articles as opposed to one of the other courses of action I have (again) suggested above, please move mine to my draft space if you find them that objectionable. Some sort of clue as to what your issue is would also be nice. Elinruby (talk) 19:43, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

• The revision I want to make is this one. The intended effect is so that a human editor, who has reviewed the script-generated content and given it due consideration and exercise of judgment, can recommend the content for deletion and receive assistance rather than bureaucracy from our admin corps.

  The basic problem with these articles is that they are script generated and the scripts are unreliable. Exactly how unreliable they are varies according to the language pair, so for example Spanish-English translations are relatively good, while for example Japanese-English translations are relatively poor; and whether the articles contain specific grammatical constructions that the scripts have trouble with.

  You can test its accuracy, and I recommend you do. The script it used, during the problem period, was Google translate. I've just picked some sample text and run it through Google translate in various language pairs, first into a different language and then the translated text back into English, to see how it did. These were the results:-

Source text	Korean	Punjabi	Farsi
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition	Fourth and seventh years ago, our ancestors left the continent, a new country born in Liberty.	Four score and seven years on this continent, first our father a new nation, brought freedom and dedicated to the proposition	Four score and seven years ago our fathers on this continent, a new nation, the freedom brought, and dedicated to the proposition
And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.	And when he saw the multitude, he went up to the mountain, and his disciples came, and opened his mouth, and taught him, saying, Blessed are the souls of the poor: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.	Jesus saw the crowds up on the mountain, and when he sat, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth, and the poor in spirit was teaching, that theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Yes: interestingly the algorithm interpolated "Jesus" into the text.)	And seeing the multitudes, he went to the mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit: for the kingdom of heaven.
Editors agree not to publish biographical material concerning living people unless it is accurate	The editors agree not to post electrical materials about living people unless they are the correct person.	To publish the biographical material about the editor, it is right to disagree,	Editors agree to publish biographies of living people, unless it is accurate.

I encourage you to try these and other examples with different language pairs. Can you see why you need to speak the original language in order to copyedit accurately?—S Marshall T/C 22:00, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

But that is not a fair test since it magnifies any word choice errors. There *will* be errors, yes. We clean them up at WP:PNT --- ALL THE TIME. And no, it is not necessary to speak the language always, though it certainly help. I really suggest that maybe you just need a wikibreak from this task. Bad english can mostly be fixed. There are the occasional mysteries, yes. There are colloquialisms, yes. This does not justify wholesale destruction of good content. I was just here to get the link as I mentioned your proposal to one of my PNT colleagues; I need to go but I'll look at your proposal the next time I log in Elinruby (talk) 00:46, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

The liquor was strong but the meat was rotten.

Translation wonks will recognize the (apocryphal) story behind the sentence above, concerning literal mistranslations exacerbated from there-and-back translation. (The story perhaps originated after the NY World's Fair of 1964, which had a computer translation exhibit in the Russian Pavilion.) In any case, I'm just getting up to speed on this topic and will comment in more detail later.

Briefly: yes, you definitely have to speak the language to copyedit accurately. I'm actually in favor of a modification to WP:MACHINETRANSLATION to make it stronger. I fully agree with the worse than nothing statement in the policy now, but I'd go one step further: the only thing worse than a machine translation in an encyclopedia, is a machine translation that has been copyedited by a capable and talented monolingual (even worse: by someone who knows a bit of the language and doesn't know what s/he doesn't know) so that the result is beautiful, grammatical, smooth, stylish, wonderful English prose. As a translator, puh-LEEZ leave the crappy, horrible, machine-gobbledygook so that a translator can spot it easily, and fix it accurately. Copyediting it into proper English makes our job much harder.

If it's too painful to leave it exposed in main space, perhaps moving to Draft space could be an alternative. In fact, rather than a mass-delete, why not a mass-Draft-ify? (Apologies if someone has already said this, I'm still reading the thread.) More later. Mathglot (talk) 01:31, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

mass-Draftify would work for me. And yeah I disagree with you too a little, but I knew that. My point is, we all agree that an issue exists so what do we do? I also have some more reading to do before I comment on what S Marshall (talk · contribs) is proposing. I have a story about the policy but I want to make sure it pertains to this discussion. Elinruby (talk) 22:03, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

• Elinruby is certainly correct to say this "wasn't a fair test", because going through the algorithm twice doubles the error rate. But a lot of people reading this discussion will speak only English so this is the only way I can show them what the problem is ---- without that context, they may well find this, and the original discussion at WP:AN/CXT, rather impenetrable because they won't understand the gravity of the concerns.

  It was even more unfair because it was me who selected the examples and I don't like machine translations. In order to illustrate my point I went with non-European languages and convoluted sentence structures. If you tried the same exercise with a verse from "Green Eggs and Ham" then you'd get perfect translations 99% of the time. (It tripped me up with the Sermon on the Mount because quite clearly, the algorithm recognised that it was dealing with a Bible verse, which I found fascinating.)

  The script is particularly likely to do badly with double-negatives, not-unless constructions, adverbs of time ("since", "during", "for a hundred years"), and the present progressive tense, in some language pairs.

  It would certainly be possible to construct a fairer text using more random samples of language.—S Marshall T/C 10:27, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@S Marshall: alright, I grant you that there aren't many bilinguals here. This *is* the problem in my view. I'll also specify that I don't claim expertise outside the Romance languages, and very little for some of those. But allow me please, since I know you speak or at least read French, to propose a better example. There are common translation errors that can occur, depending on which tool exactly was used. The improperly-translated name (nom propre) problem was real but is now mostly fixed. The fact that a writer whose novels were written in French gave them titles in French should come as a shock to nobody. The correct format for a bibliography in such cases *is* title in the actual language of the words in the book, webpage or whatever. Translated title, if the title is not in English, goes in the optional trans-title (or is it trans_title?) field of the cite template. Language switch to be set if at all possible. If it is not, let me know, and I can reduce the number of foreign words that English wikipedia needs to look at. So. In all languages, pretty much, words like fire and sky and take tend to be both native to the original people and likely to carry additional meanings, as in take an oath, take a bus, take a break etc. On the other hand what the software tool does do extremely well is know the correct translation for arcane or specialized terms, often loanwords, like caravel or apse or stronghold. These words are in my recognition vocabulary not my working vocabulary and using the tool in certain instances saves many lookups. When there is a strong degree of ambiguity or divergence in meaning (like the example on my user page) then THEN yes a fluent or very advanced user is needed. There are known divergences that a bilingual would spot that an English speaker would not. Sure. "Je l'aime beaucoup, mon mari" is a good example. But the fact that this is true does not prove that every line of every one of these articles still needs to be checked before they can be permitted to continue to sully Wikipedia, or that each of these lines needs to be checked by you personally. If you feel overwhelmed, take a break. Elinruby (talk) 21:57, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

• I speak English, French, German, Gibberish and Filth.  :) Joking aside -- I'm not concerned about noms propres. I'm concerned when the script perverts or even inverts the meaning of the source text. It's quite hard to give you an example because the examples I've discovered have all been deleted, and there's only the one non-English language we share, but perhaps an administrator will confirm for you the sorry history of Daphné Bürki. It was created as a machine translation of fr:Daphné Bürki and the en.wiki version said she was married to Sylvain Quimène, citing this source. Check it out; the source doesn't say that. In fact she was married to Travis Bürki, at least at one time (can't say whether she's still married to him). We had a biographical article where the subject was married to the wrong bloke. It's not okay to keep these around.

  Draftification is exactly the same as deleting them. Nobody is going to fix these up in draft space. The number of editors who're competent to fix them is small, and the amount of other translation work those editors have on their hands is very large, and it includes a lot of mainspace work that's more urgent than fixing raw machine translations in draft space, and it always will; we can get back to fixing draft space articles about individual artworks when every Leibniz-prizewinning scientist and every European politician with a seat on their national parliament has a biography. (We're on target never to achieve that. The democratic process means new politicians get elected and replaced faster than their biographies get translated from foreign-language wikipedias.)

  I don't object to draftifying these articles if that's the face-saving solution that lets us pretend we're being all inclusionist about it, but it would be more honest to nuke them all from orbit.—S Marshall T/C 00:51, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

• I am just coming back to this. I agree about the relatively few translators and the large amount of work, and yet, we so fundamentally disagree. Some of the designated articles do are, in my opinion, within the top percentiles in article quality. Others have in fact been fixed up. You and I consulted about one once. Others, yes, need work, and I at least do get to articles that I say I will get to. Slowly, at times, sure. I have no problem with articles that don't meet a certain standard not going to mainspace, but I don't see why you singly out the translation tool as your criterion. I mention noms propres because I have mentioned one above from Notre-Dame de la Garde where Commander de Vins came across as wine, and this did make the sentence gibberish. But that article did not come out of the CTX tool. Ihave no idea what the Leibniz prize is, but I am not sure it's more notable, in the abstract, than Marcel Proust, but fine. Work on that all you like, sure. But don't tell me it's more important that some mention in Congolese history that there have been civil wars, or I will just laugh at you. The sort of error you mention above with Daphné Büki -- I'll look at it myself shortly, if it's from French I don't need an admin -- can be made by anyone who knows less than they think they do. Automated translation not needed. Now, I propose that since we are talking about this we work out some sort of saner translation process. For instance, if African football leagues are by policy not notable, as someone once told me, fine then, the article should not be in the translation queue. Put something in there about a minimum number of references, require the use of trans-title in the references, whatever is agreed upon is ok with me. Your proposed change would preserve most of by not all of the articles that have been worked on, which is a slight improvement I guess, except you'll also nuke the 3-4 articles that needed nothing and a whole lot of biography that I've avoid because people tend to write me snooty messages to inform me that the person isn't notable, and why waste work when articles like History of Nicaragua are so lacking? Elinruby (talk) 01:01, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Proposal

Okay, I've gone through this and thought about it, and I'm conditionally a Yes on change to X2 and nuking the list, with an option to save certain files.

S Marshall, I take your point about draftification being pointless, as they'll just sit there with most of them never being edited ever.

I believe you've also persuaded me that the nuke is appropriate, given some conditions below. In order to keep Elinruby and Sam Walton (and me, and others) happy about not deleting certain files we are working on or wish to work on, I had an idea: what if we agree to allow a delay of two weeks to allow interested parties to go through and mark files in the list we want to keep so when the nuke-a-bot comes through, it can pass over the files thus marked. (I don't know if we can gin this up for two weeks from yesterday, but that would be auspicious.)

More specifically, to Elinruby's (22:03, 1 April) "So what do we do?" question, I think here's what we do:

• Those of us who want to retain files, mark them with {{bots|deny=X2-nukebot}} to vaccinate them against nuking.
• Change X2 accordingly
• Somebody develops the nuke script
• Nuke script should nuke "without prejudice" so that if someone changes their mind later and wants to recreate a file, it shouldn't be "salted" or require admin action to "undelete"; you just recreate it in the normal way you create any new file.
• If needed, we run a pre-nuke test against sandbox files, or can we just trust the vaccination will be respected?
• Start the script up and let 'er rip

Elinruby, if this proposal were accepted, would you change your no to X2 modif to a yes? Sam Walton, would you?

Naturally for this to have any value, we'd have to agree to not vaccinate the whole list, but just the ones we reasonably expect to work on, or judge worthy of keeping. If desired, I can envisage a way to greatly speed up the first step (vaccination) for all of us. Personally, I won't mark any file translated from a language I don't know well enough to evaluate the translation. But, going through all 3500 files is a burden, since there's no point my even clicking on the ones in languages I don't know. If I knew in advance which ones are from Spanish, French, etc., that would be a huge help. If you look at 1300-1350, you'll see that I've marked them with a language code (and a byte count; but that was for something else). I could commit to marking another 200 or 300 with the lang code, maybe more. If we could break up the work that way and everybody just mark the files for lang code, then once that's done, we could all go through the whole list much more quickly, to see which ones we wanted to evaluate for vaccination.

I really think this could be wrapped up in a couple of weeks, if we get agreement. Mathglot (talk) 18:17, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

• Entirely happy with this idea.—S Marshall T/C 19:33, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
• Agree. Amisom (talk) 11:31, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
• This is fine with me. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:03, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Are there any objections to moving forward with this? Tazerdadog (talk) 01:48, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Almost two weeks of SILENCE sounds like "go for it". Primefac (talk) 02:28, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm still good with this as proposer, of course, but just to reiterate: we'd still need a two-week moratorium *after acceptance* of the proposal before nuking, to allow interested parties to vaccinate such articles as they chose to. I assumed that was clear, but that "go for it" got me a little scared, so thought I'd better raise it again.

On Tazerdadog's point, what is the procedure for deciding when to go forward with a proposal? Are we there now? Whatever the procedure is, and whenever we deem "acceptance" to happen, can someone close it at that point and box it up like I see on Rfcs, so we can then start the two-week, innoculation period timer ticking without having more opinions straggle in after it's already been decided? Or what's the right way to do this? Mathglot (talk) 07:00, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• Request formal close, per Mathglot. Do I need to post on ANRFC?—S Marshall T/C 18:40, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

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

X2-nuke interim period

Wow, cool! Glad we made some progress, and just trying to nail down the next steps to keep things moving smoothly. To recap my understanding:

• we are now in the "inoculation period" with a fortnight-timer which expires 23:22, 6 May 2017 (UTC) an interim period where we figure out how to implement this.
• during this period, anyone may tag articles in the list at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review with the proper tag to prevent nuking two weeks hence

A couple of questions:

• do we have to recruit someone to write a script to do the actual nuking?
• what form should the actual "vaccination" tag have? In the proposal above, I just kind of threw out that expression: {{bots|deny=X2-nukebot}} but I have no idea how we really need to tag the articles, and maybe that's a question for the script writer?
• will the bot also observe strikeout type as an indicator not to nuke? A possible issue is inconsistent usage among editors: for example, some editors have not used strikeout for articles they have reviewed and clearly wish to save (e.g. see #1601-1622)

As for me, I will continue to tag a couple hundred more articles with language-tags as I did previously in the 1301-1600 range, to make it easier for everyone to find articles translated from languages they are comfortable working with, and that they therefore might wish to tag. Mathglot (talk) 02:28, 23 April 2017 (UTC) Updated by Mathglot (talk) 09:02, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

• Let's make two lists, one of articles to delete and the other of articles to retain for the moment. I don't think that it will be necessary to formally request a bot. We have quite a few sysops who could clean them all out with or without scripted assistance.—S Marshall T/C 15:55, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

  I would implement it as a giant sortable wikitable - Something that looks like this:

Name	Language	Vaccinated	Notes
Jimbo Wales	es	Tazerdadog (talk)	Translation checked
Earth	ar	--	Probably Notable
My mother's garage band	fr	--	X2'd, not notable

Tazerdadog (talk) 17:17, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Isn't the current list easier to deal with than creating a new table, or two new ones? Can we just go based on strikeout type, or add some unambiguous token like, nuke=yes in the content of the items in the enumerated list that need to be deleted? I'm just trying to think what would be the least work to set up, and easiest to mark for those interested in vaccinating articles.

If we decide to go with a table, I might be able to use a fancy regex to create a table from the current bullet list. Although I definitely see why a table is easier to view and interpret once it's set up, I'm not (yet) persuaded that there's an advantage to setting one up in the first place. For one thing, it's harder to edit a table than a bullet list, because of the risk of screwing up cells or rows. Mathglot (talk) 18:59, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

The real advantage of the table is the ability to sort by language. This way, if we have a volunteer who speaks (for example) only English and Spanish, they can just sort the table by language, and all of the Spanish articles will be shown together. It's harder to edit, but in my opinion, the ease of viewing and extracting the information far outweighs this.

I have created a list that removes all struck items at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review/Tazerdadog cleanup list. I'm currently working on getting rid of the redlinks as well. Once that is done, we can move to a vaccination model on the articles that have not been cleaned up in the articles thus far. The vaccination can take virtually any form as long as everyone agrees on what it is - I'd recommend that we vaccinate at the central list/table rather than on the article however. Once the two weeks expire, it's trivial to extract the unvaccinated articles and poke a sysop for deletion. Tazerdadog (talk) 00:07, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: This was posted over at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review as well but wanted to mention it here. Timotheus Canens has created a language-sortable table in their sandbox at User:Timotheus Canens/sandbox that I think is similar to what you were thinking. Mz7 (talk) 04:06, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

And we may have to recreate the table, as I didn't notice it and have been continuing to mark language codes on the main list (and shall continue to do so, unless someone yells "Stop!"). Also, not sure how trivial it is: given a full set of instructions what to do, then, yes, it's trivial, but this is not formatted data (yet) and there are all sorts of questions a sysop might have, such as, what to do with ones marked "moved", or "redirected", and other situations I've come across while going through the list that don't spring to mind. We don't want to burden the sysop with an illy-defined task, so all of those situations should be spelled out before we ask them to take their time to do it, as if there are too many questions, they'll either give up, or they'll do whatever they feel like. Mathglot (talk) 06:20, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

@Timotheus Canens: Tazerdadog (talk) 05:55, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

And am still doing so on the main page, and so have at least six others since the message just above this one was written. Mathglot (talk) 11:53, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

X2 countdown and vaccinate indicators

Floating a proposal to get the clock started on the two weeks. Any user can write "Vaccinated" (or anything equivalent , as long as the meaning is understood) on the list on the same line as the Strike out any article they want to vaccinate. I can then go through and use regex to remove the vaccinated articles line-by-line from the delete list. I will then separate out the articles with no substantive commentary attached (anything beyond a language or a byte count is substantive) for an admin to delete or draftify. Any article which has been individually substantively discussed will be evaluated independently. If this is OK, we can start the clock. Tazerdadog (talk) 22:23, 6 May 2017 (UTC) Updated Tazerdadog (talk) 06:07, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

People are already using strikeout type as the "vaccinate" flag so no additional method is needed though I see nothing wrong with using both, if someone has already started with the the other method. Mathglot (talk) 22:51, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Also, I have been placing substantive commentary on plenty of articles, with the intention of facilitating the work of the group as a whole, in order to aid people in deciding whether that article is worth their time to look at and evaluate. In my case at least, substantive commentary does not indicate a desire to save, and if you intend to use it that way in the general case, then you need to suggest another indication I can use as a "poison pill" indicator to ensure it is nuked despite the substantive commentary. Mathglot (talk) 23:31, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Strikeout works even better than my idea, as it is easier to write the regex for. I was figuring that substantive commentary at least deserved to be read before we nuked them, although unless a comment was actively positive on the article I would have sorted it as a delete. If you want every article you commented on to be deleted, I can use your signature as the poison pill. Otherwise, use what you want, just make sure it is clear what it is. Ideally, place it at the start of a line, so I don't have to think when writing the regex. Tazerdadog (talk) 06:07, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: If you need a tester, feel free to shoot me a pattern; I'm a bit of a regex wonk myself, plus I have a nice test app for it. Can't use my sig as poison pill, cuz often my commentary is unsigned cuz I did them 20 or 50 at a time, with the edit summary carefully explaining what was done, but no sig on the individual line items. Beyond that, quite a few have commentary by multiple people, so even if I did comment (and even sign) others may have, too. The only clear way to do this, afaics, is to have an unequivocal keep (or nuke) indicator (or more than one is okay, if you want to OR them) but anything judg-y like "substantive commentary" seems risky to me. In the latter case, we should just get everyone to review all their edits they forgot to strike, and strike them now, or forever hold their peace. In my own case, no matter how positive my comment, or how long, if there's no strike on the article title, it's a "nuke". It occurs to me we should poll everyone and get positive buy-in from all concerned that they understand the indicator system, to make sure everyone knows "strike" equals "keep" and anything else is nuke (or whatever we decide). It won't do to have 2,000 articles nuked, and then the day after, "Oh, but I thought..." Know what I mean?Mathglot (talk) 06:50, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: I think the solution is to draftify until everyone agrees that no mistakes have been made, then delete. I'm happy to do the grunt work of the manual checking of longer entries, and I don't think it is particularly risky to do so. However, the vast majority are short, and can and should be handed with a little regex script. We do need to make sure that the expectation of strikeout = delete instead of strikeout = resolved was clear to all parties. As for a deleteword, literally anything will do if it is unique and impossible to misinterpret. I would recommend "kill" as this deleteword, as it is clear what the meaning is, possible to write the regex for, and currently has only a couple of false hits in the page that can be worked around easily. Does this work for you?

The reasoning for checking longer entries is to try to catch entries like this:

|Battle_of_Urica -seems fine, at least not a translation issueElinruby (talk) 19:14, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Tazerdadog (talk) 08:02, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: If by "draftify" you mean quarantine, i.e., staging/moving all the to-be-deleted files someplace prior to the hard delete, I totally agree. (Whether that should actually be the current Draft namespace is debatable, but might be the right solution.) As far as regexes, I count 738 <s> tags, 732 </s> tags, 587 keepers, and 2785 nukers as of May 7 ver. 779254187. Mathglot (talk) 22:40, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Ok, sounds good. By draftify, i meant "Move out of mainspace to a different namespace where the content is accessible for translators, but unlikely to be stumbled upon accidentally by someone who thins they are reading an actual encyclopedia article." it also should be noted that when any of these pages are deleted, it should be a WP:SOFTDELETE, i.e. if someone asks for a small number to be restored after they have been deleted so that they can work on them they can just ask any admin to do so. I think that's all that needs to be resolved for now, so I'm going to go ahead and start the two week countdown until someone yells at me to stop. Pinging some participants: @S Marshall:@Elinruby:@Yngvadottir: Tazerdadog (talk) 23:12, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

For clarity, the process is: At the deadline, June 6, 2017 all struck articles listed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review will be retained, and all unstruck articles will be deleted. Articles with significant commentary attached will have the commentary read before the deletion, but the default is the struck/unstruck status unless the commentary indicates clearly the opposite result is better. The work "kill" may be added to unambiguously mark an article for deletion. On or after June 6th, the regex nerds will compile a list of articles to delete and retain. The delete list will be moved to draft space (or subpages of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review), where it will be audited briefly just to make sure nobody made a systematic error, then deleted. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:12, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Per #deadline it's June 6. Your clarifications on "draftify" and the process all sound good, otherwise.
P.S. Note that one article matches /kill/i but none matches /\bkill\b/i. Mathglot (talk) 23:28, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Fixed, I was unaware of that discussion, thank you. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:34, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot and Tazerdog: so for purposes of making life easier I will strike what I think should be struck. At one point people were checking my work so I was rather tentative initially. I am following the regex discussion but haven't used it in a while so save me the trouble of looking this up -- did you conclude that "kill" would be useful, or not? Elinruby (talk) 00:58, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

@Elinruby: If the title is strikeout type, it will be kept; if it isn't, it won't. Placing "Kill" on an article has no effect at nuke time, but it does have a beneficial effect now:, i.e., it saves time for others. It lets others know that you have looked at this one and found it wanting, so they should save their breath and not even bother looking at it. For example: You marked #18 Stevia_cultivation_in_Paraguay "really, really bad". That was enough for me not to bother looking at it, so you saved me time, there. If you want to place "kill" on the non-deserving items you pass by, that will help everybody else. I may do the same. But in the end, on Nuke day, the "kill" markings won't have any effect. Make sense? Mathglot (talk) 01:20, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: yeah it does, thanks. And indeed I seem to be the most inclusionist in the discussion so if I think it's more work than it's worth I doubt that anyone else in the discussion would disagree. Elinruby (talk) 01:31, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Re-pinging@Tazerdadog: on Elinruby's behalf for confirmation. Due to the ping typo above, he may not have seen this, and it's really his call, not mine. Mathglot (talk) 01:35, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Mathglot's interpretation above is basically correct. Please do not duplicate work you've already done just to add the kill flag, but please strike entities that could be ambiguous (I will manually evaluate your intention based on comments that you left, but the default is the struck/unstruck status unless you are clear in your comments otherwise). Please do use these flags from now on, or on any where your intention is unclear. Tazerdadog (talk) 02:15, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Tazerdadog I'm looking at formation of the strikeout tags enclosing the linked titles, and found 43 anomalies that might trip up the nuke pattern. I'll probably starting fixing these tomorrow. Mathglot (talk) 09:44, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

assumption for User space items

@Tazerdadog: I notice that various contributors are strikeout-tagging Userspace items: see #14, 15, 691, and 695 for example. I have not been tagging any of them, my assumption being that all User space items will be kept automatically regardless of presence/absence of strikeout title (and ignoring any "kill"), and since it's trivial to skip over them with the regex it's not necessary to tag them. If you agree, please make a note at WT:CXT/PTR, or let me know and I will, so everyone can save their breath marking these. Mathglot (talk) 01:25, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

That was my assumption as well, all entries outside of mainspace should be fine. Tazerdadog (talk) 01:39, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

rescuing clobbers by CXT

@Tazerdadog: I just rescued #2611 Garbacz. This was a good stub created in 2008, then clobbered in 2016 by ContentTranslation tool, leaving a rubbish translation deserving of deletion. I just rescued it by reverting it back to the last good version before the clobber, and struck it as a keeper.

I'm concerned that there may be an unknown number of formerly good articles of long standing in the list that we don't want to delete, simply because they got clobbered by CXT at some point and thus ended up in the list, and time ran out before anybody got a chance to look at them. If I can get a list of potential clobbers in the next week, I will check them all out. (Am betting it's less than a couple hundred, total; but maybe S Marshall would help out, if it turns out to be more than that.) Shouldn't be too hard to create such a list:

pseudocode to generate a list of possible CXT clobbers

# Print out names of Titles in CXT/PTR that may be clobbers of good, older articles. # (Doesn't handle the case where oldest version is CXT, followed by user edits to make it good, # followed by 2nd cxt later which clobbers the good version; but that's probably rare.) # For each item in WP:CXT/PTR list do: $line = text from next <ol> item in list If the bracketed article title near the beginning of $line is within s-tags, next loop Extract $title from the $line If $title is not in article space, next loop Read Rev History of $title into array @RevHist Get $oldest_es = edit summary string of oldest version (last index in @RevHist) If 'ContentTranslation' is a substring of $oldest_es, next loop Pop @RevHist: drop oldest summary from @RevHist so it now contains all versions except the oldest one If 'ContentTranslation' is a substring of @RevHist viewed as a single string, do: Print "$title possibly clobbered by CXT" End For

Are you able to create a list like this, or do you know someone who could? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 21:56, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• Why not just ask the deleting administrators to check the translation is the first revision before they push the button?—S Marshall T/C 23:32, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

That would be a shitton of work for the deleting admin. Tazerdadog (talk) 00:57, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

3.6 metric shit tonnes, to be exact. ;-) And thanks for the ping, Taz. Mathglot (talk) 01:56, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: I think I've maybe got your query: I see from Samtar's query that you use MySQL. If that's the case, then to do this, I think you can take Samtar's query 11275 exactly as it is, with one more WHERE clause, to exclude the oldest revision:

AND WHERE rev.date > @MIN_REV_DATE

where @MIN_REV_DATE is either separately selected and assigned to a variable [as there would be one min value per title, it would have to either be an array variable or more likely a 2-col temp table with title and MIN date, which could be joined to rev.] Edited by Mathglot (talk) 18:50, 19 May 2017 (UTC), or probably more efficiently, a subquery getting the oldest rev date for that page using standard "minimum value of a column" techniques. So the result will be a subset of Samtar's original query, limited to cases where ct_tag was equal to 'ContentTranslation' somewhere other than in the oldest revision for that page. (By the way, I don't have access to your file structure, so I have no idea if 'rev.date' really exists, but what I mean by that, is the TIMESTAMP of that particular revision, whatever the field is really called. Also, again depending on the file structure, you might need to use techqniques for groupwise minimum of a column to get the min rev date for each page.) Mathglot (talk) 03:09, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Unfortunately, I've never used MySQL before. I was hoping I could muddle through with some luck and googling, but I had no such luck. Tazerdadog (talk) 03:53, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: And I could totally do it if I had the file structure but I don't; but my strong hunch is that this is very easy, and needs one additional "WHERE" plus another query (probably the groupwise MIN thing) to grab the min value to exclude in the new WHERE. OTOH, if you have access to Quarry, shoot me your query by email if you want, and I'll fix it up, and you can take that and try again, and with several back-and-forths I bet we can get it. Or if you've got zip, I can try a few establishing queries for you to try, and then we can try to build the real one depending on the results you get from those. (Or, we can just wait for someone else to do it, if they will; it really should only take minutes.) Mathglot (talk) 05:11, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog and S Marshall: I don't think this is getting enough attention, and your previous request appears to have stalled at V Pump. This is not good. We need to get this list. Is there someone you can lean on, or request help from, to kick-start this? Alternatively, if someone will give me access to Quarry, a MySQL account permitting SELECT and CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE (or even better, MEMORY table) and a pointer to the file structure descriptions, I can do this myself and create a list to protect these articles. Mathglot (talk) 06:32, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

*Bump* Mathglot (talk) 18:19, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Cryptic for db report 19060. We now have the list of clobbers, and can attend to it. Please see WP:CXT/PTR/Clobbers. Mathglot (talk) 05:18, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Re-requesting closure of Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest#Investigating COI policy

Someone already requested a closure of Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest#Investigating COI policy, which concerns outing/paid editor/harassment/COI... whatever. However, Casliber says that more than one closer, preferably three-person, may be needed. I wonder whether more than one closer is necessary. If so, this indicates that the discussion would be another one of more difficult discussions we've seen lately. Thoughts? --George Ho (talk) 13:44, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

It's not obvious from the discussion and the number of editors participating and the number of proposals made that it's a difficult and controversial topic? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:59, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

To me, closing the whole discussion is very difficult because of the controversy of the topic. However, I concentrated more on milieus and proposals. To be honest, I saw two milieus and one concrete proposal receiving support from the majority. I concentrated on the straw polls and arguments. How about this: close separate milieus and proposals separately? They aren't that difficult to separately close due to other milieus and proposals not likely to pass. --George Ho (talk) 20:17, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Closing each one separately probably makes more sense from a numbers perspective. However, it should still be one group of editors that does it, since there is the possibility (mentioned on the discussion) that some of the milieus could contradict each other depending on what gets passed. Primefac (talk) 01:57, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Milieus 1, 2, and 5 are easy to close as the majority opposes them individually. Milieu 3 and concrete proposal 1 received majority support, so those would be also easy to close. But you're right; one same group of editors should do the individual closures. However, I won't be part of the closing group, so I'll await the uninvolved closers then. --George Ho (talk) 04:44, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I would be willing to be involved in a group closure on this. Tazerdadog (talk) 19:02, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I cast a !vote in the discussion which I had forgotten about - it would therefore be grossly inappropriate for me to participate in this closure Tazerdadog (talk) 01:04, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I guess this means we're putting the band back together ;) Primefac (talk) 19:04, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

We still need one more volunteer for this. Tazerdadog (talk) 10:01, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll step up, if you like.—S Marshall T/C 17:34, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

And... we're back down to 2. Primefac (talk) 02:30, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Needed: Another closer please!—S Marshall T/C 15:35, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

I suggest you just go ahead with however many closers you have now. I further suggest that the "milieux" were intended to get a "general view of the community" and were very vaguely worded, so that if all you can say is "there was no apparent consensus", then so be it. As far as concrete proposal 1, which I proposed, the 28-6 result seems to make the close obvious. You might as well just go ahead and close it. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:53, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

• @Primefac: thoughts? Nobody else is stepping up.—S Marshall T/C 19:36, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Meh, let's just go for it. I think I've still got your email kicking about. I'll send you my thoughts hopefully in the next 24 hours. Primefac (talk) 20:46, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll write mine independently over the same period, and we can see if we agree.  :)—S Marshall T/C 21:39, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• Sorry, I've re-opened the RFC. Re-opening interest for other editors willing to work on a close. Primefac (talk) 22:31, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Take your time. ;) Meanwhile, what happened to closing separate, individual milieux and proposals? George Ho (talk) 10:35, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll go back to what I said 4 comment above. The milieux can be very difficult to close because of the wording. I thought the reverted close was a very good attempt to make sense out of M.3 in that it focused on what the consensus there actually agreed on, but that aroused a storm and nobody seems to be able to agree on what was actually agreed on. Concrete proposal 1, which I proposed, is very much the opposite and I think can be easily closed. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:27, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll help close it, but I think the section below the actual RFC should be considered as well, since they're actively discussing the RFC and how to proceed. Maybe we should wait just a little while longer to see how that develops. Katie^talk 23:23, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm fine with that. No point in cutting off productive discourse. Primefac (talk) 11:48, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

@Primefac, KrakatoaKatie, and S Marshall: I'm going to close a couple separate milieus that receive huge opposition. Casliber, the proposer, is fine with it. However, may I summarize the tally votes as just short rationales? I'll leave the others open. --George Ho (talk) 22:18, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Fine by me, George Ho. It'll make the overall close a bit cleaner. Primefac (talk) 23:08, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Closed milieu 1 and milieu 5. I closed milieu 2 as "no consensus", but I commented that another closer can summarize that better than me. --George Ho (talk) 00:51, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

I changed my mind and briefly summarized milieu 2. --George Ho (talk) 01:18, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Milieu 3, Concrete proposal 1, and Concrete proposal 2 are closed by Winged Blades of Godric. Give Godric thanks for the closures. George Ho (talk) 19:08, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I've been thinking. After closing all the milieus and concrete proposals, I wonder whether closing the remainder of the whole discussion as a whole is possible. If not, how about separately closing "RfC discussion" (including Break 1), Break 2, and Break 3? George Ho (talk) 02:53, 25 April 2017 (UTC); rescinding this consideration. 18:22, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Milieu 4 and Concrete proposal 3 still remain. --George Ho (talk) 04:00, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I would like to thank Gamebuster19901 for closing Milieu 4 (closed as "there is consensus") and Proposal 3 (closed as "no consensus"). Now I shall ping Primefac, KrakatoaKatie, and S Marshall about this, so they can do the teamwork closure more efficiently. --George Ho (talk) 03:07, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

While I think three closers should suffice, I welcome and don't object to one or more additional closers if necessary. --George Ho (talk) 04:52, 8 June 2017 (UTC); edited, 18:11, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Never mind. The whole discussion is archived into Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest/Archive 27. Re-pinging Primefac, KrakatoaKatie, and S Marshall for the latest update. To re-summarize, milieus #1, #2, and #5 did not receive consensus. Neither did concrete proposals #2 and #3. I'll recap milieus #3 and #4, which received support from consensus:

Milieu 3:

"The balancing COI and privacy/outing means that the only option is that people investigating COI must submit information in private to the relevant people. Currently this is the arbitration committee and/or the WMF, but other bodies could be considered if there is consensus for this."

Closing rationale: "There is consensus for the proposal with the obvious caveat, that this approach needs a lot more details and clarification.Many have clarified that other bodies shall only refer to editors who have been vetted by the community to handle sensitive and personally identifying information.There has been concerns about the use of the word only as it seems to nullify on-wiki processes based on CU and behaviorial evidence."

Milieu 4:

"We need to balance privacy provided to those editing in good faith against the requirements of addressing undisclosed paid promotional editing. To do so can be achieved with a private investigation with some release of results publicly to help with the detection of further related accounts. These details may include the name of the Wikipedia editing company with which the account is associated (such as for example the connections drawn here)"

Closing rationale: "There is consensus for the above proposal, with a condition that the proposal must be clarified to remove vaugeness, and that any information released must be limited to "employer, client, and affiliation".

More specifically, the information that is to be clarified is:

1. Who is doing the investigating? (this looks like it's covered by Milieu 3)
2. What information is to be released? The proposer has stated in the discussion below (and other editors agreed) that the information that is released is to be limited to "employer, client, and affiliation". This renders the argument of wp:outing invalid, which really was the only argument brought up on the oppose side.

"

The following is already posted to Wikipedia:Harassment#Posting of personal_information per consensus: "There are job posting sites where employers publicly post advertisements to recruit paid Wikipedia editors. Linking to such an ad in a forum such as WP:Conflict of interest noticeboard is not a violation of this policy." However, even when archived, because of the nature of the whole issue discussed at RfC discussion, I would believe that more discussion is needed to resolve discrepancy between the WMF essay and WP:OUTING. Thank you all participants for voting on all milieus and proposals, all volunteers (including myself) for closures (and attempted closures ^_^), the proposers, etc. Now I should announce the results elsewhere. --George Ho (talk) 23:43, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

About this remark, I wonder whether archiving the discussion into Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest/Archive 27 without a thorough full closure was proper. Pinging Primefac, S Marshall, and KrakatoaKatie if to ask whether they wish to pursue the joint closure further. George Ho (talk) 19:32, 22 June 2017 (UTC); modified, 21:12, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

After reading responses from Smallbones, I was convinced that a fresher, newer discussion is desired. For those interested in this serious issue, feel free to continue discussing this at WT:PAID then. --George Ho (talk) 21:12, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Needing more than one to close RfC discussion at WT:V

The discussion "Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Recent changes to policy about verifiability as a reason for inclusion" started in April. Then the discussion got larger and larger, making the discussion very complex. I discussed it with the proposer S Marshall, who says that several closers are needed. I welcome at least two volunteers. --George Ho (talk) 14:33, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho:--I am willing to serve as a closer.Winged Blades ^Godric 09:06, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Godric, and I welcome that. I also need another or more closers for teamwork closure. --George Ho (talk) 15:07, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Also, I created the subsection Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#How to best close this discussion? for team closers to discuss preparing the closure. --George Ho (talk) 02:51, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho: I am willing to serve as a closer as well, but I will defer to almost anyone else who wants to do it. Tazerdadog (talk) 02:28, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Tazerdadog. I notified the participants about this. --George Ho (talk) 02:35, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

@Godric: Tazerdadog will team with you on the closure. George Ho (talk) 03:01, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

If necessary, time for one or two more. George Ho (talk) 07:41, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I read a word that Primefac will be the third teammate. That should suffice, though I welcome more teammates if necessary. --George Ho (talk) 04:11, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Appeal my TBan

Half a year ago, I was TBanned from all deletion related processes. I have been told that I could apply to have my TBan lifted after 6 months, which is today. Ever since I was TBanned, I have focused my attention in improving voice actor articles by citing reliable sources, as well as placing a new template in them which encourages contributors to source their information. If I do succeed in lifting my current restrictions, I would still continue to contribute to Wikipedia by improving/writing voice actor articles (which can be viewed on my userpage), more often than AFD procedures as I believe that I am more capable in the former. I believe that I have proven that I could contribute to other areas in the encyclopedia, which was a concern when it was believed that I am too obsessed with the deletion process. I hope the community and admins will consider my appeal, and I look forward to continuing working with you all. Sk8erPrince (talk) 04:12, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Why do you want the topic ban lifted? What has it prevented you from doing that would have benefited Wikipedia? Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:16, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

So that I may contest PRODs on articles that I care about and participate in AFD discussions, which are both currently undoable due to my TBan. Even though my main area of focus has shifted, I would still like to redeem the privileges that I once had. Sk8erPrince (talk) 05:22, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

• How do you expect to move forward without running into the same problems of a battleground attitude, mass nominations and rudeness [2] that got you the ban in the first place? Dennis Brown - 2¢ 09:39, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

As mentioned above, since my primary focus is no longer AFDing (and will no longer be if this appeal is approved), mass nominations won't be a problem as I will be spending most of my time here citing reliable sources on voice actor articles than nominating articles for deletion. I have no intention of being rude in AFDs ever again; rather, I would approach those discussions in a calmer, civil manner, I promise. This is how I plan to move forward. Sk8erPrince (talk) 10:25, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

• I'm inclined to support this appeal, backed up with a reminder that any resumption of the previous behaviour will quickly result in the TBAN being replaced, perhaps alongside a block for abusive behaviour. But, that's not a threat. I'd expect the same to be applied to me; if I started mass-nominating, I'd expect to be sanctioned. What tips it into 'support', for me, is that this user has hundreds of edits since the TBAN was placed, and no blocks. There was a concern in early January that maybe the editor had violated the TBAN. Rather than become combative, the user discussed the situation. And that was early in the ban. I would encourage the user (encourage, but not require, and not request a response about) to consider what steps they will take if they find themselves heading down the wrong road again. In my experience, it helps to have a plan ahead of time to avoid getting in trouble again. --Yamla (talk) 11:42, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
• I'm tending to support too, partly because the appeal has been presented in a credible way, partly because of Yamla's reasoning, partly because I really do believe in second chances (unless it's obviously a bad idea), and partly because Sk8erPrince will be aware that any repetition of the problems that led to the ban is likely to result in its reinstatement with very little chance of being lifted again. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:50, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
• Supporting purely out of benefit of the doubt and believing everyone deserves a 2nd chance. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:08, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support per improvements and acknowledging that next time, the ban will be indefinite and appeal time will be 1 year or longer. Capitals00 (talk) 17:14, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support - AGF regarding OP's improved attitude. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:20, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

• Sorry, OP blew it with their comment below. Deletion may be a necessary thing, but it's not something to celebrate. I guess their attitude hasn't really changed much at all. Thanks to TheGracefulSlick for point it out. Oppose. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:32, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

:::If my attitude hasn't changed, I would have said that it wasn't Grace's business (that was actually what I said in the Tban discussion). Instead, I calmly explained my reasoning for keeping such a list. I fail to see how listing articles that I have managed to delete has anything to do with a battleground attitude or general rudeness, which were concerns when I was Tbanned. Keeping personal records doesn't mean I'm celebrating, nor does it mean that I am gloating that I am very good at the process. Sk8erPrince (talk) 08:08, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

• Comment - I'm not entirely sure if I'm just making a big deal out of it but did anyone else notice Sk8er still has all the articles he has deleted listed on his userpage -- almost like they were points or victories? I think it is right to ask: Sk8erPrince why do you find it is neccessary to keep such a list of "successful" AfDs and CSDs? I'm willing to support you as long as you have the right attitude toward the deleting processes.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 02:14, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

I'll have a second go at answering that question. It's not necessary to keep that deletion list as long as there's viewable records of my AFD stats. I have removed it, so it no longer poses as a potential issue. Sk8erPrince (talk) 04:33, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

::The same could be asked for listing articles that I have tremendously improved, really. As long as it's a significant achievement, I'll list it in my userpage. Sk8erPrince (talk) 02:19, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Question: Would you please explain how these deleted articles are "a significant achievement", equal to that of articles you've "tremendously improved"? BlackcurrantTea (talk) 07:11, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

::::They're not equal achievements. They're entirely different processes; also, at present day, I think article expansion is more contributive (at least, I have been able to contribute more effectively in that area). However, the AFD process was what I had been doing before I started getting actively involved in article contribution. Since AFD was the only way for me to contribute (that's what I thought, at least), those were the only achievements I've made, and they were significant in my POV. It is simply a personal record, nothing more (so I don't forget what I did manage to achieve). Sk8erPrince (talk) 08:08, 17 June 2017 (UTC) *Clarification: I just found out that the TBan discussion had listed keeping my personal list of successful deletions as an issue when combined with other more immediate issues such as rudeness, combative, refusal to integrate into the community and having a battleground mentality (it should also be noted that the main concerns took up most of the OP's post and those that support placing a TBan on me, and that my personal list was only briefly mentioned in just a few sentences). I would like to take this opportunity, since Grace has pointed this out, to clarify the purpose of keeping a list. I don't deny that I was unpleasant back then, and that I was rather immature and inexperienced when dealing with AFD procedures (mass nominations without having conducted enough research is one of them). Despite that, I still managed to achieve something in the end, and keeping those AFDs as personal records helps me learn and move forward when looking back. It is part of the learning experience.Sk8erPrince (talk) 08:40, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

• Guy, it's revealing of your mindset being unchanged, ESPECIALLY since you title it "Pages I've deleted myself [emphasis added]" --Calton | Talk 23:23, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. Successful AFDs are "significant achievements"? If you had linked to the titles themselves -- perhaps as a watchlist against re-creation or as a guide for future re-creation if circumstances change -- I might have thought you had a point. But it's a list of links to the AFD pages, so serves no purpose other than that of a trophy list, like a fighter pilot painting his kills on his aircraft. --Calton | Talk 23:23, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
• Update: I just remembered that my personal AFD records could be viewed using the AFD stats tool, so I've removed the deletion list on my userpage. I don't want to give the wrong impression that I'm keeping victory lists. Sk8erPrince (talk) 01:48, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

• So exactly the same attitude, just hiding it better? Not the winning rhetorical strategy you think it is.--Calton | Talk 08:14, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

• Comment I have no opinion on the Tban but since I was aware of this discussion I was surprised to see Sk8erPrince add himself to the Active AfC reviewer list which I reverted [3] Keeping a list of AfD nominations is pretty silly. They are not trophies, just spam fighting. I can see, however, putting together a list to disprove accusations of making bad AfDs. I wish Sk8erPrince all the luck. Fighting spam attracts all kinds of unwanted attention. Legacypac (talk) 07:22, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. They are not trophies, so if keeping such a list attracts unwanted (negative) attention, I'd rather just delete it off of my userpage, which I did. I mean, there's other ways of viewing my AFD stats anyway, so it's not all that necessary to keep it.

"putting together a list to disprove accusations of making bad AfDs"

Thank you for understanding. That was actually another reason why I put together that list. Regardless, since the list has been removed, I think it would be for the best for all of us to not dwell on how it might be concerning. Sk8erPrince (talk) 09:05, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

• Except that it's a list of the DISCUSSIONS, not the articles or topics, and he's labelled them "significant achievements": that's not "spamfighting" no matter how you parse it. --Calton | Talk 08:14, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

30 AfDs are not "significant achievements". I can do that many while bored in a board meeting. Get Twinkle, go to NPP feed, select Unreviewed Pages by New Editors and you can AfD all the junk you can stand to scan. Legacypac (talk) 08:47, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose - Sorry Sk8er but that was not a response that would give me any confidence in seeing the Tban being lifted. With all the struck comments here, I feel you are just looking for a response that appeases editors instead of one that reflects upon your current mindset.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 14:03, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support per Dennis Brown and Beyond My Ken. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 14:26, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

• Just to be clear, I changed my !vote from "support" to "oppose". Given the discussion that's gone on since, I continue to think that change was the correct call. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:40, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

• I'm still willing to give them a chance. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:58, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

• "You're a better man than I am, Dennis Brown." - Rudyard Kipling. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:16, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

I doubt that. I'm just not afraid to be proven a fool. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:17, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Queryable move and edit request about articles about letters of the Roman alphabet

• The IPA user User:92.229.96.232 asked for the move Template:Latin alphabet to Template:Latin script; I obeyed. Then User:92.229.96.232 asked me in my user talk page to replace "alphabet" by "script" in the protected pages A B C G L and Roman numerals. So I got doubtful about such a request from an IPA user and reverted the original move and decided to query the matter here. And see Special:Contributions/92.229.96.232 for what he has done so far. His user talk page User talk:92.229.96.232 has no edits (undeleted or deleted). His request to me was "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Latin_alphabet could you replace in the protected articles A, B, C, G, L, Roman numerals "{Latin alphabet}" with "{Latin script}"? ". Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:04, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

• I would stick with "Latin alphabet". I am unfamiliar with the use of "Latin script". Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:29, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

• "Script" is correct, but it's a jargony term. "Latin alphabet" is probably just as valid and no doubt easier for the average reader to find. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 13:28, 17 June 2017 (UTC).

@Lankiveil, the "jargony term" is used as the title of the main article and main category to which the template is related, namely Latin script and Category:Latin script. Maybe Anthony Appleyard can explain why he named it like Latin alphabet, which is a subtopic.

@Beyond My Ken - if you are unfamiliar with the use of "Latin script", you can obtain information at: Latin script, Category:Latin script, Template:Latin script 77.179.202.221 (talk) 13:44, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

If you want this move made, you must present more cohesive arguments, not simply cite Wikipedia articles. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:21, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Also, since this is now obviously a controversial move, you must open a RM discussion in a centralized place, such as Talk:Latin script, with neutral pointers to the discussion on Talk:Latin alphabet and the talk pages of the various articles in question. This is no longer an admin concern, this must be decided by WP:consensus. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:24, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Beyond My Ken, I don't think I have too, the more "cohesive arguments" have been made in the WP:RM that Anthony Appleyard deleted. "controversial" is the move that Anthony Appleyard made from Template:Latin script to Template:Latin alphabet. 77.179.202.221 (talk) 00:50, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

 Comment: Anthony Appleyard removed the request including the rational from WP:RM and performed the move. Later he unilaterally reverted the move, but did not revert the removal from the list at WP:RM nor copied the original request to the talk page so it could properly be discussed. Is that a correct procedure? 77.179.202.221 (talk) 13:44, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm with Lankiveil on this one. While it is true that we have constructed a (rather technical and somewhat idiosyncratic) distinction between Latin alphabet (i.e. the original writing system of the Latin language in antiquity) and Latin script (the abstract superset of the Latin-based writing systems of modern languages worldwide) in these main articles, there really is no need to push this distinction into all sorts of other places where readers won't expect it. As for template names (such as that of {{Latin alphabet}}), they are arbitrary strings and not even supposed to be displayed to readers, so simplicity is certainly the most important consideration here. If you want it moved, you can of course propose a regular WP:RM on the template talkpage. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:10, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Fut.Perf. Regarding "(rather technical and somewhat idiosyncratic) distinction between Latin alphabet" https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Latin_script&oldid=779263998#The_latin_script_is_NOT_an_alphabet Good luck! 77.179.202.221 (talk) 00:49, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

• @Beyond My Ken, Future Perfect at Sunrise, and Lankiveil: I did not call it "alphabet"; it was called "alphabet" before I saw the pages involved. If the verdict here is "leave the word as "alphabet"", someone may have to go through Special:Contributions/92.229.96.232 and revert the various changes of "alphabet" to "script" listed therein. Shall I start a discussion in Talk:Latin script, or leave the discussion here?, perhaps pointed to from Talk:Latin script? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:40, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

  Anthony Appleyard, you named the template Template:Latin alphabet, that fact is easily visible in the page history. 77.179.202.221 (talk) 00:49, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

  @Anthony Appleyard: As that is a content matter, I think it's better discussed on the article talk page rather than here. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 08:58, 18 June 2017 (UTC).

 Comment: Is the noticeboard taking over the work of members of the Wikiproject Writing Systems? Why is this at ANI at all? Anthony Appleyard? 77.179.202.221 (talk) 00:49, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

 Comment: Anthony Appleyard performed a "controversial" move from Template:Latin script to Template:Latin alphabet. Is this allowed because he is an admin? 77.179.202.221 (talk) 00:54, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

I see no discussion of this move on Template talk:Latin alphabet. I oppose any convoluted move proposal without discussions on the talk page, and support User:Anthony Appleyard in not conducting the move and removing it from WP:RM at this time. Power~enwiki (talk) 04:43, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

• The page was named Template:Latin alphabet from way back. As stated above, I routinely obeyed a request to move it to Template:Latin script, but soon afterwards I reverted that move. I did not invent the idea of using the word "alphabet". It was not moved before, except way back at 14:38, 4 October 2006 when User:Dbachmann moved Template:Latin alphabet to Template:Unicode Latin (which at 06:50, 11 April 2007 was deleted), and changed the resulting left-behind redirect into a new template Template:Latin alphabet. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:47, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Note: This IP user's profile (and IP location) seems rather reminiscent of Tobias Conradi (talk · contribs), a long-term banned sockpuppeter. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:56, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

• @Future Perfect at Sunrise: See Special:Contributions/92.229.96.232; all his contributions were in one big rush between 21:00 and 22:17 on 13 June 2017, and none since or before. Should I revert those edits? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 03:57, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Some sort of glitch in mobile view

Not particularly administrative; I've moved this to WP:VPT. Nyttend (talk) 10:39, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Category creation

Resolved

 – Page created. Primefac (talk) 00:50, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm performing some {{R from fictional character}} tasks and added multiple Tiny Toon Adventures character redirects to Category:Tiny Toon Adventures character redirects to lists. Creation of this category is currently restricted to admins, perhaps because of past vandalism? This is standard naming as subcat of Category:Fictional character redirects to lists, actually generated by the Rcat template itself by using {{R from fictional character|Tiny Toon Adventures}}. Can someone please create this category for me? Thanks.— TAnthony^Talk 00:45, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

 Done. TAnthony, no idea why "Tiny Toon" is on the title blacklist (I suspect "porn" reasons), but I've created the page for ya. Feel free to expand the page as appropriate. Primefac (talk) 00:50, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks!— TAnthony^Talk 00:51, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

It was added by @MuZemike: back in 2012 but with no explanation as to why. I've removed the entry as it is far too broad to be put in the titleblacklist without an explanation. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:26, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Edit filters and the Ross fans

Moved to Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Xaosflux (talk • contribs) 00:30, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Relisted RM at Template talk:2016 US Election AE

The ongoing RM discussion at Template talk:2016 US Election AE is relisted, so feel free to comment there until closure. --George Ho (talk) 01:13, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

G13 eligible help?

I personally cleared a 1200 page backlog at [4] than discovered there were hundreds more G13 eligible pages not added to the category. Something got fixed and today the list has balloned from zero to over 1100 pages. I just found out a bot used to CSD this junk. Is there any way someone can automate the CSDing again? It's only a matter of time before some bot or well meaning AWB user or delinking effort touches the pages and restarts the 6 months clock. Legacypac (talk) 07:12, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

I've deleted... somewhere upward of 1,000 of these. Twinkle's D-Batch makes this easy - perhaps too easy. I figured that if a bot used to do this then D-Batch could do it just as well. If I've done wrong, could someone let me know? GoldenRing (talk) 19:20, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

HasteurBot only tagged these, it didn't delete them. In theory, at least, the admin patrolling these is supposed to take at least a cursory glance at what he's doing and defer anything with potential, not robodelete more than 1300 pages in under two minutes without even the standard pointer to WP:REFUND for retrieval. —Cryptic 19:40, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

If consensus is that batch deletion is the wrong approach I'm very happy to undelete them and start working through them more slowly. GoldenRing (talk) 19:48, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Undeleting en masse would be overkill, but taking a second look at the deleted articles might be worthwhile. I looked through the first (most recent chronologically) 150 in that log; only Draft:Three Rivers Regional Library System struck me as salvageable, and that only if someone feels like finding some non-primary sources for it. (It's not the same subject as the existing mainspace article Three Rivers Regional Library System.) There were a couple more near misses - drafts that would have survived AFD as-is, but had better mainspace articles created after the drafts were rejected. Draft:The Search For Everything (at The Search for Everything) and Draft:Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology were typical. Also a handful of images to be brought to FFD or c:COM:DR. This was about the same percentage of drafts that need a little more attention that I see when deleting tagged G13s. —Cryptic 20:58, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

so there is no misunderstanding I was looking for a CSD tag to be applied enmass. An Admin would then assess them quickly. I've been manually assessing and CSDing but then the Admin also assesses which is duplicating my work. Very very occasionally I see something worth promoting or postponing but presumably the Admin would make the same judgement as I would to postpone. There remain many G13 eligible pages in AfC declined categories. I found several in the last few minutes. Hesteurbot has more to do to ID these. Legacypac (talk) 20:14, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Looking over the list I see a bunch of redirects from user to draft space deleted dependant on a deleted page. There is no point even looking at those. Legacypac (talk) 21:03, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Well, no, but there's no way to exclude them from the log listing. They're a fairly small minority, anyway: 1106 of the 1329 deletions in that run were summarized "G13 (TW)". —Cryptic 21:34, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Thats about typical for % of pages moved to draft vs started in draft. I'm working hard to clean up AfC backlogs. If we want to push thru ACTRIAL in some form we need AfC in better shape not stuffed full of garbage and unreviewed drafts. Legacypac (talk) 21:41, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

@Legacypac: I think that drafts not awaiting review don't contribute towards the backlog total. jcc (tea and biscuits) 22:04, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

@Jcc: yes and no. The +/-1800 waiting for review excludes the rest, but many of the pages in the larger pool will be resubmitted multiple times perhaps for years without reaching N or correcting other issues. If we miss the chance to delete them at 6 months many will add back into the review backlog. A large percentage of the review backlog is resubmissions. Make sense? Legacypac (talk) 22:29, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Got it- thanks. jcc (tea and biscuits) 22:30, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

@Legacypac and GoldenRing: Can I simply make the comment that if G13-eligible pages were meant to be deleted automatically, Category:G13 eligible AfC submissions would not exist and {{AfC submission}} would place old drafts in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as abandoned AfC submissions directly. Now if someone wants to make a proposal for G13 CSD nominations made by extended confirmed users for pages that have never had G13 postponed to be auto-nuked by a bot, then I'd be open to that, but I don't think auto-nuking everything without any review is appropriate. The signal-to-noise ratio in Category:G13 eligible AfC submissions may be about 1 to 20, but that 1 article is important. TheDragonFire (talk) 13:32, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Deletion is a serious business event, and one that very few (if any) bots ever get approved for. HasteurBot simply evaluted the page to determine if it was eligible under a higher bar than the current wording of G13 (6 months completely unedited). At 5 months unedited, it'd drop a notice on the creating user's talk page letting them know that their page is in danger of being nominated under G13. At the 6 month mark unedited, it would go through and procedurally nominate for G13. Admins were usually pretty calm about HB's nominations because we took the more conservative position in nominations. I can take some time and dust off my processes, but I'd prefer to wait for this proposal to finish before I start tinkering with the process. Hasteur (talk) 18:24, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Okay, pretty clearly I misunderstood what the bot used to do and batch deletion was the wrong option here. My reading of the above discussion is that it's not worth undeleting then all but that I should go back through my deletion log and check them all to see if there's anything salvageable - so unless anyone strenuously objects to that procedure, I'll get on with it. GoldenRing (talk) 08:49, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

and for clarity I was only hoping a bot could do the work I, as a lowly user, was doing - CSD nominations. Legacypac (talk) 16:53, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

User Roadcreature / Guido den Broeder

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

---

Some of you may remember User:Guido den Broeder. He was later renamed to User:Roadcreature. The userpage of the later says "Originally banned by the community on December 19, 2008. Unbanned by the Arbitration Committee on May 21, 2009. Re-banned by the Arbitration Committee on June 1, 2009." As late as November 2015h he was still socking here (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Roadcreature/Archive), confirmed both by checkuser and by editing behaviour (the user also was sockblocked at nlwiki, where the master account was also indef blocked a long time ago). One of thie discussions about the socks are Jolly Bard here, with the socks editing about Paraduin and Liberland. Note that at no point the socks have admitted being Guido den Broeder though.

I will not reiterate everything from 2008 or before, let me just point to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Guido den Broeder, a 2008 RfC about his extensive COI editing / self-promotion in mainspace, which only was closed without a formal summary because he was indef blocked anyway. Other evidence of the period can (by admins only) be seen at this page.

His original ban was based on an already extensive block log, including for making legal threats / taking legal action against other editors, edit warring, and conducting a rather disruoptive "social experiment" with enwiki. Arbcom tried an unblock with restrictions, which lasted from 21 May 2009 to 1 June 2009; 2 months later his email had to be disabled, 3 years later his talk page access, and another 3 years later we had the above socking.

Despite all this, ArbCom thought it wise to unblock him without consulting or even informing the community about this, on 23 April 2017.

Guido den Broeder has used his time since then to create an article about a non notable micro-nation Paraduin of which he is the founder and "prince", and which links to obviously primary sources but also to e.g. an article written by Guido den Broeder, and the main page of Wikisage, a partial wikipedia clone / substitute founded by Guido den Broeder, and supposedly the basic "economic" activity of Paraduin. Paraduin has supposedly also contributed to a movie with Kristina Pimenova, an 11-year old model sometimes described as "the most beautiful girl in the world" apparently, whose page has also been substantially edited by Den Broeder. One of the sources he added was again written by "Ogidius", i.e. himself. Another article he edited was Liberland, another micronation which claims the same bit of land Paraduin does (and which has received a lot of attention, contrary to Paraduin). There as well he added two sources by himself. Paraduin has already been submitted to prod, which Guido of course reverted, and most editors commenting at the page seem to agree that it is an utterly non notable topic. He is already edit warring to keep it in other lists and templates, see [5][6][7].

I don't know why Arbcom thought it wise to quietly unblock a long-term banned editor, who socked as recently as 2015 (and denied the socking, even though the evidence is extremely obvious); but since it turns out that his return is not to help Wikipedia, but to promote his own, well, let's call them "ideas" or "interests", I see no reason to let him continue editing, or to wait until all previous problems, not just the severe COI editing and the edit warring, reappear. There is no evidence that anything has changed since 2008 (or since 2015), so I suggest to simply reinstate the community ban. Fram (talk) 09:17, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

You write that he is currently banned since June 1, 2009 when a test run failed. So the previous ban was reinstated by ArbCom if I read the archives correctly. So what change are you actually requesting? Regards SoWhy 09:53, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

The text comes from User:Roadcreature. However, in April Arbcom silently unbanned User:Guido den Broeder. You can find the link in his block log (which ArbCom updated), not on his user page or talk page. So at the moment Guido den Broeder is no longer blocked or banned (though technically the community ban never was lifted I think, only the ArbCom ban was undone?). Fram (talk) 10:11, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Well it wasnt silent as such, he did lodge a formal request in public. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:28, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

And it is still on the talk page, see User talk:Guido den Broeder#Unbanned. Regards SoWhy 10:36, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Ah I see what happened. He logged it at requests, but it was closed less than 2 days later by a clerk (correctly) saying per WP:UNBAN it needs to be done via email. Which is probably why no one noticed it. (Since Arbcom bans are not subject to community involvement in lifting.) So not so much silent as 'working per the current written process'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:51, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

"Silent" as in not announced here, which is what usually happens when ArbCom unbans someone (an ArbCom announcement here and at their noticeboard, and a discussion if necessary at the talk page of the noticeboard). And that's not taking into account the fact that he was community banned in the first place of course. Fram (talk) 11:01, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Well unfortunately the unbanning process at the time for community imposed bans was... Arbcom. So cant do much about that. Banned by community, unbanned by Arbcom per the process at the time, rebanned by arbcom, unbanned by Arbcom per the current process. Granted from looking at this COI editing I'm with FPAS that he should probably be re-banned. (Pimenova has been on my watchlist since User:Lyrda was banned.) Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:07, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

In any case we shouldn't hold whether the unban was silent or not against Guido den Broeder, so I probably shouldn't have included that bit anyway. Fram (talk) 12:06, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

So is that whats behind the Kristina Pimenova stuff recently? If he is back to the same problems that got him banned in the first place, then thats probably the best option. (Original community ban here for reference.) Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:14, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Polling

• Support re-ban, this is pretty horrible COI editing, and if that's what he wants to be doing here, he should go. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:33, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support community ban, per FPaS. BTW, Paraduin is at AfD. [8]. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:59, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support ban Never should have been un-banned to begin with. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:16, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support re-ban. Been watching Kristina Pimenova for a while, and them being involved that article's COI-editing rings all sorts of alarm-bells. Lectonar (talk) 14:22, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support community ban - So that this can be over once for all again. Capitals00 (talk) 17:01, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support ban. Once again, Arbcom neglects transparency. If they had done their usual due diligence and posted a notification on WP:ACN, people may have been able to monitor this user and raise a red flag before this became an issue. Evidently we get notified of new clerk trainees, but not a long term community banned editor being unbanned. The user's conduct is clearly unacceptable for Wikipedia, whether in 2008 or 2017. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 17:04, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support re-ban - As you can see above, he still denies most of the socking, despite ArbCom/functionaries confirming that Guido den Broeder = Roadcreature = The Jolly Bard. This involved cross-wiki data (CUWiki). You can read my summary of the investigation. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 18:18, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support RE Lectonar and my previous comments above. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:24, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support per above. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:30, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

Please don't WP:bludgeon the polling. Since you insist on commenting on every vote, please do so here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:54, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

• (to Only in Death) At the time, some people misinterpreted an essay I wrote. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:27, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• (to Lectonar) I also uploaded the image, and my COI's are properly declared on my user page. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:12, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
•  Comment: Since there is no conflict, I suggest a normal evaluation of my edits after three months by User:Opabinia regalis. Guido den Broeder (talk) 14:39, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
•  Comment: For the record, I am not User:The Jolly Bard. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:09, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• (to Salvidrim) Well, you're a poor investigator, as really all you had to do to solve this was mail me. Regardless, he didn't create any problems either, and this was taken into consideration when the decision to unban me was made. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:32, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• (to The Wordsmith) This shows exactly why you weren't notified, for what we have here is a lynch mob, while there is absolutely nothing to see. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:37, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
•  Comment: Again, for the record, I have never made a legal threat in my life. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:44, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
•  Comment: Nor do I editwar, despite being baited regularly including by several participants in this thread. I am always the one initiating discussion and trying to build consensus. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:50, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
•  Comment: In conclusion, I have yet to see a single diff of any wrongdoing on my part. The same was true in 2009. People just jumped on the bandwagon then, as you are doing now. Do I edit articles that I have a potential COI with? Yes. Is that a problem? No. It's normal. The difference is that I declare any COI, while other editors don't. Bottom line, the bulk of my edits stand, the articles are in much better shape than before and with far more consensus. Guido den Broeder (talk) 19:02, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

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

GoldenRing appointed trainee clerk

The arbitration clerks are excited to welcome GoldenRing (talk · contribs) to the clerk team as a trainee!

The arbitration clerk team is often in need of new members, and any editor who would like to join the clerk team is welcome to apply by e-mail to clerks-llists.wikimedia.org.

For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 16:26, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#GoldenRing appointed trainee clerk

WP:ITNC

Currently five items ready to be posted at ITN. It's now becoming less "In The News" and more "Was In The News". The Rambling Man (talk) 19:33, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Is this thing on? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:22, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Speaking only for myself, I'm interested in helping build an encyclopedia and I don't see ITN as part of that goal --S Philbrick(Talk) 00:21, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

How helpful. Thanks for your response. Anyone else? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:53, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

If nobody has actioned this by the time I get home (in about ~7 hours), I'll take a look. Is there any documentation over what needs to be done? Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 01:26, 21 June 2017 (UTC).

Lankiveil, thanks for offering, but I think that the situation is under control (at the time of writing, at least!) Wikipedia:In the news/Administrator instructions is what you might be looking for. Bencherlite^Talk 08:59, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, glad someone was able to come to the rescue! Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 09:44, 21 June 2017 (UTC).

Thank you Lankiveil and Bencherlite for your interest and support. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:04, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Banned (or rangeblocked) IP still able to edit?

User 41.138.78.20 has edited their talkpage with questions, I have noticed that Bbb23 had rangeblocked 41.138.78.0/24 but the IP is still able to edit? Is there an issue here, or am I missing the meaning of "rangeblocking"? Thanks Nördic Nightfury 10:27, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Blocked users can edit their own talk pages (unless that setting is disabled which isn't done except in special circumstances) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:36, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Appears I am losing the plot then :). Thanks MSGJ. Nördic Nightfury 11:14, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Is this banner a violation of WP:CIVIL

Just a quick question:

• Please see the following banner from User:SkepticalRaptor's userpage:

Rules for this Talk Page DO NOT LEAVE ANY COMMENTS ABOUT ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANY ARTICLE OR ANY EDIT THAT I HAVE MADE. I watch all articles that I edit (and some that I haven't). If you have an issue, be mature and post it to the article's talk page, where all editors might participate. Violate this rule, and I just delete your complaints, rants, or even polite suggestions with no comment whatsoever. Deal with it. Do not come to this page to say hi, because no one is a friend of mine here–any attempt in being friendly is fairly annoying. If I want to drop by and be friendly, I have Twitter and Facebook that are part of my skeptical and personal life. I don't know any of you here, and I probably wouldn't want to know any of you. Nothing personal, but Wikipedia is not a social website (I believe that's a rule). Do not come here to criticize anything I've done, because I'm uninterested in anything but editing. Do not drop barnstars, pictures, or anything on this page, because those are just lame. Don't warn me about anything, because other than editing, I don't engage in any other discussions. Unless you're an official admin. Then I might listen, as long as I respect you. If you're a 15 year old, you don't deserve or warrant any respect whatsoever, even if you're an admin. Besides, any 15 year old wasting time as an admin, ought to go get exercise before you turn into a fat, diabetic, atherosclerotic 20 year old. Moreover, what can a snot nosed 15 year old teach me? How to play video games? Unless you're a Stephen Hawking prodigy, once again, go get some exercise. In other words, get off your lazy ass and leave Wikipedia to educated adults. Who am I kidding? Kids could care less what this old fart says. If you don't like my edits, revert them with a valid explanation, I'll probably fine tune it or move on. I have no emotional concern about any article, but if you do, I will enjoy making you appear to be the biggest ass and fool on Wikipedia. I've already done that recently. In conclusion, just stay away from my page, because I just am uninterested in engaging in conversation with anyone. Again, unless you're a mature, respectful admin. From my observation, that's about 10 of you.

Is this a violation of WP:CIVILITY and indicating WP:NOTHERE?

Thanks, Carl Fredrik ^talk 07:52, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Point 5 is certainly problematic. But why are you edit warring on Chronic Lyme disease? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:00, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

The argument put forth against inclusion of the term (a synonym) is that "it is not in common use" — but frankly that is irrelevant. I came to discuss the issue and found this banner – which at the very least dissuaded me from discussing the issue as I would have otherwise. If the issue persists I will go through ordinary channels to solve it, and I'm not really ready to call this minor dispute an edit-war. This post was not meant to be a way to WP:GAME in order to win that dispute. You are however correct that I should have been forthcoming that this was how I came across the banner — but I thought it would be clear to anyone who visited the talk-page, because of my post there.

To me, the reason why I saw the banner as problematic — and also why I did not want to post on the article talk page: the issue isn't about the article at all. It's about adhering to WP:MEDMOS — and discussion on user-talk-pages is often more amenable to such information that does not need to be discussed with all editors of an article. This is what I found to be WP:UNCIVIL, and if everyone behaved in this manner it would be very disruptive to the general editing process, because we could never gently inform editors of policy or guidelines. To ask for a unique process, where others must be involved even in issues where there is nothing but lack of knowledge of specific policies or guidelines — is disruptive and indicates WP:NOTHERE. Carl Fredrik ^talk 08:15, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

You are edit warring and the fact that you stopped at 3RR and did not exceed it, only mitigates slightly. I will have a word with SkepticalRaptor (as you could have done before coming here) and ask him/her to tone down that message and consider removing point 5 entirely. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:19, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Partially struck above as you only made two reverts. But the second revert was not a good idea. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:26, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• Point 5 is just ignorable. Since many processes (that dont involve admins) require posting to their talkpage. Otherwise, since that banner clearly indicates they are not a nice person, why would you want to talk to them unless you are required to by process? If it bothers you, nominate it at MFD for being functionally incompatible with wikipedia's collaborative process. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:32, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

  We would not delete a user talk page so I am not sure I understand the purpose of MFD in this case. The best approach is to discuss with the user in question, followed by a discussion here if necessary. Both of these have now happened (though in the wrong order) so suggest waiting for response from SkepticalRaptor. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:37, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• MfD can also be used to delete part of a user talk page, so if someone objects to this sufficiently, nominating it at MfD is an option. Personally, I'd just ignore the entire box, as it's clearly not enforceable, and the editor is obviously an asshole. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:49, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• Ah, the top says 'userpage' rather than talk page. So yeah, MFDs probably not the best option. But generally if a user has on their talkpage a 'dont talk to me' notice, it gets ignored as unenforceable. If it makes them feel happy... The real problem with notices like that is that it may deter newer editors who dont know that it is complete rubbish. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:52, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Just ignore if it bothers you. You aren't going to change what they think or how they maintain their talk page. Does it really matter that they epressed a general opinion without any corresponding action? --DHeyward (talk) 09:02, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• I think that the box serves a very useful purpose in that it serves to illustrate that this is not a person worth interacting with if you can help it. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 09:42, 21 June 2017 (UTC).
• his ethnicity on his user page is more of a problem. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 12:45, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

So, they're definitely not Jewish and using the terms ironically? ;) — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 13:20, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I have no idea.Sir Joseph ^(talk) 13:27, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Exactly. No one does. Because no-one's asked. We have an article that might be relevant here: Reappropriation. — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 13:33, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

For my money (which is not much!), I think anonymity is a wonderful thing and support it very much. But I also think it means you don't get to use the identity defense in situations like this, especially where the language is inflammatory. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 13:49, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• Suggest immediate removal of point 5 per WP:NPA - clearly an attack on younger users. As for the others, well, they are still aggressive in tone, so they too should be deleted. A particular editor - naming no names - was recently criticised for saying "don't bother coming here if you want to throw a wobbler" on their talk page - this is much worse than that, so I am surprised at the laissez-faire attitude of a lot of people here. Patient Zero^talk 13:06, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• I find the whole thing abrasive, but I can't call it a personal attack because it isn't singling anyone out, so it isn't "personal". I suggest ignoring it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:09, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• "In conclusion, just stay away from my page, because I just am uninterested in engaging in conversation with anyone" Maybe I'm naive, or reading this wrong, but isn't this a violation WP:NOTHERE with Little or no interest in working collaboratively or Major or irreconcilable conflict of attitude or intention, Point #5 especially?
• (edit conflict) I do respect your opinion, Dennis - sometimes it is easier to simply ignore such comments, but quite frankly it is a grossly inappropriate statement - and as Sir Joseph said, questions need to be raised about the attack on Jewish individuals within his user page. I do think both of these need removing by an administrator, as, like I said previously, comments that were nowhere near as bad as this, made by other users, have had to be removed before. A warning on incivility is also in order. Patient Zero^talk 13:16, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Counteracted, however, by their perhaps somewhat emphatic insistence on taking discussions to article talk pages, which is very much what we advise. — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 13:22, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• • I don't like it either, but I don't like lots of things here. He does say to leave discussions on the article talk page, which is the better way so everyone can participate, and frankly, you can ignore his banner and leave any template you want if it applies. His banner isn't enforceable. I'm not against trying to coax him into modifying 5, I'm just not comfortable sanctioning or forcing a change over it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:21, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• Notwthstanding the merits or otherwise of this banner, I do wish people would stop applying to NOTHERE their own idiosyncratic interpretation of what it actually says. It does not say 'An editor who says things I don't like' and does not apply here. This (~five years' tenure, >3.5K edits, no blocks) says they are very much WP:NOTNOTHERE. — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 13:17, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• I don't see this banner on his talk page currently, but as another edited above noted, he does have his ethnicity listed on his User page as kike and lox-eating big nose amongst other things, this should likely be actionable as unambiguous racial slurs deserve very little leniency. Seraphim System ^(talk) 13:21, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm guessing this is done as parody, given he also lists it as "Member of the Worldwide Conspiracy" and others. I'm more inclined to agree that this is a problem than the talk page header. I will go edit this myself. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:27, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

@Dennis Brown: Please see Reappropriation :) — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 13:34, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Totally aware of that and understand, but this isn't really a Free Speech area. If someone self-identified as a nigger on their user page, people would be up in arms over it, and that is a very classic example of re-appropriation. There is a time and place for everything, but my opinion is that the consensus of editors do not believe Wikipedia is that place. Also, we can't verify that someone really is Jewish, or using that as a mask to put hateful words on a page. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:37, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Ha, at least he's honest about being obnoxious. GoodDay (talk) 13:29, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• MSGJ(Martin) has left a reasonable request on his page. I think that is probably all we need to get the process started. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:32, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• My thoughts can be succintly summarised as: there are better things to waste peoples' time with. Mr rnddude (talk) 13:55, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• Point #5 is definitely a violation of WP:CIVIL, and the whole thing seems jerkish. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 15:50, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• 15-year-olds are too stupid and don't know anything, eh? Well, then I guess the ones who are running websites using their own money are just getting lucky because they don't know anything. Please. I've seen 10-year-olds more mature doing adult-type stuff like coding websites and the like. May not be using their own money at that age, but that's beside the point. Amaury (talk | contribs) 15:58, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that 15 year olds are too stupid, but there are some things you get better at as you get older, like writing and how to evaluate and use secondary sources. You will get better at something after studying it for 15 years. Coding a website is not really comparable—it would take further years to begin to develop critical analysis—this is where maturity is an asset. We do need this as editors when using sources, because usually standards here are very high. We have to be able to distinguish between what is OR and evaluate what is due weight, and that can be challenging even for professions academics and PhDs. But there is no need to call other editors stupid, just because you are an adult does not necessarily mean you are better at these things. Some teenagers are very talented, and we don't pass these kinds of judgments on editors because of age, education, professional background—only quality of their edits, so I think it does cross the line. The best thing would be for the editor to follow community advice and moderate the tone of his comments. Seraphim System ^(talk) 16:21, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

That was basically my point. And just to be on the safe side, I should clarify that the first part of my comment was sarcasm. I can see, though, how it could be taken as me calling them stupid if read just the right way. I wasn't, though I'm not saying you were implying that, either. Amaury (talk | contribs) 16:39, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• Eh. It pushes the envelope a bit, but in the end there is a line separating merely obnoxious from NPA. I don't think this crosses that line. Further I agree with some of the above comments that this serves a useful purpose in that it is like a giant flashing neon warning sign alerting anyone who might have stumbled onto the page that it is the home of a someone that pretty much any normal person is not going to want to interact with if avoidable. Beyond that, while it's not a guideline and therefor not actionable. I would point the user to WP:DICK. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:45, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Given the absurdly untrue personal attacks often made at ANi that are ignored or celebrated there is nothing actionable on that banner. Parts of it are even a good idea. I agree with him about 15 year olds. I remember being 15 a long time ago - it took me months beyond 15 to finish high school and start selling real estate. Legacypac (talk) 16:47, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I really don't think lecturing 15 year olds about their life style decisions and personal comments about weight/exercise are appropriate. Wikipedia is not an appropriate place for that, and I do think it crosses the line between the normal obnoxious comments that editors make to one another in the course of content disputes and ANI discussions, to something that is offensive and without any redeeming value. Seraphim System ^(talk) 17:03, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

There are also comments like this [9] [10] [11] [12] -basically calling others editors comments nts and edits "bullshit" regularly is not ok. This seems like a case of a competent editor who seems to believe he is within his rights to put down other editors. I know how frustrating editing can be, I have been frustrated many times myself, but there are certain standards of civility that all editors are expected to maintain. Seraphim System ^(talk) 17:37, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

There is absolutely no way I would sanction or even warn someone for those three year old diffs. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:48, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Are they that old? I didnt notice, thought it was within the last 1500 edits at most. I think have over 5,000 edits and I havent even been here a full year...seems peculiar.Seraphim System ^(talk) 17:53, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Even if they happened today, I wouldn't warn. We aren't school marms, we don't paddle people for saying "bullshit". It might be gruff, rough, crass, or however you want to phrase it, but we generally don't sanction for anything less than a flat out personal attack. Even then, we don't automatically sanction unless it is a pattern. People are people, they are blunt sometimes, they pop off sometimes. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:59, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I didnt say anything about sanctioning him, but he should tone it down. The fact that you think something is bullshit or ridiculous does not mean you should say that, this is part of our WP:CIVIL policy and the fact that we often pretend violations of that are "generally ok" for seemingly arbitrary reasons usually ends with disputes escalating to a point where sanctions do become necessary. Sure, everyone should let it go, but the editors on the other end become frustrated too, and sometimes they are the ones who are sanctioned in the end, and we know that can be 1) bad for editor retention and 2)counterproductive. Seraphim System ^(talk) 18:20, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Even if item 5 were civil (it's not--we've had discussions about aspersions on groups of persons), there is also WP:SOAPBOX, and I might make the claim that he is soapboxing from a very tall soapbox in the item. --Izno (talk) 18:42, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Which subsection of WP:SOAPBOX are you referring to? He isn't promoting an idea, which is what that policy is about. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:58, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Out of the bulleted items, I would suggest #2. However, both the first sentence of that section (Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a battleground [...]. This applies to [...] talk page discussions, [...] and user pages. as well as the final closing statement of the section (Non-disruptive statements of opinion on internal Wikipedia policies and guidelines may be made on user pages [...], as they are relevant to the current and future operation of the project. However, article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views on a subject (see Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines).) indicate some intent that the template's bullet #5 is off the mark. My 2 cents. --Izno (talk) 19:11, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

He's not using his talk/user page as a platform for pushing a belief. He's saying "leave me the hell alone". Soapbox just doesn't apply here. Maybe civil does a little, but not soapbox. Maybe some other, but I've yet to see the policy it clearly violates. It isn't polemic either. Really, I still feel we just need to leave it alone. I did change his user page which did have some offending material, but this doesn't qualify for admin action. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:05, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• This is much ado about nothing. We don't need to police user talk page banners so strictly. As noted multiple times already, this banner serves to inform any visitor to the page that the editor in question is not worth their time and trouble. The condescending user page is similarly useful. We've already given this contemptuous, contemptible individual enough attention. Lepricavark (talk) 22:17, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• This has been a sore point since 2012 [13]. While I sympathise with the feelings, the tone does not support a collaborative environment. The same things could have been said without annoying other volunteers. And it is a given that we do expect people to be responsive to their talk pages, if not actually on their talk pages, regardless of how misanthropic they are, or wish to appear. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:59, 22 June 2017 (UTC).
  
• I would note that I DID change his user page over a day ago without a problem.[14] Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:13, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Category:Requests for unblock is backlogged

There are 33 unblock requests pending at the time of this posting. —MRD2014 ( T / C ) 14:43, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Please consider refusing an open unblock request if it's been sitting open for a week or more and you are simply disinclined to unblock the account. At least then, they'd know the unblock request was insufficiently convincing and they are free to make a new one. Several of us try to keep up with the new ones, but a number aren't obvious and then we leave them to others, who are also unconvinced. Leading to a backlog. --Yamla (talk) 18:18, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Also note that the number of open requests does not equate to the number that require attention. Many are already being acted on and include an in progress discussion between the blocked editor and others (this is especially true of spam username blocks).--Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 19:29, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Yamla, MRD2014 is not an administrator and should not be encouraged to decline unblock requests. See WP:Requests for adminship/Oshwah 2. Patient Zero^talk 13:12, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

@Patient Zero: I think you meant to link to Oshwah's second RfA, where people brought up concerns of him declining unblock requests before he was granted the mop. —MRD2014 ( T / C ) 13:23, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

That's the one MRD2014. Oops. Patient Zero^talk 13:37, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

ITN, inappropriate admin actions and shutdown of any discussion.

Earlier today the article on the Finsbury park attack was posted to ITN despite a clear lack of consensus to do so. The admin's subsequent response is far below the expectation required for an explanation 'Go to ERRORS if you dont like it'. This has subsequently been disputed at the ITN until Bencherlite decided to shut down the discussion with a rationale that includes the laughable statement that 'ITN has traditionally be able to tell the difference between the trivial and the appropriate' - when even a brief look at ITN's history shows it is full of what is popular amongst the participating editors, trivial or appropriateness not being concerns of many of them. Firstly I would like an impartial review of the consensus at the time of posting, followed by pulling the item if it is found there was no consensus to post it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:39, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Consensus does not mean unanimity. Further discussion there is not likely to be productive, so the actions of Bencherlite are quite appropriate. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:42, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Actually from the way the comments were going, it was clear that further discussion was indicating the item should be pulled. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:43, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

That's not how I read the section. I see people who wanted it pulled, but not indication that it "should be pulled". – Muboshgu (talk) 18:46, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

They wanted it pulled but secretly, and completely unstated, felt it 'should' stay? Any other imaginary motives you want to impart to them? Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:48, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I think the point is that it was all "pull because I opposed and I still do" which is not really how things work here. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:41, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

That is precisely what I meant. Consensus was post and some people won't accept that. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:55, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the posting admin hasn't provided a helpful reply when challenged on his talk page. However, as far as Bencherlite is concerned, he did provide a thorough rationale: Posted and will remain so. The arguments against posting are/were (1) an IP saying that the article was not sufficiently developed (not now relevant); (2) a comment that this was not a terrorist attack (well, it's being treated as one by police since it strongly appears to be a targeted attack on Muslims); (3) an argument that it was routine for London (not an argument that commanded support); (4) - and this was the main argument - that the same incident elsewhere in the world would not be posted and so it is trivial / lacking appropriate newsworthiness. The stronger arguments are the counter-arguments, namely that (a) newsworthiness will inevitably include a degree of location specificity i.e. what is newsworthy in London may not be so in a capital city elsewhere in the world and vice versa, and (b) ITN has traditionally be able to tell the difference between the trivial e.g. the Kardashian family's exploits and the appropriate e.g. a UK terrorist attack specifically targeting Muslims when the UK does not have a history of such attacks. Comparisons between events that were or were not posted is not always terribly helpful, since ITN can only work on the consensus of those who participate in any particular discussion, ITN does not run on a formal system of precedent (outside ITNR), and a failure to post can in some circumstances be explained by the absence of a nomination or a decent article. Overall, my view is that sufficient time has elapsed for discussion and that the consensus here, involving number and quality of arguments, is in favour of keeping this posted. Participants are welcome to discuss the general question of ITN's approach to stories in different countries but not under this heading, thank you. And, to me, his rationale seems to be sound. --BorgQueen (talk) 18:52, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict with BQ) A quick response to say: I stand by my decision; I won't lose any sleep, however, if the consensus is that my decision was wrong; more admins are always welcome to help out at ITNC; and please be assured that not every decision you will make at ITNC will be fought over like this! Bencherlite^Talk 18:53, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

The synopsis above seems sufficient that I don't need to repeat it, except to note that I was misquoted, a strange thing to do considering that my comments can be read. Unlike what Only in Death claims in his complaint, I never said what he said I did. Regarding why it was posted, I posted it because I judged consensus to support doing so. --Jayron32 19:00, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I was surprised to see it posted because the last time I checked, it was evenly split, which was far from consensus. There was no rationale for why there was consensus other than the admin just felt there was enough. The fact there were 7 Pull votes after it was posted shows consensus was premature. They were also rudely accused of having "sour grapes" for wanting it to be pulled. TL565 (talk) 19:03, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

The problem here is with personal preference. Some editors consider a terrorist attack on an ethnic minority using a vehicle in a country where such crimes are rare more important than a gun attack on a politician in a country where gun crimes aren't rare. There's a huge amount of subjectivity, and as we know, our audience is highly slewed towards US contributors who may associate more with the latter story than the former. That at least one of the "pull" voters had already voted as "oppose" was a completely transparent way of demonstrating "sour grapes", i.e. I had my say, it didn't go my way, so I object. Consensus is not formed simply from a binary comparison of yay's and nay's. And to top that all nicely, we have the "assassination attempt" shooting which was posted (with dubious consensus, at least similar to this) where, once posted, it was simply accepted, and we all moved on. There's nothing wrong here, if people object to the items being posted at ITN, (a) post more candidates (b) work to get people to support rather than yell about opposing and pulling. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:40, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Or (c) write some articles! The Rambling Man (talk) 19:49, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

There wasn't a consensus to post this. After the posting, many people objected - yet that was ignored. The support for this being posted is just that the specifics of this minor domestic event and its media coverage make it important. Will we report it if there are unusual types of attack against other religions or ethnicities? Unusual doesn't mean notable or important. Jim Michael (talk) 19:54, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

For the third time, the posting admin judged the quality of argument and deemed that there was a consensus. Arguing against that is pointless. The sooner we all realise that "consensus" does not equal "vote counting" the easier this kind of debate will be. As for claiming it to not be notable, please see WP:AFD. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:59, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I know what happened, but the judgement was wrong. The arguments to post were bogus. I never said or thought that consensus is the same a vote-counting. It shouldn't have been posted. After it was wrongly posted, it should have been pulled.Jim Michael (talk) 20:05, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, you actually said "The arguments to post were bogus"? Wow. That's sufficient for me to leave this to you to dig yourself out of that one! The Rambling Man (talk) 20:07, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, and I stand by that. Several people said that during the discussion (using different words). Jim Michael (talk) 20:09, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Can you provide at least four examples of "bogus" arguments please, with diffs? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:12, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm not going to do that, but the arguments included the amount of media coverage, this being rare/unique and the victims being Muslim and the perp non-Muslim. Jim Michael (talk) 20:15, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

You are presumably aware of the whole raison d'etre of ITN? You've covered a couple of them just there. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:17, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid newspaper. We'd be swamped by trivial stories about reality TV participants if we went by media coverage.Jim Michael (talk) 20:20, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

You realise this attack was covered by the BBC, The New York Times, etc etc? You are completely alone claiming this is all about "media coverage". The Rambling Man (talk) 20:22, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

So are huge numbers of events which aren't of major importance - especially in the summer. Jim Michael (talk) 20:27, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Aha, we're getting there now, your own personal interpretation of importance rather than adhering to the purpose of ITN. Say no more. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:30, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

A common sense interpretation, put forward by several people during the discussion. Jim Michael (talk) 21:00, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Anything with that many discussion comments, evenly divided between support and oppose, is likely to be news of a political nature, and should generally be covered for a brief period of time. A "no consensus" assessment should default to including it on the front page. Other stories (perhaps Travis Kalanick's resignation or Karen Handel's win in GA-06) will naturally push it off the front page in 24-48 hours. Power~enwiki (talk) 20:11, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

That would open the way for loads of events of marginal importance to be posted with little discussion. In order to be posted, it should have clear consensus in favour. Jim Michael (talk) 20:13, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Nobody is claiming there was "little discussion" in this case. Power~enwiki (talk) 20:16, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I was arguing against the suggestion in the comment immediately above mine. Jim Michael (talk) 20:19, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Please be more clearer. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:21, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I was very clear. That comment is indented & immediately below the one I was replying to. Jim Michael (talk) 20:24, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

(ec) That's a good viewpoint. That it has attracted so much discussion probably means it's attractive to our readers. Perhaps such over-discussed topics should, by default, be posted once they reach 10,000 bytes of meaningless "he said, she said, I don't like it"-style arguments! The Rambling Man (talk) 20:15, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Fuck (film) and Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties spring to mind as much more controversial topics displayed on the main page where I closed the discussion after WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more bytes than this one... and nobody dragged me to AN or ARBCOM about those. Hey-ho... Bencherlite^Talk 20:36, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Bencherlite, I'll drag you to Arcbomb, it's been at least a week since I was a featured Abrcomber, and I have to say, I kind of miss those guys, especially the ones who have gone AWOL..... The Rambling Man (talk) 20:39, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

The details of Kim Kardashian's life are attractive to huge numbers of readers. We should be posting important events only. Jim Michael (talk) 20:17, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

And those items wouldn't be covered by Wikipedia per WP:N. Please, this is simple, if you believe the item to be non-notable, AFD is that way, if you believe the admins can't judge consensus, ARBCOM (!!) is the other way. If you just want to keep the encyclopedia ticking over with things that would GENUINELY INTEREST OUR ENGLISH LANGUAGE READERS, then please, think again about all this objection. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:20, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm saying that in this case, the decision was wrong, not that admins in general are wrong. That's why I'm in this discussion. Everyone makes mistakes. Jim Michael (talk) 20:25, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

But you realise that a huge portion of our readership is interested in this story, right? Like where it says at WP:ITN under "Purpose":

"To help readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news."

"To showcase quality Wikipedia content on current events."

"To point readers to subjects they might not have been looking for but nonetheless may interest them."

"To emphasize Wikipedia as a dynamic resource."

This story ticked all four boxes and was posted because strong arguments in favour of the story meeting the purpose of ITN were met, not just conceding to the "I don't like it" brigade. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:29, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

The large majority of stories that are in the news aren't posted at ITN. Jim Michael (talk) 20:31, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Quite rightly. Your point being? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:34, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

My point,?that I've made several times, is that this event is nowhere near important enough. Jim Michael (talk) 20:38, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I think you're conflating arguments now. We aren't discussing the majority of stories in the news, we aren't discussing whether this is "nowhere near important enough" (of course, it was, it was posted, had consensus, has an article, unless you've AFD'ed it?). Your position is so confusing that I think it's best if you just propose your new approach to ITN in an RFC so we can all discuss it and vote on it. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:41, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

It didn't have consensus, as several people said in the discussion after it was posted. I'm not arguing for the article to be deleted. I'm say?ing it's nowhere near important enough to be on ITN. Jim Michael (talk) 20:47, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Again, you're conflating arguments, either it was badly posted or not, either it had consensus or not, either the admin posting was negligent or not, this "nowhere near important enough" line, which is laughable considering the international coverage it received. It didn't go your way, or the way of some of the others, we get that. It was posted by one of the few trustworthy admins. If you don't think he did the right thing, please initiate his desysop at Arbcom. And if you don't like the way ITN works, re-work it via RFC. Right now, nothing wrong has happened. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:52, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

News coverage doesn't equal importance. This gained huge media coverage because it's the type of story that the media love to sensationalise. No-one is desysopped for one mistake. Jim Michael (talk) 20:57, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Hello Jim, I do agree that we should be posting important events only. But then, how do you define "important events"? --BorgQueen (talk) 20:28, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

That's what we need to create clear guidelines for. Jim Michael (talk) 20:29, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

We have them, see WP:ITN. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:31, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

We need better guidelines, so that we only include important events. Worse terror attacks than this one happen every single day. Jim Michael (talk) 20:37, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm happy to review your proposal. In the meantime, we have what we have, so tactically voting against it is harmful. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:38, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I made a clear and sound argument for not posting it - I didn't merely vote. Jim Michael (talk) 20:40, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

So your silence was your objection? Please, let us know your plan for new ITN guidelines. It's clear we're not getting anywhere at all here, so once you have the RFC in place, I'm certain it'll garner a huge amount of interest. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:43, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm wary of the idea that an item should be pulled from ITN because some believe there wasn't consensus. It's the job of the posting admin to judge that consensus - if you don't agree, just move on. Some you win, some you lose. Items should only be pulled if the article is of substandard quality, or if it was posted without sufficient discussion. Neither applies here. The quality is good, and there was ample time given for editors to air their views before a decision was takenPawnkingthree (talk) 21:44, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

New comment

My comment was (reasonably) mis-interpreted as being part of a thread above, I'm re-posting it here independently.

Anything with that many discussion comments, evenly divided between support and oppose, is likely to be news of a political nature, and should generally be covered for a brief period of time. A "no consensus" assessment should default to including it on the front page. Other stories (perhaps Travis Kalanick's resignation or Karen Handel's win in GA-06) will naturally push it off the front page in 24-48 hours. As multiple people are seriously injured or dead, this is definitely a news story and not merely tabloid gossip. Power~enwiki (talk) 20:27, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with that suggestion, for the reasons I've given above. Jim Michael (talk) 20:28, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Please clarify. Your remarks above as stated are unclear as to whether any point is replying to me or The Rambling Man. Power~enwiki (talk) 20:30, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

In this comment, I'm replying to you. Your suggestion would result in many things being posted after short discussions with few editors and no consensus. Jim Michael (talk) 20:32, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

It seems (to me) to be precisely the opposite. Should a nomination gather KB of discussion, it's probably a shoo-in for ITN as it's something our readers will be having the same kind of debate over. This isn't to do with "short discussions", "few editors" or "no consensus", it's to do with serving our readers. That's why we're here, right? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:36, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

No, because they could have been canvassed from outside WP. Jim Michael (talk) 20:41, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I believe that would be cause for over-turning a "no consensus" ruling. See WP:CONSENSUS. Power~enwiki (talk) 20:45, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• Question - TRM's comment that opponents of this post should resort to AFD struck me as ludicrous, so as I newbie I did some research. The ITN standards say we should "address the notability of the event, the quality of the article, and whether it has been updated." #2 and #3 make sense, but on WP notability is a very specific concept. Is it the general consensus that the requirement for notability on ITN is the same as notability in general (i.e. meriting a unique article)? If so, this is clearly not understood by the voters at ITN/C. If not, a different word should be used in the ITN guidelines.GreatCaesarsGhost (talk) 23:11, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• Comment First, I, too, was surprised to see this posted. As several editors have pointed out, there was no concensus to post this. But I would go a step further. If you look at the !votes, editors were trending against posting this. If anything, it should have been closed with no action.

Second, what Bencherlite did was flat out wrong. Under no circumstance should an active, civil discussion among editors editing in good faith be shut down. Shame on you. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:58, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree with everything in both the comments immediately above this one. Notability for ITN is at a much higher bar than notability for an article. If it were the same, then we'd be posting many new items to ITN every day. The notability criteria for ITN should be clearer. Yes, the discussion was ongoing, fast-moving and involved many editors. There certainly was not a consensus to post it, nor reason to shut down the active debate. There were more good reasons not to post it than good reasons to post it. I've remained civil and logical throughout, but have been talked down to as though I'm an idiot. Jim Michael (talk) 00:10, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

To expand upon my previous post, many of the early no !votes were for inclusion. But once it was realized that this was not a major terrorist attack as first believed, but a minor terrorist/hate crime, the !votes were trending against inclusion.

In fact, at first it was unknown how many people were killed. Five? A dozen?? Well, it turned out that only one person was killed. But then it turned out not even that. The one person who was supposedly killed was already laying on the ground receiving first aid before the attack.

I'm not re-arguing the discussion, I am simply pointing out why the discussion trending was against posting. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:17, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Jayron32 incorrectly concluded the consensus was in favor of inclusion when in fact the opposite was closer to the truth. Bencherlite compounded this mistake by closing down an active discussion between editors discussing in good faith. So far, neither is willing to admit their mistakes or do anything to correct their mistakes. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:22, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Comment as a "news" functionality, time is of the essence. Expecting discussion to continue indefinitely is unreasonable. If anyone has a general proposal against including these types of stories (i.e. "no terrorist attacks listed unless there are 10 confirmed deaths"), please make one (but preferably on Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news). Power~enwiki (talk) 01:31, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

That's a strawman argument. Nobody is suggesting discussion to continue indefinitely. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:35, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: my opinion -

1. I think it's extremely unfair to allege that Bencherlite made a mistake, let alone was acting in bad faith. This is the same editor who made this edit [15], and is clearly following Wikipedia's modus operandi. It's possible Bencherlite is on the wrong side of consensus here but that's hardly a "mistake".
2. Having said that I think Jayron32 should explain in greater detail why he posted the nomination. When the nomination is controversial the closing administrator should make some effort to explain the decision, especially when the decision is challenged. Jayron32's explanation also ought to be different from Bencherlite's, because they made their decisions at different times with different information available.
3. I think it's silly that much of this discussion is basically a continuation (in spirit) of the discussion at ITN. Solve the problem, not argue endlessly about it.
4. In my opinion the best way to resolve this is to get an uninvolved administrator to assess consensus. That administrator's assessment should be binding and final by common agreement. Bencherlite is such an administrator actually, but I doubt Bencherlite would object to a third opinion. I'd have suggested Spencer or Thryduulf, but they both participated. Maybe someone like xaosflux or Iridescent could do it, if they dare. Banedon (talk) 01:58, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Closing down an active discussion and posting the article to ITN without consensus are definitely wrong actions.

The reason that the discussion started with more support than opposition is the false reports by the media that ten people had been killed at the scene. When it was realised that the media had got the death toll badly wrong, opinion turned against posting. There wasn't such a mistake by the media in regard to the Paris and Brussels attacks this month - so there wasn't support for them to be posted. Jim Michael (talk) 02:33, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

That's completely 100% untrue. The discussion started with a number of "wait"s. The nomination made no note of ten people being killed, in fact it was ultra cautious: "... if there are fatalities ...". I cannot see one single individual making a comment relating to ten people being killed. I saw the story on the news approximately two hours after the nomination and at no point did I ever see any claim of ten fatalities. Plenty of support votes came in after mine, mainly relating to the cultural significance of the attack. Opposition was based mainly on "it's not as gory as the other such events" yet mainly failed to note that the death-free (perp excluded) gun attack in the States was posted only a few days earlier. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:53, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree with TRM here - there is no reading of the discussion that could support Jim Michael's theory. There was not a single vote in support on the basis of "there were ten deaths." The nomination was supported because not because of any speculative death toll but because of the unusual circumstances of the attack - a non-Muslim mimicking ISIS's vehicle-ramming tactics to deliberately target and injure Muslims in a major Western capital, which was what made it newsworthy. Also I repeat the point I raised above - a dispute over whether there was consensus should not, in my opinion, be grounds for pulling an item from ITN. Only a substandard article or a overly brief discussion time should qualify. The Finsbury Park article is already down to fourth place on ITN as I write this, and will be off the main page soon if people just work on nominating more stories.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 15:33, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I saw media reports in the early hours which said 'ten people killed'. Those wrong reports were changed later. I didn't say that people in the discussion said that ten were killed - I said that was likely why they supported it. Vehicle-ramming has been used as an attack method for years before IS was founded. The support for it was just that the specifics of the attack are unusual - but only in so much as the attacker was white. An item being posted without consensus is wrong. That clearly means it should be pulled. There's also the issue of the active discussion being closed prematurely - there was no justification for that.

The 2017 Congressional baseball shooting shouldn't have been posted either. I didn't enter that discussion because the consensus was very strongly in favour of posting.

Jim Michael (talk) 16:15, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

No, not one shred of evidence that 10 dead was in the article, reported or anyone supported based on that. Your assertion is incorrect, and most people said wait in any case. I was about fourth to comment and I read the specifics. If American press got it wrong, so what? Not one single individual here mentioned it, supported based on it, claiming otherwise is pure speculation and almost certainly incorrect. Vehicle ramming of Muslims by white Brits is unique. Thanks! The Rambling Man (talk) 18:22, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

By the way, if your claim is true, I'm sure someone would have added that claim of ten deaths to the article at some point in its history. But no. That never happened and I've checked. So please, stop that line of claim. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:24, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

And as for the consensus being "very strongly in favour of posting" the US shooting with no fatalities or any consequences, just vote counting comes to 15-10 in support, I'd hardly suggest that's a "very strong" consensus, particularly when people are arguing this is "an attempted shooting of a member of congress"! So what? It failed. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:30, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

There's nothing more to add here, unless the OP and its supporters believe the admin was in dereliction of his duty and wish to seek his desysop, then this should be closed as a storm in a teacup because not everyone can be pleased all the time. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:44, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Comment purely for clarification. It has come to my attention that some people believe I made the nomination in the belief that there were likely multiple fatalities. This is correct. And knowing what we do now, I doubt I would have made the nomination. That said, I don't think that the posting admin misinterpreted consensus at the time and and I'm not seeing any inappropriate admin actions here. As to whether or not the incident should be pulled given what we now know about it, I am ambivalent. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:18, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

  Actually, the claim was that the support for the nomination came from that incorrect reporting, not the original nomination, which actually didn't even include a claim of multiple fatalities. Just for the avoidance of doubt. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:22, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Ss112

Ss112 (talk · contribs · logs)

This editor is condescending and rude towards anyone he disagrees with. Anytime he undoes an edit he is passive aggressive and hostile in the most discrete way he can think. I have tried time and time again to explain to him how certain things in the music industry works but he calls everything he knows nothing about "not constructive" if you call him out for being passive aggressive in the undo edit explanations. I don't care if he's been here since 06. I actually make articles, meanwhile he runs around irritating people by nitpicking at the slightest pettiest things like undoing factual information because it won't show up in a source for another hour. The guy literally just assumes the worst of everyone and thinks any editor who hasn't been here for a decade just edits pages to trash them lol i'm done with his nonsense. I'm obviously not the first nor the 10th editor to become annoyed of him because I've seen his talk page in the past. So why doesn't someone tell him to be less condescending and stop assuming everyone's out to ruin wikipedia. BlaccCrab (talk) 19:56, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

@BlaccCrab: Could you provide some diffs which illustrate this behaviour? Also, I've notified the user of this discussion per the instructions at the top of the page -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 20:01, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't have time to go back and dig up specific instances because frankly most of them are from a few months back and I need to go about my day. He's going to come on here and talk about how uncivil I am but he knows damn well that he edits as if he's a professor scolding incompetent students and i'm tired of him getting away with it just because he's been here a decade. We're both 25 year old men, i am not a child. He can speak to me as a grown man would speak to another grown man if he disagrees with an edit I make. BlaccCrab (talk) 20:13, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Well I hope we'd all conduct ourselves as though we would in person - I'm not entirely sure what it is about Wikipedia which makes everyone so pent up, but WP:CALM has some rather good tips. I'll have a dig through their contributions, and hopefully we'll be hearing from Ss112 when they're next around. Maybe this report will make them consider the tone they take when communicating with other editors? -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 20:19, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I will make an effort to be less indignant if he would just take the time to be more straightforward and less uppity when editing. I don't want to cause any hassle for admins or for one another. BlaccCrab (talk) 23:20, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• Hello, BlaccCrab and Ss112. I'm not sure whether to get involved with your disputes, especially this one and that one. I could provide more diffs if anyone wants me to. George Ho (talk) 20:53, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I previously reported BlaccCrab to ANI in November for persistently reverting me on my talk page; see here. He was blocked by Ritchie333 for disruption. BlaccCrab reverted me on my talk page yesterday, then undid his own edit two minutes later just to write another attack summary. True, I reverted him after, but to inform him that I would be reporting him to Ritchie333, as I was not wanting to post on his talk page—where I then discovered he had left a section titled "Paging SS12". Ritchie333 later removed this, citing WP:POLEMIC.

BlaccCrab has a history of directly insulting editors he doesn't like. The previous thread I started on him that I link to above also has diffs to instances where he called me a "jackass" and an "up tight virgin" for reverting him. Meanwhile, I have never directly insulted BlaccCrab. I don't believe my edit summaries in this instance were condescending. Here I removed a section BlaccCrab started titled "Hop off" and beginning with "My lord man...", where I said "Don't start discussions on people's talk pages with the heading "hop off". How do you think that's going to lead to anything productive?" Then another section he titled "Sweet", where he basically told me he knows more than me about promotion in the music industry, I reverted with the summary "Unless you have something constructive to say, please stop with the talk page messages." I think that is a reasonable request. There was no intended condescension there. For BlaccCrab to assume he knows more about promotion in the music industry and is here to "educate" me about it is the condescending thing. He's not telling me anything I don't already know he thinks, and thus it reads like condescension after his attacks from the past and in his summaries. What sourced information I'm being accused, without diffs, of removing here—and why I would—I don't know, but the other day BlaccCrab was incensed that I reverted him on Fetty Wap discography here because he removed a Bubbling Under peak and replaced it with an inaccurate number, which is against WP:USCHARTS. This report is full of assumptions and things that I have never said nor believe—for instance, I don't believe every user needs to have been here for a decade, nor do I think others are out to "ruin Wikipedia". As for another accusation, if "nitpicking" is undoing edits where BlaccCrab says a song is not a single despite several reputable sources calling it one, then I think that's a misuse of the term. For me to be criticised for my tone by an editor who has been blocked for reverting and insulting me is hypocritical, to say the least. Ritchie333 warning BlaccCrab yesterday should have been the end of this. Ss112 01:34, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I do know more than you. I'm in the music industry. Literally all you do is undo minor edits and complain. You haven't created an article in 2 years as far as anyone can tell. Which is why people like you ruin wikipedia. Have a good one. BlaccCrab (talk) 07:38, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

That's your opinion. Nobody knows you're in the music industry, so you could be making that up for all anybody here knows. Regardless, claims of expertise in one area does not mean you have any more right to be doing something than another editor. I've created and contributed to plenty of articles (there's off-Wiki counters for that, you can look it up), I just don't update my user page with them. Pretty sure I didn't get to 160,000+ edits only "undoing minor edits and complaining". Ss112 08:31, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

@There'sNoTime: and @George Ho: By the way, is this report in the right place? This should be at ANI. Ss112 02:12, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

If the report is in the wrong place, Ss112, feel free to move it to there. However, ANI threads are archived if left without response for three days. Nevertheless, I was told that ANI venue is more visited there than here. If you want to move it, here are {{moved discussion to}} and {{moved discussion from}}. George Ho (talk) 03:43, 22 June 2017 (UTC); oops, 03:51, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho: I may be allowed to do so, but I don't feel it's appropriate as it's not my report. If BlaccCrab wishes for more editors to check out my contributions and offer more comments, then he should move the report. However, he should consider WP:BOOMERANG, as his actions directly preceding this report are the same kind of thing he was previously blocked for doing. Ss112 03:49, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Oh, my apologies. BlaccCrab, wanna do that? George Ho (talk) 03:51, 22 June 2017 (UTC) Rescinding encouragement per my talk page and above post by Ss112. George Ho (talk) 07:18, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I think this thread should be closed by an admin or non-admin as soon as possible. I'm not sure what BlaccCrab thinks is going to happen here, but if anybody should face action, it is he for repeating the actions (reverting somebody at their talk page and leaving attacking edit summaries) that got him blocked previously. Yes, most Wikipedia editors, including myself, need to watch their tone. I certainly am guilty of condescension at times. However, there was no condescension this time as far as I can see, only a refusal on my part to engage in talk page bickering, which is what it has descended into with BlaccCrab in the past, whereby he then feels free to hurl insults like "jackass" and "up tight virgin" at me. He has previously been asked not to post on my talk page, and I don't need to be educated on "music industry promotion" as he thinks I do. I have nothing to hide, but I think if this is moved to ANI, BlaccCrab's actions will definitely be called into question more than mine with the diffs I linked to above. I repeat, this should be closed ASAP, as it is a waste of time on everybody's part. Ss112 07:09, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

WP:CIVILITY is a two way street.[16][17][18]. I don't think we should rush to close this until we see where the boomerang lands. - SummerPhD^v2.0 14:48, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

If BlaccCrab isn't going to bring the diffs forward then this should be closed forthwith. If one is going to complain about someone, being the diffs. Blackmane (talk) 20:25, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Exploring how the Edit filter can be used to combat harassment

Hello!

I’d like to invite you to participate in a discussion about how the Edit filter (also known as AbuseFilter) can potentially be used to combat harassment. The Anti-Harassment Tools team is looking into improving performance and adding functionality and we need your input to make our work successful.

Join the conversation at Wikipedia talk:Community health initiative on English Wikipedia#Exploring how the Edit filter can be used to combat harassment. I hope to see y’all there!

— TBolliger (WMF) (talk) 23:18, 21 June 2017 (UTC) on behalf of the Anti-Harassment Tools team

• I hope folks are paying mind to this. The WMF has committed to getting involved in intra-enWP management of harassment via software tools. I am pretty uncomfortable with this but they are at least trying hard to reach out early in the process. This could be a great tool to help admins and the community, and this could turn into something very icky. It needs our attention. Jytdog (talk) 16:31, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Closers needed for a very sensitive RfC.

In about a week the RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Wikimedia referrer policy will close, and I would like to have at least two (three would be better) experienced administrators write up the closing comments and close the RfC.

This has a strong potential of becoming as controversial as superprotect was, so any closing admins need to be willing to take some heat.

So, any volunteers? --Guy Macon (talk) 03:13, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

(1) The consensus appears to be rather overwhelmingly in favor of the silent option. Why do you expect that this will be highly controversial? (2) The problem with superprotect was that it was imposed without community discussion, which obviously won't be the case if we send WMF a request and they fulfill it. Why do you say that it may well be just as controversial? (3) Therefore, did you accidentally link the wrong section? Nyttend (talk) 05:13, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I already requested a closure at WP:ANRFC, Nyttend. I think Guy Macon is requesting team closure because GLAM has been dependent on Wikipedia and the statistics coming from "en.wikipedia.org" itself. Also, the volunteers tried to convince those favoring "silent referrer" to reconsider, but the voters aren't well convinced. --George Ho (talk) 05:47, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

If we send WMF a request and they fulfill it, all will be well, but there is a distinct possibility that we will send the WMF a request and they will refuse to fulfill it.

I expect that this will be highly controversial because:

1. There is a high high probability that GLAM, having failed to get a consensus for sending referrer information, will attempt to persuade the WMF to ignore the consensus of the community.
2. The WMF imposed this on Wikipedia without consulting the community, and there is a high probability that now that I have consulted with the community, the WMF will take the position that they know what we need better than we do.
3. If we send the WMF a request and they refuse to fulfill it, this will almost certainly cause a storm of controversy centering on whether the Wikipedia community or the WMF is in charge of the content of Wikipedia, with side arguments about whether referrer information is content.

Perhaps this will go smoothly and none of the above problems will happen, in which case we will have wasted some time an effort. But if the above problems do happen, I want to avoid any accusations that the closing admin got it wrong. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:00, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Nyttend that there is a clear consensus evident in the RfC. If the WMF were to decline to respect our wishes, they would probably justify it by claiming that the participants in the RfC are not representative of the community as a whole. If that happened, it's possible we could override the WMF with a local technical solution, but then the WMF could override that as well.- MrX 14:44, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

As I said, I hope that this does not happen, but if it does it would make things a lot clearer if there were three expereienced administrators who agree on what the consensus is. I would also like to see three admins saying something along the lines either "Question X violates policy Y" or "Question X does not appear to violate any policy", just to handle the inevitable claims that the consensus should be discarded as being against policy.

As for us overriding the WMF with a local technical solution and then the WMF overriding that, that is exactly what happened with superprotect. I think that we all agree that we don't want to get into a fight like that again.

I hesitate to even bring this up, and I am assuming good faith and assuming that it isn't true, but the fact remains that several high-ranking members of the WMF have close ties to large silicon valley interests such as Google.[19][20] and may be tempted to -- consciously or unconsciously -- put the needs of facebook, google, etc. above the needs of the Wikipedia readers.

So, do we have any volunteers, or should I drop it? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:56, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

No, no, Guy Macon, don't drop it. Well, I requested teamwork closure because the proposer was unsure about how to request a closure and a few editors disagreed on whether a teamwork closure. Also, I did request a teamwork closure on another discussion, but just one volunteer stepped in and performed the closure. In other words, you can request a teamwork closure all you want, but I expect one or more can do the job. Regards, George Ho (talk) 16:51, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

@Guy Macon:---Well, I'm willing to volunter.Winged Blades ^Godric 17:01, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! Did I mention that anyone who volunteers to close this RfC will get twice the pay that Wikipedia administrators usually receive? Such a deal! --Guy Macon (talk) 17:06, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• If you need a closer, I'll volunteer.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 18:02, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

fwiw, if this is really anticipated to be extra sensitive, perhaps run it for an additional month? There is no deadline and the extra consideration will give it extra credibility, perhaps? Jytdog (talk) 18:42, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

That sounds like a great idea. Could someone uninvolved please do this? I don't want to because I am involved, and I don't want there to be any hint of me trying to bias the end result. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:19, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Put under Discretionary Sanctions via American Politics 2?

The article 2017 Congressional baseball shooting has settled down now. Even at peak, it was pretty smooth. I delayed moving this under Arb disretionary sanctions (ie {{article discretionary sanctions|topic=ap|style=long}}) as things went smoothly to be so busy, and it would have been more difficult to manage when it was new and edits were flying.

The question now is, does this fully fit under American Politics 2 or not? Politics isn't the primary focus, but it seems obvious to me that there is a strong political element to it. Since I figured some might have an argument against, I wanted to get input from admin with more experience with American Politics articles, as that is something I normally avoid. I'm guessing we don't need to log this if we do? Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:00, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

It fits, and it falls under the sanctions because it's under the topic area - whether or not an admin adds the template.--v/r - TP 14:15, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Having the template makes it more fair to enforce as all editors will know. I'm just getting feelers as to whether the article as a whole should be added. Again, not an area I normally patrol. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:30, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Agree with TParis that it fits and falls under the sanctions. The template should be added. It has multiple different controversial aspects to the topic. Sagecandor (talk) 15:55, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

@Dennis: The template actually doesn't change the fairness. Each editors is still required to be personally made aware of the existence of the DS. A template at the top of the page doesn't ensure that.--v/r - TP 16:32, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to topic ban Magioladitis from COSMETICBOT-related discussions

As a follow up to the ARBCOM case, the Bot Approvals Group (BAG), the bot operating community, and the larger Wikipedia community have made substantial efforts and progress on clarifying our bot policy, particularly clarifying WP:COSMETICBOT (see RFC) and how to deal with issues should they arise (WP:BOTISSUE).

In the wake of the ARBCOM case, Magioladitis (talk · contribs) has consistently and constantly tried to revisit, question, and weaken the current WP:COSMETICBOT policy, both at the village pump and on the policy pages, by making completely unsupported proposals, attempts to unilaterally change the substance of WP:COSMETICBOT, assertions without evidence that COSMETICBOT is problematic and that it doesn't have support/consensus, concerns that it harms theoretical bots that don't exist, assertions that many people want to change the policy, inventions of terminology such as "low volume edits" as an attempt to get around COSMETICBOT, and so on. The bot policy talk pages are being dominated by Magioladitis' constant tendentious editing and refusal to drop the stick.

Past threads include

• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy/Archive 26#Defining cosmetic changes
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy/Archive 26#RfC to add general fixes to existing bots
• Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 137#Should bots perform secondary "cosmetic" tasks while making a primary task?

Right now, there are

• Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Proposal for new requirement for AWB bots
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Should bots perform multiple edits in a page?
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Obvious mistake
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Replace cosmetic with a less misleading name (this subsection, particularly)

He was told to drop it several times, to no avail, and plans on creating further RFCs on the issue. Dealing with this is extremely taxing on BAG's limited ressources and the community's general patience. Some BAG members have stopped dealing with BAG duties entirely because of the negative atmosphere. I can't say I know for a fact that the community's patience has been exhausted with Magioladitis, but I do know for a fact that BAG's patience has been exhausted. I've checked with several (although not all) members of BAG on their support for the below wording, and the response has been unanimously in support of a topic ban. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:54, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Topic ban's scope

Magioladitis is topic banned from initiating or participating in discussions concerning the amendment, removal, or replacement of WP:COSMETICBOT, or the in discussions concerning the impact of WP:COSMETICBOT on other bot operators (such as whether or not bot operators are allowed, or should be required, to perform WP:GENFIXES with their own bots, or theoretical bots which may be developped in the future). As an exception to this ban, he may make a single !vote with a short (<300 words) rationale if the discussion calls for !voting, and give single short replies (<300 words) to other editors when directly asked a question (1 reply per direct question).

Magioladitis may, in good faith, seek specific clarifications on how to interpret COSMETICBOT for his own bots and projects he is involved with (such as WP:CHECKWIKI), but may only do so on his bots' talk page, at the relevant project's talk page (such as WT:CHECKWIKI or an appropriate subpage), or at WP:BOTN. In other words, asking questions like "When is CW Error #02 considered a cosmetic edit?" or "Should CW Error #02's priority be lowered to 'Medium' or 'Low' important?" is fine, asking/arguing "WP:COSMETICBOT hampers our ability to do WP:CHECKWIKI fixes, how can we ammend/fix/ignore WP:COSMETICBOT?" is not.

Discussion

Headbomb keeps changing the COSMETICBOT with or without dicussion. E.g. [21]. Moreover, the discussion about renaming the section did not start from me. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:01, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I believe Headbomb meant to link to the sub-section, Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Maybe try a different approach?. Could you take a look, Headbomb? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:05, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

The links are a mixture of questions I asked before the ArbCom and bot policy dicussion. The Village pump was in fact a heads up for the bot policy. Not my fault that people keep commenting everywhere. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:07, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. Also minor revisions to grammar and sentence flow is quite different from changing the substance of the policy. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:12, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• The June discussion is a continuation of the February discussion based on the fact that the dicussion did ot conclude. Moreover, I have stated that this discussion is merely to gather opinions than have a conrete proposal. The reason is that I am on favor of any solution but not with the statu quo in my opinion create dn inbalance. That you don't lik the discussion tht doe not mean the dicussion should not be done. When having bots that perform certain edits and have a policy against them is nonsense. Trying to make it as it is only a personal problem of me you don;t realise that you do not make a safe enviromnt for others to participate. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:13, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• I have probably been the BAG member that made the most effort to accommodate you, I tried to see your actions as done under WP:GOODFAITH, I always clarified your confusion with existing policy (although you never listened), I went out of my way to suggest you productive ways of putting your expertise to you (e.g. here), I've gone out of my way to clarify which of WP:CHECKWIKI fixes were high/medium/low priority, and which were cosmetic or not, for the direct purpose of helping YOU navigate this issue. The fact that I'm the one proposing to topic ban you say a lot of just how you've exhausted our collective patience. You were told to stop beating a WP:DEADHORSE, but it seems you just can't help yourself. The policy has wide support, and everyone but you seems to get it. If you feel this is an 'unsafe' environment for you to work in, consider the fact that I'm the one that extended the biggest olive branch out there, successfully argued to ARBCOM not to go for the nuclear option, tried to work with you, created a bunch of phabricator tickets to help you develop AWB in compliance with community expectations (both on your own, and to help you organize hackatons). This isn't about providing you a safe environment to work in. The only evidence you have against this being an 'unsafe' environment is that people were/are fed up with you incessant revisiting of issues long settled, no one harasses you, no one threatens you, no one is mean to you save for the occasional heated discussion when you keep bringing the same thing over and over. This is about providing the community an environment in which they can work, and not be distracted with pointless discussion about long-settled issues. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:37, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support I'm sad that it has come to this, but I completely agree that it's necessary at this point so we can stop having basically the same discussion over and over again. I only hope that this ban will be enough; I worry that he'll just find other ways to be disruptive in bot-related areas, such as flooding BRFA with requests or reporting minor occurrences as if they were major issues, and we'll wind up having to topic-ban him from bots entirely (or just outright ban him). Anomie⚔ 18:17, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Well it's not sad. It's the natural conclusion of a situation that goes for months. There were two ways to solve this: By finding a middle ground or kicking out the opponent. I did not expect you to understand. You think that I am doing this for personal motives while other have been kicked out from Wikipedia, I am still around. My responsibility is that I failed to protect some people more. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:22, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Comment Anomie maybe correct here. What about requesting a Arbcom case for this situation? Last time @Fram: did it,[22] and Magioladitis was warned again. Capitals00 (talk) 18:29, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Maybe this is a better solution. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:30, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• @Capitals00: Per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy, arbitration is only used when the community cannot resolve the issue. The question to ask here is "Can the community stop this disruptive behavior?". If the topic ban is implemented and works, the answer would be yes, and we'd know in hindsight that arbitration wasn't needed. If it can't be implemented due to community indecisiveness or doesn't work, then maybe arbitration would be a good idea. I support this topic ban as something the community can do to try to end the disruption. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:39, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Recall that based on my comments Headbomb started a discussion called "WP:COSMETICBOT update" which resulted in the policy to change. So my actions did not weaken the policy but in fact encforced it. The new COSMETICBOT police is up less than 3 months now. Moreover, the discussion or even abandoning the name did not start from me. Saying that I dominate the discussion is not the truth. If all agreed to the previous versions why the policy changed? -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:35, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• So the facts: I started a discussion in December 2016. Anomie wrote in 21 January 2017 a draft to summarise the comments from the discussion. In March 2017 Hedbomb started a dicussion WP:COSMETICBOT update. Discussion concluded in 18 May 2017. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:38, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support. I think my feelings on why Magioladitis isn't able to edit productively in this area are best summed up by the man himself a few lines up. He said that the supporters here are "kicking out the opponent". There are no opponents. I think I can safely speak for most BAG members when I say very few of us, if any, actually oppose general fixes as he claims we do. I certainly don't. We're merely enforcing the bot policy, but I've been unable to break through the "us vs. them" mentality that casts the BAG as the "enemy" or "opponent". The repeated process spam to try to push through his desired version of the bot policy is making it incredibly hard for us to do our job. I've spent more time dealing with discussions about myself and the bot policy than any other activity this week. For context, Magioladitis' actions toward me specifically have been rather extreme, with two discussions recently effectively closed telling him to stop harassing me. See Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval#Re-examination of BU Rob13's bot approval (again) and Wikipedia talk:Bot Approvals Group#Wrong advice given by BAG member. This comes on the back of him openly speculating about my location multiple times on-wiki in the midst of disputes: [23] [24]. This needs to stop. I see this topic ban as a potentially effective manner to end at least some aspects of the disruption, so I'm all for trying it. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:51, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support. This is all my opinion, but it seems every discussion involving Magioladitis ends up the same: going in circles, losing scope, and discouraging other editors from participating while Magioladitis comments ad nauseam with vague and round-about replies and cherry-picked "facts". I tried working with their BRFAs and some of the proposals and got nowhere. Others have and got nowhere. And this is just on bot-related pages. With the number of people already involved with dealing with one editor on one minor topic, I can't see any other recourse. I could understand someone being upset and heated for a discussion of two, but this is systematic. Either they are doing this deliberately or they just don't realize, despite being told so many times. Despite being asked to slow down, they keep WP:BLUDGEONing the process. I'm not liking commenting on this and I care little for on-Wiki politics and editors themselves, but this has become disruptive even to those who just wish to comment on the COSMETICBOT and related matters and could otherwise not get involved in extended back-and-forth. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:55, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support, unfortunately. It is my belief that Magioladitis erroneously views the underlying wikitext as our end product, rather than the output that follows post-processing. Accordingly, much of his energy is directed towards ensuring the wikitext is perfect, even to the detriment of the good functioning of the project (e.g. unnecessarily clogging watchlists with cosmetic or "low-volume" edits). –xeno^talk 18:59, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support - As for those thinking about Arb, I would disagree. Arb is only for situations that the community can't deal with using existing mechanisms and this isn't one of those cases. Looking through the archives, it seems pretty obvious that a serious bludgeoning is going on and a lot of time wasting. If after the tban, it spreads to other bot related areas, a broader tban of *.bot.* can be considered. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:01, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support - as per above. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:09, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• As I recall my ArbCom case saiid that the community is encourage to discuss these issues not just hide them under the carpet. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:05, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• And the community has: RFC on COSMETICBOT update, efforts at CHECKWIKI, bunch of AWB issues that would help with related issues). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:16, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support serious issues with not getting the idea. And they still are not getting it. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:19, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Headbomb True. CosmeticBot changed. AWB changed. Should the community encourage more edits to be done and in which way? This still has to be solved. The answer may be "no". But I am trying to propose things as I ve been doing for years. I created a bunch of similar (but not equal) questions. Some of the things you mention here were before the RfC and in fact thee RfC was the result of these questions. Now I seek answers to the BRFA process which may lead or may not lead to policy changes. Recall that other things I suggested in the past also seemed immature but finally were adopted by the community. (The ISBN fixes, the wikiproject name convetion, the hatnote standardsation, the removal of persondata, the infobox parameter standardisation are some examples) I have a double aim this time: If the community decides the edits should be done in bunches we then start decribing the edits that can be done in groups. If the community decides that all MoS edits can be done but seperatelly then we can to a dicussion whether the watchlist argument is corect or not. There are so many similar questions to solve here. In a fw days we moved from a chaotic question a made to a compalsory series of edits and then for a "nice reminder" for bot editors. These things are not equal things. The discussion keeps moving and progressing. I beleive I contributed in a positive way in these discussions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:27, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• After all these months and I still comments that mix AWB's general fixes, with Manual of Style changes, with CHECKWIKI, with html fixes and with template bypassing. This explains why the questions I pose seem like I keep askingg the same thing over and over while I don't. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:30, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• So in fact we have 2 "discussions" that I started that happened before the ArbCom and actually led to a discussion that actuall changed the policy. Still people believe I deserve a topic ban for that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:57, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Specific comments on HB's links:

• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy/Archive 26#Defining cosmetic changes This discussion led to a draft rewrite and to an actual policy change
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy/Archive 26#RfC to add general fixes to existing bots Only a heeads up for the discussion below. No actual discussion'
• Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 137#Should bots perform secondary "cosmetic" tasks while making a primary task? An initial discussion onbot editing with no concrete proposal. Let's call this Discussion #1
• Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Proposal for new requirement for AWB bots Again mrely a link to start a discussion in a other place
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Should bots perform multiple edits in a page? continuation to Discussion #1 with conrete proposals
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Obvious mistake different issue
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Replace cosmetic with a less misleading name not even started by me. Different issue anyway. Many people in favor of finding a differen nam for the section -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:04, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Let me dispel the notion that your comments somehow lead to change the wording on WP:COSMETICBOT. It's the ARBCOM mess that led to this, and your constant refusal to abide by the policy. It was recognized that the passage was pretty vague, and unhelpful in terms of actually defining what was meant in practice, so Anomie and I wrote the draft for the adopted language, with the input of several members from BAG and the bot community in general. While you were certainly part of those who commented on the draft, it would have happened regardless of if you commented on it or not, and I do not recall any specific changes on the substance of the draft as a result of your comments. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:45, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose
  • It's a shame that some people feel compelled to reply to every post Magioladitis makes on the subject - if you don't want to discuss the matter you don't have to.
  • The COSMETICBOT wording has come on considerably as a result of these discussions, if people don't think it's worth their time, then they needn't take part. I think it has been a valuable exercise.
  • There is no doubt that that there is a chilling effect on clean-up tasks, partly for fear of inadvertently failing to adhere to COSMETICBOT. Some are no doubt delighted, having an obsession with rules and the status quo. However as far as the encyclopaedia is concerned this is in general a bad thing. People should not be afraid to improve the encyclopaedia.
  • Some "usual suspects" accuse other editors of breaking COSMETICBOT, even when they don't understand the letter of the policy, let alone it's spirit. Closing down those who wish to support constructive editing furthers the agenda of these combative editors, and undermines the collaborative spirit of Wikipedia.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:46, 22 June 2017 (UTC).

• Support. I've been watching this from afar, but it's clear that this is just going to keep repeating itself until a topic ban is enacted. FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY ^[u+1F602] 20:54, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support. A perusal of the situation, and this very discussion itself, shows how serious Magioladiis' WP:IDHT proclivities are. I think this topic ban is necessary, and should be taken by him as a warning that the next step is likely to be a site ban: nobody, Magioladitis, is so essential to this project that we can't like without their contributions. We have limited time and resources to deal with such a recalcitrant editor who will not drop the stick and accept the consensus opinion of his own bot-operating compatriots. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:36, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• And would Magioladitis, who is an admin, and who has been on Wikipedia for going on 11 years, please,PLEASE, PLEASE, learn how to properly indent his comments in a discussion? Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:44, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Lots of deletions related to NOTDIR

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Speedy Keep. This closure is without prejudice for renomination of any specific page, the original nominator is urged to review the comments below before renominating individual pages. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:20, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

After a great deal of consideration, I have nominated a bunch of articles and templates for deletion per WP:NOTDIRECTORY. The policy says Wikipedia should not be a directory of programs aired by broadcasters, which puts quite a few list articles and navigation templates into conflict with the policy. It's not a new policy by any means, but we have collectively been allowing these list articles to be created for years. I think it's time we applied the policy firmly.

Here are the deletion discussions I started today:

• Eight TV program templates, seven of them violating NOTDIR while the eighth is a container for the seven.
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Seven Network which includes discussion of eight related list articles.
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Geo TV
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Cartoon Network (3rd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Nickelodeon
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Disney XD
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by MTV
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by GMA Network
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Adult Swim
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by ABS-CBN (2nd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by American Broadcasting Company
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Toonami
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Hallmark Channel
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Animal Planet
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Animax
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of television programmes broadcast by the BBC (3rd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programmes broadcast by Cartoon Network (Southeast Asia) (2nd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Discovery Channel
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Science
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Fox Channel Asia
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programmes broadcast by MTV in Asia
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by National Geographic
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Nat Geo Wild
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Nickelodeon (Southeast Asia)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programmes broadcast by Star World
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programmes broadcast by Channel V
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of television programmes broadcast by TVB
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of television programmes broadcast by ViuTVsix
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Tokyo Broadcasting System
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Arirang TV
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programmes broadcast by Korean Broadcasting System
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Seoul Broadcasting System
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by JTBC
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programmes broadcast by &TV
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by BIG Magic
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programmes broadcast by Cartoon Network (India)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Colors (2nd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by DD National
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Disney Channel
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Disney Channel (India)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Imagine TV
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Life OK
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programmes broadcast by Pogo
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Raj TV
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by SAB TV
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Sahara One
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Sony Entertainment Television (India)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Star Plus
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Zee TV
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Nepal Television
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by ARY Digital
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Cartoon Network (Pakistan)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Hum TV
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Nickelodeon Pakistan
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Spacetoon
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of television programmes broadcast by PTV

I could use help in gathering together more of these list articles and navigation templates so that the discussions are centralized relative to encyclopedia-wide policy rather than limited to users who have a specific area of interest. I bundled eight AfDs at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of programs broadcast by Seven Network but those are only for Australia; the same basic policy concerns will be applicable globally. Binksternet (talk) 20:36, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• @Binksternet: Please stop nominating immediately. If you're going to go after a whole class of articles, either do it as a single multiple nomination or a single nomination that tests consensus. Starting several dozen discussions at once is some serious bludgeoning of the process. Moreover, I think you've fundamentally misunderstood NOTDIRECTORY. NOTDIRECTORY says we're not a TV guide. It doesn't say we don't create list articles to group closely related articles... Actually, fairly undecided on whether these fail NOTDIRECTORY thinking about it some more. Still, please handle these either in a single nomination or space them out over time. AfD can't handle 50+ nominations from one editor in a day. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:11, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
• I think you've misread NOTDIR. Key language is this For example, an article on a broadcaster should not list upcoming events, current promotions, current schedules, format clocks, etc., although mention of major events, promotions or historically significant program lists and schedules may be acceptable. (emphasis mine). Documenting what major programs have aired on a network over time seems completely acceptable, as long as WP:V can be met. --MASEM (t) 21:41, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
• Wow, talk about selective nominating. Every Australian channel, yet only a handful of other country lists. Also nominates every Australian programming template, but none of the American, British, Canadaian, etc templates? Did the nominator even read NOTDIRECTORY which, as Masem pointed out, explicitly has an exception for "significant program lists." If the nominator wants to revisit the meaning or definitions in NOTDIRECTORY the user should deal with it there, not these very selective AfDs. -- Whats new?^(talk) 22:27, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

The editor also seems in quite a hurry to nominate without much consideration, reversing his own nomination at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Star One (Indian TV channel) -- Whats new?^(talk) 22:33, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I hope you don't think I'm targeting Australian TV for some personal reason! The origin of my concern over this kind of TV programming list material came from dealing extensively with the Teenage Fairytale Dropouts vandal which is always coming from Australian IP addresses as I'm sure you are aware, the vandal showing a strong interest in Australian topics, including broadcast TV articles. That's why you saw me assembling the Australian group first. I came here asking for help in bringing all the other nation's problematic TV programming pages to AfD as needed, to cover similar articles around the globe. Binksternet (talk) 00:49, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• Since this is the closest thing to a combined nomination, I'll go ahead and !vote here (although I recognize it won't necessarily be counted): Keep all (for procedural reasons, if nothing else) - I don't see where these are necessarily in conflict with WP:NOTDIR. They aren't schedules, program guides, etc. -- just a list of [notable] programs on a particular network. Inclusion criteria need to be refined and lists pruned to only include notable examples, but they seem like viable navigational lists if nothing else. If all nominated for exactly the same reason, on the basis that this type of article is inappropriate, separate nominations means everyone has to copy their !vote opining on their suitability to every page. Please consider withdrawing and either consolidating or going with an RfC on this interpretation of NOTDIR. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:12, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
• Speedy keep all, speedy close. A list of television programs is not intrinsically a NOTDIR violation. Discussing these nominations individually would just waste editors' time and energy. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006. (talk) 23:28, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
• Need to be assessed individually. Some of these are, indeed, deletable. Many are completely unsourced (i.e. List_of_programs_broadcast_by_SAB_TV, which was the first one I clicked on). This should be more of a criteria for deletion or otherwise than NOTDIR. Black Kite (talk) 23:57, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
• Speedy keep all, speedy close, then each list-article can be examined on its own. Sorry, Binksternet, but I broadly agree with the comments made here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:37, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support speedy close of all - sorry, wasn't aware this was under discussion here and voted individually on many of them. Artw (talk) 01:31, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
• Speedy keep all, speedy close these articles do not violate NOTDIR. Some of them may indeed fail other guidelines, but each needs to be examined on an individual basis and we can't reasonably expect that each AfD will receive sufficient attention with so many open at the same time. Lepricavark (talk) 01:39, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.