Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive298

User:Lieutenant of Melkor

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In 2018, we are supposed to focus on the under-covered subjects on Wikipedia. Since Asian Month Nov 2017, I've been working on Chinese geography stubs, and I've noticed a name in like all of the page histories for minor Chinese geography: User:Lieutenant of Melkor. If you really want to cover the under-covered topics, then I suggest undoing the block on this user. Whatever the polemical statements the user made were, the user did constructive work on Chinese geography, which is still badly needed. I request that you give the user another chance.

Back in June 2014, this user was blocked from Wikipedia for polemical statements or behavior of some sort which I have not yet personally reviewed. Further, the user seems to have been blocked more than once. It's easy to see that this user probably has an eccentric personality, but in the end, who doesn't?

It's been almost four years now: the world has changed; Wikipedia has changed. Why not unblock this user? I hope to collaborate with the user to continue the work on Chinese geography pages. Even if you unblock the user today, the user may not even realize that the unblock you do has occurred for several years time. Once the user comes back (if ever), then if the user violates policy again, you can just block the user again, no problem. BUT if the user comes back and sees the unblock, then there's a chance, however small, that the Chinese geography stubs will be greatly improved by this user. Hope this makes sense to you all. I earnestly implore you to encourage this user to come back and continue the constructive work the user was doing. Geographyinitiative (talk) 07:54, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - While I believe this to be a good-faith request, I feel an unrequested unblock sets a precedent here, one I find troubling. To be brief, I suggest this idea should be rejected as opening the door to similar requests, which would undo the hard work it has taken to block a number of various types of tendentious editors who, although arguably good content providers in some areas, have repeatedly proven themselves a net negative for Wikipedia in terms of overall editor retention and wasted editor and administrator time. Jusdafax (talk) 08:15, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

My thoughts: there are some pages only the tendentious would ever edit; don't ban personality types. Geographyinitiative (talk) 08:20, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I just refreshed my memory with this reading from AN/I that outlines the highly ban-worthy behavior which has me wincing. (AN/I archive 844, section 25.) This is my definition of a bad-faith editor: this highly problematic editor pulled every trick in the book. Jusdafax (talk) 08:30, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I glanced at the behaviour. I'm not saying it's not bad. I see trolling, bullying, insulting, and edit warring. But I'm saying people can change: 3 or 4 years later, maybe this person is ready to come back. If the user does something ban worthy again, then you just ban the user- simple! For every one of these examples, I can give you fifty or a hundred good edits this user made. Give peace another chance. "all kinds of trouble come to an end, when a man tells another man, "Be my friend."" Geographyinitiative (talk) 09:55, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

At least we agree on the extremely uncollegial and unethical behavior that got this editor effectively banned. But you fail to address my other major point, one of great importance in my view: the precedent that is set here. I am unaware of any previous unrequested unblocks being granted. Effectively, to begin this now means we potentially start hashing over every blocked or banned editor’s case even if they are not asking for their editing privileges back, a daunting prospect that could eat a big chunk of editor time. No thanks. Your kindly intent and desire to see Chinese coverage grow is noted, but the price is too steep. Way, way too steep. This is simply a terrible idea. Jusdafax (talk) 10:23, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose "behavior of some sort which I have not yet personally reviewed." You're asking for someone to be unblocked, and you haven't even looked at why they were blocked? Andy Dingley (talk) 10:11, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I know it seems crazy, but when I look at that block log, all I see is a relatively thorny person who even his greatest detractors admitted had "Clearly... benefited Wikipedia in one or two significant areas: Climate, China, and Taiwan." The events of 4 years ago are long gone. If the user does something heinous after being unblocked, just block the user again. The user may never even realize the unblocking. But I hope the user will be unblocked, figure it out one day, read these comments and continue the constructive work the user was doing. Geographyinitiative (talk) 10:57, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose current request. As an absolute minimum we'll need an unblock request from the user himself, convincing enough for us to believe that the kind of behavior that led to the block will not reoccur. Favonian (talk) 11:03, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Ah, that’s of course a slam dunk point, and why I couldn’t recall an unrequested unblock. Suggest a speedy close. Jusdafax (talk) 11:13, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm saying three-four years is long enough. Why would the user even want to come back at this point? For the sake of wikipedia, try to show mercy. Geographyinitiative (talk) 11:16, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

• Support (since I'm the OP): An half-baked analogy for you all to ponder: 4 Teacher (You)," they said to Him (you), "this woman (user) was caught in the act of committing adultery. (breaking wikipedia policy) 5 In the law Moses (Wikipedia policy) commanded us to stone (ban) such women (user). So what do You say?" 6 They asked this to trap Him, in order that they might have evidence to accuse Him. Jesus stooped down and started writing on the ground with His finger. 7 When they persisted in questioning Him, He stood up and said to them, "The one without sin (breaking policy) among you should be the first to throw a stone (ban) at her. (the user)" 8 Then He stooped down again and continued writing on the ground. 9 When they heard this, they left one by one, starting with the older men (admins). Only He was left, with the woman in the center.
• Oppose - The whole point of the standard offer is that the blocked editor is supposed to demonstrate that they have understanding of the reason why they were blocked, and that they will not repeat this. Handing out unblocks is a bad precedence to set. Also, we can do without the condescending sermons.--WaltCip (talk) 13:17, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

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Blocked user Bull-Doser is again active on a Wiki project, more potential ban evading?

Us over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Automobiles have noticed that indefinitely blocked User:Bull-Doser has been uploading images and creating pages in the Wikimedia Commons at a rapid clip. his user page there even links to his blocked userpage. I'm not knowledgeable enough about Wikipedia policies to determine whether or not this counts as ban evading (which this user is notorious for), but I thought it's worth being brought to an admin's attention. Reattacollector (talk) 20:27, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Blocks are local. Unless he is using Commons abusively or using it as some sort of proxy such as a using sock account here to add the images he has uploaded there then it is fine. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:04, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

It also appears that this user is active on the French Wikipedia as well. Again, this might be totally above board. Just felt it needed to be brought to light given his history of ban evasion. Reattacollector (talk) 21:04, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

As I stated above blocks are local to a Wiki, but thanks for highlighting this. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:05, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I will be vigilant to see if this is indeed translating to another round of ban evasion for Bull-Doser. If it isn't, then he isn't breaking any rules and I will let this matter rest. Reattacollector (talk) 21:09, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

You seem to be confused @Reattacollector: If they're abusing Commons or French language wikipedias, bring the concern up there. Short of a Community ban (or a consensus at meta that their actions are abusive) there's nothing more for us to do. Hasteur (talk) 02:07, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I believe Bull-Doser is Community blocked already. Can you better clarify the difference between a regular block and a community block? Bull-Doser is a notorious figure within Wikiproject Automobiles who, since he was indefinitely blocked on the English Wikipedia in 2012, has used every method possible over a period of years to circumvent his block and ban evade. Thus we are immediately on alert when we see activity from here anywhere on the platform, concerned that he could be making yet another attempt to ban evade. But if he's not breaking any rules, then we won't worry about it until we can confirm he is ban evading again. Reattacollector (talk) 02:46, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Indefinitely blocked by the community means the English Wikipedia community only. If he were acting abusively across wikis, you could request that he be globally locked by a steward. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:19, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Ah, ok. He doesn't appear to be acting abusive on the Commons or the French Wiki and since he is not currently breaking any rules, I guess there isn't any more action that needs to be taken unless we find that he's again active on this Wiki in another ban evading attempt. Reattacollector (talk) 22:30, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

BLP coincidence

Earlier at AIV, we had User Hplar741 claiming to be Ralph Sampson III, and making numerous attempts to get the article deleted. Now, we have someone claiming to be Yvonne Lyon who wants her page deleted, and has placed a CSD tag on it, in addition to request on the article talk page. Is this a trend, a wandering sock, coincidence, or something that happens on a regular basis? — Maile (talk) 00:48, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

It happens occasionally. Not often, but often enough its not that rare. I suspect the Lyon one is bogus (I could be wrong) only because she is a)currently touring and performing musician, b)there is nothing negative in the article, c)she is not notable for one event and is otherwise out of the public eye. Genuine requests for their biography being deleted are almost all (in my experience) due to either they are otherwise a private individual to which the article is an embarressment (often ending up deleted under 1/0E), they have a lot of negative information (depending on notability, rarely deleted). Only in death does duty end (talk) 01:07, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Can an admin check a page prot for me please?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hi Admins! User MelanieN recently full-protected my old talk page here, but there appears to be a problem with the date she set when protecting it. I did ask for indef protection, however the expiry date was set to 8th April, which is 3 days ago but the protection is still there? Anyone able to modify it at all to say indef-protected at all? Thanks all Nightfury 08:41, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

User ignoring discussion to solve edit dispute on Animax Pakistan

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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A few days ago I made a change to Animax Pakistan by redirecting the page to Animax India since it was a time-shift version of the network. Bankster (talk · contribs) reverted my edit and then I decided to start a discussion about the issue at their talk page. They ignored my message and I reinstated the redirect link because of that. That didn't stop them from reverting my edit again. So I decided to post another message to their talk page. Yesterday I posted a new message to their talk page but they deleted it. Instead they posted this to my talk page yesterday despite the fact that I have not edited the page since the 11th of April. Could I please have an administrator help me start a discussion with Bankster (talk · contribs)? I want to solve the dispute but they are ignoring my attempts at solving this issue. Instead of engaging in discussion they are sending me messages threatening to block me. I just want to solve the dispute, that's all. Also, my IP address changes all the time but I am the same user. (110.148.113.195 (talk) 00:48, 13 April 2018 (UTC))

I see you already placed a notice on their talk page about this discussion. I placed another one. Maybe someone reading this has a more convincing way to get Bankster (talk · contribs) engaged in a dialogue here. — Maile (talk) 00:57, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you @Maile66: for doing that. (110.148.113.195 (talk) 01:02, 13 April 2018 (UTC))

The user involved reverted my edits arguing that I had to reply to him first, which can be considered vandalism as he kept reverting me with no other valid argument. Secondly, the user is asking me for references that proves the existence of Sony Yay Pakistan, since the channel was just a mere timeshift feed from former Indian channel Animax due to time zones differences (which has been rebranded as Sony Yay). However, there isn't even a single source stating that Animax Pakistan actually existed, not even a single press release available on a Google search. Even more, the same user altered the page on 7 April 2018 from a redirect being created by user JSH-alive (talk · contribs) on 2 August 2017, nearly 8 months after. The last 3 IPs editing the redirect in the last couple of days appear to be Australian according to these logs. So first off, what is an Australian doing on an article related to an hoax-like Pakistani channel? And secondly, why were you persistent on messaging me during hours I wasn't even awake or active on the English Wikipedia? That's WP:STALKING as far as I'm concerned. Also, why were you aiming to delete my own messages on your talk page? You know you can't delete them, do you? Unless you archive them (which you can't, since you're not a registered user), you don't have the right to do that.

Also, could you prove to me that Animax Pakistan actually existed? If so, could you also prove to me that the channel hasn't turned merely into a timeshifted feed from Sony Yay? --Bankster (talk) 01:19, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

I've restored the redirect to AMX India with further explanation in the article about the PK version (if I am in error, feel free to revert). The confusing link to Sony Yay doesn't help matters. If you feel the network is a hoax, I would take it to AfD at this point and argue your reason for deletion rather than persist in redirecting to someplace that would throw the reader off and confuse them without much explanation. Nate • (chatter) 01:33, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

@Bankster: Yes I'm Australian but what does that have to do with anything? Why can't I edit pages related to international things, am I only restricted to editing things related to Australia? How does that make sense? I don't have to be of Pakistani descent to edit things related to Pakistan. By your logic, you shouldn't be editing that page either. You're Peruvian! I don't know how you come up with these things. Stalking? Are you aware of the fact that there are time differences in the world? On your user page it says you live in Peru. Eastern Australia is 15 hours ahead of Peru! It makes perfect sense why I would post messages on your talk page at different hours. I am not stalking you, that's very ignorant of you to say such a thing. Care to do a little research next time before you post things like that. I can't help the fact that you live in a different time zone and I'm not going to pander to your needs. So I'm going to post messages to whomever I want to, when I want to. I also don't think you understand what WP:STALKING is, maybe read the page before using it. Nothing I did to you can be classified as "stalking". Finally, I can remove messages from my talk page because an administrator told me that I can do that after a user was harassing me on my talk page last year.

I can't find a source about the existence of Animax Pakistan either. I think we'll have to ask the user (Munaum (talk · contribs), who created the page, about where they got that information. (110.148.113.195 (talk) 01:39, 13 April 2018 (UTC))

I've blocked Bankster. See explanation, which as I'm just one hour ahead of him, presumably will not be given a baseless accusation of stalking. Nyttend (talk) 11:42, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Alan Jackson vandal

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Can an admin please indef JacobGa31668544 (talk · contribs)? He's a blatantly obvious sock of Jack Gaines (talk · contribs), a longterm vandal with a grudge against Alan Jackson. Constant spreading of misinformation on Alan Jackson, use of "Alan Jackson Killed Country" in edit summaries. I've been dealing with this dipshit since November. Should we take also take it to Wikimedia Foundation? Make an LTA page? Inform his ISP? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 16:46, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Done by Dlohcierekim. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 17:05, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

• @A lad insane: This guy has been unstoppable. Even changing the edit filters hasn't stopped him, and he's stalked me on Facebook and Twitter. Should he be reported to WMF? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 20:07, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, definitely report him to WMF. I think I suggested that last time you posted about him on AN, not sure if you saw the reply. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:42, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

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YouTube may be sending its crazies our way

Just a quick heads up. It looks like YouTube is planning on putting links to relevant Wikipedia articles onto videos that promote obviously fringe theories and beliefs. I raised this over at WP:FTN but thought an FYI might be worth posting here as well. I'm not sure what will come of this or if there is anything we can really do about it other than to be aware. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:49, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

How appalling. And I'm not sure what you're saying about us die-hard YT fans. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:57, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Well ... thanks for the heads up ... there are already fringe theorists of one type or another on Wikipedia, and are at times seen listed at AIV. Or on the local news anywhere. Like, you know, some in elected office here and there. — Maile (talk) 21:01, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

• Watchlist all the things. GMG^talk 21:40, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

I've seen another thread about this but I can't remember where at the moment. If anyone else knows adding a link here might be useful for readers who haven't seen it. MarnetteD|Talk 21:58, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Found it Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 58#Facebook rolling out feature which utilizes Wikipedia. I thought there had been more posts there. MarnetteD|Talk 22:00, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Also here: User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 227#YouTube to use "a list of well-known internet conspiracies from Wikipedia" to expose conspiracy theories. ʍw 22:44, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

In all seriousness, I think this will be a good thing re: more (reliably sourced) knowledge, more free, for more people. Is it going to liven up FTN and ANI? Definitely. And yes, this has been in the works for about a month or more now. Everyone please generously add FTN and the first few dozen conspiracy theories you can think of to your watchlist. Please and thank you. GMG^talk 23:17, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

So... am I the only admin who doesn't have Jimbo Wales talk page watchlisted, who has never posted there and who has probably spent less than 2 minutes of my life there? Just wondering... -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:36, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

I dunno. I hear it's a popular place. I'm not much for parties. GMG^talk 23:50, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

The "ha ha only serious" Wikipedia:WikiSpeak puts it aptly : "Walls of text from self-centered windbags on uninteresting topics, interspersed with Jimbo's barnstars for being a demigod. Reading all 230 archives must be like a trip to Hades. Jimbo wisely stays out of most of it, possibly from being on TV too much, or jetsetting to exotic locales." Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:35, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

• And more coverage of this [1]. How did I not here about this until last night? -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:04, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

• NYT says: "Susan Wojcicki, announced that the company would enlist Wikipedia’s help to deal with the proliferation of conspiracy theories and misinformation on its platform." Sounds very nice, laudable even. Did she ask Jimbo at all? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:06, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

• Ad Orientem I am glad that this thread is getting attention. I posted about this here a while back but don't think anyone saw it. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 23:26, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
• I hope someone works out how to get a heads up that this traffic is being sent to one of our obscure(?) articles. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:33, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

• So apparently I've been living in a cave for the past month as I've only found out thanks to this thread, I say we restrict viewing content to those who A) Have signed up, and B) paid donated a tenner ..... Coooor that'd piss a lot of people off... –Davey2010^Talk 23:46, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Damnit, Davey..always stirring the pot. Tiderolls 16:09, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I know I know .... I just can't help it, I just love drama-whoring –Davey2010^Talk 21:42, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Fiat currency is the way of the past ... we should require users to contribute 1 mBTC. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:50, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Hey, Davey2010, why not just stay in your cave? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:02, 9 April 2018 (UTC) [2]

Proposal to ban editor ProfNFLB from Noel Fitzpatrick page

This user has repeatedly injected promotional content into the page Noel Fitzpatrick, requiring extensive cleanup at first and some non-trivial cleanup after the second large instance. Additionally, the username clearly indicates that the editor is the subject of the article himself or one of his staffers. This user has also added obvious promotional content at the beginning of the articles life, and with a (Redacted) of googling is revealed to be an employee at Fitpatrick's practice.81.164.228.206 (talk) 23:20, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

One of the editors you link has not edited since 2014. ProfNFLB has not edited since 2017. The edit you link happened in 2016, and and the last one was June 2017. I have redacted your other links as WP:OUTING. — Maile (talk) 00:42, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

It seems like the page editing activity there is quite slow-going in general, so it might make sense to do this in light of that. - Curious Sargon (talk) 13:06, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Both of the reported users are pretty dormant (and possibly retired), not to mention the article having very little activity as mentioned above, so I'm not sure anything needs to be done here. OAN: I like to assume good faith, but...how does an IP that started editing two days ago just happen to know about this forum? Erpert ^{blah, blah, blah...} 17:42, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

67.217.155.129

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Please revoke talk page access for 67.217.155.129 for persistent vandalism and misuse of talk page. Pkbwcgs (talk) 20:22, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

 Done — Maile (talk) 20:28, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

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Fault with link to Wikimedia

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• For the last few days, when in Wikipedia, I have a marker along my top line saying that I have a message in Wikimedia; but whenever I click on it, to read the message, I get this fault message: "WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION / Wikimedia Error / Our servers are currently under maintenance or experiencing a technical problem. Please try again in a few minutes. / See the error message at the bottom of this page for more information.". What is happening? (From Wikipedia I can access https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Anthony_Appleyard as usual, and from that, I can read my Wikimedia messages.) Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:14, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
• This bug is stopping me from being told when someone pings me or leaves a message in my user talk page. Please attend to it. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:16, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
  • @Anthony Appleyard: I think you may misunderstand. This noticeboard is for those with admin rights on Wikipedia, not for developers. If there is a bug, please report it on Phabricator, as detailed at WP:Bugs. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 22:53, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
• Thanks. I have found what I was doing wrong. Matter resolved. Sorry. Thanks. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:49, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

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Potentially developing BLP issue?

Notifying this noticeboard that there may be a developing BLP issue regarding a wrestling event last night and I would appreciate some watchlisting/discussion with the wrestling community about.

Background: At WWE's WrestleMania 34 last night, a wrestler, Braun Strowman, went into the audience to "find a tag team partner" and selected a child identified only as Nicholas from the audience to be a "participant" in the match; Strowman and Nicholas won the WWE Raw Tag Team Championships. I'm growing concerned on the number of edits to related articles attempting to identify the child who may or may not remain a low profile individual/may not want their real name known after this event. In the days coming after this event, several people may try to identify him improperly. In fact, Nicholas may not even be his real name (known in the wrestling world as a ring name). The child was not picked by random (it's wrestling, you know) and the child is more than likely related to someone who works at WWE. There are also several websites that the professional wrestling WikiProject considers unreliable posting about his potential identity. This isn't the most life threatening issue, but several edits I have seen already have tried to identify the minor and have also identified him as the wrong person (which may create other BLP issues posting the wrong identity of a different minor). If he becomes a more public individual, this might all be for moot, but for know I think caution should be taken.

Here is a short list of articles he will be most likely mentioned at (add as you see fit): WrestleMania 34, Braun Strowman, Cesaro and Sheamus, Cesaro (wrestler), Sheamus (wrestler), John Cone, List of WWE personnel (Template:WWE personnel), WWE, List of current champions in WWE, WWE Raw Tag Team Championship, List of WWE Raw Tag Team Champions (Template:WWE Tag Team Championship). If there could just be more eyes on these in particular, the issue will probably resolve itself soon, but it just happened a few hours ago.

Thanks. — Moe Epsilon 10:01, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

• I've thrown a few of these pages on my watchlist. "A 10-year-old identified as 'Nicholas'" seems to be a BLP-compliant way to describe the situation. This situation is a reminder of the issues involved in describing Kayfabe events in a fact-based encyclopedia. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:54, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

HÊÚL. (talk · contribs) appears to be edit-warring over several articles related to this; I'm unsure if he's in the right, and don't believe 3RR has been violated. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:30, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I did not edit-warred in any article. I just revert another user edit calling the boy "Nicholas Cone" because he was never acknowledged as John Cone's son onscreen. HÊÚL. (talk) 04:42, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I hope not, because I've already given you multiple final warnings over edit warring and adding original research months back. You have no more chances left in this area. Sergecross73 msg me 13:06, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

United Daughters of the Confederacy

We have an editor who's only purpose here so far is to advocate for the UDC view. Special:Contributions/Gi076011. Their latest move has been to seek deletion of the page on copyright grounds Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/United Daughters of the Confederacy where they helpfully disclosed they are talking with the UDC President. I just want to raise awareness of this POV pusher so more eyes are on their activities. Legacypac (talk) 18:57, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

• I've shut down the AFD under criteria 1 for a speedy keep. I've got to run, but I'd consider a NOTHERE block to be on the horizon here. Courcelles (talk) 19:02, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Wouldn't this be a better topic for COIN? Primefac (talk) 19:03, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

(talk)I clearly misunderstood the rules regarding use of trademarked logos and names. But, I am new to Wikipedia and I am still learning. My conversation with the President General was a misguided attempt to avoid legal action. However, I need to understand how I can be accused of being a POV pusher on a page where the editors are clearly trying to maintain a negative narrative of an organization. The sources that are used on the page are all about the United Daughters of the Confederacy prior to 1940, with only 1 or 2 exceptions. But, it has been stated by at least one editor that the references to the UDC as an organization that promotes white supremacy are current. I am not saying any of this to be argumentative. I am trying to understand what allows one POV based on information from 80 years ago to prevent the posting of any information that contradicts it.Gi076011 (talk) 20:04, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Gi076011 is clearly not aware of all the rules but I would cut them some slack. I agree the article has neutrality issues and Gi076011's concerns are met with wiki lawyering rather than help in fixing the problems. The article does read as if it's written to only highlight the negatives and sourced from articles hostile to the subject. Attempts to bring some level of balance are not met with constructive criticism/help. Springee (talk) 22:15, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

• Gi076011 so far you have been a WP:SPA Single Purpose Account who has used a dispute resolution notice board and an AfD to advance a specific agenda. Not typical new editor actions. Is this your only account? As for Springee's comments - feel free to add reliable sources to counter the ones already there. Legacypac (talk) 22:50, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
• Question - Can some sort of booby prize, not meant to be taken entirely seriously, be awarded to User:Gi076011 for one of the worst-ever arguments for an AFD? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:51, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Boomerang Proposal

I propose that User:Gi076011 be topic-banned from all pages related to the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:51, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose:First off, way late, no reason to revive this by punitive action (and what boomerang, the user did not come here to complain). Also, in content, a user can clearly argue about how much WP:ABOUTSELF is allowed - also, the deletion did not go anywhere and the user says they did not understand and really this seems way drastic (see, BITE) but also see commonsense - people can be wrong and not be banned. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:08, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Calan Williams

I saw the page Calan Williams when I was patrolling Special:NewPagesFeed. I noticed that it had the notability template, despite the fact that only the author had ever edited the page, and the dates of the templates were April 2017. This made me think that this was nearly directly copied and pasted from an old copy that was deleted, so I looked at the deletion log for the page, and indeed, an admin had deleted it in March 2017, per WP:Articles for deletion/Calan Williams. So, could an admin please look to see if the old Calan Williams that was deleted was nearly identical to the current page? If this is true, then I will tag the page for speedy deletion (or an admin could just go ahead and do that) per G4. --SkyGazer 512 ^{talk / contributions / subpages} 15:44, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I took a look and was amazed to find it's actually not a copy - the new one is quite a bit shorter than the deleted version, but more updated, and they were created by different editors. Don't know why this one added the notability tag. ansh666 19:27, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

The notability (or any top of the page maintenance tag fo that matter) are usually copied when copying infobox template from similar page and new users are not savvy enough to remove them. They even copy deletion tags sometimes. –Ammarpad (talk) 19:38, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this. Based off of this, I think it's very likely that the user who recreated the page didn't mean to cause any harm or do anything that would be unconstructive. I guess I'll just leave it as is for now.--SkyGazer 512 ^{talk / contributions / subpages} 21:04, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, there's always the option of renominating it for AfD, if the notability is still suspect. ansh666 01:06, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

For instance, see this article recreation today with speedy template Special:Diff/836506538. After I tagged the original page, the user copied everything, and moment after deletion, he pasted it a such. –Ammarpad (talk) 06:09, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Good Morning

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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My name is Junior Oliveira Costa, I'm Brazilian, I'm an economist.

I humbly ask you for your help, made several mistakes to try to make a page about the brazilian investor Israel Lucas Gois,I did it because I didn't know what I was doing.

I would like to ask for your help so that there is nothing wrong, I would like to have some relevant facts that happened recently on the aforementioned. The 3 days that the Brazilian press announced the purchase of the company BEX by the investor, this was news in all the newspapers of Brazil and Europe,This only shows a notoriety of the aforementioned.

Please unlock the name of Israel lucas You can create a page about it.Below is a list of references that confirm the concept of notoriety about the aforementioned.

“O aprendiz de Banqueiro”: mas Afinal Quem é Israel Lucas Góis? O investidor por trás do sucesso da Equity Brazil Capital The São paulo Times

De “trader” falido, a investidor Milionário: empreendedor de sucesso dá a volta por cima após perder tudo na Bolsa de Valores Atanews

Milionário Paranaense vai investir R$ 10 milhões em startups do agronegócio | ABVCAP - Associação Brasileira de Private Equity e Venture Capital

Empreender: um sonho possível. | Infomoney

dono do br brazilian investors anuncia a compra de 37% da plataforma financeira bex

Dono da Equity Brasil Capital compra 37% da plataforma financeira BEX Jornal Europeu.

Please unlock so I can create a page.

não assinado de Historiador Brasileiro economico (discussão • contrib) 20 de abril de 2018 (UTC)

I'm guessing that English isn't your first language. From what I can figure out, it appears that you want to create a new article; if that is indeed the case, WP:RA is the place to get a jump start on that. Erpert ^{blah, blah, blah...} 15:27, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Erpert tl;dr they're globally blocked (Grupo Calima Diesel). CHRISSYMAD ❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 17:36, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Stewart Lake & Veronica Lake

*Note: The below discussion has been moved here from my talk page. The background on this is on the article's talk page. In July 2017, I took the hoax to Oversight because of the legal threat. The IP was blocked for that reason, and the talk page was protected temporarily by Ks0stm. The alleged supporting document was originally accepted at Commons, and also deleted from Commons. As it turns out, Commons has no authentication process for something like this. It's so easy to fake documentation, that anybody could allege anything with nothing more than the will to use a computer. Not knocking Commons, because they do their job with tools they are given. However, lacking any other verification that Wikipedia considers necessary, Veronica Lake was given the name Lake when she became an actress, the alleged marriage much later has no verification Wikipedia uses. Somebody else please handle this. — Maile (talk) 16:11, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

From my talk page

I know you were involved in the Stewart Lake/Veronica Lake OTRS. I agree entirely with your comments on the Veronical Lake talk page that Stewart Lake's claims appear to be false. At the very least they are entirely unsubstantiated by secondary sources. Nevertheless, Stewart Lake now appears on the Veronica Lake page as a spouse. The edit that put him on the page is by User:Anachronist. Here is my brief exchange about the edit: [3].

I do not feel comfortable editing the page myself because I run a wiki for Historic Saranac Lake that has a page on Veronica Lake, and I am being harassed by Stewart there: "I am not afraid to have my attornies [sic] to file a case to remove all references to my wife. I will win... I strongly suggest that you read the Wikipedia main article. And you will see it was corrected under court order and protected from editing. Are you a millionaire Mr. Wanner?" Etc., etc.

I would hate to see this guy prevail. He has violated Wikipedia's prohibitions on legal harassment several times. Would you look into this again?

Thanks, -- User:Mwanner

Mwanner Please post your concerns at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. Anachronist is an administrator. For me to revert an admin is considered WP:WHEEL and could get me blocked. You need to take this to a wider community, so please take this to the Admin board. — Maile (talk) 15:36, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Huh? The page is ECP (so Mwanner can edit it) and OTRS isn't an admin action, which is where WHEEL would apply. Anachronist provided a clear course of action to take on their talk page. What is the point of bringing it here? In any case, I've removed the marriage claim, as it's completely unsourced and I can't find any for it. ansh666 17:33, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, Anachronist is the admin who made the article ECP. Not that I mind the protection level, but probably not required since the only problem was caused by an IP. But he seems to have not read the background. I just don't want to get into a hassle with another admin over this, which is why I asked for involvement of another. Sometimes it's just good to get another set of eyes on a situation. Thanks. — Maile (talk) 18:14, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

There are several OTRS tickets here and, frankly, sorting this out has ended up a bit of a mess. I'm not going to get involved any further on-wiki unless required, however I can be emailed about this if people want to contact me. While I don't like making decisions based on off-wiki evidence, this seemed to be an appropriate thing to do here. Mdann52 (talk) 21:10, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Standard Offer appeal by User:Just A Regular New Yorker

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Posting this unblock appeal for community discussion.

I would like to begin by saying that I deserved to be blocked. I was vandalizing Wikipedia articles, which I now know is unacceptable. Additionally, an administrator had the courtesy to warn me that my actions will result in a block. Not only did I not listen to the administrator, I responded rudely in a matter that proved that I did not intend to edit helpfully. However, I have changed my childish immature ways. To prove that I intend to edit constructively, I have taken up the Standard offer. I have gone six months without any sockpuppetry and block evasion. During this time I have been editing Wikiquote. My edits include the creation the following articles; Fridtjof Nansen, Christina Stead, Nicolas Steno, Philo Farnsworth, Aaron Judge, Bill de Blasio, David Dinkins, Adam Steltzner, Juan Lagares, Zumwalt-class destroyer, Jacob deGrom, James Franck, Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, Manhattan Project, Clair Cameron Patterson, William H. McRaven, Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, Gmail, Charles R. Drew, Bigfoot, Portugal. The Man, and Vaccine controversies. Additionally, I have edited other articles including; Mein Kampf, William Henry Harrison, Holes, Martin Van Buren, David Wright, Derek Jeter, John Adams, Andrew Jackson, Elon Musk, Berlin Wall, Alex Rodriguez, Barack Obama, Clyfford Still, Paul Sweezy, Incorrect predictions, The Establishment, Conversion to Judaism, Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, Tobbaco industry, and Billy the kid. I have spent much time on Wikiquote welcoming new users, and fighting vandalism. I hope to be able to edit constructively to Wikipedia as well. I believe I have provided sufficient evidence as to the legitimacy of my motives. You may choose to decline this request, but please keep in mind that you have my word that I have truly changed my immature ways. Thank you for taking the time to read my request. (Administrators that I would like my request to be shown to, @Vsmith: @Jimbo Wales:) Just A Regular New Yorker (talk) 13:47, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Dynamic IP means that CU isn't terrifically useful, but it doesn't show any recent socking. User has been a productive member of the Wikiquote community during their block here (see Wikiquote contribs). Please post support or opposition to unblocking below. Yunshui ^雲_水 14:31, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

• Support unblock. Generally positive contributions to Wikiquote, no sign of socking, willingness to change behaviour - I see this as a good example of what the SO should be used for. Yunshui ^雲_水 14:32, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support per Yunshui, and the original vandalism wasn't that bad. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:35, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support Worth giving a 2nd chance to. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:37, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support Had I got to this unblock request before Yunshui, I'd have pinged the blocking admin with the intention of unblocking the account unless they disagreed. I don't think this needs a community discussion (but don't object to one). --Yamla (talk) 15:02, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
• Unblocked per above request and consensus here. Vsmith (talk) 16:07, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Need help sorting through pages

In about seven days there will be about 250 files that will come up for deletion. Unfortunately I think many of them are the result of improper removal from the parent article, but I have neither the time nor the patience to check through them all. In other words, please help out by checking out a handful to save some improper deletions next week. Primefac (talk) 15:42, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

I just did a random sample of 30 or so, and only found one problematic removal. Most of these appear to be routine logo updates (e.g. organization released new logo, updated to SVG), WP:NFCC#1 violations, etc. Also, B-bot removes di-oprhaned tags if non-free files end up back in use, so a comprehensive manual review is probably unnecessary. -FASTILY 21:07, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough. My concern was when I sampled about 10 and found more than half to have been improperly removed.

On that subject, though, should we even be allowing svg files for "non-free" use? As vector images they don't have a "maximum" size and thus break the non-free guidelines. Primefac (talk) 19:49, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Technically, it is a gray area. We have {{SVG logo}} to mark such things and that should be on every SVG image here that is under fair use. Provided our rendering is within our policies, and that template warning others about the potential issues is there, I don't see a problem with it. --Majora (talk) 19:52, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. Primefac (talk) 20:02, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I've always felt that the limited resolution aspect of nonfree images was an important attribute so I'm troubled by the use of SVG as a nonfree image. I think we ought to prohibit it.--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:02, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Portal:Current events

User:SoWhy tagged this page as being proposed for deletion even though no one is proposing to delete it. [4] Could some admin remove this POINTY tag please as it is already bringing in votes from confused readers. Legacypac (talk) 17:36, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

The proposal currently discussed at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC:_Ending_the_system_of_portals asks "Should the system of portals be ended? This would include the deletion of all portal pages and the removal of the portal namespace." (emphasis added). Logically, all portals potentially affected by the proposal should carry the notice. I merely added it because The Transhumanist could not do it themselves because of the permanent protection. None of it was intended to disrupt or prove a point. Regards SoWhy 17:53, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Except that the proposer very clearly said that Portal:Current events was not included in the broad wording and no other user (that I know of) as advocated deleting this high traffic page. Moving it yes, but not deleting it. Legacypac (talk) 18:15, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

This RFC has already taken over the village pump and is now starting to spill onto other areas. How about creating a new portal where everybody can discuss portals while leaving the rest of Wikipedia in peace? Someone remove those templates, and quick. Isa (talk) 18:19, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

If in Portal space no one would notice the proposal. Legacypac (talk) 18:23, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As it stands, the proposal is to remove all portals, including this one, so it would actually be a violation of WP:CANVASS to exclude certain portals from notification. An elaboration of the proposer's intent is nowhere to be found in the section that actually asks the question. Regards SoWhy 18:26, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

The worst that'll happen to Portal:Current events is that it'll be moved out of the Portal: namespace (probably to Wikipedia:Current events, which is a redirect there anyways). It's not really even a Portal in the normal sense. That being said, I do agree with the need for notification. ansh666 18:34, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

I've proposed the move already Wikipedia:Current events. The worst that happens is a bunch of votes to keep one page no one wants to delete prevents the deletion of 1500 pages a whole bunch of people want to delete. It's a misleading tag. Legacypac (talk) 18:41, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

A yes or no question to delete 1500 pages does not have to end in consensus to delete 1500 pages or 0 pages, it can also end in deleting 500 or 1499 pages or anywhere in between. That does not make the tag misleading though because, again, the question explicitly includes all portals. Regards SoWhy 18:57, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

@Legacypac: I have a sinking feeling that this section will soon be overwhelmed. Can we expedite the move so we can close this? Isa (talk) 18:57, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

The tag is clearly correct, it's not SoWhy's fault that the RfC is constructed the way it is - and it is exceedingly odd that anyone wants to keep the RfC deletion notices off the pages - the process is what the process is, and it must be kept clear - and none of that is SoWhy's fault. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:52, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

SoWhy has a history of extremely narrow reading of things ignoring common sense. There have been suggestions in the discussion that the mainpage is a Portal - will it be tagged for deletion too? I've requested the move via a CSD of Wikipedia:Current events. Any Admin can accept this, exchanging Wikipedia:Current events for Portal:Current events which would would become a redirect. This plan has wide support in the Portals RfC and should not be controversial. Legacypac (talk) 19:02, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

@Legacypac: it's not that simple. Portal:Current events transcludes subpages - thousands, maybe tens of thousands of them - which would all need to be moved and updated to match the new namespace to avoid breaking anything. There's also automation involved in creating the daily pages, so we'd need Cyberpower678 to fix that first as well. ansh666 19:07, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

(e/c)It's actually that your actions are the ones that are messing with process - the RfC, says what it says, if the RfC is poorly constructed, it's poorly constructed or it actually means exactly what it says, but that is not SoWhy's fault - an RfC does not magically change in midstream, and for the future the process must be kept clear. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:11, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

• (some irrelevant commentary) TBH, not that it is going to happen, but you could close the rfc now as no consensus and the result and even the closing statement wouldn't largely be different than if it were left for another 20 or so days - but you'd save a lot of time and dramah (like this) Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:36, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Restore access to account from 2001 without set password

I have a very old account User:SwPawel~enwiki (User ID 878) which was setup without an e-mail and for which I lost password years ago. Therefore I was using an account User:SwPawel2 as a redirect to that account and a separate SwPawel account on Polish Wikipedia. May I regain the access to such old account (it is great to be among the oldest wikipedians) eg. by password reset or setting to that User:SwPawel~enwiki account the same e-mail address as is set to User:SwPawel2? —Preceding undated comment added 20:57, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

I've only ever seen such requests refused for a variety of reasons. However, you should probably be able to usurp that account name. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:04, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

It is highly unlikely that you will be able to prove that is your account, which is the first bar to clear. (Do not provide personal information on wiki.) --Izno (talk) 21:20, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

That plwiki account is (imo) not eligible for usurp even if proof of ~enwiki is cleared. — regards, Revi 05:53, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Requesting a Block on Myself

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hello! I have retired from Wikipedia, and I would like to request a block on my account for a set period of time out of my concern that I will not be able to stay away on my own. Thank you in advance! Aoba47 (talk) 18:43, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Um, OK - blocked for a period. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:59, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Uh oh. I think we crossed the streams xaos. I was coming here to say if you want to be unblocked in the future, you can always request an unblock at that time. RickinBaltimore (talk) 19:00, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Looks like RickinBaltimore beat me to it, you know what to do if you change your mind in the future. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:01, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Irregular conduct at Articles for deletion/Sharon Statement

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The nominator User:DrFleischman of this deletion discussion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sharon Statement has changed the reason for deletion in the middle of the discussion with this edit. I submit the following:

1. Participants before the change offered arguments based on WP:STANDALONE.
2. Participants after the change offered arguments based on WP:PAGEDECIDE.
3. The nominator has hopelessly polluted and compromised the process.
4. This is prejudicial to participants who constructed arguments based on WP:STANDALONE since closing admin will evaluate the discussion based on WP:PAGEDECIDE.
5. To close this convoluted discussion would place an unfair burden on closing admin.

Therefore I request that this discussion be closed forthwith as Keep with prejudice. – Lionel^(talk) 13:13, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Meh, I've seen lots of noms change their arguments mid-stream. Voters are supposed to decide whether the article is notable, not whether the nom is correct in every particular. There's nothing prejudicial here and no basis for a procedural close. Voters, including you, should spend more time evaluating notability and less time sniping.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:23, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

It's one thing to change or massage deletion rationale in the body of the discussion i.e. in the thread. But to change the very top of the discussion? After half of the editors have already commented? Not acceptable. We can do and we need to do better than that.– Lionel^(talk) 13:31, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

I see nothing irregular about this. The change in view is clearly indicated with a strikethrough; whomever closes the discussion will evaluate the arguments appropriately. The nomination isn't a binding contract on the participants. Mackensen (talk) 13:33, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Am I the only one who sees how moving the goalposts after everyone has commented opens the floodgates to gaming the system? If this is allowed to stand nominators will have a field day playing hide the sausage with deletion rationales. (I won't get blocked for using 2 sports metaphors in one post, will I?) – Lionel^(talk) 13:36, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

What you suggest is possible in theory, but the conduct in this nomination doesn't resemble it. The nominator struck out one word in favor of another. The substance of the nomination didn't change. Given the responses, everyone understood the argument the nominator was making, despite linking to the wrong policy. No one thought he was arguing that Wikipedia's guideline on stand-alone lists was in play. Mackensen (talk) 13:45, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

(e/c)? If the closer thinks there needs to be a relist, they can relist for further addressing the points raised. The issue is still the same, does policy support/guideline support deletion or not. Raise whatever point you have, by comment in the discussion. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:48, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

The principle of my request is here:

WP:REDACT "But if anyone has already replied to or quoted your original comment, changing your comment may deprive any replies of their original context, and this should be avoided." Emph. mine.

– Lionel^(talk) 13:51, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Fine, but whatever the valiance of that advice, it's not at all a rationale for Keep, with prejudice. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:54, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

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Administrator wants out (of Requested Move). Seeking replacement

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Administrator A (full username redacted to avoid any embarrassment) was managing a Requested Move. It started to get into a long discussion so I awarded that administrator a barnstar for administrating the RM. Administrator A was not amused. The barnstar was removed with the edit summary of "I do not wish to be involved in this matter any more."

I am coming here on advice of an administrator N. N wrote that he voted so he cannot act to close (or keep open) the RM. He suggested AN. If nobody is notified, the RM might seem like Administrator A is still managing it but A is not.

I am making a request for another administrator to manage and eventually close the Requested Move. It seems to me like there is widespread support for a move but not a unanimous new name, although there does seem to be a slight favourite. In any case, you can decide if there is support or not. Good luck!

The article is Talk:2018 bombing of Damascus and Homs.

Vanguard10 (talk) 03:49, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Seriously? Nobody "manages" a RM. Someone will come by and close it when there's a consensus, after at least a week, and carry out any move that's been decided on. That particular discussion (which I opened, for the record) hasn't even been open for two days. ansh666 04:19, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This has been closed as a nac citing "out of process". I was merely following the instructions of an administrator. Please do not remove these comments. These comments are not part of the discussion but only comment about the nac, not the original issue.Vanguard10 (talk) 05:36, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

the first answer was the correct answer. I've been asked to revert my close but I've declined as this request is out of process. There is nothing to do here. Legacypac (talk) 05:54, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

• Vanguard10, if you need further outside opinions, a good place to start would probably be related wikiprojects, which can usually be found in the banner at the top of the article talk page, including links. Administrators don't "manage" discussions, and just because someone is an admin, doesn't mean they're necessarily highly skilled at mediation. Administrators aren't even required to close a requested move, or for that matter, that discussions on Wikipedia be formally closed at all if those involved reach an obvious agreement and the discussion has reached a natural conclusion. As was alluded to above, these discussions normally run for at least a week, and this one has been open only a few days. So the correct course of action is to continue to discuss calmly, seek outside interested opinions as appropriate, and then simply wait for someone who is uninvolved to assess the consensus once one is reached, assuming you cannot reach an agreement that satisfies all parties. No management necessary. GMG^talk 10:55, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

I've also taken the liberty of dropping a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history, which is a particularly active project, and hopefully will attract input from others with experience in these non-obvious types of event titles. You may want to notify additional projects with a similarly brief and neutral message. GMG^talk 11:06, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

The page has been move protected so the result of the discussion will need to be implemented by an admin, whoever closes it. Hut 8.5 17:34, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

The move protection expires on the same day the RM hits one week. I presume that was by design. GMG^talk 17:50, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Request removal of permissions

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Can an admin please remove reviewer and rollbacker permissions from my account? I don't need/deserve these roles at present. As I'm coming back from a block, I'm going to be focusing on article creation/improvement, so the autopatrolled right is useful, but reviewer & rollbacker are not. Joseph2302 (talk) 18:38, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Done. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:40, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

GoodDay's stalker

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Would an administrator please block 103.23.18.158, before he undoes all my edits going back to November 2005? GoodDay (talk) 03:50, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Would that be so bad? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.23.18.158 (talk) 03:52, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Blocked. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:05, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

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Proposal creating an event coordinator user right

There is currently a proposal at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Event coordinator proposal about creating a new user right for event coordinators. All are invited to participate. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:28, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Motion: Misuse of Administrator Tools

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

The Arbitration Committee reminds administrators that they should generally not use administrative tools in situations where good-faith editors disagree about how a content policy should be applied and the administrator holds a strong opinion on the dispute. Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs) is admonished for edit-warring in support of their preferred version of Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Outreach/April 2018 ([5][6][7]). He is advised that future similar conduct may result in sanctions.

For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 17:01, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Motion: Misuse of Administrator Tools

Passing of User:Lankiveil

I'm sad to report that Lankiveil (talk · contribs) has passed away. The normal procedures for deceased Wikipedians have already been followed as much as possible by now, but deaths of admins/prominent editors are usually announced here, so ... here I am. Graham87 08:10, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

And may I say for the record that he was a good one - both on wiki and off JarrahTree 08:56, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

• That is truly awful news. Guy (Help!) 16:48, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
• So sorry to hear the news.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:46, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
• There are more comments on User talk:Lankiveil Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:58, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

When a good editor passes, we should try to finish up their drafts projects. I have checked his userspace subpages, and found the following:

• User:Lankiveil/Anzac Avenue (we appear to have this, but worth making sure all information is reflected)
• User:Lankiveil/Brisbane (he seems to have been writing a new lede, but this was a long time ago)
• User:Lankiveil/Bert Roberts (we do not have this photographer; mainspace title redirects to a different person)
• User:Lankiveil/Greg Jericho (no mainspace article)
• User:Lankiveil/John Crase (userspace draft is substantially more complete than the mainspace article, John Crase)
• User:Lankiveil/List of Moreton Bay Regional Council suburbs (no mainspace article, probably best merged somewhere, if not reflected anywhere)
• User:Lankiveil/One People of Australia League (no mainspace article)

There is also User:Lankiveil/EWL Article List, apparently a project to complete entries contained in a source described on the page. There were a few others that I have already address. If someone could address the rest of these drafts, that would be most appreciated. bd2412 T 20:20, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

I will take a look as he was my friend and we both contributed on Queensland topics, so I am probably best placed to see what can be done with the drafts. Having taken a quick look, I suspect these are draft articles developed at edit training sessions around Queensland with local history groups (he was doing that kind of outreach in that time frame). If he didn't push them into mainspace at the time, it was probably because he was concerned about lack of citations/notability. But I will do what I can. Kerry (talk) 22:42, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

I have rescued what I could do quickly

• Bert Roberts is now Bert Roberts (photographer)
• Greg Jericho is now Greg Jericho
• John Crase is now merged into John Crase
• One People of Australia League is now One People of Australia League
• EWL List is now moved to my user page where I have other lists of prominent Australian women without articles which I can share with others organising women's editathons.
• I don't think there's anything to be recovered from the Brisbane draft nor List of Moreton Bay Regional Council suburbs given existing articles Brisbane and Moreton Bay Region and Template:Moreton Bay Region
• I will work on the Anzac Avenue merge later today (can't do that quickly and I have to be elsewhere to go to in the meantime)
• I'll look through anything else later today as I have to do some real-world things now Kerry (talk) 23:21, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Thanks - very good work! bd2412 T 18:15, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Usernames for administrator attention

Sorry to bother you guys, but could an administrator please take a look at UAA? A bot has listed ~21 and there are 7 other user made requests. Thanks! --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 06:58, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

I have to say it: I still can't understand why we have to wait for a user to edit before an obvious username violation can be dealt with. It make absolutely no sense to me: if it's a violation, it's a violation, whether or not the user has edited yet. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:44, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

If it's an obvious violation, such as an offensive username, then yes, it should be taken care of right away. The problem I see (and of course, I could be wrong) is with usernames reported as promotional; most of the time, we cannot know if a username is meant to be promotional unless the editor is making promotional edits. For all we know, you could be promoting Beyond My Ken Productions. –FlyingAce^✈hello 16:44, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

No, that would be Beyond His Ken  ;) —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 17:00, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Whaddya mean? It's the event of the century, folks!! Bring your kids, bring your grandkids, bring your grandparents, everyone will be oooo-ing and ahhh-ing at the majesty, the magnificence, the mesmerizing melodiousness of this show!!!! Beyond My Ken Productions presents Beyond My Ken in The Life and Loves of Beyond My Ken, directed by Beyond My Ken, music & lyrics by Beyond My Ken, production designed by Beyond My Ken, with costumes by Mrs. Beyond My Ken. It's the Ken-iest Ken-vent since Ken came to Ken-town!!!!! Coming soon, to a Ken-vention Center near you!!!!! Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:39, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

True story, Green Means Go is the name of a band from Delaware, a band from London, and a band from Belfast. I'm not affiliated with any of them, and you can tell because I write mostly about parks and dead people. GMG^talk 17:02, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't usually do username blocks unless it is in combination with spamming (and I've never once checked UAA, so I just come across them in the course of regular editing). On the promo side, I actually think not blocking until they edit makes sense: otherwise it'd be a soft block, which we are supposed to lift upon changing, except most admins ask questions i.r.t. whether they understand the COI guideline/spamming policy before unblocking, so its not actually a soft block. Either this, or we should simply get rid of soft promo-name blocks as we rarely follow what we tell the blocked users on that anyway (my preferred solution). If we were to do this, then yes, waiting to block until they edit makes sense. Thus ends my rant. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:07, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

In my opinion the "user must edit" rule should be changed. I spent a hour going through 5 hours of new users getting all those people. Bobherry Talk Edits 13:49, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

You could have probably saved some of that time if you had focused on the blue "contribs" links only. Mz7 (talk) 01:04, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

To add to FlyingAce's reasoning, blocks are also to prevent continuous and imminent disruption. Obvious hate speech and vandalism is something that can and should be dealt with immediately (without necessarily waiting for an edit), but especially for more milder cases, the disruption isn't usually "continuous and imminent", in my experience. Many usernames that could be inappropriate simply never edit. Since noticeboards like UAA easily get backlogged, we want admins to focus only on the most urgent issues, and asking people to wait until a user edits is one way we do that. Mz7 (talk) 01:04, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Topic ban appeal of User:Jojhnjoy

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

• Jojhnjoy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Good evening,

I am here to appeal my topic ban. Since I have retired, I won't ever edit Wikipedia in a disruptive manner again and, therefore, the topic ban is no longer required. However, a topic ban has a negative effect upon my work in other Wikipedias, especially in the German language Wikipedia, where other authors have expressed distrust, resentment and disapproval because I am topic banned in the English language Wikipdia. It starts preventing me from being able to contribute in a "pleasant" way. To make this clear: I don't want to return; please, don't assume that I will.

Due to mostly being native speakers of German, which, like English, is a West-Germanic language, many German language Wikipedia authors are capable of understanding English at a medium/advanced level with very little effort, which means, that they "see" that I have "done something wrong" however, getting into the "process" of "English language Wikipedia", is still considerably difficult for many German language Wikipedia authors. In the German language Wikipedia, topic-banning an author is usually never an option and I have never seen this happening. Also, only the arbitration committee may impose topic bans. This means that a lot of German language Wikipdia authors are unaware of the topic-banning process in the English language Wikipedia. They would expect that I have done something "very bad", but it's hard to understand "what exactly" I have done wrong. I have encountered many authors who don't know what topic bans are and that they may be community-imposed if there is "consensus". I am tired of explaining this over and over again.

Best regards, --Jojhnjoy (talk) 17:44, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Jojhnjoy was banned indefinitely from automotive subjects per this ANI thread from July 2017. He was subsequently blocked six months for failing to adhere to the topic ban. His last block expired on 8 April 2018. EdJohnston (talk) 17:56, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Jojhnjoy, you affirmed multiple times that you have no respect whatsoever for the collaborative editing process and for consensus. Collaborative editing is fundamental to what Wikipedia is, and you reject it. That is "very bad", in the sense that it's an attitude that is incompatible with doing anything at all on Wikipedia. In one case, you had more than a dozen different native speakers of English explain to you the meaning of an English text, and you rejected every single one of them, insisting that your own singular interpretation was the only correct one. Not one other editor agreed with you, but you still insisted you were right, and you insisted that you were right to carry on disputing the issue even after you had gained no support whatsoever after days and days of extremely tedious discussion.

Your behavior, which you do not regret, was bad enough to be blocked indefinitely. A topic ban was suggested as an intermediate step, in the hopes that it would be the minimum necessary to stop the disruption. You want the German editors to think the topic ban was some trivial procedural penalty for a minor issue, when in fact it was a reprieve from much more serious and permanent consequences. You want them to think you were railroaded by a kangaroo court, but that is false. If you're over there telling the Germans that, you're lying to them.

So if there are German editors who perceive that you have "done something wrong", they are correct. You have. If they perceive that you are obstinate, uncompromising, do not negotiate in good faith, do not respect others' points of view, and do not consider other editors to be your equals, then they are also correct. You're here asking for a bell to be unrung, and that is not possible. All these things really did happen, and the one who caused them was you.

From my point of view, this all looks like a ploy to come back and start wreaking havoc on automotive articles on en.wikipedia. You've pretended to retire how many times now? You always come back. I don't want to have to go through all of that again. I don't think any others who edit in that space want to either. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:04, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Notwithstanding my critique of a critique of the OP at ANI, Dennis Bratland sums up the situation here perfectly; we are not in the business of lifting topic bans or any other sanction just to improve an editor's image on another project. If, for example, the German WP does think that you are tendentious, uncollaborative, etc., then what you need to be doing is demonstrating to them that they are wrong, and that whatever has happened here won't happen over there. As with all things here, however, there are no shortcurts to a good reputation: you need to spend time at the coal-face to convince others that you have changed—an object lesson. That will not be achieved with the dropping of a TB on another wiki; and in the unlikely event that your wish here is granted, you will find out that any reputation you have on the German WP will certainly not magically disappear into the ether just because something has happened on the English-speaking one. Imho. —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 18:21, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - You have made only 4 edits since you came off from a block this month and none of them were made in article spaces. You have to prove that you can edit outside automotive subjects. Consider withdrawing your topic ban appeal as quickly as you can. D4iNa4 (talk) 18:16, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per above power~enwiki (π, ν) 18:22, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - The TBAN is about whether you are permitted to edit in this topic on the English Wikipedia, and you are not. Topic bans are not lifted when it becomes evident they are bad PR on other projects. Topic bans are lifted when you demonstrate that you can edit without being disruptive, and you have not. GMG^talk 18:24, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose the social ramifications should have been considered before you decided to be disruptive at en.wikipedia. If your reputation were important, you would not have behaved as you did beforehand. If your reputation has started to become important, perhaps you should put in the extra work needed to recover it. Per D4iNa4, you need more article work at en.wikipedia to show that you have learned from your prior mistakes and have grown as an editor past them. --Jayron32 18:27, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - We don't lift topic bans just because "Explaining to German editors why I was is a bit tricky" .... You became disruptive in that topic area and so was forcibly excluded from it ..... As you've not addressed anything I see no valid reason to lift it. –Davey2010^Talk 18:33, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose: There should be sufficient post-block edits to ensure that you understand the reason of the initial TBan and subsequent block after you breached the TBan. That will also give people's cue about the kind of edit you are willing to do in the future. –Ammarpad (talk) 18:46, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Serious question, D4iNa4: Have you read the appeal? I do not want to come back. I do not want to edit in the article name space. I do not have to prove anything. I have retired. That is why I have said: „To make this clear: I don't want to return; please, don't assume that I will.“

Question for everyone: Why do you even start voting? This is not a vote on xyz, I hope only administrators will decide here (at least the pages's name is "Administrators' noticeboard"; I have no clue though, how an appeal works here.)

Dennis Bratland has said: I have no more patience left for this disingenuous time wasting bullshit. You are not here to build an encyclopedia. This is blatant trolling, or what we call 'disruptive editing'. I hope you are blocked from editing indefinitely, and soon. I think I speak for everyone when I say further replies from you on this subject are not welcome. Surprisingly, he appeared immediately on this page to comment. Interesting, if he does not have any more patience left for this "disingenuous time wasting bullshit".

I don't care about consensus, I care about proper sources. I am a well known and respected author of several vehicle and engine articles in the German language Wikipedia, several of them being featured articles. I was naive since I thought that strict source rules would apply here; I found out though that sources are only subject of the "collaboartive editing process" (=debatable/invalid whenever the "consensus" says so) and not used as sources for the article text. I disagree with discussing whether a proper source (=books published by Springer for instance) is good/bad, I disagree with accepting bad internet links as sources and I disagree with original research. I don't want to deal with proving unreferenced text wrong (which should be forbidden to add in the first place but somehow isn't) as well as authors who add text because they think it's correct without citing any sources and don't allow well-sourced changes because they dislike them. User:Alex Shih has said: The process of English Wikipedia is highly flawed, and has become increasingly hostile (which is one of the reasons why I haven't actually been active for most parts in the past 10 years). There are so many unwritten mutual understandings. When it comes to the noticeboards, "consensus" is really about the people that hang out in these places. "Experienced editors" can get away with almost anything, and "admins" are almost untouchable (you probably saw the current AN/I discussion). Standards for articles are only applied when it is being closely scrutinized, but they are usually inconsistent and subjective. "Rules" can be easily interpreted/bend, since there are no firm rules supposedly in the first place. (...) Therefore, I have decided to retire. And I don't want to come back. --Jojhnjoy (talk) 18:51, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

This isn't a vote. This is called consensus. You know, that thing you don't care about. You are under no obligation to do anything, and neither is the community. An administrator didn't topic ban you. The community did. GMG^talk 19:05, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, as User:GreenMeansGo says, your topic ban was imposed by the community, and can only be lifted by a community consensus - admins do not have the power to override community consensus. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:12, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

"disingenuous time wasting bullshit" was a good way of putting it. Kudos me. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:26, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose The previous consensus was sound. The responses here indicate that J is not WP:NOTGETTINGIT. MarnetteD|Talk 19:09, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

@Jojhnjoy: You want the editorial community to overturn your topic ban, so that it will be easier to edit the German Wikipedia. But you say that you "don't care about consensus", a fundamental Wikipedia principal. So why should the community want to make it easier for you to edit the German Wikipedia? Paul August ☎ 19:18, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

@Paul August: Thank you for this question. In general: The German language Wikipedia is completely different from the English language Wikipedia. In the German language Wikipedia, the principal "consensus" does not exist for non-trivial editing. Consensus there means, that, for instance, authors discuss whether a certain photo should be used to illustrate an article or not, and agree on either of the two options. If you want to delete an unreferenced section, you can just go ahead and say "this is unreferenced". You don't have to prove anything wrong, you don't need consensus. If you add something with good sources, just go ahead, it does not matter, whether there is consensus or not. Sourced is sourced. It does not matter whether I like it or not. Several authors I use to work with prefer "something" over "something else" – they would still not start using "something", since, by law, "something else" is to be preferred. Also, there are no discussions whether things in articles are right or not. If there is a source saying xyz, then we write xyz. Even if we think that xyz is wrong, we still write that. If something which is sourced is obviously wrong, you would go to the talk page, but even if there is consensus "this is wrong", you would not delete it. There must be serious reasons for not accepting a source. Nobody says: This source is bad/I don't accept this source because it is German/English/Russian/whatever language, like it has happened here before. Here, I have also encountered a user who would want to ignore "something", because they considered it "evil German lies". I am not a native speaker of German and I don't live in Germany, still, I have been accused of elevating German conventions over xyz conventions while I was just trying to express that many readers do not understand certain things since these things are only common for a small group of people. --Jojhnjoy (talk) 20:10, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

• oppose I just went and read the ANI that lead to the TBAN. Jojhnjoy is a style warrior (an essay we should have!) akin to the dreaded WP:Genre warrior. No sign of their understanding that style is a convention determined by consensus nor that they are amenable to following that consensus. So no. And although there have been strange rumblings around to treat block/ban histories like they are something cosmetic and we should accordingly scrub them for people, we don't actually do that. Jytdog (talk) 20:38, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - I see no reason to overturn a sanction on someone who admits they don't care about our core policies simply to make life easier for them. Rather, I'd suggest that editors from German Wikipedia might profitably read this discussion to get a better sense of Jojhnjoy's approach toward editing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:58, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose Jojhnjoy's topic ban stemmed from an inability to grasp that they neither the expert they think they are nor that their edits were disruptive. Every post they've made here only confirms that inability. Whatever obligation they appear to think this project owes them doesn't exist and both projects are probably better served by this editor's absence. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:55, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Off wiki abuse again

Many socks of the Jack Gaines (talk · contribs) "Alan Jackson killed country" vandal have been threatening me on English, Spanish, and Simple Wikipedia, as well as Facebook and Twitter.

What WMF e-mail should I use to report him? The emergency one turned me down because they didn't think it was serious enough. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 00:01, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

TenPoundHammer: cawikimedia.org TonyBallioni (talk) 00:08, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: Just making sure. I e-mailed that a week ago and got no response whatsoever. Sent another. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:02, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Jack Gaines seems to be pretty consistently in the United States (specifically Virginia) so escalating this to ISP or law enforcement could actually work. Though I have nothing useful to recommend as to whom in Wikimedia you should contact. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:08, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Jalexander-WMF is the manager for support and safety. His email is listed on his user page if you want to follow up directly. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:09, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: I have e-mailed CA and Jalexander as well. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 00:27, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

• But that Gaines account is linked to User:Angela Criss, who has been making talk page overtures at a return? Drmies (talk) 04:42, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Cantor's diagonal argument/Arguments

This talk subpage was created back in 2008. It states it is to be used for the following purpose:

This page is for arguments over the validity of Cantor's diagonal argument. This is not an archive; you may feel free to edit this page. Please use this page for comments not directly relevant to improving the article Cantor's diagonal argument.

This seems to be a forum for discussing the validity of Cantor's diagonal argument, but does not have anything to do with Wikipedia article or improving it. Not sure how this is not considered a violation of WP:NOTWEBHOST or WP:FORUM. Shouldn't these discussion take place on some other website? -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:50, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

It was considered a convenient place that these arguments could be sent to die, and similar subpages were made back then for a lot of articles on the random scientific/mathematical subjects that for whatever reason attract lots of crackpots. But you're right, the Wikipedia-appropriate response to anyone who comes to a talk page looking to debate the subject of an article is to remind them this is not the place and hear no more of it. Maybe send them to the reference desk if they would like to be educated. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:58, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the background on this Someguy1221. Still not sure why this needs page should be kept. It's seems like a candidate for deletion either per WP:CSD or WP:MFD. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:52, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not certainly not in support of keeping it, at least not in its current state. The only reason I can think to not delete it is the general rule against deleting talk pages of articles that still exist, and this may or may not count as a talk page. At the very least it should be marked as an archive and never used again. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:54, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

To my understanding, part of the reasons why such pages are created is because sometimes you just cannot stop people, no matter how many policies you throw in their faces. They are "sacrificial" pages so to speak. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:30, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with deletion, and have !voted to Keep at the MFD. Sometimes it is useful or necessary to keep a record of the fringe arguments that have been brought up on a particular scientific or mathematical topic. I think that the talk page should be kept for the record, among other things in case discretionary sanctions are requested. (Cantor's diagonal argument is sufficiently widely accepted by mainstream mathematicians that arguments against it in Wikipedia are pseudo-science.) I agree that marking it as closed is a good idea, but archived talk pages are usually treated as closed. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:08, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't think all contributors here really understand the idea of the page. Marking it as "closed" would defeat the purpose. Please see my explanation here. --Trovatore (talk) 01:37, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: Since there is now an ongoing MfD discussion about this page at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Talk:Cantor's diagonal argument/Arguments, it would probably best to keep everything relevant to it in one place and close this thread to avoid splintering things. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:31, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Just curious

In checking usernames on the Username for attention page, I came across [[Wikipedia:Project_Tiger_Writing_Contest|this project page]. I'm not so sure this doesn't fail WP:Promotion. It's setup to run a writing contest, with prizes (in Rupees, ofcourse) with Indian Wikipedias benefiting. I haven't touched anything on that page, it just look a bit unusual from the usual stuff on Wikiepdia, and like I said, appears to be running afoul of WP:promotion. Just though I'd give a heads up ! ►К Ф Ƽ Ħ◄ 20:45, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

What you linked goes to "bad title". But it seems to be part of Category:Project Tiger Editathon 2018 and Wikipedia:Project Tiger Writing Contest/Topics a Wikimedia project. — Maile (talk) 20:53, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

And, for my own idle curiosity, who is promoting whom?!~ Winged Blades^Godric 06:28, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

hello

how can i create a article for iranian singer Babak Rahnama ????? please answer me TNX To All 188.210.133.92 (talk) 09:50, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Hello anon. You should first review our tutorial on writing your first article, and create a draft using the Article Wizard. Then you can submit it for our Articles for Creation project, where it can be reviewed by an experienced volunteer who can offer feedback prior to publishing. If you have further questions, it's better to ask them at the The Teahouse rather than here, since that is our dedicated forum for new editors to seek advice and assistance, and this page is more for internal discussion about Wikipedia administration. GMG^talk 10:13, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

• Looking at the deletion log, I think WP:DENY is probably the page this IP should read. —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 10:23, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

• I mean, I don't know what his name is in Persian, but in English he apparently has videos on YouTube with 1m+ views...with an English title, for a guy who doesn't sing in English. Seems reasonable more than one person is aware he exists. If so, then they immediately hit indef full protection, and they're two clicks away from the deletion log to AN. Worst case scenario I just wasted a few minutes assuming good faith over my morning coffee, and I'm fine with that. GMG^talk 11:27, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

El Goonish Shive

The article, El Goonish Shive has been protected from creation. However, that was a long time ago, and it has since become notable enough for inclusion on Wikipedia. There is a considerable article on the topic on Wikiquote. I am hoping an administrator will look this over. Thanks - J.A.R.N.Y.🗣 16:51, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia not Wikiquote, and what is and isn't included on Wikiquote has no relevance here. (Looking at the timings, it appears that contrary to your inference that the Wikiquote page provides evidence of continued interest in the topic, in reality their page has been abandoned for a decade.) Can you demonstrate that Wikipedia:Notability (web)#Criteria is met, and in particular can you provide evidence of non-trivial coverage in multiple, independent, reliable sources? I'll note that the deleted article—in all its various incarnations—singularly failed to do so. ‑ Iridescent 17:02, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not an expert on Wikipedia policy. I was simply trying to bring this to the attention of sysops. That's why I did not write, "an administrator should unprotect it", I just requested, "I am hoping an administrator will look this over.". Furthermore, the Wikiquote page has been edited less than a year ago [8]. I'll try to find notable mentions of El Goonish Shive and post them here. Thanks- J.A.R.N.Y.🗣 17:15, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

You have brought it to the attention of this sysop; rather than bringing the sources here, you'll likely have better luck writing a brief draft at Special:Mypage/El Goonish Shive and once you've fleshed it out with the basics, asking someone at WP:WikiProject Comics to look it over to assess whether the sources are sufficient to warrant expanding it. Bear in mind that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a directory-of-everything, and contrary to popular belief we're actually fairly strict regarding what which topics receive articles; "all material on Wikipedia must be cited to independent reliable sources" and "no original research" are both non-negotiable core policy. Basically, you can only use what other people who are authorities in the field and not connected to the subject have said about any given topic when writing about that topic. If it's any help, the only sources from the deleted article that aren't either dead links or links to the creator's own website were [9], [10], and this book (with no page number given). ‑ Iridescent 17:30, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I'm new here, but I'll try out what you said. J.A.R.N.Y.🗣 17:40, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Igor Janev spammer

Would it be worthwhile to create an edit filter for the phrases "Igor Janev" and perhaps "Janev, Igor"? besides generally being a long-term pest[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] He is now taking a personal interest in me.[22][23] --Guy Macon (talk) 15:14, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: Request for new edit filters are usually made at Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested. –Ammarpad (talk) 01:28, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

I am aware of that. There is a subtle distinction between deciding that a particular edit filter would be a good thing and then going to WP:EFR to request it and going to WP:AN and asking whether a particular edit filter would be a good thing. So again I ask, would it be worthwhile to create an edit filter for the phrases "Igor Janev" and perhaps "Janev, Igor"? If the consensus is yes I will post the request at EFR.

For what it is worth, based upon the following harassment,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] it looks like the Igor Janev spammer really dislikes the idea of an edit filter. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:40, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes... looks like you made a new friend Legacypac (talk) 01:53, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia being open to all, if you work on building the encyclopedia for any length of time, you have the possibility of attracting your own personal stalker who considers pretty much anything you do a personal affront, and who considers it their sacred duty to "expose" the person they fixate on. It's really quite pathetic, but for some reason they just can't quite seem to figure out why no one else sees their actions as heroic. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:46, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: User_talk:NeilN/Archive_42#Prof._dr._Igor_Janev_is_a_very_notable_person.. I just RBI'd their followups. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:52, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

If you create an edit filter, you probably want to add "Janevistan" (another of their pet phrases) to the list. ‑ Iridescent 16:26, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

I saw this fella on JW talk; I thought it sounded familiar, but couldn't place it. —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 17:14, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested/Archive_11#Igor Janev --Guy Macon (talk) 18:04, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Incidentally, from d:Q1449737 the spammer has currently got managed to get their article onto 17 other language wikipedias. I have no idea whether we should—or can—notify them; I have no idea how one would even go about notifying Latin Vicipædia or Rusyn Вікіпедії. ‑ Iridescent 18:14, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

• I would actually raise the warning at Meta, since this is essentially cross-wiki abuse. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 18:41, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

• la:Disputatio:Igor Janev#Delete page?. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:43, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

AfD backlog

For the first time in months, there's something resembling an actual backlog at AfD (160 old discussions open across 3 days). Some of the admins habituated to everything at AfD being closed very quickly after the 7 day mark may want to take a look. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:05, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks to Courcelles, TonyBallioni, Primefac, Ansh666, and a few others the backlog is mostly clear. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:03, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Feedback wanted: planned changes to rollback action

This is what the confirmation could look like – what do you think?

A wish from the German Technical Wishes survey 2017 asks to fix the following problem: Sometimes users accidentally click the rollback instead of the thank you link – and since no confirmation is needed for rollbacks, this can lead to very unpleasant misunderstandings. The Technical Wishes team now suggested a change to the rollback action. All users with rollback rights are invited to comment in a feedback round until May 4th if this solution works for them. -- Thank you! Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 13:44, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

 Please post your assessments on the feedback page on Meta.

NB that this solution isn't just the illustrated confirmation box--it also entails removing the rollback link by default from all list views (page histories, watchlists, user contributions, basically anything that isn't the shown diff page). It's significantly more disruptive than I thought at first glance. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 13:59, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Wot WritKepper sez.~ Winged Blades^Godric 14:07, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Wouldn't a confirmation notice be sufficient? -A lad insane (Channel 2) 01:11, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

The advantage of rollback is that you roll the edit back in one click. If you use undo, it is two clicks (if you are already on the page history, three clicks if you are on your watchlist). Adding a confirmation would add an extra click and make rollback useless.--Ymblanter (talk) 01:36, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

But wouldn't making it inaccessible from anywhere but the diff page increase it by the same number of clicks? -A lad insane (Channel 2) 03:48, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

I've actually disabled rollback on my watchlist as I was prone to accidental clicks and it's not very difficult for one to do and that's a simple option for people like me to activate rather than force it on everyone. I still have it active on recent changes as well as related changes where I would only go if I were looking to do some specific activity.—SpacemanSpiff 04:38, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Please, no. This makes mass rollbacking edits much harder. --Rschen7754 05:05, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

To allow easy mass rollbacks while preventing accidental clicks from doing anything most of the time, an option might be to have rollback require confirmation iff it hasn't been used in the last 5 minutes. Κσυπ Cyp   05:57, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. The value is the one-click nature. No fuss, no having to switch to another tab to click something else or get rid of yet another popup window, just poof!-edit's-gone. And that I can do it when running through my watchlist (I specifically watch pages in order to easily catch and quickly undo vandalism!) or user contributions (I specifically look at a user's contribs after seeing one vandalism in order to see if there is a pattern). Using popups, it's easy to see the edit without going to an actual diff page, and again, the value is not having to go through more actiouns to be able to get to the point of getting rid of vandalism. I could see this being a gadget or other interface option, like the one we already have for rollback on mobile devices. DMacks (talk) 06:02, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
• Comment Have any other admins except me never used rollback, ever? I have a script that disables the option; I got it when I passed RfA but do not need or want it, and hit the button accidentally when editing from a smartphone. So my vote would be - throw the feature out, it’s useless. If you really need to revert a whole bunch of edits, pick an earlier revision of the page, edit it, and save it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 06:24, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
  • " If you really need to revert a whole bunch of edits, pick an earlier revision of the page, edit it, and save it." is feasible (though often a waste of time) for edits to one page, not if you need to revert a whole bunch of edits to multiple pages. Then you need to be able to go to the contributions of the vandal, and hit rollback, rollback, rollback... Fram (talk) 07:18, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
• OpposeMeh (see below). If you've got to rollback, say, 20 edits by a vandal on 20 different pages, you can do it in seconds with rollback. This change would be completely disruptive - making each rollback not a trivial task. This is a solution looking for a non-existent problem. Please don't do it. Black Kite (talk) 07:23, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
  • @Black Kite: "This is a solution looking for a non-existent problem." If something ends up so high in the technical wishlist of the German Wikipedia, then it clearly is a problem. You mean it's not YOUR problem. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:27, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
    • It certainly is my problem if a "fix" for a problem (that seems to only affect a few people who make mistakes when clicking) ends up compromising many other people's ability to do important tasks properly!! Black Kite (talk) 07:53, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
      • Before we get dragged into is/isnt a problem, can we see why/where its so high on the DE wishlist? I cant imagine our German friends are notably more fat-fingered when it comes to rollback than ENWP users. Is this a case of the WMF picking low-hanging fruit to resolve? Is it a case of a couple of DE admins going 'I sometimes do this, is there any way to stop it?' and its been run away with? Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:12, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
      • Having said that, since (not stated here) the proposal is that there be an opt-out to this faffing about, my opinion is just "Meh" now. Black Kite (talk) 09:32, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
        • Minor correction for Only in death does duty end: This is done by WMDE (Wikimedia Deuschland) - Germany chapter, not WMF. — regards, Revi 10:01, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
• I think it would not be a bad idea to have the presence of those links configurable. I wouldn't mind only being able to have them on a diff really. Wether to switch that by default for existing users is a different story however (i'd just ask each individual user to choose with a one time modal). Also it won't exactly help with the problem here that if you use Twinkle, everything still jumps around on the diff page. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:31, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
• Comment. Are you not all wasting your time opposing/discussing it here when the feedback page appears to be over there? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:06, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

@A lad insane, Ymblanter, SpacemanSpiff, Cyp, Ritchie333, Fram, Black Kite, Only in death, and Boing! said Zebedee: Hello and thanks for your thoughts on this topic. May I invite you to post your assessments on the feedback page on Meta? This way, all ideas and opinions can be discussed in one place. Have a good Monday, everyone. -- Best, Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 08:07, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Hrithik Roshan

Moved to Talk:Hrithik Roshan.

Not an issue for AN. Primefac (talk) 11:28, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

TBAN for Shiftchange

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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• Shiftchange (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• edit count
• contribs to Bitcoin Cash

I think we need to topicban User:Shiftchange from cryptocurrency topics. The person edits with pure advocacy and seems incapable of rational discussion much less editing in a NPOV manner.

• 11 March first edit using three crappy blogs to add content with people endorsing Bitcoin Cash.
• 14 March diff more of same
• 27 March diff re-added content from prior edits that had been removed by others
• 30 March diff adds source from another blog and unsourced content which is described in the edit note as deological difference to original Bitcoin
• 31 March diff a set of edits with endorsements, etc. some of it reverted
• 2 April diff, promotional language added, reverted here and here as such
• 2 April dif again promo content added, reverted here

• After the person reverting (not me) opened a section on talk in this diff, the section is non-neutral edits by Shiftchange.

• Shiftchange came right back with promo editing, with this diff series the next day which included adding a quote box (!) saying “Bitcoin Cash is the real Bitcoin and will have the bigger market cap, trade volume and user base in the future.”.

On it went.

April 5: Their editing was so promotional and aggressive that I gave them an edit war warning diff and opened a discussion with them at their talk page about COI or advocacy issues in this diff. Both removed by them in this diff with edit note, remove nonsense, no edit-warring, only constructive contributions. and left this note at my talk page. I re-opened the discussion with them at their talk page which is here. They were kind of rationalish but included diff I am just explaining how BCH is better at payments than BTC. Its why BCH is so accepted after 8 months and eventually why most people will support BCH over BTC. Its why this article will be improving in the ways I want. Your attempt to discredit, trivialise or delegitimize my additions will fail. Have you made any related disclosures?

Some choice bits by them at Talk

• 06:13, 13 April 2018 diff: How is the statement "Bitcoin Cash is the real Bitcoin and will have the bigger market cap, trade volume and user base in the future." promoting something?
• 08:49, 13 April 2018 diff section called Bitcoin Cash will not be denied on Wikipedia and yes, the rest of the section is what you expect.
• 08:54, 13 April 2018 diff section called Because Bitcoin Cash is so much more useful than BTC and yes, the rest of the section is what you expect.

I don't think this person is capable of editing neutrally on this topic; they are edit warring and bludgeoning the talk page with SOAP. Jytdog (talk) 01:15, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

User:Jytdog seems to be under the impression that the things we write about must not be judged in any way. We have thousands of articles in which objects are reviewed, characterised, described by third parties and their support (or not) is outlined. User:Jytdog wants to pretend that BCH exists in a vacuum. User:Jytdog doesn't seem to understand that we are supposed to be comprehensive. They don't understand that all majority and significant minority views should be covered. They don't seem to understand we can use self-published sources when the statements they support are about that person who self-publishes. androidauthority doesn't appear to be a blog to me. Explaining how useful the coin is seems to be a basic fact because that is why this fork was created. BTC was failing to be useful because of fees and delays. Here is an example of what led to the development of BCH. As the content I added in the application section explained, BCH is more useful for micropayments than BTC. Editors removing my content have been doing so with invalid reasons as I have touched upon here, instead of requesting better sources or adding a citation needed template. I am simply describing the subject as I see fit. My contributions have been succinct and for the most part sourced. I would not know how to promote something as I have never attempted to do that with anything. - Shiftchange (talk) 07:54, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

• Leaning support for TBAN. Sticking to the provided diffs, I find the latter two of the "choice bits at Talk" (diff,diff) very worrying. And I am just explaining how BCH is better at payments than BTC. Its why BCH is so accepted after 8 months and eventually why most people will support BCH over BTC. Its why this article will be improving in the ways I want.? Bluntly, someone with that attitude can not be trusted to edit related articles in a neutral and reliable manner. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:07, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Why is this worrying you? Have any of my edits on the topic been proven false or misleading? Has anyone explained how I am promoting something or is just that I seem to be doing that? Have I exaggerated, used puffery, used words of encouragement or misconstrued words of others? I have a determined attitude. I am keen to improve a start class article. That is all. - Shiftchange (talk) 17:20, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

• Clearly this editor is here to edit with a POV (see initial response above to Jytdog). I would also support a topic ban, from all crytocurrency topics, broadly construed. --Izno (talk) 13:39, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

  The edit warring message was placed prematurely which I why I removed it. I don't edit war; as you can see I started to discuss things in detail on the talk page. Also note another editor has pointed to some of the bias on the article I have been countering. Has anyone got a source that explains how BCH is not more useful than BTC. Has anyone disproved anything I have claimed on the talk pages? Has anyone else removing my content made disclosures about BTC ownership? - Shiftchange (talk) 17:20, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

• I haven't fully read all the linked entries but this edit Bitcoin Cash will not be denied on Wikipedia. Its not going to happen. This is what is going to happen. I am going to write the definitive article for Bitcoin Cash. is quite troubling.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:57, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

  Could you explain these troubles you are having? - Shiftchange (talk) 07:13, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

• Support proposed permanent TBAN on cryptocurreny broadly construed Legacypac (talk) 18:12, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support - clear POV-pushing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:41, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Could you please elaborate? - Shiftchange (talk) 07:13, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

• Support. Clear issues with promotion and Not Getting It. Guy (Help!) 22:48, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

What am I not getting? - Shiftchange (talk) 07:13, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

That you are in a minority of exactly one. Even if you are right, Wikipedia runs on consensus. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 20:58, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

• Support based on the obvious POV pushing. Blackmane (talk) 02:29, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

  What is this pov you think I keep presenting? Has it shown up anywhere in any edits I have contributed to the subject? - Shiftchange (talk) 07:13, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

  POV that bitcoin cash is amazing? Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:24, 19 April 2018 (UTC

You didn't link to an example of where I was editing that point of view into the article. Why not provide an example instead of making up an exaggeration? - Shiftchange (talk) 14:59, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

• @Shiftchange: You continue to extol the values of Bitcoin Cash, and have made edits in the mainspace, and clobbering of talk pages, to that effect. Edits which are not supported by reliable sources. This is called POV-pushing. In a number of the statements you have made, you have also made predictions about the future, also unsupported by reliable sources. Nearly every edit in this discussion that you have made has focused on its values. It's not our job on Wikipedia to prove or disprove the value of some topic; it's our job to report what reliable, secondary, independent sources say about the topic. --Izno (talk) 13:01, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

What values are you talking about? Talk pages are for discussion on how to improve the article. I have yet to see anyone explain how the sources I have provided are unreliable. That must be demonstrated or proven by identification. We cannot take your word for it that the sources are unreliable. The reliability of a source depends on context. If you are questioning the sources I have used you must demonstrate a poor reputation for checking the facts or lacking editorial oversight. - Shiftchange (talk) 14:59, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

• @Shiftchange: Here is you adding an positive opinion from a website without correctly balancing it with other POVs. Here is an entire "Support" section not balanced with 'Criticism" or the like. In the same revision, the section "Tax implications" is, in my opinion, a bit of an attempt to portray bitcoin users as helpless victims. That may not be your intention, but it could be interpreted that way. And your comment directly above, where you state that no one has proven your sources unreliable, you have not proved that they are reliable. I would argue that in proving/disproving the reliability of a source, the burden of proof is on the one arguing that it is reliable, in this case, you. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 20:54, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

• Just checking in here/updating. After their comments above, Shiftchange's next edit was adding an image to the Bitcoin Cash article. They had uploaded the image to the commons and the source for the image cited there is this forum, where people are complaining bitterly about the "lies" in the WP Bitcoin Cash article. I've tagged the talk page for recruiting. Jytdog (talk) 20:03, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

  We did good didn't we? We build an encyclopedia. Don't panic. - Shiftchange (talk) 07:13, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

  Please don't bait. It isn't going to help your case. --Izno (talk) 13:01, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

• Support indefinite TBAN on cryptocurrency. Clearly pushing POV Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:24, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support clearly shows lack of objectiveness on topic. Mesquka (talk) 15:59, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support definite IDHT and POV issues. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 15:45, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
• Last comment made three days ago, this needs to/should be closed.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:21, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

• Close, perhaps? Shiftchange has been continuing the same pattern of behavior: diff, diff, etc. Jytdog (talk) 17:28, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Redacted edits

I think that all of the edits here should be redacted as they contain threats against Alan Jackson. It's the same vandal.

Also, should an LTA page be made on this numbskull? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:06, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

History redacted, and also talk page access removed. Also yes. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:10, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I absolutely agree it's nonsense that doesn't need to be on Wikipedia, but I didn't see any threats, unless claiming someone killed country music is a threat. Fish+Karate 14:06, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

@Fish and karate: Seems there is a long history with this particular vandal... see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Off_wiki_abuse_again a few threads up. –FlyingAce^✈hello 14:25, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

There's a process I do not understand about asking the FOundation to intervene against such individuals. I think it is past time, but do not know how to proceed. This matter came up in an earlier, closed thread. --Dlohcierekim (talk) 15:45, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

@Dlohcierekim:, @Fish and karate:, do you think I should contact his ISP or local authorities? The edis trace back to an ISP in Virginia Beach. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:32, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

@TenPoundHammer: - well, that's your call really. There's nothing stopping you. I assume you've done everything it says to do at Wikipedia:Responding_to_threats_of_harm? Fish+Karate 11:06, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

@Fish and karate: I have, but the emergency email already turned me down as not being serious. I'm going to e-mail the VA Beach police department and see what happens. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 19:40, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

D. Atishay

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The article is up for deletion and I believe it's a recreation of an individual that has been deleted/salted as Arihantrishiji, Arihant Rishiji and Arihant Rishi. Could an administrator please cross check any of the deleted versions to see if it matches, and salt this one as well if it does. (As a reference, see User:D Atishay, the user who created this article might be a sock.) Thanks, MT Train^Talk 11:04, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Advice

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hello! What is the proper way to follow when other editor is removing sourced content from article by slow edit war, while ignoring talk page or any discusion? --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 08:44, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

The only solution is an interaction ban between me and this user. He reverts me in multiple articles within minutes, using a language that does not allow any normal process of discussing. In the last case, I removed some recent stuff of a banned sock, the stuff contained both pro-Serbian and pro-Albanian POV, and this user rv me because of my "political" reasons. Ktrimi991 (talk) 08:56, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

O hello, Ktrimi. Its nice to see that you are STALKING me again. :) Also, why did you find yourself called? I was maybe talking about some other edit warrior instead of you? :) I actually didnt want to bother this fine people here with details, but, as you already arrived here, maybe someone will know what should we do with your massive edit warring and removal of sourced content, without any talkpage activity on article

Names of Kosovo. Can anyone tell me what would be the proper Wiki way to solve this non agreed removal of entire sections? Except Ktrimi and his several tagteam friends, of course, i already know for all of you what would you do with this article. :) Someone neutral would be good. --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 09:15, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

This page is on my watchlist. From more than 25 articles where we have rv each other, in only one I was the first who reverted. And yeah, you were just blocked for a week due to socking (off-Wiki coordination with your friends). On that article, you can open a RfC. After I rv the sock for the forst time, three other established editors edited the page, amd none of them called my edits "political IDONTLIKEIT". By the way, why do not we make an agreement? I never revert you and you never revert me, we never interact with each other? Is it a good agreement? Do you accept my proposal to never interact with each other again? Ktrimi991 (talk) 09:35, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Anyone neutral? What should we done with massive removal of sources from Names of Kosovo? --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 09:59, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

On that article, open a RfC. For the last time: Do you accept my proposal to never interact with each other again? Ktrimi991 (talk) 10:01, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Why would we do that? Why are you bulling me?? I totally dont want to interact with you, i am asking here for a neutral users opinion about wiki editing of article content! Leave me alone, you are bulling me and stalking me everywhere, and you and your team tried to block every other editor you disagree with. I am asking for a neutral users opinion how to proceed with editing dispute of this kind, stop bulling me, this is unbearable. --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 10:10, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

If you have issues with any "team", you must complain in a different discussion (and tell the names of those editors). So, since now, we will not interact, revert or modify any content of each other, and whoever of us does the otherwise, will face with sanctions? Ageed? Yes or No? Ktrimi991 (talk) 10:17, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

I've issued the necessary Discretionary Sanctions alerts for these two users. If the behaviour doesn't stop and reasoned, calm discussion start in its place, it'll be interaction bans and topic bans to keep both of these users away from each other, and from the wider topic of Kosovo and the Balkans. Nick (talk) 10:28, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

@Nick:, i did started discussion on talk page, but user commonly never respond to any discussion, but just reverted again (for the third time in this article). How i can discuss without other side? --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 10:34, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

I can't see where you've informed them that you've started this discussion. You didn't ping Ktrimi991 or leave a message on their talk page that I can find. It's all very well starting a discussion but if you don't invite other parties, it's always going to be an echo chamber. Nick (talk) 10:39, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Ok, i will invite by ping in the future, but i did that in the past also, but was in vain. Ktrimi is insisting on interacting ban so he can revert and remove sourced content he does not like uninterrupted. --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 10:50, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Nick, thanks for your intervention. How do you suggest we can solve our issue? I stay to my proposal for a full interaction ban. Ktrimi991 (talk) 10:40, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Is there some reason you two can calmly and rationally discuss any disputes over article talk content in the appropriate article talk page, and put aside any personality conflicts? And if the calm and rational discussion doesn't achieve consensus, engage in good faith in some form of dispute resolution. If the outcomes are always in favour of one editor's proposed versions, hopefully the other editor will come to understand what we expect in article content. If this really doesn't happen and the other editor is always proposing a version that gets no support and refuses to take on any feedback, perhaps some sanctioned may be required but I'm not convinced that we're there yet. And if as I expect is more likely the case, the outcomes are more mixed, hopefully both editors will better come to understand what we expect in article content although it's likely both editors will continue to be 'wrong' on occasion. That's just the nature of editing. Ultimately all editors need to be willing in engage in discussion in good faith when there is dispute, which includes initiating discussion rather than demanding another editor does so. Nil Einne (talk) 10:57, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

@Nil Einne:, no. I would talk, and i have opened the talk page discussion, and i want to solve the question, but user Ktrimi does not want to talk at all about the things he remove. Again, for the third time on this board, Ktrimi wants interaction ban, as that is only possible solution to revert and remove sourced content and everything he dont like uninterrupted. --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 11:10, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

(EC) If you can't resolve a dispute among existing editors, you should try using some form of WP:Dispute resolution e.g. a WP:Third opinion. Ultimately if it's clear some version has WP:Consensus and any opponents refuse to engage in discussion but continue to revert it's likely their edits will be seen as disruptive. In certain cases if there is no reply to a proposed version and it seems likely there is consensus for it, it may be reasonable to reintroduce changes while pointing to the discussion in the edit summary but this should be done with care and once it's clear there's opposition you need to wait for proper consensus to develop. Note that this also assumes you make proper attempts to engage in discussion. This often means you should explain why you feel your version is better than some other proposed version. Simply opening a discussion on the talk page asking others to discuss may not be enough. To put it a different way, if you do try to engage in some form of dispute resolution, it should generally be possible for uninvolved parties to understand what the dispute is about without requiring any further commentary from you. Nil Einne (talk) 10:48, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you @Nil Einne: very much, that was the reply i wanted! --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 10:50, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Nil Einne, thanks. Your words are true. However, our problem is long term, and as such can not be solved with just a RfC or third party comment. The only viable solution is an interaction ban, where both I and Anastan should stay away from each other. I feel this is the only viable solution. Ktrimi991 (talk) 10:56, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

It can be solved with discussion, of course, as it would with any other editor i ever talked to, but you are pushing for a interaction ban, as that is only possible solution for you to revert and remove sourced content and everything you dont like uninterrupted. That is not way to build neutral encyclopedia. Good content appear in discussion and agreement, and not blind reverts and removals. @Nick:, i did ping, as before, but as you may see, user is not interested in discussion of any kind... --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 11:01, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

CONCLUSION

User finally responded on talk page of the article in question. Hope we will solve it there, as it suppose to be. This section fulfilled its purpose now. Thank you everyone. --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 11:28, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

It is your conclusion. "Again, for the third time on this board, Ktrimi wants interaction ban, as that is only possible solution to revert and remove sourced content and everything he dont like uninterrupted." These words of yours are my conclusion. Anyways, I wish to all people here a good day. Cheers, Ktrimi991 (talk) 11:53, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, why is an interaction ban impossible? Is there a particular problem with it? Stress caused to editors, is not it taken into account? Ktrimi991 (talk) 12:07, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

• Proposal: In my opinion, the encyclopedia would be improved if User:Anastan and User:Ktrimi991 were given a two-way interaction ban and a tropic ban from the topics of Kosovo, Serbia, Albania, and any other topic related to the Balkans, broadly construed. I don't believe that just issuing an interaction ban or only topic banning one of them would solve the ongoing problems, and I would like to see both of them edit productively in areas where they don't have such strong feelings for a while. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:24, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Guy Macon, thanks for your intervention. None of me and Anastan needs a topic ban. As for myself, I give valuable contribution, and my overall controbution is very positive. I have improved much POV stuff, including pro-Albanian and pro-Serbian one (do I need to present diffs?). One of my proudest contributions is on 2004 unrest in Kosovo. Heavy fights between editors there for years, and some recent ones stopped after my intervention. However, I would proudly contribute to non-Balkan topics showing my good will. Due not being warned before, and the number of my contribution towards enrichmemt of the quality of the articles and fighting vandalism and sockpuppetry, an interaction ban and a moral pledge to write as much non-Balkan stuff as possible would be good. Ktrimi991 (talk) 14:34, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Guy Macon Wikiproject Albania has benefited greatly from Ktrimi991's work. Although we have had our disagreements at times, I have to say that he has expanded articles about historical figures such as the Frasheri family, created new articles, found useful sources for others working in the project, and helped resolve sticky issues. I really have no interest in the dispute above (the page in question is one of the most unnecessary pages on this site, in my humble opinion), and this apparent long term on-and-off spat between Ktrimi and Anastan is also none of my business; I have never been involved or even interacted with Anastan. I'm personally not that much involved with Kosovo, but please don't ban Ktrimi from editing articles about Albania. Anastan doesn't even seem involved in pages within Albania. There are too few content producing editors on Albanian topics and we need to keep all the good ones we have.--Calthinus (talk) 14:37, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Once I even recieved threats by an Albanian editor after I supported a Serbian one in a content dispute. The threats were placed on my talk page. Ktrimi991 (talk) 14:58, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

I am actually also happy, as for the first time in forever user Ktrimi is actually talking on talk page!! So, I would propose interaction force, as that was the core of the problem. Not content dispute, but lack of response. So as I said, if this discussion here helped anyone, it sent Ktrimi to talk. :) --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 15:38, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Deletion Controversy Over Günter Bechly and Apparent Sockpuppetry

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I am requesting administrative attention to the controversy over the deletion of Günter Bechly, not to review whether the deletion was appropriate, which has already been done twice, but to review the extent of undisclosed paid editing and sockpuppetry. I became aware of this controversy early on 28 April with the filing of a request at the dispute resolution noticeboard. We get occasional issues about deletion at DRN, but we tell the filing party to let the deletion discussion run its course, and that any review of the close of the deletion discussion can be done at deletion review. In this case, the filing party was trying to appeal from DRV to whatever the next authority, if any, is. The DRN case was closed by the dispute resolution coordinator, User:TransporterMan, as outside the scope of DRN.

The filing editor is User:Snoopydaniels. The article was deleted after a discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Günter Bechly on 6 October 2017. There were numerous Keep comments by IP addresses, which the closer, User:Jo-Jo Eumerus, correctly ignored. The deletion was reviewed the first time at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 February 3 and the deletion was supported, and closed by User:RoySmith. The deletion was reviewed the second time at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 April 17 and the deletion was supported, at closed by User:Sandstein. I haven’t researched the question of notability of the subject, who is a German scientist who has adopted anti-evolution views, and don’t have an opinion on the original deletion, although at this point I think that the surrounding controversy may be notability enough.

It was noted in the AFD that there might have been canvassing, which does happen at AFD, but I am more concerned that the disruption by IP addresses and the comments by new editors are characteristic of sockpuppetry. To me, it smells like undisclosed paid editing, but I haven’t researched who might be the sockpuppeteer. The filing editor at DRN made a few edits in 2010 and was then inactive for eight years and now has come back for this controversy.

To restate the above, my concern isn’t about the deletion itself. It is about what appears to be a systematic pattern of sockpuppetry and paid editing. Paid editing is far more of a danger to the integrity of Wikipedia than any one deletion controversy.

Robert McClenon (talk) 14:13, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: Wouldn't it have made more sense to have reported this at WP:COIN? Chris Troutman (talk) 14:38, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Very likely. I will be moving it there. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:09, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

I've added a short bio to my user page and included a link to my Facebook page. I'm not being in any way remunerated (on the other hand, I have actually donated to Wikipedia in the past.) I am, however, interested in the intelligent design versus evolution debate and biology more generally. I'm also simply fed up with the poor quality of Wikipedia articles where any sort of controversy is involved. There is absolutely no way an honest person looking at the facts and well informed with respected to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines could come to the conclusion that Dr. Bechly is not notable. If anyone deserves censure, it's those who advocated for deletion in bad faith or in ignorance of Wikipedia's rules.Snoopydaniels (talk) 15:26, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Community ban appeal by User:DavidYork71

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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User:DavidYork71 was indefinitely blocked and community banned in 2007, and he has now made an unblock request - I enabled talk page access for that purpose after a UTRS request. The appeal is at his talk page, and currently says "Apologise for past transgressions & request unblock. It's been 11 years+. Time's come. See the UTRS appeal #21299 of 22 April this year where more detail was supplied". I have pointed out to him that most people cannot see the UTRS appeal. The following links are copied from his user page:

• Indefinte block
• Community ban.
• Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/DavidYork71
• Wikipedia:Long term abuse/DavidYork71

I'm acting only in an admin capacity and offer no opinion on the appeal, so it's over to the community to support, oppose, whatever... Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:45, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

• Update: At DavidYork71's request, I have copied the contents of his UTRS appeal to his talk page at User talk:DavidYork71#UTRS appeal 21299. I shall be out for most of the day today (BST), so if DavidYork71 wants anything copied here from his talk page, would someone else please be kind enough to oblige. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:47, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose After being banned for a range of good reasons, this editor has used over 700 sockpuppet accounts to evade the ban. As well as the wide range of serious problems noted in the long term abuse case, these were also often used to blatantly violate WP:BLP and continue edit wars across multiple years. Despite what is claimed in the unban request, the socking continued until at least two years ago - Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/DavidYork71/Archive shows the most recent checkuser confirmation of socking as being in December 2015, and there was also this in May 2016. I'd be surprised if there weren't others. This person has proven completely unsuited to Wikipedia and its core policies, has caused a lot of problems for the community, and is not even being upfront with us in this request. Nick-D (talk) 08:00, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Comment with all the socking, what exactly is the point of an unblock? Absolution? Redemption? --Dlohcierekim (talk) 08:31, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - wasn't here to build an encyclopaedia the first time around, and certainly didn't advance their case for renewed editing privileges by proceeding with years of sockpuppetry. -- Euryalus (talk) 09:02, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose this user was blocked and banned for abuse, disruption especially around topics on Islam and Terrorism the requests states very clearly the person wishes to resume on those subjects. Given the extensive list of sockpuppets, ip addressed identified by multiple check users for the purpose of furthering abuse, avoiding the communities ban, and disruption over most of the past 11 years I have no confidence of any reform, that even a very extensive list of topic bans and a zero tolerance to any disruption would be adequate. Gnangarra 09:41, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - the statement regarding his return fails to address or understand what he actually did badly while an editor, or after the blocks. JarrahTree 10:33, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Question My first experience in this context so please excuse me, but if an editor really has turned over to a new and responsible outlook and approach to Wikipedia, why do they not just create a new account with a new name and just get on with being a good Wikipedian and leave their bad legacy behind? That an editor wants to edit again with their bad history known to all seems strange to me and sorry but also suspicious. Or, am I missing something? Aoziwe (talk) 12:13, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) Yes, you missed something very important. What you are suggesting is not allowed. Any new account created while they are under active sanctions (and they're!) is sockppuppet account. The only way for them to edit normally again is iff this block is lifted. –Ammarpad (talk) 16:10, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

  • That is called sockpuppetry. The problem is that this person has already done that several times.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 16:05, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per Nick-D. The second chances were over roughly 697 socks ago. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:45, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose I can't believe the legions of sockpuppet accounts this user created to evade ban and all the energy and time of checkusers/editors wasted in finding, blocking and tagging them. I think the only option for this user is to choose any other Wikimedia project apart from English Wikipedia and do all the "good work" they have intention to do here. Your case is beyond redemption, not talk of the infamous LTA archives that you accumulated. –Ammarpad (talk) 15:51, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support with concern I really do think that DavidYork71 may have changed my biggest concern and what I would like to ask him is why he wants to return directly to editing controversial articles. I really do think that is a legitimate concern seeing as he has shown bias in his edits. I do however believe in giving people second chances.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 16:05, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Not yet. I do appreciate that the sockpuppetry appears to have stopped, but since that happened over a period of about a decade, I want a lengthy period of time - at least another year - without any repeat before I would accept lifting the block. I also would want an undertaking from him to avoid those articles and topics he has been obsessed with in the past. I support Ammarpad's suggestion that a history of useful edits on another Wikimedia project would be helpful.-gadfium 18:54, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose "Apologise for past transgressions & request unblock. It's been 11 years+. Time's come" - Tough fucking shit you created over 700 socks and quite frankly caused quite a lot of trouble here ...... You may well of changed but your unblock statement leaves a lot to be desired for, "Time's come" - Yep time's come for us to do absolute sweet f all, I would suggest you long forget about this website. –Davey2010^Talk 19:30, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Comment 700 socks is frightening; the most recent tagged sock was in December 2015. I'd like a direct statement from David about when the most recent socking was before I support. If it's been at least 2 years (as SPI suggests), I'm willing to support, but I'd want a one account restriction as well as a short (3 month) TBAN on Australian international relations. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:39, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Black Kite's diffs; this one from 2014 suggests that the maturity issues have continued for a very long time, and their response to my question on their talk page suggests competence issues and a battleground mentality. (I assume the IP editor with an edit summary of "Dy71 rebuts!" is him.) Unfortunately I don't see how this user will ever be unbanned. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:51, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose 700 socks? No thanks. That second chance flew out the window a long, long time ago. RickinBaltimore (talk) 21:56, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• No, Never. I was here in 2007, and regardless of the 700 socks, this editor was the very definition of WP:NOTHERE. Here's an example - [34] - do you want that editor back? F*** that. Black Kite (talk) 22:11, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

• Want some more? [35] [36] [37] ... Black Kite (talk) 22:17, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. 700 socks, the events leading up to the original block and ban, and the diffs provided by Black Kite, all serve to tell me that this is not somebody who should be allowed back. --bonadea contributions talk 22:35, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose Their rational of It's from more than 11 years ago. and that he'd go back to Those I started as a user is the very definition of recidivism. The level of socking kills the deal for me. Blackmane (talk) 23:57, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - Neither the current or previous request would be sufficient to satisfy a standard unblock request. This person's offenses go so far beyond that, I can't even find the words. This person is not well. Their behavior is unhinged, malicious, and genuinely frightening. That they have supposedly stopped their compulsive socking is not evidence that they have changed as a person, just that they changed their approach to returning here. The bizarre, soulless unban requests are themselves evidence that there is still something seriously wrong with them. I hope they get the professional help they need, and I sincerely mean that. Swarm ♠ 00:22, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

ErieSwiftByrd and the Hiral Tipirneni AfD

ErieSwiftByrd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Hiral Tipirneni is a candidate in a special election to the US House on Tuesday, April 24, 2018. The page is currently nominated for deletion by ErieSwiftByrd (talk · contribs) at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hiral Tipirneni, who also canvassed some of the AfD regulars ([38], [39])

I feel that the AfD should be closed early, per WP:IAR if nothing else. It is an NPOV violation to have a blaring "this page may be deleted" on this page immediately before an election. Furthermore, many of the votes so far have noted that it will obviously be kept if she wins the election; the current discussion is thus profoundly useless and based on speculation of the election results.

In addition, ErieSwiftByrd also made a ridiculous closure at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Albert Robles, the user NAC-ed after voting, and "Keep per TNT" makes almost no sense. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:01, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Note: I have no opinion on the result of the AfD; a speedy close as Redirect to Arizona's 8th congressional district special election, 2018 is a plausible result of the discussion, as well as Keep. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:04, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

User:power~enwiki actually makes a good point. I was't thinking about the NPOV aspect and should have waited until Tuesday to nominated for AFD. I think this is an issue (particularly with more special election coming up) that should have some sort of rule. ErieSwiftByrd (talk) 00:40, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

To separately address the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Albert Robles issue. I voted that it should be kept but rewritten, then spent a lot of time (too much TBH) completely re-writing the article. Afterwords, since the article had almost nothing left from the original article that some user's voted to dealt, and since the consensus seemed clear that the article should be kept if it could be written legible. Since the new article had nothing of the original left I closed the deletion citing Wikipedia:TNT since I had, essentially, blown it up and started over. If there was a better protocol I apologize (although I think the resulting article is pretty good). ErieSwiftByrd (talk) 00:40, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

• I am not sure that a speedy close is appropriate. While I do think that it makes sense to limit new AfDs about candidates running for election in a certain time period (7 or 14 days) before a national election (either an known general election or a special election), once multiple editors weigh in, the deletion discussion should run its course (recognizing that the election results may change the outcome). The canvassing issue can be addressed separately. --Enos733 (talk) 03:22, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
• I've reverted the clearly inappropriate closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Albert Robles. ErieSwiftByrd, please read WP:BADNAC before closing any other AfD. FWIW keep is probably right, but just let someone else do it next time. ansh666 03:47, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

  Okay, I've read through the discussions about Hiral Tipirneni, and here's what I suggest: close the discussion temporarily until the results of the election are known. If she wins, then there's no issue and the article clearly stays. If not, reopen and relist the discussion. Does that sound good to everyone? If so, I'll go ahead and do that, and someone let me know me when the results are known. ansh666 03:53, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

  That sounds fine with me. And I probably won't be before closing any other AfDs in the near future. ErieSwiftByrd (talk) 05:56, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Alright, the election is over, she lost, and I've reopened and relisted the AfD. Should be resolved. ansh666 04:22, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Citing of Wikipedians Works

Good afternoon Wikipedia. The National Archives and Records Administration is requesting clarification of an issue which was raised to our Research Services Department regarding Wikipedia editors who are themselves published authors of books and research papers. Many of our professional researchers have contributed to the Wikipedia website on topics for which they are considered experts, and in many of these cases the researchers have themselves published works on these topics. Our question relates to cases where Wikipedia editors wish to cite in Wikipedia articles their own works which they have written on various subjects. In the case of legitimate publications, through reliable sources, would this be permitted of the Wikipedia editor or would this be a conflict of interest? Thank you for your thoughts on this matter. -207.245.177.13 (talk) 15:30, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

The simple answer is that it is permitted. The longer answer depends on context. If the source is germane and is appropriately used to cite fact where no source exist or more is needed, then that is fine. See WP:SELFCITE.

Whether the source is legitimate (i.e reliable) or not (i.e unreliable) and is being added randomly in middle of citations where enough exist or where the extant content is not strictly in the new source (cf. INTEGRITY), then that's spamming; and is not allowed.

Although you said they're already Wikipedia contributors, the account adding the source also can matter here. If the account's only edits (or significant percentage of that) is in adding the particular sources in various article, then that's usually spamming, notwithstanding the validity of the source.

Adding one's own publication is invariably tied with Conflict of interest, but there's nothing wrong in COI itself; how it is handled is what matters. –Ammarpad (talk) 16:35, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Motion: Interaction Ban

Cross-posted from the Arbitration Committee noticeboard:

Following private discussion, the Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that James J. Lambden and Volunteer Marek are now subject to an indefinite two-way interaction ban, broadly construed.

Support: BU Rob13, DGG, Doug Weller, Euryalus, KrakatoaKatie, Mkdw, Opabinia regalis, Premeditated Chaos, RickinBaltimore, Worm That Turned

Oppose: None

Abstain: None

For the Arbitration Committee, ♠PMC♠ (talk) 08:22, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 17:11, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Motion: Interaction Ban

Can't create pages

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Every time I go to try to create a page it only lets me into the sandbox, regular improvement, or draftspace. How do I get it to let me actually make a page? 0k guyz (talk) 19:38, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Hey 0k guyz. In order to create an article directly, your account needs to be autoconfirmed, which is given to you automatically once your account is four days old and has at least ten edits. GMG^talk 19:43, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

To piggy back on what GMG said read the big blue box at the top of this page as well. RickinBaltimore (talk) 19:44, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

I've moved your sandbox into mainspace, though - is that what you were looking for? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:45, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes; I'm not finished with it but it's at least detailed than some other stubs now and there's not much more to add. 0k guyz (talk) 19:46, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Alternatively you could edit with your other account, unless it's blocked. Only a very fast learner or someone with an existimg account would know to do this [40] Legacypac (talk) 04:45, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@Legacypac: "If you liked that, you're gonna love this"...their second ever edit was a redirect  :) —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 10:09, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

What a quick learner. I've been here like 13 years or something and I still screw those up. My experience is that when a new editor's first edit is to trivially bluelink their user page and their second edit is to trivially bluelink their talk page (using a redirect, no less) we can expect a great future is in store. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 12:36, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Ray Reach

To administrators:

Please remove the category titled:

Start the Category:Articles with unsourced statements from March 2015. Arrested for child pornography on April 23, 2018. http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2018/04/well-known birmingham jazz mus.html page.

Mr. Reach has been charged with false allegations. Me is innocent until proven guilty by law. Please remove this category until Reach is tried and proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If he is proven guilty, you may repost the category. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Allenstone (talk • contribs) 12:38, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Looks like this was resolved by GreenMeansGo (talk · contribs). Additionally, Allenstone (talk · contribs) has been warned for his undisclosed conflict of interest. --Yamla (talk) 13:07, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

"Resolved" probably isn't the best phrasing. But I did take a hot knife and cut out about two thirds of the article. Of course, anyone is welcome to try to PRESERVE the content out of the revision history, but gee fizz. We just don't let that big of a pile of unsourced vaguely promotional BLP content sit around for three years and not do anything about it. GMG^talk 13:10, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Need help

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Can someone move The powerpuff Girls back to The Powerpuff Girls? A move was done without any discussion on the matter. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 20:27, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I also need List of The powerpuff Girls episodes changed back to List of The Powerpuff Girls episodes. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 20:28, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

 Done Black Kite (talk) 22:20, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Can someone also move the tslkpage back since it is currently at the wrong name.--67.68.161.151 (talk) 00:56, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

 Done --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:03, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

FrankCesco26, umpteenth wave of disruptive POV edits

Moved to incidents board. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wddan (talk • contribs) 21:29, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

ACPERM is now live

Since there was substantial interest as to when this would go live, I just wanted to let everyone know that per this comment from Kaldari WP:ACPERM is now live on en.wiki. Thanks to Kaldari and DannyH (WMF) as well as MaxSem for their work on this over the last 36 hours. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:56, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Happiness GMG^talk 01:49, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

"There have been spontaneous demonstrations by new page patrollers, voicing gratitude and joy."--Dlohcierekim (talk) 01:55, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Seriously, by this time yesterday morning, I'd probably nominated a dozen G11s. What do we have today? A village in Nigeria, a Turkish Sculptor, world class table tennis player. Good stuff. Not a single bit of obvious spam to be seen. GMG^talk 12:37, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Hallelujah!! I've had to deal with 2–3 inappropriate BLP creations by newbie non-autoconfirmed editors in about just the last week while waiting for this to go through! [grumble, grumble... better late than never, I guess...] --IJBall (contribs • talk) 01:21, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Honorary Aryan

Dloh takes his own advice and gets a cool down bock and recommends everyone do the same.

Sorry to cross-post with WP:RFPP, where I've asked for pending revisions to be applied, but it can sometimes take a while for the queue there to be worked down, and I think something is needed sooner than that.

An IP-hopping editor persists in adding information to this article sourced to WP:SPS (blogs) and an unreliable historical source (a book on the occult -- The Spear of Destiny -- written by a non-historian and published by a house which specializes in the occult and esoteric subjects is being used as a source for historical fact). The IP has yet to engage on the talk page, where this has been explained. (IP did the same sort of thing on Master race, which was then protected with pending revision as a result.) IP's comment in an edit summary: "You don't own Wikipedia."

Could the article be protected, please?

Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:33, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

IP has responded on WP:RFPP to call me a Neo-Nazi. [41] I suppose I should move this over to WP:AN/I, since it now represents a violation of WP:NPA? Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:37, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Why don't I just bock them???? I PP the page in question.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 01:40, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Probably the best idea, Dloh. 86 the guy. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 01:40, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

I warned them instead. Someone should invite them to the party.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 01:45, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Bbb23 blocked the IP who made the PA. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:47, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

• Not that I'm suspicious or anything, but an IP editor from the Dominican Republic (can anyone say "proxy"?) is now reverting all the edits I made to Gleichschaltung in the past couple of days, including much sourced material. This seems like a retaliatory attack to me. Perhaps the IP (186.120.253.28) should be blocked? Pinging @Bbb23: and @Dlohcierekim: Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:02, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

I have an unlimited number of blocks in my back pocket.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 02:06, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, you may need them, since this is clearly a proxy attack.. My edits on Vanguard America, Economy of Nazi Germany, Strafgesetzbuch section 86a and American Nazi Party have all been reverted by IPs from various places in the world, all without an edit summary, and all without cause (one was just fixing up refs, another just putting the portals where they should be). The IP editor is clearly just rolling down my contribs, selecting those on Nazi-related subjects, and reverting. IPs involved are:

• 87.116.177.120
• 82.230.128.165
• 186.88.98.205
• 31.42.65.227

There's also the two IPs from Honorary Aryans which weren't blocked, although they are obviously the same editor:

• 109.29.93.7
• 24.21.43.23

Given the explanation I've provided here, I'll be using rollback to revert these edits. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:21, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

New one: 2600:8801:2E01:16C0:F031:BCF8:E2E2:6851

It might be a good idea to semi the articles listed here for a short period of time. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:25, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Semied for various lengths of time. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:30, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:14, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

• In a discussion from November on Talk:Racial policy of Nazi Germany#Chinese and Japanese, User:Zahne mentioned that the IPs adding this material were probably socks of User:ProfessorJane, who's been indef blocked since 2010. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:37, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

• Sorry, bad ping, @Zanhe: Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:40, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

• Just to update: I moved material from Honorary Aryan which did not have any sources about people/peoples being "Honorary Aryans" to Nazism and race and the IP disruption moved there. Ad Orientem answered my RFPP request for semi-protection of that article. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:22, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

"Prayer of Azarias and Hymn of the Three Children"

Iz can evade block and sing you a song?

There's some fool using IPs that geolocate to the Philippines who keeps inserting some "Prayer of Azarias and Hymn of the Three Children" into articles: 124.104.231.87 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and 112.207.250.80 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). Any of you know who this is? And can set something up, like a filter, or do these IPs combined with your experience set up a rangeblock, maybe? I have the feeling I've seen this cat before. Drmies (talk) 03:42, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

• Ha, 124.104.235.110 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) is one too. Pinging NeilN and BOZ, who dropped some protection. Drmies (talk) 03:43, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
• Ha again: User:MRYSpecialForces2018. CambridgeBayWeather, you also protected a few of their targets. Drmies (talk) 03:47, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

• @Drmies: It's an LTA. Block and protect. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:49, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Been there; done that.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 04:25, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Drmies. The ping didn't work but that's OK because I have no recollection of that particular incident due to my advanced age. On the plus side it's only −21 °C (−6 °F) and the sky is still light in the east. Not long now. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 07:48, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

I'll keep you in mind when we get in the pool, most likely tomorrow. Cheers! Drmies (talk) 20:59, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Go for it, this is one of those folks with a single-minded purpose who is just not listening to everyone else. BOZ (talk) 12:40, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Is the edit filter working?--Dlohcierekim (talk) 14:18, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

FYI

 – See The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children

--Auric talk 12:25, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

WP:ERRORS

There's been a dramatic upsurge in the number of errors being reported on the main page, primarily around DYK and POTD, which remain unaddressed (or which have some individuals refusing to do anything about them). More eyes from some uninvolved admins there would be good, if not for me, then think of the readers who are currently looking at several items which fail WP:V or are simply erroneous, on the main page, right now. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:14, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Plenty of work to do here today. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:16, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Actually, plenty of work to do NOW. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:57, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The Rambling Man needs your attention on a pressing matter. I'm not familiar with ITN so I'm sitting this one out. Drmies (talk) 21:25, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

The ITN one is done. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:30, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Drmies Point of information, it's not "The Rambling Man" which needs attention, it's the issues on the main page which is viewed by 20 million people per day that needs the attention. Let's not personalise things unnecessarily, especially when you know it is simply going to inflame the situation. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:34, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Dude. Seriously? OK. Drmies (talk) 21:35, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, if you knew anything about anything, you'd know that I've already been cast as persona non grata around here, even with relation to my error reporting. You should know better. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:36, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Well color me stupid then, and you're welcome for the DYK edits. I figured, the last couple of months, that I'd play nice with you and do what I can to support you on that Main page. TonyBallioni, thank you for your assistance. I'm going to sit and cry in a little corner over my needlessly inflammatory word choice. Drmies (talk) 21:57, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Why should I thank you for fixing the fuck ups on the main page? It's not my job, it used to be my job to ensure that we didn't have eight to ten fuck ups per day, but now we do. You're welcome for me posting the reports. Now go away until you remember that 90% of Wikipedia hates TRM so to start your post with "TRM needs your attention" is clearly a fail, epic. Your help is certainly not required in future if you don't even get that. Goodbye. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:00, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

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Spamming of Portal Pages

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One editor User:The Transhumanist who is overly enthusiastic about Portals is now spamming portal talk pages [42] with glowing invites to their wikiproject. There are scores of users who want to delete all portals so automated spamming this needs to stop. Just imagine if WikiProject Biography posted a message like that to every bio! Legacypac (talk) 03:50, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Comment: Although I disagree with User:Legacypac on the issue of whether portals should be deleted, I agree that User:The Transhumanist is using AWB to spam pages, and he was also spamming user talk pages with his canvassing. On a related note, the discussion Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/RfC: Ending the system of portals started by User:Galobtter is completely out of control and needs to be ended immediately (close discussion as SNOW OPPOSE)! Brian Everlasting (talk) 05:06, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion has been very civil and under control. The closing of the discussion has already been arranged for at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/RfC: Ending the system of portals, and should run for the full 30 days for consensus to be formed.    — The Transhumanist   07:19, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Maybe we should remove awb access?Spartaz ^Humbug! 06:32, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Seeing the endless spam of thousands of edits on portals, that might not be a bad idea. Isa (talk) 07:09, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Spartaz, long time no see. Concerning the posts to the portal's talk pages, they are on-topic. I've changed them to a more informational tone to reflect this. They convey information on how the WikiProject supports portals, and what resources it has available to help with portals. The rest were invites to those who had expressed interest in portals - they were not sent randomly. As always, I'm here to help. I've ceased posting AWB'd invites and the notices to portal talk pages, pending the outcome of this discussion on how the portals should be notified of the Portals WikiProject's operations (news). For example, there are design discussions taking place on the WikiProject's talk page that affect all portals. I referred to them in the post as design initiatives. I've contacted about 350 of the portals with the notice so far — the other 1,200 need to be informed of what is going on with portals. How should I proceed?    — The Transhumanist   07:27, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: Just in case you weren't aware, the button captioned "Show preview" next to the blue one can show a preview of what the page will look like with your edits. It would have avoided most of the 13 17 edits you've done so far. Isa (talk) 07:39, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

I use the preview, most of the time. But no matter how many times I read a post before I post it, I almost always find typos and such ways to improve it after I post it. Sorry for the inconvenience.    — The Transhumanist   07:41, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps you should slow down a bit? Isa (talk) 07:45, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

As you wish.    — The Transhumanist   07:56, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

I've been described as overly enthusiastic. Actually, I've become an acting curator for the Portals WikiProject, and I do what I can to recruit new members and facilitate communications between the WikiProject, its members, and others affected by it. For the record, a copy of the revised version of the notice at issue is posted below. Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   08:29, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

(The discussion is continued below the following notice - please post replies there. Thank you.)

Condensed "Status report"

Status report from the Portals WikiProject Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals is back! The project was rebooted and completely overhauled on April 17th, 2018. Its goals are to revitalize the entire portal system, make building and maintaining portals easier, and design the portals of the future. As of April 29th, membership is at 56 editors, and growing. There are design initiatives for revitalizing the portals system as a whole, and for each component of portals. Tools are provided for building and maintaining portals, including automated portals that update themselves in various ways. And, if you are bored and would like something to occupy your mind, we have a wonderful task list. From your friendly neighborhood Portals WikiProject.    — The Transhumanist   03:37, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

Posting a pertinent message to multiple talk pages is not "spamming", it's good communication. I note that nobody who has actually received any of the messages has complained, and indeed the users who were contacted directly had expressed an interest in portals. To me, this thread reeks of gameplaying in order to disrupt the efforts to revitalise the work on portals, as opposed to any genuine concern.

Having said that, I would suggest that no more than one message is posted on each portal talk page (the above sample is fine) and that any messages bulk-posted in User Talk are on an opt-in basis. WaggersTALK 07:50, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

One more thing to add: unless User talk:The Transhumanist has been asked to stop and refused to do so, and there's absolutely no evidence of that, this is not an issue that requires admin attention. WaggersTALK 07:54, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

What are we supposed to do about the other 1200 portals that have not been contacted yet?    — The Transhumanist   08:34, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

STOP please! If you don't stop posting the same message to every page in the namespace as a minimum your AWB access should be removed. I'm talking about Portal talkpage spamming which showed up on my watch list which is when I realized he planned to spam all 1515 Portals talks with this long message! I came directly here because such automated editing by the self appointed "acting curator for the Portals WikiProject" is not appropriate in my opinion and prior efforts to get them to stop posting soliciting notices on the face of every single portal failed. Legacypac (talk) 08:50, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

What Legacypac seems to want is to censor the Portals WikiProject, to keep it from communicating with portal editors. The notices to the tops of the portals pages he referred to were those required to be posted to pages nominated for deletion. The discussion concerning Legacypac's objections to the proper notices is covered here. The notices are still at the tops of the portal pages for the duration of the RfC, and look like this:

That Legacypac is still presenting that notice as some kind of wrongdoing, shows his bias. He adamantly dislikes portals and wants to get rid of them. So much so that he wishes to stop valid communications concerning them.

He has warned me about what is not appropriate in his opinion, without actually looking up the rules first, or inquiring what the accepted practices are. He assumed he knew the Wikipedia definitions of spamming and canvassing, but he clearly does not. His warning about MfDs below is a case in point.    — The Transhumanist   12:05, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

I warned this user about Canvassing [43] for MfDs and separately User:Brian Everlasting warned them about canvassing [44] with the Portal talk page messages I posted here about. He also sent out a bunch of messages that included this canvassing As you know, there's a proposal to delete all portals. It started out looking pretty dismal for portals, with primarily posts supporting their demise. It turned out that the proposer didn't post a deletion notice on the very pages being nominated for deletion (a requirement for all deletion discussions). Once that was done, a flood of opposition came in and has apparently turned the tide. RfCs generally run for 30 days. It started April 8th, and so it has about 14 more days to run its course. The more work we can do during that time on the portals, the stronger the reasons for keeping them will be. And the more prepared we will be for any MfDs that follow the closing of the RfC. while at the same time objecting on a procedural basis to the MfDing of any portals. That seems wrong to me. Legacypac (talk) 09:21, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Transhumanist is not spamming. He is not canvassing. Here are the important points:

1. When an article is nominated for deletion a notice is placed on the page. Whether it's 1 article or 1500 portals doesn't matter Template:Afd_footer_(multiple). All 1500 portals have been nominated for deletion. All 1500 portals should be tagged.
2. The WikiProject guideline #5 describes how to revive a wikiproject. It says "To try to gain new participants, individually invite active users who have been substantively involved with the topic to join the project." Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide#Revival In order to prove a charge of canvassing you have to prove that the editors contacted were not substantially involved with the topic. That evidence has not been submitted.

In conclusion, we should be thanking Transhumanist for taking on a dirty job that noone else would do. And I mean noone. I see no reason to suspend AWB access.– Lionel^(talk) 10:54, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Addendum: The portals fall under the scope of the newly revived WikiProject Portals. I propose that this discussion be closed and the complainants be offered the opportunity to raise grievances at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Portals and any resolutions be recorded there.– Lionel^(talk) 11:19, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Would it be possible that it's placed below the talk template that explains the rules of the page?--Moxy (talk) 11:48, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

The supposed MfD canvassing Legacypac accused me of, was the creation of this section on the WikiProject page:

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Article alerts: portals for deletion at MfD

For archives, see: Portals for deletion at MfD.

• 2018 April 24 - Portal:Baltimore - Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Baltimore
• 2018 April 23 - Portal:Football - Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Football
• 2018 April 22 - Portal:Quidditch - Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Quidditch
• 2018 April 22 - Portal:Blu-ray - Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Blu-ray
• 2018 April 22 - Portal:Muhammad - Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Muhammad
• 2018 April 22 - Portal:Belemnoids - Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Belemnoids

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Article alert sections are a standard feature of WikiProjects. For some examples, see:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia#Current discussions
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Football#Article alerts
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums#Article alerts

I explained this to Legacypac in reply to his accusation on my talk page, but he never answered.

The quote Legacypac posted above was part of a newsletter that was sent out to members of the Portals WikiProject, all of whom had already !voted in the RfC in favor of portals. Therefore, not canvassing.

Legacypac has used the label "Canvassing", but has not presented an actual case by citing specific rules that have actually been broken.

The Canvassing guideline states: "Canvassing is notification done with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way, and is considered inappropriate. This is because it compromises the normal consensus decision-making process, and therefore is generally considered disruptive behavior."

The WikiProject status report (shown above) that was posted to the portal talk pages is about the Portals WikiProject, with links to its various sections such as the task list, a tools list, and its talk page, where we are designing new components for portals. The intention of the notice is to assist editors in 1) finding resources to use in building and maintaining portals, and 2) getting together with other editors with which to work with to build and maintain portals. This does not fall under the definition "notification done with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion".

There are 1200 portals that have not yet been notified about The WikiProject's operations. Please explain to me (cite the rules/provide links) why this WikiProject should not be allowed to post general notices pertaining to the improvement of portals on the talk pages of those portals. Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   12:01, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

• I agree that Transhumanist is not spamming. This thread should be closed with no action. Lepricavark (talk) 19:53, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
• I would just like to comment on the technical implementation of the message. In the future, if anyone plans to repeat the same text over thousands of pages, a template should be created instead of directly using {{ambox}}. This would make it so that if we needed to make a change to the message box, we would only need to make the change once and have it reciprocate across all pages that transclude the template. We would not have to use AWB to edit all of the thousands of pages again every time a change is needed, which is what happened twice here. The very reason why the template namespace exists is for this purpose. Mz7 (talk) 20:02, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. I totally agree with Mz7! Brian Everlasting (talk) 20:31, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

The reason I chose to do the deletion discussion notice that way, was to preserve it as-is in the historical versions of the pages it was posted on. So that the message that will be displayed in the future will still be what was displayed when it was posted. If the hypothetical template were to be deleted because it was no longer being used, or converted to some other purpose, that wouldn't affect the historical postings. This event was out of the ordinary, and I thought it might be studied or referenced in the future, making a static record more important. Though, it is not completely static, as it uses ambox, but the message text is.    — The Transhumanist   09:31, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Question

How does one remove AWB access, anyway? Is it as simple as removing someone's username from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage? I already voted in the aforementioned discussion, so there's no way I'd be touching The Transhumanist's user rights even if AWB should be removed. Nyttend (talk) 11:38, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

@Nyttend:--Yep.~ Winged Blades^Godric 11:43, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

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Rangeblock question

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I'm assuming the range is too wide, but I figured I'd ask anyway. Dynamic IP here Enigma^msg 04:43, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

No, actually. See Special:Contributions/2401:7400:e800::/48. I've blocked 6 months. ansh666 06:12, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Cheers, Enigma^msg 17:32, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

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Anti-seminitic comments

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Would someone take a look at this user who has already been blocked for in appropriate use of the talk page. It looks like the behaviour has continued. -----Snowded ^TALK 05:20, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

User:SarekOfVulcan has blocked this IP. Nick-D (talk) 05:28, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Three minutes after this report! Impressive response or parallel monitoring. Either way resolved so thanks -----Snowded ^TALK 05:30, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Pure procrastination. :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 05:32, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

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if anyone has admin bit on commons

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this attack disparagement image needs deletion.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 06:15, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

*poof*. DMacks (talk) 06:26, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

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Heads up: No renaming

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Hello English Wikipedia Administrators:

Global renaming is experiencing technical problems, and we are processing renaming request after we found the renaming is malfunctioning. WP:CHUS and Special:GlobalRenameRequest shows the warning that request is halted, but you should not re-block "unblocked to allow post @ CHUS" people because they did not get renamed in short time: that's outside of their control. (Meanwhile: They can use "GlobalRenameRequest" while they're blocked without being unblocked.) — regards, Revi 07:59, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Fixed since then. — regards, Revi 21:11, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

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Autoconfirmation

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Why am I not autoconfirmed yet? I registered 5 days ago and have over 100 edits. When I click on one of my contributions, there is no "autoconfirmed users" tag, as there is for other Wikipedians. DangleSnipeCelly (talk) 21:45, 30 April 2018 (UTC)DangleSnipeCelly1

Not sure what you're talking about by "click on one of my contributions," but you are indeed autoconfirmed. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:52, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

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Sharkslayer87 second chance

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→ Relates to User talk:Bishonen#I want the ban removed —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 13:25, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi, I was topic banned for editing the article Raju. The reason given to me was:

Hi, Sharkslayer87. I have not banned you for adding unsourced material, but for using poor sources, and/or making claims unsupported by your sources, despite warnings and advice. The place you can appeal is the administrators' noticeboard. But Serial Number 54129 gives you good advice: you'll have a better chance of a successful appeal if you edit uncontroversially in other areas for a few months first. Bishonen | talk 11:23, 1 May 2018 (UTC).

I don't agree with this. I didn't use poor sources that don't support my claims. Rajus have Kshatriya status and both the terms are synonymous. I used the below sources for that.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/Kanumuri-Bapiraju-faces-uphill-task-in-Narsapuram/articleshow/33795850.cms https://books.google.com/books?id=oQOF7tkWXjIC&pg=PA98&dq=kshatriyas+rajus&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiD-s67t4PaAhWGxFkKHcyxBUY4FBDoAQhUMAk#v=onepage&q=kshatriyas%20rajus&f=false

The first source says "Rajus (Kshatriya)" and the second source clearly says "The rajus are a small, close-knit community of the Kshatriya caste"

I also used Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard who is considered by many as one of the greatest social anthropologists ever. He has more than a hundered thousand results at google scholar and he has been cited by thousands and thousands of scholars. “The Raju caste, classified as the Kshatriya or warriors among the Twice-born castes, is the second highest in the village. The Raju are descendants of former rulers of the area and though their wealth and influence has declined they still bestow patronage in the form of land, money and political connections. Several Raju families have Shudra and Harijan field laborers attached to them by yearly agreements”.

He states in no uncertain terms that Rajus are classified as Kshatriyas. The link for that is below

https://books.google.com/books?id=BZqBAAAAMAAJ&dq=raju+caste&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=kshatriya

A particular user called Sitush was not allowing me to contribute. He even targeted an entire community of people. The exact words he used were "except in the minds of self-glorifying southern communities such as the Raju and the Nair". These comments really pained me. I got a little aggressive and edited the article but even then I didn't source anything from poor sources. I made a little mistake. In my last edit I used https://books.google.com/books?id=gVNdhHtG134C&q=aravidu+kshatriya&dq for synonymity but it was just a silly mistake. In my previous edits I used the below two sources for proving synonymity for which I was reverted by sitush.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/Kanumuri-Bapiraju-faces-uphill-task-in-Narsapuram/articleshow/33795850.cms https://books.google.com/books?id=oQOF7tkWXjIC&pg=PA98&dq=kshatriyas+rajus&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiD-s67t4PaAhWGxFkKHcyxBUY4FBDoAQhUMAk#v=onepage&q=kshatriyas%20rajus&f=false

The difference is https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Raju&diff=839049605&oldid=839047790

I apologize for any mistakes on my part and I promise I won't repeat them. I want to appeal for a revokation of my ban as I am a good wikipedia contributor and I want to continue with my contributions.

Thanks Sharkslayer87 (talk) 12:04, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Decline The fact you called the comment by Sitush "racist" in the section title alone shows a need to keep the ban in place. You've been warned by multiple editors about editing from a POV, and you continued. Filing an arbitration request before even going to the talk page (which is where the discussion SHOULD start) was another example of trying to WP:BLUDGEON your POV. As others have said, I would say you need to edit elsewhere for sometime before requesting a lifting of this topic ban. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:18, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

• Decline This editor is clearly here with a WP:AGENDA and is suffering from a bad case of WP:IDHT. Given their pattern of editing and their deportment in talk page discussions I endorse the topic ban and will go on record as opposing any further appeals for at least six months. -Ad Orientem (talk) 13:17, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
• Decline Topic banning instead of an outright block was pretty generous. Ban needs to be in place for a minimum of six months before I'd even consider an appeal. Yunshui ^雲_水 13:20, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
• For the record, I've blocked for 24 hours for continuing violations of the topic ban, all of which occurred after both the acknowledgement of the topic ban and the filing of the appeal here. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 13:38, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

I am suspecting that their next block will be an indefinite one. RickinBaltimore (talk) 13:47, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Probably, but like I said on their talk page, I'd rather the first block be a short one, as a warning shot across the bow, so to speak. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 13:49, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

• Decline as above. GiantSnowman 13:42, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
• Decline agree with everyone above. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:53, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
• Decline Much per above. I have altered the section title above just to explain why it no longer *states* sitush is being racist and so it doesnt appear in the archives as such when this gets closed. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:57, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
• Decline The second chance was actually the generous TBAN, which has already been violated, and I think the next such violation or any further disruption would merit a NOTHERE block. —SpacemanSpiff 16:32, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comment The problem is not that they are not providing sources but that they are providing cherry-picked sources, sometimes poor ones, and failing to adhere to NPOV. Their contention - which over the last couple of months they have taken to ANI, DRN and RFAR, as well as providing walls of text elsewhere - is already mentioned in the article in the sort of nuanced manner that is required when sources disagree. There is no doubt that the article could be generally improved but this person has an agenda relating to a specific point of "improvement", they've got it wrong, and they're clearly here just to glorify. FWIW, they've been trying to push this point at other articles in a less obvious way (eg: using the term Andhra Kshatriya where Raju would do) and they also have a problem with copyright violations. They've edit warred beyond 3RR and seem unwilling to accept the numerous comments from people experienced in the topic area, all of whom have been banging on about the NPOV/cherry-picking issue. - Sitush (talk) 07:34, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

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Ban requested

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I'd like to be banned to infinity. I am Grawp, the dead man walking. --Prüm (talk) 11:25, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

You've certainly been making some very odd comments elsewhere (eg: the arbcom case request and User_talk:Sharkslayer87) and I did wonder whether you were trolling. Just walk away. - Sitush (talk) 11:30, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Per Sitish, no one is making you log into this website, read it, or contribute to its mission. If you don't want to be here anymore, simply don't be. --Jayron32 12:38, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Well, either this is Grawp, or someone pretending to be. Either of those rates an indefinite block. Done. Bishonen | talk 15:23, 3 May 2018 (UTC).

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Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Cassianto

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Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.

To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).

Appealing user

Cassianto (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Cassianto^Talk 20:11, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed

A further topic-ban from infoboxes for three months. I have been instructed not to add, edit or remove infoboxes, and you may not edit discussions about anything related to infoboxes, either as regards their use in specific articles or in the abstract, imposed at [45]. Further discussion can be found here.

Administrator imposing the sanction

Sandstein (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notification of that administrator

here

Statement by Cassianto

The actually wording of the sanction imposed by the committee is not to "make more than one comment in discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article". The diffs in question are

• 14:53, 1 May 2018 Mary Shelley, a comment I was entitled to make;

• 16:11, 1 May 2018 Mary Shelley, not fitting the wording of the above sanction;

• 08:08, 2 May 2018 Mary Shelley, not fitting the wording of the above sanction;

• 19:02, 30 April 2018 Stanley Kubrick, which I'm entitled to make;

• 20:04, 30 April 2018 Stanley Kubrick, not fitting the wording of the above sanction.

I appeal this further sanction for two reasons:

• Nowhere was I "discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox"
• The wording of the original sanction was/is too ambiguous as to work efficiently. I feel that owing to the bad and misleading prose, I was set up to fail. Even the drafting arbitrator admits his wording, sometimes, can by sub-standard, and now, so does the other one. No DS alert was issued; no friendly reminder; and I was left at the surrendor of the unintelligible and ambiguous wording at the case finding. I have tried to discuss this with Sandstein, here, which was ignored, and only heard from him when I reverted his closure at AE. I was advised to discuss this with him, as per his advice on my talk page, but to no avail.

As far as I can see, so long as I am not is not discussing the inclusion or exclusion, which the diffs prove I was not, then there is no need for any further sanctions. Sandstein's knee-jerk behaviour to enforce unclear or confusing restrictions, instead of simply improving or clarifying the restrictions, is indicative of the kind of bully-boy attitude he adopts at AE.

Finally, I apologise if the formatting is up the wall or badly laid out, I've never done this before. I won't have a problem with anyone wanting to adjust my layout. Cassianto^Talk 20:11, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

@Banedon: "Cassainto's statement in this appeal doesn't focus on the wording either"...yes it does. But as the title suggests, together with my statement, this case is more about the heavy handed approach and action by an equally heavy handed admin. There are other places to appeal arbitration decisions, including the illiterate wording by Worm That Turned and Krakatoa Katie, and here is not it. Please do try to keep up. Cassianto^Talk 21:51, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Robert McClenon "Cassianto essentially thumbed his nose at the whole arbitration process by requesting a block" -- oh I do apologise. I'll tell my close family members that next time they think about dying, they'll have to put it off as otherwise I may look bad in front of Mr Robert McLennon. Unlike you, clearly, sir, I have a private life away from this bollocks and that comes first before any of this. You, I've noticed, do very little for this project other than to hang around drama boards and suck up to ArbCom. There really is more to life than this. Cassianto^Talk 06:40, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein

A WP:AE, a request was made to enforce the "infobox probation" sanction imposed by the Arbitration Committee on Cassianto at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility in infobox discussions#Cassianto and infoboxes (II). The argument made in the request was that Cassianto violated that probation by making more than one comment in an infobox-related discussion on two occasions. Another admin and I agreed that this conduct by Cassianto violated the sanction. Cassianto's statement in response to the request indicated that they would not attempt to comply with the sanction and would not be deterred by a block. I therefore instead decided to impose a three-month infobox topic ban as an easier-to-follow discretionary sanction.

The arguments made by Cassianto here are mistaken or beside the point. At Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Civility in infobox discussions: Arbitrator views and discussion, arbitrators so far agree that my understanding of the sanction is correct and that Cassianto did violate the sanction. As Cassianto was a sanctioned party in the original ArbCom decision, no particular alert was required in order to impose discretionary sanctions on Cassianto, see WP:AC/DS#Awareness points one and two. Contrary to what Cassianto writes, at User talk:Sandstein#Get your gear in order Cassianto did not attempt to "discuss" the sanction with me, but merely expressed their opinion about my competence and what they consider my lack of good faith. I do not think such statements require a response.

I therefore recommend that this appeal is declined. Sandstein 21:17, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Martinevans123

User:Goodforaweekend looks so very well-informed and skilful for an editor with such a new account? Almost as if you were big baited there. I'm sure your addition of a thread here is "out of process" so maybe you might expect to get "additional sanctions" dumped on you. But your edits don't look like those of an editor who is just being wilfully disruptive. More one that seems to be frustrated they can't be left alone to help add content. User:Sandstein's very rapid sanction looks bit harsh to me. Also the wording of the original arbitration enforcement sanction looks like it might be ambiguous, perhaps at least "open to interpretation"? Is there some middle ground to be won here? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:41, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

But it now seems, as per User:Euryalus below, that the ARCA thread may be "closed as withdrawn"? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:37, 3 May 2018 (UTC) Struck as per Euryalus below. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:42, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Banedon

If Cassianto had violated the sanction "in good faith" because he understood the wording differently, I would support the topic ban being lifted. However based on his responses at ARCA I don't see how this violation was in good faith. He didn't say "I understood the sanction to mean something else, if this is what is meant I won't do it again". Instead he called the people enacting the sanctions incompetent, corrupt, malicious, and biased. Cassainto's statement in this appeal doesn't focus on the wording either, but rather Sandstein's conduct.

I interpret this as a clear indication that Cassianto rejects the Arbcom sanctions on a fundamental level and is likely to break them again if given the opportunity. Accordingly lifting the topic ban is a step backwards, and I agree with Sandstein that the appeal be declined. Banedon (talk) 21:36, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Coretheapple

What exactly is being appealed here? The AE case went against Cassianto, but here at ARCA he says he is appealing "this rubbish" to AN. What rubbish is that? The AE or the ARCA effort to clarify the Arbcom decision (which he did not commence)? Or both?

What's clear is that Cassianto has contempt for the whole process, and made that clear at the AE here, when he made his case as follows:

Knock yourself out. I've made it my policy NEVER to plead for forgiveness as this is just a website and I'm just a volunteer, so it bothers me not about being blocked, especially as I'm more tan keen to sit out self-requested blocks. FWIW, and having said that, I wasn't aware of the "no more than one comment" bullshit, but knew of my restriction NOT to touch idiotboxes, which I haven't. Unlike some people on here, I have a private life to attend to so I didn't concern myself with the intricacies of the outcome.

The probation restriction, which was reasonable and mild, was as clear as day, and I agree with Banedon that Cassianto rejects the Arbcom sanctions. If his contempt for this "rubbish" isn't "clear" I don't know what is. If his statement is to be believed he didn't even read the arbcom decision, as he says he wasn't aware of the one-comment "bullshit." Coretheapple (talk) 22:11, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by power~enwiki

@Euryalus: - The ARCA thread was started by GoldenRing, not Cassianto, and probably shouldn't be considered an "appeal". power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:34, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Mr Ernie

Support rescinding the topic ban and clarifying the restriction. Why does this need to be so hard? This is a volunteer website, not the HR department of a law school. user:Euryalus please see WP:NOTBURO. Mr Ernie (talk) 00:28, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Comment by Robert McClenon

Cassianto essentially thumbed his nose at the whole arbitration process by requesting a block, so that if he doesn't understand what the original sanction was, he has no one to blame but himself. Now apparently he doesn't understand that the community has lost patience with him. As far as I am concerned, he is still getting off easy, because I proposed to the ArbCom that he be banned. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:14, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Cassianto

• Where an infraction, if it be an infraction, is of a trivial nature, excessive penalties thereon seems less than wise. Sandstein should reasonably have elicited further opinions, as far as I can tell. Prudence would suggest he suspend the penalty until discussion thereon supports or does not support the penalty proposed. For myself, I fear I find the penalty to be substantially in excess of that previously in force on the editor. Collect (talk) 21:12, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• The action seems reasonable, given the purpose of the restriction was to bar more then one comment in discussions that have proved problematic in the past, so problematic there was an Arbcom case. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:21, 3 May 2018 (UTC) Decline - Continued commenting, where personal attacks may accrue [46] are to be avoided. There are many other conversations on the project to participate in, appropriately. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:01, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

• I'm not sure if I'm involved or uninvolved (this diff, posted by Cassianto was a direct reply to me, but I haven't been called out to comment); I stumbled upon this topic by mere accident. I don't know the history of the TBAN, and I don't have time to look into it. While that reply by the OP may have sounded a bit harsh, I guess I deserved that for thinking that I could get people to agree on something that's been an issue for a while. I'm not being sarcastic, I realized later that I was wrong in starting the discussion. So, as far as I'm concerned - that diff is a no-issue. Also, I remembered why I have the article on my watchlist - Apollo 11 conspiracy theorists. Nothing to do with the infobox. =) byteflush _Talk 01:23, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

• I'm inclined to deny the appeal here; Cassianto is clearly intentionally testing the limits of the ban; this sort of breaching experiment is to be discouraged. The purpose is to minimize bludgeoning at discussions about infoboxes, and one cannot skirt the limits of that by simply avoiding using the word "infobox" in a comment. It is clear that both the letter and the spirit was intended to restrict Cassianto to one comment in any discussion about an infobox, and these violations were not incidental, but were substantive violations of the restriction. --Jayron32 01:26, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

• Clarify the Arbcom ruling & reverse the sanctions, please. GoodDay (talk) 02:46, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

• Decline--What Jayron says.Quasi-IDHT coupled with a bunch of PAs don't help either.~ Winged Blades^Godric 04:59, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

• Decline - There's no actual basis presented for this appeal. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:18, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
• Decline this appeal. Wikilawyering over whether a specific comment in a discussion about an infobox constitutes discussing the infobox or not? Seriously? Enough already. Guy (Help!) 10:42, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
• Decline - Edits like these [47] [48] [49] are indefensible, and I don't believe that the letter or spirit of the sanction includes an exemption for profane rants and accusations of sockpuppetry. –dlthewave ☎ 12:34, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
• Decline - There was no clear intent to draw a distinction between "discussing" and "a discussion". --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:42, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Result of the appeal by Cassianto

• Mildly, you can't appeal an ARCA review to AN. See the "Important Notes" section of [50] and specifically: "While asking the enforcing administrator and seeking reviews at AN or AE are not mandatory prior to seeking a decision from the committee, once the committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred. The clause has an exception, but it has a six-month waiting period.

I suppose it's marginally arguable that the committee has started its review at ARCA but hasn't finished it, therefore the committee hasn't finally "reviewed the request" yet. If so, to avoid forumshopping we should close the ARCA thread as withdrawn. -- Euryalus (talk) 22:23, 3 May 2018 (UTC) Striking this because as pointed out, the ARCA wasn't opened by Cassianto so they have no responsibility for its continuation or withdrawal. -- Euryalus (talk) 01:13, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

@Power~enwiki: you're entirely correct. Per the above, if Cassianto wants this resolved here let's close the ARCA and have the debate all in one place. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:31, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

@Mr Ernie: not sure it's about excessive bureaucracy, though that's certainly a common failing of Arbcom. More about keeping the discussion on one place and not having competing outcomes. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:35, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Repeated ban evasion by Kiko4564

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I have noticed that Kiko4564 has created more than 2 sockpuppet accounts since his indefinite ban in 2013, can an admin please do the honours in informing him that he is now banned by the community (under the three strike rule) for that reason and inform him of this discussion? I have not let him know as his TP is semi-protected. Jason Rodda (talk) 00:39, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

— Jason Rodda (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. --Dlohcierekim (talk) 00:45, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Ongoing IP vandalism. Rangeblock?

There is an ongoing problem of an IP vandal on Greg Holland and Felipe Vázquez daring me by name (well, sorta, since the user can't properly spell my user name) to block them for their vandalism. The vandal has been editing from 99.203.29.239 and 99.203.29.210, as well as IPv6 addresses. I've protected the pages temporarily and have blocked the IPv4 addresses, also temporarily. Is a range block warranted at this point? – Muboshgu (talk) 01:36, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Probably not, seeing how you've already protected the pages and blocked the offending IPs. Rangeblocks should only be used as a last resort given their potential to adversely affect legitimate editors. -FASTILY 03:50, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Both are sprint ranges - and very wide so a rangeblock would likely be impractical / have way too much collateral. Probably best to protect the pages as you did. SQL^{Query me!} 01:19, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Just wondering then what is the most efficient way for dealing with this, other than protecting pages and blocking IPs, which feels like a game of Whac-A-Mole. – Muboshgu (talk) 14:26, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

EDreams / EDreams ODIGEO

These two articles have been subjected to intermittent edit-warring to insert BLP-uncompliant allegations by anons for the past months. One of the anons tried to report the reversions at ANI and AIV (which is where I took note of the situation) on April 25, and were reverted since their report included potentially defamatory material.

After issuing an initial warning to the latest IP 118.200.76.63 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and placing EDreams under PC1, I was alerted on my talk pagethat some undisclosed COI editing may have taken place in support of the article by registered users, most of them stale. Internetguruspain (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) however is still active and may possibly be a connected contributor. His other edits include writing the bio of Javier Perez-Tenessa, the founder of the companies covered by the other two articles.

I have blocked the IP for inserting the BLP-sensitive material removed from EDreams for which I warned him on the 25th into EDreams ODIGEO today for two weeks, and added PC-1 to this article as well. Would appreciate more eyes on the situation as I'm both rarely online and probably quite a bit rusty. On top of reviewing, any egregious errors in tool usage can be undone without consulting me, but I'll be grateful if you let me know what I screwed up so that I learn from any mistakes. Thanks, MLauba ^(Talk) 18:55, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Site ban proposal: LovelyGirl7

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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User:LovelyGirl7 needs to be site banned from Wikipedia for the following reasons:

• Adding non-notable and biased current events to Portal:Current events, such as celebrities and other sports events that doesn’t belong there, such as Robert De Niro and Will Ferrell. ([51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56]
• Plagarism of other articles from websites, which were reverted by User:SlimVirgin and other editors ([57]). See Talk:K2-155d/GA1 for why she has violated Wikipedia’s policies
• Her in-the-news candidates for non nominations, such as WASP-104b and WASP-107b.
• She also created the non-notable Ed Krassenstein and added a lot of information fabricating him

She has became a disruptive Wikipedia editor and needs to be blocked and banned permanently until she can show she knows how to edit constructively, not plagiarize, and add notable current events. I also propose all nominations she makes are closed and that she’s removed from each WikiProject she is part of. Given all this, I propose a full site ban on her account. 166qq (talk) 03:24, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

• Note: The OP has been editing here for one month, and has 29 edits, 17 of them to mainspace. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:44, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Re site ban: An indef block that gets violated precedes most site bans. A site ban without a prior indef block usually is a result of gross and reprehensible misconduct on the part of the user in question (such as openly advocating Nazism or pedophilia), combined with the user in question insisting that they're right and that we're all doing Satan's work. A site ban is not going to happen. Your suggestion for one reads (at best) as completely misguided.

Re block: I'm not seeing how this is justified either. The diffs show LovelyGirl7 making some mistakes and not being 110% aware of how things work here (which you're guilty of as well). You've failed to demonstrate something truly problematic, like edit warring. As for the WP:COPYVIO problems, yes, that's serious, but has LovelyGirl7 continued to engage in this behavior after being given adequate warning and explanation? As for the "in-the-news" things, I'm having trouble figuring how you think that's a failed proposal counts as something blockable.

Now, LovelyGirl7's version of Ed Krassenstein failed WP:NPOV in a several ridiculous ways. If those problems continue, maybe she needs to be topic banned from editing articles relating to American politics. But your request to have her treated the way we treat Nazi pedophiles, in the light of some of your other edits, suggest that this thread is politically motivated, leaving you just as at-risk for such a topic ban.

TL;DR: NO U

Ian.thomson (talk) 03:48, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Ian.thomson: She has disrupted this Wikipedia over and over repeatedly, not make mistakes. Adding celebrities to current events page is not acceptable and she has done it twice. She has plagiarized several articles over and over again, and has shown no intentions of stopping. Her edits on Nova Carinae 2018 were deleted because of this. That bigot of a editor needs to be banned from the project nuff said. --166qq (talk) 04:02, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

She has disrupted this Wikipedia over and over repeatedly, not make mistakes. And you know that these deliberate and knowing actions (instead of mistakes) how, exactly?

Adding celebrities to current events page is not acceptable and she has done it twice. OMG, you're right, we'll report her to the police right now so she can be dragged off to the camps! For fuck's sake, that is not site ban worthy behavior or even block worthy behavior, that is a user making a mistake.

She has plagiarized several articles over and over again I'm seeing two episodes of plagiarism, one given a warning, another given a final warning. Do you have evidence of her plagiarizing after the final warning?

That bigot of a editor needs to be banned from the project nuff said. Look, I'm a socialist. Politically, we're probably closer than I am to LovelyGirl7. As I said earlier, I thought that her article on Ed Krassenstein was biased "in several ridiculous ways." But, speaking as an admin, you're the one who is being disruptive here. You've presented nothing from her that exempts you from WP:NPA in calling her a bigot. You've presented nothing that shows that she is such a fundamental threat to the site's order that she needs to be banned. You've failed to show her continued ability to edit has reached enough of a net negative to the site to justify blocking her. Now, are you here to work on the site (even with people of differing political views), or are you here to troll or persecute someone for being an obvious Republican? Because I'm telling you with over a decade of experience that a site ban is not going to happen, no matter how much her political views obviously anger you into blowing everything you can out of proportion. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:19, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

• I'd strongly suggest an immediate boomerang be applied here. Calling another editor a bigot under an edit summary that accuses her of a criminal act, all without any evidence, is more than uncivil enough to earn a block. John from Idegon (talk) 04:17, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• I'm not going to call for a boomerang but i'd highly suggest 166qq drop it as this is without merit. Her behavior does not even reach a level where a topic ban is appropriate yet, let alone a site ban. -- Dane ^talk 04:28, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I think the OP needs a TBAN from US politics. There's the Bush edit above and this on Cheney, where she says Cheney is a war criminal. (personally, I despise the man, but this is not a soapbox for my political views) She can hardly criticize others on WP:NPOV grounds when she politicizes articles this way.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 05:24, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

So yes, it would be better if OP drops this and apologizes and just agrees to leave editors she disagrees with alone. Maybe we should close this and ask OP to be more tolerant of others.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 05:27, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

LovelyGirl7 has two GA's more than I have.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 05:35, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Dlohcierekim: <<redact bizarre rant w/ PA and insults>> —LovelyGirl7 must be banned. I’m a male 05:46, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

<<ec>>:::OK. That's your POV editing. Again, she has been overall constructive and has not resumed the problem behavior. No idea while you are pushing this so hard. I'd hoped we could close this without further unpleasantness, but OK. --Dlohcierekim (talk) 05:54, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

• This comment just got 166qq indeffed. Closing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:52, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

John Donvan copyvio question

I have deleted the article John Donvan because the body of the article has been a copyright violation of an ABC News source since its first edit. In retrospect I'm not sure that this was the most appropriate course of action - on one hand, stripping the article of the copyvio would have left it nearly empty and with only one visible revision, but on the other hand the subject is a fairly prominent person, and an article with >1,000 pageviews this month. I don't have time to rewrite an article on an unfamiliar subject from scratch at the moment, but would another admin like to review? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:29, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Definitely big copyvios, but it looks like it's only the first paragraph of the Career section. I'll see about trimming it down to non-copyvios and see what's left before restoring. Primefac (talk) 13:39, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Restored and trimmed. If I've missed something obvious feel free to remove it and/or re-delete as appropriate. Primefac (talk) 13:48, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

The Awards section was also copyvio, though perhaps less so. The list of awards is verbatim to the same source. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:28, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

The edit was apparently made in 2006. The ABC news article was written in 2010. Unless I misread something, it seems more of an other-way around problem? Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:19, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

@Galobtter: I can see why you think that, but no. If you have a look at the last diff before the revdel, [58], it liks to the article. I don't know why the date shows it as it is (frankly, such a screwup might invalidate any copyright claims, but I'm not a lawyer, and certainly wiki-law is still violated). ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 01:22, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Interesting, seems to be a misconfiguration on ABC's part perhaps when they changed their site layout. The Internet Archive does have the article as far back as 2004, but at a slightly different URL. When the original editor contributed the article here ABC's article looked like this. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 04:42, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:40, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Block Triggerhippie4

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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He keeps reverting my edits, using the argument that I'm a "sockpuppet" despite the fact that it hasn't been proven. [59] [60] [61] He's also vandalizing my user page. [62] [63] [64] Backarn (talk) 08:56, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Backarn - Your edits and reverts to the article keep adding back an image that's currently tagged for speedy deletion for being a copyright violation - please stop adding it back. Triggerhippie4, stop calling Backarn a sock puppet and stop adding that sock template to Backarn's user page - he obviously doesn't appreciate that. You're only making things worse by calling other people sock puppets and it's uncivil behavior. The fact that you have suspicions and an SPI filed doesn't mean that we treat the other user disrespectfully - Wikipedia's civility policy does not have exceptions. Wait until evidence is examined and let things go from there. Thank you both -~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 09:07, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Oshwah: He's the one who keeps adding the speedy deletion template, and he's obviously doing it on false grounds because of a personal vendetta against me. Backarn (talk) 09:10, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

It's just an image to an article... just leave the revision as is until the matter is resolved with the possible copyright violation with the image - it appears to be tagged for a legitimate reason and I have no evidence that shows any "personal vendetta" going on... ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 09:13, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Oshwah: I've dealt with this sock before and I'm sure it will be proven as such as soon as admin will check it. He uploaded two copyrighted images to Commons and now reverting my speedy deletion request there. --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 09:14, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Triggerhippie4 - That's fine; I see that there are concerns (I read your SPI) and I understand, but that doesn't give us the excuse to repeatedly add the sock template to their user page knowing that the user is removing it and asking you to stop, nor does it allow us to treat them any less than we would other users. If anything... why? What's the point? You're just making the user upset and adding to the disruption by doing what you were doing... is that how we should be behaving? Giving who you believe to be a disruptive editor even more reasons to be disruptive? Of course not... don't be silly ;-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 09:21, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Oshwah: Here we go again... he keeps slandering me and keeps claiming that the images are copyrighted, thus uploaded under the wrong license despite the fact that I repetadley linked to the respective countries' local laws which clearly allows for uploading such images. Please block this troll. Backarn (talk) 09:15, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Backarn - You're both behaving inappropriately toward each other. You're calling him a troll, he's calling you a sock, you're edit warring on the article, so is he... c'mon guys, enough already ;-). Just go your separate ways, stop being disruptive, and let it go. If you're not a sock puppet, great - you'll be fine and you have nothing to worry about. If he's not a troll, great - he'll be fine too. No need to claw on one another until a "champion is decided"... just leave it alone and behave like adults. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 09:28, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Oshwah: I completely agree. But he's the one who's harassing me, how are we supposed to "go our separate ways" when he keeps reverting my edits and vandalizing my user page? Backarn (talk) 09:30, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I've asked him to stop doing that above, and I'm sure he will do so ;-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 09:43, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Oshwah: Let's hope so, but I'm extremely sceptical. :) Backarn (talk) 09:55, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

The images were deleted. Backarn will not add them anymore. I think this thread can be closed. --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 10:27, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Backarn is now blocked indefinitely. @Oshwah: Please, close this. --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 13:22, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Item needs looking at

I don't know how long it will be until Materialscientist has a chance to see this so I thought I would bring it to this noticeboard in case it is something that needs attention sooner rather than later. If you deem that my post here is bringing undue attention to it please feel free to remove and even R/D this section. MarnetteD|Talk 21:30, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

I've removed the personal information, but this seems more like a content dispute. Primefac (talk) 12:15, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Community ban and indefinite block for Lidiia Kondratieva

• Lidiia Kondratieva (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Edit count

This person is likely an undisclosed paid editor. Their competence in English and in WP is marginal at best.

The last straw for me was this response they just made, to a DS notice given to them by User:Ronz. It perfectly encapsulates what they do here. Perfectly pleasant on the surface, but either completely incompetent or completely bad faith.

Per their edit count, 8 of the top 9 articles they have worked on, are typical targets of paid editors. They also work on some historical figures as well (probably not paid?) and one of those is in the top 9 too:

• Corys TESS
• Christel Frese (athlete) here is the diff series - entirely unsourced.
• Greg Fischbach "entrepreneur"
• Thomas J. Falk CEO
• Rony Abovitz CEO
• Olivia Hime musician
• Brian Dyson retired CEO

? Not a typical target, but pretty clearly not notable and hard to understand outside paid editing

• Lucy Young here are their edits.

historical figures

• John Hedgecoe

A bigger list is at this COIN case I filed, which somehow got no traction.

I encountered this person at Naveen Jain, where efforts to "control the message" on that page have been ongoing since 2007 per this note on its talk page from back then, and also per the extensive list of SPA/promo editors I just added at the top of Talk:Naveen_Jain. Ronz has been riding herd on that mess since the page was created.

The COIN case linked above, shows past COIN cases about the Jain page and related topics.

A lot of the promotional efforts over the past 11 years, have been directed to downplaying the Infospace debacle and trying to emphasize his more recent space efforts.

More recently the page was pending changes protected in this diff in November 2017 and the Lidiia Kondratieva account showed up after that. They have made baffling Talk contributions like this, and this and this....and done radical edits to the page like this, where they deleted all the Infospace stuff and tried to create a POV fork with it.

The DS notice was given just after Lidiia Kondratieva took yet another hack at the Infospace section.

This person is not improving WP and is a drain on everybody else. In my view they should be indefinitely blocked. Jytdog (talk) 00:29, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Jytdog's assessment. I wish we could figure out who is behind the editing assignments that Lidiia Kondratieva is apparently getting (and the many other editors editing in a similar fashion). --Ronz (talk) 03:09, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Endorse indef block There is something seriously amiss. @Lidiia Kondratieva: please respond here. We have grave concerns about your editing.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 03:14, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

• I came across this editor a few days back and while the topics seem rather different, I believe this is part of one of the many South Asian UPE groups that I've blocked. There is some overlap with -- "Sudheer Telaprolu" group, but I can't be sure that it's part of that group, and per WP:BEANS I'm not commenting on a couple of other tell tale signs of being part of a UPE ring. If I hadn't seen this here, I'd have likely done some investigation into this account towards a resolution, but now that we're here, I think an indef block is in order (if not superseded by a CU block as part of a UPE ring). —SpacemanSpiff 03:29, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

• Support: a clear behavioural pattern of UPE editing. --K.e.coffman (talk) 04:13, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

• just adding a comment to prevent this from being archived. This account is problematic and I hope folks look at this. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 14:54, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee seeking new clerks

Cross-posted from the ArbCom noticeboard: The arbitration clerks are currently looking for a few dependable and mature editors willing to serve as clerks. The responsibilities of clerks include opening and closing arbitration cases and motions; notifying parties of cases, decisions, and other committee actions; maintaining the requests for arbitration pages; preserving order and proper formatting on case pages; and other administrative and related tasks they may be requested to handle by the arbitrators. Clerks are the unsung heroes of the arbitration process, keeping track of details to ensure that requests are handled in a timely and efficient manner.

Past clerks have gone on to be (or already were) successful lawyers, naval officers, and Presidents of Wikimedia Chapters. The salary and retirement packages for clerks rival that of arbitrators, to boot. Best of all, you get a cool fez!

Please email clerks-llists.wikimedia.org if you are interested in becoming a clerk, and a clerk will reply with an acknowledgement of your message and any questions we want to put to you.

For the Clerks of the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 15:27, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Arbitration Committee seeking new clerks

Geonotices

Would anyone be willing to help keep an eye on Wikipedia:Geonotice, or add their name as a backup contact for it? It's not a very burdensome task - there's a couple of requests a month and mostly they just need a javascript template to be filled out. A couple of minutes work in most cases.

At the moment there's only one or two admins who frequent it. I'm mostly active on Wikidata these days, so if I don't spot it on my watchlist when I drop in, things can go weeks unanswered. I've just dealt with one I missed almost a month back (!) - thankfully it was requested a month in advance - but of course it's very useful if we can post up requested notices promptly.

I used to do a lot of maintenance work here and the page still has me on as a "poke if nothing happens" contact. I don't really think it's a great idea to have someone semi-active as the suggested contact, but equally I don't want to remove my name when it's the only one there... Andrew Gray (talk) 12:53, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

• I've watchlisted this and added my name to the list of people to poke. GoldenRing (talk) 13:32, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

@GoldenRing: Great - many thanks. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:42, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2018).

Administrator changes

None

Chochopk • Coffee • Gryffindor • Jimp • Knowledge Seeker • Lankiveil • Peridon • Rjd0060

Guideline and policy news

• The ability to create articles directly in mainspace is now indefinitely restricted to autoconfirmed users.
• A proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.

Technical news

• AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an OOUI overhaul, syntax highlighting, ability to search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new equals_to_any function can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to Logstash.
• When blocking anonymous users, a cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. This currently only occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
• The block notice shown on mobile will soon be more informative and point users to a help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on desktop.
• There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee is seeking additional clerks to help with the arbitration process.

Obituaries

• Lankiveil (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:05, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Puzzling entries at CSD

I'm starting to see entries at Category:Candidates for speedy deletion that I don't understand why they're on there. There doesn't seem to be anything in the entry histories that indicate they were tagged for CSD

User:CAPTAIN RAJU/AFD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2018 May 2

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/Today

User:Wcquidditch/wikideletiontoday

There might be others. But these jumped out at me for not having been nominated for deletion, but appearing on the list. — Maile (talk) 20:05, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

They were transcluding one or more pages that were themselves nominated for deletion. It gets cleared once the transcluded page is handled one way or another, and the host page is recached. Someguy1221 (talk) 20:13, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

I see. Thank you for the clarification. — Maile (talk) 20:14, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Just for completion's sake, it was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hugo (software) (2nd nomination), deleted under G7. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:36, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

By the way, Maile66, this is a function of the Job queue. If a page is added to a category indirectly because the category is part of a transclusion, the category does not get removed immediately when the template is removed: the page has to be edited first. Not an issue if someone edits the page to remove the transclusion, but if it's removed indirectly (say it's added by a template on a transcluded page, and the template's removed from the transcluded page), or when the transcluded page is deleted, you have to wait for the job queue to catch up. Nyttend (talk) 03:13, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

AN / ANI boards under criticism

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

"Out of over one hundred questioned editors, only thirty-six (27%) are happy with the way reports of conflicts between editors are handled on the Administrators' Incident Noticeboard (AN/I), a recent survey by the Community health initiative on English Wikipedia found. The survey, which was undertaken by the Wikimedia Foundation Support and Safety and Anti-harassment Tools teams, also found that dissatisfaction has varied reasons including 'defensive cliques' and biased administrators as well as fear of a 'boomerang effect' due to a lacking rule for scope on AN/I reports." Source: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-04-26/In focus --Guy Macon (talk) 17:23, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Not that it is in any way surprising.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:36, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Boomerangs are a feature, not a bug. It's not common for experienced editors to get themselves into hot water, without any kind of pushing involved. If we don't examine all aspects of a situation, we run the risk of rewarding those who stick a foot out and then go to ANI to report an editor has faceplanted into said hot water. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:51, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Boomerang/scope. I think that all aspects of a situation should be reviewed and that one should not automatically adopt the OP's pov. If the boomerang is keeping people from filing frivolous or misleading reports, then good. defensive cliques My concern is that there is a lack of input from uninvolved and disinterested editors, so the shrieking just moves here or that one or the other's friends pile on in a biased manner without looking objectively at the situation. We need more uninvolved user engagement, but I for one just avoid the drama.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 18:25, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, your last sentence is exactly why we don't have more uninvolved user engagement... I deal with ANI issues only when absolutely necessary (or I'm involved somehow). Primefac (talk) 18:46, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

"Nobody has ever helped their own cause in any way by participating at ANI. Even non-controversial edits have a way of getting people into trouble." power~enwiki (π, ν) 18:42, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

• That's a popular canard. I spent ~8 years as a regular editor bringing relevant issues to ANI and participating in discussions. Most were dealt with appropriately and never once did I get in "trouble". Just make sure your own hands are clean and you present evidence calmly and civilly. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:57, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

• The easiest way of getting in "trouble" at ANI as a regular editor is by NAC-ing threads (which is strangely controversial). Starting "this is a bad editor but it's too complicated to be handled at AIV" threads is generally fine, and !voting on existing threads ... sometimes is fine. power~enwiki (π, ν) 07:11, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Mostly off-topic sniping

Well, in my experience, the only mode of interaction at ANI which is typically unproblematic is reporting a relatively new editor who is doing clearly smth inappropriate (rapid vandalism, WP:NOTTHERE, edit-warring without response etc). For WP:NOTTHERE cases with editors who managed to escape attention of administrators and collect several hundred edits, it becomes more difficult, but typically second or third ANI thread for the same editor (assuming the previous threads have been mentioned, and sufficient number of diffs collected) would help. Reporting experienced editors is typically useless. Sometimes, if they have recently been in a serious trouble, they can be topic-banned ot even site-banned at ANI, but it is rarely effective (arbitration enforcement is way more efficient). Reporting an experienced user not yet at the edge of being site-banned, especially if this user has some admin friends, or reporting an administrator is absolutely hopeless. It may cause a shitstorm or it may not cause a shitstorm, but it will never lead to anything productive, and the reported individual will always get out of the incident convinced that they are generally doing everything right but were unfortunate to stumble at some stupid idiot. It might or it might not develop into a WP:BOOMERANG, but the reporter will certainly regret a lot ever showing up at ANI with this topic, does not matter what the circumstances were.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:01, 28 April 2018 (UTC) Or, indeed, if the person raising the issue in the first place actually has some hard evidence, rather than just having a grudge and trying (but failing) to get one over on another editor. Therefore, regardless of the "friends" the other editor has, it wouldn't matter, as the filling party's case would be strong enough not to be laughed at. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 13:28, 28 April 2018 (UTC) Indeed, as I mention above, from the last incident you concluded that on-wiki harassment is ok as soon as you have enough friends to cover you up. And it is even ok to continue it (I have seen your edit summary several days ago, but this time I decided that I would rather stay healthy).--Ymblanter (talk) 15:42, 28 April 2018 (UTC) I didn't conclude anything, although facts and your perception are two different things. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 09:06, 29 April 2018 (UTC) If in your perception what you are doing is not on-wiki harassment stopping leaving such edit summaries in the articles immediately after my edits would be a natural first step.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:39, 29 April 2018 (UTC) Speak up, apparently I'm just some asshole. You like to make personal attacks but certainly don't like people standing up to you. Let me know how you go with your health. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 08:17, 30 April 2018 (UTC) So you have decided to continue on-wiki harassment, and chosen AN as a nice platform. Fine. My health is not fantastic, and the last incident caused some serious pains, but then I decided that Lugnuts is not someone I should have my health deteriorated for. So at this point I will not go to ANI again. If you think you are an asshole, this may be or may not be true, but I am not going to comment on this. May be you should decide yourself.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:56, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Amen.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 20:00, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

• I'm totally on board with changing the organizational culture so that if someone posts a response at ANI that contains a personal attack, the next uninvolved person simply removes it (rather than redact pieces of it) and they can try again. It'll piss off a lot of already pissed off people though. GMG^talk 18:52, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

  I'd be on board with that. If you can't say anything nice... Primefac (talk) 19:01, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Of course there's always frivolous reports when the filing party doesn't really understand what they're complaining about, usually with a lot of hot air and noise. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 19:58, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

• Not even going to comment on this. Doing so risks sanctions. Legacypac (talk) 20:09, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

I think you just did.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 00:08, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Is it not true that if anyone regularly participates in AN or ANI threads as an uninvolved editor -- no matter how helpful those contributions might be -- that fact will be held against them should they ever run for RfA, 'Crat, Arbcom, etc.?

• "I supported but I think the opposers have a valid point in objecting to the candidate's disproportionate focus on drama boards as opposed to content involvement and I would similarly oppose most candidates with that focus without hesitation."[65]

• "My one point of concern is that the candidate seems overly focused on the drama boards"[66]

• (From the candidate) "I have tended to avoid the 'drama boards' ".[67]

• "The only time I'm perturbed by a busy editor with a lower-than-usual percentage of mainspace contributions is when it's someone who spends all their time at drama boards"[68]

• (From the candidate)"I have generally not been an active participant on the 'drama boards' "[69]

• "There is a very large amount of opposition centered on lack of content contributions combined with spending time on drama boards."[70]

• (Advice to someone considering running for RfA) "9 months of solid article work, significantly less activity in drama boards, contribute to the BOT activities..."[71]

So we actively discourage veteran editors from getting involved and then we end up with a clique problem. What a shock. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:42, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

• There's a current RfA which migh suggest not  ;) —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 14:56, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

It isn't entirely clear to me what conclusion the Original Poster, User:Guy Macon, is recommending. Is he saying that there is something wrong with the drama boards, or that there is something wrong with many of the editors who file at the drama boards, or what? I agree that the handling of cases here can be unsatisfying. WP:ANI does a relatively good job of dealing with flamers, trolls, uncivil POV-pushers, and other editors who are not here. It is also true that WP:ANI attracts combative editors who seek to use it to pursue their objectives. For them, as noted above, the boomerang principle is a feature, not a bug. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:24, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

I personally think that some significant reform in the governance of the English Wikipedia would be appropriate. However, that isn't likely to happen, because it isn't about to be initiated within the current system, and the WMF, which could start the ball rolling, doesn't understand well enough to be able to help. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:24, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

What exactly is being proposed here, if anything? Robert McClenon (talk) 15:24, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Not everything has to be a proposal. Some things are informational. If this is a problem for you, you should bring it up at Meta:Research:Detox and Wikipedia:Community health initiative on English Wikipedia/Research about Administrators' Noticeboard Incidents/Quantitative data analysis where the data was gathered and presented. I merely reported it in the obvious place. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:02, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Letting people who are commenting in this thread know that I've been following it and I'm available to answer questions about the AN/I research. Also, I want to emphasis that Wikimedia Foundation Anti-Harassment Tools team and Support and Safety team are looking for your ideas and thoughts about the broader topic of how to make improvements to reporting of and workflows around harassment. This week we are opening a discussion on ENWP (and Meta) about problems that have been identified already from the surveys. We are also looking to update the problem list during the community discussion with the purpose of identifying areas our software developers could make improvement later in 2018. I'm adding recaps of community discussions like this one. But it would be better to participate in the discussion yourself! SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 19:37, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

TBAN for Sbelknap

TOPIC BAN:

Per community consensus in this discussion, Sbelknap (talk · contribs) is topic banned from all articles, pages, and discussions involving finasteride, dutasteride, or sexual health, broadly construed. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 12:29, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

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

---

• Sbelknap (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• edit count

This person is a real world doctor of the same name; he confirmed his identity last spring, after I raised concerns that there was either impersonation or a few possible forms of COI editing going on. What I wrote then was

If you are not Belknap, there is an issue with regard to your Username, with respect to WP:IMPERSONATE which is policy.

If you are Belknap, your editing raises a host of issues, namely:

• WP:SELFCITE
• Wikipedia:Conflicts of interest (medicine) with regard to advocating for a medical theory that you embrace in the real world, here in WP
• possible financial WP:COI, if you are serving as an expert witness in any of the 5α-reductase inhibitor litigation that is going on.

The pattern of editing that concerned me was self-citing and a focus on the sexual side effects of finasteride and dutasteride, which are 5α-Reductase inhibitors that are used for hair loss and enlarged prostate. The content issues here are not easy. There is not great data on this, and on top of that a lot of men taking these drugs are older and have other problems (like being older) that cause sexual problems.

These drug articles, like our articles related to circumcision, have been plagued by advocates - men and their penises. There is an activist group called the Post-Finasteride Syndrome Foundation that has been advocating for there to be a declared "syndrome" related to permanent sexual side effects of these drugs, supports litigation against the makers of these drugs, etc. Belknap is featured prominently on the foundation website.

We previously had an editor Doors22 plaguing these articles, who finally acknowledged a COI at COIN here and agreed to stop editing directly, and was finally indeffed with the rationale long-term SPA, advocacy, apparent COI, focuses unduly on one editor, was warned.

That COI thread was closed 9 May 2016, and the indef was 5 March 2017. Sbelknap picked up Doors22's slack, unfortunately - you can see from the bar charts in their edit count that they did very little here before Doors was indeffed.

self citing

From very early on, like this from 2008 (which he returned to defend/tweak several times and noted that on the talk page eg here in 2008, here and here in 2009, here in 2012, referring to himself in the third person, with corresponding edits to that bit of content and his self-cite eg here in 2012 etc.

Here, added promotional stuff about his institution to the article about Chicago in 2009 and made a similar edit to the article about the neighborhood here in 2013.

(to his credit, without selfciting he created the highly technical (but i think helpful in spirit) Optimal discriminant analysis in 2009. this is a kind of statistical analysis he uses.)

sexual side effects

So none of that is horrible. Not great, but not horrible. As I noted above, things started to get ugly last year, which is what prompted my inquiry. If you look at their edit count, over half their edits have been in the last two years, and almost all of those have been on these two drugs ( my tally is about 180 edits to these topics or discussion about them). And the focus has been entirely on these specific side effects.

I want to call folks' attention to their first substantial edit to the Finasteride page, which is this. Do you see what they did there?

In the topmost bit (the main adverse effects section) they a) removed the well-sourced content that side effects are generally minimal; b) took away the well-sourced content that most sexual side effects vanish with time; c) did nothing about the insane thing, that we mention sexual side effects before the risk of high-grade prostate cancer, which will kill you. (we had agreed to that, trying to get Doors to calm down, but it remains a bad compromise that anybody looking at the page with fresh, objective eyes should wonder at, as User:Jfdwolff noted here).

In the bottom part, they ramped up the urgency and cited a primary source.

This is very characteristic of the rest of the approximately 180 edits they have made on this narrow topic. Right down to their very long talk page post today. (which they didn't bother signing. They almost never sign their posts, or thread them. This behavior too is characteristic of people who are not here, as we all know) and this series of diffs just an hour or so ago, where they prominently cited their own work, elevating that nearly to the top of the adverse effects section and further burying the warning about high grade prostate cancer. Ditto this edit from earlier this week, where they added bizarre content from a primary source from 1999, the intent of which was to make the drug seem less useful for hair loss (I think) and again ramped up the urgency around sexual side effects. You can look at any of their edits to finasteride (here) or Dutasteride (here) and that is what you will see.

See also this recent (and rejected) request for mediation they made, entitled: Finasteride Article; Adverse Effects of Finasteride; there has been a concerted effort over many years to downplay the adverse effects of finasteride, where the title says it all, and is basically the Post Finasteride Syndrome Foundation company line.

This is tragic, as this person is obviously very knowledgable, has access to many great sources, and could help make all of our articles much better. Instead they have chosen to edit about precisely one thing, with no regard for appropriate WEIGHT among other side effects or the article overall. I asked them to provide a draft of the section last year here, which they just ignored.

They have never responded on any of the inquiries about their relationship with the Post Finasteride Foundation or if they are serving as an expert witness. As you can see from the history of their Talk page they just remove things.

We should TBAN them from editing about sexual health, and should consider an indef. They are not here to build an encyclopedia, but instead cite themselves and pound on this one issue, and drain the time of the volunteer community. Which is a damn shame. Jytdog (talk) 00:32, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I have proactively disclosed all potential COI. I have been transparent about my sources of research funding, which includes the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and the Post-Finasteride Syndrome Foundation. These funding sources are cited in my published research. My only connection to the Post-Finasteride Syndrome Foundation is having been the recipient of funding from them. I have never and will never serve as an expert witness in any finasteride or dutasteride litigation.

I have reviewed the self-citation policy, and I I am entirely compliant with this policy, as I do so transparently and appropriately. I have openly used sbelknap as my wikipedia ID from the beginning, and do not use any other wikipedia ID. I have no connection whatsoever to Doors22. I also extensively cite other high-quality sources.

I feel threatened by jytdog, who exhibits extreme ownership behavior of the finasteride article, has harrassed me with wikilawyering, and has gotten me briefly banned from editing. jytdog summarily deletes my edits with comments that often suggest they have not bothered to read the cites I provide. jytdog misrepresents wikipedia policies. For example, they assert that primary sources can not be used in medical articles and that self-citation is impermissible. They also claim that a secondary source is unreliable on an issue where an author of the secondary source is also the author of a primary source on that same issue. I note that many authors of secondary literature are also authors of some primary literature cited in their secondary articles. When I consult the wikipedia policies that jytdog cites, I find that they the actual policies are much more nuanced (and reasonable) than cited by jytdog.

Also, in the last few days when I had a chance to make some edits to the finasteride article, somebody tried to log into my wikipedia account and I received a threatening phone call. I don't know who did these things. jytdog is not the only obnoxious editor who works on the finasteride article. As jytdog is a pseudonym, there is no way to confirm that they are not being paid by a P.R. firm or legal firm to edit the finasteride article or that they are not using sockpuppets and meatpuppets to amplify their edits. Regarding COI, methinks they doth protest too much.

In my view as an subject matter expert and researcher in this area, the finateride article does not provide a NPOV. According to policy, "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." The current finasteride article overstates the efficacy and understates the toxicity of finasteride. I am working to correct that. jytdog just issued a bizarre post on the wikipedia finasteride talk page that included this: "Men and their penises is way down on my list of urgent needs to address in WP. This page currently discusses these issues and does a decent job of it - not perfect, but nobody reading this now would fail to understand there is some issue here. I am utterly uninterested in wasting any further time on this specific issue which is trivial in the big picture of medicine and of medicine in Wikipedia. This is approaching the disruption that the anti-circumcision activists cause as they push and PUSH and PUSH. Men and their god damn penises."

Such misanthropy is grossly inappropriate. If jytdog is so angry at men, perhaps they could find a less triggering wikipedia article to edit than finasteride, which is an antiandrogen (male hormone blocker).Sbelknap (talk) 01:52, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

You would do well to read WP:Casting aspersions, which you are very close to violating. In addition, you, because you are a "subject matter expert" with a specific point of view about the article's subject, are in the worst possible position to judge the neutrality of the article. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:50, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm a little uncomfortable with that formulation. In a purely hypothetical example, suppose a Wikipedia editor was a climate researcher and their edits followed the (IPCC-ish) consensus in that field. Would they be subject to a topic ban from our climate articles as "a subject matter expert with a specific point of view about the article's subject"? Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:06, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Shock Brigade Harvester Boris: Just to be clear, my comment was not by way of arguing for a sanction, but an explanation for why Sbelknap -- or your hypothetical climate researcher -- might not be the best judge of an article's neutrality. Such judgments should come from editors who understand the material, but are not necessarily biased about it, or who are able to put aside their prejudices in order to evaluate the article fairly. I think there are any number of editors, for instance, who hold strong political views, but who deal with articles on subjects on all sides of the political spectrum even-handedly - and then there are those who clearly cannot do so. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:35, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

As I noted at COIN, Shock Brigade Harvester Boris, medical experts coming here advocating their pet theories is a problem, such that we specifically mention it in WP:MEDCOI. There is no mainstream medical editor who has supported Sbelknap's (and Door's before him) efforts to "pump up" the sexual adverse effects. This is medical advocacy, not the medical mainstream.

I had added the following to the Society and Culture section of the finasteride page last week about the Post-Finasteride Syndrome Foundation:

A 2015 post in Health News Review noted that the foundation put out a press release timed to the publication of a review it had funded; the post said that the release "seems rather hyperbolic in admonishing physicians to be vigilantly looking out for 'symptoms in adverse drug reaction reports, suicide post-mortems, suicide-prevention services, and other patient records' and to alert the general population.... These appeals strike me as uncomfortably reminiscent of late-night TV and billboard pitches for malpractice attorneys." The release claimed that the NIH had "recognized" "post-finasteride syndrome"; in response to an inquiry an NIH spokeswoman said: "The statement by the Post Finasteride Foundation you referenced therefore is not accurate and was not determined by us."

References

That is what advocacy groups do. Sound the alarm, and make aggressive claims. Sbelknap has aligned himself with them, allowing them to quote him and post his face on their mainpage. (I strongly recommend health news review btw - they are great at calling out hype in the media about medicine.)

The mainstream view on this may change as more evidence comes in. Sbelknap wants to make WP part of his efforts to try to make that change out there in the medical arena. He wants to assemble primary sources here to build the argument. None of that, is what we do here, and not what editing privileges are for. Jytdog (talk) 05:53, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Please support or oppose below

• Support. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:51, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Support TBAN. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:40, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support Long term disruption. Ongoing COI issues. Removing high quality sources they disagree with here as it appears to not fit their POV. Referring to oneself in the third person is not cool.[72] Funded by the advocacy group Post Finasteride Syndrome Foundation.[73] I am leaning towards an indef. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:53, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Doc James errs here. The high quality source he mentioned was not removed from the body. It was removed from the lead, as it has been deprecated by another high quality secondary source. I referred to an article I co-authored. I did not refer to myself in the third person.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbelknap (talk • contribs) 14:56, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
    • note, in this diff, Sbelknap inserted his comment above into the middle of Doc James', and didn't sign it. I noted this pattern of ignoring how we handle talk page threads in the OP. I moved his comment out of doc james' and placed the unsigned template, in this diff. Jytdog (talk) 16:08, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support - I don't need the slightest knowledge about medicine to see what's been going on. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:19, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• Note. Adding a subheader for ease of editing. Jytdog has mentioned both a topic ban from sexual health, and an indefinite block: "We should TBAN them from editing about sexual health, and should consider an indef. They are not here to build an encyclopedia.." Could everybody please say which alternative they support? Pinging @Ian.thomson, Doc James, and Kudpung:. For my part, I support an indef as first alternative, and secondly the proposed topic ban. Bishonen | talk 08:51, 6 May 2018 (UTC).

As per Jytdog's opening thread title, I'm supporting a T-Ban. I would expect it to cover all articles, talk pages, images, and other discussions on health, medicine, anatomy, and related research, broadly construed. That should restrict his editing sufficiently without needing an indef. However, if the consensus leans to an indef, I won't oppose it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:11, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support topic ban. I've seen the ongoing long term disprution and it is clear that this user is here to advance a very specific point of view contrary to the consensus of other editors with medical expertise. -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:53, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

The medical literature onthat this topic is evolving. Should not the wikipedia article evolve as well?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbelknap (talk • contribs)

Sbelknap, that's not what we're talking about here. We're discussing the the santions to apply to a user. And please sign your posts. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:25, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support POV/COI editing is not acceptable, even if "the literature is evolving". The editor clearly wants to make sure that the article "evolves" towards their preferred POV, which is hardly neutral. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:48, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Eggishorn: To clarify, do you support the tban or the indef? —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap shit room} 15:53, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129:, thank you for the question and I apologize for not making myself clear. The immediate issue is the topic and a topic ban needs to happen first. Indeff is an issue I leave to admin judgment. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:55, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support Topic Ban - The evidence here is clear and the need to prevent disruption has been demonstrated. In fact, I would also support the indef. -- Dane ^talk 18:40, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support topic ban per Doc James. Will consider the possibility of an indef when that is specifically proposed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:49, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support topic ban per all of the above. (Hey, Jytdog, "have been plagued by advocates - men and their penises" sounds anatomically difficult to me. ) --Tryptofish (talk) 19:33, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • User:Tryptofish yes that is ...awkward, isn't it. I should have err ... circumscribed that better and sheathed it in a parenthetical like "(men and their penises.. problems everywhere)". Something like that. Jytdog (talk) 19:51, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
    • At this point, I'm going completely off-topic, but see also Bad Biology. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:50, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
      • A sentient penis. But is it prehensile? Can it type?? Jytdog (talk) 02:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support topic ban, per Doc James. We do not need a bullheaded editor claiming some special level of expertise as justification to push their own point of view, especially an editor inclined to dismiss the concerns of uninvolved editors who know medical topics far better than I do. What I do know is that maintaining the highest quality standards on our medical articles is exceptionally important. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:59, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support I browsed the above and Talk:Finasteride and there is no sign that Sbelknap is engaging with any of the points that have been patiently explained. Johnuniq (talk) 03:36, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

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

Template vandalism nested within Disambiguation

Probably thousands of pages are affected, every transclusion of {{Disambiguation}} is impacted by vandalism of nested {{Disambiguation page short description}}, which itself is a new thing. I've reverted the vandalism. I don't have my admin tools anymore but IMO at least a VOA-block of Delpmart and some protection of {{Disambiguation page short description}} seems warranted, and then y'all can discuss the need for this subtemplate and/or why this was left vulnerable (I thought template-protection was supposed to cascade down to transcluded subtemplates but maybe I'm wrong). Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 05:19, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm heading to bed so I've no time to continue edit-warring with some shitty vandal, hopefully some admin will attend to this regardless of the idiot deleting this thread. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 05:22, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

I've protected {{Disambiguation page short description}}, and blocked the vandal. Someone more knowledgeable should take a look at the necessity of this newly-created template. utcursch | talk 05:23, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Relevant thread (which I haven't read yet): Template talk:Disambiguation#Related templates Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 05:30, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks utcursch, Salvidrim!. The template is part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Short descriptions campaign to populate mainspace pages with Wikipedia:short descriptions to avoid WMF using inappropriate or poor quality descriptions from Wikidata in search results. Precursory saga described at project page through links. Basically forced on us by WMF. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:40, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

The image File:Asshole hat.jpg that was used in the vandalism above is still showing transclusions onto well over 500 pages. I've put in a request to have the image blacklisted but many pages may still need to be purged. I've loaded several but it's not showing on any so far. Home Lander (talk) 16:51, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Automatic community ban (User:Miccoliband)

Miccoliband (talk · contribs) was indefinitely hard-usernameblocked on 3 February 2018. On 7 February 2018 and 30 April 2018, the user was found to have engaged in sockpuppetry in accordance with publicly-documented CheckUser evidence. Per WP:3X, this user is automatically considered community-banned. I haven't found any other examples of these AN reports, which are suggested by the policy, so I'm guessing this will be good enough. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 22:22, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Oops, I suppose under the policy, we need an administrator to declare that the user is well and truly automatically community banned – misread that. Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 22:34, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Editors who are found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for any reason, are effectively site banned by the Wikipedia community. Publicly documented CheckUser evidence should typically be involved before a user is considered banned in this way. Users who have been banned in this way are subject to the same unban conditions as users banned by community discussion.[2]

Administrators should normally place a notice at Wikipedia:Administrators' Noticeboard alerting the community of such a ban, place Template:Banned user on the master account's user page, and add the user to any relevant Arbitration Committee sanctions enforcement list.

Are you referring to Administrators should normally..., or is some other admin declaration needed? Nyttend (talk) 22:50, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

@Nyttend: Yeah, I was referring to the "Administrators should normally ..." sentence. Thanks, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 23:07, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

I think the point is having a trusted user do it, rather than just any autoconfirmed user; we don't want someone going around and inappropriately tagging a bunch of long-blocked users, either through malice or through misunderstanding. We also don't want someone going around tagging the user when the alleged sock is not blocked (that would either be getting ahead of a reviewing admin, or doing something in spite of a contrary review), but here the socks have been blocked. Probably the writer of this piece imagined that an admin would perform the block and then come here to announce it. Since that didn't happen, and since SPI clerks like you are quite trustworthy, I can't see a good reason to demand an admin do it. If an admin be needed, I'll have to revert or duplicate your notice here, and I'll have to revert or duplicate your edit that added the {{banned user}} to the userpage, since the policy says that the admin has to do those things. WP:BURO, let's be satisfied with what you did :-) Nyttend (talk) 23:20, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, works for me. Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 01:58, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

The idea behind it was that it should be an admin so that accountability would apply. I don't think we've had much use of that part of the new policy since it was passed, because, well, most of the people who sock aren't longterm users and are mainly just trolls and spammers, who the policy wasn't really aimed as much at i.r.t. the unblock aspect. If you look at the discussion, there was some comment as to whether that part was needed, and given that I'm sure this is not the first THREESTRIKES ban, it might be worth tweaking that bit.

I think the idea that we want community oversight when this is applied to a longterm user is important, but it doesn't make the ban any less operative in cases like this. The main part of the policy is that an indefinite block plus two incidences of socking is equivalent to a ban and requires the same conditions to unblock (namely, discussion). The bureaucracy part we can tweak as conditions requires. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:10, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

I pushed to have the bureaucracy of that part worded as weakly as reasonable: 'administrators should normally', not 'the blocking admin has to tag the master and announce it here'. For me, basically, an editor who is blocked under the conditions is plainly community banned, even if it is not announced. Announcing and tagging is sometimes good (awareness by broader community, overview), but sometimes also to be avoided (don't feed the troll). Also, the wording has to be so that we don't get a sockmaster with 20 checkuser confirmed and blocked socks coming with 'I am not community banned, because a) no-one announced it to WP:AN, and my master account has never been tagged.

Q: do we have a special parameter on {{banned user}} or {{sockmaster}} for the three strikes to identify that the banned user is banned 'automatically' and not be individual discussion? I do think that that is informative. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:32, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Dirk Beetstra, what do you think of what I said, Probably the writer of this piece imagined that an admin would perform the block and then come here to announce it? Were you hoping for the blocking admin to do the tagging and announcing? Nyttend (talk) 11:53, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

@Nyttend: not hoping, I don't really care that the editor is tagged or not, nor whether the community has been explicitly notified. What Kevin did was fine, but, to me, superfluous. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:50, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

OK, thank you. Nyttend (talk) 13:02, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with Dirk. The situations where I see this is needed is for cases where we have a user who had previously been an established member of the community, who gets blocked and then starts socking. For the tagging, it might be worth updating the sock template with a parameter. This is useful for unblocks. I might tweak the wording a bit since this hasn't caught on. I still think it's a good idea to place a notice here if say someone like DrStrauss were to be socking again, but we don't need it for trolls and people who never hit extended confirmed.​ TonyBallioni (talk) 13:37, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Alright, I misunderstood the consensus – the wording of the policy made it seem like the ban is automatic and mandatory. Got it now. Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 14:35, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

The ban is automatic. The paperwork, etc. is a "normally" thing, and was worded as such, because like Dirk pointed out above, we don't want to feed the trolls, etc. Like I said, as there was some comments on the RfC that the paperwork wasn't always neccesary, and we haven't started posting the notice in every case, we should probably tweak it (and I'll work on that sometime later this week )​ TonyBallioni (talk) 14:38, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

So, Tony, this sounds like it's for someone like Access Denied, whose name will be known to plenty of people who aren't sock-fighters. Is it supposed to be applied retroactively to everyone (minus those who got a community or Arbcom unblock, of course), or only to people who continue socking after the provision's created? On one hand, it might make sense to apply it to someone who was making a mess a few months ago, but on the other hand it would be a bit silly to apply it to User:WoW, the original incarnation of Willy on Wheels. Nyttend (talk) 23:36, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

@Nyttend: LOL. WoW! That will certainly get the conversation moving-- on wheels!--Dlohcierekim (talk) 09:43, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• As an SPI clerk (this seems to fall in our purview) we add sock tags unless there's some reason not to, but sockmasters are tagged pretty consistently. We could modify the {{sockpuppeteer}} template with a switch something like banned=yes or threestrikes=yes or checked=ban that would make the template say something like "This user is banned by the community because CheckUser evidence confirms the operator has repeatedly abused multiple accounts" in place of the checked=yes messaging. Also, as a clerk, if I find a tag that has been placed inappropriately I just fix it or remove it, and there are a few users I've asked not to do it because they've been making a lot of errors or using them abusively, but not that many. But if we are going to create or use a second template for this purpose, it's important that if there's a {{sockpuppeteer}} tag on the page already, it shouldn't be removed, just add {{banned user}} underneath if that's what we decide to do. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:49, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Ivanvector: I think the parameter option makes the most sense, and meant to start a conversation about that after the change went through. It might be worth updating the wording of the policy page to be something re: notification at AN to read something like A notice should normally be placed at AN if the user had substantial good faith contributions before being blocked. as this seems to get at the intent there. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:55, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

alan jackson vandal again

Special:Contributions/Ichabbie396. Do we have an LTA page for it?--Dlohcierekim (talk) 03:17, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

It's Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Angela Criss. No LTA page that I'm aware of, and I'd consider it a WP:DENY case. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:03, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Cleanup on Aisle G13

Resolved

We have a motherload of pages listed in Category:G13 eligible AfC submissions that are eligible for G13 deletion. I'm not seeing it in Category:Administrative backlog yet, but I've gone through and tagged some of them and there's many more if someone wants to swing by and clean some of them out. Thanks. Home Lander (talk) 21:12, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Empty. Feel free to one-click this. Primefac (talk) 11:48, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

@Primefac: Not so fast - there's 307 pages listed at the moment. Home Lander (talk) 14:13, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

My apologies, I misread and thought you were talking about Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as abandoned drafts or AfC submissions. For what it's worth, G13-eligible pages are not necessarily summarily deleted, they still require someone to nominate them (usually User:HasteurBot). There are some users who find "diamonds" in these pages, and so there's no reason to summarily d-batch the entire cat (otherwise we'd just have it happen automatically). Primefac (talk) 14:19, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

In other words, it is not (and will never be) part of the administrative backlog. Primefac (talk) 14:20, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

@Primefac: Yeah, I bring up a batch of pages at a time and have a quick look to see if there's anything that looks really good. Unfortunately many of them simply consist of the unsubmitted draft template followed by an empty reference section. Incidentally, there's a tag at the top of the category page that I had overlooked stating that it will put the page in Category:Wikipedia backlog if more than 500 items are pending. Home Lander (talk) 03:25, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Huh. Colour me surprised. Primefac (talk) 15:26, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

I almost commented to that effect, but you did say administrative backlog ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:39, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Which is still true, I suppose, but I probably shouldn't un-strike my text, since my I too missed the {{backlog}} at the top of the cat and that was more of the point. Primefac (talk) 15:46, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Tue bot only nominates AfC pages. When I looked a few hours ago there were over 400 non-AfC pages to tag. User:MusikBot/StaleDrafts/Report Legacypac (talk) 17:02, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Clarification of a block evasion situation (without intent of deception) by Terry Foote

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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A discussion about potential block evasion at User_talk:Terry Foote#Authorship_of_photo? was recently brought to my attention. It seems that Terry Foote had two accounts, his original account as User:Terry Foote and then a second account that was indefinitely blocked as User:Googie_man. Terry Foote has continued editing on the former account, contributing productively for a rather long period of time (ten years is my understanding). I let Jehochman know about the situation since he was the original blocking admin, and then pinged Alex Shih to weigh in on the situation. Despite the gravity of block evasion, it seems clear to me that since deception was not the intent in this case, we can just leave the Googie_man account blocked and let Terry Foote continue to contribute productively. Still, I wanted to bring the discussion to the community's attention nonetheless. ceranthor 14:21, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

• While I agree block evasion is one of the worst offences here, and deserves the present summary block on sight system, I also believe this one stands out. A decade is a long time, Wikipedia has completely transformed within these years.Since there's no clear intent of disruption or any infraction all this while, I suggest this to be resolved with no action, and the user be left to continue editing. –Ammarpad (talk) 18:46, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
• If the user isn’t causing a problem, let’s leave them be. Jehochman ^Talk 18:58, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
• I concur with the thoughts above. "Blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, not to punish users." (taken from the lede of WP:BLOCK). --joe decker^talk 00:36, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• Leave be = net positive. While I don't know how we know this, he has been editing constructively, and without repeating the problems from the other account, for a very long tme. Long past the time when he could have received the standard offer. But what for? He does not need that tainted account, and he is constructive with this one. --Dlohcierekim (talk) 05:49, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• Blocking at this juncture would be punitive, not to mention doing so for the sake of blind adherence to process damages WP more than it improves it. IAR and let bygones be bygones. Blackmane (talk) 03:12, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• People get blocked to prevent the disruptive things that they do. If a person does disruptive things, is blocked, and then comes back and doesn't do those disruptive things any more (so much so that nobody figured out for ten years that it was the same person) then the block served its purpose, and we got a prolific contributor out of the deal. This is basically a textbook WP:CLEANSTART, so long as we ignore the bit about it being invalid. I endorse clemency. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:23, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Chattahucci Gang

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Chattahucci Gang (talk · contribs) is a clear-cut Jack Gaines (talk · contribs) vandal. Please bag and tag. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 05:40, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Done. Killiondude (talk) 06:12, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

ARBPIA Notice

Resolved

Hi, please could an admin correct the admin-only template Template:ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement?

It needs this amendment (made to the ARBPIA editnotice), removing the words “of the revert”, as they do not appear in WP:ARBPIA3#Motion:_ARBPIA_.22consensus.22_provision_modified.

Also pinging @El C: who added the words originally but seems to be on a wiki-break. Onceinawhile (talk) 06:28, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Seems to have been  Done by Onceinawhile. Primefac (talk) 11:36, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

@Primefac: I did one but I could not do the other. That's why I posted here. Could you help me with the other? Onceinawhile (talk) 15:27, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Whoops. Coffee hasn't kicked in yet.  Done. Primefac (talk) 15:29, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

This is actually the latest wording of the restriction per a January 2018 motion and thus I updated the template to use that wording. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:36, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Primefac (talk) 17:08, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

WP:Standard offer for User:Leugen9001

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Per WP:SO, I am copying here unblock request made by blocked user User:Leugen9001 on their talk page, for community approval. Checkuser shows no recent socking, and the blocking admin agrees (See: User_talk:Leugen9001#Standard_Offer_Unblock_Request). Vanjagenije (talk) 18:50, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I would like to request an unblock per the Standard Offer. It has been slightly more than six months since October 1st, 2017, and I would like to return to the encyclopedia. I promise that I shall no longer engage in the disruptive and rule-breaking behaviour that I have demonstrated in the past, and I do not dispute any of the reasons for which I have been banned. I understand that the Wikipedia community has a legitimate reason not to trust my promise and am willing to accept "2nd Chance" limits like topic-bans and requirements to propose changes to articles in order to prove that I can now be a productive member of the community. Leugen9001 (talk) 4:47 am, 12 April 2018, Thursday (15 days ago) (UTC+2)

• Oppose as is my standard unless a user demonstrates they will actually be an asset to the encyclopedia and discusses what they intend to do what they return. This is just a simple rote regurgitation of the SO procedure which does not demonstrate anything other than that they are able to read an essay and paraphrase it in an unblock request. Such requests should be declined. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:58, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
  • @TonyBallioni: The user has provided an answer on their talk page, see User_talk:Leugen9001#Standard_Offer_Unblock_Request. Vanjagenije (talk) 13:40, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
    • I'm still opposed because I've had bad experiences unblocking people who just give rote explanations in their initial request, and I also don't think that with 61 edits we have anything to go off of (and no, I don't count power's reasoning below as a reason to unblock. Following the rules is required, it is not something that should be looked at as exceptional.) TonyBallioni (talk) 15:12, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Comment. Just to be clear, I don't support (or oppose) the unblock. I have not given the issue any thought. I agree only that the community should decide.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:01, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
• @Leugen9001: As you have talked about proposing changes, I would like to know if there are there any particular articles in your mind that you would like to edit. If yes then what you would really like to change about those articles? D4iNa4 (talk) 19:07, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

• Leugen9001 was more active as a contributor in WikiNews.[74] Their block log is clean there. D4iNa4 (talk) 19:21, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

• WikiNews is also dead, so I'm not really sure its the best project to point out a track record on. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:25, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

• Support there appears to be minimal history, largely from 2016. If they're willing to go through this rigamarole rather than doing an (invalid) clean start, we should let them. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:34, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support - user made a reasonably complete unblock request last September, acknowledging their past disruptive behaviour and swearing off it, though its sincerity is questionable seeing how they were still socking at the time. Although, perhaps that's a technicality if their sock didn't actually edit here, and WP:SO does encourage blocked users to edit other wikis. The timing wasn't good, anyway. Still, the user seems to be trying to do the right thing (h/t power~enwiki) and although I'm not terribly hopeful given their request to block their IP in case they "try to do something impulsive", I don't see a good reason not to give this user one last chance. I'd prefer no specific unblock conditions that might encourage "testing the limits", instead the user should realize that if they manage to get themselves blocked again, they can expect that to be more or less permanent. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:51, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support - User has adequately answered my questions that I had asked above. D4iNa4 (talk) 09:02, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support Time to try again.-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 12:06, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support they've provided reasonable proposed changes they'd do if they were unblocked, to show they'd be helpful. One last chance per Ivanvector. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:44, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Closure request

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Would an uninvolved administrator mind looking over Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Event coordinator proposal and see if it makes sense to close it early. The WMF have a developer thing coming up, so if it is possible to get them an answer before that, I think they would appreciate it. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:16, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

I came here to ask the same thing, I see I'm not the only one. It is clearly snowing over on that page. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 04:57, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Image false attribution copyright question

This might not be the best place to post this but my usual practice on these things is just pinging one particular admin who's inactive right now, so here we go. I've started a discussion at Talk:Doug Ford Jr. regarding photos that have been added from a Flickr account with CC BY-SA 2.0 license, but which I believe may be impersonating the subject in which case I think this license is invalid. If you're someone who likes to wade into weird copyright stuff (not necessarily admins!) your input would be appreciated. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 21:15, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

If you're concerned about Flickr-washing of Commons files, then the correct procedure is to start a DR for said affected files on Commons. -FASTILY 01:23, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for that guideline link, I did not know about that (and I'm not very familiar with the inner workings of Commons in general). I'll consider what to do next. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 12:26, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Civility in infobox discussions: Motion

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

Remedy 1.1 of the Civility in infobox discussions case is amended to replace dot point 3: *making more than one comment in discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article. with the following: * making more than one comment in a discussion, where that discussion is primarily about the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article.

For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 17:54, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Civility in infobox discussions: Motion

Non-notable drafts

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hi, I came across a few drafts (all declined) that will most probably never make it to the mainspace. These appear to be relatives of the editor, and include Draft:Chaudhary Parveen Kumar Gahlyan, Draft:Chaudhary Mahavir Singh Gahlyan, Draft:Chaudhary Dharambir Singh Gahlyan, Draft:Chaudhary Gyani Ram Gahlyan, Draft:Chaudhary Mange Ram Gahlyan, Draft:Chaudhary Chhajju Ram Gahlyan and Draft:Chaudhary Sohanlal Gahlyan. Could an admin determine if they can be deleted on any grounds. MT Train^Talk 07:00, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

If none of the G criteria at WP:CSD apply, then you can nominate the pages for deletion at WP:MFD. Iffy★Chat -- 08:04, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

And, that's why I sometimes get disillusioned with the AFC-workflow.The correct approach would have to not slap multiple templates on the user's t/p, all saying the same thing but to gently explain (in a single personalized message) that we are not a webhost and why all the articles will never ever manage to pass our notability standards.Instead, here we are.........~ Winged Blades^Godric 08:24, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

User:Winged Blades of Godric - Maybe I am taking this too hard, or taking personally the general Wikipedia culture of dumping on the reviewers, but it is very easy to say that the reviewers should do something different, such as explain gently in a personalized message, and, in my opinion, that isn't really fair to the reviewers. I feel that we (whether AFC reviewers or NPP reviewers or what) are being dumped on for not being the welcoming committee. Maybe I am taking it too hard or too personally, but maybe the other editors really do think that the reviewers need, first of all, even before doing the reviews, to be welcoming to new editors. There is a good argument for having a meeting and greeting committee to welcome new editors, but I don't think that it is fair to imply that the reviewers, whose primary mission is quality control, should be charged with being the welcoming committee. (If that really is an essential part of the job of the reviewers, maybe we need different reviewers. However, if the reviewers do not take their review jobs seriously, we will have crud in mainspace.) The constant comments about how we need to be providing personalized messages really do get a little tiresome. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:39, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd suggest a single MFD nominating one of them, then add the rest to the same report. That way they're all reviewed together, and the user's talk page does not become swamped with deletion messages. A friendly explanation to the creator of the articles would be a good idea too. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:35, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Not an issue:

1. Wait six months
2. Automatically G13d
3. Profit because nobody needs to think about them

Not hurting anybody, not being picked up, will be gone in due time. Perennial topic of discussion at WT:CSD and WT:MFD. Non-notability isn't a reason for deleting a draft. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 12:45, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

without looking at the specifics of these drafts, making a general comment... G13 is not automatic. It still requires someone to nominate and an Admin to delete. If there is a CSD available use it now. One hole in our CSDs is that U5 notawebhost does not apply to Drafts. A batch MfD on Notawebhost grounds is fair game though. We actually do regularly consider notability at MfD notwithstanding claims to the contrary because N is pretty much all the really seperates valid topics from invalid ones. (V is more about what details are included) Legacypac (talk) 13:21, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

G13 isn't automatic, but it doesn't necessarily require someone to nominate. A sysop could very well keep an eye on these drafts and delete them when they 'expire' - alternatively you or I (or some other non-sysop) could keep an eye and then tag them, something I shall do here. An MfD would work, but is IMO unnecessary. Richard⁰⁶¹² 13:56, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

The issue with draft space/AfC in general/G13 is it presupposes 2003 Wikipedia where every IP and new user was likely a good faith contributor without a COI who wanted to get a cool/notable/non-COI article published and that they don't have financial incentive to keep resubmitting forever, and that they'll eventually get the hint at around the third rejection. If this were the case, G13 would be a great solution. Unfortunately, we live in 2018 and draft space is predominantly filled with stuff where people have a financial incentive to keep submitting without changes in hopes that eventually someone will accept. This is a drain on the system and was not what was envisioned when we made it so hard to delete drafts. The current go-to in these cases is WP:NOTWEBHOST after so many resubmissions because WP:NMFD is policy (even though no one really seems to want it to be until the thought of changing it is brought up, then it is sacred). What would really help would be if we just updated WP:POLICYORGUIDELINEX to reflect the fact that drafts which have no chance of every being mainspaced should be deleted at some point, even if they keep getting submitted. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:11, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

But is resubmitting the same draft over and over again not a competency-/conduct-issue? Shouldn't we sanction those users instead? If the creator is blocked, G13 will usually work because then no one will resubmit them and they become stale. Regards SoWhy 14:21, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

User:SoWhy - On the one hand, I agree that tendentious resubmission is a conduct or competency issue. On the other hand, what mechanism is there for the AFC reviewers to deal with the stupid resubmitted drafts other than MFD? I know that I don't want to overload WP:ANI with reports of stupid users, and there isn't a specialized noticeboard for stupid submissions. Even stupid submissions to article space (before AC, or by autoconfirmed users) are dealt with by deletion, not by sanctions. Where should AFC reviewers be reporting the stupid resubmissions? I already report accounts at WP:UAA and WP:SPI. Is there yet another means, short of WP:ANI, or are you saying to use WP:ANI and so overburden it rather than overburdening WP:MFD? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:28, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I've only recently started reviewing AfC, but here's my take on the process. Obviously, there's a lot of hard-core paid editing abuse, and we need better tools/policies to deal with that. But, there's also a fair amount of naive, first-time users, to whom we really should AGF. At the same time, we should have a polite way to thank them for their efforts and also dissuade them from wasting any more of our or their time. It's really kind of mean to raise people's hopes that if they just managed to fix the specific problem you tagged for, it would solve the problem. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:30, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I thought AfC had adopted a "three strikes" rule in which a page rejected at AfC a third time would go to MfD for determination. -- Dlohcierekim (talk) 14:34, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

No, that suggestion was firmly shot down. Primefac (talk) 14:59, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

A few things, first, SoWhy: I think that's a good idea, actually that I'd never thought of looking at it as a conduct issue rather than as a content issue. I'm not sure how to implement it (not AIV, but maybe a section of the AfC talk page for resubmitted drafts? I would monitor it if there was a bot that fed it.)

Primefac, as you and I have discussed privately off-wiki, a large part of the problem with the AfC reform discussions is that there were about 20 going on at one time (I suppose this makes 21...) and no one could actually keep track of them. I'd also throw in that AfC can be a bit of a walled garden sometimes, so it might be worth putting forward one proposal that is clearly defined to the larger community at a space that is not AfC (VPP or VPR). TonyBallioni (talk) 15:09, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

• User:TonyBallioni see User:JJMC89_bot/report/AfC_decline_counts this snapshot in time. 11 resubmits in some cases. Some of use tackled the highest counts but ran into resistence at MfD. Legacypac (talk) 17:54, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

No one actually believes in WP:NMFD because even those who quote it will engage in discussion of notability at MfD when they feel like it. Compare "Drafts must show notability right now like a mainspace page" (not true) with "Drafts do not have to be on a notable topic at all and we can't think about notability when considering possible deletion" (also not true). The RfC that lead to the writing of WP:NMFD was and is interpreted to read the later. Nearly everyone should agree to a middle of the road statement like "Draftspace pages are works in progress which may not adequately demonstrate notability and verifiability while under development. If the topic appears to fail N and/or V it may be subjected to MfD during which the editors must demonstrate both N and V to prevent deletion." As currently written WP:NMFD almost allows one to write up a Draft page on their teddy bear and it's travels, updated regularly to prevent G13, and there is nothing that can be done to delete it. Even WP:NOTAWEBHOST is a notability of the topic test essentially. Legacypac (talk) 15:44, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree with User:Legacypac. Editors who say that lack of notability is not a reason to delete drafts will also argue that future notability is a reason to keep drafts. Some editors try to be consistent. Some don't. I, for one, would like to see credible claim of significance applicable to draft space. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:46, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

The Wording of the Decline Template

There is general agreement at AFC and MFD that the wording of the template for AFC declines is part of the problem. It encourages the user to revise and resubmit. Some drafts should be revised and resubmitted. Some should not. There is at least one reviewer who !votes Keep at MFD in part because the stupid template encourages tendentious resubmission. Partly in order to counterbalance this, User:Legacypac has now developed the {{NSFW}}, Not Suitable For Wikipedia, template, but I think that only Legacypac and I use that template. Can something be done so that reviewers who decline a draft (and don't tag it for CSD) have a way to leave wording that isn't encouraging? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:46, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

The Lack of Specific MFD Criteria

Another problem is that Miscellany for Deletion doesn't have specific deletion criteria. Sometimes the reviewer/nominator can specify a policy-based reason, often from What Wikipedia Is Not, but sometimes the reason for the nomination is either tendentious resubmission or paid editing, and some editors argue that paid editing isn't a reason for deletion of drafts. (We agree that it is a reason for blocking of editors.) Can deletion criteria be developed and proposed? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:46, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

• I've tried to address this by opening an RfC at: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC:_Deletion_of_drafts. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:46, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request to an admin who has the power to delete pages that have over 3000 edits

• Please do this (ref discussion at User talk:Anthony Appleyard#Eminem albums discography):
  1. Delete Eminem discography, but not Talk:Eminem discography or Talk:Eminem discography/Archive 1 or Talk:Eminem discography/Archive 2.
  2. This is the long delete: delete Eminem albums discography. (Warning: it is sitting over 2 old deleted redirect edits (01:10, 1 January 2015 by User:Chasewc91 and 00:57, 17 August 2014 by User:SNUGGUMS .)
  3. This is the long undelete: Undelete all edits of Eminem albums discography except (a) 16:36, 4 May 2018‎ by User:SNUGGUMS and all later edits, and (b) the 2 above-mentioned already-deleted redirect edits.
  4. Move Eminem albums discography to Eminem discography, do not leave a redirect.
  5. Redirect Eminem discography to Eminem#Discography.
  6. Undelete the remaining deleted edits at Eminem albums discography, but not the 2 old redirect edits.
  • Thanks. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:47, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
• Only people why can do this are the stewards. Courcelles (talk) 21:49, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

• If any stewards see this thread, then please be sure to help with the above ASAP. Snuggums (talk / edits) 00:48, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• I have moved both archives (Archive 1 and Archive 2) back. But the rest of the steps above still require a steward. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 01:11, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

You'll probably get a faster response if you post directly to steward requests page on meta. -FASTILY 05:12, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Anthony Appleyard: Not a steward here, but I highly doubt you'll be able to get this done because the history at "Eminem albums discography" contains over 9,000edits. The servers will probably have great trouble loading "Special:Undelete" because of the extremely high number of edits. When DerHexer and I tried to do a similar operation at the Madrid article (which then had over 7,600 edits), we had quite extreme difficulty with it, and in my experience the servers have only gotten more finicky about operations like that since then. They were never designed/optimised for this kind of work. Graham87 08:32, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Rather disappointing, but if anyone somehow beats the odds and accomplishes this, it would be quite appreciated. Snuggums (talk / edits) 14:59, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Could someone delete the oldest 1000, then the next day the next-oldest 1000, etc? Or is it the number of past edits and not the number of deletions that give the servers problems? --Guy Macon (talk) 18:20, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

• Good question. I never even thought about that. Snuggums (talk / edits) 18:31, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• No. Deletion is all-or-nothing; the only way to delete part of an article's history is via a process similar to what Anthony wrote above, and always has to begin with deleting the entire article. (You can revision-delete parts of the history, but that wouldn't be helpful - deletion and revision-deletion have essentially nothing in common other than policy, terminology, and that their end result is to hide some chunk of information from most users.) —Cryptic 18:40, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

• The deletion is all-or-nothing, but if done in small batches, it shouldn't be impossible to restore a couple hundred revisions at a time. It probably would be better if a stew looked at it, but if not it can be done by an admin with a lot of patience. Primefac (talk) 20:57, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Note by a steward: I can delete and undelete pages all-or-nothing with an unlimited number of revisions but I don't think that I can access Special:Undelete when there are more than a couple of thousand edits to select some to be restored. It might be possible from the database site but for that you will need a database admin. Best, —DerHexer (Talk) 22:51, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I've restored 6000 revisions at once before, so it can be done, though it was of course very slow. Probably depends on how much existing strain is on the server. That said, with 9,700 edits, I don't want to delete the article and then be unable to recreate it. Best to start a phabricator ticket to handle this if it really needs doing. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 23:26, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

In case you cannot access Special:Undelete you can still restore the entire page through API undelete. But that won't solve the problem. Best, —DerHexer (Talk) 08:06, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

AIV backlog

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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There is currently an unusually long backlog at WP:AIV. If there are any admins around that could help clear it, that would be great. Thank you. Deli nk (talk) 15:53, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

As of now, every report has been dealt with. --Jayron32 16:26, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Create article

Hi,

  we ne to create article in the name of Marmakkuzhl, Please let me know how to contribute my article to wikipedia

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pris1234d/sandbox — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pris1234d (talk • contribs) 07:21, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

That page appears to contain copyright violations, for example from here. —Wasell^(T) 08:15, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

@Pris1234d: Thanks for helping to build the world's largest free-content encyclopedia. I have commented on the draft. Once deficiencies are remedied, please click the "submit" button. Cheers, and happy editing.-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 12:06, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Policy based RfC

An RfC of probable interest is published at Wikipedia talk:Appealing a block#RfC about appealing a block and Wikipedia "standard offer". Notification is proper here; the top page invoking the name. Thank you and please act accordingly.--John Cline (talk) 17:08, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Possible close

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Would someone please take a look at [75] to see if it merits closing. IMO it is likely to go on spinning out of control and could last for days. If my assessment is out of line please feel free to close this thread instead. MarnetteD|Talk 03:43, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Closed by Isanae.-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 12:21, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC Announce: Criteria for granting IP block exemption

What criteria should an administrator use when granting IPBE to editors?

Wikipedia talk:IP block exemption#RfC: Criteria for granting IP block exemption

--Guy Macon (talk) 16:55, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Freyjadour

I just deleted a group of images on the Commons uploaded by Freyjadour as unambiguous copyvios about which Freyjadour misrepresented authorship (see Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Freyjadour) Freyjadour is now reuploading certain of those images here (e.g., File:Julia Montes LA Fil Am Expo 2011.png and File:Julia Montes Walang Hanggan Tour 2012.png) with the same bogus authorship/Flickr-washing claims. This was done yesterday as well, File:Julia Montes Doble Kara Press Conference August 2015.png was uploaded here after it was deleted (by another admin) per Commons:Deletion requests/File:Julia Montes Doble Kara Press Conference 2015.png. This seems to require attention above merely nominating these files for deletion. Note also Freyjadour was previously blocked on en.wiki for copyvios, albeit in November 2014. Эlcobbola _talk 17:35, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

c:Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#Freyjadour

I vote global lock. User seems to be productive editing articles. Could their upload privileges be taken away? Alexis Jazz (talk) 18:18, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I checked the commons deleted images - they were identical to the new ones here, so deleted and user warned. It's a waste of time for them to upload here as they will soon get tagged for move to commons and then it all goes wrong. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 22:10, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

The problematic behaviour of this user

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I have opened this thread to report the incorrect behaviour of the user Wddan. Previously, there have already been contrasts with this user primarily due to his changes that violated every principle of a neutral point of view or consensus. He doesn't accept any changes he doesn't like and tries to remove them as they were "vandalism". Even after the discussion ( https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=838673865#FrankCesco26,_umpteenth_wave_of_disruptive_POV_edits ) he had with other users as a result of his report to me, asking for a final solution to block me permanently because I made changes not to his liking, did not change his problematic attitudes, even if under the firm advice of other users and administrators.

Even if he started to use the discussion pages, in the meantime he has reverted multiple times my contributions , he has insulted me by calling my explanations about my contributions "really stupid" with the purpose of discrediting me, and he completely changed several pages like this , so as to remove parts that were not to his liking and trying to hide it.

I'm sick of his behaviour that has been annoying me for a year and doesn't allow me to peacefully contribute to this free and impartial encyclopedia.

I tag other contributors that have participated in the discussion about his report to me: @Tarage, Dlohcierekim, Canterbury Tail, and Yoshi24517: . FrankCesco26 (talk) 12:15, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

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This report is groundless.

• The linked reverts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) are reverts just in the first case, while in the second case I changed the style of presenting the content (in note rather than in the text), as there is an open discussion (opened by me) about how that type of content should be presented. And I based my edits upon WP policies which are cited in that discussion. In 10, which is part of the same case, I did not "hide" anything controversial.
• 7 is not a revert but I integrated the changes made by FrankCesco26.
• 9 has nothing controversial.
• In 8 the term "stupid" does not refer to FrankCesco26, and is within a larger context of messages in which the subject is the way of presenting a type of content. The full message is "It's really stupid to report the questions of the survey; it's not encyclopedic content, also considering that most of those minor surveys are already given more emphasis than they deserve. This is turning the articles into lists of statistics, against the policies of WP:NOTSTATSBOOK and WP:NOTMANUAL. I am fully convinced of this. But let's see how other editors have to say about this: Nillurcheier, Iryna Harpy, JimRenge." (If I wanted to report FrankCesco26 on the same grounds, I would have used this edit on 27 april in which he called my edit "silly speculation".)

At the same time, FrankCesco26 has made false accusations against my latest edits, for which I opened a discussion here, and his editing behaviour is not consistent throughout different articles. In some articles he pushed for the removal of the same type of content which in other articles or in the same articles he insisted to add (in the linked cases, additional pie charts), against consensus. He claims that he wants to "peacefully" contribute to a "free and impartial" encyclopedia, but his edits are not impartial at all.

Since he has summoned users involved in the previous case (limiting to users who were not involved in the past cases regarding FrankCesco26 and who expressed their opinion against me), let me do the same: Boing! said Zebedee, EdJohnston and Thinker78 (who was involved in the discussion about religion in the United Kingdom).--Wddan (talk) 12:50, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

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Your behaviour is not acceptable, you remove all of the well-sourced contributions that I make indiscriminately, the most serious thing is that you did that while was an open discussion and you had no consensus to do that. Afterwards, you started making countless sudden changes by drastically changing the content of the whole article, imposing statements without sources and without having the consensus of any other contributor. In the midst of these changes, you've removed a lot of my contributions that were not ok with your impartial point of view, that I menaged to reintroduce afterwars. This is the behaviour of a problematic user that still has not understood, after a year and several blocks and strict advices, how to properly act in a free Wikipedia, where also other people can contribute to the articles.

Also, this report is against you, and you failed to persuade people about your assumptions about my impartiality in a previous discussion that I advice everyone to see ( https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=838673865#FrankCesco26,_umpteenth_wave_of_disruptive_POV_edits ) FrankCesco26 (talk) 13:20, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

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Condensing bickering between the two parties

This is utterly false, especially the claim that "afterwards, you started making countless sudden changes by drastically changing the content of the whole article, imposing statements without sources and without having the consensus of any other contributor". I improved the content of the article making many small style edits, removing unsourced phrases with long-standing "citation needed" tags, and replacing duplicate sources (for instance REMID and FOWID, which I unified throughout the article). I have nothing to hide, my edits are all there, and all the relevant changes were specified in the edits summaries. In the linked edit it was you who removed phrases, while I later integrated my edits with yours. As you see, the latest revision contains the phrase about the DDR that you added. Regarding the claim that "the most serious thing is that you did that while was an open discussion and you had no consensus to do": It was me who opened all discussions, in all relevant articles' talk pages, over the last weeks (see for instance Talk:Religion in Germany, Talk:Religion in the United Kingdom). Regarding the claim that I do not know "how to properly act in a free Wikipedia, where also other people can contribute to the articles", you should read What Wikipedia is not, especially that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.--Wddan (talk) 13:25, 16 May 2018 (UTC) Specifying your last action, the linked edit is a your hasty revert that reintroduced the unsourced and biased paragraph that I tried to make impartial. Along your "small" edits that drastically changed all the article towards a POV way, you inexplicably removed the pie chart of a survey I had introduced in the article with the consensus, and you again hidden the methodology that you didn't like of the survey you like. This was not clear or specified as you assumed. You don't accept other people's contributions, and this is not fair nor acceptable. FrankCesco26 (talk) 13:47, 16 May 2018 (UTC) It is false. It was you who removed the pie chart. Probably you did it accidentally and thought that it was me who did it. You are making false accusations, as I wrote here. And when I "hid" the methodology in the note where its should stay according to policies, I specified it in the edit summary: "This is how this type of information, utterly unencyclopedic for Wikipedia, which is not a statistical manual, should be presented in the article.".--Wddan (talk) 13:56, 16 May 2018 (UTC) When I'm wrong I admit it, I didn't notice it; but this doesn't mean that you are right in removing everything you don't like. Regarding this case from the too many, it is only a mere assumption that important information about the survey like the wording that you don't like because it reveal that your own impartial thoughts that you are trying to make universal in the article by dramatically completely changing it without seeking for consensus, are instead only related to somewhat statistical. The neutrality of Wikipedia is strained by your bad behaviour. FrankCesco26 (talk) 14:19, 16 May 2018 (UTC) Now half of your accusations have collapsed. Regarding the rest, I made grammar corrections, I changed Zs to Ss to conform with British English style, I removed phrases with long-standing "citation needed" tags, I unified REMID and FOWID sources throughout the article, I substituted two newspaper articles with a better academic source about the same subject, I changed the position of some paragraphs, I grouped some sentences to make a paragraph, I changed the style of the census table keeping the same content, I added some content, I removed the confusionary external links. There is nothing controversial about these edits, anyone can check. In the middle of my edits there are a series of edits by user PericlesofAthens.--Wddan (talk) 14:29, 16 May 2018 (UTC) That's what you say, but everyone can check the article and see that along your small edits there are biased rephrasings of entire sections that were accepted by every contributor until your edits, for example this paragraph I was trying to make impartial again after your edits but that you have reverted, again attacking the contributor in the summary of the edit and removing once again the edits you don't like. FrankCesco26 (talk) 14:51, 16 May 2018 (UTC) False, as demonstrated above. I integrated the edits of both. I have nothing more to say. This discussion is becoming tedious as you keep repeating again and again false accusations against any evidence.--Wddan (talk) 15:21, 16 May 2018 (UTC) Let the administrators decide if the facts of your antisocial behaviour pointed out by me are false as hastily repeated by you as if it were a valid counter argument. FrankCesco26 (talk) 15:25, 16 May 2018 (UTC) You can't accuse me of "antisociality": I always engaged in discussions in the last weeks. You have construed a false case based on a removal that you made by yourself (I assume that it was made untentionally...), and on a small rephrasing which is neutral and based on facts contained in the article itself. The problematic user is not me.--Wddan (talk) 16:09, 16 May 2018 (UTC) And do not modify my argumentations.--Wddan (talk) 16:16, 16 May 2018 (UTC) You use the talk pages only because you have been stricly adviced to do that, but in the meantime you mess up entire pages with no consensus, do reverts of edits you don't like and remove a lot of content replacing it with biased and bad sourced content of your alike; so it's like you don't use it. The edit (that I've already admitted that was my fault) was not the single reason this report exist, it's all your behavior that is problematic and you have continued your agenda of biased and unconsensual edits for over one year. That is not how Wikipedia and its talk pages work. FrankCesco26 (talk) 16:42, 16 May 2018 (UTC) "in the meantime you mess up entire pages". This is FALSE. "do reverts of edits you don't like and remove a lot of content replacing it with biased and bad sourced content of your alike". This is FALSE too. You are telling LIES trying to present me in bad light, and this slander has to stop! I have always added good-quality content, and users who know me know this. By contrast, it is YOU who have been involved in cases of controversial editing patterns in the past (case 1, case 2). For this reason I ask the intervention of users with whom I have collaborated for long time and who know me (and know your controversial editing history), including Iryna Harpy, Nillurcheier, JimRenge.--Wddan (talk) 17:09, 16 May 2018 (UTC) I'm not telling lies, your edits are there, I've just reported the things as they are. This discussion is not about me, but it's about you; I've learned from my past errors, and in the last time you've reported me you've failed. I can't say the same for you. FrankCesco26 (talk) 17:23, 16 May 2018 (UTC) References

• I've hidden the arguing between the two of you, as you've clearly both made your points. Please cease posting here (unless directly asked to provide comment) and allow the administrators to look into this matter. Primefac (talk) 17:25, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Primefac: Please note that within the hidden discussion between me and FC26 there have been some important developments, especially the fact that half of his accusation collapsed at the evidence that the removal of some content was made by he himself (whether intentionally or unintentionally).--Wddan (talk) 17:35, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

I collapsed the content, I didn't remove it, mainly because it was taking up an inordinate amount of space. It's still there for review, and we are perfectly capable of making our own judgements of both of your sets of responses. Primefac (talk) 17:51, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• (after edit conflict) FrankCesco26, please stop canvassing on user talk pages...and both of you please stop pinging editors and be patient. I'm tempted to hat this discussion and echo Primefac's comment above.
  — Berean Hunter (talk) 17:27, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• FrankCesco26, with part of your original complaint here being explained as misunderstanding, what are you exactly asking of the admins? What policies or guidelines has Wddan violated? (need diffs as clear evidence) It appears that you may have lost your patience in dealing with them but I'm not seeing anything other than you calling their behavior unacceptable.
  — Berean Hunter (talk) 18:15, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

That misunderstanding is only a small part of wrong behaviours implemented by the Wddan user, but it has obviously been emphasized trying to shift the focus on different things. I do not accept that Wddan reverts all my contributions just because they go against his WP:POV, he also did countless reverts within 24 hours of sourced content just because he did not like it. He also upsets entire pages of Wikipedia concerning religion to adapt them to his way of thinking, obviously without even thinking to talk pages of consensus. This goes against the principles of Wikipedia to adopt a neutral point of view in writing articles. All the differences can be found in the original paragraph of the report.

I have already tried to deal with him in the past, but after a year in which he hasn't made the slightest effort to change his way of coping with the Wikipedia policy, I'm fed up of all of this. I'm not asking for a "definitive solution" as my opponent said he hopes for me, but please do something, he still has to mess up several Wikipedia articles without consensus nor a neutral point of view in his agenda, after several blocks and advices by many contributors. FrankCesco26 (talk) 19:18, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Jesus Christ... You know what I'm seeing? I'm seeing two, yes two editors who blindly push forward changes without even attempting to get consensus on talk pages. While I am encouraged to see that you two are actually USING said talk pages, they're... painful to read. All it is is bickering and back and forth. I don't see much of any engagement from any other editors. In short, you two are moving WAY too fast. The edit flow should be edit, revert, discuss. If you two disagree, wait for someone else to step in and say something. Start an RFC. But for cripes sake, SLOW DOWN. Spamming edits through is not the way to go here. You two are hyper fixated on the topic of religion in countries, and if you don't slow down and actually get consensus for these edits, you will very quickly find yourselves topic banned from them. Here's what I'd like to see. Go edit something else. Something completely unrelated to religion. Let things calm down. --Tarage (talk) 18:20, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

I would hope so, but I wouldn't imagine the quantity of article he would mess up without me reviewing his edits. FrankCesco26 (talk) 19:18, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat line of thought is not okay. Neither of you should be reviewing each other's edits. You are really close to needing an IBan and that would not be pleasant for either of you. Stop it. --Tarage (talk) 19:44, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Other editors have asked us to stop discussing here, but I see FrankCesco26 keeping playing the victim and claiming against any fact that I "mess up" articles and he "can't let" me doing so. I consider the latter to be a WP:PA, since I am very careful in my edits, I don't "mess up" anything and other editors can witness this. It is clear that with "to mess up" he means making improvement that he doesn't like.--Wddan (talk) 19:45, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

There is not improvement when there aren't sources or consensus, maybe I was a bit impulsive, but the substance is that the articles can't gain from unsourced and unconsensual edits. FrankCesco26 (talk) 20:36, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

I never edit without sources and against consensus (where there is a consensus).--Wddan (talk) 21:04, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Tban proposal

Further propose that before posting here, users drink at least 8oz of iced coffee.-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 20:55, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

When I see this kind of bickering it is, in my opinion, best to simply separate the editors from both the area of conflict and each other. The attitude expressed by FrankCesco26("I wouldn't imagine the quantity of article he would mess up without me reviewing his edits") is completely unacceptable. I would suggest that both editors take 30 or 60 days off from the topic of religion and edit elsewhere. This will give them both a chance to show they are capable of interacting with other editors in a collaborative and constructive manner while, hopefully, allowing them time to gain a bit of perspective re each other. It would be best if they both agree to do this and stay away from each other during that time voluntarily but if not we should explore formal sanctions — I would suggest a 60 day WP:TBAN on religion for both and an indefinite WP:IBAN between the two of them. Jbh ^Talk 20:33, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

For me a tempban of religion articles on both it's fine, it will be a good summer. I am so tired of this.FrankCesco26 (talk) 20:37, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Jbhunley: I invite again to check my edits. There is nothing problematic in my editing style: I don't "mess up" articles, and I don't deserve to be involved in this topic ban. I would support an interaction ban for me, but not an indefinite one, since it would be impossible to avoid all interactions with FrankCesco26, since we have been editing the very same articles.--Wddan (talk) 21:04, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Go. Edit. Something. Else. --Tarage (talk) 21:14, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

multiple (edit conflict) Sorry, but we have all our own interests and I have no other interests in Wikipedia apart from these "religion in..." articles with statistics.--Wddan (talk) 21:25, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Then you don't belong on Wikipedia. If you can't find anything else to contribute to, you might as well pack it in right now. --Tarage (talk) 21:31, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) At this point it is your attitude, as demonstrated by your behavior in this thread, that is the problem. My experience when I see editors going at each other like you two are is that both have contributed to the problem and if both are not able to take some time away from the area of conflict and each other then, rather than short time outs, we will rapidly end up discussing indefinite blocks for disruption. Jbh ^Talk 21:20, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

@Wddan: <ec> Stop. We are not continuing this arguing. We are not continuing this debate. The problem is your interactions. -- Dlohcierekim (talk) 21:23, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Wait a minute. Apart for the outcome of the topic ban below, I have been repeatedly accused of "messing up" articles. I consider this to be a personal attack, since I am proud of my good edits to those articles, which are very accurate in style, neutral and well-sourced in content. I am very irritated by that judgement, which is based on non-neutral bias, and I expect that it is verified and confirmed that my edits are good.--Wddan (talk) 21:50, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Your edits are NOT all good. That's the point. You both are making problematic edits. --Tarage (talk) 21:58, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Propose 60 day topic ban from religious topics, broadly construed, for both editors Go edit something else, away from each other. --Tarage (talk) 20:46, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support It's summer here in Florida, and I need less heat and more light. Really, the unseemly bickering above is dismal- dismal!-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 20:50, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support I am very tired of all of this, I got to enjoy this summer. FrankCesco26 (talk) 20:52, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support Take a two month vacation to reflect on collaboration instead of confrontation. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 21:13, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support per my comment above. Jbh ^Talk 21:20, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• multiple (edit conflict) Neutral — I can't say that I am tired of editing articles, since I have not even finished to improve "Religion in Germany", due to the long discussion of today. I think that I do not deserve a TBAN since I was thrown here on the base of a false pretext. A TBAN would result in no editing for two months for me, since I have few other interests (in Wikipedia). However, I can't oppose consensus, if consensus will form for a TBAN for both. I am also not sure that we, the involved parts, are entitled to vote here.--Wddan (talk) 21:26, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Wrong answer. You are admitting that you are a single purpose account, and one causing problems at that. I guarantee you that if you edit nothing while topic banned and then come back and cause the same problems as you have here, you WILL be blocked. Fix your attitude now. --Tarage (talk) 21:32, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

That I have a niche interest does not mean that I edit in a non-neutral way.--Wddan (talk) 21:40, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Frankly I don't care. You are causing problems in the space you are editing. I have told you multiple times to edit something else. You are refusing. Being a problem editor(Which you are, don't pretend you are innocent, multiple people have told you this) and refusing to edit outside of the area you are causing problems WILL get you blocked. Period. --Tarage (talk) 21:47, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Tarage: everyone contributes in their own way and should be able to without being chastised by others. The issue is disruption, not editing focus. Please also consider that when dealing with editors in conflict that there is a considerable difference between being direct and being aggressive. Cheers. Jbh ^Talk 21:51, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

No need to ping me. The problem is I'm running out of patience with this editor. Look at their talk page: It's full of people telling them they are being problematic and refusing to listen. When being faced with a topic ban, saying "Well I'm just gonna not edit till it expires and then go back to what I was doing" is not what I want to hear. That screams IDHT. Sometimes being aggressive is the only way to get through to someone just how much trouble they are currently in. --Tarage (talk) 21:57, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

By that point though they will not figure it out until they are sanctioned and becoming aggressive will seldom get through. I do understand your frustration and sometimes a smack with a clue bat just what is needed so, if you do choose to go that route please make sure you are making an accurate point else they will have reason to ignore not only that point but the others you are trying to make as well.

In this case simply having a limited focus for editing is neither problematic nor disallowed - they will not ever be blocked just for editing in a single area so long as their edits are policy compliant and their behavior is not problematic. If they can adjust their behavior then whatever contributions they make, no matter the subject area, will be welcome. Saying otherwise can just run off editors to no good purpose. Jbh ^Talk 22:32, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

I believe I was clear in saying that BOTH editing a narrow topic set AND being problematic would get you blocked. Plenty of editors edit one topic but don't cause problems. Wddan is not those editors. And despite being told this, somehow believes that his hands are clean. --Tarage (talk) 23:11, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

OK. On third reading I see that. My bad. Jbh ^Talk 23:58, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

My talk page is not "full of people telling me I'm problematic". All the cases have to do with FC26. See User talk:Wddan & User_talk:Wddan/Archive_1.--Wddan (talk) 22:01, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

There are, however, several people warning you about edit warring and failing to make use of edit summaries. Both of those behaviors are problematic and indicative of a lack of collaborative spirit on your part. If you are still being told not to edit war [76] after being blocked for it twice [77] I think it fair for Tarage to say your editing behavior has been problematic. Jbh ^Talk 22:46, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

All the edit war warning cases are related to past encounters with FC26, the last in April, as are both the blocks. Many tags were left by FC26, and many are ungrounded like the discussion of today. The edit summaries discussion is not a warning of problematicity. My past blocks were put into question by users with whom I collaborated, who thought that I did not deserve them. For instance, on 23 April 2017, Iryna Harpy commented: "A 48 hour block for Wddan is not merited. The user was following consensus already established on the article's talk page, hence the reverts were in the spirit of WP:3RRNO. Please see my comment on the relevant talk page. A 24 hour block would be justified for assuming bad faith (although this was not a pattern of behaviour, but a reaction to seriously provocative editing)...". I am a user who is fully collaborative with other users whose editing pattern is clear and neutral; this has not been the case with FrankCesco26 simply because his editing pattern has not been clear and neutral for the most part. I do not accept to pass as a problematic "asocial" and "uncooperative" user, and less than that as a user who "messes up" articles.--Wddan (talk) 23:28, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Let's cut to the quick. Do you feel that all of your edits have been justified and you have done nothing wrong? --Tarage (talk) 23:39, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

If by "edits" you mean the contributions to articles, I think to have made high-quality contributions to the articles, just have a look at religion in Iceland (reviewed entirely), religion in Catalonia (written entirely by myself), religion in Russia (reviewed entirely). If by "edits" you mean some edit wars, my second block was deserved as I actually broke the 3RR. If by "edits" you mean discussions, I have opened most recent discussions I had with FC26 and other users (see Talk:Religion in Germany, Talk:Religion in the United Kingdom).--Wddan (talk) 23:50, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

That's the response I was expecting. Well... good luck with your topic ban. --Tarage (talk) 00:42, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support This is a cut and dried case. Get them out of the sand pit. Blackmane (talk) 23:35, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support This has caused enough disruption. I would also like to add an insistence that both editors, especially Wddan, use edit summaries and think through edits befor making them instead of pecking at minor edits constantly. The histories on these articles are mind bleedingly painful to go through due to lack of edit summaries and dozens of small edits. Canterbury Tail talk 00:21, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I always write edit summaries when I make large edits, while minor edits are really minor edits such as typos and technical stuff.--Wddan (talk) 00:31, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

  Not according to article and your edit history. A good rule of thumb is to always, always use edit summaries. Canterbury Tail talk 01:02, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support IBan but maybe not Tban. L293D (☎ • ✎) 01:50, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
• support, as a starting measure. I reckon we will be back here again when the time expires, as the only thing that either of them do is write about national surveys of religion (mostly fighting over how to summarize primary sources, for pete's sake). and not just here in en-WP for FrankCesco26. (global contribs for FrankCesco26; global contribs for Wddan) Jytdog (talk) 02:04, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

The TBAN should be limited to en wiki only, where they have been issues. FrankCesco26 (talk) 11:51, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support as an uninvolved editor who just read through this thread and the evidence presented, I think a TBAN is a good first step. I'd advise both parties to edit elsewhere. Richard⁰⁶¹² 08:46, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Block?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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[78] Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:29, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

With extreme prejudice. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 05:32, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Mass page moves needed

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I have already blocked L_O_M_G_B_O_Y_E (talk · contribs) for making far too many nonsense moves. We need mass revert of these moves back to their original pages. --Masem (t) 03:31, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

 Done. I think this should be resolved now. Mz7 (talk) 03:49, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

FWIW, I think I've fixed all the broken redirects resulting from bot auto-fixing the double redirects. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 12:08, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

@Amorymeltzer: Thanks, I hadn't thought of that. Mz7 (talk) 22:02, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request to lift topic ban

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I was topic banned indefinitely last month and told not to comment anything on matters related to caste. I was relatively new to wikipedia back then and was not well versed with rules of wikipedia. I have been contributing after the ban on other topics. I request that my topic ban be lifted. I promise that I will abide by wikipedia rules. Sharkslayer87 (talk) 17:57, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

First off I’m going to ping the admin who applied the sanction @Bishonen:.

Then I would ask you to comment on your remarks at Talk:Raju, in particular This amounts to Racism and you will pay for it. and I will go to any extent until justice is served. which would appear to represent an unacceptable battleground attitude. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:13, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

I have already said that I was new to wikipedia and didn't know how it worked exactly. I have also said that I won't repeat that behavior. Please let me know what I could do to prove myself. Sharkslayer87 (talk) 18:18, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose lifting the topic ban at this time, while encouraging the editor to continue working in other topic areas. The topic ban was imposed this month on May 1, not last month, and the editor immediately violated the topic ban several times and was blocked for it. This followed weeks of disruptive and combative editing related to caste. Only 19 days have passed. I recommend that the editor wait at least six months to ask for the topic ban to be lifted, while showing full compliance with our policies and guidelines in the interim. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 18:39, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• I'm against lifting the ban at this time. It's only 19 days old, and Sharkslayer87 started by getting themselves blocked for violating it. @Sharkslayer87:, I'm glad to see you have been editing other articles and reverting vandalism and warning vandals since then. Your editing on caste-related pages was relentlessly promotional, and you pushed back strongly against anybody who tried to advise you — "like you were issuing ultimatums", as Ad Orientem put it.[79]. (To Sitush you said: "Are you from India and from Andhra Pradesh?... Why do you only have the right to push your POV as opposed to others POV? Are you the owner of Wiki?"[80]) I recommend you to continue editing other areas, and not appeal your caste ban again until at least three months have passed (six months, per Cullen328, is better). The more constructively you edit in the meantime, the more likely your appeal is to be granted. Bishonen | talk 19:41, 19 May 2018 (UTC).
• Oppose Cullen says it better than I could, so I won't repeat it. Agree with both him and Bish. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:43, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose in over 100,000 edits I don't believe I've needed to make one on caste. This restriction is hardly constraining Legacypac (talk) 20:14, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. Let's see six months of trouble-free editing in other areas first. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:25, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose Come back in six months and we can talk about it. For now I would continue editing elsewhere. There is a lot of stuff to work on here. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:54, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per Cullen and Bishonen. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:07, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Spam on my talk page

Good evening, is this the right page to ask for help from an admin? An anon user twice wrote bad things on my talk page without a reason. He's a dynamin IP who attacks me on many wikis, but nobody seems to care and nobody stops him. May you protect my page from further vandalisms? 95.253.203.9 (talk) 14:24, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I see nothing derogatory or offensive about the messages being left by the other IP. Am I missing something? Primefac (talk) 14:29, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps not "derogatory or offensive", but strange all the same. It's a message in Italian saying that the IP has been blocked on it.wiki (which is indeed true), but while it's similar to our {{anonblock}}, it seems to be a bit more personalized than the normal templates.

Google Translate

To you who are reading this message: on it.wikipedia the IP of your company network has been blocked for 6 months because of the use that one of your employees has made of it. If you are a colleague and not the manager, please let him know. The person who made you block the network is probably a new hired for less than a year and relatively young, I think it will be easy to trace his identity but this is your business, I have only made aware even if I sincerely would like that you get it. You can see the block log, the contributions for which it was blocked and the discussions on your personal page going with this same IP on it.wikipedia. Greetings to all and good work.

I'm not sure what the purpose of this is, but I don't think it's grounds for protection. ansh666 18:21, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

So you think my page doesn't need a protection? He's using that page to attack me. He actually doesn't want to communicate with me. How can't this be enough to help me? Just because he isn't rude? He simply found that I went once on this wiki, and he thinks he's allowed to persecute me like he did on italian wiki. 95.253.203.9 (talk) 14:21, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

If you've done nothing wrong on enwiki, then you won't be blocked. It's as simple as that. If the IP continues to add harassing notes to your talk page, then something could probably be done, but it looks like since this thread was opened there have been no further edits to your talk page. Primefac (talk) 14:25, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Datetime picker for Special:Block

Hello all,

The Anti-Harassment Tools team made improvements to Special:Block to have a calendar as datetime selector to choose a specific day and hour in the future as expire time. The new feature was first available on the de.wp, meta, and mediawiki.org on 05/03/18. For more information see Improvement of the way the time of a block is determined - from a discussion on de.WP or (phab:T132220) Questions? or want to give feedback. Leave a message on Wikipedia Talk:Community health initiative on English Wikipedia/Blocking tools and improvements, on Phabricator, or by email. SPoore (WMF), Trust & Safety, Community health initiative (talk) 20:26, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

User socking as unroutable IP address 127.0.0.1.

• Max4142 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · target logs · block log · list user · global contribs · central auth · Google)
• (127.0.0.1) (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · target logs · block log · list user · global contribs · central auth · Google) fixed. Primefac (talk) 16:07, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Max4142

Bavarian developer ZenJu,[81][82] who is the author of FreeFileSync,[83] keeps trying to the page using various socks to hide the fact that FreeFileSync ships with bundled malware, but despite repeated requests refuses to cite any sources other than his own webpage at freefilesync.org.

Now he has somehow figured out how to post as unroutable IP address 127.0.0.1.[84] I have filed an SPI and am requesting a checkuser to see if this sheds light on how he managed to do that.

Please note that as I have documented at Talk:FreeFileSync#Virustotal wierdness the FreeFileSync website sends a smaller, malware-free file to online virus scanners and a larger, malware-infected file to anyone who downloads the installer. This makes it difficultly to determine exactly which malware he is currently including, but my OR indicates that he has switched from OpenCandy to FusionCore -- malware that installs other malware that it gets from a website (and the website keeps changing as the old ones get shut down). Alas, I cannot find a source other than my OR, so I cannot update the page to say that OpenCandy has been replaced with FusionCore. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:53, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Looking at [85],I see that other have managed to do this. Why isn't this IP permanently blocked on all projects? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:01, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Guy Macon, the contribs you linked to are not from an IP, it's a user. I've also updated the OP's links. Primefac (talk) 16:07, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

AH! Somehow missed the parenthesis. That's rather embarrassing. Funny how the eye tricks you. Can we block it as being a deceptive username? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:26, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: if this were a new editor, I'd probably go for a username block, but as they have been established (Special:CentralAuth/(127.0.0.1)) on multiple projects for years, no. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:39, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Possibly worth mentioning that 127.0.0.1 (in fact any 127.*.*.* address) is not a real-world IP address that could be used to edit Wikipedia anyway. It's what's known as a "localhost" address and just loops back to your own computer if you try to use it. You can use it, for example, for running a server on your own computer which you can access regardless of your real-world IP address (and without even being connected to the internet or to a router). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:33, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Im theory 127.0.0.1 is technically prevented by the MediaWiki software, but it has edited in the past: Special:Contributions/127.0.0.1. Checkusers still occasionally see people editing from the 10/8 private network. Here's a fun pro-tip: When you look at a user's contributions, look at the link to their userpage. For accounts it's a red or blue link, and for IP addresses it's grey text. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 09:22, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't suppose it'd be worth requesting a "this IP should never edit" message for non-routable/RFC 1918 IPs through the MW software perhaps? Richard⁰⁶¹² 09:33, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

This was implemented-ish in February 2017 [86] -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 09:44, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Seems a decent solution. Richard⁰⁶¹² 10:27, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

This is a user account, not an IP ;-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 20:19, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Day late and a dollar short, Oshwah... Primefac (talk) 21:15, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I figured that I was ;-). I got sidetracked and wasn't able to finish reading through the discussion, but also thought that adding the comment wasn't a bad idea just in case. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 21:17, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Request closure of discussion and re-direction to open WP:RFC/ Request User:Factchecker_atyourservice warned for WP:Battle and WP:POV

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This discussion is growing out of control: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Trump–Russia_dossier#Latest_New_York_Times_report_confirming_"no_public_evidence"

There is an open WP:RFC here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Trump–Russia_dossier#RFC_on_stating_no_public_evidence_of_collusion

Request new discussion is closed per Wikipedia:Forumshopping

I also request that User:Factchecker_atyourservice is warned by an uninvolved administrator for Wikipedia:Battleground and WP:POV. 1. He took part in the RFC. 2. I think if you look at the totality of his contributions on the page, he is clearly pressing for a WP:POV with Wikipedia:Battleground behavior. 3. In starting the new discussion, he was very selective in his context which he provide and it looks like clear dishonesty, as pointed out here.Casprings (talk) 22:59, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

I second Casprings request. Factchecker_atyourservice has been a disputatious and disruptive editor for quite some time, and is clearly holding a serious POV which they are pushing just as hard as they can. They've WP:BLUDGEONed the discussion to within an inch of its life and does not appear to have given any consideration whatsoever to stopping. In my opinion, at this point, a warning is the absolute minimum that should be dealt out to Factchecker: if they don't stop their tendentious editing, they should be slapped with a short block. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:19, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

I third this for the reasons stated above. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:22, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Just to note, Factchecker has 1,001 edits to Talk:Trump–Russia dossier since January. [87] Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:27, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: According to this they have 554 edits to the page you mention. The most being BullRangifer at 692. Might want to update your claim of 1,001. PackMecEng (talk) 00:01, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I’ll fourth this request. I believe FactChecker has violated their one-way IBan with BullRangifer in that thread near the beginning of a six month ban.[88] The editor is now attacking editors at AE [89], has just exited a sanction, and has engaged in PAs for months. The thread is a timesink and will eventually end up wasting admin time at a drama board. O3000 (talk) 00:41, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

"Attacking editors at AE"? I described an incident in which I attempted to discuss something utterly non-personal with SPECIFICO, and he refused to offer any explanation whatsoever of what he meant and instead just used each reply as a new opportunity to taunt me. "PAs for months" is an unusual claim since I didn't edit for the past year until April 2018, at which point I suggested citing high quality sources and removing low quality ones from an article and got comprehensively flamed. Pretty much everything that has happened since then has revolved around asking if we could please cite better sources, and do so more accurately, and I've just gotten flamed for it. Factchecker_atyourservice 01:05, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

• Casprings or Beyond My Ken I would suggest an AE filing would be more appropriate than AN if these are long term behavioral issues. I am not saying that there are issues (I am unfamiliar with the editor in question), but in this area ANI/AN is sometimes difficult to parse out trends and figure out who is doing what. A structured format often helps in these situations. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:29, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

I was hoping not to take the time to do that, given that I am not asking for a ton to be done here. I will see how it plays out and may do that in the future.Casprings (talk) 23:59, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Wellll that RFC had stalled pretty fully, on top of which it bogged down on (1) various claims that the sources were old and therefore misleading because maybe some evidence came out since then!, despite that some were just weeks old, and (2) my paraphrasing which was allegedly a calculated lie designed to push .. whatever POV it is I am supposed to have. And virtually all of the more recent votes revolved around how allegedly misleading the paraphrasing was.

So I thought I would try a much smaller approach suggesting a single source, brand new so nobody could claim it's been rendered obsolete by evidence coming out later, from a top quality news source, and I just suggested quoting it directly.

I thought that might circumvent all those objections, but little did I know I'm still a liar for suggesting it be quoted! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Gotta say though, it's really weird because the passage I am accused of "dishonestly" omitting has nothing to do with either the dossier or the evidence of claims against Trump, rather it's the NYT addressing a Democratic complaint that an October 2016 NYT article had implied Trump had been cleared by intel investigations, when really those investigations were just beginning. The two statements are related to each other in the context of the NYT article, but the second one is not really related to anything in the dossier article.

Even so, I explicitly said I had no objection to quoting that part too, but that did not satisfy those who had raised it as an objection.

Also, just to note Muboshgu, despite your comment, Mueller is only reliably speculated and widely assumed to have evidence and it is entirely possible that he will close the investigation without ever announcing a clear link between Trump and the Kremlin during the campaign. So your claim that there's no evidence because the investigation is ongoing is crystal balling. Also, I believe the tradition with special counsel investigations is that they keep investigating until they find something to charge, regardless of whether it has anything to do with the original reason for the investigation, which is how we got that whole kerfluffle with Clinton getting BJs from young ladies in the White House. Factchecker_atyourservice 00:49, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Do not bring the content dispute here, this is about your behavior, which has been egregiously bad. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:15, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Explaining why I opened a new discussion seems pretty relevant to this attempt to sanction me for opening a new discussion. Also, you haven't been involved at any of these articles, are you still mad at me about stupid content disputes from 3-4 years ago? Factchecker_atyourservice 01:18, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

BMK, he recently served time for his behavior, and came back to edit with a good attitude, trying to do good work. It's a root canal to try to add anything to that article that isn't negative. Factchecker has tried to be collegial but it's difficult in an environment where editors have perfected the skill of annoying their opponents obliquely until they finally break. Some of the reasons given for exclusion of that material are worth framing to remind us how absurd things have gotten. I don't know the answer but I do know it's not fair to keep hammering on the same editor who is bringing really good material to the article, and inclusion is refused for no good reason. I also don't think it's fair to allow the targeting and group pile-ons of a single editor who is actually trying to improve an article for all the right reasons. Whatever is going on, be it WP:OWN behavior or WP:STONEWALLING, it's unjustified behavior when you consider we're talking about one or two sentences that Factchecker proposed for inclusion; material that is clearly DUE, updated and sourced to the NYTimes. It is not his behavior that should be analyzed. ^{Atsme📞📧} 02:40, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

A short block is not a sufficient sanction for Factchecker's BLUDGEONing of the discussion, and now you, too, are talking about content and not behavior. Stop that, you know damn well that's not the purpose of AN, and that being "right" on a content matter is no excuse for transgressive behavior.

BTW, Wikipedia is not about "fairness" to its editors, it's about building an encyclopedia using specific rules to help guarantee neutrality and accuracy. One of those rules is that we don't allow one editor to hammer on multiple others until they get their way. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:12, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

you know damn well that's not the purpose of AN, and that being "right" on a content matter is no excuse for transgressive behavior. Actually it routinely is for established editors, although it shouldn't be, and you spend enough time around ANI to know that "damn well". ―Mandruss ☎ 05:26, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps so, but Factchecker was, has been, and remains a problematic and disruptive editor, so that standard would never apply to them, Such editors do not not, and should not, get the "benefit of the doubt" that "vested" editors perhaps do, at times. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:17, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting your position. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:30, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: I am a highly competent and experienced editor who contributes to the constructive development of encyclopedia articles, using neutrally worded and carefully attributed references to top fact and opinion sources.

You have had no involvement in any of these articles or discussions—you are just mad at me over some stupid content disputes from years ago and are taking this opportunity to seek sanctions against me. Factchecker_atyourservice 14:53, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

My lack of involvement makes me a neutral third-party observer. As for the dispute we had, which, as you say, was years ago, the only thing it has to do with this is that it alerted me at the time to the nature of your editing; otherwise I have not thought of it, or you, in the years between. Numerous editors can testify that I don't carry a grudge, and that I'm quite willing to bury the hatchet and re-establish friendly relations with editors I've had disputes with, so my analysis of your behavior has nothing to do with that past disagreement. I sincerely believe that it would be beneficial to the project, and allow collaboration to proceed in a normal and collegial manner, if you were banned from editing about Trump. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:26, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I have found FActchecker to be highly dishonest with a tenancy to misrepresent both sources and users. Even when he agrees to comprise is in a tone that implies it is neither final, nor gracious (and by his actions shows that it is never final, he just rewords it and raises it again). He is prone to making PA's and accusations of bias. Simply (over this issue, not idea about anywhere else) he has a totally battleground mentality. His constant raising of the same issue is a time waster, made worse by his other problems.Slatersteven (talk) 09:12, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

This alleged "dishonesty" on my part is just extremely poor reading comprehension on your part. You literally sat there and argued that newspapers couldn't be used as fact sources and when I told you you were wrong, you actually made me go dig up the policy! And even after I cited WP:NEWSORG you still argued that a top news desk shouldn't be used as fact sourcing, just because you didn't like what the source said.

Talk about grasping at straws for purposes of filibustering content you didn't like . . . Factchecker_atyourservice 14:54, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

And that is an example of your dishonesty what I said was that I was [90] objecting because not all RS agree with their assessment (not that they cannot be used for "fact sources"). As I explained to you more then once.Slatersteven (talk) 15:36, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: You're flat-out lying in order to manufacture "evidence" to get me blocked.

Yes, you absolutely falsely claimed newspapers could not be used as fact sources, and you did so repeatedly, and when I pointed out that you were false, you actually demanded that I cite the policy even though it was obviously correct.

Only then did you try to claim that other RS's "disagree" — but as I clearly explained on your user talk page, such "disagreement" does not exist.

So again, this is poor reading comprehension on your part, and now it's dishonesty too as you're claiming you never said newspapers couldn't be used as fact sources—and using that as a supposed example of MY dishonesty!—even though it's clearly established from the diffs that you did exactly what I said. Factchecker_atyourservice 16:03, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Requesting closure of this discussion and move to AE

This is mostly people involved in the topic area arguing with each other. Someone please close this; this isn't going to go anywhere (or atleast easily) without the structure of AE - we have it for a reason in these topic areas. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:32, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Proposal

Note: Per Close, discussion opened here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Factchecker_atyourservice Casprings (talk) 03:00, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Because of his disruptive BATTLEGROUND and IDHT behavior, BLUDGEONing, and POV-pushing at Talk:Trump-Russia dossier, Factchecker_atyourservice is indefinitely topic banned from the subject of Donald Trump, broadly construed, subject to the conditions at WP:TBAN. He may appeal the TBan every 6 months.

As noted below, Factchecker has also violated WP:Casting aspersions in making claims about other editors and refusing to back up the claims with evidence, and has utilized personal attacks and near-personal attacks as well. These are yet additional aspects of their BATTLEGROUND behavior. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:33, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support - as proposer. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:21, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

A petty attempt at revenge involving articles and content disputes you have had zero involvement in. Factchecker_atyourservice 14:56, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

That's correct, I have zero involvement in the article, which makes me a neutral third party observer, not a partisan of either side. Had I been on the side that opposes you, you would of course have written that I was prejudiced, which would, in your view, have invalidated the proposal. Further, I feel compelled to warn you that BLUDGEONing this discussion, on an Administrators' noticeboard, is a perilous path for you to take, given the behavior which the proposed sanction is based on. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:15, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

It makes you a sniper with a grudge, who can't articulate anything I have done wrong. Factchecker_atyourservice 19:20, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support BMK analysis is usually spot on. Legacypac (talk) 09:18, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Justify your vote or strike it please. Factchecker_atyourservice 14:55, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose as not necessary. All conduct issues in this topic area need to go through AE. Mr Ernie (talk) 15:31, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree' this needs to go to AE.Slatersteven (talk) 15:43, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

From a purely procedural note, that is not the case. The community is free to make any restrictions it wants on any editor, and does not have to use the arbitration enforcement mechanism. Individual admins are also free to act unilaterally and impose discretionary sanctions without the need for AE assuming that the awareness criteria have been met and he or she believes that sanctions are warranted (that is the "discretionary" bit of discretionary sanctions: they are imposed at the discretion of individual administrators). I have no comment on this issue as a whole, but I did want to point out the procedural points here. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:11, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

AE is, of course, an option, but I do not see any reason why the community cannot deal with the behavioral problems of disruptive editors on its own. If there is no community consensus on this, then, certainly, it should be brought to AE for adjudication under discretionary sanctions. This, however, is not necessarily a DS issue per se, but a garden-variety instance of editorial misbehavior. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:19, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm of the mind that the "community" may not be fully aware of what editors are facing, or the circumstances surrounding the added DS restrictions, whereas admins who are familiar with/have imposed the sanctions have better insight into what these pile-ons actually represent which may be lacking at the customary noticeboards - the latter of which affords every editor who holds a grudge against or has a history with the targeted editor to pile on. Yes, I strongly believe political articles are among the most controversial articles we have to deal with...and certainly unlike anything I've ever had to deal with in the past. ^{Atsme📞📧} 17:42, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

That's certainly a valid concern, but my view is that Factchecker's behavior is per se unacceptable on Wikipedia, not because of the the discretionary sanctions which have been levied on this subject area. I see this as all the more reason for the community to deal with it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:23, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

BMK, he only recently came off his block by NeilN, and has been hammered-on, goaded and baited ever since his return...for no good reason. This is clearly a railroad-style pile-on....and it appears to be based on what he has already served time for doing which is just plain wrong. He has done nothing to deserve this kind of treatment, and if he had, I would not be speaking in his behalf. The behavior of other editors at those same articles have been far worse so before we judge him after only 2 days after a block, let's see some evidence that shows behavior worthy of a TB - and I mean evidence that goes beyond IDONTLIKEIT so you can't include that material which is not only annoying to an editor who is trying to improve an article, it is downright noncompliant with NPOV. Others have demonstrated far worse behavior, believe me. ^{Atsme📞📧} 19:39, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: Your proposed topic ban says I am guilty of "POV pushing" but that is an argument usually reserved for efforts to put marginal opinion POVs into an article—is it common to topic ban an editor for arguing that a BLP article about someone accused of crimes should reflect baseline fact reporting about the accusations? No, I don't think it is. Factchecker_atyourservice 19:48, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

TonyBallioni With conduct issues in this topic area the AN and ANI threads usually turn into a back and forth between the same editor groups as on the article talk pages. I think AE is much better suited to look at issues in AmPol. I recognize procedurally that the community at large could deal with this. Mr Ernie (talk) 20:09, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support I see evidence of POV pushing in the two threads I looked at (The "Miller's questions" and "No public evidence" threads) along with the unconstructive behavior outlined above. FCAYS is, in my opinion, not the only problematic editor in the Trump topic area, which would be well served by the removal of partisans from both camps but every little bit helps. Jbh ^Talk 16:57, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - this is clearly railroading of an editor, and it needs to stop. There is evidence of baiting and STONEWALLING so a boomerang may be in order for Slatersteven as I indicated in this diff and evidence of CIR when he stonewalled again with an absurd question here, and made this absurd recommendation to file here. There are no clean hands in these political articles, and what we're seeing here is an attempt to eliminate opposition, one by one, and that actually does hurt the project because it threatens NPOV. ^{Atsme📞📧} 17:06, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Did I, a claim was made (that there is evidence that trump was set up by the Democrats) I asked for proof, I was then given a lot of stuff about some FBI agent that made little or no connection to the dossier (the subject of the article), or to the Democrats (i could not see any). I then point this out and am given more sources that discus the dossier, and references to an FBI mole (but not the democrats). It is true that I asked also for sources for the claim the FBI mole and the dossier were linked, but that is because that thread is meandering all over the place discussing about half a dozen things at one, most of which are only intangibly linked. It is getting had to tell who has said what about what, and this is one of the issues touched on above about bludgeoning users into submission.Slatersteven (talk) 17:45, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, you did Slatersteven, read your own contradictory statements - they're juxtaposed and easy to find - and tone down the goading and stonewalling behavior. After I demonstrated RS to you, you continued with your absurd rhetoric and goading behavior. ^{Atsme📞📧} 17:58, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support and also support a TBAN of BullRangifer (from "Donald Trump", not from AP2 as a whole). While there are other troublesome editors, these two are the most troublesome by volume, and have a mutual IBAN already. power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:21, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely not, power~enwiki. All BR needs is the occasional reminder by an admin to tone down his bias. Yes, he has a strong POV and yes, he needs to stop obsessing over Trump and the conspiracy theories circulating around his administration, but BR can be reasoned with in a civil fashion, and I'm saying that based on first-hand experience. ^{Atsme📞📧} 17:49, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

The "strong POV", "obsessing over Trump", and "bias" are exactly why I feel a TBAN would be beneficial to the project. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:28, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support The bludgeoning at article talk continues even as this discussion takes place, suggesting the editor has not taken any of this discussion to heart. Indeed, today the editor started yet another section now discussing the same subject, and appears to have violated an IBAN again.[91] Even during this survey, the editor attacks one editor and asks another to justify or strike their !vote. O3000 (talk) 18:19, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

"started yet another section now discussing the same subject" Is not a straightforward or honest way of describing that talk section about a brand new edit totally ignoring a months old content dispute that was still ongoing. That would be like if I had just stepped in and forcibly added the quotes from New York Times or Washington Post or BBC even though I knew there was objection, and even put it in the lead for good measure! This was obviously contrary to the general practice is that people stop editing the disputed subject area until the dispute is resolved. Factchecker_atyourservice 19:24, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Yet another violation of your iBan against discussing my edits. You comment on it and even link to it! You were the only one who later objected to it, and you even dared to delete it. Not good. It was totally new and different content only tangentially related to any previous discussion. --BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 03:37, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Even if it is a vio of his iban, and because his iban involves commenting about your edits, do you really think it's acceptable or even ethical for you to goad him into commenting about you? There was a proposal above in this thread for you to receive a sanction as well ("these two are the most troublesome by volume") and now you're just proving the need for such a sanction. After seeing what you've just done, I couldn't agree more with the proposer that you also be looked at. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 03:46, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Winkelvi, there was no "goading" above (or before about FCAYS). That's all in your head and an assumption of bad faith. He does not have to respond to my comment above, and in fact MUST NOT respond. That's what an Iban is about. It's not allowed. I wouldn't have written anything if he hadn't violated the iBan. I only pointed out the iBan violation. His responding would just be a repetition of the violation, which I see happened below. Just stop mentioning me, my edits, etc. That's all. It's never done is a pleasant manner. He always assumes the worst about me. That's why the iBan was put in place on FCAYS, not on me (it's a one-way iBan), although I try to avoid responding to him, and when I do, I'm very civil and stick to the subject. No commenting on him as an editor.

BTW, my essay was inspired by totally different events and it started before and apart from anything FCAYS did or said. Contrary to what he writes below, it was not written "about" FCAYS. It was never specifically about him or mentioned him. It mostly describes the tendentious editing of a number of his fellow travelers, those who actually did, and occasionally do, post unreliable sources at Wikipedia, such as Daily Caller, Townhall, Breitbart, etc. Yes, they actually try to use them in discussions. One just did it again today. I never said that FCAYS did it, but they assumed I was writing about them personally and then started attacking me, or as put below, "got mad". Hey, that can happen, just don't keep doing it. Once again, my essay is not an "attack essay" and never was, and is not, "about" FCAYS personally. It's advice about editors who use very unreliable sources at Wikipedia. That's all. To continue to personalize it is bad faith. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 06:12, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

The iban itself was the result of goading--because he wrote an attack essay about me after I first posted on the dossier page, insulted me with it dishonestly at Jimbo's talk page, and I got mad. Factchecker_atyourservice 04:02, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Bull, your claims that the essay wasn't directed at me are transparently false. When I posted a talk page section titled "Sourcing and POV issues" at the dossier page complaining about the source and POV skew, just 4 days later you wrote up this blistering essay declaring "If your personal POV is based on unreliable sources, unlike the ones we use in Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and Trump–Russia dossier, then you will likely disagree with those articles and run afoul of our disdain for fringe editors who push pro-Trump/GOP/Russia conspiracy theories." Almost literally saying, you read fringe sources if you disagree with the current tone of this article. Then, when I posted about the same issue on Jimbo Wales talk page, you first responded that "Forum shopping this content dispute to Jimbo's page is not helpful. Wikipedia does not cater to what Jimmy Wales calls "lunatic charlatans", nor does it allow advocacy of fringe points of view, so the fact that fringe believers don't like these Trump-Russia-investigation articles shows that we must be doing something right. While his words were directed at quackery and pseudoscience, they apply just as much to fringe political POV and conspiracy theories. Instead of allowing your thinking to be influenced by the Daily Caller, InfoWars, and Breitbart, get your information from RS. If the information they present becomes the subject of RS coverage, then, and only then, will we present it as sensible content, and not as fringe content with little mention". Clearly and obviously claiming that I read those sources and I'm being influenced them, although you of course did not include the whole extended list from your essay, "OAN, Drudge Report, Breitbart News, Newsmax, RedState, InfoWars, The Daily Wire, The Daily Caller, TheBlaze, WorldNetDaily (birther central), The Gateway Pundit, LifeZette, The American Spectator, Real News Update (Trump TV), RT, Sputnik, Zero Hedge."

You then launched into an even lengthier diatribe against me, again on Jimbo's talk page, burying my completely legitimate complaint having zero to do with fringe sources:

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Let's be clear about what's happening here. Those who object the most are editors who refuse to accept the RS-based conclusions that the Russians did interfere in the election, and that the Mueller investigation is a corrupt deep state plot to unseat Trump. To them it's all a nothingburger without evidence. To them, Breitbart, Daily Caller, InfoWars, Fox News, RT, Sputnik, Trump, and Putin are the only arbiters of "truth", and they use Wikipedia as their battlefield to fight for their "truth". Their efforts are literally an extension of Trump's real world battle against all forms of information and journalism which dares report anything negative against him. Wikipedia is not free from such efforts. They also believe that accusations against Russia and Trump are all a conspiracy theory concocted and sold by the mainstream media, which they consider fake news. They believe it's all a witch hunt against Trump and his campaign, not serious journalists doing their job, which includes documenting Trump's myriad self-inflicted wounds. They believe that the FBI, CIA, James Comey, and Robert Mueller are totally evil, corrupt, and engaged in a coup against Trump. This is the extreme right-wing view. These are the types of editors who object and obstruct the most on all our Trump-related articles. They are fringe political editors, many of whom should be topic banned. They operate with an ad hoc, policy-violating, "Trump Exemption" mentality, which means that anything negative about Trump, no matter how reliably sourced and notable, is fake news and must pass a much higher bar for inclusion than for any other public figure, politician, or president. This is the reality on these articles, and much of their argumentation is actually IDONTLIKEIT wikilawyering. It's rare that they actually make substantive attempts to present actual edit suggestions. They just complain....endlessly, and now it's spilled over to here. Mind you, there are a few Trump supporters who make serious attempts to edit collaboratively, but they are few, and they actually succeed in getting change because, rather than just complain, they use RS and follow policy.

So like I said, the intent of writing that essay and referring to it in order to shut down my question to Jimbo was unmistakeably to make a personal attack against me and discredit my question. Factchecker_atyourservice 06:53, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• Strong support per the bludgeoning and vitriolic comments at at least two articles I'm involved with, as well as in this very discussion. - MrX 🖋 18:28, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support widely construed sanctions and possible further referrals. Andrevan@ 19:23, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

• REQUEST FOR CLOSE - what I'm seeing is the railroading of an editor who just served a 32 hour block starting the 15th and has not repeated that behavior, has stayed on topic with his comments at the article TPs, and yet he being accused now of misbehavior without a single diff that supports such a claim. The diff provided above by Objective3000 does not provide one iota of evidence of any disruption. I respectfully request that the admins reviewing this discussion notice the lack of diffs which makes the claims aspersions, and to take this information into consideration. Please read FCAYS response to NeilN on May 18th, and I will add that Neil has done a darn good job of keeping things under control at the Trump articles, and is well aware of the rampant misbehavior by several editors. Please consider that there must be a reason no diffs are being provided, and from where I sit as an editor who has tried to defuse situations, the lack of diffs is dubious. ^{Atsme📞📧} 20:03, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

• Considering that the !vote at this moment stands at 7 supports and 3 opposes, there does not seem to be any reasonable standard under which a close is appropriate. The community is considering the matter, and a consensus will either develop, one way or the other, or it won't. Closing at this point, after less than 24 hours, would be a peremptory supervote. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:08, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

• You know I've always been respectful toward you, BMK, but the iVote count is insignificant without diffs - there is absolutely nothing to measure behavior against except aspersions which is not allowed in the first place. Considering the targeted editor has not even had a full 2 days of editing after coming off his block by NeilN, this whole discussion appears to be a stab at double jeopardy and should not be allowed. That is why I moved for it to be closed. ^{Atsme📞📧} 23:46, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I don’t understand why you keep repeating the argument that FACT has just come off a block, and therefore should be treated more kindly. Fact is, when you come off a block, that’s where you are likely to be examined for continuing the behavior that resulted in the block. Plus, you’re correct it’s only three days. But, the editor, by my count, has made 231 edits in that short period, a very large percentage of which have been battleground in nature, including edits on this page. O3000 (talk) 00:10, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

For the record, that sanction arose out of me complaining about obvious PAs and an attack essay on the user's talk page rather than filing at AE, and then the resulting block was for the related offense of not respecting an editor's right to blank a DS sanctions accusation on his own user talk even though an admin had been pinged in and it was clearly an attack in violation of DS. Factchecker_atyourservice 00:15, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Ah, so the previous block was also unjust. Realize that your comments here do you no favors. O3000 (talk) 00:20, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

I didn't say it was unjust, I didn't say that to Neil (although I disputed the IBAN itself), and I didn't appeal the block. I'm just saying that the behavior that resulted in the block revolved around me reverting a user on his own talk page because I thought Neil was about to join the discussion there and blanking the discussion seemed like an attempt to avoid DS sanctions. And that was over a user who insulted JFG pointlessly. It had nothing to do with my Trump dossier editing. Factchecker_atyourservice 01:55, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose – Is this what some people call a kangaroo court? Let the complainants build a case at WP:AE, with diffs and due process. If the evidence against this editor is so overwhelming, any appropriate sanctions will be easily justified. If the above concerns turn out to be mostly aspersions and not liking what this editor says, or that he talks too much, that should come to light as well. — JFG ^talk 20:13, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

It's always seemed odd to me that any attempt by the community to deal with egregious behaviorial problems – which, by their very nature, are apt to bring forth numerous editors who wish to put an end to the disruption – are opposed as being a "lynching party", "mob justice" or a "kangaroo court." The comparisons drawn are entirely inapt, as those actions occur outside the law, while, on the other hand, under Wikipedia's rules and norms, it is entirely within the community's purview to deal with unruly and disruptive editors in this manner. One can certainly disagree on the basis of there not being enough evidence to justify the proposed sanction, but to say that the proposed action itself is outside the law is absurd. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:03, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

"Egregious behavior problems" like trying to quote New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, etc. Factchecker_atyourservice 21:08, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

No, like BLUDGEONing, IDHT, and POV-pushing, as stated in the proposal. My mother used to say to me: "It's not what you said, but how you said it" after I had smart-mouthed her and gotten my just rewards for doing so. Similarly, it's not your position that is the problem, but how you go about pressing it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:12, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I look for relevant sources, I fill out citation templates, I post suggested paraphrases and quotes, and then I debate people's responses. Factchecker_atyourservice 21:30, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

• Strong oppose per all comments above by Atsme. This is a railroading job, plain and simple. And yes, I'll use the term "witch hunt" and "lynching" to describe it, as well. Shameful, really. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 21:16, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I missed "witch hunt" and "railroading" as pejoratives applied to almost any community attempt to deal with tendentious editors, but objective observers can see Factchecker's behavioral problems right here in this very discussion: "You're flat-out lying", "That makes you a sniper", "A petty attempt at revenge", and similar remarks they've posted here are personal attacks or near-personal attacks, and this appears to be how Factchecker approach disputes.

In any case, I've said my piece, so unless there's something particularly important to respond to, I'll try not to respond again. The community has the evidence it needs -- indeed, all that is required is reading Talk:Trump-Russia dossier -- and can make its decision without any further opinions from me. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:25, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I said he was "flat-out lying" because he was flat-out lying in order to try to get me blocked, and the diffs showed that. Factchecker_atyourservice 21:31, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support per BMK's analysis and the combative behavior on display in this thread. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 21:38, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support per BMK. I came here thinking a warning would be fine, but it is clear this is long term behavior.Casprings (talk) 21:53, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comment a majority of the votes are by WP:INVOLVED editors on Donald Trump-related topics. This discussion may need a separate vote of editors that consider themselves uninvolved. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:00, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Procedural/policy note. INVOLVED does not apply to non-admins and certainly doesn't apply to topic ban discussions.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:01, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Bbb23, what about casting aspersions per Wikipedia:Casting_aspersions? Show me the diffs or close this case. I want to see the dates because we're getting into double jeopardy territory considering he hasn't been editing a full 2 days (give or take) since Neil's block expired - began May 15 for 32 hours - making the expire date sometime on May 17. ^{Atsme📞📧} 23:53, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Atsme: The proximate cause of NeilN's block of Factchecker had to do with reverting an edit on a user's talk page. It had, as far as I can tell, little if anything to do with his behavior on Talk:Trump-Russia dossier, which is what this discussion is about. There's no "double jeopardy" here, and no requirement that all evidence date from after his block was over, since that block is unrelated to the specific issues currently under discussion. He has not, in any way, "served his time" for his behavior on that article talk page, so you really need to stop citing that 32-hour block as a reason why a topic ban shouldn't be levied, as the scope of this proposal is far more general than the specific incidents which triggered that block. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:30, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

power~enwiki, I don't agree that there's a problem with the !votes of those !voting/commenting, but I do have to wonder if you're considering the oppose !votes as coming from involved editors or the support !votes coming from involved editors (or maybe both?). -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 22:16, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

The only two !votes I'm fairly sure aren't involved are Jbhunley and Andrevan, and I'm not 100% confident of that. This thread is chock full of the usual suspects on American Politics topics. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:42, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Power~enwiki: "The usual suspects"...? What the hell is that supposed to mean? I don't know about anyone else -- well, most everyone else who edits the AP2 articles -- but I know I always edit those articles, all articles, with the best intentions. I'm really hoping you were innocently and without malice using a turn of phrase and not actually being as accusatory as your choice of of words sounds. But as of this moment, I don't really think you were. Can you allay my fears and walk it back? -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 22:50, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, I have never edited an article involving Donald Trump, although I did !vote in the RfC on Talk:Trump-Russia dossier. I rarely edit articles which fall under the American politics discretionary sanctions, with the exception of those related to neo-Nazism, similar hate groups, and the Alt-right. (I'm sure there must be other exceptions that I don't recall, but the point is that contemporary American politics is not in any way central to my editing.) Given this, I don't believe I qualify as a "usual suspect" -- but even if I were, as Bbb23 points out, for an editor to work in that subject area does not invalidate their opinions about the editing behavior of other Wikipedians. To insist that only those who aren't familiar with a topic should be qualified to express their views about someone's editing in that subject area simply is not supported by any Wikipedia policy, guideline, rule or norm that I am aware of. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:17, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

That is why I have not voted, and why I think AE is the way to go.Slatersteven (talk) 22:11, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Cullen, Factchecker is just trying to deflect arrows - he's not being combative. He's been stonewalled, goaded, taunted, mistreated, and blocked on May 15th but some are not satisfied with their 1000 pounds of flesh - this is only the 3rd day after his block expired and here we are with similar attacks against him for no good reason and no diffs to support the claims. So what exactly is influencing these support decisions?? All I see are aspersions. I am truly dismayed to see this pile-on without a single diff - it's railroading at its finest. Factchecker attempted to add an accurate, well sourced statement into a highly controversial article that is suffering from noncompliance with NPOV, Coatrack, NOTNEWS and is weighted heavily with unsupported allegations and conspiracy theories. Show me the diffs dated May 17th and later that support the claims of misbehavior by this editor or close this discussion. Cullen, you know full well that political articles are not a fun place to edit - this case is evidence of why - politics brings out the ugly in a society's behavioral norms - it doesn't matter how well-behaved or misbehaved one is because apparently what matters is one's political POV, and how many editors agree with it - and worst of all, it now appears that diffs are not required to condemn an editor. 😞 ^{Atsme📞📧} 22:31, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Atsme, this editor called BMK "a sniper with a grudge" and it is difficult for me to think of a more combative remark than that. I am well aware that politics is controversial but I disagree profoundly with your claim that "it doesn't matter how well-behaved or misbehaved one is". I have spent nine years here trying my best to be well-behaved even when provoked by credible threats of violence against innocent members of my family. I expect every editor of every political persuasion to maintain good behavior, and do not think that I am being unreasonable. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 23:44, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

He has repeatedly surfaced in discussions to recommend I be blocked, never with any concrete discussion of why, how my proposals amount to "POV pushing", just a general me-too. When things get posted on an admin board it is common for uninvolved people to show up and vote against a person, but he has sought out opportunities to do so, never with any substantive contribution, just a pile-on vote. He is speaking quite loudly for me to be topic banned, yet where are the diffs of my attempts to subvert content policies? Please also see here. Factchecker_atyourservice 23:53, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

@Factchecker atyourservice: I would appreciate your providing diffs of my "repeatedly" recommending that you be blocked. If you are unable to provide this evidence, I will be adding violations of WP:Casting aspersions to the list of your BATTLEGROUND behaviors. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:18, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

You may demand sanctions as you will, but I am not going to go hunting down diffs unless you deny that the claim is true. Do you deny it? Factchecker_atyourservice 00:22, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, you made the claim, it's your responsibility to back it up with evidence. If you don't, you're in straightforward violation of policy. But, since you ask: Yes, I have stopped beating my dog ... I mean, no, I have not stopped beating my dog. What I mean is, I don't have a dog, but you now have two more counts of BATTLEGROUND behaviors added to the proposal based on your comments in this thread: casting aspersions, and personal attacks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:39, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Here we go.

Once upon a time, I made some comments at an Arbcom case trying to defend User:Collect from a sanctions drive—note, Collect is himself somebody I used to have many conflicts with at an article about Sarah Palin—and that apparently rubbed you the wrong way, Ken. You then participated in an effort to have me blocked, in which you were very abusive and pointlessly hostile and berated me based on entirely imagined viewpoints you thought I had, as well as engaging in allllllllllllllllll kinds of nasty taunting and other venomous responses, reams of them, over the evidence phase in the case, as well as sniping at people who tried to defend me from the sanctions case.

For some, such as MrX, who compiled most of the diffs in that case, the arguments and diffs in that discussion, and my angry responses to what I regarded as mischaracterizations and hostility will just be more evidence that I should be banned.

To others, passages like the following, wherein BMK speculates insultingly (and absurdly wrongly) about what I think and believe, will illustrate that the motivations and abusive conduct behind that attempt to sanction me precisely parallel the driving force behind today's application to relieve the community of me.

Think to yourself, imagine being a democrat, a liberal but not a progressive, who has read the NYT for nearly two decades (at the time), having the following lobbed at you—how would you not get angry in response?

Let me answer a question with a question: Do you grasp that your perception of what is an "improper leftist-POV edit" is almost totally based on your own political position? (In fact, there are no "leftists" in mainstream American politics, hasn;t been for many, many decades. Unless, of course, you're Fox News, the Washngton Times or the Teabaggers, in which case anything more liberal than Genghis Khan counts as a socialist.) The edits in question aren't undoing "improper" "leftist" edits, they're instituting conservative views that only look balanced to you because of where you stand.

Actually, I'll answer my question for you - no, you don't see that, and you can't see that, because you are blinded by the fantasy of left-wing hit squads keeping Wikipedia safe for Marxist-Leninist-Maoism. It's actually very, very sad, but it will make for some interesting reading when the history of these times is written in the future. (But, then again, it'll be academics writing those histories, and I guess they're eve worse than politicians. Some of them are still even (*gasp*) socialists! Better go wash yourself, it can't be easy reading that.) BMK (talk) 07:13, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

As above, this is non-responsive and unnecessarily hostile. Why are you even here? Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_blah_blah_blah) (talk) (contribs) 11:54, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Lots more like that. Recurring players and arguments on multiple fronts. And unlike today's filing, all kinds of diffs of me being bad! I've saved everybody some work. Factchecker_atyourservice 01:59, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Wonderful. We've already established that we had a dispute some time back, and now you've shown what that was, and when it was -- 3 years ago. But you said above that I repeatedly popped up to try to get you blocked. [92] Can we please have the diffs (not excerpts, please) for those repeated incidents? Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:14, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Could someone please re-collapse the unnecessarily excerpts Factcheker posted in lieu of diffs? Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:49, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Awwww...Cullen, you are such a sweetie. Yes, "sniper with a grudge" is a bit harsh - I respect BMK - but c'mon - Factchecker is in a foxhole under heavy artillery fire at this drama board. Just the other day I was cursed at and accused of having balls (not sure if I should take it as a compliment or insult 💃). What was said to me is what I consider disruptive - it hurt right down to the core because I have always tried to show respect to that editor - but this case is more a case of editors trying to rid themselves of opposition at a highly controversial political article for things that don't even register on the offensive scale. I sure didn't run to AE or AN crying weee-weee-weee all the way home. C'mon...how is this case not considered double jeopardy and Wikipedia:Casting_aspersions? There has not been one diff provided to support the allegations dated after the time he already served which was only a short 2 or 3 days ago. NeilN has been monitoring his regularly. You know I'm not one to get involved at the drama boards but this case is just not right and the lack of diffs prove it. ^{Atsme📞📧} 00:14, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

"Factchecker is in a foxhole under heavy artillery fire..." Atsme: such an attitude is the epitome of having a BATTLEGROUND approach toward editing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:07, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

C'mon Atsme, clearly you've got bigger balls than Hillary, and she's got bigger balls than Bill! Also my butt looks just like a firm, heavenly peach. Factchecker_atyourservice 00:18, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't think what Hillary and I have in common are referred to as balls but I'm pretty sure mine are bigger but this isn't the kind of "weight" issue we discuss on WP. Oh, and your other claims require citations to RS or you can upload published images at Commons under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 license...a talent release is not required unless it resembles a face. ^{Atsme📞📧} 00:40, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - Unnecessary and unwarranted. How many places at once are we going to request sanctions? This is getting a little ridiculous. PackMecEng (talk) 23:33, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

• Where else are sanctions against Factchecker being considered? Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:21, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: They were brought up at at WP:AE in SPECIFICO's report here by Casprings. The person that opened this thread. PackMecEng (talk) 01:45, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I had not seen that. Casprings' comment there was primarily about countering Factchecker's comment by saying that he didn't come there with clean hands, but it is true that he suggested that Factchecker should be sanctioned. However, the way that AE works, such a suggestion would be ignored, because it (the suggestion of sanctions) is irrelevant to the question that is being considered there. Although it hasn't happened yet, the standard response to such a comment would be that Casprings should file a separate report. In any case, it wasn't a formal request for sanctions, although I do agree that things would be cleaner if Casprings hadn't made that part of his remarks in that venue, since it opens them up to claims of WP:Forum shopping. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:59, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

BMK, don't forget he's already done time for offenses prior to 05/15/2018 so the diffs you need should be dated when he came back sometime on 05/17/2018 excluding this drama board. ^{Atsme📞📧} 00:32, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

That turns out not to be the case, as I explained in a comment above. Please read the proposal again - the sanction is suggested for the entirety of Factchecker's behavior on Talk:Trump-Russia dossier, while the block was issued for general disruptive editing, but was triggered -- according to NeilN's explanation on Factchecker's talk page -- for reverting an edit on another user's talk page. Those are different issues. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:42, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

In parts of the Southwest, they had a policy that a speeding ticket was “good for all day”. That is, if you get a speeding ticket, that’s a ticket that allows you to speed for the rest of the day. Afraid that doesn’t work here. As for: How many places at once are we going to request sanctions?, I would say as many as are needed. O3000 (talk) 00:44, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Hmmm: "as many as are needed"? Sounds like a new type of forum-shopping, to me (just over a period of days rather than minutes). Also sounds pretty punitive, rather than preventative, too. Which brings us back to the witch-hunt/railroading tone and theme to this whole thing that was dismissed above (and too quickly, it would now seem). -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 00:52, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Where did I say you are allowed to use more than one forum for the same complaint? In fact, isn’t that exactly what some here have suggested as their positions aren’t in the majority?. O3000 (talk) 01:02, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

O3000 - you actually supported my point. The diffs we need now are those that reflect misbehavior after the recent block date or you're in double jeopardy territory. How many times is he going to be blocked for the same offenses? NO, that is not how it works, it is not right and should not be happening here now. I shudder to think our policies would even work that way. That would be like saying we can go back in the history of any editor who recently returned from a block and prove they've been disruptive based only on their disruptive past which got them blocked earlier - THAT. IS. PUNISHMENT. The fabricated disruption editors are complaining about now is what needs diffs, not diffs that he's already been blocked over. ^{Atsme📞📧} 01:04, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

No idea what you are talking about. We are clearly talking about his behavior, both on article talk and on this page, after the block ended. I really don’t see the need for diffs in this section since we are in this section. A petty attempt at revenge, It makes you a sniper with a grudge, Justify your vote or strike it please, he was flat-out lying in order to try to get me blocked Add to that his edit claiming his prior block was not right, which means his lack of understanding of the purpose of his previous block is very much a matter of concern. As you say, blocks are not punitive, they are designed to provide time for introspection. The prior block didn’t work, and is therefore grist. O3000 (talk) 01:15, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support - I recently told FCAYS that [some of] his participation at Talk:Donald Trump has been the most verbally abusive we've seen there in recent memory. My position has always been and will forever remain that that kind of thing is a net negative, even when one is right on content, which is a matter of dispute here. Wikipedia editing should not be a street fight, and it all too often is. I have not been involved at the article in question but I doubt FCAYS's behavior is significantly worse at Trump. I'll produce as much "evidence" to support my position as do those claiming kangaroo court, lynching, witch hunt, railroading, and pile-on—no less, and no more. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:59, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

The editors that called this a “lynch mob” would do well to listen to Strange Fruit a few hundred times for some perspective. And, we also know where Witch-hunt came from. After all, isn’t that what we’re here for? O3000 (talk) 02:28, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Burn the heretic! They turned me into a newt! Luckily I got better though. PackMecEng (talk) 02:38, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

I wasn't as lucky: they didn't turn me into a newt they turned me into an oldt. Now I have to have 4 knee replacements. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:44, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, all historians know the term came from Monty Python. O3000 (talk) 02:51, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Yet another example of Wikipedia's bias, I found not mention of Monty Python in the Witch-hunt article. No mention of how they float, their want to turn people into newts, or their relation with ducks. This is the world we live in sadly. PackMecEng (talk) 03:02, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose Procedurally since this should be done at AE. Seriously folks...this nonstop wall of back and forth bickering is ridiculous. This thread should be closed and everyone go get some sleep.--MONGO 02:33, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• Tony Ballioni has already said that there's no procedural reason that this must be at AE. That you think it's not worthwhile to pursue it here is a perfectly reasonable opinion, but there's no policy reason why it can't be. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:41, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• Table Because FCAYS and their supporters (coughAtsmecough) so vociferously want to shift the issue to ArbEnforcement I suggest that their request be entertained at Arb Enforcement under the AP2 heading. All that was asked for initially was a Topic ban on Donald Trump topics, now the die has been cast and all of American Politics or WP as a whole. Stay this discussion for 2 weeks for an ArbEnforcement petition to wind it's way through. If the ArbEnforcement doesn't come up with a conclusion this discussion be resumed without prejudice (i.e. no claims of Double Jeopardy). A conclusion could be "Punt back to AN because the community can sort through this without resorting to AE remedies". Hasteur (talk) 02:49, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Hasteur, you really should do something about that cough. I heard the grass pollen count in our area was high today. Oh, and I just learned that May is Allergy & Asthma Awareness Month to promote clean air. Let’s help by clearing the air right here, and end this discussion. It’s bad enough knowing tomorrow is Monday and the weekend is over without prolonging the agony here. ^{Atsme📞📧} 05:50, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• If this was tabled and the issue was brought to AE, could Factchecker's behavior in this thread be included as part of the evidence? If not, then I think it would be better to leave it here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:53, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

I didn't say I want it at AE. My primary desires are (1) to have the Trump dossier articles discuss RS analysis about collusion evidence and (2) not being topic banned. Factchecker_atyourservice 02:55, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• Well, I guess it’s a “be careful what you wish for” scenario. My guess is that by the end of an AE filing it would result in both an AP2 TBan and a block. But, it would also be a time-sink, not even counting the appeals. The way I look at it, is that if the community can come to consensus, why bother AE? Or, an admin could just apply a sanction on normal DS grounds, not even counting the IBan vios. But, this stuff is over my pay grade and why I’m happy to be bitless. O3000 (talk) 03:07, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• @Beyond My Ken: In my mind, yes as being directly to the cause of Disruptive conduct with respect to AP2 germane topics. @Factchecker atyourservice: Sorry, but your supporters have made a quite compelling case for handing out some sanctions under AP2. Your "Truthiness" sources and discussions here alone are enough for me to have made up my mind as to the debate, however I'm wanting to give you and your supporters all the time to prove your case (or tighten the noose) as needed. Hasteur (talk) 03:00, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Sorry Hasteur but I'm not sure what you mean by "truthiness sources"? Have you stumbled into the wrong discussion? Looking for another user, perhaps? Not paying attention to what is going on? Factchecker_atyourservice 03:33, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

"Because FCAYS and their supporters (coughAtsmecough)...I'm wanting to give you and your supporters all the time to prove your case" Excuse me, Hasteur, but sanctions and discussions about same are supposed to be about preventing disruption to the encyclopedia, not bullying and crucifying editors who oppose the sanction being proposed. I have no personal interest in FCAYS as an editor and can hardly be referred to as one of his "supporters" (or detractors - call me Switzerland as far as he's concerned). When I see a wrong being done, because it's my nature to do so, I will always speak out when I see it occurring. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 03:27, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• Move to AE - Talk:Trump-Russia dossier is an absolute horror show. I think the appropriate venue for this to be sorted out is AE. It would not surprise me if the outcome was TBANs for multiple parties (a la the IPA case that was recently closed), because reading through those comments; there is a lot of baiting, tendentiousness, and general unpleasantness. Mr rnddude (talk) 04:18, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose and prefer AE if necessary per those above and to allow the evidence for such a restriction to be formally organized and presented. If sanction(s) are due they can be doled out there. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 05:02, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose: the discussion is not out of control. If it's too complicated then don't participate. That said, there is, perhaps, an argument to move the discussion to Talk:Trump–Russia_dossier#RFC_on_stating_no_public_evidence_of_collusion. But to TBAN an editor just because they are very active at an article is ridiculous. – Lionel^(talk) 06:38, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• Hi, Lionelt. I see that after two failed ANIs you filed against me, resulting in your being excoriated by the community, and following me around a bit, you found another way to poke the bear. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:22, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi Beyond. How's it going? Thanks for the WP:BAIT. I think I'll pass.– Lionel^(talk) 07:45, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Actually, I'm not baiting you, I just wanted the closer of this discussion to understand the ulterior motivation behind your !vote, which is especially obvious considering that only 31 of your 24,000 edits are to WP:AN [93], so it's not like you're a regular contributor here and came across the discussion naturally. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:05, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Please help- who tried to break into my account?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T193769

Please note that receiving one of these notifications does not mean your account was actually compromised or hacked. You may want to review WP:STRONGPASS and WP:SECURITY to ensure you are doing all you can to protect your account, but you do not necessarily need to reset your password. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:53, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Can you please find out who tried to break into my account? It worries me. I want to see if it was someone in my area or other. Alex of Canada (talk) 17:35, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

@Alex of Canada: Someone tried three times several hours ago to get into mine. It happens; as long as you have a secure password you should be fine. Home Lander (talk) 17:40, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

This just happened to me, too. It's not unusual, I get one or two a month, and about once a year, someone makes a whole lot of login attempts. Make sure you have a unique password for Wikipedia. Use a password manager if you don't already. Use multi-factor authentication. Consider changing your password if you are worried (or especially if it wasn't unique). I already have these set up on my account so I just ignore the warnings when they come in. You asked to find out who tried to break into your account. That information is not generally available, I'm afraid. --Yamla (talk) 17:41, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

My password is secure, but I'm worried it might be a hacker who will find out how to get into anyone eventually. Alex of Canada (talk) 17:48, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Best case is to use a unique password here (so if they figure out who you are, can't get into anything else, such as your email) and set up extra measures. A WP:Committed identity would be a good start. Home Lander (talk) 17:53, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

That might be a legitimate worry, but it existed before some person or bot tried to brute-force some Wikipedia accounts. Hacking without guessing the password is a whole different proposition. Related stuff at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#two-factor authorization and User talk:Winkelvi#Compromised account attempt. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:54, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Related discussion at VPT (permalink) with some more detailed information. Seems there's a rash of this today. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:04, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Yep. Two threads at the teahouse on this same subject. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:37, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Just tried and failed with mine. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:43, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Recommend that all admins set up 2-factor auth. Andrevan@ 18:49, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Everyone reviewing WP:STRONGPASS and WP:SECURITY couldn’t hurt either. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:50, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Me, too (in case anyone is keeping track of admin v non-admin attempts). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:59, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Me too. I already asked a question at WP:Village pump (technical)#two-factor authorization. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:02, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

I had this today as well, but I have break-in attempts on a regular basis, with a record of several hundreds per day (not today though).--Ymblanter (talk) 19:15, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

They must like you. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:21, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Got an attempt today as well. SQL^{Query me!} 19:20, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Me as well. Question I should probably know the answer to: can a functionary look up the IP addresses behind these bogus login attempts and implement a technical restriction? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:22, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Technically, yes. Whether it is allowed by the policy I do not know.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:43, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Well, if there's a way to determine that an IP is being used for abusive login attempts, autoblocking that IP for 24 hours is probably a good security practice. Wouldn't stop them hacking an account probably but then at least they wouldn't be able to edit. If our policies don't support that then we should change our policies. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:55, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Me too. Natureium (talk) 19:39, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

First Thursday of every May. Coincidence, perhaps. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:18, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm probably the only editor right now that hasn't had attempted account hacks ...... Not sure if that's a good sign or a bad one lol. –Davey2010^Talk 19:32, 3 May 2018 (UTC) Inevitable happened. –Davey2010^Talk 22:25, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Me too, Davey! --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:24, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• I readily admit I am not the most experienced CU, but I am unaware of how we could look up who attempted and failed at logging in. I’ll ask for further input though in case it’s just something I don’t know about. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:50, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Good point. So all we need to do is all simultaneously set our passwords to "password* for five minutes and simply track 'em down!!? Martinevans123 (talk) 19:56, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, it would take far more access (database?) to determine where this is coming from. If that information is even stored. If this isn't a bot driven thing (which it probably is), then a limiter on logins per IP would be nice as well. Arkon (talk) 20:03, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• I’ve gotten some response form the other functionaries about this, here’s what we’ve got:

• Currently, CU cannot do this
• There is a phabricator thread about notifying the user of the ip of whoever tried to log into their account. It is approved and being worked on but not functional yet
• There is some indication that this is a specifc banned user already familiar to some of the functionaries so it is possible some action will be forthcoming but I’m not sure wat it will be.

Beeblebrox (talk) 20:24, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: There is a way to check it, but it's on Toolforge. The people that have access to it aren't functionaries but more devs I think. There'sNoTime knows more about it. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 09:00, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

• Apparently there have been tens of thousands of failed login attempts over the past few hours. Check this out for some idea of the scope. The back office is aware of this and we cn expect a statement from them in the near future. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:33, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:44, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• Interesting. I got one of those failed login attempt messages too. I changed my password to something stronger and thought nothing else of it until now. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:36, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• I just got a notification that somebody get into mine too.--Crasstun (talk | contributions) 20:44, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
• Me too, and User:SPECIFICO. We were also both targeted at Wikipedia yesterday by the same editor, but no idea if there's any connection. That editor also knows my anon Facebook and Twitter accounts. Strange. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 20:52, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

User:BullRangifer You posted it here on WP when you were talking with some IP who then posted it on my talk page because he saw me arguing with you. Someone tried to access my WP account too. Factchecker_atyourservice 02:05, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. Let's make sure it doesn't spread. I'll seek a revdel. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 03:18, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

• Happened to me this morning. In a way i'm glad it is not an isolated incident.--SamHolt6 (talk) 21:14, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
• It happened to me too at 14:12 UTC today too. L293D (☎ • ✎) 21:32, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
• You may add me to the list of failed hack targets. I have 2FA enabled so I am not overly concerned about my account security. But I am very concerned about what looks like an orchestrated attack on the project. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:03, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
• For what it's worth, someone (the same person?) tried to break into my account just a few hours ago. Adam9007 (talk) 22:07, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

+1 - I felt like the odd one out so kinda glad someone attempted it , Jokes aside why is there a huge influx of password resettings ? ... It doesn't seem all that productive .... –Davey2010^Talk 22:25, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• Happened to me 7 hours ago. Silly culprit; if he was targetting editors with any care, Davey2010 and other big-name users here should have been higher on his priority list than me. No one's ever bothered to try to hack my account before. Sideways713 (talk) 22:48, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
• I got that notification as well, 2 hours ago. theinstantmatrix (talk) 22:57, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Same here, a few hours ago. GoodDay (talk) 23:26, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• Could this be related to today being World Password Day? ^Falling_Gravity 23:39, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• Read up above - I heavily doubt it, since the perpetrator is apparently known to the WMF. As an aside, they tried me as well, but my password's only been strengthened since I was an admin, so they didn't get far. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 23:47, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Me too, although I'm pretty sure who tried doing it... Am i famous now?💵Money💵emoji💵^Talk 23:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• For the first time ever, I received notification that someone had tried to log into my account today. I am not an admin. This needs to be investigated.Smeat75 (talk) 00:09, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

• Read the thread above. I'm fairly certain the WMF is already on it. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 00:11, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

• Russians? ^{Atsme📞📧} 02:11, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

I was waiting for someone to say the Russians :) GoodDay (talk) 02:17, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

• Me too. (And yes, I have two-factor authentication.) Heimstern Läufer (talk) 12:41, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

According to this graph of the Wikimedia User Login Attempts, this account hacking attempt has resumed today and is still continuing, as of this writing. There are a lot more "Throttled logins" today than in yesterday's attacks, which now appears to comprise the vast majority of the latest attack wave. (And yes, this LTA/hacker took a swipe at my account yesterday and a couple more times today.) This is getting ridiculous. LightandDark2000 (talk) 23:30, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

I suspect this attack may have something to do with the recent Twitter password leak [94]. Is it possible that someone has got a copy of this "internal log" and has now got a botnet trying to find Wikipedia accounts that match the Twitter ones? (Yes, I got an attempt against my account too, and no, the other QuietOwl on Twitter is not me, I don't use this username anywhere else, or any social networking site, for that matter.) QuietOwl (talk) 02:48, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Okay, this time, the next attack wave is longer than the first one, and it's still ongoing right now. This can't be a good sign. LightandDark2000 (talk) 06:34, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

A graph depicting the duration and scale of the mass account-breaking attempts in May 2018.

I've added a picture of the graph depicting the mass-cyberattack attempts. I estimate that at least 400,000 accounts may have experienced some attempt to break in. It should be noted that this is the largest account-hacking attempt that Wikimedia has experienced at least in the last 5 years (possibly the largest such attack ever). I also noticed today that the attacks seemed to have stopped. I wonder what happened to the hacker. What's keeping him? ;) LightandDark2000 (talk) 06:22, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Today, only 30 minutes ago, someone (probably the same hacker) tried to break into my account 3 more times. I guess it must have something with me uploading the picture. Though I already hardened my password 2 more times, so it won't really help them at all. What in the hell is wrong with this person? The WMF seriously needs to block the access for the IP network responsible; at least Globally Rangeblock the IP if it will help. LightandDark2000 (talk) 19:56, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Oh, God, they're doing it again! This time the attacks are almost entirely "login throttles". Seriously? Someone needs to block off the IP network hosting the attacks, or at least add in some new firewall rules to Wikimedia Foundation computers if this is some kind of offline attack. LightandDark2000 (talk) 10:40, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

What does "login throttled" mean? Natureium (talk) 16:48, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

I have same problem. Someone is trying to hack my account Lado85 (talk) 08:24, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

I have a suggestion (i am not an admin but thought i'd comment). My account hasn't been targeted (yet), but if it ever does, they won't get very far, my password is not even a word or phrase maybe others should follow suit with their password being a "random" combination of letters and numbers. Lavalizard101 (talk) 11:39, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

PSA: Admins should enable two-factor authentication

As an additional security measure, admins and editors with similar permissions can (and should) use Special:Two-factor authentication to prevent account hijacking. Sandstein 21:51, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)I would gladly use 2FA (and I was also the subject of a hack attempt) if the code was emailed, in addition to (or instead of) being sent to a mobile number. We have a cell phone but it's usually off, but my email is generally available. I may not be the only admin in a similar situation. Miniapolis 22:51, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
  • The code is not send to the mobile phone, it's locally generated (based on time and a secret key) by an app on the phone. I don't know if it works for your use case, but you don't need to have the phone on (except for the very moment of login) or even online. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:51, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
    • Miniapolis YMMV depending on which service you use, but authy has desktop clients for macOS and Windows as well. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:16, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• I really really do not agree, Sandstein. We've had several cases of admins, including technically savvy admins, who have been in despair because they lost their whatsits — I don't remember what they're called — some magic formulas that you need for your account when you have two-factor authentication — and apparently the magic gets lost every time you get a new phone. Ouch. Eventually, after much stress, these people have been rescued through being able to e-mail people who can vouch for them because they recognize the way they talk. (Hello, Jehochman, hope your account is OK these days.) People who habitually edit from internet cafes or library computers, or who have a mischievous twelve-year-old or a hard-drinking sister-in-law around the house, may possibly need the system, but everybody else had much better instead get a really strong password and not use that password anywhere else. In my opinion. Bishonen | talk 22:57, 3 May 2018 (UTC). (PS: And yes, I've had the attempts today and so has Bishzilla. Considering the numbers of people who have, I find it hard to believe WWII editors have been singled out.) Bishonen | talk 23:02, 3 May 2018 (UTC).

You're both right, to some degree. Bish, the magic you're thinking of is a scratch code (I'm not sure if that's what our implementation calls it) and it is just a plain text code that you're supposed to keep somewhere safe, so that if you do lose your authentication device (i.e. get a new phone) then you can use that code to reset your 2FA and re-implement it on your new device. If you lose your password AND your device AND those codes AND nobody can vouch for you, then yeah, you're fucked, but that's a lot of concurrent failures. If I remember right, when you enable 2FA here the codes you need are all displayed on the screen (you scan a QR code and the scratch codes are plain text), not sent by text or emailed or whatever. Maybe that depends on what authenticator you use. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 23:07, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• <<ec>>What Bishonen said. Every time I read the instructions my blood runs cold. With the two factor authentication I have w/ my bank and emails, there is a backup and authentication involves sending a request to my phone. The process here sounds dangerously complicated, and the grater risk is that I lose my whatsit.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 23:09, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Is it true that once you do this there's no going back? I don't want to do something irrevocable. And I have a strong password.--Dlohcierekim (talk)

No, not at all, you can turn it off any time as long as you have access to your account. I get that we're still calling it "beta", but I turned it on the day my RfA closed, and I've never had a problem. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 23:22, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Blood-chillingly complicated is right, Dlohcierekim. And it sounds to me like the whole log-in operation, otherwise so smooth, gets much more fiddly with 2FA, every time you do it. That's quite a problem for people with a lot of socks![95] Bishonen | talk 23:30, 3 May 2018 (UTC).

Not by much, no, there's one extra step. The squirrel still gets in just fine. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 23:49, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• I use Authy (authy dot com) for my 2FA here. It allows one to use multiple devices as well as back up the seed. There is a slight security hit since more than one device can be used but for me it is worth it to remove the single point of failure. Jbh ^Talk 23:45, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
• I have to say I was intimidated by it at first as I am not super technically minded but once it is set up it is remarkably easy to use, and I made sure I have those scratch codes in a safe place in case I ever need them. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:19, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
• I actually am a techie person, but I do agree that the instructions and setup appear intimidating. But once it is set up, 2FA really is easy to use. Enter your password as usual, then it asks for a number. Open the app on your phone/tablet/whatever, and it displays a number. Type in that number. And as long as you do remember to record the original scratch codes somewhere, the whole thing can always be reset in the event of a disaster. As for login attempts, I've had one rather than the multiple attempts that many are getting - presumably it stopped at the first 2FA challenge. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:55, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
• I use 2FA, but as someone who seems to drop or otherwise break their phone at least once per year, I agree with others that the way 2FA works is a royal pain in the neck. If I'm unable to access my old device, I have to (a) find where I wrote down the scratch codes (b) use one to login & disable 2FA (c) re-enable 2FA with the new device and (d - and this is the worst bit) write down a whole new set of scratch codes. If you've lost your scratch codes, you are basically screwed and are looking at registering a new account and convincing anyone who will listen that the two are connected. Committed identity helps with this - but of course you have to be able to find the file you used to create it. Things that would help with this situation are (a) only generate a new set of scratch codes when a user requests it or when the last one is used, not every time 2FA is enabled, so that at least you don't have to write down a whole new set every time you use one and (b) have some back up way of resetting authentication on the account. The latter would involve the WMF holding some way of getting in touch with you or proving your identity. I guess for people who have identified to the WMF this is already possible; otherwise, of all the websites I use, enwiki is the one where it is hardest to recover your account - and it seems it is often impossible. I thought there was a phab ticket to improve this situation, but I can't find it just now (fun diversion: try searching '2FA' on phab and you'll see how many people have difficulties with it - it seems that at least sometimes it is possible to convince the devs to twiddle bits). GoldenRing (talk) 11:20, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Been a long time crossing the Bridge of Sighs

• Two factor authentication, as implemented on Wikipedia, is farkakt. Jehochman ^Talk 18:12, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

  gesundheit--Dlohcierekim (talk)

• Regarding losing scratch codes - does no one else use a cloud storage or cloud backup service? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:08, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

  negative. I consider nothing in the cloud or otherwise online secure.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 20:09, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

• @Dlohcierekim: Sigh. ... --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:14, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Psssst, Neil...be careful not to use too many *sighs* ^{Atsme📞📧} 20:38, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Hidden Tempo? Is that like a Ford Tempo but with a quieter engine? Martinevans123 (talk) 08:21, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

PSA: Admins might be better off with a long passphrase rather than two-factor authentication

Just so you know, not everyone agrees that 2FA is a magic bullet.

https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/09/economist-explains-9

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/08/nist_is_no_long.html

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/the-limits-of-sms-for-2-factor-authentication/

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/10/15946642/two-factor-authentication-online-security-mess

I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:03, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

• Just as a reminder, users with advanced permissions are required by WP:STRONGPASS to have a strong password anyway. 2FA is just another option to strengthen account security. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:08, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

  @Beeblebrox: Personally, I don't understand why the (not particularly strict, IMHO) requirements for privileged users don't apply to all users. Nearly every insignificant forum on the web has stricter password requirements than Wikipedia, for heaven's sake! Gestumblindi (talk) 14:26, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

@Gestumblindi: The reason is simple: consensus was against it when the policy was developed. The reasoning was that it might discourage new users. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:14, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: I remember, but consensus might change. Maybe it's now the time for proposing slightly stricter requirements more similar to those customary anywhere else on the web? I don't get the "it might discourage new users" reasoning - after all, people should be well accustomed to having to use reasonably strong passwords by now. As it is, the password requirements for regular users are extremely and most unusually low, and the requirements for admins are still rather below standard. Gestumblindi (talk) 18:31, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

• Hopefully 20 bytes is enough.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 00:58, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

20 characters is almost certainly enough. A password that meets the requirements set forth in STRONGPASS (8 characters) will be broken by an offline password-guessing program in under a minute.[96][97][98][99][100] --Guy Macon (talk) 01:33, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Only if the Mediawiki software doesn't throttle login attempts (I'm pretty sure it does, given the "throttled logins" category in the charts above) or the attacker has access to the raw password hashes and the salts (and the passwords are stored using a low number of hash iterations). Even at 1000 guesses per second, 8-characters with one uppercase letter and one digit would take 7000 years to crack. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:08, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

• It should be noted that most of those articles are about 2FA using SMS codes, or using such SMS codes as backups for the type of 2FA we have. Neither of which we do for that exact reason. Which is also the reason you are so screwed on this site if you loose your scratch codes AND your phone. However I agree that having a 20 character password that you only use on en.wp is probably more important than having 2FA. But I use 2FA on ALL my accounts wherever I can, and because i use it for so many services, it has stopped being bothersome. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:11, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
• Yup. Make sure it passes the dictionary attack though. rhin0cer0usstransgal4cticdifferential is easier to remember and just as good as 25 characters of random gibberish. ^{cinco de} L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 13:13, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
  • The passphrase Rhinoceros transgalactic differential. (with the initial capitalization and the ending period) is stronger still. Even better would be "My rhinoceros has a transgalactic differential." -- harder for a computer to crack and easier for a human to remember; just remember that it is a valid sentence using standard English spelling and grammar. Replacing o with 0, a with 4, etc. just makes it harder to remember without adding much in the way of difficulty for a password guessing program. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:26, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Source on that. The few times I've had to turn my previous laptop into a wireless router (long story), the password was something like "screwoffyoucommiespybastardsthisismygoddamnwifi" or similar full sentences.

Now, it still needs to be multiple words, because single words are not a problem for dictionary attacks. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:55, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

User:Guy Macon: Re A password that meets the requirements set forth in STRONGPASS (8 characters) will be broken by an offline password-guessing program in under a minute. - Does WikiMedia not have, or could they not develop, a system where three (or so) failed attempts to log in to an account, lock the account? For a comparable example, if someone tries to use an ATM card and puts in an incorrect code three times, on the third try the ATM will eat the card. Couldn't WikiMedia have some way of locking an account after three (or X number to be decided) failed attempts at entering the password? --MelanieN (talk) 01:31, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

• So you first lock all the admin accounts, then you go vandalize at will. This would work well. Remember, everything can be gamed, and this plan is game-able in two seconds flat. The reason teh ATM example works is because someone already has your card. Courcelles (talk) 01:36, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

  Actually, I am pretty sure the number of attempts per minute is limited (and not to 10^10), but I do not remember where I have seen this and what the number actually is.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:13, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I think there is some form of rate limiting although I don't know the details. I'd note a system which completely locks an account after 3 tries requiring some sort of reset is open to abuse since it means people who want to annoy an editor can keep locking their account. Nil Einne (talk) 16:40, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

(If the following is too long for you, just read https://xkcd.com/936/ and https://xkcd.com/538/ ).

Every time I have looked into the nuts and bolts of how the WMF does security, it has always, without fail, turned out that they do it right, so I am not even going to bother finding out how they stop an attacker from either making millions of guesses per second or being able to lock out an admin by trying to make millions of guesses per second. Clearly the WMF developers read the same research papers that I do.

That being said, as explained at Kerckhoffs's principle#Modern-day twist, while doing things like rate limiting are Very Good Things, we are not to rely on them. We are to assume that the attacker knows every byte of information on the WMF servers (and in fact the attacker may actually be someone who has knows every byte of information on the WMF servers -- If a nation-state offered a key WMF employee millions of dollars if he complied and made a credible threat to torture and kill his family if he didn't, there is a 99%+ chance that they would end up knowing every byte of information on the WMF servers.)

The WMF does not store your passphrase anywhere. When you enter it it a cryptographic hash is performed and the result compared with a stored hash. This means that an attacker who knows every byte of information on the WMF servers can perform a high-speed offline passphrase-guessing attack, but cannot simply look up your passphrase and use it to log on. So according to Kerckhoffs's principle, you should choose a passphrase that is easy to remember and hard for a high-speed offline passphrase-guessing program to guess. I will call that that "Macon's principle" so that I don't have to type "choose a passphrase that is easy to remember and hard for a high-speed offline passphrase-guessing program to guess" again and again.

Bad ways to follow Macon's principle

• Passwords instead of passphrases (single words instead of strings of words with spaces between them).
• Random gibberish.
• Short passwords or passphrases. 8 is awful, 16 is marginal, 24 is pretty good, 32 is so good that there is no real point going longer.
• Character substitutions (Example: ch4r4ct3r sub5t|tut10ns)

Good ways to follow Macon's principle

• Use a standard English sentence with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
• Make it longer than 32 characters and have it contain at least three (four is better) longish words plus whatever short words are needed to make it grammatically correct.
• Make sure that sentence has never been entered anywhere on your hard drive (including deleted files) or on the internet. "My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels" is bad because a dictionary that contains every phase used in Monty Python's Flying Circus would find it.[101]
• Make it meaningful, easy to remember, and something that generates a strong mental image.
• Make it meaningful to you, but unguessable by others (don't use your favorite team, first kiss, mother's maiden name, etc.)

An example of a good passphrase that follow Macon's principle would be:

 Sherwood painted his Subaru pink so that it would blend in with his flamingos.

(This assumes that you actually know someone named Sherwood and that he owns a non-pink Subaru. Replace with a name/car from among your acquaintances)

That's 78 characters that nobody in the history of the earth has ever put together in that order until I just wrote it. Typos really stand out (Sherwood paibted his Subaru pink so that it would blend in with the Flamingos) and are easy to correct. The sun will burn out long before the fastest possible passphrase-guessing program completes 0.01% of its search. And yet it would be far easier to remember than the far easier (for a computer) to guess BgJ#XSzk=?sbF@ZT would be. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:16, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I feel there is some confusion in this thread around password security I'd like to clear up:

• re MelanieN: Guy Macon is referring to an "offline" attack, which is a fancy way of saying how long it would take if the attackers found a way to bypass all rate limiting and had a copy of the password file from WMF's servers. In an "online" attack (When somebody tries to login via Special:userlogin many time), rate limiting does come into play. Currently the rate limit is set to at most 50 in five minutes (Which honestly, is a little on the high side for a short term limit) [Edit: I was reading the wrong page, its actually 5 tries in 5 minutes], and no more than 150 tries in a 2 day period. Long before the hard limit comes into play, there is a soft limit where people need to enter a captcha in order to continue logging in. Of course we also record whenever their is a failed login and may take manual action if it appears an attack is happening.
• re WP:STRONGPASS - the requirement for admin passwords enforced by the system is a minimum requirement, largely aimed (at least in my opinion) to prevent an online attack. People are of course encouraged to use even stronger passwords. The passphrase method Guy Macon mentions is one good way of generating strong passwords. Another popular method is to use a password manager to manage your random passwords for you. In addition to using a strong password, it is vitally important to use a unique password. It is much more common for attackers to get your password from other websites than it is for them to brute-force it.
• re 8 character random password cracked in minutes. I don't think that calculation is correct. If we assume a random 8 character password (And I mean truly random, e.g. generated via dice or a password manager, not randomly chosen by a human as humans are terrible at randomly choosing a password), that's about 4048 bits of entropy. Based on [102] we have about 2301200000 hashes/sec and we're using 128000 rounds PBKDF-sha256. 2^(6*8)*128000/23012100000 ≈ 1565645769 seconds = 49 years. That said, longer passwords are much better, and most people are very bad at picking random passwords. Of course, if your 8 character password is '12345678' it will be cracked in milliseconds. In any case, I'd still highly highly recommend a password longer than 8 characters. BWolff (WMF) (talk) 21:09, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

  My first password was the name of a fictional place. The, a number, then a combination. Now its a 15+ keystroke monster that requires hints. So far, I've stayed ahead in this Red-Queen's race.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 22:29, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

• No, and I don't care what anybody else thinks. "Use a standard English sentence with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation." assumes there is a "standard English". English spelling, phrases and punctuation tends to vary by country, and often by personal background. Also, not everybody participating on English Wikipedia has English as a first-language. And God forbid anybody's account gets compromised, and they have to not panic long enough to type out the sentence. Not everybody has the same abilities, either technological or mental. I personally have encountered users (plural) who have motor skill limitations, and/or physical limitations, that would make this difficult on them. Not all users have the same level skill or abilities at anything. Please do not make it worse for people struggling already. — Maile (talk) 21:27, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

• I believe that you missed the point. Use what you consider to be a standard English sentence with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. If, you, overuse, commas, and, kant, spel, that's fine as long as you do it the same way every time. And if you are better at Spanish, use what you consider to be a standard Spanish sentence with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. If you are handicapped in such a way that you cannot type the same thing every time, sorry, but you are hosed on any system that requires a username or password. My advice also doesn't work if you are in a coma or are Amish and not allowed to use a computer. None of this applies to the discussion at hand, which is advising administrators on the English Wikipedia regarding passphrases. None of them are unable to type a standard English sentence the same way every time. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:21, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

The advice to use standard English is usually meant as Don't use abbreviations or misspellings in your password because that doesn't make your password any harder to break. If you are using the, "use a long sentence as a passphrase method", you should spell out your long sentence in whatever way you normally write. The downside to the long sentence method is that it can be difficult to enter such a long thing into a password box (even if you don't have motor skill/physical limitations, but obviously its much harder for people who do have such limitations). For people who have difficulty entering long passwords, probably the best approach is to use a password manager program, which means you don't have to enter the password at all as the program takes care of it for you. Password managers are an approach that I personally would recommend in general as being the easiest way to have a secure password. BWolff (WMF) (talk) 21:54, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

U wot, M8? Standard English ya say? That'd limit me choises, now woulden' it?--Dlohcierekim (talk) 22:33, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I use a password manager, but I still need to remember the passphrase to get at all the other passwords in the password manager. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:37, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

No need to do the math. Steve Gibson has done it for us. See [ https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm ].

The calculation is done locally, using Javascript, so the password doesn't leave your computer. To be extra safe, try

• HZn?m+jW
• PhBixXL4
• qza7nm3g
• pgupwmxn
• 54606559

as your 8-character test password.

I just generated the above from my atomic decay true random number generator, set to chose from:

• The 95 ASCII printable characters (0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ `~!@#$%^&*()-_=+[{]}\|;:'",<.>/?)
• The 62 ASCII a-z/A-Z/0-9 characters (0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)
• The 36 ASCII a-z/0-9 characters (0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz)
• The 26 ASCII a-z characters (abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz)
• The 10 ASCII 0-9 characters (0123456789)

BTW, an 8x Nvidia GTX 1080 system is pretty low powered for this. If you want to read the details, see [On the Economics of Offline Password Cracking - Purdue CS].

Key quotes:

"Nevertheless, our analysis suggests that even PBKDF2-SHA256 with 100,000 hash iterations is insufficient to protect a majority a user passwords [from an offline attack]"

"Bonneau and Schechter observed that in 2013, Bitcoin miners were able to perform approximately 2^75 SHA-256 hashes in exchange for bitcoin rewards worth about $257M. Correspondingly, one can estimate the cost of evaluating a SHA-256 hash to be approximately $7 x 10^-15."

Or, we can just skip the math and see what happens when we try "Sherwood painted his Subaru pink so that it would blend in with his flamingos." on the GRC calculator. The time to crack goes from 27.57 seconds to 10.05 million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion centuries. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:37, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I feel so inadequate, now. Mine would only take 100 trillion years!--Dlohcierekim (talk) 23:06, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

...and that's only if the attacker is really unlucky. On the average, he will be able to crack your account in a mere 50 trillion years, while I will be sitting back with my 64-character passphrase and 12 million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion centuries cracking time. Or until someone decides to beat it out of me...[103] --Guy Macon (talk) 08:21, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: Thanks for the link to that paper - I hadn't read it before, and their password cracking economic model is quite interesting. However, I'm unsure about the assumption that password crackers have access to ASICs similar to bitcoin miners - ASICs are very costly to develop (hundreds of millions of dollars up front cost). As far as I am aware, nobody has publicly made (let alone publicly sells) such machines, so the adversary would have to be very well funded in order to develop them. ASICs are way out of my knowledge area - but some googling also suggests that password cracking with ASICs might be difficult for a dictionary attack due to bandwidth limitations on transferring candidate passwords to the ASIC (That of course would not apply to a brute force attack), so even if an ASIC was developed its unclear it would be as useful as they are in the bitcoin case. As for the GRC calculator - its very hard to give accurate estimates of password strength as there are many factors and assumptions you have to make. First of all, since it is a generic calculator, it wouldn't take the key stretching we use at wikimedia into account. On the other hand, it was published in 2012 and password crackers have gotten faster since then (e.g. The 8x Nvidia is what I would describe as an "Offline Fast Attack Scenario", and is 10x faster than what the GRC page describes for that strategy). More importantly, that page only describes a brute force attack, where most adversaries would probably try a dictionary attack. For example, the password "dolphin" (Which by some measure is the 347'th most popular password [104]) according to GRC would take 3 months in an online attack scenario, where in reality it would fall in less than a second since its the 347th most popular. Similarly, the GRC page lists 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa' as being a good password, which I would disagree with. All this however is kind of getting far afield, and I do agree with your advice that longer passwords are better and having a longer password is more important than having a complex password (unless your password is super obvious as that's not good either). BWolff (WMF) (talk) 00:28, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! I agree with pretty much everything everything above. The GRC website also agrees (see the "IMPORTANT!!! What this calculator is NOT..." section.) I probably should have talked more about dictionary attacks. My collection of cracking dictionaries is getting big enough that I will likely have to buy a bigger drive to hold them soon. (No, I am not a malicious hacker. Some companies hire me to evaluate their security. Or at least that's the story I am telling now... :) )

Any decent dictionary attack will try "a" "aa", "aaa" up to at least 64 repetitions, and will als try "b", "bb", "bbb", etc. The good news is that if you use two words in that big cracking dictionary separated by a space, the time for an exhaustive search is squared, and with three it is cubed. The example I made up above "Sherwood painted his Subaru pink so that it would blend in with his flamingos." has 14 dictionary words. Even if the dictionary was really tiny (say, 1000 words), that's 10^42 guesses. And such a dictionary is unlikely to contain "Sherwood" (with the capitalization) "Subaru", or "flamingos." (with the trailing period).

Regarding ASICS, the zipfs paper correctly concludes "an attacker who is not willing to pay to fabricate an ASIC could obtain similar performance gains using a field programmable gate array (FPGA)". The really interesting question that the zipfs paper cannot answer is this; how much is it worth to get every password for every Wikipedia user and not have the WMF detect this for a couple of years? Is it worth more or less than the Yahoo or AshleyMadison breaches? Is it worth ordering custom ASICS? Hard to tell.

BWolff (WMF), I have a couple of interesting questions for the WMF.

[1] The zipfs paper says "Many breaches (e.g., Yahoo!, LinkedIn, Dropbox) remained undetected for several years." What would happen if we suddenly found out that a couple of years back someone had cracked every Wikipedia password, from Jimbo down to the huge number of accounts that registered years ago and haven't logged on since? Obviously we tell everyone to pick a new password, but how do we know that the person doing the picking isn't an attacker? I assume that we have a plan in place for this and other unlikely disasters.

[2] Has anyone at the WMF evaluated the zipfs paper's advice about either memory hard algorithms or distributed authentication servers? --Guy Macon (talk) 08:21, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

( ...Sound of Crickets... ) --Guy Macon (talk) 15:12, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

I assume that an attacker as stubborn as this has a lot of resources. Perhaps as much as a nation state or intelligence agency. Don't know motive, but we live in interesting ties. The bottom line is, are there additional steps I/any user can take (20 byte password) to protect my account?-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 16:06, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

It looks like a goal of this particular attacker (who also might be the same person who tried to subscribe en masse to various mailing lists) was not to break in any of the account, but more to create the state of uncertainty so that people start getting worried about the security of their accounts.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:39, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Re Guy Macon: In the event of a disaster of that type (which I hope never happens) - the most fundamental step would be marking everyone's password "expired" which forces the user to change their pass next login, and notifying everyone to change their password asap. Beyond that would depend on the details of the situation, but if we believed the passwords were floating out there we might for example require people to submit a code emailed to them to prove that the person also controls the email. In regards to memory hard hash functions - last time we evaluated hash functions (and chose pbkdf) was quite a long time ago when the ecosystem of memory hard hash funcs were much newer and less mature than it is now. Its always good to reevaluate choices at regular intervals, perhaps we will consider other hash functions in the future. As for distributed auth servers - it doesnt make sense in our current architecture and would be difficult to implement as things currently stand. There are probably other projects that have a better effort vs value proposisition. As far as the idea goes in general - if you have multiple identical distributed auth servers im not sure how much of an improvement that is since if someone can compromise one they can probably compromise the others (as they are identical). BWolff (WMF) (talk) 22:35, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Account hacking of World War II editors?

Hello all, something is definitely afoot at the Circle K. I am seeing some reports about people who edit World War II articles having attempts made by someone to access their accounts. User:LargelyRecyclable alerted two other World War II editors of this problem [105] and just this afternoon the Wikipedia system alerted me that someone had tried to log into my account multiple times from a new location. On top of it all, there was a strange occurrence a few weeks ago, where someone impersonating an administrator called my job and asked I be "investigated" for my World War II related work on Wikipedia. User:Kierzek and I are both well known WWII editors and I wonder if others are having these experiences too. I changed my password this afternoon, I would encourage others to do the same if they are being affected by this. The most troublesome thing is that the group making mention of this are all World War II history editors, which is why I brought it up here. If for no other reason, then just to alert the powers-that-be that something is going on. -O.R.^Comms 21:43, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

I can confirm an attempt was made on mine. As mentioned on the linked discussion above, I suspect that Prüm was successfully compromised. I'm not sure when exactly it happened but some of the implications of the comments the account left at ArbCom are very worrisome. That someone called your work is also a very serious issue. This seems to be targeted and possibly related to the ArbCom case. LargelyRecyclable (talk) 21:50, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

This is probably unrelated, as it has been almost five years since I edited anything related to WW II, but I received notice of someone trying to log into my account from another computer today, and someone left a comment on my user talk page in the Arabic Wikipedia, which I have never touched. Donald Albury 21:56, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

See this thread. I don't think is World War II-related, it's someone trying to hack into a great many unrelated accounts. -- Euryalus (talk) 21:59, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There's a thread about these hijacking attempts about two sections up. It's been going on all over, all day. It doesn't appear to be targeted at any one group or subgroup that anyone can tell so far. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:00, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I have not had any issues, so far, but given the current atmosphere, so to speak, I am not surprised. Kierzek (talk) 22:01, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It may be a site-wide attempt and not targeted, I've seen similar concerns above. The additional facets of O.R. having his worked called specifically about WWII editing and comments made with the Prum account at ArbCom may be unrelated but I'd still advise additional caution for any editors who've done work in that area. LargelyRecyclable (talk) 22:01, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Just notified of a failed attempt on my account. Cinderella157 (talk) 22:08, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

I also had a failed attempt, as did another member of WP:Indigenous. Other user is not an admin, both attempts failed. Checking with other admins who did not have attempts made. There may be a pattern with targeting wikiprojects and those who edit in controversial areas. Or it could be random. I lean slightly to the former, but no hard evidence yet. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 22:20, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

It's random. I barely edit and I just got a failed attempt. Valeince (talk) 23:04, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Me too., and I'm not involved in any of the projects mentioned above. It seems to be some kind of wide-ranging attack. Coretheapple (talk) 23:15, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• Yep, I had an attempt about 9hours ago. I've changed my password, which was decent, to a much stronger one. Blackmane (talk) 23:21, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Likewise. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:22, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• I just got notified there was a failed attempt to log into my account. — Maile (talk) 23:25, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
• I'm all buy quiescent these days in terms of editing and I got an alert as well. Obviously someone working through a list, though whether it's admins or something else... Tabercil (talk) 23:36, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
• Again, everyone, there were over 70,000 attempted logins per hour for several hours. Basically, they tried to reset the password of everyone. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:09, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
• This also came up at the help desk (where I mentioned that an attempt had been made on my account too), although that discussion has apparently been closed to try to centralize discussion here. The attacks are on far more than just World War II editors. I don't know where Beeblebrox's 70,000 figure is coming from, but I wouldn't doubt it. Master of Time (talk) 00:18, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

The number comes from the WMF. I have been told they are releasing some sort of statement about this soon. [106] Beeblebrox (talk) 00:22, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement from WMF

Just noting here that the Wikimedia Foundation has sent a statement out to the wikimedia-l mailing list: [107]. Mz7 (talk) 00:30, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Full text of statement

Hello, Many of you may have been receiving emails in the last 24 hours warning you of "Multiple failed attempts to log in" with your account. I wanted to let you know that the Wikimedia Foundation's Security team is aware of the situation, and working with others in the organization on steps to decrease the success of attacks like these. The exact source is not yet known, but it is not originating from our systems. That means it is an external effort to gain unauthorized access to random accounts. These types of efforts are increasingly common for websites of our reach. A vast majority of these attempts have been unsuccessful, and we are reaching out personally to the small number of accounts which we believe have been compromised. While we are constantly looking at improvements to our security systems and processes to offset the impact of malicious efforts such as these, the best method of prevention continues to be the steps each of you take to safeguard your accounts. Because of this, we have taken steps in the past to support things like stronger password requirements,[1] and we continue to encourage everyone to take some routine steps to maintain a secure computer and account. That includes regularly changing your passwords,[2] actively running antivirus software on your systems, and keeping your system software up to date. My team will continue to investigate this incident, and report back if we notice any concerning changes. If you have any questions, please contact the Support and Safety team (susawikimedia.org). John Bennett Director of Security, Wikimedia Foundation

General Advice from a Non-Admin

My advice, both to non-admins who can't use two-factor authentication, and to admins, who can use it, is simply to check your User Contributions regularly and make sure that they are all your own. If so, your account has not been compromised, and if your password is strong, it is not likely to be compromised. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:21, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

This really seems more like a really elaborate troll than a genuine attempt at compromising tens of thousands of accounts. Just look at how much discussion, verging on panic, it has generated. I’m sure whoever made the bot tht did this is very pleased with themselves right now. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:34, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Should this all be rev-delled under DENY? L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 02:04, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Having a Wikipedia:Committed identity isn't a bad idea if you might ever have to recover your account. Additionally - I believe editors whom are admins on any wikimedia wiki can enable 2FA. SQL^{Query me!} 01:34, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

No, the attempt is likely a serious attempt at gaining credentials. If a hacker logs into User:Example's account, and User:Example reuses their username somewhere else ([email protected]) with the same password, they can be royally screwed. The usurpation of Wikipedia identify is most likely not what they are after and the leaset of your worries if that happens. E.g. if it's a dummy email, no really consequence comes of it. But if you use that email to conduct every day business, your banking, have sensitive information, etc... well the people involved would now have access to that, and use that new information to further acquire other information and credentials. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:09, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

SQL is correct, an editor who is an admin on any wiki can enable/disable 2FA on their account. I've been experiencing attempts to access my account for over a week now and I have enabled 2FA through being an admin at test wiki. -- Dane ^talk 05:31, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

A strong password is the solution. If you are mostly editing from one place (say home) just write on a piece of paper a random combination of characters, 25 characters long (make sure you are not able to memorize it - otherwise make it longer) which contains small and large case letters, numbers and special characters - and possibly even letters of other alphabets if you can reproduce them with your keyboard. This will be your Wikimedia password. Have it written on the paper in a secure place (no chance to lose) and never use it elsewhere, on any other websites.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:47, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

"Mr. Owl—how many flops does it take to get to the Tootsie-Roll™ center of a Tootsie Pop™?" Factchecker_atyourservice 14:46, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

I strongly suspect that whoever is doing this is using a list of passwords leaked from other sites, rather than trying to brute force their way into each account. I doubt they're even trying variations on the password that's on that list. That's why most of us are only getting one failed login attempt and that's it. While it's good to have a strong password anyway, if what I think they're doing is what they're doing, changing the password is the kicker. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:55, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

It looks indeed like yesterday they did not really attempt to break down any accounts, just let know that they exist to the largest possible amount of active user. However, this is not an isolated incident. We had recently two admin accounts broken, apparently because they re-used the passwords from other sites which were in the yahoo leak, or some other massive leak. I mentioned above that I regularly get attempts to break in to my account, sometimes up to several hundreds per day. It is obviously not possible to break a strong password which is not used on any other sites, however, it should be possible to break a weak password or to steal the existing password from elsewhere. 25 characters may be an overkill, but gives pretty much the guarantee - assuming they do not break in physically to one's house and there is no fire.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:08, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Don't know if anyone mentioned yesterday's twitter breach, but if you used the same password there as here, you should change both quickly.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 15:24, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

My user name and password are unique to this site. --Dlohcierekim (talk) 15:27, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Here's some handy advice. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 17:14, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Since everyone is giving advice I may as well chime in. The main reason people don't use strong passwords unique to each account is that it's practically impossible to remember all those passwords. But you can use a password manager to keep track of them and to at least partially automate the process of entering passwords. I use something called KeePass but there are lots of alternatives -- see our List of password managers. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:18, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

It happened again, two more attempts. If you can find out who, please ban him. Do I have any reason to be nervous, if my password is safe? Alex of Canada (talk) 17:33, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

In a word, no. Primefac (talk) 17:38, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

User:Alex of Canada - I agree with User:Primefac. If your password was and is strong and it hasn't been compromised, you are all right. Just check your User Contributions from time to time. I will comment that the hacker or bot may be hoping to get people to panic and to change their strong passwords to new weaker passwords, but that is only my guess. Robert McClenon (talk) 13:21, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

I will also comment that password regimes that require frequent changes of passwords, and that prohibit the use of a previously used password, are well-meaning but actually make things worse, because they increase the likelihood that the user will need to write down the password. This comment applies both to Wikipedia and to employer or government systems. Robert McClenon (talk) 13:21, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

• 1. MeToo, earlier today. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:03, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I got a failed-login warning a couple of days ago, but thought nothing of it at the time: I'm surprised there aren't more brute-force attacks. Perhaps this is where some sort of anti-bot measures might help? -- The Anome (talk) 09:22, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#PSA: Admins might be better off with a long passphrase rather than two-factor authentication. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:06, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

A wise Owl indeed.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 19:16, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

page break

looks like it's falling off.--Dlohcierekim (talk)

• They're at it again today (I just got an alert that multiple failed attempts had been made to log into my account...). - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 11:43, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• I just got notifications for it today again. Got some before this conversation on AN started on the 3rd and some today. Thanks for jinxing it, Dlohcierekim. :) — Moe Epsilon 13:53, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• They took the weekend off?-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 14:41, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• Two attempts on mine just now. --Masem (t) 14:45, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• I just got a notice that there have been multiple failed attempts to log into my account from a new device. The other day it was just one attempt. This is getting worse and I don't like it. Someone may be trying to steal my bank account or credit card information this way. Something had better be done to stop this or WP will lose editors including me. I feel like deleting my account and all my information right now. It isn't worth taking the risk.Smeat75 (talk) 15:32, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

  @Smeat75: Which would make your account more susceptible to hijack. Change your password here to something stronger. If it is the same as your password anywhere else, change your elsewhere password at once to something different. Get a committed identity hash. If you have not done so already, enable email. -- Dlohcierekim (talk) 16:37, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

  How would someone get your bank information through your wikipedia account? Natureium (talk) 16:41, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

  Password reuse. Banks should be much more secure, but theoretically the attack vector first tries to find a working username/password combination on one site. If they get that, they then use it on a more interesting site (bank, turbotax, whatever). Again, there's no evidence that any of this has been the least bit successful, and this is all just speculation at this point. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:32, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Suggestion for alleviating panic

I'm in for the firs time in almost a week and was surprised to see that someone had made an attempt on my account. It was a few moments before I found this thread, and in light of that I'd like to suggest running a message through the message delivery system to all accounts on Wikipedia advising them of the situation so that our editor base gets caught up on this as soon as possible. Those who have email enabled (like me) should see the email alert in the inbox along with the section header, while those like me coming in late to the party will have the talk page message notice here and will (hopefully) check there first to get caught up. In this way we can get out ahead of this and circle the wagons, such as it were, before editors panic and act before thinking. TomStar81 (Talk) 14:17, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• I suggest everyone get a committed identity hash string (read this first, and then get the string here), to be able to get their account back in case someone manages to take over the account (just to clarify things: getting a committed identity here does not require revealing your real life identity to anyone, you're as anonymous after getting the hash string as you were before getting it...). - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 14:36, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

  @TomStar81: Great idea. I almost suggested it, but did not know how or where.-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 14:42, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

  Yes, anyone who has not done so already needs to get a committed identity & a really strong password, and enable email.-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 14:44, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

  And I strongly suggest laagering.-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 14:47, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

  "—it's Zulus, sir, bloody thousands of 'em!"

  I just tweaked my password for the sake of safety. As for the message, i'd propose something like this:

---

• Annnnd, was said login successful?-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 16:50, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Attempted Hacking of Wikipedia Accounts

On or about May 4th, 2018, the Wikimedia foundation noted a massive cyberattack against the English Wikipedia with the apparent goal of locating users utializing weak passwords in order to compromise the accounts. Steps are currently being taken to track down the origin of the attack, but as a precaution all Wikipedia users with a registered account are being asked to review their accounts and passwords in order to ensure that your account does not end up compromised. Measures editors are advised to take include the following:

Choose a strong password

Ideally, a strong password is a password that uses a combination of symbols, numbers, and capital and lower case letters. Users are required to provided a minimum 8-letter password, but a longer password is viewed as more secure and passwords with letters, symbol, and number combinations are shown to stronger than simple words or phrases. Additionally, users should refrain from picking out simple passwords easily guessed (such as abcd1234 or password).

Obtain a Committed Identity Hashstring

A Committed Identity Hashstring is a security measure that allows users to type words, phrases, and other information which when put through a hash are scrambled, resulting in an unreadable line of random letters and numbers. The only person who would know what the unscrambled letters and numbers translate to would be you, thus ensuring that you could reclaim you account if it is compromised. More information about this measure can be found here, and users wishing to implement this security option may do so here.

Enable Two-Factor Authentication

Two factor authentication was added as an additional security measures for certain high privileged Wikipedia accounts - most notable, those who possess admin rights. Enabling this will make it that much harder for unauthorized persons to gain access to your Wikipedia account.

Enable E-mail notifications

Users who possess registered accounts on Wikipedia have the option of enabling email notifications for talk page messages, which may be useful for helping you to spot and stop attempts on your account as well as for keeping up to date with developments as this incident progresses.

For more information on the series of events, and to consolidate the discussions on this matter, see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Please_help-_who_tried_to_break_into_my_account? and its subsequent threads.

---

Of course, I'm open to adding or subtracting information as needed; just as long as we get the word out it should help our situation. TomStar81 (Talk) 15:19, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• Strongly Object @TomStar81: sending a mass message to "all accounts" is a huge waste of job resources, especially as most accounts are dormant. If we want this to get to a large number of editors, using the logged-in user sitenotice would be preferable IMHO. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:26, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @Xaosflux: Mass message is the only messaging system I was familiar with; if there is another or better system, then by all means use that instead. The important thing is that we get the word out. Keep in mind too that, as I noted above, I'm coming into this days after the fact - for all I know this could have long since been resolved (though judging from above I don't think that to be the case) which would mean the whole point of the message is now...useless. In any event, handle it how you judge it should be handled. As for me, I've got to be off to work here soon so I'll likely be unavailable for a few hours. I leave my suggestion in the board's capable hands, and trust that the best course of action will present itself and be implemented as consensus wills. TomStar81 (Talk) 15:32, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
    • For anyone following, I'm referring to MediaWiki:Sitenotice - this would put a banner on the top of the web page for logged in users. It would not send them emails or triggert notification. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:36, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
      • Oh, ok. I take it back; I am familiar with this sort of messaging, I just didn't know what it was called - at least no properly. That would probably work best, all things considered. TomStar81 (Talk) 15:40, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• Likewise oppose this, as well as a sitemessage or watchlist notice. A great many users appear to be targeted (I have thus far received no notifications and am starting to feel left out!) but unless I'm mistaken there has been no evidence of any success on the part of the attacker. A reminder to use strong passwords is always worthwhile, and maybe worth considering via sitemessage/watchlist once this has subsided, but I don't see the utility in alarming a great many people when by all accounts everything is working just fine. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:41, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• The only accounts that have been compromised in the last couple of years were the ones that re-used compromised passwords with other sites. There is really no need for mass messages or sitenotices here. The same best security practices apply today as they did a year ago - have a strong password, and if you're particularly concerned you can include other measures like 2FA (or committed identity, but honestly I have no idea how that works and can't find any read-able guide to it on here). -- Ajraddatz (talk) 16:03, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

@Ajraddatz: I too was unsure, but know i have it--> WP:Committed identity.

@TomStar81: as of this morning it had resumed.-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 16:33, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

In favor of any notification system that would let users know about this so they can take appropriate action.-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 16:43, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks - that page puts it very clearly. Seems like a sensible measure indeed, speaking as one of the people who coordinates the return of compromised accounts to their owners. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 16:46, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• I would also note that in the discussions that led up to the current password policy, the notion that you must use a combination of upper and lowercase, symbol, and numbers to have a strong password was strongly rejected by the community. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:53, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi everyone. While the attacker continues to try and login at a very high rate, we are currently blocking his/her login attempts. At this time, there is no need to panic or do anything. We of course always encourage all users to use a strong password. BWolff (WMF) (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:10, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• Having finally had the chance to start logging back in, I find all this...oi vey. Anyway, relevant to the above, I'll note that "require 2FA" is an absolute non-starter for other reasons: there are those of us who do not have smartphones and/or cell service at our computing locations at all. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 08:37, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

  @The Bushranger: FWIW, you can run a TOTP on a computer. While it doesn't prevent an attack the compromises that one computer as well - it will remote attacks. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:51, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

I realized I got a failed attempt 13 days ago. I just changed my password. I hashed something known only to me to SHA-256, and used the random 64 character hash as my password. I think that will stop people form getting into my account. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yoshi24517 (talk • contribs) 02:10, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Guy Macon, a (belated) semi-technical qy. Why do you recommend spaces between the words of a passphrase? Most similar advice I have seen uses a string of words without spaces. And standard cryptography sued fixed length strings ignoring the word divisions, so the length of the word offers no clue. DGG ( talk ) 04:53, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Let me work backwards on those questions.

First, neither the length of the individual words or the overall length of the passphrase offers any clue, because those are unknown to the attacker. Kerckhoffs's principle says that you never tell the attacker anything about the key. BTW, Wikipedia gets that one right. If they limited your passphrase to, say, 64 characters, that would tell the attacker something about your passphrase. I tested Wikipedia, and it has no problem with a 256 character passphrase (that's as far as I tested; the actual limit may be much higher).

The reason I recommend spaces is so that your passphrase follows a basic rule that makes it easier to remember and easier to correct typos; Use a standard English (or whatever language you are most fluent in) sentence with standard punctuation and grammar.

Consider the following passphrases:

• My hovercraft is full of eels.
• my hovercraft is full of eels
• myhovercraftisfullofeels
• myh0vercraft15fu||ofeel5

The first one is the hardest for a computer to guess (dictionary or brute-force attack), the easiest for a human to remember, and by far the easiest to find any typos in. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:38, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Another point is that there are many standard packages for attacking passwords. They usually try a password, and then try variations on it. So, if an attacker tried the first of Guy Macon's above passphrases, the attacker would be very likely to also try the alternatives listed. Johnuniq (talk) 07:27, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

General sanctions proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should the community authorize standard discretionary sanctions for all pages related to blockchain and cryptocurrencies, broadly construed?

• Support as proposer. Most of the major articles in this topic area have been semi-protected (many by myself) due to the torrent of promotionalism and still it does not stop. It's like binary options and forex all over again, but with added, overt, criminality. The Bitcoin Cash/Core feud just makes things worse. MER-C 20:18, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support per my above comments. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:21, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• yes please Jytdog (talk) 20:41, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support per above. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:46, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support The cryptocurrency topic area is rife with promotionalism and POV pushing. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 21:22, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support To try and make the area less toxic with the promotional, POV-pushing editing. Courcelles (talk) 21:27, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support partially per my query below. There is a huge amount of promotion and straight-out advertising going on in cryptocurrency articles. I find it incredibly difficult to edit these articles - in many cases I know I'll be reverted by an "article owner" - so editing would only be a case of making a WP:Point. I know what you're thinking "Smallbones is afraid to edit here?" Yes, I've worked in some incredibly difficult areas, e.g. binary options and retail forex, but cryptocurrencies take the cake.

The main problems I see are:

• the use of unreliable "trade press" sources as almost the whole source material. These sources are almost always cheerleaders
• promotionalism and advertising
• article ownership
• COI editing on the article page (Note that cryptocurrency owners are specifically mentioned in WP:COI as having a COI on the ccurencies they own).

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:55, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support per supporters. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:07, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support The problems within this area have been building for some time. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:15, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support – as noted immediately above, this topic area was identified as a magnet for problem editing/editors about the time the binary options thing was winding down at COIN, around October [108]. Note that clouds started to appear on the horizon wrt this behavior at least as far back as 2012 at COIN and ANI. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:19, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support this topic area is a perfect storm of 'true believers' and 'commercial interests'. Either can spawn editors who will tax the patience and will of those who enforce policy, both will probably start burning out administrators unless they have the flexibility and streamlining allowed by GS/DS. Jbh ^Talk 23:50, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• support gods yes. long overdue. brilliant idea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dlohcierekim (talk • contribs)
• Support per everyone above. Galobtter (pingó mió) 04:03, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support 1RR per above Jtbobwaysf (talk) 07:48, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose in the face of many I do not believe the need for DS is necessary. ^{cinco de} L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 02:32, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

I'll clarify that the issues of COI, promowanks, notability, NOTHERE and OWNership can all be dealt with quickly and easily sans DS. ^{cinco de} L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 03:02, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

We obviously disagree on how "quickly and easily" we can deal with the problems in these articles. But we also have to consider how bad the writing and the articles in general are - which really degrades our reputation. We need to consider how much editor time this takes up. And most importantly we need to consider how many people are getting ripped off by unethical crypto-operators while we dilly-dally. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:59, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support Reread everything and changed my mind. ^{cinco de} L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 12:15, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support given just how hard it can be to enforce policies on pages in this topic area. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 07:35, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
• Supportper above. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:37, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support long overdue. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:17, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• Hell yes. Should have done this ages ago. Guy (Help!) 20:30, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

query

• i know we (the community) can govern ourselves as we wish, but is there precedent for us to place DS? The formal DS are an arbcom thing per WP:ACDS, enforceable at AE as well by passing admins, etc. I am going to support in any case :). Jytdog (talk) 20:41, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
  • WP:General sanctions is the correct term here. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:44, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes, the Syrian Civil War, South Asian castes, and a few others have general community authorized discretionary sanctions (and they are both general sanctions and discretionary sanctions). TonyBallioni (talk) 20:46, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• I'm tossing up whether to post notifications on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numismatics/Cryptocurrency task force, Talk:Cryptocurrency, Talk:Blockchain, Talk:Bitcoin and Talk:Bitcoin Cash. I'm only vaguely familiar with the procedure involved in imposing general sanctions -- is notification necessary? Or will it be counterproductive? MER-C 20:55, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
  • After thinking about it, I've handed out the notifications. MER-C 16:36, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• I'm generally unfamiliar with community sanctions as well. Perhaps somebody more experienced with them can best describe how this works. I'll ping @DGG: - if he can't explain it, he'll know somebody who can.

I did quickly skim through one case of a community sanction. It looks like the closer decides on the final wording of the sanction. The discussion lasted 9 days at ANI, and there were 10-20 !votes. I need to know more about the mechanics than this however.

My input on the question of sanctioning here will be heavily influenced by the facts concerning bans on cryptocurrency ads on other major internet platforms. I've written this up in the Initial coin offering article about 6 weeks ago. We can leave out Jimbo's opinion for the purposes of this discussion. And just because much of the rest of the internet is banning these guys, is not, in itself, a reason for banning them here. But I do think that it shows there is a huge potential problem and that folks who have noticed problems here are not making them up out of whole cloth. Everything written here about ICOs also applies to cryptocurrencies in general.

Facebook has banned ICO and cryptocurrency advertisements on its platform stating that many of them were "not currently operating in good faith." Google and Twitter have also banned ICO and cryptocurrency advertisements.

Snapchat, LinkedIn and MailChimp all have limited companies from marketing ICOs via their platforms. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, stated in 2017 that "there are a lot of these initial coin offerings which are in my opinion are absolute scams and people should be very wary of things that are going on in that area."

Chinese internet platforms Baidu, Tencent, and Weibo have also prohibited ICO advertisements. The Japanese platform Line and the Russian platform Yandex have similar prohibitions.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:22, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I missed one. Just yesterday Bing (from Microsoft) imposed a ban [109]

"Because cryptocurrency and related products are not regulated, we have found them to present a possible elevated risk to our users with the potential for bad actors to participate in predatory behaviors, or otherwise scam consumers. To help protect our users from this risk, we have made the decision to disallow advertising for cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency related products, and un-regulated binary options."

It is telling that many of these bans place cryptocurrencies in the same class as binary options. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:12, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

References

FWIW, the entire sanctions "system" is in my opinion an accumulation of confusing half-thought out and erratically-enforced procedures. I have never used it as an admin, and try to avoid sanction discussions as an arb. I suggest you do here whatever seems reasonable. If I were doing it over, I might like a rarely used remedy: one comment per talk page per day per person. It could be enforced easily by just removing anything beyond that. DGG ( talk ) 01:25, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: If these are community authorized sanctions then the decision must be made by the community. Either move this discussion to ANI or a village pump and add a central notification advertising it (preferably both). --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:24, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
  • AN is the correct venue. See Wikipedia:General_sanctions#Community_sanctions. This is the community's main noticeboard for dealing with administrative issues, issuing bans, and determining sanctions. A simple discussion here is all that is required by policy, and ANI would be the absolute worst place to move it. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:23, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
    • I stand corrected on what the instructions say but still think a more community-oriented page would be far more appropriate. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:43, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
      • @NeilN: Let's stick with what WP:General sanctions says, which is that we do the discussion here. We should however publicize the discussion, which has been done for the main cryptocurrency pages. Feel free to add notifications elsewhere.

I am concerned however that we need to specify the sanction somewhat better than has been done. Per WP:General sanctions "When general sanctions are employed, they are specifically detailed instructions by which community consensus or ArbCom motion has empowered administrators to act single-handedly to sanction editors who are not complying with general behavioral or editorial guidelines and policies.(bolding added)

I've put my basic ideas forward with my support !vote, but I don't fully understand what other editors want to do. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:42, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Smallbones, MER-C proposed standard discretionary sanctions, which is what we are discussing. I don’t see a need for anything like a CENT notice, but maybe a VPR post would work. The last proposal for this (which eventually failed) was for Catalonia separatism/independence. I don’t think that was advertised anywhere but here. As I said, this is the main community noticeboard for these type of things, so it’s already relatively well advertised just by being here. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:04, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I think I'm starting to get this but it would bear repeating (or correcting me if I'm wrong).

• The behavior required from editors within the scope of the standard discretionary sanctions is described here Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Guidance_for_editors which I'll summarize as (very carefully) "follow editorial and behavioural best practice."
• Admins have additional powers in the conflict area described here Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Sanctions which include blocking an editor for up to a year (with little or no process needed).
• the scope of the sanctions as I understand it includes articles on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings, blockchain and related articles broadly defined.

@TonyBallioni, MER-C, and NeilN: just to make sure I'm on track. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:46, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that would be my understanding. These operate the same as other discretionary sanctions, just authorized by the community instead of ArbCom. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:14, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

The community can also automatically apply editing restrictions instead of relying on admins. WP:GS/ISIL has an automatic WP:1RR on the topic area. The community also has to decide on a notification system. Please, by all that's wikiholy, use the notification system described by WP:GS/ISIL and not AE discretionary sanctions. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:29, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks to both. It sounds good to me and I'm happy now that I know what we're trying to do. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:02, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

• Proposal I suggest that in addition to this 1RR rule we also consider banning most of the cryptocurrency trade magazines, except for two majors CoinDesk and Bitcoin Magazine, as I think we could use a couple of respected industry rags to anchor content. I suggested these these two major trade rags as they appear to me to be reliable AND they both have posted editorial guidelines on their respective sites. I think that only allowing a couple of trade rags would allow us to preserve 90% of the content as well as cutting out 90% of the promotion (as majority promo content seems to come off the long tail of awful quasi-newsources). There is a discussion of this sourcing issue here Talk:Bitcoin_Cash#RfC to tighten sourcing on this article FYI. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 07:48, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't think that any crypto trade publications can be considered to be reliable sources. CoinDesk is owned by a crypto trader. CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group ("DCG"). DCG invests in cryptocurrencies and has ownership stakes in a number of blockchain startups. While I don't question the journalists good intentions, the ownership issue and the story selection implied by their audience, must inevitably bias their stories. Bitcoin Magazine was founded by the co-founder of a major cryptocurrency and apparently sold to a firm that calls itself "BTC Inc." There's no good identification online as to who they are - and I suspect it has crypto owners still. There is a subsidiary of a local Iowa telephone company named "BTC Inc." that is identified pretty well online, but it doesn't look like the same company. There's also a company based in Ohio with he same name, but less info.

Coincidentally, there's a piece written by a cryptojournalist out today Crypto ‘Journalists’ Need to Fess Up to Their Conflicts of Interest that rips every crypto media outlet, except CoinDesk. If CoinDesk is the best of a lousy field then we shouldn't let any in as RS. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:57, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

• Yeah, i hear you. I was just thinking that if we were to impose this type of topic ban for ALL trade publications it might damage wikipedia. I was thinking one or two preapproved ones, deemed to be the least bad, might be good overall. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 05:23, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

• This might be unorthodox but along the lines of how we treat pseudoscience, what about imposing a templated paragraph on all crypto currency pages that says roughly "Leading financial press and finance experts have described all cryptocurrenies as a fraud, worthless, and holding no inherient value. Major advertising platforms have banned all ads connected to cryptocurrency. Cryptrocurrencies are subject to aggressive promotional activities, often by people with undisclosed conlicts of interest, in a nearly unregulated environment." (Add appropriate cites) Legacypac (talk) 06:57, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I think such a warning would be WP:UNDUE weight (not to mention it not being factually correct as there is no such consensus that cryptocurrencies are dangerous). We have been discussing creating a cryptocurrency controversy article (or very large section) at Talk:Cryptocurrency#Some things that a "Controversy" section might want to discuss if anyone would like to particpate. Thanks!! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 09:19, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I dislike most article tags, as they seem to stay there permanently, and most people just let them sit there without taking care of the problems. My dislike echos WP:No disclaimers in articles. In most cases where we'd add a tag or template, it would be much better simply to rewrite the article or just delete it. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:49, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

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Help at AIV?

WP:AIV currently has a backlog of 23 reports, and has been registered as backlogged for about 5 hours. Reporting here in an attempt to get a little more visibility if someone can clear it out. MarginalCost (talk) 05:27, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

It's been cleared, thanks all MarginalCost (talk) 13:58, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Resolved

Unblock request from L'Origine du monde

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L'Origine du monde (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Copied from L'Origine du monde's talkpage. SQL^{Query me!} 23:48, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

After many years of constructive editing, I was accidentally blocked 5 years ago when I created a new account, which drove me mad. See discussion above this diff https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=574382876&oldid=574380296. I request a restoration of my editing privileges. Time has passed, and my activities and experiences in that time have affected me, and I have grown up. Time is also important as I was originally blocked as a vandal by mistake, and I found it hard to forgive the editor who made the mistake. 3 years ago I realised I was still too emotionally involved, and excited. Now I forgive, and more or less forget, and feel ashamed that I behaved badly.

I also see that the guidance concerning IP, and Checkuser blocks, and other blocks has much improved since then :)

I am sorry that I got so worked up, obsessive, and that I was disruptive.

I didn't want to address the specifics, as it was very painful for me, but I try.

I realise that I lost control, forgot how to behave, and made a bit of a mess. I thought I was trying to improve the project, but I confused it with personal disputes. Most importantly, I think, I didn't back off, and became fixated with the idea that I needed to edit wikipedia then, defend my good name, not step back, not take a break, not let things calm down. I constructively edited wikipedia for many years before I was first blocked as a vandal, out of the blue, by mistake, by an administrator who later became a checkuser. This made it impossible to get the block overturned. He refused to do so, and refused to unblock me or apologise. I didn't understand why, what was happening, and it was a difficult period in my life, and due to impatience, ignorance and immaturity I became obsessed, and lost it. I had already some resentment that Ip editors were treated badly, the newspapers were full of stories that people were put off editing wikipedia, and I felt I should try to campaign. I confused this with a content dispute regarding what I perceived as censorship, and went right off.

My original block occured because a vandal used a prior Ip address I had used for years previously, that I linked to this account (with other Ip addresses and user names) , and a user, who later became a Checkuser, was confused, and I did not realise why nobody else would review his block, because I had no understanding of what a checkuser meant. This frustrated me, and sent me a little crazy. When the block was eventually lifted by the Checkuser whose page the administrator had been watching (he refused to do it himself), it seemed to me that nobody believed that a checkuser could make such mistakes, and people claimed he knew bad things about me because of his status.

I wanted to clear my name, took it far too much to heart, and too personally, could not see who was acting in good faith, attacked everyone, and at the same time I had an exaggerated idea of the importance of editors being able to edit without being caught up in anti-vandalism actions.

I felt caught in a Kafkaesque nightmare.

One of the editors repeated this mistaken claim in ANI, and I got this ban for arguing about it, and for how I argued.

Being right, and fixing what seemed to me then a broken system, seemed so important that I declined partial bans, was a nightmare, lost sight of the merits compromise.

I was used to arguing about content, and sources, but totally unused to ANI, and such politics, I took the provocations, it was horrible, it felt awful. I realised that I was being judged on my conduct, but it seemed so hard to avoid the content of the discussions, not to argue, to insist on being right, rather than walking away. Thats why I left this completely alone for 3 years.

Now I feel calm, I can control myself, and I would like to edit again. When I see something wrong, I want to correct it, when something is missing, sometimes I like to research it, and enrich the world's knowledge.

I am mature, stable, believe in the project, and I have no intention, or desire, to get in such a horrible situation again.

I know that this reads a bit still as if I am angry about the original accidental ban, but I am not.

I write about it because due to it I felt trapped in an extreme situation that pushed my behaviour over the edge.

I have matured, am a better person, argue less, understand the points of view of others better, and am calmer and wiser. ♥ L'Origine du monde ♥ ^{(♥ Talk♥ )} 14:43, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• unblock Second chance. It's been a long time. -- Dlohcierekim (talk) 23:54, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
• It's been a long time and no one cares what happened years ago, but it would be nice to have an indication of whether L'Origine plans to avoid the issues which led to conflict in the past regardless of who was right and who was wrong. Some links: ANI September 2013 + ANI September 2013 + block appeal September 2013 + block appeal November 2013. Johnuniq (talk) 00:45, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support unblock - Bloody hell it feels like yesterday I commented on the block!, Everyone deserves a second chance and some ROPE, Support. –Davey2010^Talk 02:06, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support unblock - Seems reasonable. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 02:51, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support unblock: Reasonable unblock request and it has been a long time since when the block was made. –Ammarpad (talk) 09:14, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comment can we get them to change their sig as a condition of their unblock? I can't even read it, it's so pale. Primefac (talk) 11:49, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support unblock. It's been a long time, the unblock request sounds heartfelt, and I'm a great believer in second chances. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:56, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support Worthy of a second chance. The request is believable and 5 years is quite a long time to wait to come back. Hopefully they stay away from what brought them to the block in the first place. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:00, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support Five years is more than enough time for a person to mature and change. This editor is asking for a second chance and not simply quietly socking. That is worth giving the benefit of the doubt in and of itself. Jbh ^Talk 15:07, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

 Done Andrevan@ 16:56, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

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GS procedural question

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The new GS on Blockchain above brought this question to mind. The GS have a notification requirement before sanctions can be applied. With DS there are several classes of editors who are considered de facto notified. I am curious about whether the parties who proposed/!voted for GS are considered 'aware' analogous to how named parties are considered 'aware' of DS resulting from their ArbCom case.

I do not know that this is/has been/will be an issue but it is, as far as I could find, a hole in our procedures. Has this been discussed previously? Jbh ^Talk 15:00, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd hand out a notification template just to be sure. MER-C 16:13, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Hand out the template. I'd also consider anyone who has logged a notification to be aware (just like anyone who issues the template is aware re: Ds/alert). Also remember that these should be logged manually. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:36, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. It might be worthwhile to address GS cognizance sometime e.g. if one votes for them one is 'aware'; if one notifies another editor one is 'aware'; and whether cognizance ever 'expires' for GS/DS as it does for AC/DS after a year. It is pretty far down the list but I suspect at some point it would be good to rationalize GS/DS notice procedures with AC/DS. DS in general is confusing enough for most without having two sets of rules. Jbh ^Talk 01:47, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

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AIV backlog

I'm heading offline, so I can't help at the moment, but WP:AIV is getting a bit out of control. If someone could pop over there and take care of some of that, it'd be great. Thanks! --Jayron32 13:24, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Bot only count how many users/IP are listed (including declined). Hhkohh (talk) 13:53, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Who does history-merging?

See Wikipedia talk:Requests for history merge#Who does history merging?. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 20:56, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

INVOLVED block

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Reporting to the board that I have blocked an obvious IP sock of Trust Is All You Need on an article where I commented on a talk page discussion involving that editor and have been involved in disputes in the past, in contravention of WP:INVOLVED but I believe exercising the "any administrator would do the same" exception. The user talked themselves all the way from a 48-hour block to indef with talk and email disabled without my help, I only blocked their obvious sock. See the history of Socialist state or the user's talk page for evidence. Please review, and if my action is not supported then please do as the community sees fit. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:49, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely a good block. Clear block evasion by the IP. RickinBaltimore (talk) 13:53, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Obvious evasion, block is good. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:54, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Yep, it would have made no sense to sit on that disruption waiting for another admin to make the block, when you could easily do it yourself. Good block. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 13:59, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, piling on. Good block, thank you. People will complain about involvement on many occasions, but this isn't one of them. Alex Shih (talk) 14:02, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Good block. Any administrator would have done the same. And Ivanvector gets extra points for bringing this up and inviting scrutiny. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:12, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

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AE sanction - moved from ANI

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I'm not sure where to place this (since it wasn't posted at WP:AE), so I've gone to WP:ANI as the usual site.

• User:Malik Shabazz (MS) has been topic-banned from the Arab-Israeli conflict for six months for this comment at an AfD discussion eight days previously.
• In my opinion this is incredibly heavy-handed - a number of other admins saw this, and did not react. The banning admin, User:Sandstein, posted this message at MS's talkpage, which MS reverted with an edit-summary of "taking out the trash". Sandstein then imposed the 6 month topic ban partly based on MS's reversion of his comment (here). I don't want to invoke WP:INVOLVED here, but ...Let's focus on the main issue. Comments? (and from uninvolved parties, not from the usual suspects, please). Black Kite (talk) 18:08, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Black Kite, might be better to move this to AN, because from a procedural standpoint, MS could either appeal to AE or AN (and he would need to appeal or confirm that he wants this to be treated as his appeal.) As an uninvolved admin, I'd like to see what Sandstein's response is, but I wouldn't have TBAN'd for 6 months based on the comment you linked. That being said, I don't see it as INVOLVED. Sandstein was acting in an administrative capacity when he left the talk page message. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:15, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't this have been filed by Malik? --Tarage (talk) 18:19, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

It's not an appeal, but an admin looking at it and thinking it's wrong. Obviously, had it been placed at WP:AE, that would be different - but it wasn't. As I said, I'm not necessarily invoking INVOLVED. I'm more concerned that the TBAN itself is excessive. Black Kite (talk) 18:21, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

To further clarify (as I think I EC'd with the 8 days comment or didn't see it the first time), if MS were to appeal, I would support overturning the sanction, as I think it is too late in the game without there being a pattern of behavior being given as the reason. I still don't see it as involved just because there was a snarky edit summary: if you ask for an explanation and say you are going to sanction someone, and they respond by not giving an explanation, that doesn't make the admin involved. Doesn't make the sanction smart, but there is a distinction between an involved sanction and a bad one. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:38, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree - to be honest, the possibility of INVOLVED isn't really the issue here, and I probably shouldn't have brought it up, so I've struck that bit so we can concentrate on the main issue. Black Kite (talk) 18:42, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

(EC from ANI) Is there anything more that we are not seeing here? If not this looks to be incredibly disproportionate especially considering the general opinion about civility hearabouts. I would, without further background information, consider an admin showing up 8 days after an event to say they were "considering sanctions" and demanding the editor to justify why they should not to be unreasonably provocative. The response of "Taking out the trash" was not the best response but something similar, or much stronger, should have been expected. Jbh ^Talk 18:26, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• It's authoritarian and heavy-handed, but that's Sandstein. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:28, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
  • What a stupid comment. Just because they are Sandstein, it does not allow them a blank cheque to act in a heavy-handed way. Cassianto^Talk 18:38, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
    • I think you misunderstand, I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. My comment was intended to be critical of Sandstein's action - in my view, he is far too literal and heavy-handed a lot of the time, including in this instance. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:46, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
      • Then I suppose I have. Please accept my apologies, but the way in which you worded your first comment suggested to me that it was part and parcel of being Sandstein...almost akin to "sure, he smokes drugs and kills well-known Hollywood actresses, but hey...that's Charlie Manson." Cassianto^Talk 19:02, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
        • Ha, yes, I see what you mean - my comment was indeed ambiguous. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:04, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
• While Sandstein made it clear he was considering some sort of sanction, he probably should not have issued it after Malik Shabazz posted "taking out the trash" in his edit summary. Would have to see more diffs to make a determination as to how this escalated if it did at all but issuing blocks and sanctions after being slighted can have dire results for an administrator such as.--MONGO 18:29, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
• I discussed the issue with Sandstein at his talk page. I never received a clear response as to why MShabazz was singled out when other editors made similar comments, nor why it had to become an issue after eight days and many other editors seeing the comment. In my opinion, after Sandstein said Shabazz's refusal to comment "convinced" him, he was just looking for an excuse to hand an active content contributor a harsh punishment. Regardless, I'm sure this will conclude with the community saying Sandstein was within his rights as an admin and that nothing can be done.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 18:30, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Again, you and others commented on the post, Malik commented on the person and attacked. That is why he was sanctioned. Why Drmies didn't do anything is a question for him, not for Sandstein. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 18:46, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Both of you - as I said above, it would be better for uninvolved editors to comment on this. Otherwise it will just descend into the usual Israel-Palestine shouting match. Thanks, Black Kite (talk) 18:48, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• I, for one, am not surprised to see this here at all. I too was subject to heavy-handed action by Sandstein for the idiotically worded sanction imposed upon me by our resident kangaroo court. It's high time this administrator was held to account and now seems like a perfect time to do it. Cassianto^Talk 18:34, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• I would like to point out that I am not asking for any action against Sandstein, only that this (IMO) very excessive sanction be subject to discussion. Black Kite (talk) 18:37, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Until the next time, that is. And then we find ourselves back here again. There's no point in fixing the tap when it's the sink that leaks. Cassianto^Talk 18:41, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Am I the only person who thinks that there isn't a few day/one day statute of limitations on comments? I don't know if the tban is disproportionate or not, but when considering a preventative longer-term (e.g 6 month) TBAN, whether a comment happened 8 days ago or 1 shouldn't really matter, should it? Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:36, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Nope. Unless they are being used to demonstrate a long term pattern comments have been, in my observation, treated as stale after a couple of days. Certainly after a week. Jbh ^Talk 18:40, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately it would be trivial to demonstrate a pattern on Maliks part due to his editing history - but his issue is one of civility and restraint, not neutrality. The problem with a topic ban however is any ban essentially takes out a large portion of the editing that keeps the unashamed Israeli POV pushing editors (two prime examples in that AFD) from their crusade of hatred and frankly propagandist article skewing in check. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:47, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

So he should be not sanctioned just because he is Pro-Palestinian editor?Its funny that WP:NPOV for some is one way street.--Shrike (talk) 19:18, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

No he should not be sanctioned because pointing out the rampant hypocrisy of Israeli pov-pushing editors, while not civil, completely illustrates the problems facing editors attempting to keep some sort of neutral view in the IP area. The end result of a topic ban will be an increase in same editors ability to turn Wikipedia into friends of Israelpedia unchallenged. The root problem is an old one, and short of topic banning everyone jewish/israeli/palestinian/etc from the area in totality due to an inherant conflict of interest, is not going to be fixed. The best we hope for is some sort of cancelling effect. Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:25, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Like I said it seems some editors care about only one type of POV and talk about POV pushers from other side while clearly they have POV of opposing side also some may argue that Wikipedia is Palestinianpedia right now and some want it to stay that way.--Shrike (talk) 19:33, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Sandstein ought to be desysopped for the stunts he's pulling or alteast deserves an Arbcom case!, It's one thing to do a job other admins don't want to do but it's another to be very heavy handed with everyone and everything .... The community as a whole seem to object to his heavy handedness so this should IMHO be looked at. –Davey2010^Talk 18:48, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Let's not exaggerate here. Rather than being "very heavy handed with everyone and everything", Sandstein is often the first one at AE recommending that no sanctions be given to an editor. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:57, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
• Nope. One excessive sanction doesn't mean desysopping. My only reason for posting here is that Sandstein will reconsider this. Black Kite (talk) 19:01, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

There is no exaggeration, He may not be heavy handed with everything but I would certainly say he is with the majority of things ...., That's the point tho ... it isn't one .... so far it's been about 5 or 6, Had this been one case then sure I wouldn't care one iota but that's the point it's been more than once. –Davey2010^Talk 19:08, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Black Kite, what was the point of this thread if we are simply asking for Sandstein to reconsider their heavy-handed action? They so "no", we say "oh", and then the request is over. Sandstein, and his Teflon covered cloak, then slink off into the shadows to pounce on their next, poor, unsuspecting victim, and this has been a whole lot of wasted time. Cassianto^Talk 19:17, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Because, due to the arcane way in which AE works, there's bugger all else we can do. Black Kite (talk) 19:33, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

lol, who'd have thought! Cassianto^Talk 20:08, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Hello, everybody. I'll be glad to discuss the reasons for my sanction in detail, but an appeal may only be made by the sanctioned editor themselves, see WP:AC/DS#Appeals by sanctioned editors. Because this discussion cannot therefore result in a change to the sanction, I think that it is better to wait until any such appeal is made before I discuss why I imposed this sanction.

  Only with respect to the appearance of action while involved, I do not think that this applies here. "An administrator who has interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role (...) is not involved and is not prevented from acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that editor or topic area" (WP:INVOLVED). That is the case here. While I did take into account Malik Shabazz's removal of my request to comment, I did not even consider that removal as a possible "slight" against myself, but rather as an indication that the editor is unwilling to recognize or discuss problematic aspects of their editing and that sanctions therefore served a preventative purpose. Even if one were to see an attack against myself in such a removal, I suggest that it would be unhelpful to consider any admin who is in some way attacked by an user to be "involved" just because of that. That would incentivize users to pick fights with all admins active in AE in order to "inoculate" themselves against sanctions. Regrettably, admins are frequently personally attacked by users against whom they have taken (or are about to take) admin action, but I consider it part of the job to be able to shrug such things off. Sandstein 18:51, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

  I'd just like to note that I applied a somewhat broad and long sanction because of Malik Shabazz's complete refusal to discuss their own conduct. Should they change their mind, decide to appeal (either to me or to a community forum) and indicate that they now understand that severe personal attacks are not acceptable in a WP:AC/DS topic area, I'd be more than ready to discuss lifting or modifying the sanction depending on what they have to say. But the ball is in their court. Sandstein 19:05, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Sandstein, that is exactly the kind of arrogant rigid rule-following dismissal of the concerns of your fellow admins that I have come to expect from you. But I know we're all wasting our time trying to talk to you. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:03, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• I'll just take "rigid rule-following" as a compliment, then. Sandstein 19:05, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• And that's probably the saddest comment I've seen here so far. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:19, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• The problem just because Malik popular editor and some editors support his POV this was brought to AN usually the sanction that Sandstein levied are upheld in appeals and I agree with you that his sanction are harsh but the beauty of that there are uniformly harsh--Shrike (talk) 19:24, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

The only prior ARBPIA sanction I see logged for Malik Shabaz is a 4 day block by Sandstein for civility/PA back in January 2017. In reasonable progression the next thing should be a 2 week or, at most 30 day, block. That would only be sustainable if it had been enacted sometime nearer the time of the actual offense. Since no evidence of disruption of the topic as a result of or in association with the PA I do not see how a long topic ban can be sustained. Certainly it can not be without citing evidence of long term disruption and, considering the civility levels of the topic area, that Malik's behavior is significantly outside the norm.

A six month topic ban seems to me to be so disproportionate to the cited offense that it should be considered outside reasonable administrative discretion. I suggest the topic ban be modified to 30 days. Jbh ^Talk 19:17, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Yes. My entire point in bringing this here. 4 days -> 6 months? Black Kite (talk) 19:31, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

There's only 3 possible routes from here - 1) MS goes to ARCA to get his sanctions changed, 2) MS goes to AE to get his sanctions lifted, or 3) Sandstein faces a review of his administratorship. GoodDay (talk) 19:21, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

MS could confirm here that he wants this treated as his appeal. The committee has allowed this at ARCA (or suggested allowing it if someone wanted to.) I see no reason why we would require another forum if he wants this to count as an appeal. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:26, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

And as Sandstein said earlier, he's OK with modifying the sanction if Malik speaks with him. The ball is in Malik's court. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 19:29, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• I think Malik should answer simple question are he willing to strike his violation of WP:NPA policy?If yes I would support his appeal if he ever file one--Shrike (talk) 19:42, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
• Thank you to those who have expressed concern, but I would sooner jump off the Empire State Building than grovel before a "good German" like Sandstein, who strains out a gnat but swallows a camel. — MShabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 20:11, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• (ec) I regret that you feel that way, but should you change your mind and be ready to discuss your conduct towards others, feel free to contact me on my talk page. Until then, I do think that it is better for both yourself and others if you stay out of the topic area in which you don't seem able or willing to restrain yourself from voicing your feelings. (By the way, to whoever it might concern, this is not a license to harass Malik Shabazz in any way while they are topic-banned. That banhammer has two ends, you know.) Sandstein 20:22, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Racist remarks are generally not viewed favorably. Might want to remove that. PackMecEng (talk) 20:18, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry, and you won't find anyone more opposed to Sandstein's actions around here than me, but what has his nationality got to do with this? Leave out the xenophobia, please, and concentrate more on the person. Please also see Godwin's law. Don't resort to such drivel, if you can. Cassianto^Talk 20:19, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Malik, I have abstained from commenting here, per Black Kite's request, on what has caused me much grief. But it is deeply morally and even analytically wrong to insinuate Sandstein is a "good German". He's Swiss, for fuck's sake. That German is one of his mother tongues has fuck all to do with who he is, whoever he is. To say that he speaks German ergo is silently complicit in the Holocaust is analogous to saying a native Hebrew speaker (Noam Chomsky) is complicit, ipso facto in the nakba. I'm sure you know this if you dwell for a minute in silence. You made a brilliantly illustrative quote from Deuteronomy that underlined precisely your sensitivity to shameful behavior (editorial double standards in our area). Don't let this unfortunate contretemps get the better of your sensitivity to shameful behaviour. Nishidani (talk) 20:31, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I once read or heard a saying 'Swiss are Germans without the sense of humor.' A cousin of my wife is married to a Swiss man named Hubie. Hubie has a great sense of humor. His crack about our wives returning from a shopping trip was classic but I can't recall what it was he said. Me and dear wife (she recalls the saying too) spent 10 days in Switzerland in 1997....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 21:11, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: Block

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

In light of the above comment and their response it sounds like a topic ban was a bit light and should add a block. PackMecEng (talk) 21:51, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. PackMecEng (talk) 21:51, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. It appears that Malik was sanctioned by Malik, not for his post, but for refusing to speak with Sandstein. That looked, and still looks, like Contempt of cop, not an uninvolved administrative action. Kablammo (talk) 22:14, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The proposal is not related to the original topic ban. It is about their conduct in response to it in the above thread. PackMecEng (talk) 22:25, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - I suggest the proposer stop wasting the community's time with ridiculous proposals that no sane editor would support. Like you are doing with this proposal, Sandstein escalated the situation. That obviously does not excuse MShabazz but the t-ban was just an excuse to wave a big stick; Shabazz just needs to cool off on his own.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 22:24, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I was posting when this was being closed but for the record should it ever matter, here was my post:

It rather appears that "Good German", here, was specifically meant to refer not to nationality but to turning a blind eye, that's explained by the follow-on explanatory new testament aphorism "straining at a gnat . . ." [110] ie. focusing on the (morally) wrong thing. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:49, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

dash not hyphen

in the tab name is says '[pagename] - wikipedia' instead of '[pagename] – wikipedia'
– 2407:7000:8A01:8341:45D0:67AB:59E1:EF83 (talk) 03:19, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

This was previously discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 136#Change hyphen (-) to dash (—) in page title. The proposal was rejected because some old filesystems and browsers don't have support for unicode characters, and the hyphen is a more well-supported alternative. Mz7 (talk) 05:34, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

But, but what are we going to do, knowing that the wrong tiny horizontal line is being used somewhere! Beeblebrox (talk) 00:27, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Move ban for Jimbo

Hatting by Andrevan, a Wikipedia constitutional crisis certainly won't be solved on WP:ANI and this is a noticeboard used for admin issues day-to-day. This ban proposal is disruptive because it is unlikely to obtain consensus, and is unenforceable even if it did, absent some ArbCom ruling to the contrary. The Supreme Court of Wikipedia is the only entity that could feasibly check its benevolent dictator. So don't revert the hat, thanks! Andrevan@ 05:24, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
There were long discussions at Meghan Markle about changing the page name in light of her upcoming marriage. User:NeilN move-protected the page in this diff at 16:34, 17 May 2018 , and the time of that protection was extended by another admin, User:Zzyzx11, in this diff at 03:47, 19 May 2018, and Zzyzx11 added further editing protection in the next diff. Jimbo moved the page unilaterally at 11:15, 19 May 2018. A "move back" discussion was opened at 11:16, 19 May 2018; the section is here. A discussion was opened at Jimbo's talk page at User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Unilateral_page_moves (permalink) at 11:47, 19 May 2018, asking Jimbo to self-revert. Jimbo replied there at 13:08, 19 May 2018 once, writing Actually, looking at the talk page, there appears to be quite a strong consensus in favor of the page move. At 13:28, 19 May 2018 Jimbo made a comment at the move discussion, and wrote this: I made the move primarily because I made the similar move of Kate Middleton to Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. It was fun to do so, and in similar circumstances in the future, I hope to do it again. and some more. The unilateral page move over protection was bad enough. The comment at Talk is another thing altogether. The admin tools are not given for "fun", nor for playing at being The One Who Moves Royal Bride Pages. I think this is behavior we would desysop people over, but I will settle for a ban on page moves. Jytdog (talk) 22:23, 20 May 2018 (UTC) A dramafest is not required since Jimbo will never move pages around in a disruptive manner. He may ruffle some feathers every few years, but the move discussion shows that Jimbo's move is supported by the community and posting here is not helpful. Johnuniq (talk) 22:40, 20 May 2018 (UTC) When Jimbo moved the article, there was a quite clear consensus on the talk page not to move the article without a discussion. Even those who were in favor of moving the article agreed that it should only be done after a move request. Jimbo's complete disregard for that discussion and for the move protection is disappointing. His justification of his action ("It was fun to do so, and in similar circumstances in the future, I hope to do it again.") was degrading. The same thing happened to the Prince Harry article. The article had been the subject of several move requests in the past and the future title of the article had been discussed since April. Several options were on the table when another administrator swept in and decided the page title on his own, with no regard to the talk page discussion. Why do we even bother discussing? Surtsicna (talk) 22:52, 20 May 2018 (UTC) So the remedy is that we should have fun arguing about a topic ban? I know it is irritating when someone sails in with a bold edit that turns out to be supported by a new consensus, but life is full of such irritations and it's best to get over it and move to something constructive. Johnuniq (talk) 23:06, 20 May 2018 (UTC) the bold page move was hmmmm, but the talk page comment was completely beyond the pale. Using the admin tools for "fun" is horrible. Saying "I would do it again" is mind-bogglingly arrogant behavior. The celebrity-whoringness pattern of behavior of "I move British Princess pages" is disgusting. We don't give admin tools for any of those reasons. The response is desysop worthy. I will settle for a pagemove ban. Jytdog (talk) 23:14, 20 May 2018 (UTC) If you are going to do this please put the proper notice on Jimbo's talk page (I am inclined to support with the present evidence but will see if he has anything more to say after notice). Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:59, 20 May 2018 (UTC) I did do it, and I did put the notice, here at 22:23, the same minute I posted above. Jytdog (talk) 23:08, 20 May 2018 (UTC) Oh, Thank you. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:21, 20 May 2018 (UTC) Support on general principle and with full knowledge it will never happen. In a perfect world we would remove the +admin bit for such blatant abuse but since Jimbo gets his tools via the +founder bit I do not believe there is really anything to be done. We have no barons to leash our capricious lord so we simply suck up these mostly harmless whims and protest in futility to make ourselves feel a bit better. Jbh Talk 23:07, 20 May 2018 (UTC) Well, we have an ArbCom ruling on this sort of issue. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war#Jimbo as the ultimate authority. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 23:12, 20 May 2018 (UTC) That was 12 years ago. WP is not the same as it was then. Not by miles. Jytdog (talk) 23:16, 20 May 2018 (UTC) I seriously doubt his "ultimate authority as project leader" was meant to be used for an ultimately trivial page move. --NeilN talk to me 23:17, 20 May 2018 (UTC) Oh FFS. There is no realistic doubt that the article will end up at Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, so this entire argument is about whether Wikipedia editors should have a temporary right of veto over what is, after all, now her correct official name. Guy (Help!) 23:15, 20 May 2018 (UTC) User:JzG no, that is not the issue. Jytdog (talk) 23:19, 20 May 2018 (UTC) Yes, it really is. It's all about the content. Guy (Help!) 23:22, 20 May 2018 (UTC) The best outcome would be for Jimbo to voluntarily and irrevocably relinquish his "ultimate authority" powers, and stand for RfA and for a seat on the WMF board. I do not care about the ultimate outcome of article title, but I consider it disruptive and arrogant for the "boss man" to edit through protection, just for the fun of it. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 23:28, 20 May 2018 (UTC) Actually (and rarely) I disagree with you. Every now and then we have a situation where someone needs to just cut the crap and deliver the correct outcome. Guy (Help!) 23:33, 20 May 2018 (UTC) Of all the situations and topics where I would consider what you say true this case is nothing of the sort. The chance of Jimbo jumping into a controversial or problematic policy or operational issue is so close to zero as to be zero. This was just an ego-gratifying whim — nothing grand or useful about it at all. Jbh Talk 23:42, 20 May 2018 (UTC) Close to zero? How quickly we forget Jimbo's central involvement in the debacles around Arnnon Geshuri and Lila Tretikov in 2016. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 23:58, 20 May 2018 (UTC) I stand corrected re content . This, however, is not of the like. Jbh Talk 00:15, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Yep... forgot the whole thing... Jbh Talk 00:28, 21 May 2018 (UTC) I have met Jimbo one on one for a beer. He simply does not come across to me as the sort of person to behave as you describe. He now lives in England and has a decent appreciation of English mores. I think the best and most charitable explanation is that he moved the article to the correct target in order to shortcut pointless process. PMy son is at Sandhurst right now, Prince Harry is normally known as Harry Wales, the name he used in the Army. Maybe Jimmy feels some kind of connection, albeit tenuous. Who knows. Guy (Help!) 23:51, 20 May 2018 (UTC) Short circuiting process, on a collaborative project, is seldom the right move. It certainly is not when there are no pressing issues, such as BLP, requiring immediate action. Regardless of motivation we expect those who have advanced permissions not to use those permissions to enforce their view whether the outcome is 'right' or not. If Jimbo understands neither that principle nor that by moving through protection he would inevitably cause drama and disruption then there is a problem. He deserves respect for what he has done with Wikipedia but at some point that respect can no longer include the ability to arbitrarily do as he pleases. Children grow up and parents let go. This shows it is finally time for him to let go. Jbh Talk 00:15, 21 May 2018 (UTC) No, it's about whether administrators should be able to override talk page discussions because it amuses them to do so. There was absolutely no consensus for the Prince Harry article to be moved to a new title either. There had been quite a few move requests regarding it throughout the years (which clearly spells controversial), and several possible titles were being discussed when the page was abruptly moved, baffling those involved. But whatever, it has already been pointed out to me that I am not worthy of questioning the supreme leaders. Surtsicna (talk) 23:32, 20 May 2018 (UTC) Amuses? This is England. As of right now she is, officially and formally, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. You may or may not be contemptuous of our customs but that is the objective fact. Wikipedia was launched in 2001. My school was founded slightly earlier, in 948. Even then, a person marrying a Duke would be addressed in this style. Guy (Help!) 23:38, 20 May 2018 (UTC) No, this is not England. This is Wikipedia. And no, she is not officially and formally "Meghan, Duchess of Suffolk". If we were using the official and formal title, the article would be called Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Sussex. The present title reflects the style of an ex-wife of a duke, not of a spouse. Is Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex also official and formal? No, it is not. But all that is entirely besides the point of this thread, and the title itself is discussed elsewhere. This is about unilateral page moves that pay no heed to the ongoing discussions and do not even acknowledge them in edit summaries. It's cringeworthy. Surtsicna (talk) 23:50, 20 May 2018 (UTC) Jimbo lives in England. So do I. And, crucially, so does the Duchess. Guy (Help!) 00:02, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Ditto what JzG said - surely there are more productive things we can do with our time. Atsme📞📧 23:40, 20 May 2018 (UTC) Support for now 1) there was no actual reason to do it right then - it could have waited days, weeks. 2) It is very bad use of admin permissions to force your content edits. 3) It seems very disrespectful of those, who had weeks ago properly opened the discussion, asked for the protection, and gotten a neutral admin to apply it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:48, 20 May 2018 (UTC) (In matters of disclosure, I have not yet voted one way or the other in the move, prefer to see next weeks coverage, if I vote at all, I do note that the New York Times used "Meghan Markle" after her wedding.) Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:37, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Eng-land swings like a pen-du-lum do. Her name, from the moment she was married, was exactly the name that Jimbo Wales moved the article to. He found it fun to move the page to its inevitable title, and having fun on Wikipedia, if we assume the move was made in good faith, is nothing to sneeze at. And Jimbo having fun on Wikipedia? Priceless (a multi-editor trout decorated with a two hour ban and I bet he wouldn't complain). Randy Kryn (talk) 23:57, 20 May 2018 (UTC) Well, it's most certainly not her name, it is her first name and it is a title, but you won't be seeing that as name. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:02, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Yes, it absolutely is. In the same way that her father-in-law is Charles, Prince of Wales and her brother-in-law is Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. Harry being Harry I wonder if they will go by Mr. and Mrs. Wales, he was Harry Wales in the Army, but we have nothing on that yet. Guy (Help!) 00:07, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Well, it absolutely is not "Duchess of" is a title not a name. Moreover, apperantly there are sources saying it's the way you refer to a widow in England, but regardless of any of that, such moves are to be discussed. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:13, 21 May 2018 (UTC) I thought, if one were to be all formal and proper, she was Princess Henry in the same way as Princess Michael of Kent. Jbh Talk 00:18, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Yes, she is Princess Henry. Had Prince Harry not been been made a duke, that is what we would call her. But she has adopted the style Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Which is fine. The guiding principle is everyone gets to determine their own form of address. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:36, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Well as a general principle that sounds fine, but do you have a source that she has ever called herself that? The closest source I have seen, the royal website does not call her that. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:42, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Oppose I find the arguments regarding the title odd, considering that Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge has been at that location for several years, and no consensus has found any reason that name is inaccurate. Also, due to the sheer volume of fuckwittery in discussions in the area, naming conventions of British royals is one of the few areas where there's a plausible argument for the Argumentum ad Jimbonem. Finally, unless Jimbo is interested in Jack Brooksbank, the situation is unlikely to recur in the next decade. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:15, 21 May 2018 (UTC) you made me laugh at least :) Jytdog (talk) 00:21, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Sure, and Jane Seymour has been at Jane Seymour, for even longer, and Wallis Simpson has been at Wallis Simpson forever, and Grace Kelly has been at Grace Kelly forever, etc. etc. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:37, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Comment: Bad move, obviously. Would have got any other admin into trouble. But nothing is likely to come of it and, frankly, if Jimbo is such a big fan of the royals that's his problem. Let it go I say. --regentspark (comment) 00:20, 21 May 2018 (UTC) My thoughts exactly. Any other admin, and we'd be having a WAY different conversation right now. But, since it's Jimbo and we really can't do anything about it, it's a waste of time to pursue. SQLQuery me! 02:09, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Considering comments by JzG (Guy), Johnuniq, and others, I suggest we act responsibly and close this thread, before it becomes a meaningless dramaboard. No offense to OP. Rehman 00:24, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Ditto. No earthly good will come of this thread, and there's no need to pillory Jimbo in multiple places at once. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:40, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Something good and simple would be a page move ban. This is the only place other than arbcom where that could happen. Arbcom would be drama. Jytdog (talk) 00:45, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Oppose per WP:IAR, WP:NOTBUREAU, WP:5P5, WP:COMMONSENSE, WP:BOLD. Perhaps Jimbo still believed in those ideals, and we've greatly let him down. Perhaps it was just an ego-fueled power play. But given the overwhelming community consensus backing it, the move itself was a good one. And sanctioning someone for doing a good thing to an article, for nothing but procedural objections, is worse than an out-of-process move itself. By all means, express your anger on his talk page, take him down a notch, but let's not overdo it. The project isn't seriously going to benefit from slapping Jimbo with a ban. And, not that this card needs to be played, but he literally founded* the project. Give the guy a damn break. Swarm ♠ 00:49, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Hmm? Why won't it benefit? It's happened before that he, specifically, not to mention other admins lost some power, the project goes on. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:59, 21 May 2018 (UTC) The corruption in the talk page "rationale" is as obvious as the snout on a pig. Celebrity pages are the cesspool of WP and I guess some abuse of admin rights in the midst of that cesspool is not a big deal to folks. I am fairly disgusted by the boys club Jimbo ass-kissing here and will not be commenting further. Jytdog (talk) 01:41, 21 May 2018 (UTC) (aw heck Jytdog (talk) 05:10, 21 May 2018 (UTC)) Oppose Lets be realistic here, this thread isn't actually going to accomplish anything. The page was going to end up there any way this isn't a bureaucracy. The community most likely will never agree on sanctioning Jimbo. Lets all go back to being productive and return to our normal editing. While I commend Jytdog for their sense of fairness and moralistic views this honestly isn't that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.--Cameron11598 (Talk) 02:08, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Oppose per JzG, but I would like to express disappointment in Jimbo. That move, and especially that subsequent comment were dumb decisions. Furthermore, Support freshwater fish-based responses from the community.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tazerdadog (talk • contribs) 02:47, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Oppose the sanction, this was nowhere near egregious enough to merit sanctions based on one bad call. But for reference, it was a bad call. "Ignore all rules" doesn't mean "ignore other editors", and while there's a decent chance this would have been the outcome anyway, letting the process take its course so everyone can be heard harms nothing and often prevents ruffled feathers, and the editors involved seemed to be fine with waiting for the discussion to run its course. But a topic ban is overkill, an aquatic-based kinetic remedy will do. (And for Guy in particular, the common name, not the correct name according to UK rules, is what would be used). Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:25, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Qppose. Seniority has...or at least should have...its privileges, and having fun doing funny things is one of them. Btw, the cowboy rode into town on Friday, stayed 3 days and left on Friday....how did he do that? Nocturnalnow (talk) 03:31, 21 May 2018 (UTC) The cowboy invoked WP:IAR. Whether it was a good move to eliminate three days from the calendar was impossible to predict in advance, and that could be resolved only through extended, heated, and time-consuming community discussion. In the end, nothing came of it because the cowboy was well-liked and respected overall. The next month, a different cowboy eliminated three days from the calendar under slightly different circumstances, and ended being hanged for it. It's a little like quantum theory. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:42, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Oppose, of course. The Pope of Wikipedia is infallible and we all need a final indisputable authority to settle intractable disputes. Perhaps Jimbo can also return Sarah Jane Brown to Sarah Brown (wife of Gordon Brown) or move the name of the Ukrainian capital from the Russian form "Kiev" to its native Ukrainian form "Kyiv".    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 05:03, 21 May 2018 (UTC) Ok I am back. "I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything." I guess that really is the world we live in. I am not OK with that. Jytdog (talk) 05:10, 21 May 2018 (UTC) I think Godwin's law is in need of an update. It's now more like "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Trump approaches 1". Mr rnddude (talk) 05:18, 21 May 2018 (UTC)