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Administrative discussions

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#RfC closure review request at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 433#Closing (archived) RfC: Mondoweiss

(Initiated 13 days ago on 16 April 2024) - already the oldest thread on the page. starship.paint (RUN) 14:43, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Requests for comment

Talk:Indo-Pakistani_war_of_1947–1948#RfC_on_what_result_is_to_be_entered_against_the_result_parameter_of_the_infobox

(Initiated 129 days ago on 22 December 2023) No new comments for over 45 days. Ratnahastin (talk) 07:24, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Awdal#RFC - Habr Awal/Isaaq clan

(Initiated 126 days ago on 24 December 2023) ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Talk: Interstate 90#RFC: Infobox junctions

(Initiated 59 days ago on 29 February 2024) Discussion is about to expire and will need closure. RoadFan294857 (talk) 15:37, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#RfC: enacting X3

(Initiated 52 days ago on 7 March 2024) SilverLocust 💬 22:51, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

I came here to add this discussion here. There have been no new comments for over a fortnight. Thryduulf (talk) 14:13, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Question for other folks at CR: does my single comment in this discussion suggesting an edit to the RfC statement for clarity preclude me from closing this discussion as involved? voorts (talk/contributions) 01:26, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2024 United States presidential election#RFC: What should the criteria of inclusion be for the infobox? (Question 1)

(Initiated 46 days ago on 14 March 2024) It's been about two weeks, since the RFC tag expired. GoodDay (talk) 14:07, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes?

(Initiated 44 days ago on 15 March 2024) Ready to be closed. Charcoal feather (talk) 17:02, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Russo-Ukrainian War#RFC on Listing of Belarus

(Initiated 44 days ago on 16 March 2024) Hello, this RFC was started on 16 March 2024 and as of now was active for more than a month (nearly 1,5 month to be exact). I think a month is enough for every interested user to express their opinion and to vote at RFC and the last vote at this RFC was made by user Mellk on 15 April 2024 (nearly two weeks ago and within a month since the start of this RFC). The question because of which this RFC was started previously resulted in quite strong disagreements between multiple users, but I think there already is a WP:CONS of 12 users who already voted at this RFC. Since the contentious topics procedure applies to page Russo-Ukrainian War, I think this RFC must be closed by uninvolved user/administrator to ensure a valid WP:CONS and to prevent further disputes/edit warring about this question in the future. -- Pofka (talk) 09:50, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Will an experienced uninvolved editor please close this RFC. If there is a consensus that Belarus should be listed, but not as to how it should be listed, please close with the least strong choice, Robert McClenon (talk) 17:08, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I think it should not be closed with the "least strong choice", but instead with a choice which received the most votes (the strongest choice). The most users chose C variant (in total 6 users: My very best wishes, Pofka, Gödel2200, ManyAreasExpert, Licks-rocks, CVDX), while the second strongest choice was A variant (in total 5 users). So I think the WP:CONS of this RFC question is C variant. -- Pofka (talk) 18:33, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:SpaceX Starship#RfC on IFT-3

(Initiated 39 days ago on 21 March 2024) This is a contentious issue with accusations of tendentious editing, so the RfC would benefit from a formal closure. Redraiderengineer (talk) 14:48, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

A note for the closing editor... an inexperienced editor attempted to close this discussion and didn't really address the arguments. There's been some edit warring over the close, but it should be resolved by an experienced, uninvolved editor. Nemov (talk) 19:28, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Another note for the closing editor: beware the related discussion at Talk:SpaceX Starship#Do not classify IFT-1, 2 and 3 as success or failure. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 00:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

That discussion has only been going for two weeks and closing the RfC will not preclude editors from coming to a consensus on whether or not to remove the categorization entirely. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:28, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Is the OCB RS?

(Initiated 34 days ago on 26 March 2024) This WP:RSN RfC was initiated on March 26, with the last !vote occurring on March 28. Ten editors participated in the discussion and, without prejudicing the close one way or the other, I believe a closer may discover a clear consensus emerged. It was bot-archived without closure on April 4 due to lack of recent activity. Chetsford (talk) 21:51, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Libertarian Party (Australia)#Conservatism

(Initiated 30 days ago on 29 March 2024) RfC template expired. TarnishedPath^talk 01:22, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Deletion discussions

XFD backlog

V	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	Total
CfD	0	0	0	18	18
TfD	0	0	0	0	0
MfD	0	0	0	1	1
FfD	0	0	0	1	1
RfD	0	0	0	43	43
AfD	0	0	0	0	0

Other types of closing requests

Talk:Killing of journalists in the Israel–Hamas war#Merge proposal (5 January 2024)

(Initiated 114 days ago on 5 January 2024) The discussion has been inactive for two weeks, with a preference against the merge proposal. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 19:39, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Eat_Bulaga!#Merger_of_Eat_Bulaga!_and_E.A.T.

(Initiated 114 days ago on 6 January 2024) The discussion wasn't inactive for 7 days. It seems there's no clear consensus on merging those two articles into one. 107.185.128.255 (talk) 18:16, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

It's been over a month. So, it could be a good time to close that discussion. 107.185.128.255 (talk) 17:55, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Saleh al-Arouri#Merge proposal

(Initiated 108 days ago on 11 January 2024) Discussion has stalled since March with no new comments. It appears that there is no clear consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aviationwikiflight (talk • contribs) 11:06, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Frederik_IX_of_Denmark#Requested_move_15_January_2024

(Initiated 105 days ago on 15 January 2024) – Requested move open for 2 months, needs closure.98.228.137.44 (talk) 18:36, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Now has been open for three months. 170.76.231.175 (talk) 15:17, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Maersk Hangzhou#Second merge proposal

(Initiated 96 days ago on 24 January 2024) Merge discussion involving CTOPS that has been open for 2 weeks now. Needs closure. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 04:46, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@WeatherWriter: I would give it a few days as the discussion is now active with new comments. GoldenBootWizard276 (talk) 00:00, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

As nominator, I support a non consensus closure of this discussion so we can create an RFC to discuss how WP:ONEEVENT applies in this situation. GoldenBootWizard276 (talk) 21:56, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:1985_Pacific_hurricane_season#Proposed_merge_of_Hurricane_Ignacio_(1985)_into_1985_Pacific_hurricane_season

(Initiated 90 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:2003_Pacific_hurricane_season#Proposed_merge_of_Hurricane_Nora_(2003)_into_2003_Pacific_hurricane_season

(Initiated 90 days ago on 30 January 2024) Noah, AA^Talk 13:50, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Pharnavaz_I_of_Iberia#Requested_move_6_February_2024

(Initiated 83 days ago on 6 February 2024) Requested move open for nearly 2 months. Natg 19 (talk) 17:46, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:12 February 2024 Rafah strikes#Merge proposal to Rafah offensive

(Initiated 76 days ago on 13 February 2024) The discussion has been inactive for over a month, with a clear preference against the merge proposal. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 19:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2 World Trade Center#Split proposal 16 February 2024

(Initiated 72 days ago on 16 February 2024) Split discussion started over a month ago. TarnishedPath^talk 11:19, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Genital_modification_and_mutilation#Requested_move_26_February_2024

(Initiated 63 days ago on 26 February 2024) – Requested move open several months, needs closure. Natg 19 (talk) 22:29, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake#Talkpage_"This_article_has_been_mentioned_by_a_media_organization:"_BRD

(Initiated 12 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)

Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection

Report

Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (28 out of 7631 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Type Summary Admin Cliff Cash 2024-04-29 15:24 2024-06-04 12:22 move Persistent sockpuppetry: extending Ohnoitsjamie Michael D. Aeschliman 2024-04-29 06:44 2024-05-13 06:44 edit,move Violations of the biographies of living persons policy Anachronist Wikipedia:Free encyclopedia 2024-04-29 03:24 indefinite edit,move Drop prot Pppery White Colombians 2024-04-29 03:17 2024-05-20 03:17 edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry: straight to WP:ECP due to involvement also of several confirmed accounts El C Government of Iran 2024-04-28 20:25 2025-04-28 20:25 edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:CT/IRP ToBeFree Everyone Knows That (Ulterior Motives) 2024-04-28 17:30 2024-04-30 15:20 edit Addition of unsourced or poorly sourced content: increase requested at WP:RFPP Favonian Draft:The Car Accident Lawyer Group 2024-04-28 08:07 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Jimfbleak Battle of Ajmer 2024-04-28 06:42 2024-05-05 06:42 move Don't move an article being discussed at an AFD discussion Liz Khymani James 2024-04-27 21:35 2025-04-27 21:35 edit,move Contentious topics enforcement for WP:CT/A-I; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Minouche Shafik 2024-04-27 18:35 indefinite edit,move oops, accidentally full-protected Daniel Case User:Travism121212/Privacy law - Group D 2024-04-27 06:36 2024-05-04 06:36 move Stop moving this article around. Submit to WP:AFC for review Liz Travism121212/Privacy law 2024-04-26 22:17 2024-05-03 22:17 create Repeatedly recreated Liz Connecting Humanity 2024-04-26 19:45 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:PIA, WP:ECR El C Mirna El Helbawi 2024-04-26 19:45 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:PIA, WP:ECR El C User:Samory Loukakou/Erin Meyer 2024-04-26 18:29 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated; requested at WP:RfPP BusterD 24 Oras 2024-04-26 18:25 2024-06-26 18:25 move Persistent vandalism; requested at WP:RfPP BusterD Nasimi Aghayev 2024-04-26 17:17 indefinite edit Community sanctions enforcement: sorry, WP:GS/AA, that is (so many AAs!) El C Atrocity propaganda 2024-04-26 17:09 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: WP:GS/RUSUKR, WP:PIA and others, I'm sure El C Timeline of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (1 April 2024 – present) 2024-04-26 16:49 indefinite edit,move and it continues... Robertsky Beit Hanoun 2024-04-26 14:48 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement: WP:AELOG/2024#PIA Malinaccier Rangiya Municipal Board 2024-04-26 13:12 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated by sock of Rang HD Dennis Brown Siege of Chernihiv 2024-04-26 12:40 indefinite edit,move WP:GS/RUSUKR Filelakeshoe Bed Bath & Beyond (online retailer) 2024-04-26 03:31 indefinite move Repeated article moves despite recent RM discussion Liz Carlos Handy 2024-04-26 00:14 2025-04-26 00:14 edit,move Contentious topics enforcement for WP:CT/BLP; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses in the United States 2024-04-25 22:17 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement ScottishFinnishRadish Israa University (Palestine) 2024-04-25 17:35 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Blu del Barrio 2024-04-25 17:14 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction Daniel Case Gaza Strip mass graves 2024-04-25 17:03 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement Red Phoenix

Bach editing

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

---

For months, there has been one dispute after the other between two editors of classical music (mainly JS Bach), and the friction goes beyond standard disagreements into accusations of vandalism and off-wiki harm. The two editors involved are User:Francis Schonken and User:Mathsci. The latest longish discussion about this is at User talk:Newyorkbrad#Francis Schonken is edit-warring to remove your thread on Talk:Uns ist ein Kind geboren, BWV 142. Older discussions can e.g. be found at User talk:Mathsci#User talk:Francis Schonken and subsequent sections there.

By now, many editors have become involved in these disputes, and it has taken up many hours and led to blocks (both editors have quite a few blocks in their history). I have blocked Mathsci in the past and more recently, and I would prefer not to take any further admin actions here and to let clearly uninvolved admins deal with the two editors. Mathsci has serious health concerns, which causes longish gaps in their recent editing (no problem there), but which they (in my opinion) misuse as an excuse to put the blame on Francis Schonken too often.

Both editors are clearly knowledgeable about classical music, and a topic ban from such articles would be tough on both of them. But an interaction ban seems hardly feasible as they have so many articles where they have by now both spent considerable effort. Something creative is needed here (preferably more effective than Bach flower remedies :-) )

In my experience with these two editors in this dispute, they both are uncompromising and rather stubborn, but (perhaps due to some selection bias) I have the impression that the most problematic edits are by Mathsci. The above DYK was for an article originally created as a redirect by Francis Schonken, and only later edited by Mathsci: the DYK as well was first edited by FS and immediately afterwards by Mathsci.

The most recent interaction is at Template:Did you know nominations/An Wasserflüssen Babylon, which has now been opened for more than 3 months. They are the two most prolific commenters there, and their first edit was less than 2 hours apart[1]. The article for that DYK, An Wasserflüssen Babylon, has been edited 156 times by Francis Schonken and 731 times by Mathsci.

Mathsci makes claims of vandalism way too often. I already mentioned this to him in the discussion on his talk page, but he simply continues, e.g. this edit summary and this one.

Mathsci seems to be following Francis Schonken around to completely unrelated articles; when FS edits the Auschwitz disambiguation page[2], Mathsci reverts the same day[3], even though they have never edited that page before. More back-and-forth at that page follows. When FS explains his change at the talk page, Mathsci gives a rambling response which addresses a lot of things but not really the actual edits. Mathsci not only left a rather condescending post on FS user talk page[4], but when FS removed this (as is his right), he restored[5] it with further commentary, even though I had already explained to Mathsci (when they did the same thing earlier) that a removed post should never be reposted.

That second post[6] then goes on to insult FS ("It was spelled out so that even a small child could understand it. That Francis Schonken went into edit-warring phase was predictible. At that stage he did not have a "minder" or "henchman" there to provide advice or back-up. ") and continues with rehashing some old history (an episode for which I blocked Mathsci as they were clearly in the wrong there, but which they still use to blame FS).

Another example: FS creates an article, which Mathsci then tag-bombs[7]. This includes completely inaccurate tags like "peacock", "one source", "primary sources", ... FS expands the article significantly, and removes the tags: Mathsci reverts this removal as being a "disruptive edit"[8] even though the tags are even less accurate now. FS again continues editing and expanding the article, and at the end again removes the tags. One month later, Mathsci readds the exact same tags yet again[9]. These are the only edits he ever made to this article or its talk page. This is either harassment or a case of WP:CIR, but not acceptable editing behaviour.

What clearly crosses the line and is a perfect example of the position Mathsci now takes is his edit summary of 19 May[10]: "in isolation of N11, saboteur/troll still active in disrupting my home IP, almost surely FS is the culprit given his petty and childish persona". This not only is a clear PA against FS, but also accuses him of somehow disrupting Mathsci's home IP. At the moment, everything FS says is interpreted in the worst possible way, and rather unreasonably so. The last posts on Template:Did you know nominations/An Wasserflüssen Babylon (from 3 June and later) are typical for this.

I may well be painting a one-sided picture here, and would ask others to go over the interactions of the last few months and unravel the problems. But I don't think that letting this continue is in any way productive. Perhaps this is too complicated for AN and needs ArbCom, but I hope that the combined wisom of the AN crowd can find some solution which lets peace return. Fram (talk) 14:32, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

• I strongly suggest the section Francis Schonken's disruptive conduct is preventing content creation on Orgelbüchlein from ANI in June 2016 as lengthy but useful background reading. It will give a more rounded picture of this situation. MathSci was not the only recipient of his attentions, although his way of dealing with it has tended to be both extreme and counterproductive. Anyhow, Francis ended up with a community-imposed 6 month restriction to one revert per page in any calendar month, applying to all pages except his own user and user talk pages. Amongst the problems which surfaced at the June 2016 ANI, apart from repeated edit-warring, were weaponizing maintenance tags in content or personal disputes, massively refactoring other editors' talk page comments, and lots of I didn't hear that. Plus ça change? Voceditenore (talk) 15:56, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

• I dunno, perhaps the only solution is to WP:IAR and craft a solution that bars each of them from editing an article unless they were the first of the two edit it. Period. Make it apply to the talk page and to any related discussions about the page as well. There are more than enough classical music subjects to around. Voceditenore (talk) 16:29, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

• Your solution may well be the right one, but I'ld like to see some evidence that the problematic editing by FS has persisted more recently (preferably the last three months, but at least somewhere in 2018). If the problematic edits are still coming from both sides, then sanctioning both is best. If the problematic edits are no longer coming from both sides but only one side continues, then sanctioning that side may be better (or fairer). Fram (talk) 16:35, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

• User:Fram has been told by arbitrators that I am currently gravely ill. There are still ongoing üdiscussion on arbitration on User talk:Newyorkbrad#Comment on Newyorkbrad and above. On 18–27 May in Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, I had the last of six related emergency incidents. These involved (a) major stroke (b) cardiology (c) blackouts (syncope) (d) acute kidney illness. I cannot possibly do anything here. I can hardly move. Mathsci (talk) 16:41, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

• • You have used your illness as an excuse for months now. It didn't stop you following FS to the Auschwitz disambiguation and so on. I'm sorry that you are in such bad health, but then don't edit Wikipedia, and certainly don't edit anything controversial. The "ongoing discussion" at Newyorkbrad had one comment from you from early May, and the last before that was from 19 April. That's not an ongoing discussion, that's a stalled one you had to pull from the archives. You continued your disruption during and after that discussion. Fram (talk) 16:48, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
• What do you mean by excuse? User:Newyorkbrad has explained the serious health problems and you seem to be treating that as if they don't exist. Mathsci (talk) 16:57, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

  If I had to guess, they would like you to respond to the merits above (in which they acknowledged your health issues, btw). Arkon (talk) 17:03, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

• That is impossible at this time. The medication means I can only sleep every other night. From what I understand I still have acute kidney illness (AKI) and that is being looked into by my GP (on Thursday) and in the cadiology clinic next Monday (where there is a problem with ACE inhibitors). I am sorry, I cannot change that. User:Doug Weller is aware of the ongoing medical problems. User:Newyorkbrad is already organising this. User:Fram seems to be trying to stop that happening. What has been happening is some kind of low key arbitration case, supervised by Newyorkbrad, which will not endanger my health. Mathsci (talk) 17:30, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

What is a "low key arbitration case"? Is there a page for those? Just because an arbitrator makes a comment somewhere, it hardly counts as "arbitration". Nor do an arbitrator's comments outside ARBCOM carry any more weight than anyone else's. If what you're talking about is some "thing" carried out entirely off-wiki with only one of "combatants" participating... well... um... Voceditenore (talk) 17:48, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

It means the ongoing discussion on arbitration that has been taking place for about two months on User talk:Newyorkbrad#Comment by Newyorkbrad and above. It was started by Softlavender, but she prefers not to be mentioned. Mathsci (talk) 18:06, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

There's no "ongoing discussion about arbitration" (or organising of it) on Newyorkbrad's talk page. His last comment on the dispute there was almost two months ago, and his only mention of arbitration in that comment was "Unless the two of them find some way to disengage voluntarily, I fear there is no alternative but an impose remedy, whether via an ANI discussion or arbitration or otherwise". Really, Mathsci, for your own sake, and frankly everyone else's, you need to completely disengage from this dispute. Who knows? Some of the administrators and experienced editors here might actually come up with a solution. Just let them get on with it. Voceditenore (talk) 18:50, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The kind of major stroke I had, expressive dysphasia, have several effects. One thing is that, under stress, the damaged brain left hemisphere cannot be managed properly. That means I stop being to able to speak. That happened on the weekend of the emergency incident in Addenbrooke's Hospital when, in error, one of the gastrointestinal consultants suspended all of my medication. That resulted in what is called a hypertensive emergency. That has to be avoided, because the main risk is a second stroke, which usually is fatal. Fram has used the word "antics" to describe the mechanism of stroke. I have difficulty even remembering the word when stressed. Mathsci (talk) 18:06, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

if stress is bad for your health issues, perhaps the best thing is to avoid Wikipedia, because you seem unable to avoid conflict, and thus stress, while here. Following FS to the Auschwitz disambig page does not look like the actions of someone trying to avoid conflict and stress. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:15, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

• I sympathize with Mathsci's ongoing medical problems, which appear to be very serious, and sincerely hope that things get better for them, but it seems to me that if Mathsci can rally sufficiently to edit the encyclopedia, and describe in detail their medical situation, then Mathsci must also be able to participate in discussions about their editing. They cannot claim a free pass on discussions while continuing to edit. Either Mathsci needs to take a break from editing -- or avoid any and all controversial edits and restrict themselves to simple fixes and anti-vandalism -- or, if they continue to edit as normal, they must be willing to give over some of their limited editing time to discussions. To do otherwise is unfair to other editors and to the community in general. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:13, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I have mentioned in the discussion on arbitration that at the moment I cannot concentrate properly. Unfortinately that is just a fact. At the moment I am staying in bed under medication, writing only total trivia that requires no concentration, more like gnoming (comments on Jayda Fransen for example). I think I mentioned that problem of lack of concentration on User talk:Newyorkbrad#Comment by Newyorkbrad. The method NYB chose gave a method of discussion which did not rush me. Before the emergency of 18–27 May, I slowly prepared a whole set of diffs describing my editing on Canonic Variations between January and March 2018: I prepared those slowly in the middle of May before the I was rushed into A&E. I can locate those in the framework NYB had devised, but not here: I am absolutely shattered. At the moment it would be impossible, because the colonoscopy and hypertensive emergency has stopped me thinking in any sustained way. Mathsci (talk) 18:41, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I should also say that folks like BMK, Softlavender, Doug Weller, Snowded, Ealdgyth, Diannaa, Bishonen, David Eppstein, MastCell, Regentspark, Voceditenore put me at ease as old regulars. Doug Weller in particular noticed the usual LTA (permabanned from WP:ARBR&I) making mischief recently (see e.g. Orgelbüchlein). Mathsci (talk) 18:56, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I could also watch, in a sedentary state, as the Memills saga unravelled: all history that BMK (or other wikifriends like Maunus, aprock, ArtifexMayhem, Johnuniq, Killlerchihuahua, etc) will remember from the days of Miradre/Acdemia Orientalis. So I can do superficial gossip, but not much more. Mathsci (talk) 19:16, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Fram has also not explained why from 28 April until now, Francis Schonken's editing suddenly switched to UNESCO World Heritage Infoboxes edits: en route, Francis Schonken seems to have needlessly ruffled the feathers of User:RexxS, User:Mike Peel, User:Andrewa and User:Beetstra. Similarly the main topic here was Lutheran hymns from the Reformation, not Bach as Fram has suggested. Mathsci (talk) 19:58, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Nice attempt to ping other editors who you feel have a negative view of FS. But it's not really clear why I should need to explain FS editing a topic completely unrelated to you. Perhaps, instead of going through FS' edits trying to find other editors who might support you, you could explain why you made the edits highlighted in my opening statement? Why you are following FS around, making personal attacks, accusing him of offwiki criminal (or at least unethical and very dubious) activities? These edits can hardly be explained by "but FS is suddenly editing unesco articles"... Fram (talk) 07:33, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

• I propose that Mathsci is placed under a one-way IBAN with Francis Schonken, however, Mathsci is expressly permitted to ask Newyorkbrad or any editor he designates to act on their behalf in any disputes. If Mathsci is physically unable to edit Wikipedia, they should not do so, but that doesn't mean their voice should be silenced. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:17, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

• In the discussion on arbitration initiated by Newyorkbrad (see above), User:MastCell has already indicated that Francis Schonken's comments on my user talk page were "petty and childish." MastCell indicated that Francis Schonken is quite likely to be indefinitely blocked (If I understand his properly). I have a sleeping tablet fairly shortly. I can see that the peanut gallery want to have their fun. Mathsci (talk) 20:34, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

• Support IBAN as per BMK and Power - Mathsci I do hope you get better soon and or your situation improves, Anyway in short IBAN seems the only best solution here thus fart. –Davey2010^Talk 20:29, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

To follow up and clarify something stated above, I have been in contact with Mathsci occasionally in recent months. He has shared with me what at the time was private information concerning his health, although more recently he has shared this information publicly (frankly, I do not see that it is necessary to do so in such detail). He has also shared with me some other non-public information, but none that I can link with Frances Schonken. A couple of months ago, I expressed concern on-wiki that Frances Schonken and Mathsci were persistently giving each other an unnecessarily hard time (see Talk:Uns ist ein Kind geboren, BWV 142#Mathsci and Francis Schonken). Frances Schonken's initial response was to dispute how I had worded the section header, an issue I perceived as of relatively minor importance. My perception at the time was that Frances Schonken was unnecessarily following Mathsci's edits. As Mathsci notes above, there has subsequently been a thread on my talkpage in which I repeated my request that these two editors stay away from each other.

This thread opened by Fram suggests that problems between the editors are continuing, but I am not as persuaded as Fram is that the problems lie in one direction. Mathsci, although he has not led a blameless wikilife by any means, has been the subject of long-term harassment by banned users (nothing to do with Frances Schonken or with the music-topic areas), and as stated above suffers from health issues; that does not mean that he is free to violate any policies or guidelines, but I do hope he will be treated with an extra dose of courtesy and understanding. That being said, I am not commenting "as an arbitrator" in this thread, and I'm certainly not administering some sort of one-man secret arbitration case. I would be grateful if someone could please figure out how to keep these two editors away from each other, without damaging either of them or the encyclopedia. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:37, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Since I've been pinged I've read through the above and will put in my two cents. Yes, I have had my feathers ruffled by FS on many occasions and I try to be Christian on this, see wp:creed#4, so I hope my feathers are not too easily ruffled. But that's a disclosure.

I would like to see even-handedness on this, and think that the squatters rights Tban proposed above [11] has a great deal of merit. The objective is not to punish either or both but simply to protect Wikipedia. Both sides have regularly transgressed wp:NPA Insulting or disparaging an editor is a personal attack regardless of the manner in which it is done.... and I see little hope of this changing while many admins set an appalling example by doing the same (but that's another hobbyhorse of mine). Both sides are powerfully here and their good faith is IMO unquestionable.

So ideally we want to give them both the best and most effective guidance that we can, to enable them to continue their valuable work unhindered by each other. Andrewa (talk) 21:19, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd like to note that such a "squatter's rights" sanction could easily be gamed. I won't say how, but I think anyone of reasonable intelligence can figure it out. Given that, I really don't think it's a viable solution. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:43, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Disagree. The devil is perhaps in the details, but part of the sanction would be that any attempt to game the system to avoid the Tban would be dealt with severely. (When I say "severely", probably the best response in that event would be to simply revoke the sanction on the innocent party while leaving it in place on the other.) They're both highly intelligent and would understand this if it were put in those or similar terms. For one of them to suddenly post trivial edits to many articles, for example, or even to otherwise modify their editing pattern so as to greatly increase the number of articles to which they had editing rights, would trigger this response. Or if one were to waste their time devising more sophisticated strategies to keep the gaming under the radar, problem solved. But neither is that stupid, IMO. Andrewa (talk) 07:41, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: Francis Schonken has been the clear aggressor in this saga from the very beginning, and after original six-month editing restriction imposed at ANI in June 2016 [12], he went right back to persistent, long-term, deliberate targeting and harassing of Mathsci. Mathsci is not blameless, as he has some behavioral issues of his own, but FS is the aggressor and troublemaker. I do not support a 2-way interaction ban between these two editors. I Support a one-way interaction ban on Francis Schonken towards Mathsci. In my mind that is the only way this harassment and disruption is going to stop, short of an ArbCom case, which at this point is well warranted in my opinion (we've already been through at least two ANI threads). So I'm in favor of one or the other: a one-way IBan, or an ArbCom case. Softlavender (talk) 02:17, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I've given evidence of clear, very recent cases where Mathsci is the aggressor. Can you please provide similar recent cases where FS is the aggressor? Otherwise you propose to sanction FS for old behaviour while ignoring the continuing unacceptable behaviour by Mathsci. Are there e.g. articles where FS clearly followed Mathsci, instead of the other way around, in the last 2 or 3 months (i.e. since you started that thread at Newyorkbrad's talk page)? Fram (talk) 04:32, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I am very much in agreement with Softlavender on all details, including several reports on AN/I and others. On 29 December 2017, Softlavender used the words "vendetta" and "harassment" to describe FS's patterns of edits.[13] (My stroke took place a few hours later while editing the same item.) I have edited during 2006–2018 and have covered a lot of different topics. Mathsci (talk) 06:55, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
    • Mathsci, if you feel that FS is having a vendetta against you and is harassing you, then why are you following him again and again and again? Fram (talk) 07:28, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
      • Fram, could you please stop putting words into my mouth? In my wikipedia edits I usually write in a restrained and nuanced way: my favourite words are "neutral and anodyne." Here I have quoted what Softlavender wrote, that is all. At this stage, I don't have any "feeling" about this at all. Indeed I just feel numbed. In the same way, I am aware that User:MastCell has written a number of comments on FS which I will simply report without interpretation. Mathsci (talk) 08:20, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
        • When you state "I am very much in agreement with Softlavender on all details", and then explicitly quotes their words "vendetta" and "harassment", then it is very strange to then complain that I am putting words in your mouth. Could you perhaps address your own recent edits instead of repeating what others said months ago? Fram (talk) 08:58, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I am an agreement with what Softlavender has written; her comments seem very sensible and she writes well. At the moment I'm trying to see whether my concentration is improving by reading Beverly Jerrold's 2012 article Kirnberger vs Marpurg: A reappraisal. Some of the material was already used in the reception section of Clavier-Übung III, but that was written earlier in 2010. Mathsci (talk) 09:21, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

And that is in any way relevant for this discussion because...? Fram (talk) 09:27, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Just before the incident on 18 May, I was editing Talk:An Wasserflüssen Babylon, trying to write a preparatory summary (including content on Jerrold). User:Gerda Arendt is the person who suggested that I help there: I had previously written Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes in 2008 or 2009. An Wasserflüssen Babylon, BWV 653, is one of the chorale preludes I play. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 09:49, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

So no actual relevance. This report is about your recent conduct towards FS (and vice versa, if any), not what sources you read to edit. Please address the accusations that you inappropriately follow them around, tag-bomb their articles, personally attack them and accuse them of fairly unlikely off-wiki behaviour. Fram (talk) 09:56, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

The comments on 19, 24, 26 May were written when I was in the isolation ward N2. Not really the usual wikipedia environment and at times it was quite alarming (despite the Royal Wedding). In October 2012 at UCL, I edited The Heart Hospital prior to heart surgery (4 October) and then as an outpatient (16 October).

On various WP noticeboards, I have mentioned previously that online sources using CD liners, raw Bach archive content and 18th or 19th century sources are usually not good as WP:RS. My editing method is usually to gather the best available reliable secondary sources and then summarise them. The same applies to mathematics, e.g. Contraction (operator theory). List items could potentially give an excuse not to follow that procedure: then the best idea, if possible, is to make a proper article, instead of a list-cum-article. How many baroque articles have you edited or created? Mathsci (talk) 10:50, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Mathsci, if you can't be bothered to address the actual issues, then please don't answer at all. You have added lots of replies here, but so far none of them have brought us any closer to solving this whole situation, but instead only add lots of distractions. How is the number of baroque articles I have edited in any way related to this complaint? Fram (talk) 11:00, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

It would be a problem if you had hardly any experience of editing articles on baroque music. (On wikipedia, people usually write about what they know.) As far as I am aware, my edits on music have been accepted by almost all other editors, i.e. there is a long standing consensus. Looking at it in a different way, possibly taking into account Softlavender's comments, might there not be a problem with some of the edits of Francis Schonken? Mathsci (talk) 11:54, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

it would be a problem if we were discussing content issues, which we aren't. We are discussing conduct issues, specifically your recent conduct (no recent problematic conduct by FS has so far been presented). A topic you have avoided at all costs so far. Fram (talk) 12:11, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

• You at no point write words in a restrained and nuanced way. You waffle, obfuscate, personally attack, try to divert from clear statements, avoid the point, write tldr walls of barely relevant (or even coherent) text, in fact do anything you can to weasel around your obstructive and deliberately frustrating attitude. When you write 'I agree with everything they said' it is not putting words into your mouth to say you feel they have a vendetta when that is entirely the subject of their comment. It's this sort of bullshit that has led to you being unable to work with editors on what, two topic areas previously? It's a familiar patten. Mathsci gets into conflict (usually because of your overwhelmingly arrogant and insulting editing towards others), blames everyone else, blames harrassment, tries to link it to past harrassment from unrelated people, vindictively targets others by means of personal attacks, hounding etc, blames illness for not participating when your disruptive editing is brought up. And ends up moving to a different topic when enough people have been pissed off only for the cycle to start again. If you seriously want to claim innocence in all this, an arbcom case will have plenty of evidence going back years showing the pattern of your interactions with others. It will be a long and gruelling process, and it will likely go ahead regardless of your personal situation because Wikipedia is not therapy and your illness is not an excuse to be trotted out every time your own nature causes you to get into conflict with others. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:03, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
• And before this goes much further, could an uninvolved admin read this previous discussion (plenty of further reading there as well RE their behaviour) which clearly shows their tactics when brought to a noticeboard, and swiftly hat any of Mathsci's off-topic comments to keep this on track. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:44, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I think it's plain from the above that some of us sympathise more with Francis Schonken and some with Mathsci, and as I've disclosed I'm likely to be in the latter group. But this probably says more about us than about them. Again I recommend an even-handed approach as the best way of protecting Wikipedia. Justice may be in the eye of the beholder, but if we focus on why we are here that need not be an issue. Andrewa (talk) 09:41, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

The details

I think the time has come to actually do something!

So I'd like to further investigate the possibility of a creative squatters' rights Tban as suggested by Voceditenore above. [14]

Beyond My Ken has suggested that this could be easily gamed. I think I see what they mean, but as I replied [15] I think this can be addressed.

So I propose that we invite each to name two advocates, all four to be administrators. I will volunteer to be one for Mathsci. In doing so, I invite both of them to post anything that doesn't cross the line into oversight territory on my user talk page. Attack me, attack each other, attack the other advocates. email me if it might be oversightable! Just call what they see as problematical editing by the other to our attention, that's the important thing. (And keep it off the article talk pages.) And we'll look at it, and possibly discuss it among the panel of four, and issue stern warnings if it's anywhere near transgressing.

Because, if any three of the advocates agree that one of the combatants has transgressed the Tban, then the Tban will immediately revert to a simple community topic ban on Bach-related articles on the transgressor, and the other will be released from the Tban.

Mathsci doesn't have to nominate me as one of their advocates of course. (And if they don't then Francis Schonken is free to and I'd be very flattered to accept, but I don't think that's likely.) Both just need to find two advocates to be on this panel.

Comments? Other volunteers? Andrewa (talk) 10:33, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

So let me get this straight... in order to police this remedy - we'd need four admins to monitor two editors? Seems like a lot of work and not something that's normally done. Would this preclude other admins from taking action on these two editors? Frankly, I'm inclined to interaction ban the two of them and if this means that either of them can't edit an article or two, it seems much simpler than what is current or what is proposed here. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:13, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I think Ealgyth's got it right. There's really no need for a complexly structured sanction when a standard IBan would seem to be a feasible solution. At the very least, it should be tried before going to an esoteric sanctions. Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:21, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Interaction bans have been tried with Mathsci before when he gets into conflict, he is uninterested in abiding by them. The last time resulted in him engaging in a particularly nasty form of outing/harrassment of the editor with which he was interaction banned. Frankly an interaction ban between him and FS is just asking for him (given his history of actions towards other editors) to resort to privacy-violating measures towards FS. Which wouldnt be unusual for him at all. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:55, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Let's please AGF of Mathsci, and take him at his word that he's not capable at this time of doing much complex editing, which would include, I think, following a convoluted sanction. He should, however, be capable of adhering to a simple, straightforward IBan with FS. If it turns out that that isn't the case, and he -- or Frances -- abuses the IBan, then a more complex sanction or even an indef block can follow, depending on the circumstances. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:53, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Sorry I'm not a battered wife, I don't have to AGF of anyone who has repeatedly time and again shown they are a threat to other editors privacy. His word is worth absolutely nothing. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:01, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm quite happy with an Iban affecting both equally. The more creative solution would only be appropriate of we had three other admins volunteer (and so far we have none) and if both parties agreed to it (and neither has yet commented). Andrewa (talk) 01:38, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

An IBan on both would probably be the best solution (I have my doubts if it will work, but it certainly is worth a shot). Fram (talk) 09:36, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Andrewa's proposal would be an even worse time-sink than the current situation. Both FS and Mathsci have tied up and frustrated numerous editors with their behaviour and now the proposal is to tie up 3 or 4 administrators as well? Speaking as a non-admin, but someone who has dealt with FS on multiple occasions (not all of them involving Mathsci), and crafted his 2016 1RR per month restriction, my view is that a. any IBAN must be mutual and b. a normal 2-way IBAN will not work unless it includes article space. The episode at the DYK nomination for An Wasserflüssen Babylon, which started the discussion here is a perfect microcosm of the problem:

• FS created An Wasserflüssen Babylon as a redirect in July 2017
• It lay dormant until 24 February 2018 when Gerda Arendt turned it into an article.
• FS shows up immediately and starts tag-bombing it until it looked like this. He has "form" doing this to Gerda in other articles, irrespective of Mathsci's participation. (See my comment in No details below.)
• By 3 March, Gerda had addressed the issues, removed the remaining tag and nominated it for DYK [16]. Note also the comments by an editor from the Guild of Copy Editors who had earlier removed most of FS's tag-bombing [17], [18].
• Mathsci starts expanding the article on 4 March after Gerda asked his help with it [19]. Francis then returns to editing the article on 6 March and the usual scenario plays out when they are editing the same article, tagging each others edits [20], [21] and soon repeatedly reverting each other. e.g. here: [22], [23], [24], [25] and here: [26]. The fighting later spilled onto a fork created by FS at An Wasserflüssen Babylon (Reincken) with multitple reverts of each other by FS and Mathsci, and this time Mathsci doing the tag bombing. (I'm not going to bother with diffs. Just look at the edit history.)
• The DYK review did not start until 21 March. The following day, FS shows up at the review, opposing a pass on the grounds that it is "unstable" [27] and proceeds to re-festoon the article with tags [28].
• Needless to say the DYK review soon broke down into bickering between FS and MathSci—largely by Mathsci. By 6 May the initial reviewer had withdrawn from the melee. Mathsci went on to increasingly bizarre and totally unacceptable personal attacks on FS [29]. The DYK remains completely stalled as of today (7 June) and probably will never pass given that FS had also placed a tag suggesting a split on the top of the article [30], where it remains today after he and Mathsci repeatedly reverted each other over it.

Ugh! Voceditenore (talk) 10:45, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

At the risk of repeating myself, my proposal will only work if we get at least another three admins to volunteer, and if we also get agreement from both parties. And there is no sign yet that either of these conditions will be met.

But I feel I must answer the question of a time sink. These four admins would be the only ones spending time on it. At present, all lurkers here (admin or not) are spending time on it. That time sink is exactly what I'm trying to reduce.

But the fascinating thing is, you seem to agree with my fundamental assumption that the solution should be even-handed. So, what's your solution? Do you really think that a simple IBan will be less of a time sink? My prediction is that we'll just be back here within a week, repeating much of the above discussion. I could be wrong, particularly about the timescale, but even if it takes a year it's still a time sink. But again to repeat myself, I'm happy to give it a go.

An IBan with some strict and explicit riders as to what constitutes a violation would stand more of a chance of getting their attention. But do we all want to be involved in setting those riders, and later policing them? My proposal essentially delegates all of this to the panel, to spell them out if and when necessary. And my prediction is that it will be necessary, but that when it happens (with at most four contributors needing to be involved) it will be effective, as the four will all have been accepted by the parties themselves. (I should have said, they need to both agree to all four nominations, I was just assuming that's part of the deal.) Again I could be wrong.

And I was hoping that the threat of an IBan would motivate them both to consider this proposal seriously. But here I do appear to be wrong, and repeating myself again, if that's the case there's no point in us even discussing the proposal further. It seemed like a good idea. But most good ideas don't work at all, and this appears to be one of those. It was worth a try. Andrewa (talk) 14:08, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Andrewa, I would propose a two-way IBAN to include article space, which bars each of them from editing an article unless they were the first of the two edit it (simple redirects do not count). Make it apply to the talk page and to any related discussions about the page as well. The behaviour of both editors, is equally poor, if not worse, on talk pages and merely exacerbates the conflict. You're right that this may well be too complicated or lengthy to work out here. On the other hand, I don't think you're going to find enough admins willing to take on your original proposal either. I have a feeling that if FS and Mathsci do not come to their senses voluntarily, the only remaining option is ARBCOM. Too bad really, but there it is. Voceditenore (talk) 14:22, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Very well put. Support this IBan. Agree that there don't seem to be enough admins willing to take on my original proposal. I was hoping that the parties themselves might do the recruiting, but that didn't work either.

I also note that Fram has already supported exactly this IBan in very similar terms [31] (correct me if I'm wrong). Andrewa (talk) 14:45, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. You may count me as a support (here, or if you turn this into a separate section). While I still personally feel the recent most egregious problems are perhaps not truly from both sides, they both have a long history of causing trouble and being too focused on each other, and ending this dsiruption in this way seems the most fair. Fram (talk) 14:53, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I think we should bear in mind that this is not a court that dispenses justice or even pretends to do so (to quote my favourite lawyer, "there's commonsense, there's justice, and there's the law, and the court is only interested in the law"). This is a management process that empowers volunteer Wikipedians to create an encyclopedia. I've spent much of my life empowering volunteer church musicians, and one of the hardest things is telling a keen and competent musician that they don't fit in. But it must sometimes be done. I have almost always succeeded in finding them other roles in the church and/or its music, but I admit to one very painful failure. It happens. And I have myself been on the receiving end, twice. The world did not end.

We do want to be fair, but only because unfairness disempowers Wikipedians. It's not an end in itself, and sometimes it needs to be compromised. It happens. Andrewa (talk) 15:37, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

One minor point... if one or both continues, there's still the option of a stronger community ban rather than going to ARBCOM. And I think both parties should be made aware that this is a possibility. Andrewa (talk) 14:57, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

IBan

There is support above for a two-way IBan, and no dissension as yet.

There was also support previously for a one-way IBan... a nominator and one supporter that I can see, I may have missed others, but this did not proceed further. Neither the nominator nor supporter of this earlier proposal have commented on the two-way proposal. And there are some other comments but no concrete proposal, pointing out that one of them has been IBanned before and that the results were not good.

There is a comment that an IBan would need to include article space... it does. Editors subject to an interaction ban are not permitted to... undo each other's edits to any page, whether by use of the revert function or by other means (Wikipedia:Banning policy#Interaction ban, my emphasis)

A no-fault two-way interaction ban is often a quick and painless way to prevent a dispute from causing further distress or wider disruption. (Wikipedia:Banning policy#Interaction ban)

Other opinions? Or, relevant discussion I may have missed? Andrewa (talk) 21:40, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

No details

I have no time for details, and hate the words aggressor. I started An Wasserflüssen Babylon, and asked Mathsci to help. Why Francis came in, split part of the (by then expanded) article to make it one of his, and then said it's unstable, I will not be able to understand. Just look at the DYK nomination. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:32, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

To be precise, FS started that article as a redirect, you turned it into an article, and FS started working on that article as well some 30 minutes after you started working on it. No idea where or when you asked Mathsci to help, but your reply gives the impression that FS only noted the article after you asked Mathsci to help, when in reality they had created it and started working on it immediately when you did, while Mathsci's first edit to the article was more than a week later. Fram (talk) 20:47, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

For all other purposes: making a redirect a real article is considered a new article, unless we split hairs. Francis made probably hundreds of such redirects for hymns, which I don't like because the reader gets disappointed arriving just in the middle of some author's hymnal when expecting information of a hymn. - I'm ready to forget the below. Drmies and Boing! said Zebedee helped in such situations (on top of others who are no admins). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:13, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

"Splitting hairs"? Not really. Your post gave the impression that FS started editing that article after you (and probably because you) asked Mathsci to help. You have not indicated where and when you asked Mathsci to help, making it hard to verify your claim, but in any case itis not unreasonable to assume, given that he had created the redirect and that he arrived at the article 30 minutes after your first edit (and a week before Mathscis first edit), that he actually simply had the article on his watchlist, and that this has nothing to do with FS following Mathsci. Fram (talk) 09:18, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

(ec) I didn't say anything about when Francis came in, and think it doesn't even matter. Factual corrections are one thing, and fine, but making massive changes (including making part of the article that Mathsci wrote a new article), and then complaining about "unstable", is not fair. - It would have worked to suggest a split, and let Mathsci decide to do that, or not. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:22, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

It would have been easy to check my talk for "Wasserflüsse", no? Possible DYK for nice image. Sometimes I ask Francis, but never both. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:32, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I checked on their talk page, which seemed the logical place to find a request from you to Mathsci. Thanks for providing the link. Fram (talk) 09:39, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I am an informal person, and don't remember any "formal" request for help here, ever. Mathsci came to my talk with a (new) DYK suggestion, and as part of the reply, I mentioned the DYK (which had been nominated then), saying that additions were welcome as long as they are sourced. If you have time, read the discussion, for a spirit of collaboration. - I thank Voceditenore for the analysis above, - I forgot some unpleasant details and want to keep it that way. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:47, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

A short illustration of why I rather not ask Francis (whose expertise on the topics is beyond doubt) is here, short and recent: I ask the relevant project neutrally what members think of his tags on a specific article, and get accused of forum-shopping. ([32], [33], among others). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:04, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Note that FS also has a record of following Gerda to articles she has written and creating disruption, irrespective of Mathsci's participation. His behaviour on Christ lag in Todesbanden, BWV 4 and its talk page in April–May 2016 is a particularly egregious example, but not an isolated one. Gerda and another editor (not Mathsci) brought the article to Featured status in March 2016. One month after its promotion FS showed up and started making swingeing changes to the content with no prior discussion [34]. This included unilaterally moving the page to a new title [35] and edit-warring [36], [37] to keep it there. Gerda objected to the page move and participated in the post hoc discussion on the talk page but Francis refused to participate any further in that discussion after less than a day and then unilaterally closed it. Instead of initiating a proper requested move discussion with wider participation, he festooned the article with maintenance tags and said he was taking it to FAR with the intent of getting it demoted because it was "unstable" [38]. The FAR was closed as out of process but he continued his bulldozing. On the talk page he copied editors' comments on other talk pages with their signatures, misleadingly refactoring them as he saw fit, and failing to provide links to the original context [39]. By 20 May the article was still festooned with tags and virtually all of its previous editors, including its main editor had been driven away. Its talk page became an unreadable mess and a place where FS talked only to himself. It finally came to an end when Brianboulton (at the time one of the TFA coordinators) archived the discussions and removed all the maintenance tags from the article [40]. It is a similar tactic FS used at the recent DYK nomination for An Wasserflüssen Babylon, which I will analyse in The details above in a few minutes. Voceditenore (talk) 08:55, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

The conclusion of this section seems to me to be that both contributors exhibit problematic behaviour, and that there is at best a far weaker consensus as to which of them is the worse. I repeat my observation that both are passionately here to build an encyclopedia and that both contribute a great deal of time, energy and competence towards that goal, and will now add that we seem to have consensus on that.

...or if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault. ref Andrewa (talk) 20:27, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Just noting that Francis Schonken hasn't edited in a few days, and therefore hasn't been heard from in this discussion. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:06, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

His last edit was four days ago. [41] But this discussion has been going on for over a month, and he was informed of it both by pinging him here and as required on his talk page, and he has yet to respond here at all, or have I missed it?

If I haven't missed it, then his not responding here is because he doesn't wish to do so, not because he's (more recently) on a Wikibreak. Andrewa (talk) 00:28, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

• On 6 August 2016 Mathsci agreed to a series of unblock conditions, including (in Mathsci's own words):
  • I would be far more careful not to overreact.
  • I would state problems with edits dispassionately and carefully avoid any personal comments about editors.
  • I would be careful to show that my edits on talk pages are there to help other editors as much as to discuss improvements to the article.
  • I would strenuously avoid giving the appearance of belittling other editors with different skills.
  • ... I don't edit articles on controversial topics.
  • When there are content problems that require expertise (knowledge of mathematics, knowledge of organ playing, knowledge of French) I would be careful to speak dispassionately about the problems and strenuously avoid belittling other editors.

... which didn't work out (see recent examples above). This could be handled by taking note that Mathsci didn't keep to his unblock conditions, and reblock. I'm open to finding a more suitable solution than (blunt) block. It is a pity that Mathsci seems somehow impervious to one-way IBAN (if I understand the above correctly), but I don't want to be a victim of that by seeing an IBAN imposed on me. I have collaborated with Mathsci constructively, and the encyclopedia (mainspace) has improved as a result. Discussions can be rough, but in the end this may result in an improved article (e.g. List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach printed during his lifetime). There's only one way to make that work though, that is: more or less strict adherence to behavioural policies and guidelines, including very strict adherence to WP:TPG. I've had little support on this approach, including by Newyorkbrad, Softlavender, Johnuniq, and Bishonen (someone I personally have in higher esteem than the three previous editors taken together). Newyorkbrad, Softlavender and Johnuniq have sometimes led by bad example instead of by good example, the bad example then later being followed by Mathsci – which is a pity and one of the reasons that brought us here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 01:52, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Nobody wants to be IBanned, or to IBan anyone else. But in terms of improving Wikipedia, what exactly would a two-way, no-fault IBan cost you, apart from the perceived insult? There are others who can keep an eye on Bach articles.

Or, would it help if we excluded my user talk page from the IBan, as I proposed once before? (And maybe even seek a few more volunteers for this.) Andrewa (talk) 04:17, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

It's good to have Francis Schonken contribute here, but rather than laying more charges on Mathsci, I'm much more interested in their response to the various behavioral charges that have been laid on them by other editors in this thread. Editors such as myself who are not very familiar with the conflict between these two editors, and who do not have a "side" to buttress or defend, need to hear both sides, and the value of Schonken being here is for us hear their POV about their own behavior, since we have already heard charges against Mathsci and Mathsci's response to them. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:34, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Also, and this is simply a personal opinion, slagging off Newyorkbrad and other editors in such a fashion as Schonken does here does not "play" very well to a neutral audience intent on evaluating Schonken's Wiki-behavior, as well as that of Mathsci. Their choice to do so as part of their first response to this AN is, to say the least, concerning. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:38, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

It is of course a flagrant breach of wp:NPA. But in practice, I'm afraid that is no longer a policy, and it would be unreasonable (I first said "unfair" but I'd better be consistent myself) to expect FS to abide by it when many admins do not, and escape all censure. Andrewa (talk) 07:04, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

(ec x2) @Andrewa: did you ever collaborate constructively with Mathsci, resulting in an improved article? Throw fairness out of the window, replacing it by sympathies ("... some of us sympathise more with Francis Schonken and some with Mathsci ...")? I'm not soliciting sympathies: what is best for the encyclopedia, is best for me too – mulling over old grudges (I hardly remember details of when I last interacted with you), is however hardly something that seems best for the encyclopedia imho.

I once had a long conversation with Gerda on someone else's user talk page, which settled most of the tensions between us, so that we can collaborate fairly constructively in most circumstances (e.g. "Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld" DYK). If something like that could happen with Mathsci, I'd be more than happy: it's at least in part up to the community now to discriminate whether that could be attempted. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:06, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: I agree with most of what Fram said above, however not with "... both have a long history of ... being too focused on each other ..." (my emphasis), at least not from my side. Mathsci has a very unhealthy obsession for me, at least, that's my POV (since you were asking to "hear [my] POV about [my] own behavior"). Other than POV, I'd of course be prepared to give diffs and/or explain my diffs if they would be prone to misunderstanding. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:06, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

In response primarily to Beyond My Ken, but really to the rest of you as well re "both sides" and their participation here. At a particularly lengthy and fraught ANI episode involving these two editors, but primarily FS, I wrote:

"You have a lot to offer. Your edits are often very valuable and you are clearly dedicated to improving Wikipedia. But you do that at the expense of exhausting and driving off equally valuable editors from articles and making talk page discussions intolerable. Yes, improving the Bach articles is important but so is common courtesy, cooperation, and respect for your colleagues. I know it's not easy to find several editors criticising you in a public forum, but I encourage you to reflect a bit on what we're saying. If you don't, I'm afraid you'll end up here again and again."

FS failed to do so and instead concentrated there on attacking other editors and trying to lay all blame on everyone else. He is exhibiting the same behaviour here so far. I too hope he now changes his tactics, but it seems unlikely. That ANI resulted in him being restricted to one revert per page in any calendar month. The restriction lasted 6 months and applied to all pages except his own user and user talk pages. It brought blessed relief to those of editing in the classical music area. However, once the restriction ended, he returned to his previous practices. Ditto Mathsci's promises when he was unblocked after making egregious personal attacks in another topic area that same year [42].

What we have here are two different "styles" of dealing with conflict and indeed creating it. Both are equally disruptive to the rest of us. Both demonstrate a spectacular lack of self-awareness. Francis never makes egregious personal attacks (only persistent and veiled ones, including ones in this very discussion), but can be so severely tendentious that he drives other editors (not just Mathsci) away from some topics and creates a simply awful atmosphere. When Mathsci becomes personally or emotionally invested in a topic, he finds it nigh on impossible to stop writing enormous walls of text which simply replicate content arguments rather than seeking a solution to behavioural issues, including his own. As in the most recent case, these can soon degenerate into very egregious personal attacks. His approach likewise creates a simply awful atmosphere. This would be a "no blame" 2-way IBan. It has the potential to bring a bit of peace and quiet to us all. However, unless both of these editors seriously reflect on what's being said here, it may be only temporary and ultimately result in a loss of editing privileges for both of them. Voceditenore (talk) 09:30, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Agree. Andrewa (talk) 12:53, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

... talk about regurgitating stale business: FYI, I was sanctioned in the 2016 ANI episode (BTW, you were the third to link to it from this discussion), I soaked it in as closed, lived by the imposed rules, learnt a few lessons and moved on. It is rather characteristic for me to play the blame game as little as possible (I can't recognise myself in "concentrated there on attacking other editors and trying to lay all blame on everyone else"). Doesn't mean everyone can steam-roll over me, and I think that at ANI an open discussion is often most useful in the long run. I'd rather say I wasn't open enough in that 2016 discussion. I've since been back at ANI some times (not always in the role of accused), and it all passed fairly well, again, lessons learnt, some evolution, etc. Describing that as falling back to previous behaviour seems at least a bit unfair (or, engrained in stolid sympathies/antipathies if you like that description better). At Template:Did you know nominations/An Wasserflüssen Babylon, I tried to do Gerda a favour by offering my services after the DYK seemed (again) to have ground down in immobility. That's my current behaviour, and I'm open to see it analysed. Yes I made an error there and then: I should have taken Mathsci to AN3, for others to assess, after they removed my talk page comment (addressed at Gerda!) a few times in less than half an hour, and then again, after Gerda had replied to it.

I obviously can't talk for Mathsci. I can talk about how I experience them: their behaviour seems again tangentially coming closer to the place that got them a few long-term blocks. In short, I don't think the bolded "Both" brings us nearer to a solution today (even if it ever would have). WP:AN participants, I think you can do better than that. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:02, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

In my view, what went on at An Wasserflüssen Babylon and Template:Did you know nominations/An Wasserflüssen Babylon, which precipitated the current discussion and which I have analysed in detail in the previous section, illustrates exactly the same problems in the 2016 incident. I note that the "offer of your services" has not been responded to by Gerda nor has she further edited the article she created. I can't say that I blame her for walking away and I consider both you and Mathsci responsible for that outcome. You are of course entitled to you own opinion of what went on there. I'll let others decide. Voceditenore (talk) 16:28, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

My last edits to the article were fixes reference errors. I gave up, not knowing how their system works, nor which ref supports what fact. Mathsci knows but is not available. - I have plenty of other things to do, and avoid conflict whenever I can. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:40, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Then a practical first step could be to return to a reference system you're comfortable with, per WP:CITEVAR. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:58, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Agree.

And that is not an unusual outcome when violations of WP:NPA occur. The most spectacular case that I have yet seen was the involvement of User:Viktor van Niekerk with trying to warn myself and Janet Marlow (not the runner by that name) away from the ten-string guitar page. Viktor and Janet are arguably (and in my opinion) the two most significant ten-string guitarists now living, and both were once Wikipedians, contributing to guitar related articles (naturally). However Viktor is passionate about promoting the original tuning of the ten-string classical guitar, while Janet uses a different tuning. Over a period of time Viktor repeatedly attacked Janet (and me) with increasing venom and he was eventually indeffed, but it took a while, and meantime Janet quietly left. Had we taken earlier action to address Viktor's personal attacks we would IMO certainly have retained Janet, and quite possibly Viktor as well, we will never know.

My point in saying all that is that we can easily underestimate the damage done by personal attacks. Andrewa (talk) 05:20, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

What a bad breath. Voceditenore and Andrewa, could you please stop your wild accusations? This starts to reflect very badly on both of you. I have nothing to do with User:Viktor van Niekerk, nor with ten-string classical guitar articles. "Mathsci went on to increasingly bizarre and totally unacceptable personal attacks on FS", that far I agree with Voceditenore, but that doesn't implicate me for anything. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:16, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

You have made personal attacks on this very page (do I really need to give the diffs)? That is not a wild accusation. If you have a complaint about my behaviour, raise it on my user talk page. But I would point out that baseless complaints are disruptive.

This section is about your behaviour and that of Mathsci. Please stick to that topic here. Andrewa (talk) 06:33, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I criticize your behaviour in this section: you assume the role of "accuser" and pretend that makes your actions immune to scrutiny. The bad breath that speaks from your wild accusations is unhelpful to reducing tensions. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:11, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

No. I am pretending nothing. My actions are not immune to scrutiny, but this section is not the place to discuss my behaviour. Your claim here that I am making wild accusations is disruptive on several counts. Please desist.

I have been trying hard not to escalate this. You have left me no choice. Done. Andrewa (talk) 18:30, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Drastic proposal to stop the fighting

Based on "Squatters rights" idea further up. Mathsci (MS) is authorized to unilaterally ban FS from 20 articles of his (MS's) choosing, and FS can similarly ban MS from 20. They each privately compose a list of the 20 articles they want to ban the other from and they email their lists to a 3rd editor. After receiving both lists, the 3rd editor posts the lists and the bans go into effect. MS is banned from the articles on FS's list, FS likewise from MS's, and (by linearity) both are banned from any articles on both lists. Maybe they can make some judicious choices with the bans, and then stay out of each others' way for a while. If they want to divvy up the dual-banned articles by mutual agreement (maybe a mediator can help) they can do that, but it's optional. They are both good editors who get a bit irrational sometimes. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 03:47, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

It's worth a try.

We have discussed this long enough and do now need a way forward. Other ideas? Andrewa (talk) 06:36, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Simple IBan is much easier. This proposal will have them clashing again on some article not on the list of 20 in no time. Fram (talk) 07:31, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Can the iban work? Who gets to edit which articles? That was a sticking point further up, though I admit getting glazed over reading parts of it. The above method of dividing up the articles could be in conjunction with an iban. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 09:03, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

See the policy at wp:IBAN. I assume you've read it; What is the problem? Andrewa (talk) 09:18, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Agree. I don't understand why the simple IBan didn't get support above. This is exactly the situation for which an IBan was intended. It's an established, tried and proven measure. So let's revisit it, and this time DO something.

Unless of course one of them gets a lengthy block in the meantime, which is not beyond the bounds of possibility IMO, and would have the desirable side effect of keeping them apart! Andrewa (talk) 09:18, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Per Fram, the list of 20 articles is a needless complication and won't stop a set-to over an article not on the list. Also, it doesn't preclude their melees on article talk pages, DYK nominations etc. The behaviour of both editors, is equally poor, if not worse, on talk pages and merely exacerbates the conflict. For the "glazed over" IP 173.228.123.166, I'll repeat my initial suggestion:

A two-way IBAN to include article space, which bars each of them from editing an article unless they were the first of the two edit it (simple redirects do not count). Make it apply to the article's talk page and to any related discussions about the page as well.

It's possible that just the "normal IBAN" would work since it would preclude them undo each other's edits to any page. Andrewa, I think if you want to make progress on some type of IBAN or other resolution, I suggest you create a separate section, clearly stating what is proposed, and invite participants in this discussion to opine "support" or "oppose" there. If you have two different proposals, i.e. this one and the "normal IBAN", create a separate section for each proposal or the whole thing will become impossibly confused and confusing. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 16:36, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough. The hope was that they would each end up with a set of articles that they were interested in and could edit in "peace", but ok. I did see the quoted iban proposal but felt like it gave too much first-mover advantage. It shouldn't be possible to own an article by making 1 tiny edit to it. Hasn't that been done with a bit more flexibility before? Did it work? 173.228.123.166 (talk) 18:02, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Proposed IBan

I propose and support an IBan on Francis Schonken and Mathsci.

This to be no-fault as no consensus is likely as to whether one is principally responsible for the conflict and which one if so. Its purpose is not to punish but to protect Wikipedia, and recognising both as valued and highly principled editors. Andrewa (talk) 00:09, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Survey

I suggest bulleted support or oppose !votes below, each with a brief rationale (see closing for some hints), but comment on these rationales to take place in the #Discussiuon section below.

• Support per my comments above and per the analysis by Voceditenore. Fram (talk) 06:59, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support No bone in this fight; but from my impression that a) both editors are providing excellent content when not at each other's throats; b) neither is in the least willing to be concessionary if not compelled to; c) there is too much history and dirty laundry on either side for clear disentanglement - an IBAN seems like the best shot. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:52, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support Just for the wish to get this shitshow out of the way. Seems a common sense idea, even if IBANs are rather unwieldy things. talk to !dave 08:57, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support per my various analyses in previous sections, e.g. [43], [44], [45]. Hopefully this will work. The shenanigans have gone on long enough. Voceditenore (talk) 11:21, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support per Fram and Voceditenore. There has been too much disruption of classical music articles due to this longstanding feud.Smeat75 (talk) 17:07, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:06, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

I'm modelling this of course on the RM discussion format. If anyone feels this inappropriate, also comment here and/or on my user talk page. TIA

I have not specified a term. Indefinite is excessive IMO, but not particularly harmful, as either can request it to be lifted (the policy doesn't specifically allow this but surely that is commonsense). Suggestions on the term welcome. Andrewa (talk) 00:29, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Noting that Mathsci has not edited in one week. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:58, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Newyorkbrad, hopefully, his health hasn't worsened, and he has had periods in the past when he has edited infrequently or not at all, e.g. from June to October 2017, which do not appear to be health related. He's made quite lengthy statements in this discussion, although he hasn't suggested any solutions nor has he really reflected on his own behaviour in them. I don't think this current absence (for whatever reason) impacts on any decision concerning an IBan. The problem is what it is. It will not go away unless something concrete is finally done about it. Voceditenore (talk) 16:16, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Agree. Andrewa (talk) 05:56, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Closing

Can some uninvolved admin close this before it automatically archives? Thanks! Fram (talk) 07:16, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

IMO the alternative is to seek a medium-length block on FS, see his latest attempt at communication. But the consensus on the IBan seems strong enough to me (I'm involved of course), and the only agenda is to protect Wikipedia. I remain of the opinion that an IBan is worth a try.

My two past attempts at bringing issues to ANI both auto-archived without closure (one with strong consensus but no action, the other with no comment at all), so I'm now feeling a bit better about that anyway. It seems I may not be the only one. Andrewa (talk) 06:13, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I noticed two recent examples from FS at WT:Wikidata: diff + diff (see "whining"). Johnuniq (talk) 07:32, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

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

Rangeblock assist

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

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Hi all, can someone assist me with doing a range block, please?

• 103.252.25.53 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) - (newest)
• 103.252.25.51 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 103.252.25.60 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

These appear to be the same guy. He's submitting a lot of hoax content. With the most recent IP (*.53), we get edits like this, which at first looks like regular unsourced content, but some of it, like "Dusshera 2017 On Navratris" is just gibberish. Same with this, where we get "The Grihapravesh Pooja At 25th March 2018" and "Also Producer with Sunny Deol And The Producer Films With Dharmendra in Ghayal Once Again." Even if these were sourced, we have serious competency problems, but as we look deeper and see a pattern: this one is also weird, "Star Gold Mumbai Special 6: The Cycle Competition 3 At Wankhede Stadium And The Wonder Of Verma 3D" and no Google hits exist for "The Attacker: Wonder Target" submitted here. Clearly hoax content and we need to stop him. He's been at this for a few weeks. Thank you! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 17:28, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Without commenting on the quality of the edits, it looks like 103.252.25.32/27 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)) is the range you're after. For some reason edits don't go back earlier than 25 May 2018 so if that's the block you want then it probably shouldn't be too long. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:53, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you zzuuzz. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 06:00, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

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

Potentially untagged misspellings report

Hi! Potentially untagged misspellings (configuration) is a newish database report that lists potentially untagged misspellings. For example, Angolan War of Independance is currently not tagged with {{R from misspelling}} and it should be.

Any and all help evaluating and tagging these potential misspellings is welcome. Once these redirects are appropriately identified and categorized, other database reports such as Linked misspellings (configuration) can then highlight instances where we are currently linking to these misspellings, so that the misspellings can be fixed.

This report has some false positives and the list of misspelling pairs needs a lot of expansion. If you have additional pairs that we should be scanning for or you have other feedback about this report, that is also welcome. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:57, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Richard Arthur Norton

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

---

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk · contribs) has a long-ish history of problematic editing which includes five extant editing restrictions. A rare but recent interaction between us was at Mayor of Long Branch, New Jersey, which looked like this when I first saw it and comprised almost entirely contributions from RAN. A spat on his talk page soon followed when I raised his use of the FindAGrave website as a source and also his use of a private email obtained from a librarian (which I think may possibly relate to this upload at Commons. I did a big clean up, although RAN appeared not to even look at the article before his first response in that talk page thread and thus missed it.

Problems found included:

• Use of FindAGrave (WP:SPS, and he knew it because that had been the cause of one of his restrictions)
• Use of a lulu.com source (WP:SPS)
• Use of the private email from a librarian, then amending it where it disagreed with other sources - even the image description noted that it may not be reliable
• Use of thepoliticalgraveyard.com (WP:SPS)
• Use of Wikidata, including unreferenced entries such as this that he had created there himself (arguably a breach of his editing restriction)
• Use of inline notes to familysearch.org
• Use of the quote= parameter of citation templates, despite his editing restriction
• Miscalculations such as here and here
• Dodgy interpretation of sources, such as here, as per this note
• Seemingly unsourced statements, including but not limited to the ones removed here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here

At one point, Ran did a mass revert, claiming my changes were "out of process", which was itself then reverted by Serial Number 54129 here. He then reverted again with a fake edit summary ("Political Graveyard is a reliable source, take it to the talk page", when in fact it was much more). Thereafter, Fram also did some cleaning up.

The fall-out included RAN opening a thread about the politicalgraveyard website at RSN and then almost immediately trying to open a similar discussion at Talk:The Political Graveyard, where he proceeded to edit war with Reyk, Fram and myself in an attempt to keep it open.

I raised some issues at Talk:Mayor_of_Long_Branch,_New_Jersey but mostly got no response, including regarding apparent howlers such as this issue. I also raised some issues on RAN's talk page after the initial thread mentioned above (see this, this and this). The latter of those threads explains my delay in posting this, which is effectively a request for comment now that RfC/U does not exist. Having now returned to editing Wikipedia after a spell where he seems to have been concentrating on Wikidata, we have things such as the edits from 14 June at W. A. Ginn. How can someone who has been here so long fail to get a grasp of WP:RS, WP:V, WP:SYNTHESIS, WP:NPOV (using one source when we know there are conflicting accounts), WP:EW and so on, let alone breaching clear and long-standing specific editing restrictions? Are they really worth the effort involved?

Posted here because RAN's absence makes the specific recent events not "recent" enough for ANI and because the range of problematic behaviour goes beyond what would be dealt with at WP:AE. - Sitush (talk) 05:03, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

• Support indef-Enough non-sense.Completely clueless about our notability guidelines, coupled with spamming various sites via Wiki-data et al.It's time to part with this user, for the greater good.......∯WBG^converse 05:30, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
• Comment - just noting that RAN's recent Wikidata activity aligns with his contributions here since his return regarding mayors of Ashland, Kentucky, so he is creating stuff there using sites that we would consider to be unreliable here and thus arguably effectively trying to game the system. He also stopped a prolific period of editing on WP in the same minute I notified him of this report. That cessation could be coincidence or because he is preparing a reply, of course, but his previous absence following the palaver about the Political Graveyard site, and failure to respond to my queries on his talk page on return, now seems almost like avoidance. I do understand that the projects have different criteria and I do understand that people (including myself with Commons) sometimes do something on one project to enable something on another. Nonetheless, I have tried to AGF but I am finding it difficult, sorry. - Sitush (talk) 06:10, 16 June 2018 (UTC) (Added later: Some of it is very convoluted, eg: this at Wikia (over which we have no control) was imported from List of Mayors of Ashland, Kentucky and then led to this change at Wikidata (over which we also have no control). Other stuff, as at the Long Branch list, seems to go in the opposite direction on to en-WP. It is a house of mirrors, much of which we cannot prevent but which is causing problems. - Sitush (talk) 07:30, 16 June 2018 (UTC))

@Sitush:Apparently he's an admin at Familypedia, but as you said that's out of our control, so they can have him. If you look at his profile over there you can see how obsessed he is with creating entries for non-notable people and "copying and pasting". He even says that he copies and pastes each entry to five different sites. Why would anyone do that?--Rusf10 (talk) 02:36, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

• Strongly Support indef- I don't know if he doesn't understand or if he simply doesn't care. He is always trying to game the system. Given his history of copyright problems (see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard_Arthur_Norton_(1958-_), you'd think he'd steer clear of anything to do with copyright. Yet, just today he advised another editor to upload a work that may be under copyright [46]. When I pointed out to him that this was bad advice, his response was "You cannot prove a negative" [47], as if we can assume that something is not copyrighted until someone proves that it is. Besides that he also mass deproded a bunch of articles without any explanation that I am certain will be deleted because of a clear lack of notability and sourcing. And he loves to "copy and paste" stuff from one article to another. Nothing can be trimmed or shortened. I tried to make some common-sense edits to List of Mayors of Ashland, Kentucky, [48]. He insists on mini-biographies (which are basically just copied and pasted from the articles up for deletion), so we now have trivial details like the names of people's parents, where they worked for their first job, the addresses of their businesses, and what clubs they were members of. He obsessed with including anything and everything he can find and doesn't seem to have any editorial discretion. And his extreme obsession with wikidata is another negative just take a look at the mayor of long branch article to see what I'm talking about (and no I'm not trying to start another wikidata debate here, but he tried to do is something that I don't think anyone else supports). In summary, he's been around a long time and should know the rules, yet he disregards them. He may have a large quantity of edits, but they are not quality edits.--Rusf10 (talk) 06:28, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

(+1) to He (is) obsessed with including anything and everything he can find and doesn't seem to have any editorial discretion.∯WBG^converse 07:08, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose block. Mainly posting as if this is the thread that finally brings RAN down, I'd hate for it to have only unfavourable views. Can't disagree that what's said above might match the opinions of much of the current active community, and for that matter the thinking of certain elite professors. Yet in the eyes of the wiki community as it was back in 2004 when RAN joined, and I suspect in the eyes of most of the world's 4 billion internet users, RAN's edits are very high quality indeed. (To my knowledge, whenever regular internet users are asked their options on wiki deletion matter, a clear majority express a preference for inclusiveness.) So from a broad perspective, RAN's 200k+ edits have been of titanic value.

I feel low reading this thread as Sitush makes a strong case and I feel powerless to refute it. It's like I've let down RAN; over the years we've had some off wiki contact, but I've never emphasised to him how important it is to back down and avoid unwinnable conflict. His unflinching loyalty to old school inclusionist values is beyond admirable, but he needs to understand 99.9999% of the rest of the editing community has changed. The time when it was possible to think the inclusionist flag might prevail ended when Anobody was tragically permbanned back in 2010, some would say a few years earlier. I should have been emailing this to RAN repeatedly over the years, and then by now the message might have got through. I guess its too late now. Maybe sensible editors are going to weigh in and prevent a block, I just don't see it. If consensus for a block develops, I would beg the closing admin to consider a time limited block, even a year, rather than an indef. Then the future Wikipedia might once again benefit from RAN's incredible energy and research abilities. FeydHuxtable (talk) 08:25, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I deliberately did not make much of the inclusionist/notabliity issues as I am aware that, aside from the obvious trivia he adds (eg: that I just removed the place where someone honeymooned), there are areas of debate where RAN may indeed be working within consensus. - Sitush (talk) 08:36, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

LOL. A Nobody is hardly an innocent victim. He's a serial sock puppeteer, troll, supercilious whinger, and fabricator of sources, and he was given far more leeway than anyone on the other side would have been given. The only person to blame for his permaban is A Nobody. Reyk _YO! 11:23, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

• Support sanction. He edit-warred to re-insert findagrave references[49][50] that he added[51][52]. This is a clear violation of an editing restriction ("Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) is prohibited from linking as a reference any external site to which he has contributed"), because findagrave is an external site to which he has contributed[53]. His response to a clear breach of the restriction[54] is unsatisfactory and evasive. I do not oppose a block, but less severe sanctions, such as 0RR, are another option. I also question whether he needs the patroller user right, given that he has never used it[55]. DrKay (talk) 10:08, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

• Reverting is the least of our worries, so ORR isn't going to resolve much. - Sitush (talk) 10:12, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

• Support- RAN has no respect for our inclusion requirements, particularly the ones regarding verifiability and copyright obligations. All he does is try to wikilawyer around them. It's not that he doesn't get the point-- he's had these things explained to him numerous times and at great length-- it's that he's ideologically opposed to the idea of an encyclopedia that omits unverifiable material and excruciating trivia. There's no way he will ever change. Reyk _YO! 11:08, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support indef, since this has been going on for far too long, with no improvement in sight. Adding his own contributions on self-published sources (such as Findagrave) as references here, and creating unsourced/improperly sourced entries at Wikidata and then using them as sources here, violates just about everything that can be violated here, as he very well knows. But he doesn't care about the rules, or about Wikipedia, all he cares about is getting his own material into Wikipedia. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 11:34, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support indef - when even someone like FeydHuxtable cannot see a way forward, there isn't a way forward. I don't think a time-limited block would work because RAN has consistently ignored previous restrictions etc, never showing much sign of learning. - Sitush (talk) 11:46, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support indef (with one option) - frankly this should have been a long time ago, when RAN made it clear he wasn't interested in fixing the massive amount of copyvios that he created previously - see Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20111108. The only non-block I would suggest is that he is left unblocked to complete the fixing of that CCI - and then, and only then - he can continue editing normally. Any edits outside that area would result in an immediate indef. Black Kite (talk) 13:14, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support indef per above. Overdue. Anybody else behaving similarly would have been blocked long ago for WP:IDHT and WP:CIR. -FASTILY 18:58, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support indef as way overdue. Should have happened when the massive copyvios were discovered. -- Tavix ^(talk) 20:14, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support indef This editor has long been well aware of the applicable policies and guidelines. His disregard for the critical importance of complying with our copyright policy, his persistent use of self-published sources against consensus, and his wilful disregard of his editing restrictions means that he is a net negative to the project. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:46, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support indef - The blatant disregard of his editing restriction and the disregard of WP:Verifiability is astounding to say the least, The policies apply to anyone and everyone and if you don't like it you know where the door is, Clearly a net negative (and that's putting it mildly.) –Davey2010^Talk 02:29, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support indef per Fastily, Cullen328 and Dsvey2010, and Black Kite as well, except that I think we're well past the point where RAN can redeem himself through working on his copyright violations: he had his chance, and he willfully ignored it, so that boat sailed long ago. Overdue. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:21, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I seriously doubt extending the time would change the outcome, so I am not asking this to be re-opened, but in my humble opinion having a thread open for just barely over 24 hours to indef a 14-year contributor with 200k+ edits seems... unbalanced somehow. Many people may not edit on weekends, for various reasons. I'll leave it at that and hope this is food for thought, and not an instigation of hostility of any type towards any editor or variety thereof. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 16:01, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

78.26 I was going off of the update to WP:CBAN that had 24 hours as the minimum standard (for bans, but I was applying it here). The consensus was clear and they immediately stopped editing after receiving the notice (which I looked at because of the timing thing), so my assumption was that they were aware and choosing not to respond. Normally these discussions are short if there is a clear consensus so I didn't see the need for the pile-on since 24 hours had passed. I've never interacted with RAN to my knowledge, so there is not hostility or anything. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:10, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

TonyBallioni, I did not think you had hostility towards RAN, and I feel badly that I did not choose my words carefully enough. Profuse apologies. Perhaps I just felt some sadness that several of our long-term content creators, who deserve credit for making this place what it is, have left, for reasons varying from the highly significant to the incredibly inconsequential. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 01:23, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: I’ve opened this again per the concerns below. I have no thoughts on the actual outcome. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:42, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support indef I did not want to pile on since others have adequately expressed my main views above. The failure to abide by community restrictions is bad enough. It has been going on for years and that is typically more than enough to be banned by the community. RAN repeatedly ignoring our policies and the restrictions placed on him to keep others from needing to check his work is disrespectful of the other participants in the project. No matter what their contributions, we simply do not need an editor who repeatedly show nothing but contempt for their fellow editors time and opinions.
  Beyond his evident disrespect and disregard for his fellow editors and the projects policies and norms he is, as described above, creating his own sources to then be used as references in articles he is writing. That is, insofar as Wikipedia can be described as academic, flat out academic dishonesty. So, argueably, we have a serial plagiarist; Who has been gaming Wikipedia's sourcing rules and the restrictions placed on him; Who does not care that he is creating hundreds of hours of work for others to clean up his work and who refuses to take responsibility for, and help clean up his prior potentially copyright violating work; And continues to write problematic material despite multiple sanctions, requests and warnings that he stop... I do not see an upside to his continued participation here. Ban him, make a list of his unchecked articles in case someone else wants to recreate some later and then nuke them. Anyone who wants to check/clean them can request undeletion singly or in small batches. Jbh ^Talk 15:25, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support indef, based on all the above, although I for one am hoping to have my mind changed by a persuasive argument for why we should not indefinitely block RAN. At the moment, I do not see one. Fish+Karate 09:55, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support indef per their statement below "I apologize for my first 100 articles in Wikipedia in which I cut and pasted source material and worked on paraphrasing it in situ, that was clearly wrong. I also used very long quotes which exceeded the fair use parameters for Wikipedia. I worked very hard to identify the in situ paraphrasing and remove the material. I worked very hard to trim the long quotes, even when from public domain sources." The extreme minimalization of their copyvio's, which went far beyond the first 100 articles, where often no work at all was done on paraphrasing it afterwards, and were virtually no work was done by RAN after the CCI was started, coupled with the continued problems (like still using findagrave and other similar sites as a source). Fram (talk) 14:33, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support indef with regret. RAN's philosophy on the use of sources appears incompatible with this project, and the sanctions previously tried have been ineffective in preventing disruption. It's better for everyone involved if he contributes to the dissemination of human knowledge elsewhere (including Wikidata or Familypedia). power~enwiki (π, ν) 15:46, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose indef, without opining on other possible sanctions - I'm having a hard time with this. I think that I have less experience with RAN than many/most others in this thread, so I'm really just going by this thread itself, combined with the knowledge that there have been several past issues as reflected in the outstanding restrictions placed on him. I just have a hard time looking at the list of what I see as quite minor issues at the top of this thread and concluding we should indef someone with 200,000 edits based on those mistakes. I am flummoxed why someone who has had such issues in the past could make a mistake like a lulu.com source, but these are very typical problems that, when done simply to try to build neutral content, should be corrected but aren't indef material. We all know certain editors who persist in using terrible sources because they serve some political or ideological agenda, long-term civil POV pushers, the chronically uncivil, etc. who come through AN/ANI all the time, often without action and extremely rarely with an indef (among editors with more than a few edits). As I understand that I am now placing myself in a rather extreme minority with this view, but to be clear I'm not opposed to other sanctions. 200,000 edits does not, after all, give one permission to make infinite mistakes, as minor as any single handful of them may be. One possibility RAN may want to consider to avoid this indef, given the wide support this measure has received so far, would be to propose a set of even specific restrictions for himself that, if they happen again, would result in an indef (e.g. it should not be hard to avoid lulu.com books or findagrave). People are obviously frustrated with these accumulations of sometimes minor, sometimes negligible, and sometimes significant errors, and it's clear at least part of the community has had enough. Articulating the issues back, committing to stopping them, and ensuring "for real this time" by setting a penalty in advance might (?) help? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:51, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

• But RAN already knew about the findagrave issue, already knew about familysearch, already knew there was an existing consensus regarding the political graveyard site etc, and already knew about his existing editing restrictions. And he chose to ignore all of that and more, repeatedly. How many more inches of rope should he be given? I didn't come here seeking an indef but I am persuaded from the comments of others etc that enough is enough. - Sitush (talk) 17:57, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

• Support indef, but retaining talk-page access, so that RAN can if he wishes start doing what he should have been doing all along – working on clearing his CCI by identifying for each article what was copied and where it was copied from. He could be allowed to appeal the block once the CCI is complete; the other very real concerns about his editing could then be addressed if we ever get to that point. In passing, since this is the administrators noticeboard: I just can't understand why any editor with an open CCI would be allowed to continue editing – it seems completely counter-productive. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:07, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

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

RAN's userspace articles

@TonyBallioni:- Since RAN's article creation ban was enacted, RAN has created a large amount of articles in hi userspace. Being that he is now indeffed and it is unlikely that anyone will ever review those articles for copyvio (the review of the mainspace articles will probably never be completed), I think it would be appropriate to delete the pages in his userspace since copyvio is not supposed to be allowed anywhere on wikipedia.--Rusf10 (talk) 01:34, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

While this would be a de facto presumption of guilt, I think it may well be justified considering RAN's long and precipitous history. Recall that they were once an admin, and have had sanction after sanction placed on them. Their copyright violations were numerous, and it's hardly a giant leap, given RAN's cavalier and apparently uncaring attitude toward the clean-up process, and their gaming of their other sanctions (which resulted in harsher sanctions), to assume that there would be copyright violations in their userspace articles if they all were examined individually, a laborious process which few editors will have an interest in undertaking. In any event, if RAN is unblocked in the future, they can make the case for undeletion of specific articles at DRN.

Given that the nuclear option wasn't taken to deal with the Neelix redirects, I suppose it's unlikely that it will be used here either, but I think the community really should consider that forcing editors to fix these kinds of problems with time- and effort-consuming long-term projects instead of simple mass deletion is a waste of our resources. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:09, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

And the fact that, post-ban here, RAN is still working at WikiData is, I'm afraid, another reason why I will resolutely oppose the introduction of WikiData material to this project unless and until the good folks heading that project get their house in order. - Sitush (talk) 03:44, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I have just done a very random check of the draft items in RAN's userspace and it seems that a decent number which exist there have in fact already gone live, eg: see this summary. (Mind, that article is dubious re: notability and I've had to remove a claim of parentage that was not in the cited source!) - Sitush (talk) 04:10, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• If I had been aware that this discussion was taking place, I would have opposed the imposition of a block per FeydHuxtable. I can think of a way forward, and it goes like this: If telling an editor which sources they are not allowed to use does not work, then tell them which sources they are allowed to use. For example, we are still missing several thousand exceptionally notable dead people from the 1885 and 1912 Dictionary of National Biography. For each of those people there is a sufficiently reliable public domain source. No one could make a mess of their initial first draft placeholder creation. The task is idiot proof. And it needs to be done urgently. James500 (talk) 04:40, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• But you could say that of pretty much anyone - vandal-only accounts, promoters, pov-pushers etc. There is no deadline and, personally, I'd much prefer people actually paraphrased even public domain sources rather than copy/pasted what is often florid language etc. Are you aware of how much volunteer time RAN has wasted over the years? And how little he has seemed to care about his editing restrictions? What makes you think he would abide by the restrictions that you suggest? - Sitush (talk) 05:14, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

RAN is under a number of restrictions, including one from creating new articles. But it really doesn't matter. He would end up using inappropriate references in the end. Or try and work around it by uploading his own material to third party sites and then using them as refs here. Or violating our copyvio policy. Its an old story. He is at the end of a process which has bent over backwards to allow him to still contribute. Looks like most of his subpages were moved by Rich F in 2016. Only in death does duty end (talk) 05:21, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

And some will be duplicates, eg: User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Walter Francis O'Malley vs. Walter O'Malley. - Sitush (talk) 05:47, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Only in Death has it right. Whatever new restriction you give him it will not matter, he will always try to find some loophole to get around it, he thinks he smarter than everyone else here. I understand it is possible that some the the articles in his userspace may actually be decent articles without any problem, but because of the time involved to determine that it makes much more sense for us to just delete everything and not have to worry about the copyvios. Also, I never understood why it should be okay to copy and paste from public domain sources. It may not be illegal, but its still not the right way to do things. Can you imagine being back in school and handing in a paper. The teacher reads it and tells you its plagiarized and you say "no, I didn't do anything wrong, I only copied and pasted from public domain sources" You'd get an F and in my opinion any wikipedia editor who does the same thing is an F-quality editor.--Rusf10 (talk) 06:09, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

"Plagiarism" is not a valid concept, it is a political weapon, the function of which is to enable the people at the top of society to oppress the masses, to promote themselves, and to stay at the top. It is a new-fangled ghastly innovation. It is censorship, which attacks freedom of expression and freedom of information. In the absence of legal compulsion, Wikipedia should have no regard to it whatsover. Wikipedia is not an exam, and editors are not being graded on the quality of their original ideas (which they are not allowed to express here). Paraphrasing public domain sources is often prohibitively time consuming (not cost effective) and introduces new errors. Many of our editors are not capable of paraphrasing sources accurately. They should not merely be permitted to copy public domain sources. For them, it should be strictly compulsory. It is generally better to have a WP:IMPERFECT placeholder article than no article at all (BLP is an exception, pre-1923 history is not). The vast number of unacceptable red links is a far more serious problem than the possible incidental introduction of a small amount of 'quaint' material that can be removed later. All those redlinks make our existing articles incomprehensible by depriving them of the context necessary to understand them. Many of the older sources (outside of certain fields in science and technology (in particular) where "progress" is a real thing) are as good as or better than more recent sources (which are often substantially copied from the older sources anyway, or simply non-existent). There is a deadline. If the encyclopedia is not expanded into a reasonable state within our lifetimes, it has failed to serve its purpose. It is not presently in a reasonable state because of all those wretched infernal redlinks that need to turn blue ASAP and all that missing context that needs to appear ASAP. James500 (talk) 08:35, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@James500: You need to read WP:Plagiarism. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:04, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Paraphrasing public domain sources is often prohibitively time consuming ... and introduces new errors Umm ... I've seen people say the same thing about non-PD sources. It did not end well. Yeah, we are allowed lift text from PD sources, with appropriate attribution, but complaining about how time-consuming normal source-based Wikipedia editing is is not a good look: you should consider rephrasing. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:16, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@James500: we are drifting off topic but if you haven't seen the problems caused by copy/pasting from PD sources, you are part of that problem. While the attribution may exist at creation, the practical effect is that any subsequent contributions cause a mangling and we lose the attribution specifics. Admittedly, that could be avoided if, for example, people attributed at least each paragraph rather putting a blanket note at the bottom of the article ... but historically that has been a rare occurrence. And the old PD sources are often of dubious reliability anyway - see WP:HISTRS for background info. Basically, just because we can do it doesn't mean we should do it. We have tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of pages that are well-nigh worthless because of this lazy approach to building the 'pedia. It was accepted back in the early 2000s when the aim was to create mass rapidly; it is much less accepted now. - Sitush (talk) 10:21, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@James500: - re-ping, see above. - Sitush (talk) 10:21, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

(1) That is one of the most incompetent essays I have ever read. A work of history, no matter how scholarly, written many years after the fact must never be taken at face value. You must always identify and examine its sources. This is the consensus opinion of professional historians. See, for example, Betty Radice, "Introduction" in Aubrey de Selincourt's translation of "The War with Hannibal" by Livy (Penguin Books, 1965), p 11. That essay is a perfect example of why WP:V and WP:NOR need to be applied to the project namespace immediately and with full force. I am sick to death of the project namespace being used as a vehicle for this kind of crackpot WP:FRINGE original research. If you people are going to write essays about the historical method, use reliable sources to find out what the historical method is first. Stop making stuff up. (2) Leeds University recommends the use of several nineteenth century biographical dictionaries: [56]. Real historians of the Victorian era use, and lean heavily on, those and other nineteenth century sources, and you will find them cited everywhere in the most recent literature. Many of the articles in the ODNB are taken verbatim from the 1885 DNB, which was the leading source in its field until recently. If it is good enough for them . . . (I am well aware of the limitations of sources, and I agree that inline citations should be used, but you can't realistically expect to hold the first draft of an article to a higher standard than the University of Oxford: do so and we will suffer the same fate as Nupedia. In any event, Charles Matthews has done such a good job improving articles taken from DNB that we likely have no problems there). James500 (talk) 18:39, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Why is it that whenever the community shows even the smallest degree of unanimity about dealing with a problematic editor, someone is bound to pop up and decry its injustice?
Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:48, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• Comment This is one of the most disgusting moments of Wikipedia history, the 24 hours in which the Wolfpack managed to encircle and disembowel one of our most productive creators of 19th century biography. We see a huge indictment by Sitush including the absolutely incorrect detail that Lawrence Kestenbaum's one-person-edited Political Graveyard.com is a "Self-Published Source" and we get to witness my personal friend Cullen328 piling on, not the mention of a couple of individuals who, in a just world, would themselves have been shown the door at WP long, long ago. Repulsive. Carrite (talk) 14:11, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

  Reply That is some impressive hyperbole, Carrite, but since you pinged me, I think I will respond. Yes, we are friends but even friends sometimes disagree. To me, "piling on" describes a situation where editors gleefully call for a severe sanction without looking carefully at the evidence. Maybe you have a different definition. As for me, I have been looking at evidence of RAN's misconduct for quite a few years and I am saddened rather than feeling any schadenfreude. This editor was once an administrator and lost that and has had serious editing restrictions imposed by the community. I am no metaphorical wolf and RAN is no innocent lamb. RAN is well aware of our policies and guidelines, and that the principle of consensus guides our editing at all times. Unlike thousands of productive editors (including me) who have never been sanctioned, desysopped or subjected to editing restrictions, this particular lamb is a multiple repeat offender, who has persisted despite the sanctions. An indefinite block is not the same fate as having one's innards gnawed at by wolves. RAN could have a (non-religious) epiphany, and could write a sincere, persuasive promise to the community, acknowledging all past mistakes and pledging to adhere to community norms in the future. That could work. Do wolves offer that option? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:45, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

• The Political Graveyard site was deemed unreliable at RSN on several occasions and RAN was aware of that even before opening the new discussion there to which I referred. Kestenbaum himself has said it is self-published. As for the rest, I can't really comment except to say that it did look like a pile-on was starting but it also looks like the close was done according to our guidelines. If you want it re-opened, ask TonyBallioni or find some other admin prepared to overturn it. - Sitush (talk) 14:15, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

That is completely fucking ridiculous. Unreliable for what? It's a valuable resource. That's a bogus ruling by a handful of obsessives reigning in their little unproductive fiefdom and you as an article creator should be ashamed of even going that route of argumentation... It is self-published by Kestenbaum, obviously, because EVERY SINGLE BLOG ON THE ENTIRE INTERNET is self-published by an individual. One hundred percent. Do you advocate the elimination of ALL BLOGS from Wikipedia? RFC awaits your proposal. Additional observation: nice work doing this hit-job after 5 pm on a Saturday evening and running on a holiday Sunday in the United States. Perfect timing there, couldn't have possibly been done better. Carrite (talk) 14:20, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

User:Carrite - What holiday in the United States? Anyway, take a chill pill. You are projecting extreme emotion without conveying a message. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:50, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Father's Day (it took me a while to figure that out) power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:52, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

It was also my sister-in-law's birthday. Obviously all complaints and discussions should have been suspended. EEng 16:59, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Ah, I did wonder. I never knew Father's Day was a holiday. Just as well we don't force this issue because the number of festivals in Hinduism would mean nothing ever happened here. - Sitush (talk) 17:04, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Also a lot of blogs are published by companies so that over-the-top shouting was also incorrect. Natureium (talk) 17:03, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes which is why self-published blogs are only reliable for the views of the person publishing them, or about themselves, or if anyone can make a convincing argument the self-published blogger is an expert in their field such that their opinion is relevant. This is basic stuff carrite as you well know. The fact is no one made a convincing argument political graveyard (in a number of discussions) as effectively a self-published blog passes the bar for being a reliable source. It needs to *demonstrate* its reliability in order to be used. Also you may want to strike the bullshit about holidays in the US, not everyone is in the US and neither knows nor cares about its holidays. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:30, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, blogs should not be used as sources for wikipedia and am actually surprised that anyone would suggest otherwise, see WP:UGC. The political graveyard may be useful as a tool to start research, but it should never be cited as a source. It's been proven to be unreliable as per the discussion here. Even I'll admit that the discussion above was closed a little quickly, so I don't mind it being reopened, but I doubt the outcome will change. RAN has a blatant disregard for policy and what's really disgusting is that a few people keep trying to prop him up.--Rusf10 (talk) 15:05, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually, because of Carites comment, I did ten seconds of research, which shows Political Graveyard being cited in a books published by academic publishers Routledge, and Brookings. And that is just ten seconds, so has anyone actually researched it? Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:26, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes. And they found errors. And Kestenbaum has admitted to errors. And, as I am going to get fed up of saying, my report was not solely related to that site. In fact, that site is the least of the problems raised. - Sitush (talk) 15:29, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

A multitude of our sources have errors, and we applaud them for admitting it, in fact, it's counted in their favor. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:38, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

And who gives a crap in the context of the entirety of my opening remarks here? You can take that back to RSN if you want but the consensus was do not use it even before RAN opened the last discussion there. You and Carrite both are sidetracking things. Top of the list: RAN was still breaching a multitude of his editing restrictions and doesn't respond to much when queried. - Sitush (talk) 15:41, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Sidetracked? On a railroad, is it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:55, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

No idea. What is a railroad? - Sitush (talk) 16:02, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

See railroaded - that's where sidetrack comes from. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:31, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

The political graveyard issue is pretty much decided, if you look at the last discussion (initiated by RAN and linked in my comments above), an editor was able to find mistakes just by looking into the first few entries on the site. However, if you want to discuss that issue more, feel free to open another thread at WP:RSN. Now, to get back on track (I had to say it), the politcal graveyard issue was just one of many that Sitush outlined above and it is relatively minor compared to some of the others. The bigger issue is RAN's constant gaming of his editing restrictions and our overall COPYVIO policy, his lack of editorial discretion, and his constant refusal to accept consensus.--Rusf10 (talk) 19:52, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• If there is consensus to reopen it, I have no problem doing so. In cases like this, where the support was clear and the minimum time has elapsed, I typically try to avoid further beating of a dead horse both out of respect for the individual being discussed and for the community’s time as a whole. It popped up on my watchlist, I saw there was a clear consensus, and I was going off of the policy requirements for a CBAN and the clear community support an indef had. My thinking was (and is) that keeping it open longer would have made the situation worse from a human perspective and the best thing to do would be to close it since consensus had been reached. Like I said, if there is consensus to reopen it, I don’t mind doing so. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:28, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• While I'd personally agree an indefinite block for RAN is probably the best option, I do think 24 hours could be seen as 'railroading' and am confident Carrite has an exceptional defense prepared that will convincingly demonstrate to us all why RAN should not be blocked; I'd like to give him the opportunity to provide us with this. Fish+Karate 14:37, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
• I didn't realise it was a holiday in the US until you mentioned it. No-one else has, either. And it is 5pm somewhere in the world every hour, and it was actually something like 6 am here when I posted it. So consider some AGF. As for the site, consider CONSENSUS. As for the rest: you haven't even said anything beyond a description of it as a "huge indictment". There is a whole lot more to this that one website. - Sitush (talk) 15:01, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Survey

There's really only two options here, so let's start a survey.

• Support Deletion of all userspace articles- I understand the presumption of guilt argument, but given that these articles are written solely by a known copyvio editor, it would be a waste of time (assuming anyone would even volunteer to do it) to go through these article one by one and determine if they are in compliance. It's already an onerous task to go though his mainspace article which is still nowhere near completion. Unlike the mainspace articles, deleting the userspace articles really is not going to be disruptive to the encyclopedia. It may be unfair to him to delete these, but its more unfair to everyone else to keep hosting plagiarized material. Besides he's probably going to upload the articles to five other sites (none of which are our responsibility), if he hasn't done so already, so technically he won't be losing anything--Rusf10 (talk) 03:23, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support deletion of all userspace articles - per my reasoning above. [57] Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:49, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
• Query - a lot of the items in his userspace are now redirects because other people - notably, Rich F - moved the creations into mainspace. Would deleting those affect attribution? - Sitush (talk) 04:25, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

No, if it has already been moved it would not be affected. Likewise, if there is a page that someone really wants they can go ahead and move it now before this is implemented. However, they are warned if they do so, they will take full responsibility for the copyvio (if there is one).--Rusf10 (talk) 04:28, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

If there's consensus to delete these, perhaps it would make sense to allow for some time period (say, 2 weeks or a month) during which other editors can look for salvageable material. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 05:47, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

The articles have been in existence for years already, there's been more than enough time. If editors really want to help they can focus on the mainspace articles that have been flagged since those are not going away.--Rusf10 (talk) 11:17, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. This is truly ridiculous. Users are spending hundreds of hours of thsir life cleaning up Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations, without getting any encouragement or reward, and now you come and say "not salvageable, mass-delete all of them"? Sure, we can blow up the whole Wikipedia because someone likes to be visible at noticeboards, but have respect to what others have done.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:52, 20 June 2018 (UTC) Misread the proposal, did not realize it was userspace. I am not surprised that Fram feels disrespect for me though. And, well, I did spend time on CCI., contrary to the falser claim below.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:22, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
  • You know that CCI's don't deal with userspace articles? And that your opposition to this deletion will only create more unrewarded clean-up work, not less? Please explain how not deleting these pages shows "respect to what others have done" at the RAN CCI, because I, as one of those who has spent many hours at the RAN CCI (unlike, I think, you?) only feel disrespect for that work from a "strong oppose" like yours, not from the proposal to delete these pages. Fram (talk) 07:15, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
    • Thanks for striking your oppose. However, please read what I said; I feel disrespect "from" an oppose like yours, I don't feel disrespect "for" you. And you may have spent time on the RAN CCI, that's why I posed it as a question; however, I don't see your name at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20111108, Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20111108 02, Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20111108 03... so where exactly did you spend time on the RAN CCI? Fram (talk) 08:27, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
      • I did participate in CCI, which was or was not RAN CCI, I do not remember, to be honest. I stopped dealing with any copyright issues when I gave up my admin flag. However, I do feel uncomfortable discussing anything at all with Fram, because I feel under a constant attack, and I do not think I will be reacting to them any more.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:37, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support deletion, mostly years-old copies of mainspace articles or pages which would never make a stand-alone article anyway. Coupled with the copyvio and attribution problems, getting rid of them is the safest option. Fram (talk) 07:15, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

RAN response

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

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Sitush and Rusf are strongly opposed to two positions that I advocate for, 1) linking people in lists to Wikidata (like we do for individual biographical articles) and 2) the inclusion of lists of mayors in Wikipedia. Rusf has nominated the mayor lists for deletion multiple times. This is the cause of the friction between us. There is currently an RFC on whether we should link to Wikidata for people that appear in lists. The first RFC was inconclusive, the second RFC is closed but has not been accessed for consensus. I will abide by the ruling there. I created an example of what the linking would look like at Mayor of Long Branch, New Jersey to see what the plusses and minuses would like. The bad, a sea of red links if we use {{ILL}} and we can't use redirects (ILL was one of the options at the Rusf RFC) and the other method a hidden annotation such as <!--Q123456-->.

I apologize for my first 100 articles in Wikipedia in which I cut and pasted source material and worked on paraphrasing it in situ, that was clearly wrong. I also used very long quotes which exceeded the fair use parameters for Wikipedia. I worked very hard to identify the in situ paraphrasing and remove the material. I worked very hard to trim the long quotes, even when from public domain sources. Here is what I suggest to reduce the current friction between Sitush and Rusf10 and myself. I agree that the lists of mayors may not be wanted and may not be useful, and it was wrong to advocate for them so strongly. I will not create any more standalone mayor lists in the English Wikipedia until consensus is firm that they are wanted and useful. It was wrong to create an experiment linking to Wikidata from a list of mayors. I will no longer experiment with linking to Wikidata from tables/lists until consensus is firm that they are wanted and useful. I will work closely with a mentor to ensure that I comply fully.

You are wrong, certainly with regard to me. I don't think I have ever commented about the utility or otherwise of any list of mayors, nor about redlinks. And my list of your problematic contributions goes way beyond linking to Wikidata. I did not even realise the RfC to which you refer was going on until after you mentioned it. You're still not understanding the sheer range of your problematic editing, sorry, and until now have actually buried your head in the sand most of the time, ignoring queries etc. You're not showing evidence of being here to collaborate, nor to abide by longstanding policies and your own editing restrictions. - Sitush (talk) 13:58, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I for one cannot accept this apology. It doesn't address all the issues and RAN tries to downplay his wrongdoing. He only makes very minor concessions including things that he is already banned from doing. I apologize for my first 100 articles in Wikipedia in which I cut and pasted source material and worked on paraphrasing it in situ, that was clearly wrong. No, there are over 650 articles, stop trying to downplay you actions. Also, you never even attempted to help clean up this mess. I also used very long quotes which exceeded the fair use parameters for Wikipedia. I worked very hard to identify the in situ paraphrasing and remove the material. I worked very hard to trim the long quotes, even when from public domain sources. No, you are currently banned from uses the quote parameter when citing sources and I've even seen you game that by putting the quote outside of the parameter. I will not create any more standalone mayor lists in the English Wikipedia until consensus is firm that they are wanted and useful. Do you think everyone here is stupid? You are currently banned from creating articles, so how is this a concession? I can see this be gamed as I didn't create the article, I just expanded it.I will work closely with a mentor to ensure that I comply fully. Who would that be?--Rusf10 (talk) 14:58, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Crocodile tears. If RAN really meant what he said about his first 100 articles, he would have participated in the effort to clean them up. He didn't, even when doing so was a condition toward being able to move his new articles into mainspace. He simply continued to make articles in his userspace, allowing others to move them, and gamed his other sanctions, which garnered him tighter sanctions. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:10, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

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

Vandalism

This user SheriffIsInTown is trying to distort facts and vandalize articles based on his personal believes. Initially, he deleted the word "Islamist" from this article Fazlullah (militant leader), in which he said (check the article's revision history): "We [wait .. what?] do not recognize him as a Muslim, people like him have no religion", then he added: "his actions have no grounds in Shariah practiced by many Muslims, if someone distorts the religion, you cannot associate their action with the religion, the term is offensive to majority Muslims plus Wikipedia is not Trump mouth piece that we must call them Islamist". I wonder if such actions are acceptable here. I do not want to waste my time to argue with such user for the obvious reasons; therefore, I kindly ask you to deal properly with this issue. 27.95.195.40 (talk) 12:35, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

ANI is not a forum to discuss content disputes and it was not vandalism to preserve neutral point of view, we should not be using offensive terms on Wikipedia only because certain sections of society promote them. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 13:02, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I expect you'll be PRODing the images of Muhammad article now? 74.70.146.1 (talk) 14:08, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

What is this off-topic comment supposed to mean here? A personal attack on my belief? We are discussing something else here and you are talking about something else! Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 16:26, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

SheriffIsInTown, nothing generally happens with a single bad edit, but let me be clear: keep up this kind of activity, and you'll be seeing this page pretty quickly. It's neither a personal attack nor a comment on your belief: it's a comment on your disruption of articles and the patterns of editing typically demonstrated by others who disrupt articles in this manner. Nyttend (talk) 02:41, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

@Nyttend: Keep up with what kind of activity? And how do you describe it as a bad edit or disruption? I left a note on the talk page of the article, how about you respond to it if you think it was not right to remove that term. I consider above comment from IP as a comment on my belief, it's my belief I am talking about, you would not understand it because you are not in my position. Why issue such an off-topic comment while the discussion is about a totally different article? Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 03:48, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

There are far more reliable sources referring to Fazlullah as Islamist beyond the ones cited in the article, and it's not hard to find them. But the reason your edit was a bad edit is that it was based on your personal convictions. But the neutral point of view doesn't care what you think, it doesn't care what you feel, it doesn't care what you find offensive, and it definitely doesn't care who you think counts as a Muslim. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:20, 17 June 2018 (Ufar

@Someguy1221: Can you cite some of those references as I have not seen any so far and it would be better if you can reply to my arguments at article talk page. It is not my personal conviction at all as I have already described on article talk page with argument as to why I think the term is irrelevant, misplaced and undue. According to a reliable source posted on the talk page, fifty religious scholars decreed actions of Taliban unislamic, of which Fazlullah was a member/head and there are only two out of forty seven sources which use that term and that too indirectly. Don't we base our article on reliable sources?

Moreover, this thread should have been closed a long time ago as no discussion took place and they just took a minor content dispute straight to ANI. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 04:26, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

SherriffIsInTown, you already have one ARBIPA restriction on your editing; please do not invite another. I can understand that the large number of non-violent practicing Muslims find the categorization of a militant as "Islamist" offensive, but that does not matter to Wikipedia, as you ought to be aware by now. As two other admins have already told you, if you continue to base your edits on your personal views rather than on reliable sources, you are likely to be banned from the entire ARBIPA area in short order. Vanamonde (talk) 08:32, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Sheriff, whether or not Islamism ought to be considered truly Islam is irrelevant. Is this person "advocating that public and political life should be guided by Islamic principles" or seeking "full implementation of sharia", to quote the Islamism article? Is he doing things in the name of Islam, regardless of whether it's orthodox or heretical? The passage in question doesn't even say that he was a Muslim (are you seriously suggesting that he never proclaimed the shahadah before witnesses?), but rather that he was part of a group holding this philosophy. It's like a Christian deleting "he was part of a Christian Identity group" from a biography because the subject isn't truly a Christian: whether or not the person truly is a Christian is irrelevant, because only the group membership and its adherence to "Christian Identity" principles are being stated. Nyttend (talk) 11:50, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I will accept the consensus, whatever it is. I left the note on the talk and have no intention to remove that term unless there is a clear consensus for removing it. It was a bold edit, discussion should have followed through instead of a direct report to ANI under a Vandalism heading as it was a content dispute not vandalism. When reasons are given for change, the edits should not be categorized as vandalism, it was an overstatement and exaggeration. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 12:40, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

List of WWE personnel

I need some monitoring at article, I requested further protection but response needed there at WP:RFP Thread List of WWE Personnel. Admins especially from members of Wikiproject Professional Wrestling needed please. Issues regarding separating or keeping 205 Live under RAW Section. Also has multiple discussions at talk page. CK (talk) 15:55, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

ANOTHER cosmic wrestling issue. EEng 07:45, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

How can the Interaction Timeline be useful in reporting to noticeboards?

The Anti-Harassment Tools team built the Interaction Timeline to make it easier to understand how two people interact and converse across multiple pages on a wiki. The tool shows a chronological list of edits made by two users, only on pages where they have both made edits within the provided time range. Our goals are to assist users to make well informed decisions in incidents of user misconduct and to keep on-wiki discussions civil and focused on evidence.

We're looking to add a feature to the Interaction Timeline that makes it easy to post statistics and information to an on-wiki discussion about user misconduct. We're discussing possible wikitext output on the project talk page, and we invite you to participate! Thank you, For the Anti-Harassment Tools team, SPoore (WMF), Trust & Safety, Community health initiative (talk) 21:28, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Macedonia 2: Motion

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

The Arbitration Committee clarifies that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Macedonia) may be modified by an RfC discussion. The discussion must remain open for at least one month after it is opened, and the consensus must be assessed by a panel of three uninvolved contributors. In assessing the consensus, the panel is instructed to disregard any opinion which does not provide a clear and reasonable rationale explained by reference to the principles of naming conventions and of disambiguation, or which is inconsistent with the principles of the neutral point of view policy or the reliable sources guideline.

For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 14:34, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Macedonia 2: Motion

Andrew Davidson disruptive editing in AfD

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

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Ever since User:Andrew Davidson was placed on notice last year, he didn't change his ways and continued with a pattern of editing that is clearly disruptive. He has voted "keep" on a large number of AfDs of fictional elements without merit [58] [59], clearly he understands notability criteria but continues to waste vast amounts of editors' time arguing with him and sway deletion discussions in contravention of Wikipedia guidelines. I don't recall a single time he actually voted "Delete", indicating that he is deliberately trolling. He also deletes PRODs with no reason given, forcing them to go to AfD. If he is a "keepist", he certainly hasn't demonstrated any legitimate, valid reasons why articles should be kept._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 19:37, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

• When Zxcvbnm talks of being "placed on notice", he's referring to RfA. But his complaint now is about deletion discussions, which is quite a different matter. It seems that we differ in our opinion of the topics that he is nominating but that's why we have AfD -- to discuss and resolve such differences. Zxcvbnm's idea seems to be that he should be able to delete things without any debate. This is not our policy. The first case given as an example is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Swamp monster. There was no consensus to delete in that case and the keep !votes outnumbered the deletes. This is the process working as it is supposed to. Andrew D. (talk) 20:10, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

• Comment I'm no inclusionist, and there's nothing here. The two diffs provided aren't at all concerning, and if that's the worst in the past 5 months this can be closed quickly. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:28, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
• Agree with power. Those two keep comments are very reasonable, and the previous discussion was about a whole different issue. ansh666 20:43, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
• I don't see any evidence of disruptive editing at all here. The ANI you linked to was about Andrew's participation in RfA, not AfD, and there was no consensus on whether even that was disruptive. !Voting keep in AfDs is by no means disruptive, and if his arguments are really without merit then they can be easily dismissed by the closing admin. Other editors are not obligated to "argue" with him if they disagree. WP:PROD explicitly states that anyone may object and that giving a reason is not mandatory. Your implication that being a firm inclusionist is automatically "trolling" is frankly ridiculous. Preserving content is policy and many editors chose to limit their participation in AfD to saving articles from deletion. – Joe (talk) 20:44, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

• I am indeed usually looking for topics to save but, for the record, note that I sometimes !vote the other way. For a recent example, see Criticisms_of_medicine. Andrew D. (talk) 21:09, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

• Support indefinite topic ban on article deletion, broadly construed (changed from "AFDs" since much of the recent disruption has been at deletion-related discussion fora rather than the AFDs themselves) This has been a long time coming. This user (including his sock account Colonel Warden (talk · contribs)) has spent years showing up on AFDs of articles in niche academic fields like Japanese poetry, literary theory, classical mythology Asuka-Nara period Japanese history, Sikhism, comparative mythology, everyday Japanese vocabulary which he laughably presented as Buddhist philosophy, and so on, invariably pretending to be familiar with the scholarly literature, with the goal of preventing the articles from being deleted/redirected. This is highly disruptive because AFD closers are not topic specialists, and cannot tell if he is just listing off a bunch of Google hits or has actually familiarized himself with the topic. When challenged by editors who do know what they're talking about, he either doesn't retract his original discredited comments and simply stays the hell away from the discussion, or doubles down and argues endlessly, both of which facilitate his desired "no consensus, default to keep" result. In many of these cases he argues for the preservation of POV-fork articles that are meant to push fringe theories, but he frequently insists that they are not fringe theories, based purely on his Google searches. In one instance he made an argument that essentially amounted to a certain Pokemon character getting a standalone article based on its in-game stats -- he likely didn't know that that was what he was saying, which is why it's so annoying when he makes such poorly-researched arguments. Sometimes he doesn't get what he wants, as in the recent "Dark Lady" and "General Caste" cases, but that doesn't make his overall pattern of behaviour any less disruptive. He has been sanctioned for this behaviour in the recent past, specifically User:Bishonen placing a de facto TBAN on him from editing "Indian castes"-related topics outside his own user space, but not all of the areas in which he has been disruptive are subject to discretionary sanctions. Apart from this, he also has a nasty habit of violating the established consensus that AFD is the proper community venue to discuss "redirecting, not merging" and attempting to shut down AFDs with "the nominator has not considered the alternatives to deletion". Enough is enough. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:28, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: Using AfD for redirecting is not "established consensus", as you well know. – Joe (talk) 07:12, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Oh please...replied at the discussion. ansh666 07:51, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: My understanding, based on reading the 2014 and 2018 discussions, is that "AFD is not for redirecting" is an idiosyncratic view held by a very small number of editors including both you and Andrew, while the majority of editors who care about such things hold the opposite view, and this view is the one that has always been supported by the majority of AFD closures. Anyway, it's fairly inconsequential to my argument (you've admitted to doing the same thing as Andrew with regard to that problem and I'm not suggesting you be topic-banned): would you like me to strike that part of my post? I'm not going to do it proactively since I do not accept that it is wrong, but I don't want to invite opposition based on such a peripheral point. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:11, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Strike as you like. That was simply the most egregiously-wrong statement in a comment consisting almost entirely of bad-faith assumptions about Andrew's participation in AfD. – Joe (talk) 08:36, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Bad-faith assumptions? Did you click on any of the links? Are you a Nara historian and now telling me that Nishidani and I didn't know what we were talking about and Andrew was completely right? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:02, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I did, and I think Andrew is far from the only editor who participates in AfDs on subjects in which he is not an "expert". I've yet to see evidence of him claiming to be one, though. Searching for sources is what we're all supposed to be doing at AfD and it doesn't require pre-existing expertise. Disagreeing with you is not disruptive. – Joe (talk) 09:20, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Arguing with editors who clearly know what they are talking about over the correct reading of the scholarly sources in question (and over whether popular/nationalist/whatever sources are even reliable) is a clear claim to holding an awareness he doesn't hold. This assertion is also supported by the fact that non-specialists who make good-faith AFD comments generally agree with what the more specialized editors say (as I did in the "General Caste" AFD); Andrew only appears to agree wih such editors when they !vote keep. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:29, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

He has certainly caused problems with India-related content at AfD because of his utter inability to understand Indian society and his insistence, nonetheless, that he does know what he is talking about. - Sitush (talk) 10:26, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@Sitush: I think I said this to you elsewhere, but he can be TBANned from India-related topics, or even just India-related AFDs, Japanese ones, Korean ones ("Korean influence", linked above, and Young Pioneer Tours), Chinese ones (same as Korean, since honestly a lot of the problem with the Korean influence article was its referring to "Chinese influence by way of Paekche" as "Korean influence"), etc., but the core problem is Andrew's insistence that he knows what he is talking about when these pages come to AFD -- the topics don't matter, and the TBANs would just keep piling up unless the root cause is addressed. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:27, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Andrew is one of our most shcolarly editors, but never claims to be an expert AFAIK. Like other editors, the Colonel's views are given weight as they typically accord with policy and with reliable sources. We're not a project where much weight is given to claims of expertise. Still, there is some validity to your point on the Colonel acting with confidence in a great many areas. The Colonel would be too modest to claim this himself, but he is in fact an extortionary scholar, possibly almost a Polymath. It's been my privilege to meet with the Colonel face to face on several occasions; he is articulate and knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects, without needing to consult any form of reference, including a few in my specialist areas. There's an easy way for you to verify this yourself, next time you find yourself in London. The Colonel frequently attends real life Wikipedia events, such as those to encourage and assist newbies in getting involved with editing. He is a very friendly and approachable person, and I'm sure if you were to meet him in RL and see how knowledgably he can talk about any number of subjects from the top of his head, then it should set your concerns at rest. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:22, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Andrew is one of our most shcolarly editors, but never claims to be an expert AFAIK. So ... you didn't look at any of the evidence. Or maybe you looked at it and completely misunderstood it, which underlines my original point -- "AFD closers are not topic specialists", and their (and your) eyes glaze over when looking back and forths like the one between Nish and Andrew at "Korean influence" and just say "screw it; no consensus". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:27, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry but that is incorect on all counts. My view on Andrew's exceptional scholarship is based on having known him for 10 years. As mentioned, this includes having met in RL when I've heard him give in depth answers to difficult questions without needing to look things up online, a good indication of real expertise. Even the very best makes mistakes, limited evidence that the Colonel occasionally makes incorrect statements would not invalidate my view, which I suspect is based on more extensive dealing with the Colonel than your good self.

To be fair, I'm not sure your evidence is as convincing as you think - in fact some of your own links show that even Andrews opponents recognise his scholarship. I agree with you that East Asian culture can be very challenging for an outsider to understand, especially if they lack relevant languages. What you perhaps don't realise is that the Colonel too has some close ties to the region. You're clearly a very smart editor, who while not ethnically Japanese, does have a good command of the language. But that doesn't mean you're always going to have a better grasp of complex inter cultural issues, where even elite professors sometimes disagree. To be more specific, I see in Korean & Japanese related AfD you linked, another editor living in Japan (強斗武 ) also questions your views on the matter. Looking at the back and forth you mention between the Colonel and Nish, I see Nish said: "Andrew. I'll address you becausee you have the professional competence as a librarian to assess things like this". FeydHuxtable (talk)

• Hey, wow! If Andrew is finally TBAN'ned for this stuff, I'll die laughing. Anyway, time to close this discussion, archive this and move on. Like a famous editor recently said, "No foul, play on!" Lourdes 07:16, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@Lourdes: Did you look at the evidence? Regardless of any mistakes the OP made (and I really wish they had consulted with me beforehand...) the disruption is there, and it's ongoing, and it needs to stop. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:11, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• Andrew Davidson has not done anything wrong. Moreover, he has no case to answer. James500 (talk) 09:22, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@James500: Did you look at the evidence? Regardless of any mistakes the OP made (and I really wish they had consulted with me beforehand...) the disruption is there, and it's ongoing, and it needs to stop. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:09, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• Agree with Lourdes and James. No case to answer at all. If anything, Andrews concise AfD contributions, typically well founded in policy &/or relieable sources, are a good model for other editors to follow. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:22, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@FeydHuxtable: Did you look at the evidence? Regardless of any mistakes the OP made (and I really wish they had consulted with me beforehand...) the disruption is there, and it's ongoing, and it needs to stop. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:35, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• I've got to say that this discussion makes me feel like Hijiri 88 (who I generally regard as a reasonable editor) and Zxcvbnm (who I don't know) are on a rather self-destructive warpath. I just looked at one example from Hijiri, Mottainai, and yeah, it turns out Andrew is right. [60] discusses the relationship between the idea of Mottainai and Buddisum. As do sources such as NPR ([61]. To call that "laughable" is frankly wrong. I'm tempted to push for a one-way interaction ban here. (And for the record, I make no claim to be an expert on any of that, merely that there are plenty of sources which claim that the Japanese concept of "Mottainai" is an ancient Buddhist term (taken from the NPR article)). Hobit (talk) 11:29, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@Hobit: Did you read the entire talk page discussion, including the part where he refused to answer the question as to whether he was able to read the sources? Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese grammar knows mottai nai (classical form mottai nashi, kinda-sorta negative of mottai ari) cannot be the name of a Buddhist concept referring to the innate value of things; it is used as an adjective with the negative meaning of "wasteful". I asked him on his talk page if he had checked the Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism or similar works, and he also ignored that question. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:35, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I had not, now I have. I stand by my statement that Andrew's contributions were reasonable. I disagree with his oppose on the new wording for all kinds of reasons (mostly because the new wording seems better to me) but other than that he seemed quite reasonable and sourced his arguments better than anyone else in that discussion. Hobit (talk) 12:44, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

BTW, in case it isn't clear from the above, I think Zxcvbnm totally dropped the ball on this one. I was planning on preparing a bulleted list of grievances supported by clear diffs once I got some other stuff out of the way; I would have pushed it forward if Zxcvbnm had come to me and said this was going ahead, or even if he had posted an advance warning on Andrew's talk page, but instead only became aware of it after the fact, and after a bunch of people had already said this should be closed with no action because of the OP's clumsy mistake, so I was left with either (a) leaving this thread alone and letting it get closed with an "Andrew is innocent" consensus, forcing me to wait until all memory of it had faded before filing my own report lest I deal with a "this again", or (b) present my own evidence in the form of a single, subjective-looking (though really not subjective -- Sitush and I aren't "friends" outside of us both being Wikipedia editors) argument and a list of pagelinks, without the diffs (which would require a lot of time to gather, and that's time I don't have at the moment), so that at least the thread will be closed as "no consensus" and can't be cited as precedent. I went with (b), partly or real-world reasons I'm not comfortable elaborating on here. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:43, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• Here's an illustration of the problem - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abbie Hutty. Andrew voted "Speedy keep" which is incorrect per Wikipedia:SKCRIT as the nominator Carrite was not acting in bad faith. I went and fixed up the article and got it cleared through DYK, then !voted "keep", Andrew meanwhile badgered the nominator to the extent I got annoyed enough to say "It's a shame the first couple of editors couldn't have done this instead of accusing you of bad faith and throwing WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS excuses at you". So it's not what Andrew has done (saving articles from deletion is one of the best things we can do around here), but the way in which he has gone about it, where he turns the conversation into an argument, rather than persuading the other party that his viewpoint is the right thing to do. This runs the risk of articles being deleted because other editors start to think his views are worthless. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:13, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• Going through most of what was written above, I am left with two different impressions: 1) Andrew is sometimes too quick to try and keep articles at AFD, making mistakes such as the one Ritchie333 points out above, which will ultimately hurt his cause. 2) Hijiri88 appears to have serious beef with Andrew and in his tries to paint Andrew in a negative light (which does include calling a legitimate and declared alternate account "sock") will hurt his cause as well. Because citing a number of AFDs in which Andrew had a different opinion and that did not end in delete does lead credence to Andrew's claims that WP:ATD was violated. Despite Hijiri88's further comments, I fail to see a really subtantial problem. A reminder to Andrew not to !vote keep without good reason and to avoid "speedy keep" !votes when WP:SK is not met should be sufficient. On a side note, AFD closers do not have to be topic specialists. Their job is to assess consensus, not decide themselves whether something is right or wrong. Regards SoWhy 12:53, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, if I ask "hey, have you and I interacted before", and he dodges the question, and I notice by accident later that I had interacted with another account of his not mentioned anywhere on his user page ... well, that might just be general IDHT. I coulda sworn when I first noticed that they were the same person I checked the history and found that he had largely abandoned his original CW account after the two were "outed" as both being operated by him -- it has barely edited since 2013. Essentially he was engaged in disruptive, undisclosed sockpuppetry for a while, until someone noticed, at which point he abandoned his original account. But I may have misread or misremembered something, in which case I apologize.

Everything else I said about his disruptively claiming to know what he's talking about when he clearly doesn't stands. Your last two sentences show you completely missed the point of my argument: AFD closers don't have to be topic specialists, which is why it is extremely disruptive when editors who have not read any of the literature start claiming they have, in a manner that will cause anyone who is not a topic specialist to just throw their hands up and say "no consensus". If the closer just happened to be a topic specialist, they would read through the discussion and realize that one side (Andrew and all the "per Andrew" !votes) clearly had no idea what they were talking about; but most closers aren't topic specialists, wherein lies the problem.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:11, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it was this that I noticed a little while back and drew the "he was forced disclose it after someone noticed him socking and he thought he couldn't get away with it anymore". I'm not sure when the actual answer came; the fact that CW's user page does currently disclose the fact implies he did choose to disclose it at some point, but it still is not cool when you ask someone "Hey, have you and I interacted before?" and they don't tell you "Yeah, I was using this other account back in 2012 see..."; MPants and I first interacted when I was editing while logged out, he was confused when I acted like we had interacted before, and when I realized what was going on I was totally open about it, which is how good-faith interactions of that kind should go. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:21, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong but there is no actual rule that forces editors to disclose their alternative accounts as long as they are not used "to mislead, deceive, vandalize or disrupt", is there? It's certainly not "cool" to act this way but if you focus on improper but not forbidden behavior, you risk muddying the water for claims of improper and forbidden behavior. Which brings me to the other comment: As long as there is no rule that only people who are topic specialists are allowed to participate in AFDs, there seems to exist no actionable offense if Andrew participates and makes lay-man arguments. Or did he claim to be an expert when he wasn't? Regards SoWhy 13:47, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• Regardless of the AfDs, I'll tell you what really irritates me (and I know it does a lot of others as well) - removing PROD tags from completely unsourced articles without any reasoning being given. That's simply disruptive. Fair enough if the article is not obviously problematic, but when it has no sources and no obvious notability, you're wasting other people's time. I think it's time we had a look at changing "You are strongly encouraged, but not required, to ... explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion" to make it compulsory ... it would stop this problem on the spot. Black Kite (talk) 13:49, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

This is a change I would support, a couple other people also use that loophole in the PROD policy (one of them just got banned, see above). I haven't had too many interactions with Andrew, but one that I did have was when he mass-deproded articles that I had nominated. After, I went to his talk page to ask him why he did that, he started WP:WIKILAWYERING and basically told me he didn't have to explain himself. I would also support topic-banning Andrew from PROD (but not necessarily AfD). As for this current complaint, I don't see enough evidence that he did anything wrong though.--Rusf10 (talk) 14:00, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I would support the change, but I would prefer if PROD was simply abandoned for the sake of consistency (excepting BLPPROD which has better requirements) If you have to craft a rationale for deletion in a PROD request, you might as well do it at AfD for wider input and have the result be binding. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:07, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• (double edit conflict)I agree with you on that Black Kite. If there are no valid references. In cases like this [62], you have a fictional character that could've just been redirected to the main article, the only reference is to the comic book they are in. But you can't punish someone for following the rules. Start a discussion in the right area to change the wording, and I'll support it. Dream Focus

• ZXCVBNM is upset that two articles they nominated for deletion had someone disagreeing with them, and of course Hijiri88 argues regularly with Andrew D. at Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron_–_Rescue_list, in AFDs listed there, and on its talk page. I notice in the example given Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Swamp monster Hijiri 88 complains about Mottainai, Korean influence on Japanese culture, and Tanka prose, just as he mentions them above and elsewhere. Wanting to ban someone from AFDs for disagreeing with you, is rather ridiculous. Now if an editor was constantly refusing to stay on topic during AFD but instead insulted other editors or their wikiproject, that'd be a valid reason to keep them from participating in future AFDs. But I don't see as how Andrew D. has done anything wrong here. Dream Focus 13:55, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
• I suggest closing this. It's likely to be more heat than light. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:07, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

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Topic Ban

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I've been informed on my talk page that a BLP topic ban currently affects me. I wish to have it lifted. I'm devastated that weeks of incredibly hard work were wiped on this formality. Iistal (talk) 00:36, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• Comment I note an open ANI thread entitled "Iistal" on this subject; the assembled editors can read my opinion on this topic there. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:45, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. Iistal gives no explanation as to why the project would benefit from the topic ban being lifted. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:45, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose This editor received an indefinite topic ban regarding BLPs less than two years ago. The topic ban is not a "formality", but rather a restriction that must be followed. This editor has a long history of edit warring, sock puppetry and repeatedly denied unblock requests. This user specializes in gossip about celebrity's romantic relationships. I see no benefit to the encyclopedia in allowing this editor to edit regarding living people in any way, shape or form. The topic ban should be strengthened and clarified, rather than lifted. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:14, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per Cullen. Blackmane (talk) 05:50, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose Would the closing administrator please also clarify that the next request for lifting this TBAN should not be made before the end of 12 months from the date of this discussion closing? Thanks, Lourdes 07:19, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose --Tarage (talk) 08:13, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per Cullen and Beyond My Ken. –Davey2010^Talk 12:08, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose, listal is almost inevitably going to be indefinitely banned soon anyway, they don't seem to understand what they did wrong last time and why they ended up with a topic ban in the first place. Fish+Karate 14:58, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

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Rangeblock feasible?

• User:Shashi4747
• User:Education4444
• User:Jaiho55
• User:Jaiho5555
• User:Mihir4747
• User:Jss4444
• User:Rahulsingh54545454
• User:Jss2552
• User:Jaiho5588

There's this guy running some sort of university admission hustle in India (apparently this) whose sole interest in WP for the last 18 months has been spamming their cell phone numbers in university articles (rapidly changing numbers, more's the pity). At first it was all IPs and MelanieN in particular did a sterling job of semi-protecting as needed [63], but as of a month ago they have graduated to supplementing with throw-away accounts - current batch listed above.

MelanieN did a range block check a year ago and decided it wasn't feasible at that time. I'm wondering if maybe these recent accounts may allow a second go at it? Could someone run a check? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:59, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately they are using several of the largest and busiest networks on the planet, so whatever MelanieN said last year probably still stands. If you can collect a list of numbers, this looks like a job for Special:AbuseFilter/793. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 10:09, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I see. Okay, I'll scrape some numbers together and see whether there's any repeats at all. Had the impression that they used a new one almost every time, but needs checking. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 11:33, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

The nuclear option is a few months of extended confirmed protection on the articles he's targeting, but there's a lot of universities in India, so a lot of articles. Fish+Karate 13:16, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, what do you know - the majority of these actually used the same phone number. Count across the names listed above is 9871364815 six times, 9910418001 once, 9135340070 once, 7079252525 once. Any chance of incorporating at least the first one into the filter? Then see if they start concentrating on another number... how many occurrences are needed to make it one good filter candidate? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:15, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I've added the first number to the filter (with no objection if someone else wants to add the others). My personal threshold in a case like this would probably be more than one example. Further additions can be made at WP:EFR, or drop me a ping. Spammers like this do tend to change numbers a bit, but we can usually frustrate them enough for them to get the message. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:05, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, it looks like the filter is working. I've now had the justification to add four more numbers including those above. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:25, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Hello, Elmidae, long time no see! So they're back, are they? Admission Bazaar was the same outfit I identified last year; it now has a new website. The name and the website don't help because that's not what they spam. Last year the key to identifying them, the one constant in the spamming, was the phone number. Here’s an interesting observation: all of the spamming I whacked last year occurred from May through July; did it then stop? Maybe it has to do with the academic year. That would suggest that at their first appearance at any article we should protect it for two months. I'll take this on again if you like; I've got my whack-a-mole paddle handy. BTW it isn't just Wikipedia they hit; if you take one of the phone numbers and Google it, you'll find it tucked into many websites. Luckily Wikipedia is the only one we have to worry about. --MelanieN (talk) 16:04, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

P.S. Extended confirmed wouldn't be necessary; semi-protection would probably be enough. Looks like they don't bother (or don't know how) establishing these new accounts as autoconfirmed, they just create them and start spamming.--MelanieN (talk) 16:09, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Cheers - I'll be happy to start shopping those to you again :) If the filter can be implemented, it would certainly take the edge off though. - I think there has been a smattering throughout the year, but definitely a heavy uptick around May, as you say. That's a hopeful metric, at any rate... --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:47, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

White space vandal returns, again

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He's back, as 177.103.188.78 this time. GoodDay (talk) 15:59, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. The IP was blocked by Bbb23 for 61 days. Please let us know if you come across them again GoodDay. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 19:58, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

They've been doing this for about 3 years & counting, now. GoodDay (talk) 20:00, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

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Category:Crown Victoria Custom '51

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This appears to have been added moved to the category namespace by mistake in an attempt to correct a spelling error (see Crown Victora Custom '51 and Crown Victoria Custom '51) Does this require an admin to clean up? -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:08, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

The page has been moved to the creator's user sandbox by Hammersoft, so this appears to have been taken care of unless the redirects which were also created need to be cleaned up as well. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:36, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

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General sanctions for articles on professional wrestling

I'm bringing this over from ANI as it's probably a more appropriate location. Modeled from last month's proposal for GS on blockchain articles and from the ANI discussion here. I don't think 1RR is necessary, but I'm happy to be disagreed with. Natureium (talk) 01:37, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Proposal

Should the community authorize standard discretionary sanctions for all pages related to professional wrestling, broadly construed?

• Support as proposer, due to the unreasonable amount of drama brought by editors of article related to professional wrestling. Natureium (talk) 01:37, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support Ditto. EEng 01:41, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose I'm not convinced this will solve the problems in this area. There are two main problems I see. First, the area is a magnet for new and immature editors, many of whom are not auto-confirmed. I don't feel it would be reasonable or beneficial to semi-protect the entire area WP:ARBIPA-style, and nothing else will prevent these editors from making contributions. By the time they are informed they will likely stop editing or switch accounts (I don't believe discretionary sanctions help at all in fighting sock-puppetry; please correct me if I am wrong). Second, there are content issues in that many articles contain an excessive amount of in-universe detail, generally only sourced to the TV shows themselves or media sources focused on pro-wrestling. That probably should be dealt with through a project-wide RFC, not by Discretionary Sanctions. power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:52, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support (edit conflict) from the little I have seen this area seems to be a walled garden more concerned with in-universe coverage than encyclopedic coverage of the topic. This is a good first step to cleaning it up and tamping down the associated drama. Jbh ^Talk 01:56, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support while i do not really appreciate the negativity and hostility expressed by several People in the discussions in various places I see no problems personally in saying "Hey the rules do apply to pro wrestling articles and those who don't get that May suffer." As a well educated, mature wrestling fan I am all for anything that cuts down on the junk. But really don't appreciate being looked Down in because I enjoy scripted entertainment, shame.  MPJ-DK  04:01, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• SupportPer Hunley.∯WBG^converse 04:34, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• God yes Long overdue. --Tarage (talk) 06:00, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• Comment: Oh, look! Another pointless wrestling controversy! [64] EEng 06:15, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

And look, someone who views wrestling as something more important than it actually is! --Tarage (talk) 06:31, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

So..... isn't every stupid edit war on here "someone who views their opinion as morenimportant than it is"? No matter the suvbject matter. I do wish this could be a factual discussion, not an opportunity for People to just push their bias, but then that is just me "stupidly thinking" that this could be achieved without such snide, condesending comments. I guess when the topic is under a GS no one Will scrutinize People's comments here closer to see if the add to escalation of negativity or not.  MPJ-DK  10:58, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Try that again when you can make a sentence without a typo. --Tarage (talk) 00:36, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Oh Yes standard tactic of someone who loses an argument, Thank you.  MPJ-DK  06:44, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Lose nothing. I can't make heads or tails of your typo-ridden comment. Try again. --Tarage (talk) 09:59, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Oh sure, i Can see how it is impossible to figure out what "suvbject" is supposed to mean, that is quite a problem.  MPJ-DK  10:21, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

• Hell. Yes When the first WWE spats started popping up on ANI, it reminded me way too much of the weekly MMA spats a few years back. That was firmly stepped on and sets a good precedent on how this sort of shenanigans needs to be dealt with. Blackmane (talk) 06:18, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support Seems like a good idea. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:16, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support Seeing the amount of stuff coming the way of AN/I, DS will help with that. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 10:17, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• I'll speak from my experience with the blockchain sanctions. GS is best if you have a bunch of established, problematic editors. It won't help you much against SPAs, socks and new accounts unless you are prepared to semi-protect all the frequently hit pages, with ECP on a significant subset. We still have a continual stream of crap about new ICOs flowing into draft space. In hindsight, the best means of cracking down on cryptocurrency garbage would be DS + a blanket ban on new editors creating articles and draft articles within the subject area. The only deterrent effect against SPAs is "here are a big bunch of scary rules, if you breach them you will be blocked", except most of these accounts would have been SPAs anyway. The most beneficial part of GS is I am able to delete native advertising on the spot, outside the CSDs. Fancruft is a much less serious problem than spam and I don't think one that warrants summary deletion. Support, I guess, with a strong word of caution that this is only a 20% solution to the problem. MER-C 10:45, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

How would you ban new editors from creating blockchain articles? Is this done in other areas? That's an interesting idea. Natureium (talk) 12:00, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

You could try using an abuse filter set to deny if a new page contains certain words, but it won't be watertight. You can summarily delete anything that makes it through and sanction the creator. MER-C 12:15, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

• Limited support - I support certain sanctions such as requiring extended confirmed. I do not believe the WP:1RR restrictions would be helpful in this scenario due to the nature of professional wrestling and the way things can change back and forth with regularity. - Galatz גאליץ^{שיחה Talk} 13:00, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

1RR isn't part of this specific proposal, although I don't know why repeated reverting would be necessary. Natureium (talk) 13:44, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

@Natureium: It shouldnt be, but my concern is that things change quickly. I don't want people afraid to make constructive edits which from the outside could appear to be a 1RR violation. If a title changes hands back and forth in one night, or more, an outside admin could misconstrue this. For example, take a look at List of WWE Hardcore Champions and there are several days where it changed multiple times. This back and forth could easily look like edit warring rather than constructive editing, when changing who is listed on List of current champions in WWE. Its things like that. Or last year there was one title change that was later reversed, changing that back although accurate would now have used up that one revert. Due to the nature of live and frequent television, these sort of changes happen often. - Galatz גאליץ^{שיחה Talk} 14:45, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

And that just HAS to be updated the very second it changes, right? God forbid people wait a few days for things to settle. Nope, everyone reading the wiki MUST know who currently has the made up title or they will be so very confused. If anything, your statement strengthens the need for 1RR. Wikipedia is not a playground for this nonsense. You have fan wikis for a reason. --Tarage (talk) 18:14, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tarage: Once again you show your bias toward professional wrestling. Literally everything is updated as things happen. I would love to see you suggest the NBA finals not be updated for a few days after the game and see where that gets you. After Miss America is crowned we should wait and see what happens just in case some controversy pops up and they strip her title, right? Better yet lets never update anything because Joe Paterno had his records changed years later and just in case, we should not have ever put them there. - Galatz גאליץ^{שיחה Talk} 19:15, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

STOP HIGHLIGHTING ME. I'm not going to ask you a third time. "Literally everything is updated as things happen." Actually we tend to lock articles that have major events such as someone's death so we can have time to get the facts straight. Your arguments are disingenuous because none of those events happen on the inane frequency that professional wrestling does. Literally every week or sometimes more than once a week your pretend titles shuffle around. You don't see Football articles created and edited for "who has the most points AS OF THIS SECOND". --Tarage (talk) 19:36, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tarage: Let me get this straight, I am supposed to ignore the comments that you keep posting in response to me? Yeah thats logical... Also they aren't pretend title, nice try, they are real. They are actual physical championship belts. Just because the outcomes are predetermined it doesn't make them pretend. You are correct, you don't see who has the most points right now, but you also don't see who has the most wins. In fact, the low level of stats are no where on wikipedia, only high level accomplishments, which do no get updated nearly as often as career results for sports figures. Nice try though. - Galatz גאליץ^{שיחה Talk} 19:49, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

I am seriously questioning your competence. You said, and I quote: "...my concern is that things change quickly. If a title changes hands back and forth in one night, or more..." How about don't update it till the night is over? That something can be updated more than once A NIGHT is FAR more frequent than ANY OTHER SPORT. And yes, by definition, an award is fake if the outcome is predetermined. It has no weight behind it, because it's make believe. --Tarage (talk) 20:01, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tarage: Go right ahead and question it. Please let me know what policy you are basing your "wait until the night is over" argument on. If you checked the link I gave you above the history remains, so whats the advantage to adding multiple at once rather than as it happens? Double headers happen more often in baseball than a title changes twice in professional wrestling, therefore should the rule be not to update a page until the second game of the double header is over? Also you might want to get a better understanding of your arguments before you make them. The definition of predetermined is "determine beforehand" according to Merriam-Webster [65]. Correct me if I am wrong but aren't the Oscar winner determined before the event itself, and just not revealed until the night of? Sounds to me that meets the same definition of what you are complaining about. - Galatz גאליץ^{שיחה Talk} 20:13, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

How about WP:NOTNEWS? - Donald Albury 20:17, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

@Donald Albury: Thats for routine news. No other championship is considered routine and not updated, so why is this different? - Galatz גאליץ^{שיחה Talk} 20:25, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Why does the frequency of update bug you so much? Frequency is in itself neither good.nor bad. Don't know why people have such a mad on for articles they can just avoid in general.  MPJ-DK  20:46, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Because indulging this kind of breathless coverage attracts brainless fans as editors who get into disputes the rest of us have to clear up. EEng 21:39, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Tut-tut-tut, name calling does not really help differentiate yourself from those whom you seek to malign. If hit s certain AN activity others Will stop waiting to "clean up" after you.  MPJ-DK  23:47, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Whaaaat??? EEng 00:07, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

TL;DR version without typos - WP:CIVIL  MPJ-DK  00:12, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Does the superbowl get updated every time someone scores? No? Then why should wrestling? Why should a pretend sport with predetermined outcomes get updated more rapidly than actual legitimate sports? You still haven't answered that question, and I doubt you can. --Tarage (talk) 00:33, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Who cares about Update frequency?? 1 or 100 updates in a night is not a reason to imposed a topic wide sanction.  MPJ-DK  06:42, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

If said edits cause edit wars and drama, they are a problem. And this is why it's needed. --Tarage (talk) 09:59, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

So you do agree that it is not a frequency problem as such. "x" number of edits in an hour is neither Good nor bad in itself, it is an invalid argument.  MPJ-DK  10:21, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

• Support and comment While this would help, I don't think it addresses the actual content issues where a lot of these disputes stem from. My particular concern is with biographies, which have a long-standing norm of being written in a detailed, in-universe perspective. They are closer to being bios about fictional characters rather than the actual people who portray them. Strict guidelines need to be put in place that determine what is worthy of inclusion in these articles, because at the moment they are edited chaotically. For those unaware, the most popular wrestling promotion in the world, WWE, broadcasts three to five "major" events per week, every week of the year. Those events alone include hundreds of performers who have continuously progressing storylines, which these new and inexperienced users flock to update their pages as if they are a news feed. Now, add every other promotion on top of that... it's very easy for the small amount of experienced users that participate in these articles to get swamped and not maintain order or quality. Regardless if any content restrictions are imposed, requiring at least semi-protection of each professional wrestling article would be a huge step. Prefall 13:50, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I think a proper professional wrestling notability guideline is also needed. Right now they fall under WP:ENT which doesn't take a lot of specifics into account. It results in way too many AfD for non-notable performers. Most of the inexperienced editors seem to have the mindset of this user [66] thinking wikipedia wants to most amount of details possible, no matter what. - Galatz גאליץ^{שיחה Talk} 14:51, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support, but please for the love of god can we leave this open for a few days. Don't WP:SNOW close it and give people another chance to complain about railroading and not having the opportunity to contribute, or this whole thing will get kicked up to arbcom and nobody will be happy about that, least of all the arbs. Fish+Karate 14:27, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support: aye, and some sort of general notability guideline is needed, too, per Galatz. However, let's not snow-close it quite yet. (Also, can we add kickboxing to the list, or do I need a new RfC for that? I'm kidding, I know I need a new RfC for that.) —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 18:55, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support - of course. This is overdue. L293D (☎ • ✎) 19:05, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Support. As a member of the professional wrestling WikiProject, we really could cut down on the bad stuff. I also agree with Galatz's proposal for a specific notability guideline. JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:50, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support - I agree with the commentor above that the "in-universe" treatment of the subject, speaking of it as if it were real, is unacceptable. Frankly, it's beyond that. It's abhorrent and it drags the entire encyclopedia down with it. How can anyone accept that we have accurate credible coverage of medical topics, or geographic topics or history topics when we speak of WWE like it's real? I highly doubt it could gain traction, but a proposal to nuke every article we have on the subject, and the project behind them, and start all over again with community set guidelines would certainly not be without some support. John from Idegon (talk) 22:30, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

• Yeah, what could possibly go wrong with nuking a couple thousand articles and pretending like the last seventeen years of editing history didn't happen. Sounds good. — Moe Epsilon 04:43, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

• Support What we call an "in-universe" perspective is called Kayfabe in the strange world of professional wrestling. Any content written from the "kayfabe" perspective must be ruthlessly deleted from Wikipedia and any editor adding this type of false content must be warned and sanctioned if they persist. We cannot allow this garbage to pollute the encyclopedia, and all content related to professional wrestling must be rigorously neutral, "real world" in perspective, and based on independent sources of impeccable reliability. Any source that publishes "kayfabe" content is, by definition, not reliable. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:13, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support I tend to agree with those above that this doesn't do much to help the many issues plaguing the project, but it may be of some benefit. WWE has many young and passionate fans that take to the encyclopedia to craft in-universe bios. SPAs and socks are pervasive and they're not going to be phased by any of this. Unfortunately, we've lost some good contributors to indefinitely blocks because they weren't able to control their temper when dealing with these issues. To my knowledge, only one person has ever been topic banned from this topic and that process took a lot more time than it should have. More people need to be topic banned and I agree with the proposals above that we need reliable page protection and a notability guideline.LM2000 (talk) 00:15, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support Way to much of our community's time is spent dealing with these issues. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 03:04, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support, and agree that notability guideline is needed as well to deal with the walled garden of fancruft too many of these articles represent. Fram (talk) 07:16, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Indefinite Topic Ban Explanation

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

---

I don't believe it's fair for the topic ban to not be able to be appealed for another 6 months. I was unaware of the topic ban and 2 admins assumed good faith [67]. The edits I made in the past few weeks (after no editing for 10 months) were all good or mostly good edits. I think that when someone has devoted countless hours to improving an article (researching, source gathering, proofreading), if another editor then objects to the changes, that editor should make modifications rather than obliterate all of the valuable content and revert the article to poor condition. There are many recent examples of this done by NinjaRobotPirate and Yamla, except they weren't doing it out of interest for the articles. They were just going through my edit history and reverting everything one by one.

I don't like ambiguity, discrepancies or inaccuracies. Articles with these flaws tend to have a low volume of editing activity. I edit articles that need improvement and that no one else is willing to put the necessary effort into. Effort needs to put into them because these days, mainstream media uses Wikipedia as their source of information. Access Hollywood has repeated sentences word for word from Wiki. So, by reverting articles to poor condition, you're indirectly purporting falsity.

The editor who pointed out the topic ban, NinjaRobotPirate, made blatantly false accusations on my talk page [68]. He wrote "you added unsourced gossip to a BLP" when in fact, the page he linked was not a BLP, and the edit he linked was not gossip at all, but a well known, neutral biographical fact. I replied to NinjaRobotPirate, explaining (in a polite tone) that what he'd just written on my talk page was wrong. NinjaRobotPirate refused to participate in the very discussion he started, and after ignoring my replies, he posted on the Administrators' Noticeboard. I can't say his initial post was a lie, because I don't know if the falsity of it was intentional, but his behavior fits the definition of harassment. It also fits the definition of passive-aggressive.

I waited a long time for the opportunity to edit again and have demonstrated diligence in my edits. Having followed the standard offer, an additional 6 month wait to appeal a topic ban that I didn't even know existed is unreasonable. I request that the topic ban be reconsidered. Iistal (talk) 03:56, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

The block appeal that was accepted made no mention of a topic ban. Iistal's unblock request said "If unblocked, I intend to resume editing articles about movies, television and celebrities", a point which was not refuted or clarified by the unblocking admin. It's reasonable to assume that Iistal was unaware of an active topic ban. Bradv 04:06, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

@Iistal: One of the main reasons you were blocked was for disruptive editing in BLP, and only unblocked after you agreed to the topic ban ([69]). While the reviewing administrator should have checked in the previous unblock request, the previous unblock request was about your socking, and I find it troubling that you failed to mention about your topic ban in all of these unblock requests; it is troubling because reviewers try to assume good faith when going through unblock request queues, and given the editing history involved, I cannot help to not think this was deliberate omission. As for the "blatantly false accusations", unsourced relationship claim is gossip, and biographies of recently deceased persons are covered by BLP, see WP:BDP. Standard offer is an essay, not a policy nor requirement; the burden is on you to explain why your editing should be accepted, and without an editing activity that does not involve problematic editing/violation of topic ban, there is no way for the community to assess your situation. Alex Shih (talk) 04:28, 19 June 2018 (UTC) (edit conflict) Apologies NeilN, I was in the middle of typing this response and ran into edit conflict with your closure.

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

Concentration Camps in the United States

There is a bit of a brewing edit war over at List of concentration and internment camps, where several editors are attempting to add an entry under the United States for the forced separation of non-citizen children from their parents. It's not a full-blown incident just yet, but it's already garnered some media attention (as with this article), so it may be worth watchlisting. An RFC might not go amiss, for that matter. The proposed section, while well sourced, is obviously going to be controversial, however justified its inclusion. Thanks. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 12:34, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

I would suggest that this topic quickly be brought under the umbrella of discretionary sanctions for topics related to contemporary US politics. This is an extremely hot-button issue right now and has people across the political spectrum agitated. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:20, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't see a reason why the participants can't be DS alerted for post-1932 US politics, indeed. I would guess that would clean up the problem a bit. --Izno (talk) 19:38, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

I would say the content in question undeniably falls under that decision. The issue I’m seeing is the wording of {{American politics AE}}, which makes it sound as though ti would apply to any edit to the page, when this is a worldwide list. I don’t doubt the entire page would benefit from such restrictions but currently it isn’t authorized to spread beyond American politics. A customized template for these situations may be in order. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:50, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually upon a closer read it is pretty clear. I’m going to go ahead and apply it now. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:51, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

 Done Notice added to talk page and edit notice created, logged at WP:DSLOG/2018. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:12, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Proposal for closing the Simple English Wikipedia

There is currently a proposal on Meta for closing the Simple English Wikipedia at meta:Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Simple English Wikipedia 2. All are invited to participate. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:28, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Best Known for IP sighting

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#User_talk:173.209.178.244#Best_know_for. This is a report of the Best Known for IP. I have advised the reporting editor to revert the edits, request semi-protection, and report the IP at AIV. Just thought this ought to be mentioned here. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:33, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, unlikely. Not his device(s) and in the wrong place although I'd be prepared to accept that he's travelling. The person that you have is using American English and that's not his usual. "personalized" versus "behaviour".

The person that you have at that IP has some persistence over time...that looks to be someone else and possibly trying to imitate. That IP editor has been using that IP at least since July 2015 and uses an "r" for "reply" in their edit summary which is not Rbka's habit.

@Kuru:, would you please offer a second opinion?
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 23:40, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Aside from the obvious issue, I don't see any of the other tics. That's a long-term logged-out editor (with a clean block log) I don't want to out. Kuru (talk) 00:30, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Dash

The title that appears in the url bar has a hyphen instead of a dash. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.100.129.120 (talk) 05:20, 20 June 2018 (UTC)