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Centralized discussion RFC on appropriate handling/removal of non-free images that breach WP:NFCC policy #9. RfC on the proposed cessation of selective delete (other than history merge fixes) and resulting changes to deletion policies, including the removal of a Revision Deletion criterion. Invitation to comment on candidates standing for 2012 Audit Subcommittee appointment RfC about whether "new messages" banner hoaxes should be prohibited RfC on how files from non-copyright states should be treated and used on WP RfC on aspects of the leadership of the featured article process			Requests for Comment on User Conduct Candidate pages Certified pages Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Kolins – potential editing against consensus and lack of discussion on talk pages. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/DocKino – alleged persistently uncivil edit summaries. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Fæ - allegedly misleading citations, disputes over BLP sourcing and WP:CLEANSTART. General
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Noticeboard archives

Requests for closure

This section is transcluded from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure.

Admins needed at WT:NOT

Please could an uninvolved admin (or possibly several) take a look at sections 1-11 of WT:NOT (the discussions about Wikipedia and censorship) and preferably close some (or all) of the discussion threads. This has been going on for the several weeks now and tempers are showing signs of fraying. There is 740k of text on the page now, almost all of it related to the censorship issue (108,000 words / 169 A4 pages of wikitext in 12pt text). Thryduulf (talk) 17:11, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I have moved the close request for WT:NOT from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive229#Admins needed at WT:NOT but not the subsequent discussion. Cunard (talk) 09:10, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I have to comment on the fact that there (now what's left because I only see 1-8) is quite a bit of discussion going on there, and discussion by itself does not need closing. Now as for the RFC proposals, and please excuse my WP:TLDR on some of them, your asking for (an / a group of) impartial admins/non-admins to close the comments on a proposal of a proposal? Drafts of proposals exist for a reason, but to sum up and say "x is the best proposal" or "X has the most support" I think is counter-productive because the points that are opposed in the current draft are just going to be objected to on the actual request for comment if it actually comes from all that discussion. Feel free to object, and maybe I missed something, like I said, quite a bit of WP:TLDR involved, but this is not something I'm willing to close per what i've said above. -- DQ (t) (e) 14:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The landscape has changed a bit since I made the request. The request was made because of persistent repetitive argument perceived as WP:IDHT by many commenters; since then though people appear to have mostly got the message that repeating the same arguments will not make people agree with them when they haven't done before. There is a lot of TLDR there, but basically there were three sections:

• A specific question regarding whether WP:NOT "protect[s] incidental material" or not (which if you look at the comments in both the "does" and "does not" sections looks like a consensus that the answer is neither and that NOTCENSORED is irrelevant)
• Several nebulous proposals about altering WP:NOT in someway regarding how we should defer to what images are used by reliable sources. The whole discussion is/was a mess because various people appeared to be treating it as a specific discussion about images (specific or general) used in certain articles (particularly Pregnancy and Muhammed, although others were mentioned) while others were discussing general principles, sometimes using specific articles as examples.
• Proposals that image use (and possibly article content/article choice) should be governed by the overriding principle of not offending "cultural norms".

All three went round in circles with lots of WP:IDHT and not getting the point.

From my partisan point of view, I'd say that the first section should be closed somehow to make it clear that there is consensus that whether material is included or not depends only on its relevance to the topic; and that as there was no consensus on what "incidental" or "protected" meant that the question cannot be answered further by that RfC.

The second, I'd probably close as no consensus without prejudice to future discussion about a more clearly defined proposal/question about a proposal where it is clear what is being asked.

The third, I'd close as rejected based on consensus that the proposal is fundamentally incompatible with NPOV. I repeat though I am highly partisan.

Even though they're starting to lapse into the archive, I think that formal closure would be of benefit to the almost inevitable next round, wherever that might be, as certain editors (clearly named elsewhere) have been trying very similar proposals in many places for several years, each time resulting in no consensus or rejection. Thryduulf (talk) 13:34, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd be happy to close such sections above, but with them flying into the archive (yes, i'll go through the archive), I am not 100% sure which sections you are referring to, could you please link them? -- DQ (t) (e) 11:03, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

• Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 41#RfC on NOTCENSORED
• Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 40#The path to Wikipedia policy fundamentalism -- a case study (possibly not the last subsection)
• Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 39#Proposed change to WP:NOTCENSORED
• Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 38#RfC-related PROPOSAL: Add WP:ASTONISH to the hatnote and call it a day
• Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 38#Objectionable content
• Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 37#What WP:NOTCENSORED is not

And anything else you think would benefit from a closure statement in archives 37-40.

You should be aware (if you're not already) though that there is a pending request for arbitration that might (or might not) take into account the happenings at WT:NOT. See Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#Muhammad Images. Thryduulf (talk) 13:28, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Since this is already at ArbCom and deals with the specifics of the RfC and the user conduct on it, i'm going to put this close on hold. -- DQ (t) (e) 20:04, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Call us up when the Arb Case is over, for now...lets collapse this thread. -- DQ (t) (e) 20:31, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

The Muhammad images case was closed today at 06:29 (UTC), the final decision can be found there. Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 11:01, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Ugg boots#RFC on Concerns about quality section & Talk:Ugg boots#RFC on inclusion/exclusion of court cases involving counterfeits

Two ongoing disputes. The first was a formally listed RfC that finished a little while back. The second wasn't formally list. Any help closing them would be much appreciated. - Bilby (talk) 22:36, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

{{notdone}} One, I can not find, the other I don't follow and seems to me like basic policies, and US Law already cover this, but i'd prefer someone with more insight, but not involvement into what's going on here look into the latter one that I can see. -- DQ (t) (e) 21:11, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Something odd happened in the archiving of the first one - probably my fault. I've fixed it, and if there's a chance to formally close it one way or the other it would be much appreciated. :) - Bilby (talk) 14:55, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Of note, I think the discussions should be closed together, so i'm going to leave this one. Sorry, -- DQ (t) (e) 20:29, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

No hassles. That makes a lot of sense. :) - Bilby (talk) 01:19, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Highways#RFC on coordinates in highway articles

The discussion has run for 30 days and can be closed. Closing admin please note the canvassing issues that have come into play. --Rschen7754 01:32, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Good lord this is the longest RfC i've seen in a while. In progress of closing, and it looks fairly simple, but give me a day or three some time to look over everything to be sure and because there are so many comments. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 10:06, 26 January 2012 (UTC) Modified -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 01:52, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Y Done -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 18:58, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Improving PORNBIO

Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Improving PORNBIO was initiated on 26 December 2011 and was listed at Template:Centralized discussion. Would an admin assess whether there is consensus on what to improve in WP:PORNBIO? If there is no consensus on what to improve, would an admin initiate an RfC about deprecating or maintaining the guideline per the consensus in the previous discussion?

The previous closer at Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)/Archive 2011#Pornographic actors/actresses who started this discussion wrote: "A suggested outcome for this discussion is that a reasonable amount of time is allowed for people to improve the guideline, and after that a new RfC may be opened specially with the focus of 'deprecating or maintaining' it." Thanks, Cunard (talk) 06:28, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Talk:South Asia#Merging "Indian subcontinent" here

This RFC has been open since about two months and has been once relisted due to lack of participation. Editors have given arguments but without citations on one side while many citations exist in the article for the articles being about the same area. Users seem to be voting here rather than getting a consensus so the arguments and their basis might need to be considered a bit more thoroughly. I think this should be admin closed as the article was once merged and split before. All those points have been reconsidered in this RFC which is on the merge proposal. --lTopGunl (talk) 09:21, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Y Done, NAC, which I consider unproblematic as there clearly doesn't seem to be a consensus to merge. Feel free to contest my closure. PaoloNapolitano 13:48, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

No references were provided the opposing parties to back up their claims (while many references for support were provided). Oppose comments as such seem personal opinion or OR. Please check that. Thanks. --lTopGunl (talk) 13:53, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

The supporting parties provided no more references than what the opposers provided. There is no consensus to merge, which is what the discussion is about, just two-three users pushing references and answering claims. PaoloNapolitano 14:06, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates#Overturned delisting

I tried posting this at AN, but it was archived without comment. There has been a discussion on the featured picture candidates talk page over the last few weeks about how "delist" discussions should be dealt with. It would be good if we could get some closure- there have been no comments for some days. Can I request that an experienced editor who was not involved in the discussion close it, and post any conclusions reached? Please see Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates#Overturned delisting. If there is a more appropriate place for this request, please point me to it. J Milburn (talk) 11:20, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Bump Nikthestoned 14:27, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Try posting at WP:AN/RFC; it's transcluded above, but the bot knows not to archive until it's actually closed, and editors do patrol that page looking for discussions to close. --Rschen7754 09:36, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

A little correction. WP:ANRFC is archived manually, the bot wouldn't know, if a discussion is closed or not. Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 11:51, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Taliban#Request for comment

RFC has expired, the topic is very contentious with a supporting editor unilaterally claiming consensus to which I have disagreed based on the comments so it needs an administrator to weigh the arguments in the RFC and the related consensus Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard/Archive 28#Taliban and close. Thanks. --lTopGunl (talk) 17:38, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

There is no related consensus as the current discussion is about Pakistan's support to the Taliban before September 11, 2001 and the other discussion was about the support after 9/11. The situation of source availability is completely different for both time periods and the discussions have been going completely differently. JCAla (talk) 17:47, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I've already provided quotations from that discussion which say the opposite (esp for attribution). Don't think this place is for that discussion. --lTopGunl (talk) 17:55, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Taiwan (disambiguation)#Move request

This RM was recently relisted due to lack of consensus; but several editors are waiting for this RM to close before we start a new (bigger and better) RM proposing to move ROC to Taiwan. In other words, very shortly after the Talk:Taiwan (disambiguation)#Move request discussion closes (pressumably with no consensus), a new RM will begin at Talk:Republic of China. This has been building for quite some time, and I think a few editors are itching to get the ball rolling (we even have the future RM proposal pre-written here). Thanks, Mlm42 (talk) 02:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Talk:List of fictional dogs#Request for Comment

We need an admin to assess consensus for the RfC discussion ending Feb 5. The debate has been running since early December and the main parties involved are thoroughly sick of the debate so we need closure if possible. Thanks in advance. -Thibbs (talk) 01:48, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2012_February_1#File:Gagnongrave.jpg

Could someone please close this discussion? Thanks, FASTILY ^(TALK) 04:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Article Incubator/A Star Is Born (2012 film)

If someone could close Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Article Incubator/A Star Is Born (2012 film), that would be great. The discussion has been open far past to standard time for discussion, and I can't close it because I participated. Thanks for your help! ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 09:16, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Y Done by Bencherlite (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights). Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 00:31, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:Administrators' noticeboard#Discretionary sanctions on caste articles and more

Would an admin please close this proposal? Thanks and cheers. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 12:39, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_February_1#Template:Cleanup

Would an admin please take on the task of closing this TfD? It has been open for roughly nine days now and is thus overdue to be closed. Thanks in advance. jcgoble3 (talk) 18:12, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

User:BarkingMoon sock tagging

Related to the above section about Rlevse, Gerda Arendt has pointed out to me that User:Raul654 has just tagged User:BarkingMoon as a sock of Rlevse. Has it been established that this is the case? 28bytes (talk) 18:29, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

No, there was some suspicions that he was, but there was no solid evidence. In his departure statement, BarkingMoon vehemently stated that he was not Rlvese. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 18:39, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I must have missed it when they changed policy so that we just take a suspected sockpuppet's word that he's not a sockpuppet. Raul654 (talk) 19:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

That principle was established in 2010: [1] [2] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:28, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• Anyone that denies that BarkingMoon is not a quacking gaggle of quackers clearly does not want to accept the obvious for some unexplained reason - Youreallycan 18:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Barkingmoon left and two days later Pumpkinsky (who admits he is Rlevse) appeared. That's hardly a coincidence. According to an arbitrator, Rlevse admitted that Barkingmoon was "associated" with him. Raul654 (talk) 18:50, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

So file an wp:spi. Nobody Ent 18:59, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

The people that know already know - its so obvious as to not need a SPI - Tag him or not - thats also by the bye. Youreallycan 19:02, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

An SPI was already filed. The arbitration committee refused to comment on the Barkingmoon-Rlevse connection at the time. Asked about this today, they said the evidence was inconclusive (there was some supporting it and some against it) and that we should rely upon behavioral evidence, which (in this case) is pretty clear-cut. Raul654 (talk) 19:08, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

There's already been an SPI; per that and the discussion at the arb page,[3] I can't think of any logical reason to deny the tag correctly applied based on both. If Rlevse is ready to move forward and be rehabilitated, disputing the tagging seems counterproductive. In addition to the curious article overlap mentioned by Geometry guy: [4] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:17, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Is there nothing to be said of dropping the stick and taking a step away from the dead horse? Some conduct is so obviously spawned by bias that credibility becomes victim. I've seen some of this and support it as detrimental. My76Strat (talk) 19:29, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: The stalker tool is fun and all, but comparing the overlaps between PumpkinSky and BarkingMoon, PumpkinSky and me, and PumpkinSky and you, I'm not sure what it tells us exactly. 28bytes (talk) 19:35, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Comparing anybody with me via the stalker tool is useless, since there's pretty much no place I haven't been, and my fingers have been in just about every article to ever be on the mainpage. I overlap with everyone who edits. It's more helpful to use the tool to look at the specific edits within the articles identified (for example, in my case, you discover I almost always did some sort of cleanup when the article was at FAC or DYK or on the mainpage). Then explain that overlap. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:39, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Is there nothing to be said of dropping the stick and taking a step away from the dead horse? - that's only true if the horse is actually dead. Other people here seem ready to welcome him back with open arms, in which case I want every last bit of his misbehavior documented. At least then all the paperwork will be in good order the next time he takes a dump on our porch and then declares he's leaving wikipedia forever. Raul654 (talk) 20:11, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, there is are only 30 similar pages. All of them DYK related, or AN/BN related. Many editors overlap on these places. I don't really see an strong evidence here. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 19:43, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

There are. Hurricanefan25 (talk · contribs) 19:53, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

you can lead a horse to water ...

• http://toolserver.org/~snottywong/cgi-bin/usersearch.cgi?name=BarkingMoon&page=Noel+F.+Parrish&server=enwiki&max=
• http://toolserver.org/~snottywong/cgi-bin/usersearch.cgi?name=PumpkinSky&page=Noel+F.+Parrish&max=100&server=enwiki

Tools. Sample. Perhaps that will help. Now, look at any of my overlap with anyone, and you'll find in almost every case that my edits are explained by FAC, DYK or mainpage presence, and usually amount to cleanup only, not content addition. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:02, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• (edit conflict × 2) Get the facts straight. BarkingMoon is not Rlevse, but is associated in some way; on the other hand, Rlevse admitted to being PumpkinSky. Therefore...BarkingMoon is probably not Rlevse. Hurricanefan25 (talk · contribs) 20:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• Some of us do have our facts straight. Some of us don't believe everything we read, particularly when there are no conclusive facts. There is evidence, though. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:13, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

(EC x 3) What I find sad is that editors are warring to remove the sockpuppet tag from the Pumpkin Sky userpage even though checkuser confirmed it was Rlevse [5]. Now what's that about bias and explanations for why the Rlevse sock categories weren't populated? - Burpelson AFB ✈ 20:05, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

That as a good-faithed misunderstanding: the tag that was placed on the page claimed that the user was "blocked indefinitely" which hadn't been the case at the time. Amalthea 21:02, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, but the two accounts being two different persons is as probable as live brain cloning having been invented in Montana. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 21:24, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

See also: [6] and [7], both of which concern the BarkingMoon/Rlevse connection.   Will Beback  talk  22:22, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

CheckUser note: I cannot speak for behavioral evidence, but technical evidence from the SPI linked to above strongly suggest that BarkingMoon and Rlevse are completely unrelated. Please do not continue down this line of thought without taking that into consideration. Keegan (talk) 06:33, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

You're basically saying that someone spent a considerable amount of time studying Rlevse's mannerisms, topic interests, and grudges in order to impersonate him. I find that much less plausible than the alternative that he is simply Rlevse. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 12:25, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Keegan, since your statements don't jive with the more nuanced information from the arbs over at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee, please refrain from threatening the community not to do exactly what it's supposed to do in cases like this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:50, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, in particular with:

The BarkingMoon account came to our attention in late June 2011, when we were asked to look into the open SPI on that account. The technical evidence regarding the account was ambiguous; while the CheckUser data was suggestive of a connection to Rlevse, it was inconsistent with other information available to the Committee. When directly asked about the BarkingMoon account, Rlevse denied that it was operated by him, and provided an alternative explanation that was consistent with both sets of technical data. The Committee was divided as to whether this explanation was sufficient; however, as we were discussing the matter, BarkingMoon left the project. Given that our (almost exclusive) focus at the time was dealing with the arbcom-l leaks—indeed, many arbitrators did not participate in the discussion regarding BarkingMoon due to concerns regarding the security of the mailing list—we did not pursue the matter further.
— User:Kirill 04:41, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Not as adamant that they are "completely unrelated". Perhaps someone should resign their CheckUser bit for lack of professionalism? ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 19:41, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Just take a look at the edit summaries

On talk pages in particular. High similarity between BarkingMoon and PumpkinSky in the terse style, and particularly the use of "start" as edit summary for talk page posts [8] [9]. I've not seen other editors do that insofar. Maybe there are some who do, but on top of all the other correlations, it's highly improbable for it to be just a coincidence. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 20:11, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

It's as blatant a duck as if it were Daffy himself dancing around and teasing Porky Pig. The denials and overt bias are just sad. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 20:14, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you feel my tendency in this regard quacks as loudly? [10] My76Strat (talk) 20:18, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

False protagonist. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 20:20, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Burpelson, the comments about "denial" and "bias" are completely unhelpful. What SandyGeorgia and ASCIIn2Bme are doing – providing evidence and analysis for us to look at – is helpful, and frankly pushing me in the direction of agreeing with the tagging. 28bytes (talk) 20:37, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Just a very small point, but they add up: My76Strat would fail as an obvious Rlevse impersonator on account of the frequent capital letters at the start of edit summaries, which none of the other accounts use. One would have to argue that this change was a deliberate deception... Geometry guy 23:42, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

That and using full sentences like "Add comment to talk page". By the way, if anyone can imitate My76Strat's elaborate phrases on talk pages, I'd "buy" them a wiki-beer or two. I suspect User:Floquenbeam might succeed if they set their mind on the task, but few other have a snowball's change in hell of coming even close, no matter how hard they'd try. Some editors do have very distinctive on-wiki communication style. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 01:54, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

It would not be such a stretch for me. :) I tend to write compressed but long sentences, often with moralistic or confessional asides! :)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:01, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Another telling edit summary is "tks" used by both accounts. [11] [12] They also both refer to the DYK queues using the same notation e.g "q5", "q6" in the edit summaries [13] [14]. Another commonality is that both accounts use "ps" as edit summary when they append to an existing post [15] [16]. It's highly improbable that two random Wikipedians would exhibit all these commonalities. I'd very curious if anyone can find another account to match all these elements. That would take some database trawling, and I don't have a tool server account. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 20:43, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Next, you start on these; it's not the number of articles where there is overlap (I overlap all over the place with everyone), it's the nature of the articles and the nature of the individual edits that you have to look at. There are some pretty obscure articles there that need examination. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:54, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I think it's enough to note that BarkingMoon also had an interest in obscure places from Montana: [17]; more. The interest of PumpkinSky in that is well established. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 21:08, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

CheckUser note: I cannot speak for behavioral evidence, but technical evidence from the SPI linked to above strongly suggest that BarkingMoon and Rlevse are completely unrelated. Please do not continue down this line of thought without taking that into consideration. Keegan (talk) 06:33, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

@Keegan: Isn't it correct that CU is not pixie dust? My understanding is that it can prove two accounts are used by the same person, but that it cannot disprove sock puppetry. In light of this recent thread, I came across circumstantial evidence that user:PumpkinSky used a proxy. Rlevse had CU rights and presumably knew how to evade CU detection. If someone uses a proxy server (open or closed) and a different computer then CU can't find them -- right?   Will Beback  talk  07:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Keegan, noting your unncessary repetition here, and since your statements don't jive with the more nuanced information from the arbs over at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee, please refrain from threatening the community not to do exactly what it's supposed to do in cases like this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:50, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Add BarkingMoon to CCI?

Looking at the list above led me to this:

William Temple Hornaday (a scouting article, Rlevse territory, also edited by Rlevse)

• Source: [18]

• In 1885, President Theodore Roosevelt sensed that the buffalo would become extinct and sent Smithsonian taxidermist William Temple Hornaday to harvest buffalo specimens so that future generations of Americans may remember what the American buffalo looked like.

• Article:[19]

• Hornaday, working for the Smithsonian Institution, harvested specimens from the region in 1886 so that future generations would know what the buffalo looked like.

Also, 1885 became 1886 ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:10, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, Sandy, if the source says Theodore Roosevelt was president in 1885, I have certain issues with it. But as the next sentence in the source says "With the help of the U.S. Army, Hornaday got his skins to the rail head at Miles City in the nick of time to avoid the historic blizzards of 1886." I think that's OK.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:57, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Per this, the blizzard most likely being spoken of happened in November 1886.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:56, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm glad you caught the logical error and found additional info that explains it before I came 'round again. Thanks! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:03, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

""That is a copyvio? Not. [20] uses the same words. "Harvest" is the common term for game in those days so that is not of any special concern. And so I do not see the violation here. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

You might find a thorough read of this Dispatch helpful; copyvio is not just a matter of looking at one or two words. At any rate, since there is strong behavioral evidence that the BarkingMoon and Rlevse accounts are operated by the same persons, the question remains: should someone look at BarkingMoon's edits and should BM be added to the CCI? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:08, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Similarities etc.

(work in progress)

• Edit summaries:

  "tks" – Rlevse, BarkingMoon, PumpkinSky

  "ps" – Rlevse, BarkingMoon, PumpkinSky

  "q#" –

  Rlevse:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

• BarkingMoon:

1

• PumpkinSky:

1 2 3

• Page editing overlaps:

  Rlevse and BarkingMoon

  Rlevse and PumpkinSky

  BarkingMoon and PumpkinSky

  The three together

More to come. Hurricanefan25 (talk · contribs) 22:05, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Without tools: it's not so surprising that PumpkinSky and BarkingMoon overlap on Noel F. Parrish, after the former was asked to help improving the latter's article and then helped bringing it to GA. Abbreviations: I use "tks" and "appr" myself. You use what you see and like, right? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:28, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but look who asked him, user:Ched Davis. BarkingMoon said he confided his real identity to the only admin he trusted, Ched. In that light, the thread about Parrish does more to confirm that they are all the same user.   Will Beback  talk  22:42, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Which begets the question what Ched knew all along about the three accounts. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 22:49, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

And you think he would ask male or female then? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:51, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

It is possible he shared the newer account(s) with relatives/friends in order to confuse potential investigations. But clearly a subset of edits by all three accounts were performed by the same person. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 23:09, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not buying that possibility. If a subset, which subset? Aren't the individual accounts at least as coherent within themselves as they are with each other? That suggests at most one editor (or main editor, but exceptional edits need to be identified as such) per account. The question is whether those three (main) editors were three different people: so far, we know that two were the same person, which is a huge clue towards understanding the third. Geometry guy 23:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

You'd best address that question to people who introduce[d] evidence that subsets are strict. I have no such evidence. According to Raul654, John Vandenberg (speaking for the whole Arbitration Committee) said that BarkingMoon might be someone else because he seemed to know German and had a "completely different focus". [21] Furthermore, Arbitrator Risker said that "there was also some contradictory and pretty-well-impossible-to-fake technical evidence against" BarkingMoon being the same as Rlevse [22]. So ask ArbCom what contradictory evidence they have. Although I have presented evidence which indicates that at least some of the edits of BarkingMoon are very similar to those of Rlevse, I make no claim to have exhaustively checked all edits of BarkingMoon against those of Rlevse. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 00:26, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

(ec) The thread makes for very interesting reading with the benefit of hindsight (e.g., "Someone put a lot of work into that. Sorry about your friend." and "I'd rather people on the 'net know as little about me as possible."). Note also that Ched spotted PumpkinSky for working on a similar article to his departed friend, BarkingMoon. However this thread does not suggest that Ched thought PumpkinSky was BarkingMoon (unless they were both acting out a script, an assertion impossible to prove), and at User talk:Malleus Fatuorum#stopping by, Ched has stated that to the best of his knowledge, BarkingMoon was "a former IP who registered". On the other hand Rlevse told Arbcom that BarkingMoon was related to him in some way. At the very least there is some economy with the truth going on here somewhere, if not outright lies. So far, it seems more likely to me that Ched was among the deceived, not the deceivers. Geometry guy 23:10, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Add to the "coincidences" copious uses of just "oops" as edit summary [23] [24] [25]. And also "ref seq" [26] [27] [28]. BarkingMoon and Rlevese also used "punct bef ref" [29] [30] and "recycle" in conjunction with "ref" [31] [32] The fanbois need to call it quits at this point. I've found a few more rare and interesting ones, but I'm stopping here per WP:BEANS, in case he creates a new account. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 23:31, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Let me add one more smoking gun to the evidence. BarkingMoon's 24th edit (as an obviously experienced editor) was this contribution to an ANI (!) thread about User:Damiens.rf where he commented "If this is a repeat problem for Damiens.rf, ie, if he has a repeated history of causing problems, then he should be stopped."

Of course BarkingMoon couldn't stop Damiens.rf without help, but Rlevse certainly did. Geometry guy 00:10, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Which number the ANI edit was is even less impressive than the fact that it was made less than 3 hours after the BarkingMoon account was created. I think the wiki-phrase for that is "obvious sock is obvious". ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 00:40, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree. I have looked through the user talk history of Damiens.rf for some "Former IP" who might have been as interested in this as Rlevse was, but have failed to find a convincing match.

My opinion (based on my understanding to date) is that Rlevse created and edited the BarkingMoon account, but somewhere along the way he became trapped in one of his own lies. He could not come clean because it would undermine a lie that would be very damaging/embarrassing to him. So he dug himself into a deeper and deeper hole as BarkingMoon (explaining the very insistent denials towards the end) and had to quit. When he came back as PumpkinSky, he had learned a lesson: to keep the lies under control. Consequently, when challenged, he was able to admit to the lie, and did.

As ASCIIn2Bme notes, he may find these discussions rather informative, should he try to give it another go with a new account. Handling that possibility is the next challenge the community needs to face. Geometry guy 00:54, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

CheckUser note: I cannot speak for behavioral evidence, but technical evidence from the SPI linked to above strongly suggest that BarkingMoon and Rlevse are completely unrelated. Please do not continue down this line of thought without taking that into consideration. Keegan (talk) 06:33, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Keegan, isn't it correct that Checkuser is not Pixie dust? My impression is that it can prove someone is a sockpuppet, but it cannot prove they aren't. Rlevse formerly had CU rights so he was aware of how to avoid being caught by it. Just today, in light of this discussion, I came across circumstantial evidence that PumpkinSky used a proxy at one time. Isn't it possible that BarkingMoon may have also been masked through the use of proxies, different computer agents, etc?   Will Beback  talk  06:42, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

You are correct about all of these questions. We're account specific here, so there's only so much I can say about technical details. What I can say is that the technical details returned from CheckUser make it highly unlikely that this was use of a proxy or a false useragent return. I'm very, very comfortable in saying that this is two different users editing from unique computers without even a veil of shade. I'm confident that BarkingMoon is a different individual from Rlevse. They may share an off-line or off-wiki connection and Rlevse may have educated the user on Wikipedia, but several other CheckUsers and myself found no probability that they are the same user based on the information we can gather, and this matter was extensively discussed when it occurred. Keegan (talk) 07:29, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Again without tools, and from someone who joined only in 2009, so has no memory of old stories: Rlevse is on my talk 31 times, 30 of those were the signature of a DYK, the only other (and last) was pointing out that there was a question raised on DYK, you don't have to look it up, the question was if I really wanted a Bach cantata DYK among the Halloween ones. BarkingMoon entered my talk with a wordy lengthy greeting which I keep on top because it still keeps me going. It feels different. Rlevse signed "Peace", BarkingMoon didn't. Peace, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:48, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

As said above, it is not impossible that the account was shared, so that some edits were made by someone else. But other edits surely do have the Rlevse signature: topic interests (Montana places, railroad pics of Rlevese, immediate desire to vote in RfA/RfB/ban discussion on positions matching Rlevse's), tons of edit identical obscure summaries (plase find another editor matching all those discussed here, or just "punct bef ref") these can't all be argued away because he no longer signed with "Peace". That's extremely myopic. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 12:20, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

It beggars belief that different people using completely different computers as you say can produce identical obscure abbreviations in such large numbers. Or that they hold the same rapport relative of a number of other users. Different computer does not necessarily imply different person. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 12:20, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Didn't Mantamoreland use a similar method of having a "completely unrelated" DSL line in another city for his socks after his proxy editing was discovered? I find it very interesting that technical evidence is taken to be an absolute proof of innocence in the Rlevse case. Keegan, you will have to be somewhat more explicit as to what makes the evidence so exculpatory because the behavioral overlaps are similar in nature to those from the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Mantanmoreland/Evidence#Evidence presented by Cool Hand Luke. There are in fact more dimensions of correlation here than were presented there. We can even tell apart Rlevse from his wife by just analyzing the edit summaries, never mind topic interests. And I'm sure technical evidence would have the two confounded. I do have the nagging feeling that functionaries are not acting in an unbiased fashion here, and that old friendships are acting as a distorting lens. You can't comment on the behavioral evidence? Seriously? Is that never used in SPIs? ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 11:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Keegan, noting your unncessary repetition here, and since your statements don't jive with the more nuanced information from the arbs over at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee, please refrain from threatening the community not to do exactly what it's supposed to do in cases like this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:50, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

"Threatening"? Seriously, what the fuck? I've watched this whole Rlevse issue for a couple of days now, and I consider myself quite apathetic as to who's right and who's wrong here, but both you and Raul have repeatedly misinterpreted comments from various editors disagreeing (or not entirely agreeing) with you to an absurd degree. Please, stop that. There was no threat involved in any comments above. None whatsoever. Saying that there was is just.. weird, quite frankly. --Conti|✉ 15:20, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, clearly Conti, since you're an admin, you might not be as acutely aware of how statements like "do not continue down this line of thought" are aimed at non-admins. They generally translate to: if you continue this line of thought, you will be blocked for disruption. Happens all the time, everywhere, particularly at the AN and ANI noticeboards, where non-admins don't have the same right to speak as admins. Yes, it's a threat, because that's how it's often used. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:26, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, first of all, you missed the part that says "...without taking that into consideration". I think it's pretty fair to take the results of CU's into consideration, and I think that's all that sentence meant. You are, of course, still free to disregard that (You cannot prove the negative, after all, and with enough effort it is always possible to avoid a checkuser), but I think it's certainly worth noting. Anyhow, I am perfectly sure no threat was intended here, and if you are blocked for saying that you think the above mentioned account is a sockpuppet of Rlevse, I will personally unblock you myself. --Conti|✉ 15:38, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reasoned response, Conti-- I've been threatened many times, so I probably see it differently than you do, and I remain concerned that Keegan's statements here were strong enough to stifle any remaining investigation and discussion (which is still needed). For the record, I have little doubt that some cowboy freshly minted admin will be drummed up on IRC to block me over this whole matter, I could care less, and I do not EVER want another admin to unblock me when I'm unfairly blocked. If someone unblocks me, that will prevent me from going to the arbs lest they also came under fire. If/when some cowboy IRC admin blocks me for trying to get to the bottom of this, I want to stay blocked, so there's a clean case, no wheel warring. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, though I remain quite doubtful that you will be blocked over this in the first place. :) Time will tell, I suppose. --Conti|✉ 15:55, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Your statement is a detriment to you. It brings concerns of baiting and pointy editing directly to the fore. That is the danger of overzealous motives, which you seem to have identified. IMO - My76Strat (talk) 15:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, baloney-- that I get unfairly threatened based on zero evidence or policy or reason all the time-- because I'm a high profile editor-- is fact. Nothing baity or pointy at all in stating the fact for the record, so that someone won't unblock me if it ever happens. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, I apologize if you felt threatened. My message was in no way meant to convey that, and Conti has summed up my position well. I don't do hostility or threats. My intention was to note that based on CU, there is nothing. Behavioral evidence stands as the subject. But as this topic has devolved to notice, the BM/Rlevse issue was six months ago and a red herring. I seemed to have sparked a passionate debate that is moot. That was not my intent. Keegan (talk) 08:27, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

More: "u r": [33] [34], "hey" [35] [36], "rofl" [37] [38], "brit" and "yank" [39] [40] [41], "avoid redir" [42] [43], "after punct" [44] [45]. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 13:03, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

The behavioral evidence is extremely strong, really. If it's not Rlevse then it's someone who has closely studied and is deliberately copying his editing habits, which seems extremely unlikely. There are many ways to produce false technical evidence to throw off checkusers. I could give all kinds of examples here, but WP:BEANS. Checkuser evidence can't establish completely that an account is NOT a sock of someone else and every time it's a judgement call in reading the results and interpreting them. In the face of obvious behavioral evidence, it is illogical to keep saying that checkuser technical evidence cleared him because that's not possible. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 13:37, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Requests

1. Can someone check if the Rlevse account edited articles of Playboy centerfolds? Because the BarkingMoon account surely was interested in that too. Alas, if you hit me with a list of Playboy model names, I wouldn't be able to recognize one in a hundred off the top of my head, so this sleuthing job is for someone else. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 00:53, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
2. Does anyone know anything about the relationships between Rlevse Δ/Betacommand and Damiens.rf? I'm asking because of this. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 01:28, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I did randomly spot a nude model edit from 2008[46] but I only see one edit mentioning Playboy by name,[47] and it's not about a centerfold. Checking the actual centerfold names is hard because they're generally not articles. I don't see many likely ones in the edit comments but I didn't look closely. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 12:31, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Found a few more from early on:

• [48] See mention of models Donna Evans in diff and Lynn Thomas in edit summary
• [49] [50] Jayne Mansfield
• [51] Pamela Anderson
• [52] [53] [54] Deanna Brooks

67.119.12.141 (talk) 21:00, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. It doesn't look like a topic of major interest for either account, but from the above and the first 20 or so edits of BarkingMoon, I tentatively conclude that both made minor content additions and gnoming in that area. Perhaps more of a reader than writer role. And both accounts disliked editors who wanted stricter inclusion standards for this stuff, as Geometry guy pointed out above. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 21:16, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I checked for Penthouse Pets too. There's not much:

• 2010-07-10T21:57:45Z [55] Taylor Vixen in edit summary
• 2009-01-24T02:46:59Z [56] Traci Lords
• 2009-01-24T02:46:18Z [57] Traci Lords
• 2008-05-29T21:20:01Z [58] Jenna Jameson
• 2008-05-29T21:19:05Z [59] Jenna Jameson
• 2007-02-12T20:24:28Z [60] Jenna Jameson in edit summary Jenna Jameson
• 2006-11-23T13:01:55Z [61] Briana Banks in edit summary
• 2006-11-23T13:01:53Z [62] Briana Banks

67.119.12.141 (talk) 21:54, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

By the way

Since we've been introduced to User:JoJo as the spouse of Rlevse, it's interesting to note that although she tks'd a couple of times [63] and also oopsed twice [64] (although one of those was an oopsy something that Rlevse never used [65] despite using oops more times than I can count), she never ps-ed (same link as before) or "recycled" [66] refs (in the edit summaries). So, even in the family, the edit summary patterns are different between JoJo and the other three accounts. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 02:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Summary addressing concerns over specificity

I understand the concerns that "this could be anyone" raised by Gerda Arendt. Granted a single correlation proves little if anything. But have look at the multidimensional one considering Gerda Arendt's edits as the witness:

String/pattern	BarkingMoon	Rlevse	Gerda Arendt	Comments
"tks"	Yes [67]	Yes [68]	Yes [69]
"appr"	Yes [70]	Yes [71]	Yes [72]
"oops" alone	11 of 12 [73]	240 of 296 [74]	1 of 6 [75]	Even that is not really alone in GA's summary.
"hey"	Yes [76]	Yes [77]	No [78]	Used on talk pages.
"rofl"	Yes [79]	Yes [80]	No [81]
"ps"	Yes [82]	Yes [83]	No [84]	Used when extending prior comment.
"ref seq"	Yes [85]	Yes [86]	No [87]
"punct bef ref"	Yes [88]	Yes [89]	No [90]	Also, a single use of "punct" ever by GA.
"recycle"	Yes [91]	Yes [92]	No [93]	Referring to refs. GA never used the word.
"u r"	Yes [94]	Yes [95]	No [96]
"brit"	Yes [97]	Yes [98]	No [99]
"yank"	Yes [100]	Yes [101]	No [102]
"avoid redir"	Yes [103]	Yes [104]	No [105]

Brought to you by ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 18:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

German

In the BarkingMoon SPI Arbitrator John Vandenberg said that BarkingMoon speaking German [106] is an argument against him being related to Rlevse "if BarkingMoon is Rlevse, they have done a fairly decent job of a clean start, with a completely different focus and now demonstrating proficiency in German". [107] I think this was an error in judgement because CheckUser Amalthea stated with respect to the PumpkinSky investigation "I only remember talking to few people in German on my talk page, one of them was Rlevse" [108], a reminiscence brought up by this conversation. So, BarkingMoon speaking in German is an argument for rather than against him being Rlevse. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 20:15, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I assume this is what Amalthea was referring to. Does that qualify as "proficiency"? I dunno, I don't speak the language. 28bytes (talk) 20:26, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I think Amalthea was closer to the truth upon writing "it was probably a native English speaker who also knows German". The aspect that matters to this discussion is that all three accounts – Rlevse, BarkingMoon, and PumpkinSky – used German one-liners to socialize on en.wiki. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 01:02, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I have "used Deutsch" on occasion - and it means absolutely nothing - most literate folks know several languages to that degree. Collect (talk) 05:51, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

By the way, BarkingMoon's and Rlevse's German is about equally crappy. Very, very similar type and level of crappiness, actually. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:46, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. I never talked to one of them. BarkingMoon's German made me smile a lot, still does. PumpkinSky is proficient in understanding and translating (for example Guido Dessauer). - I can't compare, had no time to ever ask BarkingMoon for help with translation. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:10, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Here's more of a comparison of the German stuff:

• PumpkinSky:
  • [109] "Oder, man kann ein Admin-Freund zu fragen"
  • [110] "sind deine Ohren brennen? Bitte anschauen"
  • [111] "Ich auch verstehe nicht"
• BarkingMoon:
  • [112] "Guten Tag Gerda. Wie geht's?" [not precisely ungrammatical, but not very idiomatic either]
  • [113] "Sehr geehrte Gerda"
  • [114] "Ihre Arbeit ist grossartig. Weiter schreiben, eien lange Zeit. "
• Rlevse/Vanished 6551232
  • [115] "Danke"
  • [116] "wider noch einmal meine Fruendin"
  • [117] "Amalthea, ganz gut nicht wahr?"
  • [118] "Am besten, Amalthea auch eine "arbitratorin"."

All three accounts have the same pattern of using German for socializing with the same wikifriends. All three show the same poor grammar and the same level of unfamiliarity with German idiom, even in the use of simple stock phrases. I'd say it's as compelling evidence of their identity as you're likely to get.

By the way, if BarkingMoon was Rlevse, then in retrospect I feel rather pissed off about this [119] post, which in that case contained a blatant lie ("knowing nothing about this", said about an old Arbcom case where Rlevse was the drafting arbitrator). Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:55, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

As a German, I can confirm that the examples listed above are all pretty darn similar, and it wouldn't surprise me if they'd all come from the same person. --Conti|✉ 12:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I was a bit surprised about "Guten tag" etc. being un-idiomatic (although I can believe it) since it's precisely what I was taught to say in highschool German class in the US. My guess is Rlevse's German is typical of people who studied some German but not enough to be fluent. There are lots of such folks out there. 64.160.39.72 (talk) 20:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I didn't look here on the weekend. Adding to your collection So du glaubst. So you think. "Guten Tag" is still the formal greeting of a stranger in Germany. My father used to say: "der Hauch eines Zweifels wäre wohl angebracht". A "whiff of doubt" were beneficial, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:35, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit warring

Is it really necessary to edit-war on User:BarkingMoon while this discussion is ongoing? 28bytes (talk) 22:53, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I suggest someone protects the wrong version. Geometry guy 23:09, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Y Done - Alison ^❤ 01:38, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Alison. 28bytes (talk) 02:51, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

SPI

This investigation should be moved to SPI, I think. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 13:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Why? So, some Checkuser/Arbitrator can close it again as "disproved" by technical evidence? That was done once before, so no thanks. Let's establish the community consensus on this, after the evidence is presented. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 13:25, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree 100% with ASCIIn2Bme. This was already moved here from AN/I per WP:CBAN, moving it again is just going to confuse people. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 13:29, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Concur with ASCIIn2Bme. Too much conflicting information from checkusers, arbs, everyone involved-- CUs asserting as *fact* things that can't be conclusively known, arbs saying when CU evidence isn't clear to let the community decide on behavioral evidence, which is what is happening here. No, keep this open, let the folks examine the evidence (and let admins stop trying to close this off within minutes of new evidence coming to light). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:54, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Revise. Suggestion. Folks, editors who are so addicted to Wikipedia that they can't stop socking Will Be Back. The evidence is clear, but the more of it you put out here, the easier you make it for Rlevse to evade scrutiny the next time he socks. I've found several more tells, but I'm not going to say what they are, per WP:BEANS. We've got conflicting info from CUs, the arbs tossing it back to the community, a tight case here that the BarkingMoon account was at least partially operated by Rlevse, and a community of strange supporters who don't want to see the effects of his disruption-- that doesn't matter until/unless the next time he socks. So, I suggest putting out no more evidence now, since that will only make it easier for him to evade scrutiny. I suggest that we're done here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I think there is enough by now to prove whatever, though I don't even see what the proof accomplishes. Other sock operators besides Rlevse may have also been helped. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 00:49, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Since the section below was closed without a conclusion, I am considering filing WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Rlevse, with the main purpose of producing a finding on BarkingMoon. Flatscan (talk) 05:36, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Good idea, but you should link it to his renamed account and also be sure NOT to request checkuser. A checkuser was already done with ambiguous results, so this will have to be done based on behavioral evidence only. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 15:36, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions on caste articles and more

Every editor who has ANI oh his watchlist must know this: articles about Indian castes are particularly sensitive. Unhelpful edits and general disruption (POV-pushing, edit warring, personal attacks etc.) permeate the entire topic area and it is difficult for admins to successfully keep all this in check. For this reason, I'm asking the community to impose the standard set of discretionary sanctions on all pages (changed to "pages" from "all articles and templates" on 19:17, 4 February 2012 (UTC)) about social groups, be they castes/communities/tribes/clans/kootams/gotras etc., explictly including caste associations and political parties related to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. Diffs of assorted disruption can be provided upon request. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 17:43, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Edited to specify countries. Lynch7 18:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 17:44, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment Castes are one thing, and political parties are another thing entirely. Can you explain your reasoning for including the latter in your proposal? AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:49, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Salvio has been chatting with me and others on my talk page. Many of the political parties are caste-based. The classes listed above have been taken from my suggestion. I've no idea how widely the "article" term applies, but I intended it to include related templates also. - Sitush (talk) 17:52, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I have just added templates to my proposal. The reason I included political parties is because Sitush suggested they should be, because they're often caste based, as he says here. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 17:57, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Politics is very much linked to caste equations, and I think this sanction is needed there as well. Lynch7 17:59, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. While I accept your points about the linkage between caste and political parties, I can't help feeling that this is nevertheless over-extending things a little. Effectively, you'll be putting all discussion of party politics within the subcontinent under discretionary sanctions, and I think we'd need to be certain that this is really necessary before proceeding. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:44, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support - I've been leaning towards this for some time. I dislike the concept of such sanctions but "needs must". NB: I was involved in pre-proposal discussions, per my link above. - Sitush (talk) 18:03, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support. This is a much needed sanction, regrettable as it is. Lynch7 18:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: It would make sense if you link to evidence of some disputes and tenacious editing, so that participants who are unaware of this can analyze the proposal appropriately. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 18:15, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Perhaps the recent need for semi-pp at Template:Caste Groups of India (Kongu_Vellalar); practically everything that has gone on at Ezhava, Nair and Yadav during the last 12 months. - Sitush (talk) 18:25, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Kongu Vellalar has a long history (along with the associated SPIs). Lynch7 18:28, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Rajput, for a long time but just since Christmas will suffice for an example (includes socks). - Sitush (talk) 18:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support.This is needed.Pernoctator (talk) 18:26, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support - far too many petty disputes regarding this arise time & time again, and it's time we nipped it in the bud. GiantSnowman 18:33, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Can we say "pages" instead "articles and templates", as well as "general sanctions" instead of "discretionary sanctions"? Minor bureaucratic wording for the latter (DS is generally limited to ArbCom sanctions), but the former is important, I think. NW (Talk) 18:41, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Regarding the former, go ahead, I have no objections. Regarding the latter, if they are basically the same thing, again I have no objections. I just had never heard about "general sanctions". Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 18:47, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• "Pages" is no big deal; WP:General sanctions seems to be rather more than WP:Discretionary sanctions, eg: 1RR. Am I misunderstanding? - Sitush (talk) 19:03, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• General sanctions does not include 1RR unless an administrator specifically imposes it. The two are identical except for the process by which someone is sanctioned. There is a dedicated noticeboard for discretionary sanctions, but that is "owned" in a sense by the Arbitration Committee and community-based sanctions like the ones being proposed here generally are discussed elsewhere if it is not a unilateral decision. NW (Talk) 20:10, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Fine by me, then. I was a bit concerned about 1RR because of the number of new users who edit this type of article, coupled with the availability of admins who take an interest. It doesn't matter how manner notices appear at the top of an edit box, newbies in my experience tend to dive right in there. I can see the day when 1RR might become necessary but it would be nice to feel our way forward here. - Sitush (talk) 20:17, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Actually, I like the concept of "discretionary sanctions", meaning that any admin can unilaterally impose a sanction on someone disrupting Wikipedia after warnings have proven to be useless... And I believe that the community has the power to impose them just as much as the Arbitration Committee... Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 22:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Woah, I am lost now. One person seems to be saying that the two are for all intents and purposes the same, barring a reporting issue, and another appear to be saying that there is more to it. This is above my (non-admin) pay grade but it seems clear to me that some sort of consensus-based clarification is required. I've read both pages and, as with my comment about 1RR above, there are substantive differences in the wording. Help! - Sitush (talk) 02:05, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• Dumber than the average bear: I have remained blissfully ignorant of the whole area of discretionary sanctions, and having read the page linked above, I'm not reassured that I want to continue to work on restoring featured articles to status at the WP:FAR pages of articles like Kolkata until I understand what exactly the issue is. I've been questioning a lot of the text at Kolkata as part of the FAR and there are currently three Indian articles at FAR: would some kind person please explain on my talk page or here explicitly and directly what I have to be aware of and avoid? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

  Hmm, is what you are talking directly related to castes? :) Lynch7 19:09, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

  ummm, I don't think so, in the case of Kolkata text, but it could be in other cases, so generally, what is the issue I need to be aware of? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:10, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• POV-pushing, usually in an attempt either to glorify or denigrate a social group; edit-warring generally; repeated insertion of unsourced content/OR etc; repeated violations of BLP re: ethnicity/religion; absurd and extreme personal attacks on talk pages and in edit summaries ... that sort of thing. - Sitush (talk) 19:14, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks, that's all I needed to know. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:07, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support Badly needed. Dougweller (talk) 19:15, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support; a glance at Talk:Burki should tell you about all you need to know. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:27, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support but it would be even better if only bastards get the sanctions - I took a look at Burki as suggested by Northern Lights and that is disgusting. Yeah, NPOV and all that... but per my long standing opinion that wikipedia has to stand up for certain values, could admins please do yer best to work within the rules to cut a user who appears to be trying to get rid of the hate more slack than the primitive shits that cause this problem in the first place. Egg Centric 22:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• That would be me, then. Not the primitive shit, but the other fella.<g> - Sitush (talk) 22:15, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• I think you need to refactor this Egg Centric. It's pretty hard to convince users in these articles that we are dealing fairly with them when editors are calling them "primitive shits". Completely unnecessary. AniMate 22:28, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

A fair treatment for bigots is far more than a block. The misery they create is enormous. I appreciate that a fair number, if not majority, of the peopel they are harming are also bigots, but this is a developing world problem. Of course they are not shits, they are merely primitive peopel acting like shits. The ones who are not primitive are in fact shits, for then they have no excuse. Egg Centric 22:46, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I apologise for my levity. I think that AniMate does actually have a fair point. Caste is an extremely difficult concept to grasp if you are outside the system. To those who are then, sure, it has the appearance of bigotry etc but it is a way of life. I do occasionally boil over because (I think, and in the en-Wikipedia sense) I can see the wood for the trees but obviously if you are living in that situation then all you see are trees. My lighthearted comment was inappropriate. I had just had "one of those days" dealing with the fall-out. - Sitush (talk) 01:59, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support with the caveat that any discretionary sanctions need to be applied carefully, as we have some editors doing great work in that area against the POV pushers and we don't want them chased away. AniMate 22:26, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support I avoid areas like those in question, yet I still see the fallout from the POV warriors. As mentioned by AniMate, admins should go to some extra trouble when confronted with an established editor who is supporting Wikipedia's principles—rather than a quick block, please tell them clearly on their talk page (without the official warning) that they must stop for a day or two to avoid sanctions. Johnuniq (talk) 03:42, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support except that like AndytheGrump, I do not support putting political articles under the sanctions. Yes, some political parties in India are explicitly linked to caste groups, but many are not. To me, that would be like putting US political articles under sanctions because of the existence of the American Third Position Party. As for the general question of why...these articles are just a minefield. The primary problem comes from people in Group X, who want to assert that their Group is descended from high ranking castes, which are themselves descended from high ranking kings, who may very well be descended or related to Gods (this is not an exaggeration--much of the arguments on Yadav (modern group) is whether or not they are directly connected to the Yadava (ancient group) which was mythically founded by Yadu, from whom Krishna is said to be descended). Now, including mythical claims are fine (so long as the mythical connection is covered in reliable secondary sources, and the fact that it's a mythical claim is fine), but the problem is that many editors in these groups refuse to allow anything else in the article, including reliable sources attributing less glorious histories to these groups. Thus, Sitush in particular is often accused of very very heinous things, because he's insisting that our articles actually say what reliable sources say, as opposed to what people may have been taught since they were very young. And there's really nothing we can do in many cases to ease problem editors into Wikipedia's culture; some have, and have become great editors (or at least functional ones), but some are simply unwilling to adjust to WP:V and WP:NPOV. In many ways, the area is very similar to the Arab-Israeli conflict, in that one's fundamental world view may simply make one unable to interact comfortably with our rule set. Discretionary sanctions will help (if enforced) keep out the worst of the POV warriors, and allow us to more quickly say, "Please adjust, or please find another site to edit on". Qwyrxian (talk) 03:50, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support as long as it's used with due diligence and caution. Anything that assists our productive editors in this sensitive and contentious area is a positive move. EyeSerene^talk 12:15, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Caste related articles have stirred up almost unbelievable amounts of shit, and I'm honestly kind of amazed that sitush and the other productive content editors we have in the area have stuck on through it. Discretionary sanctions would be a good way to cut down - somewhat - on the amount of drama involved with this article set. Kevin (talk) 21:49, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support for goodness sake, yes. I too have observed issues in caste articles, which 99% of the time have editors citing 5000 year old texts and attempting to delete reliably sourced information on the basis of it. To quote another editor (I can't remember who said it), if all these caste claims were true, everyone in India would be a king or a warrior, with no one doing other stuff (like cooking, farming etc). Discretionary sanctions would hopefully bring some sanity to these articles. Steve Public (talk) 05:50, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I think you're referencing my comment about everyone being "kings" and nobody claiming to have been farmers. It's a riff on an American joke: "the reason we lost in Vietnam is because we didn't have any cooks or truck drivers because everyone's uncle was too busy being a sniper or a helicopter door gunner." MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:58, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support. I'd close this myself but I've gotten drawn into trying (and mostly becoming daunted) at wading in among clashing editors with the hope of NPOVing many caste-linked topics over the years. These can be the most "tendentious," sloppily-sourced and WP:OWNed/WP:SOAPBOXed articles on en.WP. Be aware, however, there are also deep language woes in this topic area: Broadly put, sub-continental English, written in the context of sub-continental cultures, is not the same as American or Commonwealth English, let alone trying to deal with translations from sundry old texts in dozens of dialects, the translations themselves sometimes being heavily spun (or "edited") one way or another. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:38, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

This appears to have fairly extensive support, and I don't see any indication that it's going to trend any way other than support for the ban...but could an uninvolved admin decide if it's time to implement this, and, if so, make the necessary entry on the sanctions page? I don't think we need to go through and pre-emptively tag all of the target articles (there must be hundreds or more), but we may want to tag the ones with the worst history and leave info at the India-related topics noticeboard. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Reduced block requested for Doncram

Per the discussion on User talk:Doncram and the positive casual support (17 votes: 11 yea vs. 3 nay, and 3 abstains), and that given the circumstances we request that the length of Doncram's block be reduced to time served, or to 6 weeks (unblock on Saturday, 11 February 2012) as the six month block is being used contrary to point #3 of Blocks should not be punitive: that it is a punishment not befitting the events which transpired. There is some concern among the dissenting vote regarding Blocks should be preventative, but is felt by the majority that this is being applied more against the user in question than this particular incident. In short, Doncram is in this case is similar to a parolee whom has served two sentences for grand theft auto, but is then caught stealing a pack of gum and is incarcerated for 20 years. Some say the point of escalating blocks is to change behavior. To which, I would respond: if there is no context in the doling out of "punishment", said punishment does not fulfill any purpose. Here the edit war was between two editors with a long adversarial history on article that was newly created. Both editors should have known better, and both were blocked, which is fine. What is not right is that Doncram's block is being applied without regard as to why the situation happened. Thank you & Best, Markvs88 (talk) 19:30, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

For the record, mostly just restating here what I already posted on my talk page when I was asked about the block.

I've noticed that Doncram (talk · contribs) hasn't even posted to their own user talk page since Jan 21st - and their edits at the time seemed more focused on justifying their violation of WP:EW. Before I can support an unblock request (with or without conditions), I need to see evidence that the user is willing to take ownership for their own actions and that they have a plan for how to disengage in the future before their editing might again escalate to the same conclusion in a content dispute. I wouldn't have escalated to the 6 month block myself ... I probably would have placed a 3 month block. However, once the block is in place, any question of unblocking or reduction of a block begins to hinge around the question of if the behavior is likely to recur. If I see evidence that they are taking ownership for their own actions and can demonstrate their respect for site policies by suggesting behavior changes or even unblock conditions that would reduce the likelihood of their disrupting Wikipedia again in the future - then I would support reducing the block, possibly even removing it. The problem is that, as yet, I'm not seeing that on their talk page. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:44, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

All of which is fair. Doncram just posted on his talk that he will reply in the next couple of days. Thank you again, Markvs88 (talk) 21:12, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support unblock--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

An overall concern about AN and ANI

(relocated from AN/I - Manning (talk) 04:08, 7 February 2012 (UTC))

I have just returned to editing after a few days of being mostly offline due to real-world commitments. In the course of catching up on my arbitration e-mails, my attention has been drawn to several current and recent AN and ANI threads. As I usually do when I'm on one of those pages, I have skimmed through the various other open threads as well.

I do not want to focus on any one particular thread and certainly not on any one particular user, but my overall impression of what has been going on on these pages is a negative one. To an even greater extent than one would expect on the pages primarily devoted to Wikipedia's backroom arguments and disagreements, I believe there has been a completely excessive amount of name-calling, repetitious rhetoric, trolling, accusations of trolling, harassment, unproductive piling-on, arguments about unimportant things, and generally unpleasant and damaging behavior. All of this is quite unhelpful and even counterproductive to our shared goal of building a high-quality, free-content online encyclopedia in an atmosphere of cameraderie and mutual respect among contributors.

Of course, I am not calling out everyone who participates on AN and ANI frequently or who has participated recently. The comments by many editors to the various threads have been useful and in good faith. But there also seems to be far more than the usual amount of nonsense. I was an "ANI regular" for a couple of years before I became an arbitrator, and I remember lots of unpleasant threads. But I certainly do not remember the atmosphere's being quite as toxic as this.

I would welcome other people's thoughts on this situation. Please note that discussion of this thread may belong on the talkpage, but I'd appreciate this post's remaining here so people will see it. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:43, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

It rather belongs at WP:AN, because it is not an incident - though perhaps with a link from here. Geometry guy 01:47, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm a tad surprised you're just now realizing this, NYB; it's been a very long time since you frequented these pages, and the childish environment on this page has everything to do with the civility arbcase. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:50, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, I was well aware before tonight that the tone on AN and ANI is often bad; my point is that in my experience it has rarely been this bad, and that it seems to be getting worse. As for its having been awhile since I frequented these pages, suffice it to say that I've probably spent wayyy too much of my wiki-life on a set of pages that may be equally God-forsaken as this one.... Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

It varies, from simple swiftly dealt with incidents, to boomerangs, to vicious long term feuds and harassment. It cleaned up a few months back, but it varies... Of note some users only come here to put the boot in. We generally ignore them, we should probably block them too. Rich Farmbrough, 01:55, 7 February 2012 (UTC).

The fact that we're arguing debating NYB's point being brought up here goes to his argument. As a non admin and avid follower (mostly reader of AN/I, BLPN, Jimbo's page, and other high-profile boards} I will at least say that NYB has a good point, and that more should be done to make this the "encyclodpedia that anyone can edit." That is unfortunately not the case so much these days, and deserves some thoughtful discussion. Though, by the same logic above, I'm not sure this is the board in which to have that discussion. 71.195.156.105 (talk) 02:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Um, that was me above. His point was so close to my own feelings that I jumped the gun a posted without looking at my login status. Quinn ^{░ RAIN} 02:05, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• I wrote this yesterday to a thread above (now hidden, thank goodness), and it seems to fit, however late: Comment: I don't understand a word, not the words, not the spirit. The top of this page says "Are you in the right place?" - I doubt it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:25, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

"our shared goal of building a high-quality, free-content online encyclopedia"

Our what? Isn't that a blocking offence by now? I would support NYB's observation here. Caring about an encyclopedia seems to be the last thing anyone gives a damn about. It's so much more fun to slate a bunch of well-written articles for deletion, because there's a way to construct a policy-based reason to do so, regardless of the relative values of the end results. Even the WMF has given up on the encyclopedia - the farce of WP:IEP instead favours "more new editors, at any cost (including the cost of losing established editors)".

Just what is the point, when the encyclopedia goal has been thrown so far away? Andy Dingley (talk) 02:09, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

That is why a lot of admins and most editors never, or rarely come to these pages. I was so busy on the 'pedia I almost forgot they existed until I was forcefully reminded. One reason I come here is to try and prevent people being maltreated, but with only modest success I fear. Rich Farmbrough, 02:22, 7 February 2012 (UTC).

My comment here probably pertains to this: [121]. Begoon ^talk 02:11, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I try to help out at ANI sometimes. You'll see me above in a couple of places. But many discussions I stay out of because I just don't want to get involved. It's the same reason why I stay out of a lot of nationalist disputes (DIGWUREN sorts of things, etc.). I get a headache reading them, let alone actually trying to get involved in them. -- Atama頭 02:16, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I loathe ANI and avoid it all costs, only coming here if I find it necessary, and even then I feel like my time is wasted. I cannot ever remember leaving a thread in which something productive came of it. Most often, if I have a problem and I come here, it's likely I'll be blamed for whatever problem I have by editors who have no idea what they're talking about. Very serious problems get sidetracked by pointless banter, engaged by chronic posters whose time is spent primarily here. It frustrates people who come here looking for help. There is no central focus on what to get done, just a jostling of personalities. There are ways to change this, but I am unsure people actually want that to happen. --Moni3 (talk) 02:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Your last point is likely to be a significant factor, yes. A drama board will attract people who like drama, and they will be unhappy if that is taken away. Good things can, and do, happen at ANI, and many frequent posters contribute enormously positively. But the atmosphere is atrocious, and there often seems little sense of purpose, focus, or control. About the only thing I can think of that would "save" the current format is clerks with authority - but honestly, a drama board is just that, so a complete rethink should not be off the table, either. Begoon ^talk 02:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I have full empathy with NYBrad's sentiments though I am at a bit of a loss to what exactly is the proper remedy. I think it's pretty obvious that AN/I has been taken over by some professional drama mongers. The ratio of legitimate complaints to pointless drama has quickly converged to zero. Anyway, the following suggestion is only one-fourth tongue in cheek: put Sandstein in charge of it and give him the powers to police it. It will be cold, impersonal, and detached but it will also be fair, judicious and impartial, with no nonsense tolerated. Like I said, I'm almost serious.VolunteerMarek 02:23, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

This is going to be wildly unpopular, but, you know, if we didn't have articles about living people, or existing companies, at all on this site it would quickly solve a lot of problems. But god forbid we don't have a Barak Obama or Microsoft article, even though they can "write" their own history in the course of things. Quinn ^{░ RAIN} 02:30, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

We're talking about an encyclopedia project that has had to have Arbitration cases filed about the usage of dashes vs. hyphens. Tarc (talk) 02:46, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

And one about date [de]linking, and now one about capitalization of birds' names (there's parallel ANI thread about that right now). I guess most people outside Wikipedia wouldn't give a flying fuck about these issues. So, I don't know why some are so surprised that the drama boards get owned by petty disputants. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 04:36, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

@Marek:That's not the first time I heard that idea. Without discussing individuals, what you are suggesting is clerking. I can support that and be totally serious. Begoon ^talk 02:34, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, then let's consider it seriously. How would you suggest clerks get chosen?VolunteerMarek 02:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I haven't thought it through very much yet. I think they would either need to be admins, or there would need to be a formal mechanism to enforce their clerking decisions, to avoid them being toothless. Other than that, some community selection process would probably need to be created. I haven't thought much further than that. There'd need to be some sort of RFC, so details would get hashed out there, I imagine. Begoon ^talk 02:44, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok. Makes sense. Other problem is: how many people would actually *want* to be AN/I clerks. Would you want to police this sorry mess? I sure as hell wouldn't. The idea that is good in theory might fall on its face in practice.VolunteerMarek 03:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

You have a point. I think there might be enough volunteers, but I could easily be wrong. Unlike you, I would be prepared to try it, though I'm sure I might come to regret it. I also don't think I'd be particularly suitable, my calm can be dislodged. But since I also prefer it to be admins really, I would also prefer to be ineligible. :-) (that's my excuse) Begoon ^talk 03:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Solution, in 6 easy steps:

1. Do not try to change AN/ANI. Inertia will prevent it.
2. Create WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Grownups (WP:AN/G).
3. WP/G is moderated by admins who have demonstrated maturity. That's not me, obviously, but I know it when I see it so I can help pick them.
4. Anyone who wants to actually try to solve a problem requiring admin tools can post there.
5. Moderators strictly enforce decorum and productive comments, more strict than CIVIL/NPA/etc. 1 warning, then you're page banned. If you're page banned, you have to go to ANI if you have a problem.
6. Since this operates in parallel with other noticeboards, we aren't forcing the solution on others. If you don't think it's a good idea, don't go there.

Done. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:49, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Almost perfect, but how do we advertise the distinction to newbies?

• Click here for all the fun of the traditional "ANI" experience, or...
• Click here to talk to mature people who want to get things done.

And here, it's me who's "almost serious", because I recognise the seriousness of the inertia issue. Begoon ^talk 03:07, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Or we could always just delete ANI...95% of the time it's more Wikipedia:Place to bitch and moan anyways. Save AN for the real important admin stuff (block reviews, ban proposals), and let the rest of the noticeboards deal with the other issues. Goodness knows we have enough to deal with it, but ANI has become a free-for-all. Steven Zhang ^{Join the DR army!} 02:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

ANI is quite entertaining, so don't change a thing. GoodDay (talk) 02:57, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe we could just, as a policy, refuse to comment on any threads (and disallow anyone else from doing the same), unless and until the poster makes a serious attempt to talk about the problem with those involved. That would get rid of, I don't know, half the threads? Someguy1221 (talk) 03:00, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Speaking as a former Arbcom clerk, I think the rules and procedures that have been developed there would easily migrate to this proposed new AN/G. Clerking is very effective when it is (a) completely impartial and (b) ruthlessly intolerant of incivility (employing a system of warnings, page bans and at last resort blocks to enforce page bans). Once people know the ground rules, it is surprising how quickly/easily people adapt. Manning (talk) 03:36, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Manning, in your opinion, would it migrate as easily to ANI, assuming the inevitable, considerable inertia could be overcome? I know it's a huge assumption, but we're theorising here anyway. Begoon ^talk 03:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Begoon - in theory it certainly could. We simply post a banner saying "Here are the new rules, and here are the clerks who will enforce them". After that we'll all get in our faster-than-light cars and go visit the unicorns. Manning (talk) 03:54, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, that's what I thought. Nice dream for a minute or two, though. Begoon ^talk 04:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Or how about just all admins avoid the Alphabetsoup? That's one thing that kills feedback from "non-regular" users. Simply provide clear links to what you're taling about. Quinn ^{░ RAIN} 03:44, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Mmmm....soup. Steven Zhang ^{Join the DR army!} 03:54, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

You've just killed your chances of becoming a Sysop, Steven Zhang. Bidgee (talk) 03:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Because I like soup or because I dislike drama? People get too wound up at AN and ANI. I don't think a light hearted, jokey comment is bad. Steven Zhang ^{Join the DR army!} 04:16, 7 February 2012 (UTC)Steven Zhang ^{Join the DR army!} 04:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

This whole thread should be closed or moved to AN (which has since happened) or ANI talkpage. It's sorta becoming bloggish anyways. GoodDay (talk) 04:05, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Part of the problem with these noticeboards is precisely that sort of comment—people raise a perfectly legitimate issue, and we end up debating whether or not the concern was raised in the appropriate venue. If somebody raises a good point, we should discuss it regardless of which particular noticeboard they posted it on. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 04:17, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

HJ - I couldn't agree more. I moved it only because I could see the inevitable argument coming on. That kind of pettiness is part of the entire problem IMO. And Steven, I also like soup. Manning (talk) 04:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

As I've been saying for several years now, ANI should be nominated for deletion. It was created at a time when we didnt have specific noticeboards to deal with specific issues, and now that we do, ANI has outlived its purpose and its usefulness. More importantly, ANI encourages an anti-wiki, anti-community, unfriendly atmosphere, where we are made to believe that we are powerless as individuals to solve our own problems no matter what the status of our user rights may be, and that has always been dangerous. We need to seriously recognize that elevating people based on user rights has always been divisive and goes against the precepts of what this place is supposed to be and how it should function. Anything that separates us from each other, that creates and maintains artificial boundaries, and that suggests that we can't handle our business without a divine authority with admin rights is something that we don't need. We need to encourage personal responsibility and growth, and stop treating people as if they are on trial or need to have a babysitter. The priorities and values espoused by ANI have been FUBAR for some time now. Viriditas (talk) 05:00, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

After a long, hard day at the office I read ANI and AN in order to get a good laugh. The amount of nickpicking, petty arguing, and otherwise general incivility that exists in astonishing. It's also pretty funny to observe. 76.118.180.210 (talk) 05:08, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

From my quote wall:

“	Another idea I had to reduce the sometimes more heat than light situations that sometimes occur here [on ANI] and pile ons etc is to have on each thread opened here a random article for improvement atatched to the thread and anyone wanting to comment in the thread here would first have to make an improvement edit to the random nominated article.	”
—Off2riorob (talk) 13:08, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

--Guerillero | My Talk 05:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The problem I see, is that we seem to have too much trouble blocking or restricting people who are jackasses. I don't care how good someone's "contributions" are, it doesn't give you license to be a jerk. Those who do so are sophisticated trolls, and should be given no more sympathy than any troll. If you really want to make a difference in it, find in the civility case that those who are repeatedly and grossly uncivil can be booted, regardless of what else they've done. The problem isn't restricted here, I've also noticed a general degradation of the tone in talk page discussions, because people seem to know that civility is no longer a basic requirement of participation to this project. People who are generally decent and civil and lose their temper should be warned first, but those who are generally nasty and uncivil should be shown the door, and all of us should help to push them out. Period. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:24, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I guess the fact that you're still here proves your point. Malleus Fatuorum 06:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I endorse NYB's sentiment. A lower tolerance for snark and off-topic asides, that is, a sharper focus on the matters at hand, would help to cool down hot heads and speed up resolutions. Perhaps a simple general agreement here that the standard of interaction is declining, and a resolution to do better, will prompt improved behaviour. The chan/troll behaviour that too frequently bubbles up here just reflects the poorly conducted debate on talk pages all over the project. If AN and ANI become models of decency and decorum without the imposition of structural change such as clerking, they can act as examples to emulate across those other pages that lack clerks. It just needs you to lower your tolerance and raise your standards.

For instance, I'm inclined to just delete Malleus' above comment as an unhelpful tangent, likely to lower the standard of the discussion, but in the present environment that would be seen as highly controversial. I do wonder, though, how many people would support its removal. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 07:12, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

People below support BB because they find him entertaining. I admit a chuckle at what Malleus wrote above. So, what standard shall we apply here? ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 07:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I don't stalk either editor but I'd be inclined to delete about 1% of Malleus' talk page and noticeboard comments I've seen, and ninety five percent of BB's. I'm just mooting a culture change, not some new set of rules. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 07:50, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Malleus was not making a joke. At ANI, User:Seraphimblade called persons "jackasses and "trolls". WP:NPA mandates rephrasing as comments on behavior rather than on persons, that is, "behaving like jackasses or trolls". Look at insults against Malleus at RfA or at the abuse on BadgerDrink at his RfC, for other examples.

This is late in the ArbCom case on "Civility Enforcement" for these distinctions to escape normally sophisticated editors like Anthonycole.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we're overdue for another WP:DRAMAOUT. -- œ^™ 07:17, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

amen to that .. if you start one, they will come. :) — Ched :  ?  17:53, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Driveby comment: AN is entertaining and horrifying at the same time. As an uninvolved editor who focuses more on content creation and the reader/new user-aimed noticeboards (RD, HD), the impression I get of AN in general is "a place two people go in, where in the best of circumstances, only one leaves unscathed." It seems that even the most minor spats when taken here escalate into something where someone HAS TO get blocked, or else nobody leaves satisfied.

A place where competent editors who made numerous good faith edits on article space get indeffed forever (or bullied into leaving) because of a single high-emotion incident that somehow made its way to AN and got blown out of proportion, with predictable results.

Even as a new editor, I never got the impression of what this place was supposed to be - a place to go when administrator help was needed. It always had the ominous aura of being an execution block, where even the pettiest of mistakes have the harshest punishments. Added to that atmosphere is the Damocles' sword of the user-rights "privilege", where people are never sure when they themselves might be the next to be promoted or the next to be guillotined. All it needs is the sign "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate" at the top.

And no, I believe overall contributions and good faith intent expressed elsewhere is a greater measurement of an editor's worth. I do not understand the almost maniacal obsession AN has with WP:NPA and sockpuppetry, to the point that almost every incident in AN/I always has this as a subtopic as users catch on that these are surefire ways of silencing an opposing party. They have become trump cards in discussions with WP:AGF taking the backseat or ignored altogether.

AN has ceased to be about resolving problems. Rather it has become a place where one goes to find more problems. Where the discussions are more about finding ways to justify who to block, rather than about the problems themselves. Indeed, some of the incidents here are specifically petitions to get someone else blocked, with the ensuing discussions being a gladiatorial arena of which user has more expertise with the art of nitpicking and baiting. Even when everyone gets off scot-free, the parties involved are only more likely to hold long-lasting grudges. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 08:59, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

But apart from that, you're happy with it? </evil> I said above that if anyone seriously wants to fix it then nothing should be off the table, including scrapping it and replacing what needs replacing with something else. You could "band aid" it with moderators/clerks, and that might even be enough, but given the enormous amount of inertia you'd need to overcome, why not go the whole way and RFC ANI properly, if we're serious? Yes, I know why not - we're serious. Catch 22. Begoon ^talk 09:21, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't really have a position. And as a bystander, I don't have the inside knowledge that regulars have of the mechanics anyway. Much of what's going on here is probably the result of cynicism given that the same issues probably crop up again and again. That said, the only thing I wish could be fixed is the loss of editors in artificially protracted spats and the (imo) too gung-ho application of indefs. A bit of perspective perhaps?-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 00:29, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

After yesterday's performance I'm attracted to the idea of simply deleting AN/I. As someone suggested, what's the worst that could happen? Most genuine requests for help already have their own boards (requests for page protection, vandalism help etc). However I don't think that's likely to be agreed to. Making it subject to more formal clerking might work, but at the expense of a new layer of bureaucracy and some (possibly legitimate) complaints about concentrating power further in the hands of the cabal. A third possibility is simply for the rubric at the top of the page to be enforced. It says stuff like: "This page is for reporting and discussing incidents ...that require the intervention of administrators and experienced editors. .... Please include diffs to help us find the problem you are reporting.... You must notify any user who is the subject of a discussion.....Please do not clutter this page with accusations or side-discussions within a discussion. Before posting a grievance about a user here, please discuss the issue with them on their user talk page."

Numerous AN/I reports are not about incidents, or neglect diffs, or fail to discuss first with (or notify) the person complained of. What if the convention became that those suggestions became rules, rigorously enforced? That diffs should be posted of genuine attempts to resolve before a case were accepted? What if complaints that failed the above test were summarily deleted from AN/I? I'd be willing to be held accountable for anything I did along those lines, provided there was the support of the community for a stricter line. Would other editors be willing to join me? Would this be an interim approach we could try more or less immediately? Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 11:19, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

You're onto something there. For example, all too often lately I've seen where posters at ANI have to be reminded to notify the party they're complaining about. I have often taken issues directly to a trusted admin. The main purpose of ANI is presumably to generate broader discussion about an issue. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:25, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but you need to be careful it doesn't get too loaded towards the reporter of an incident, who might be a newbie. You'd remove a lot of malformed complaints, and a few would just give up. If it's a well intentioned report, I see no problem advising and helping to fix it up. Enforcing in general that non-productive comments/trolling/other undesirable stuff will be reverted on sight across the board with warnings/enforcement as appropriate is my take on a meaningful interim (or forever, who knows) fix. Begoon ^talk 11:32, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a good point Begoon, and I'm not proposing simply defending the page by erecting impossible bureaucratic hurdles for people to leap. But I see VERY few AN/I reports from genuine newcomers and would agree that in that case a helping hand to produce a well-formed complaint would be the way to go. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 11:53, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm another admin who generally avoids AN/I. I would support any of deleting AN/I, putting it under moderation, or creating a moderated forum for serious issues. -- Donald Albury 12:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I am another admin who is in exactly the same position. Worm^TT · (talk) 12:54, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

+1. Happy to start an MfD for this. It often seems like a kindergarden. --JN466 13:24, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

+me Not an admin, but anyway, I support, in order: moderation, deletion (with alternative venues clearly marked), separate moderated forum. I think an RFC might be an alternative route, if it could be handled in a constructive way. Begoon ^talk 13:36, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Tempted to agree with either option, though I'd enjoy that MFD - if it was kept civil. I mean, there's a reason that WP:DRAMA used to redirect to WP:ANI. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 13:48, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Revised - I meant to support Moderation or Deletion, and God be with the poor bastard who tried to moderate this circus. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 15:07, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Okayyyy... I'll leave it to others to start the MfD but tonight (about 5 hours away) if there is still support for moderation, I'll draft a proposal for discussion at the AN talk page. I hesitate to do this as I've never been involved in developing policy before (which I think this amounts to) - hence another reason for waiting a while to see how this flies. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 14:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I've even less experience, but I'd be happy to help, in that event, where I could. I agree that waiting a while to let people who haven't seen any of this yet comment first is wise, though. Begoon ^talk 14:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Much as I agree with Obsidian Soul's comments on ANI, and tempting though outright deletion would be, it does still have some uses. Inevitably, the problem is with the users. As an alternative, how about applying an equivalent of 3RR to ANI: anyone who makes more than three edits to it in one day is automatically blocked for a week? That might do something to calm down the insanity. Robofish (talk) 14:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

In any case, I have started an MfD. Nothing brought up at ANI can't be handled at other venues. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 16:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Facepalm This will end well. Tarc (talk) 16:31, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

That being the case, I'll delay drafting any proposal for moderation until we see what happens at MfD. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 16:36, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

What if there was just simply were hard and fast with closing any thread that was not an "incident" that demanded immediate attention? There are cases where the action of an admin is needed quickly to prevent disruption, or handle other issues that don't require long debate and simply the admin bit to resolve. If the "incident" clearly becomes personal or the like, any non-involved admin should be able to slam close the thread and direct to the appropriate venue. Yes, that means WP:AN will be where many of these will thrive, and that still creates another issue, but at least we won't have admin action requests get buried under discussion at ANI.

As to what happens at AN, we need to do the same thing when the request is clearly better handled by RFC/U or some other dispute area. If it clearly is not something that needs discussion among administrators, there's no point in bringing it there. Yes, RFC/U and these other processes take time to set up properly if you're filing a complaint, but really, that should be the case: the problem is that AN/ANI has a low barrier of entry to make a complaint known. If you have to actually work out through a form what the problem is, maybe you'll recognize its not really a problem WP worries about, or there's a different approach to take, or the like.

The idea of clerks to keep both AN and ANI clear of discussions that should not be happening there makes sense; the body of clerks just needs to be large and broad enough to avoid having any single closure smack of COI problems.

By quickly stemming any inappropriate, premature attempt of dispute resolution at AN, we create a clearer picture of what AN's purpose is for, and likely will prevent editors from running here first. --MASEM (t) 16:47, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

arbitrary break

My post is in reply basically to the OP. First, I am very encouraged to see both members of AC, and some very seasoned veterans around these parts again - I hope you folks can pull things back from the brink. Now, this is only my own personal view, and not directed at anyone, or group. Back in the old days, 02-06ish .. before the site was as popular as it is now, it was a smaller group of people working together - hence, you all knew each other, and developed a camaraderie and spirit of working together. As it grew, more people were introduced, very easy for folks to get lost in the shuffle. The "originals" also grew, moved on to other things, either here or in real life. I think some of the unwritten common-sense rules of fair play, decency, mutual respect, and accepted ways of doing things, and the value of "lessons learned" fell by the way side and were forgotten. New admins. moved in, took their place - we did the best we could, but lacked experience. AN and ANI (or drama boards in general) was and is a natural starting place for admins. In a sense, I see Wikipedia as that unruly, know-it-all teenager. We're growing up, but we still need guidance - and have to be willing to accept it. If we don't, then we're going to sneak out of the house for being grounded - jump in a car with our "I haz friends" buddies - and drive off a cliff. It should be made very clear (and I know that AC has tried in the past to address this), that calm rational discussion is needed when problems arise. Sometimes love must take a firm hand. If an admin. "blocks" .. they should be addressed politely. If they don't respond in some period of time - a discussion should be opened for at least 24 hours (given all timezones and schedules a chance to respond). That's how consensus works. Already tl;dr I suppose - so I'll take a break here. — Ched :  ?  18:08, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

addendum Oh, in proof reading that .. the "address admins with respect" .. I most certainly did not mean to imply that the same isn't required of the non-admins. Non-admins deserve every bit as much, if not more respect, fair treatment, and allowed their fair discourse in due process. — Ched :  ?  18:47, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I've hung around ANI for years. It's always been a cesspool but (as far as I've noticed) doesn't seem any worse than usual recently. It has ups and downs like anything else. AN has more drama than I'm used to, because of what seems like an increased tendency to move longer-duration discussions from ANI to AN, that in the past might have been handled with ANI sub-pages. 67.117.145.9 (talk) 19:27, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

A few things to consider. A reason people come to ANI, aside from its high-visibility and as opposed to other noticeboards such as the dispute resolution board, sockpuppet investigations, requests for comment, or any other dispute resolution venue is because of its relative lack of structure and rules. It's very accessible to a lot of people, which adds to its appeal.

Another reason people come to ANI is because of its authoritative undertones the noticeboard has. I have been argued for some time now that since users bring any and all issues to ANI that it should be renamed to Wikipedia:Community forum or similar. However, I'm afraid that if we did something like that, the "drama crowd" will migrate to another board that has an authoritative undertone such as this noticeboard, the Administrators' noticeboard. As some other boards or Jimbo's or other admins' talk pages have been similarly labeled, ANI serves as a "run to mommy" place when problems arise. --MuZemike 07:25, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Personally I rather see the "drama crowd" migrate to Facebook - but I guess that's a different subject. But yes, good points all. There's always going to be a need for a place for concerns to be addressed. The thing is that that needs to be done consistently, firmly, but with the kindness that encourages people to stay and keep trying. We can say, I'm sorry, but this isn't something that's actionable here, but you can xyz. By the way, the person that deleted your post, changed your article, or blocked your friend was doing so in order to improve the project. What we simply can not have is one administrator acting in good faith simply being dismissed because "I haz buttons too". We need to be respectful of each other and follow mature protocols. It's fine to disagree, but it has to be done in an adult fashion, not some cowboy "revert your block" style. Personally I think we could well do with less "blocking and banning", and a little more guidance, but there are times that blocks are needed. Part of the problem is that some folks are simply not doing enough research into the big picture, which takes time. I noticed one the other day, and by the time I clicked links, read, decided that the person had legitimate complaints but was in need of a warning and got there to warn them ... they had been blocked for over half an hour. Absolutely no way the blocking admin had time to read anything other than the visible "leave me the fuck alone" comment. sigh .... — Ched :  ?  04:52, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposal for clerking/moderation

I have started a new section of the WP:AN talk page with a proposal, as it looks likely that the current MfD will not result in any deletion. I think that (rather than this page) is the right venue for discussing the nuts and bolts so may I suggest people who are interested head there to have a look and comment? Any help in publicising that discussion would be welcome. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 19:53, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

It's closed as withdrawn now, but there was considerable support for the implementation of some sort of moderation system. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:02, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

It was the MfD which was withdrawn. My proposal is still under discussion at the talk page linked above. I have moved 2 contributions from below here over to that page, I hope nobody objects to my boldness! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 16:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:TFD deletions by admin User:Fastily

Probably many of you admins have heard of me since I have been around for quite a while and have done a lot of stuff. Although my main responsibilities are a bit out of the way (WP:CHICAGO, WP:FOUR and WP:WAWARDS) and, generally, I don't like to spend a lot of time in lengthy discussions, I am pretty experienced at them. My two most recent WP:TFD nominations have ended with closures that were surprising to me based on my experience. In January, Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_January_10#Template:OlivierAward_DanceAchievement was closed one opinion to delete (plus the nominator) and three opinions to keep as a consensus to delete. I spent several days seeking an explanation at User_talk:Fastily/Archive_5#Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion.2FLog.2F2012_January_10.23Template:OlivierAward_... and the long and the short of it was that after a few days of ignoring my queries, he claimed to be happy to explain his decision and felt the proper way to explain such a decision was to delegate the responsibility of explaining it to the nominator. Eventually, the nominator and I agreed that these should be restored with minor modifications based on discussions now located in three places:

• User_talk:Fastily/Archive_5#Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion.2FLog.2F2012_January_10.23Template:OlivierAward_...
• User_talk:Frietjes#Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion.2FLog.2F2012_January_10.23Template:OlivierAward_...
• User_talk:TonyTheTiger/Archive_66#Templates

Today, I found another odd closure decision at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_January_24#Template:New_York_cities_and_mayors_of_100.2C000_population when a discussion with four deletes and three keeps was closed as consensus to delete. In my experience at various WP:XFD, even if you count the nominator if 3-5 out of 8 people are on one side of and issue and 3-5 out of 8 are on the other, generally, this is regarded as a no consensus. This particular decision may effect a total of 35 similar templates (most of which are listed at Category:United States mayors templates by state) in the near future. My alternatives are to pursue a WP:DRV. However, since the first step in a DRV is to talk to the discussion-closing editor, I would be back on Fastily (talk · contribs)'s page. He has already expressed a belief that the proper way to explain your decision is to ask the nominator to do so, I feel pursuing that would be fruitless.

I am curious about the closure because there is a possibility that no consensus is no longer considered a discussion resolution. I see my options as follows:

1. Accept the decision
2. Pursue a WP:DRV
3. Find a place to discuss
   1. whether no consensus is still used in TFD resolutions
   2. whether Fastily's understanding that the nominator is responsible for explaining a TFD closure for DRV purposes
   3. whether Fastily may be too aggressive in closing TFD discussions I have been involved in.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:41, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Remember that the number of !votes on either side is irrelevant - the quality of the arguments matter. Number 57 14:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed; the arguments for keeping the NY mayors template amounted to "It's useful" (without actually specifying how) and "You didn't nominate all these other templates at the same time". Fastily was perfectly justified in analyzing the quality of the arguments rather than just counting numbers. (FULL DISCLOSURE: I nominated the NY mayors template for deletion.) Powers ^T 15:09, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The whole point of templates is that they're useful. WP:USEFUL isn't a valid reason for keeping an article, but it's the only valid reason for having templates such as {{Pp-meta}}. Nyttend (talk) 02:42, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

You might want to read WP:USEFUL again, Nyttend. It says that being useful can be a valid reason for keeping (whether article or not), but it has to be explained rather than simply asserted. Powers ^T 03:00, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

If you disagree with what the closer says take it to DRV. I think you are reading way too much into Fastily asking the nominator to comment. To me it looks like he was fed up of you badgering him, so asked someone else who might be able to explain without getting annoyed at you. I could be wrong of course. Also, you don't have to look very hard to find no-consensus closes by fastily (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_January_22#Template:Closed_down). Polequant (talk) 15:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

It is hard to disagree with what a closer says if he won't say anything and hard to take it to DRV when the first step is to talk with the closer when the closer won't say anything.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:16, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Well DRV will in fact hear it in cases like this; and it frequently does get the occasion to hear it, because Fastily does not explain his closes at the time he makes them, and often not on his talk p. either. Considering that a reasonable number of his closes have been overturned there, I don't think his continuing this way is constructive behavior for an admin. For everyone who take s the matter to DRv, there are probably ten who are not willing to undergo the further bureaucracy. Since many of these are people who would be making their first contribution here, closing discussions in this way, let alone avoiding discussing them, is has the effect of discouraging new contributors, at a time when we should be doing everything possible to encourage them (Most of his closes are good, of course, but an editor, especially a new editor, deserves an explanation--a good explanation of why something must be deleted will often keep the editor. Some of this should be dealt with by a rule requiring meaningful rational for non-unanimous XfD closings, but changing deletion process in practice seems to require unanimous consent. In the meantime, we can strongly urge Fastily to change his work habits in this respect. Yes, he wouldn't be able to do as many closes, but there are a few hundred other good administrators. DGG ( talk ) 19:24, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I proposed just that a couple of years ago. It was shot down in flames by other admins circling the wagons to defend their own laziness and highhandedness: Wikipedia talk:Deletion process/Archive 5#Closing rationales - optional or not?. Fences&Windows 00:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Dare I suggest that Wikipedia:Requests for Comment/Fastily may be in order? If this is a long term, widespread problem then that would seem the next logical step. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:40, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
• AFAIK, this is appears to be a personal vendetta of Tony's. Awhile back, he contested one of my TfD closes on my talk page. I informed him that I would userfy the templates and that I was busy in RL and would provide my reasoning shortly, but he immediately dismissed it as fallacious. Annoyed by the lack of collegiality and respect I was being shown, I asked a participant in the TfD to comment in the meantime. Somehow, Tony perceived this as an attack, and literally accused me of canvassing and conspiracy. At any rate, User:Frietjes was able to work out a compromise, and the templates were moved back to the mainspace. I had believed the matter to be resolved, and so did not feel it necessary to provide rationale, granted that the concern was moot. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I will always provide rationale for my closures when they involve contentious and/or complicated matters. I do not provide rationales when the result of the discussion is, IMO, unambiguous; nonetheless, I have never had any issues with explaining my closes/correcting errors (with and without publicly stated reasons) when requested. If that approach is so wrong, my god, we'd better start RfCs on some 20 other-odd admins who follow similar procedures. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 07:09, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
  • You are in some twisted universe where when I note your consistent efforts to close discussions regarding templates I have created as delete, when normal closing procedure would be to either keep or no consensus close them as my personal vendetta. All I am doing is noting your apparent vendetta to close my TFDs as delete even when to do so is non-sensical. You sound like someone explaining to the police officer that the victim's face was in front of my fist as I innocently moved my arm forward repeatedly at high velocity. Then, he went on a vendetta of screaming about how I was abusing him.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 07:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Lol, if you're determined to resort to personal attacks, my job is done here. Cheers, FASTILY ^(TALK) 07:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
      • Is that a personal attack? I was making an analogy. You have no reason to be running around deleting my templates in contravention of procedures and then claiming I am on a vendetta for pointing out your actions.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 07:42, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• I hate to say it, because I hold Fastily in high esteem, but his talk page has been on my watchlist for a couple of years, and Beeblebrox is right. This is a regular issue—whether it's files, articles, or templates, somebody seems to dispute Fastily's deletion of something every few days.

  Fastily, don't get yourself dragged into a nasty RfC—you need to slow down a little and properly explain your rationale when closing a deletion debate and when people come to your talk page disagreeing with your close. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 08:47, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

  • Not only deletions, keeps as well of course. I haven't asked for an explanation of his close of Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 January 30#Template:Persondata, but a TfD with that many comments, and with rather divided and lengthy opinions, could do with an argued close (e.g. indicating why it isn't closed as a no consensus instead of a keep, and what the opinion, if any, was about the other elements in the nomination) instead of a simple "keep". I'm planning to start an RfC on this template anyway, so it won't make a huge difference probably, but I felt that the close of that TfD was rather disappointing, not because of the actual result, but the manner it was presented. Fram (talk) 08:58, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) @HJ Mitchell, I agree with this sentiment. Just yesterday I had an unclear deletion of an image and Fastily gave an unsatisfactory explanation of the deletion reason and the process followed. I asked for further clarification and I'm still waiting. We can't require everybody to devote time to Wikipedia, but administrators should be held to a higher standard since their actions can't be reversed by us entry-level editors. Great power, great responsibility; if Fastily is not willing to explain his actions in detail then s/he should refrain from closing controversial discussions. Diego (talk) 09:04, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I cannot comment on any long-term trends, but in this specific case, I think it's clear Tony was being unreasonable in demanding immediate explanations, to the point of checking Fastily's contributions log to see when Fastily had been editing most recently. Can we agree, at least, that if better explanations are required, that they at least be requested in a calm and civil manner? Powers ^T 01:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Did I say anything uncivil? I was using the contributions log to get an understanding of the likelihood that he was ducking me. He has yet to give any explanation why he considered three keep votes and one delete vote consensus to delete. I continue to await an explanation by anyone who might be able to expalain that one. We may never know since we worked out a compromise.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 01:40, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
      • The discussion on Fastily's talk page looked to me like you were badgering Fastily (due, apparently to your own admitted "impatience"). Furthermore, you jumped immediately to the conclusion that Fastily was "ducking" you rather than acknowledging that Fastily might be busy and is volunteering his/her time to this project. Powers ^T 15:47, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
• comment I'm noticing a trend here. But as it is, I've repeatedly seen Fastily's name come up over disputed deletions and other related matters, and it's beginning to give me a sense of deja vu. There comes a point where we have to stop saying "it's every body else" maybe there is a problem with the way this user is going about things and their process should be improved. I've found him a little quick on the trigger when a cursory examination of something might solve the problem. This comes across as a binary mindset that has gotten other editors in conflicts in the past, often over similar issues.--Crossmr (talk) 14:23, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Diffs? - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 02:05, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
    • [122], [123], [124] here he seems to jump into a situation he just isn't really informed on and revert a bunch of stuff that doesn't need it, [125] while old, this is simply to show that it's an on-going and long-term issue for him, etc. I don't have time right now to paw through the AN/I archives for all the times I've seen his name come up over questionable behaviour, or deletions just my opinion based on the interactions I've had with him and the discussions I've seen come up.--Crossmr (talk) 05:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

In my defense, all of these are extremely old, resolved, and irrelevant to the matter at hand. If anything, I hereby agree to self-abstain from closing long, contentious discussions without providing a statement of some sort. At any rate, I no longer plan on closing such discussions anyways, so I guess that makes the concerns we're having here moot :P Cheers, FASTILY ^(TALK) 10:48, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Not fair, we won't get our dose of wikidrama now. Diego (talk) 11:17, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

December 2011 is "extremely" old? You have a rather interesting definition of "extremely". The concerns were not just about closing discussions. [126] This is talking about deletions, so I can't see how this makes anything moot.--Crossmr (talk) 00:27, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

User:La goutte de pluie and User:Pluie lite

Resolved: Indef block is not the same as a ban. Indefinite is not a time-frame. It is a lack of a time-frame. At some point, User:La goutte de pluie may convince the community to allow her to return to editing. She has not shown abuse of the permissions that are being requested to be removed and so if she were to return, she would be allowed to continue using those permissions. There are no security concerns as would be in the case of a sysop or checkuser. No evident block evasion on alternate account. No admin action is needed here.--v/r - TP 19:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

{{resolved|This is not a crisis, and will be handled (by someone who finds your request less distasteful than I do) on one of the other 10 pages you've posted this. having a thread open here too is forum shopping, and that should be discouraged. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:26, 7 February 2012 (UTC)}}

I note that all other fora have been closed, so this is the only active one, so I'm unresolving this even though I don't think anything needs to be done. Not sure what the {{hat}} is about, either, but that wasn't me. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:50, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, I'll pretend that WP:AN is moderated and de-snarkify my initial response. That probably didn't help anything. Sorry. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:53, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

This is a brilliant response that i got from the Administrator's noticeboard for a simple but an important matter. Well done. Really never expected this. TheGeneralUser (talk) 16:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

And how would it be a helpful use of admin resources to revoke permissions? It isn't like they can be used while blocked.... Reaper Eternal (talk) 16:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I am not sure what you were expecting then, considering we (1) do not have a policy on removal of permissions from indefblocked editors and (2) were told by Amalthea above that we generally do not do so. What is your interest in this particular editor? Syrthiss (talk) 16:30, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Just a comment that I don't think this was deliberate forum shopping on the part of GeneralUser - I saw he's left the request on my page and that of several other admins, and presumed he wasn't aware of this noticeboard. I therefore suggested he try here instead, as I didn't have time to investigate the request.  An optimist on the run! 16:42, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, they made the request on the talkpage for request for permissions, and then ~20 minutes later started asking on admin talkpages. I assume good faith reasons for that, but I question the IMMEDIATE BURNING NEED. Syrthiss (talk) 16:46, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

If that were so, then there would have been no need to remove administrator rights of a person who has been blocked indefinitely, isn't it. They are removed so that the user does not unblock himself/herself, right. Same applies to all other user rights, when the account is blocked indefinitely and not going to be used the user permissions also don't have a valid reason to stay there, do they ? Furthermore, many people look out for other users for in a particular user group asking for help where they have user rights for. When a person is looking for a checkuser then they will go to the checkuser group, when looking for bureaucrats they will go the to bureaucrats group. If any user having these type of rights would have been blocked indefinitely then surely these rights would have been removed, but not the other rights which is really not fair. And then when another user who is looking for help requests something and later on finds that the user they requested was actually blocked needs to recontact someone else or someplace else which leads to time and energy wastage. Also this means that user's who have been blocked indefinitely will not be using the right and should be stripped/removed from them, as all user permissions say that when right is not needed-It can be removed when requested by the respective user (In blocked cases be removed). All users need to see that this is a genuine request and need to assume good faith. Thank you. TheGeneralUser (talk) 16:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, this request doesn't apply to just User:La goutte de pluie and User:Pluie lite, but to all user's who have been blocked indefinitely and have user permissions with them. Thank you. TheGeneralUser (talk) 17:08, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The difference being that if an administrator is indefblocked, they could unblock themselves so the userright needs to be taken away. If a checkuser was indefblocked I assume they could still indeed look at private information. However, I don't believe that it is a standing policy that either of those two actions take place on a simple indefblock. You can argue that it should be so, but that is outside the scope of this discussion. Now, I realize that you may intend this for a bigger target than just La goutte de pluie, but I am asking you specifically why is this user the focus of your complaint here, today. Syrthiss (talk) 17:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

And in fact, admin rights are never revoked just because an admin is blocked. If said admin would unblock themselves though then they might find that ARBCOM may have it removed. Amalthea 17:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

That is exactly what i said above in my answer above your post. The indefinitely blocked administrator can unblock itself and an indefinitely blocked checkuser can misuse the tool by looking at private information, and a indefinitely blocked Steward can also misuse the tools. This applies to all other permissions too (whether a indefinitely blocked user is capable of using them or not). I stand in support of my request and there is no valid reason as to why this type of request should not be considered. When a user account is indefinitely blocked it is because so that it does not misuse it's editing and other kind of privileges. The indefinitely blocked user is stopped from editing but some of their user rights (for example - autopatroll, rollback, importer, file mover, IP block exempt, etc. just to name a few - if some of them do not get removed) are not removed makes no sense. If i can get support from numerous users including administrators and anyone else that supports my claim which is fully valid and genuine, then i am pretty sure that this matter can Really become an official Wikipedia policy if it doesn't exist right now. Thank you TheGeneralUser (talk) 17:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Admins typically fight any community desysop process tooth and nail, which is why all previous proposals have failed or resulted in no consensus. It took MANY years to just come up with a policy to desysop administrators who have been completely inactive for more than a year. I have my own opinions about why that is, but expressing them here will just make me enemies. You may draw your own conclusions. The points you are making are logical and reasonable, which is exactly why they will be shouted down. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 20:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Then what solution do you and all other users suggest should be done ? Even after i have given out valid, true and genuine points, if these things are not looked upon, then this is a big drawback which seriously needs to be addressed and corrected soon. TheGeneralUser (talk) 20:52, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

If a blocked user continues to use functions provided by advanced user groups then it can and I'm sure will be dealt with by the community. There is no need to set up policies or guidelines for all eventualities. WP:NOTBUREAU. Amalthea 21:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• FYI I have blocked the alt account as is normal in such situations. I've left any userrights it may have had undisturbed. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:49, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, thank you all for helping and clarifying out this matter. TheGeneralUser (talk) 05:40, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

User:La goutte de pluie has been confirmed of sock-puppetry (see below). Now this is a Fully valid reason that all user permissions need to be removed from both accounts, namely User:La goutte de pluie and User:Pluie lite. Thank you. TheGeneralUser (talk) 07:54, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Possible block circumvention

Resolved: Sockpuppetry confirmed by CheckUser

Moved here from User talk:Amalthea
Saw your comment on the admin noticeboard. I have strong reasons to believe that User:La goutte de pluie has been evading their block. The editing patterns of the users below are very similar to his.

• 128.143.1.58 (talk · contribs · email)

This IP resolves to the University of Virginia (which is where La goutte has previously identified to be from) and was found editing the same articles inserting content right after La goutte's edits after the block.

• 207.114.92.78 (talk · contribs · email)

Later this IP was found re-inserting controversial edits into the articles on Lee Hsien Loong and City Harvest Church. The IP, however, resolves to Baltimore, but I there is a high probability that this was La goutte too, given the pattern of editing. I'm sure one can find more evidence if they look deeper. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 16:17, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I think these should probably be investigated before the case is closed. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 01:29, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:SPI is thataway. If you have a case, file it. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Someone beat me to it [127]. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 19:58, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Checkuser investigation proves that La goutte de pluie has been evading the block: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/La goutte de pluie. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 22:50, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

RFC/U closer needed

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Fæ has been running since 26 January (for the record I am not involved in it in any way). There is no consensus on any proposal and no prospect of a consensus forming. It's got seriously out of hand, with the posting today of a discussion about the alleged sex life of the target of the RfC/U - possibly the most inappropriate and intrusive discussion I've ever seen on Wikipedia, which is saying something. It has clearly degenerated into an unproductive and pointless slanging match between different editors. A majority of editors on the talk page has supported a motion by H.J. Mitchell to close the RfC/U (see Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Fæ#Motion to close). It badly needs to be closed, so could someone please do the job? Prioryman (talk) 20:18, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• - I don't see this as being correct. I am sure any admin will weigh up the discussions but - There are 12 supports for closing on the talk thread and eleven opposes - clearly as I can see A majority of editors on the talk page has supported a motion by H.J. Mitchell to close the RfC/U - a majority of one? Also - the numbers of editors opining on that talkpage thread are a small percentage of the users that have opined in the rfc user - imo - it needs a proper resolving close and not a no consensus for anything type close. Youreallycan 20:28, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, since the issue of closing was brought up here, and because the community is highly divided on the underlying issues, I'd like to request that a panel of three experienced, uninvolved Wikipedians be appointed to close that dramafest. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 20:34, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

(ec)Having a hard time seeing the good faith in the close request. The motion to close, with a recent position switch, is at 12 support, 10 close. A numerical advantage, yes, but for all intents and purposes of gauging consensus, an even split. It is also more aimed at the sniping at the talk page; the rfC itself is relatively straight-forward so far. If someone wishes to put a halt to the talk page antics, then that is a separate issue that should not short-circuit the rfC. Second, while "not involved" may technically apply to the RfC, Prioryman has been very involved in the Fae/Ash topic overall, i.e. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive737#Delicious Carbuncle harassment and outing: block or ban proposal. Tarc (talk) 20:35, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Your last point is misleading. I have been involved in the narrow issue of the campaign of harassment and outing that Delicious Carbuncle has mounted on Wikipedia Review but have had no other involvement in "the Fae/Ash topic", nor have I passed any judgements on that topic. Prioryman (talk) 20:45, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Your post just above is a perfect illustration while a single person claiming uninvolvement cannot be trusted to close this RfC/U fairly. WP:GAME. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 21:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• re: the ASCIIn2Bme post (of 20:34, 8 February 2012 (UTC)). Not all that long ago, there was an RfC closed in exactly that manner. (the topic escapes my memory at the moment). My point being, it would not be entirely unprecedented. No opinion on the Fae matter, at least not one I'd share other than the fact that I very much agreed with Balloonman's assessment of the situation in many cases. — Ched :  ?  21:12, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• It wouldn't be unprecedented but why would three closers be needed in this instance? ASCIIn2Bme acknowledges that "the community is highly divided" so there clearly is no consensus in the RfC. That would be still true with one closer - it doesn't need three to recognise that fact. Prioryman (talk) 21:16, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
• (ec)My assessment being that the RfC is winding down and unlikely to invoke any sanctions against Fae and that the discussion is rapidly degenerating. I personally do not see the need to keep this open as it has simply become a place to cast dispersions and tie Fae's name to a heap of deep seated bitterness---which at this point is no longer about Fae, but rather about specific individuals involved in the RfC. It is turning into a discord about why specific users were or were not justified in saying/doing certain things here and elsewhere. (now that summary is a little more than what Ched endorsed, but the point is that the RfC has lost its focus and is now turning south.)---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 21:20, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• As I understand it - RFC users are not about sanctions at all - they are more about, urging of the community that the user do this or that a bit better and are better resolved if the users makes some kind of comment that they understand the communities issues and will do this or that a bit differently, and from the other side a closing comment from the community that they appreciated this and that good aspects and so on - good faith agreements and urgings rather than sanctions is the RFC user dish of the day. Youreallycan 21:33, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

And the only issues that have garnered a significant amount of support are 1) Themfromspaces/ReverendWayne which simply says that Fae's RfA would not have passed if his prior account had been known (but neither makes a call to relinquish the bit) and 2) Hobit's view which explicitly says not to relinquish the bit. 3) We also have Russivia and HJs views questioning the motives/substane of the RfC. Beyond that, not much support for anything.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 21:58, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• - Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Fæ#Outside_view_by_Themfromspace - forty three editors support this view - those opines sure seem worthy of some kind of decent resolving closure to me. Any closure should focus on the RFCuserpage and not the talkpage. Youreallycan 21:36, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
  • 43 users support the view that if the facts were known when the RfA occured that he wouldn't have passed. 4 of those users explicitly state the view is not contradictory with Hobits view (supported by 31 users) or that they are not calling for the bit. So the closer can simply say, "There was a strong sense that had his identity been known during his RfA he would not have passed, but there is no consensus that he should be forced step down or undergo another rfa." Themfromspaces view is a statement of fact, not a call to action.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 21:41, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Although you are too involved to assert closure, you make some good points worthy of inclusion in the close. I do not think user fae would stand down or take another RFA if one hundred or two hundred users opposed the issues surrounding his first RFA - that is not included in his recall standard. Please lets not derail this now - the RFC is open a couple of weeks and there are attempts to discuss and get consensus for a positional close. -Users that have contributed and opined in good faith need a decent close, attempting to force closure at this stage will create a poor resolution. - wait, relax, the fat lady has still to sing, as they say. Youreallycan 21:49, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
      • Thanks ;-)
      • That being said, I had explicitly not commented in the call for closure because I agreed with you. Unfortunately, the tone in the RfC has taken a decidedly downward turn over the past 24 hours. It's turning into more bickering and bellyaching than anything material. Unless that changes, the RfC will lose all semblance of credibility and as the RfC spirals out of control, Fae's name is now being attached to the whining. I'm also not saying Fae gets a free ride or is without guilt. I just don't see anything happening when the 3 major areas of agreement are: 1) Fae would not have passed if his past was known 2) that being said he shouldn't be forced to stepdown/undergo a recall and 3) questions exist about the motives of the rfc. And I don't think anything will change in the next two weeks.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 22:04, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
        • Yes - your probably correct - Youreallycan 22:11, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
          • Wow, were starting to agree to something, see the RfC has had at least one potential synthesis ;-)
          • My final argument for early closure, again stemming from the downward turn in the RfC over the past 24 hours, as the bickering continues, the issues are moving more and more away from Fae and more and more onto 2 or 3 specific users involved in the RfC (representing both supporters and detractors). This makes it harder to identify the real issues surrounding Fae. It also becomes a barrier for any meaningful new input into the discussion. If a person isn't already involved, I doubt they are going to dredge through the crap that is accumulating on the talk page and proposals page. This might make it easier for special interest groups to game the system. In other words, I don't think keeping it open for 2 more weeks will result in new productive input from people not already involved.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 22:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
            • While some obviously inflammatory material has been posted (and WP:REVDELeted), I think, as a rule, we should not allow such a tactic to derail RfCs. Some substantive and civilly expressed views on the community's expectations with respect to ArbCom involvement in such cases has been posted not so long ago by User:Tryptofish. I'd like to see more editors weigh in on that rather than the WP:BADSITES drama that seems to capture the lion's share of attention. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 22:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Thinking that it was a discussion at WP:V regarding V vs. Truth, I think this] is what I was thinking of. — Ched :  ?  21:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the rationale here. The RFC/U has not been running for the standard 30 days, yet Prioryman is arguing it should be closed because it there seems to be no consensus yet? Surely that is an argument for leaving the RFC/U open, not one for closing it...? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:31, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The RfC has taken a nasty turn away from Fae and towards others. You've made a "view" relative to your motives and a sense of being attacked by Wnt/Rich. Wnt/Rich have made allegations against you and WR. You've made allegations against them. Cla's made allegations against them. Wikipedia Review is now under discussion. Cla has his list of non-personal "personal attacks". If the discourse was on Fae and his behavior, I would have no problem leaving it open... but over the past 36 hours, the dialog has moved away from Fae and onto you and several other editors... and has turned nastier. Constructive dialog seems to have disappeared under the weight of inuendo and allegations. It's turned into a drhama fest and I can't see anything changing between now and the next 2 weeks. If I thought something beneficial might come out of it or if I thought the bickering and bellyaching would disappear, then I might support keeping it open. As is, I don't see much value in the RfC.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 15:35, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Things have gotten out of hand on the talk page, but that could have (and still can be) handled by judicious application of guidelines like WP:NPA. Additionally, people who have already expressed their opinions, such as yourself, would be well advised not to belabour discussions by repeating those same opinions. I think many of the people involved in discussions have intractable views and no amount of discussion will be productive. It would be far more useful to hear from editors who are undecided or who have legitimate questions about what has been presented in the RFC/U. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:56, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm persuaded by the above that the RfC should stay open. My rush to close was prompted by the appalling talk page. There is so much off-topic comment there, about the motives of editors and their off-wiki behaviour, that incidentally "necessitates" detailed discussion about an editor's sex life, that I just wanted to shut it up. But the right step would be for a genuinely uninvolved editor to strip all such inappropriate filling out of the talk page. Revdel or suppression of some comments would be in order. What is and isn't appropriate for a discussion about Fae's editing of BLPs and arbitrators' treatment of clean start and arbitrators' behaviour at RfAs is pretty bloody obvious. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Please don't close it prematurely. The good news is that there continue to be productive views that are being offered. The bad news is that the talk page has become a morass of claims and counterclaims about WR that may well end up with some users finding themselves at ArbCom, but that's not a reason to close the RfC/U. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:32, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Motion to close was properly posted (and failed) on the RFC/U talk page -- requesting a close here seems like WP:FORUMSHOPPING Nobody Ent 00:51, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Ent, I wouldn't call it forumshopping---I think Priory was hoping to get somebody to go to the section and close it based upon the section which was still open and the degregation of the discussion on the talk page. It would be forum shopping if this had been opened after that was closed down. But coming here to get an admin to review the section and close, is standard protocol. But I agree, if that section is closed, then this one should similarly be closed as this was a call to action based upon that one.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 23:27, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

A simple "Would an uninvolved admin please review Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Fæ#Motion to close." would have accomplished that goal -- the fact the editor is continuing to argue to point here is why I characterized it as shopping. Nobody Ent 23:45, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to agree with Ent here. The motion to close was effectively a no consensus; that much is clear. I also agree, to a point, with the following statement, though gramatically misworded: "There is no consensus on any proposal and no prospect of a consensus forming. It's got seriously out of hand." People are so sensitive in that talk page, as well, that my attempt to archive some of the older discussions to a second page was quickly reversed because someone thought that those discussions might actually be used in the closure of the project page itself. Rolling eyes CycloneGU (talk) 03:46, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit Request at Template talk:Infobox scientist#Website parameter

There appears to be consensus for an edit request at Template talk:Infobox scientist#Website parameter.--GrapedApe (talk) 03:44, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Audit Subcommittee appointments (2012): Invitation to comment on candidates

The Arbitration Committee is seeking to appoint at least three non-arbitrator members to the Audit Subcommittee, and is now seeking comments from the community regarding the candidates who have volunteered for this role.

Interested parties are invited to review the appointments page containing the nomination statements supplied by the candidates and their answers to a few standard questions. Community members may also pose additional questions and submit comments about the candidates on the individual nomination subpages or privately via email to arbcom-en-blists.wikimedia.org.

Following the consultation phase, the committee will take into account the answers provided by the candidates to the questions and the comments offered by the community (both publicly and privately) along with any other relevant factors before making a final decision regarding appointments.

The consultation phase is scheduled to end 23:59, 19 February 2012 (UTC), and the appointments are scheduled to be announced by 29 February 2012.

For the Arbitration Committee, –xeno^talk 04:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Discuss this

An idea in lab

I've posted an idea which would significantly impact the admin corps so I presume there might be interest in commenting.[128] - My76Strat (talk) 05:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

What position of trust is that about? Do you mean you're on the mailing list for account creation requests? That would mean you're seeing personal info of the email senders, which might explain the ID request. I could see having the same requirement for admins on that list (if it's not already in force), but admins who don't ask to be on the list shouldn't be affected. 67.117.145.9 (talk) 09:39, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm assuming that Strat is talking about WP:ORTS, which requires volunteers to provide proof of age and identity. I'm a member of the account creation team, and I've never provided ID. Livit⇑^Eh?/_What? 00:45, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Oops, I just logged into the account creation tool and saw a new message about providing ID to the foundation. Guess I better scan my driver's licence... Livit⇑^Eh?/_What? 01:07, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Block Review

I'm asking for a block review. Yesterday, Balloonman asked for some attention at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Fæ. He requested a neutral admin review a long list of "personal attacks" that User:Cla68 had posted. To be clear, these were "personal attacks" by others and Cla68 had collected the diffs from about a dozen people. I hatted the discussion because the "attacks" were not attacks at all or so weak that a reasonable person would not constitute them as attacks. Cla68 didn't unhat the discussion, but felt it necessary to summarize what was in the hat and repeated his attacks. I hated the summary and suggested to Cla68 that the proper thing to do when you disagree with an admin action is not to go around it but to discuss it with the admin or seek consensus to overturn at WP:AN.

Cla68 alledged that although I am "previously uninvolved, that I have now taken a side and so my action was dishonest. I pointed him to WP:INVOLVED. I then suggested several times that if he has a problem with it then he come here and seek wider review of my actions. Cla68 summarized again, I undid. I left a final warning not to return the attacks. This morning he sumarized again, and I wrapped the hat around it. I then blocked him for 24 hours for disruption. Please review.--v/r - TP 14:17, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Overturn. Given that you edit-warred with Cla68 over his leaving a summary of the discussion you hatted [129][130][131][132][133], I would say it wasn't your call to block Cla68. --JN466 14:26, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • So you suggest that next time I should block at the first incident rather than WP:AGF that the editor will heed warnings from an uninvolved admin?--v/r - TP 14:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Don't ask for a review of your actions if you're going to be snarky with people who respond. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:41, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
      • No. (edit conflict)What I mean is that you're not the only admin able to assess and deal with the situation. Once you'd engaged in an edit war – you reverted Cla68's summary three times, I think – you had become involved IMO, and would have been better off at that point taking a step back and letting another admin look at it. Just my two cents; perhaps others will see it differently. --JN466 14:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
        • (edit conflict) I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be snarky. I was considering just waiting to let someone else respond but suggested an uninvolved admin cannot block because they took admin actions to enforce a policy and gave the user ample opportunity to stop their behavior before a block just seems completely unreasonable. But maybe I've completely mistook WP:INVOLVED.--v/r - TP 14:45, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The user was collecting those diffs in good faith from what I can see - it is a personal attack to allege someone is a homophobe and there was plenty of that going on - there is no way that user Delicious Carbunkle is homophobic or he should be called a homophobe by people here. User:Cla68 should be proud for being blocked for pointing that out and presenting the diffs of it happening and for asking the users that did it to retract. Youreallycan 14:54, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Please tell me how the following are personal attacks:

• Not 100% sure about the anti-gay motivatation, but whatever the reason, this harrassment against a quality Wikipedian is dispicable.
• The "only way out" is to support Fae here. If you "compromise" and leave him under a cloud, you're not ending anything. The exact same Inquisition will be in session tomorrow, with someone else in its sights. Besides, what kind of jury works on the basis that you compromise and say "guilty" on some counts just to get along?
• I hate that I'm signing on to this view, but I think I must. The focus on Fæ and his past incarnations does in fact feel a little homophobic
• The stated context for this RfC is disingenuous, the primary motivation is harassment.
• This is nothing more than cyber poofter bashing
• I have not verified everything in this statement, but I verified enough to confirm that Fæ is being harassed for supporting LGBT issues.

These are just some of the shorter edits being cited. The point is that according to Cla, if you disagree with Cla/DC, if you think the dispute feels a "little homophobic", if you question the motives of the rfc---then it is a personal attack. According to Cla's reasoning, we have to fully accept the motives of the people who brought forth the RfC and to do otherwise is a violation of civil. In 5 years of editing WP, I've never seen the bar for civility set so low as to what Cla is claiming it should be here. Per Cla's reasoning, my opening the ANI report yesterday is a breach of civility.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 15:15, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Overturn. Really, really bad block (disclaimer: I'm involved in the RfC, though I have not expressed any opinions regarding the thread or the personal attacks against Cla or others). Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 14:58, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support I am not a big fan of civility blocks, but when the civility issue in question appears to have the effect of squelching discussion or intimidation, then that changes matters. Cla started a list of people who have made "personal attacks during the RfC" and used examples consisting of the flimsiest examples I've seen labelled as personal attacks and violations of civility in a long time. The list was strictly those people who disagreed with Cla or DC. Most of them were not attacks at all, but rather comments and opinions. I don't want to accuse Cla of intentionally attempting to squelch dialog, but by compiling a list of trivial complaints it had that perception. So I brought it to ANI. Two admins reviewed it and both agreed, it was inappropriate---TP and Atama. TParis appropriately hatted the section. Cla unhatted. TParis, as an uninvolved admin, gave Cla a final warning. Tryptofish warned him that Cla should "drop this. It's only going to blow up, and do no good". To which Cla responded, "There is a method to my madness." User_talk:Cla68#Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Fæ. Cla's collection of edits are not personal attacks. For example, this is one of the so-called violaitons Cla cites, "Not 100% sure about the anti-gay motivatation, but whatever the reason, this harrassment against a quality Wikipedian is dispicable." If that is a personal attack violation of civil then we are doomed. By claiming that that edit and similar edits by other users is a personal attack, Cla's edits have the effect of squelching discourse. (I will note that as of the last time I checked I have not been included in his list of people who have made personal attacks.)---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 15:03, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Just so I understand: if I want to, I could come to this thread right here, say "as an uninvolved admin, I declare this thread is a personal attack" and close it, and if someone disagrees with me I can then edit war with them, warn them, and block them myself because I was previously uninvolved? See, that's why the idea of having admins more vigorously patrol ANI is a well-intentioned but bad idea. There are too many admins who think they have good judgement, when they don't really. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:15, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Absolutely - well said - this block was not a resolving solution, it was and still is a punitive part of the problem. Youreallycan 15:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
    • (edit conflict) I think the point of being uninvolved is that I don't know Fae or DC or Cla68 at all and the turnout of the RFC has no impact on me. I'm as unbiased as it comes. I reviewed the diffs, could not see how many of them were personal attacks at all and others were so weak that the term attack couldn't convey their actual meaning, and hated the discussion. Cla68, directly involved, felt differently. Do the involved see things more clearly than the uninvolved? If you, reasonably, feel this thread is a personal attack, then I strongly encourage you to do what you must to enforce WP:NPA. (After conflict) Youreallycan: If stopping the unhatting of those attacks is not preventative, then I missed the redefinition of the word.--v/r - TP 15:22, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • If an uninvolved admin takes action as an admin that you disagree with, you don't edit war with them. You bring it to AN/ANI for review. You appeal the situation--especially when people on WP:AN, your talk page, and the admin's talk page all agree with the admins actions.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 17:15, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
• support <non-admin> editing warring with someone when they are taking an admin action is certainly blockable. I personally don't think hatting was needed, but that's a different issue. If Cla68 felt the hatting was inappropriate, they could have come to AN for a discussion. 24 hours feels about right to me. Hobit (talk) 15:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Oh, I'm involved in the RfC too. Hobit (talk) 16:16, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
• support If an editor is given a "last warning" by an admin and they respond by immediately repeating the exact action that they've been warned about then they should be blocked. Exok (talk) 17:17, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• I hated[sic] the summary and suggested to Cla68 that the proper thing to do when you disagree with an admin action is not to go around it but to discuss it with the admin or seek consensus to overturn at WP:AN.

  "hatting" a discussion is not an admin action. Admin actions are blocks, bans, deletions and undeletions. Any neutral person could have been asked to give an opinion of the links. Admins are no more special than other users, except for a (rebuttable) presumption that they are level-headed and sensible. You got into a pissing contest with Cla68 because he disagreed with your "admin action". Cla68 was also being a bit of a dick, as far as I can tell on short examination. The real question is, what was Cla trying to prove by posting that collection of links. He doesn't state a motive but he must have had one. Is it that there is a double standard regarding personal attacks and enforcement? Or something else? That's what you need to focus on, not a pissing contest over a collection of third party statements.Thatcher 19:17, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • As I said to JN466, hatting is in the toolbox. I could've taken a more direct admin action such as blocking right away but I opted to WP:AGF.--v/r - TP 19:36, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
    • What "toolbox"? Hatting is a function available to every editor. Are you referring to some automated script? If so, realize any editor can "hat" an article manually. The biggest source of unforced errors by admins is admins who think they have more power than they do, deciding to prove it on some "upstart" who doesn't respect authority. If you even have 2 seconds of consideration that blocking Cla68 outright before discussing the issue might have been reasonable, then you have no business being an admin, at least not on the Wikipedia that I originally joined. The first thing to do is to find out why he posted the links, what he was really up to, and seeing if there wasn't some better place to have that discussion. Thatcher 19:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
      • Are you aware of the discussion at WP:AN/I#unnecessary section in an RFC? Prioryman (talk) 20:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
        • The admin also opened threads on Cla68's user talk page, and it continued to the admin's talk page. The block didn't occur out-of-the-blue without prior discussion.   Will Beback  talk  21:17, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
          • For the record the extensive discussion before the block, in which Cla68 was involved, is at User talk:TParis#Hatting.
• Overturn. Inappropriate block. Everyking (talk) 21:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Wholly appropriate. Balloonman's comments are spot on; this is not the first time that Cla68 has compiled lists of this sort. Prioryman (talk) 22:20, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
• Overturn - I'm starting to become really concerned that in this case as well as couple of other recent controversies, a person who is the subject of personal attacks or slurs or who brings these to the attention of the community is quickly silenced through one means or another under the excuse that pointing out the errors in the behavior of others is a "personal attack" itself. And of course, all of this takes place in an environment where advocacy, grudges, and "involvedness" are rampant, which is why none of these have much support. And yes, hatting other people's comments is neither an admin-exclusive privilege-that-must-not-be-messed-with, nor is it a particularly collegial thing to do (in most cases, one's own talk page aside, it's simply obnoxious and overbearing).VolunteerMarek 22:35, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
• I'm way, way too involved to express an opinion here, but as I said at the RfC, it is not a "personal attack" to say that somebody has been subjected to homophobia or harassment. It would be a personal attack to make an unfounded allegation of such homophobia or harassment against a particular editor or group of editors, but very little of that is evidenced in Cla68's diffs. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:46, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Oy come on, while nobody was stupid enough (most of these folks have been around long enough, under one username or another, to know how to make personal attacks without "making personal attacks") to come right out and say "so-and-so is a homophobe", the insinuation that DC and others are homophobic is pervasive in some of the comments. Particularly Prioryman's. I do think Cla included some folks in there that probably were not making personal attacks, but that's farther down the list.VolunteerMarek 23:01, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

VM---I will ask you again to explain to me how those examples I cited above are personal attacks? How are we to have reasonable discourse if people can't express what they think/feel? I mean the entirety of an edit that is deemed a personal attack is, "This is nothing more than cyber poofter bashing" Or another one where a person says that it "does in fact feel a little homophobic"---not that it is. Or the person who says that they don't buy the anti-gay agenda, but finds the "harrassment against a quality Wikipedian is dispicable." Sorry, if the examples used by Cla are personal attacks, then 90% of the posts on ANI are personal attacks. Citing differences of opinion as personal attacks is a personal attack which appears designed to quell dissent--to which I'm more concerned about than the actual civility issues of making such allegations.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 23:15, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• • HJ Mitchell, for better or worse accusations without evidence are prohibited by WP:NPA#WHATIS: "Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence. Serious accusations require serious evidence. Evidence often takes the form of diffs and links presented on wiki. Sometimes evidence is kept private and made available to trusted users." The alleged evidence in this case was REVDELETED by functionary Fred Bauer. I think that perhaps something akin to OTRS tickets should be developed for these situations. E.g., someone should be able to say on-wiki "I have off-wiki evidence that Editor:XXX has engaged in homophobic attacks against YYY. Evidence is available in ArbCom ticket 123." I'm actually going to float this ticket proposal to ArbCom. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 02:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support. These edits are typical of the battleground behavior for which Cla68 has been guilty of in the past.   Will Beback  talk  23:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Unblock. With all due respect to TParis (who is a good admin), my concerns are more about the general notion that admins can hat discussions and remove posts when it suits them, and no one else can challenge those decisions. I'm not speaking of this case specifically, but all too often we see abusive admins close off discussions that shouldn't be closed off-- in ways that escalate disputes-- and the hatting or closure often should be challenged and reversed. I don't want to see the idea that admins can control the flow of information in the form of evidence take hold (I've been on the short end of that stick many times at ANI, where abusive admins can prevent the accused from speaking, even in their own defense, even when the accuser gives no diffs, even when the accused responds with a query and with diffs). If TParis closed, Cla re-opened, then TParis hatted again, he is reverting to his own preferred version, hence is involved, and should not block. And please, let's stop this notion that admins can stifle evidence that is taking over ANI. Yes, it's a circus and some controls are needed there, but the accused have the right to speak. I don't think Cla's block is right. I realize this occurred at an RFC-- not ANI-- but it's the idea that admins can control the presentation of evidence at either place that is worrying me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:39, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Sandy, did you actually look at the "personal attacks" Cla has cited? The personal attacks that Cla has cited are along the lines of "I think this RfC is harrassment." While I am not a big fan of Civility/NPA blocks, Cla's allegations of NPA appears to be nothing more than an attempt to stiffle discussion at the RfC by accusing anybody who has called out Cla/DC as making a personal attack. Cla's level of civility would have every editor involved in the civility case cited for NPA/Civil attacks.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 06:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Some of it is indeed like you say, but other stuff is far more direct, e.g. 2nd diff in Cla's list:

    • == Harrassment by Delicious Carbuncle == This request is simply an extension of harrassment by some other vile characters on Wikipediareview. Fae has undergone some unadulterated harrasment by various users on WR, and a lot of it is of the homophobic variety. DC, IMO, is very close to going over this line of harrassment, if they haven't already.
      — User:Russavia 23:36, 26 January 2012

    • Apropos of nothing (if I may lead with a phrase favored by Arbitrators): Some people have become experts at poisoning the well with insinuations while introducing just enough conditionals in their phrasing so that it can be technically disqualified as an attack on a specific person. One such expert has recently received a one year enforced vacation from Wikipedia, thanks to ArbCom. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 15:41, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
      • IF Cla had listed Russivia and possibly even Prioryman, then this would never have reached this point. Whether you agree or disagree with their edits being personal attacks, one can see that there is animosity there that predates this rfc. (Just as one can see animosity between Cla/DC and Fae that predates this rfc.) The problem is that Cla didn't leave it at the low hanging fruit or the people with whom there is a history, instead he decided to attack everybody who questions the motives or perspectives provided by Cla/DC/the RfC. By casting such a broad net with such a low bar for inclusion, it shifts from a reasonable discussion to what appears to be an effort to squelch disagreement. "Can't say that it feels like homophobia because then Cla will include me in his NPA violation lists." By only highlighting those people who disagree with him, he is not listing people who have made personal attacks. Hell, reading the RfC, you can find a lot more vicious and straight forward attacks against Fae---but Cla doesn't include those. As for the people who are questioning the motives of the RfC... that is common practice. I suspect that 4 out 5 RfCs which generate discussion have people challenging the motives of the people who are engaged in them. Standard rhethoric seen on every level from RfC to presidential debate. (Again, I'm not that worried about Cla's personal attacks as I am about the apparent affect of trying ot stiffle dialog.)---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 23:22, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support I'm not neutral here, because apparently I've been accused of making personal attacks. At no point did Cla68 approach me to discuss this, and frankly reading over what I wrote at the RfC, I don't see any personal attacks either. I've never even interacted with Cla68, except for agreeing with several other editors above that he should stop his crusade to get Will Beback to answer three questions whose answers were obvious. AniMate 00:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: If this block was intended to show that "the admins" will indeed circle the wagons to protect "whatever it is admins are protecting", it does a darn good job of it. OTOH the wording of the unblock request completes the circle of silliness. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 00:32, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Overturn Noting that accumulation of evidence is a protected activity on Wikipedia for use in dispute resolution, that claims without sourcing about other editors is found in abundance from other editors on that RFC/U and that there is a reasonable likelihood that such evidence might be used in a future ArbCom proceding, the block is improper. Improper blocks do not gain propriety by being supported by BATTLEGROUND protagonists against the person blocked. Collect (talk) 01:05, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Strong meh. I wish people voluntarily stopped making a drama out of a genuine Catch 22 policy issue involving accusations that cannot be backed up by evidence without violating Wikipedia policies like BLP and WP:PRIVACY. I was so annoyed by the feud around that issue that I even added a view to the RfC/U about it. I don't know what else to say besides repeating my sincere request that everyone involved in that drop the WP:STICK on-wiki and pursue whatever needs pursuing in that respect through the private ArbCom channels set out in policy. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 01:51, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Overturn for the reasons set out by Flo, Sandy, and Collect. Totally agree with ASCII. Appreciate that the admin brought this here, it must be said. - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 02:03, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
  • By the way, I've submitted a proposal to ArbCom for introducing a system of tickets for private evidence that they may be referred to on wiki without violating BLP/PRIVACY policies, while allowing precise references to concrete evidence instead of vague remarks which are sometimes perceived as mere insinuations. ASCIIn2Bme (talk)
• Although not a clear consensus, the majority of responders here appear to agree that the block was incorrect. Cla68 (talk) 00:55, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

What's wrong with placing a page at: (A)mid(st) Toil and Tribulation pages??

Hello, I wanted to put in a "placeholder" (for lack of a better word) at the following two pages:

• Midst Toil and Tribulation (novel)
• Amid Toil and Tribulation (novel)

In both cases, I was only going to enter a redirect to this location: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safehold#Plot.

Can one of you inform me as to WHY these two pages have been put on some sort of a restriction?
and/or
Could you place the redirect at these pages for me?
LP-mn (talk) 16:17, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Not sure why you couldn't create them yourself, but redirects created to [[Safehold#(A)mid{st} Toil and Tribulation]]. GiantSnowman 16:27, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

If you do this: #REDIRECT [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safehold#Plot]

...instead of this: #REDIRECT [[Safehold#Plot]], the edit filter will prevent it, as external-link style redirects don't work. 28bytes (talk) 19:44, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Closer needed

• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 13

Any helpful admin like to help out and close these? - jc37 17:21, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Linking to one's Pie chart

Not sure if this is the place to ask, but can an administrator link me to my pie chart & have the link on my talkpage? GoodDay (talk) 18:20, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Um...your pie chart? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:23, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the edit thingy - Xl's pie chart with edit percentages - I think has issues - http://toolserver.org/~soxred93/pcount/index.php?name=GiantSnowman&lang=en&wiki=wikipedia - Youreallycan 18:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I assumed that was what was meant ... but it's an external link, re-generated when you click it. Some templates include it as a link for contribs (I think there's one on my User page) (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Its seems to be inactive - See https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/~soxred93/ec - Youreallycan 18:30, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, all of the Soxred tools are offline now that X! has retired. It's being discussed over at Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard#X!'s bots. 28bytes (talk) 18:31, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Ta for the link to the discussion - lets hope someone takes the tool on. Its a useful one. - Youreallycan 18:36, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

It is also being discussed here Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#.22Edit count.22 and .22Articles created.22 links and probably several other places. I add this one as it has links to a couple other edit counters - although none with pie (mmmm pie) charts. MarnetteD | Talk 18:38, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Wowsers, it's good to know it's not just my pie that went offline. GoodDay (talk) 19:19, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I was told there would be punch and pie. Livit⇑^Eh?/_What? 00:26, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

User:TParis has obtained a copy of the edit counter's source code. (See User talk:TParis#User:X!'s Stuff.) He has a version of the tool set up here. With that now done, could an admin please go around the project, updating all of the templates/gadgets/pages that use the script? (i.e. the edit count link at the bottom of Special:Contributions, ect.) Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 04:25, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I have updated many templates and userboxes and one mediawiki gadget script page. But there are still quite a few more tools: ec, pages editsummary rfa etc that need conversion/activation, so still more work after tparis get the other things going. So if things have gone wrong you know who's contributions to check! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:03, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Requesting reappraisal of a block

• Edgeform (talk⁺ • tag • contribs • deleted contribs • logs • filter log • block user • block log • SUL • checkuser)

• Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Neurorel/Archive

• Notifications: [134], [135], [136].

User:Edgeform was blocked a while back as a result of the above SPI. I have become concerned that there are some contradictions in the behavioral evidence of socking, and that a good faith user may, perhaps, have been blocked in error. I've discussed this with HelloAnnyong, the blocking admin, and he thinks that I'm mistaken, which I might well be, but I would be more comfortable if some more eyes would take a look at this. I'm also notifying the two checkusers who have been involved in the SPI. This gets rather complicated, sorry, but please bear with me.

The case centers around the BLP of a San Diego-based neuroscientist, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, and some of the pages about topics of his research. These topics include autism, which (in ways unrelated to the BLP subject himself) is something that sometimes attracts editing agendas. I originally raised the SPI that led to the block (the second in the archive linked above), based upon an IP edit, [137], that has a now-hidden edit summary, claiming to be an "edit by [name], aka Neurorel/Edgeform". At the time, it appeared to be a blatant admission of socking, and the checkuser data indicated that the accounts, including the IP, all geolocated to the San Diego area, with the two named accounts having a shared history of interest in editing in these topics.

I have also been editing the BLP, because my attention was drawn at my talk to content disagreements in which the two named accounts were among those involved. I don't always agree with either Neurorel or Edgeform, but I don't see them editing in bad faith. Their edits tend to have the same point of view, but not necessarily the same writing style. Other editors, who self-identify as being in the BLP subject's San Diego lab, tend to be very sensitive about what they perceive as criticisms of the BLP subject, and these concerns led to an earlier SPI, the first in the archive linked above, and also led to the request in my talk to look at the BLP in the first place.

After the block, an IP claiming to be Edgeform contacted me at my talk, based on my own history of editing in the BLP, and sought my help in overturning the block: here. The edits by the "outing" IP had been rather clumsy, whereas the IP claiming to be Edgeform was reasonably articulate. I discussed it with HA here, and we agreed then that there would have to be a request for block review, which never happened, perhaps because Edgeform gave up.

Since that time, there have repetitively been troll-ish edits from various IPs using public computers in the San Diego area, repeating the "edit by [name], aka Neurorel/Edgeform" edit summary, see: 1, 2, and 3. However, that third incident, the most recent, was different, in that only Neurorel, and not Edgeform, was named in the edit summary. Googling the supposed real life "[name]", gives two possibly related results: a professional baseball player based in San Diego, and a young boy who has autism and whose mother writes a blog about him. I doubt that either of these persons is actually doing the editing; it could be a third person who just happens to have that name also, or it could be a sarcastic use of the name by a troll. What bothers me is that there seems to be a pattern of repeatedly trying to get both Neurorel and Edgeform blocked, by making these "look at me!" edits that are really just about the edit summary, and that, with Edgeform blocked, the edit summaries have started only naming Neurorel, who is not blocked. It does not make sense to me that a single person would be behind both the Neurorel and Edgeform accounts and also be making these accusatory/boastful edit summaries. It's plausible that the IP is someone else who actually knows of genuine socking, but it is awfully strange that they would be so persistent after the person they are accusing has been limited to a single account. Behaviorally, it seems more like someone else in the San Diego area (perhaps associated with the lab?? – but not the editor who contacted me at my talk, I'm quite sure) who just wants some editors removed from editing the subject area.

I know it's complicated and ambiguous, but I'd appreciate some additional opinions. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Looking purely at their use of edit summaries the two are very similar but there are also subtle differences. Both like to use caps and finish sentences/sentence fragments will full stops, Neurorel slightly more consistently. Both prefer double speech marks for quotations. Neurorel makes a few more typos and likes the word "reorganize", whereas Edgeform never uses it. If I was forced at gunpoint to make a decision I'd say perhaps meatpuppetry or some other form of collusion rather than socking, but since the effect is the same I doubt it makes very much difference (and I'm certainly not sure enough to want to firmly contradict HelloAnnyong). EyeSerene^talk 12:27, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Neurorel is not currently blocked, fyi, although the template on their userpage says they are. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 20:11, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Dance Moms! Woohoo!

Hey dancers, did any of you recently block an editor who had an interest in that show? If so, I may have a socky for you... Drmies (talk) 03:39, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

How about User:TheSimsBadGirlsClub (11 edits to the article), who is a sock puppet of User:Shannon9077 (39 edits to the article)? Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:32, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmm not bad--but Shannon was mostly editing Bad Girls Club, and I didn't see them adding the fan sites to Dance Moms. It's possible that they started the fan sites plugged also at http://twitter.com/DanceMomsFanWeb. I made this post in reference to my block at User_talk:Dancemomsfanweb, but didn't want to give it away too quickly. ;) Drmies (talk) 15:27, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but SimsBadGirlsClub mostly edited Dance Moms, with only 2 edits to Bad Girls Club. I think this is the person you want. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:49, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Spam attack

I hae encountered three brand new Users advertising an external link on their Talk pages. I've removed the spam on all of them, but I imagine there are more I've missed and more will be coming.

Aureliorosal615 (talk · contribs), Ashleymerrit511 (talk · contribs), Earlemcknigh112 (talk · contribs)

The Mark of the Beast (talk) 07:27, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Robtillman716 (talk · contribs) The Mark of the Beast (talk) 07:29, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Santiagoaver410 (talk · contribs) The Mark of the Beast (talk) 07:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I notice that the spammers' usernames are a regular name followed by 3 numbers. →Στc. 07:32, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to stop now, there's no point in my continuing this fight without a spam filter. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 07:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I created a spam filter for this link, if you found any other with different link, please let me know Petrb (talk) 08:49, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

All accounts above are indef'd. CharlieEchoTango (contact) 09:17, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Google Analytics ID: UA-25833520 - (Track - Report - reverseinternet.com)

• fincamietenmallorca.com: Linksearch en - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C Cross-wiki • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced • Meta: SRB-XWiki - COIBot-Local - COIBot-XWiki - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • Veinor pages • meta • Yahoo: backlinks • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.org • DomainsDB.net • Alexa • OnSameHost.com • WhosOnMyServer.com

Also:

• Barthoover513 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · what links to user page · count · COIBot · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google)
• Rodgerking24 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · what links to user page · count · COIBot · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google)

FYI, the MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist is more suited to blocking spam than the AbuseFilter. Adding \bfincamietenmallorca\.com\b will do the trick. MER-C 13:05, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

That is something I am definitely not sure with, because the abuse filter has several advantages, for instance it allows us to track the activity of spammers. It's more sophisticated tool, and I think it would make sense to use that instead of spam-blacklist, it is easier to maintain, faster, more secure (you can test the expression before making it live) and it's friendlier for newbies who see a template with warning rather than a system message related to action-exception. However if there is a consensus to use the blacklist for this, I am willing to move the definition there. Petrb (talk) 13:47, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Other than that, I acted here as a holder of abusefilter permission, I am not a sysop on english wiki and even if I have the technical ability to update blacklist, I think it should be rather done by some admin, so I will leave it up to them for now. Petrb (talk) 13:50, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Spam site blacklisted, further accounts blocked, filter disabled (it uses up resources), and {{checkuser needed}} to block the underlying IP. Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

What uses up resources means? The abuse filter entry should eat less resources than spamblacklist. Petrb (talk) 14:25, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I doubt it. The marginal cost of spamblacklist entries is approximately zero, since the regex of 1000+ URLs was going to be run (nor not run) anyway. The marginal cost of abuse filter entries is far higher, since each edit gets run through an additional filter. Unless I misunderstand? - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 14:31, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't really know the details of both extensions, but I hope the regular expressions are run separately in blacklist, anyway if they were or not, the cost of run the definition I made, which contains only one strpos call and check if user isn't confirmed, is surely lower than cost of run of any regular expression. But you may be right that the blacklist is somehow cached or optimized. Petrb (talk) 14:44, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The edit filter has a limit of 1000 conditions that can be run on any given edit, so when an edit uses up those conditions, it is automatically allowed. The spam blacklist has no such limitations. Additionally, the edit filter has to be run on the entire specified variable rather than only on the links. You could easily use the 'added_links' variable, but then you might as well just keep things organized and move it into the spam blacklist. The regex code you used, (new_wikitext contains "link #1" | new_wikitext contains "link #2") is extremely resource-intensive and slow due to two string searches being run on the entire edit. Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:59, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for detailed explanation. This string you copied from my definition, is not a regex. Actually it should be significantly faster than a regex search, given to how the regex library used by php works. Question is, how is that implemented in abuse filter, I will check it soon. I assume that search for a string as it is, uses strpos or something like that, or that's how I would implement it. I will definitely take care next time, and leave this up to you guys. Petrb (talk) 15:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about that—I wrote the wrong word. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:34, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It is, yeah: URLs are clumped into big /(...|...|...|...|...)/ sections. Besides, you have to remember that *all* edits get filtered, whereas only those that add URLs (a tiny proportion) end up being checked against the SpamBlacklist, giving the latter a natural performance advantage. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 15:26, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• I took care of the checkuser actions.. I blocked two additional accounts with similar behavior & the underlying IP. --Versageek 14:58, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Requesting review of block

I blocked Nflfacts2k2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) indefinitely for purporting that her account had a "team" of individuals behind it (here) in violation of WP:NOSHARE. The user had opened up a Wikiquette case against me after I reverted her addition of copyrighted text to Stanford Routt. After blocking the user, she posted on her talk page that she "runs the publicity for the aforementioned Stanford Routt." An editor has asserted that I am involved (to which I disagree), and requested that I open this thread to review my actions. Nflfacts2k2 has since said that only her personal assistant has taken a look at her edits to see if they are copyright-free. Eagles 24/7 (C) 22:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Endorse - Looks like a good block to me. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 22:20, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• The user has clarified that only one person is operating the account, and I'm willing to accept their explanation for what they meant by "we" in the diff above, so I've unblocked. There are still some issues about conflict of interest here, but nothing requiring a block at this point. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:55, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

ban discussion from ANI

Moved from ANI Nobody Ent 22:24, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed community ban of the Beatles IP Copyvio Vandal

I would like to propose a formal and official community ban of User:Crazy1980 (which was, as far as can be determined, the first named account created by this chronic copyvio offender) and all IP socks therof. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 09:36, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 09:36, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support don't know if it's really necessary but to avoid the possibility of future dispute I'm willing to support. Nil Einne (talk) 13:37, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support til I'm 64. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:05, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support - also a 'lol' at Sarek. GiantSnowman 14:37, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Fervent support - this is the worst case of WP:IDONTHEARYOU I've ever encountered that was not linked to a cult (religious or ideological). --Orange Mike | Talk 14:57, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support - I've dealt with this yahoo before as well. There is no sense in ever engaging in conversation with this person, a complete case for WP:RBI has never been more plain. Tarc (talk) 16:14, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support. I don't know what practical difference this ban makes since even contributory copyright violations are to be removed regardless of who adds them, but it never hurts to reaffirm the community's stand on this matter. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 16:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support - Of course. Block all socks on sight and revert all their additions on sight. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 16:19, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support - is good to have it as a formal decision (though a ban is not a solution to a problem). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:27, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support - rather obvious at this point. Calabe1992 16:28, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support - Rlendog (talk) 17:39, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment I already voted support above but from User talk:Mike Linksvayer, I think the user should be banned due to overusage of colour alone :-P Nil Einne (talk) 18:45, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support - A massive net negative to Wikipedia, the project is better off without this person. -- Atama頭 18:59, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support - A user whose sole purpose is spamming links that the community has overwhelmingly determined to be not appropriate for the project. A site-ban isn't a solution for the problem, but it does give us another tool for dealing with the disruption more efficiently. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Maybe we can sick Lamar S. Smith on him; I hear Smith has ferocious teeth behind that somewhat odd smile. Drmies (talk) 19:47, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Discussion of proposed community ban

For clarification, is the proposed ban on if the user adds links, or also for when the user makes demands or any other comment regarding the links? The reason I ask is that 95.29.70.237 (talk · contribs · info · WHOIS) has only one edit, which was not adding the link ... but is obviously the same user. Note: regardless of any outcome here, I wouldn't take action myself in blocking this IP as it would be a COI given the IPs comments directed at me. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 17:12, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Although, given the same COI reasoning, I shouldn't have earlier placed a block on 78.106.94.208 (talk · contribs · info · WHOIS). I'm mentioning it here now in an effort to be fully transparent in my actions regarding the user. If anyone feels that block should be discussed/reviewed, feel free to start a new thread so as to not muddy the discussion here with the secondary topic). --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 17:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Being threatened by a user does not make you involved. That would be too easy, make sure I first threaten all admins and then start vandalising, good call if s.o. dares to block that user. That is not what WP:INVOLVED reads, Barek, that block was a good call. Please continue making them. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, that's appreciated. Although, it still leaves the original question: is the above proposed ban on any disruption related to their demands/comments/etc related to the addition of the links, or only a ban on adding the links themselves. It appears to be on any disruption, but I just want to be sure that I'm clear on the scope of the proposed ban before supporting it (although, I will be supporting it regardless ... just want clarification before I added it in the section above). --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 17:33, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The ban is for anything. Banned means banned. Anything and everything the vandal does should be reverted on sight and all of their accounts should be blocked on sight. See WP:BAN. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:48, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems clear now that the intent is a project-wide ban on anything identified as being the same user.

However, just to point out a minor bit of semantics in the meaning of a ban - while ban means ban,the scope of a ban can vary. Per WP:BAN, "Though a Wikipedia ban may extend to the entire project, it is usually limited to an article ban or a topic ban." ... which is the reason for my question regarding scope. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:17, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Frankly this should have just been called a "site ban" because that's what it is. The term "site ban" only has one meaning... Banned from all of Wikipedia. There are many kinds of bans... Interaction bans, page bans, topic bans, but "site ban" is pretty specific and only refers to one kind of a ban, a ban from any activity anywhere on Wikipedia. -- Atama頭 20:42, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, our policy here states, "site banned" (which may sometimes be described as "community banned" or "full ban") but that's not really accurate. A "community ban" usually means that the editor was banned by community consensus, as opposed to a ban imposed by the Arbitration Committee, or through discretionary sanctions, from WMF or from Jimbo Wales. You can be community banned from a page or topic. The policy should probably be corrected but I know how fussy people can get about editing even a single word in a policy (let alone the policy on bans). -- Atama頭 20:48, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I assumed community ban made it clear it was a site ban, but yes, a full "ban ban" is what's being called for here. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:00, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:CBAN links to a section that states, "If an editor has proven to be repeatedly disruptive in one or more areas of Wikipedia, the community may engage in a discussion to site ban, topic ban, or place an interaction ban or editing restriction via a consensus of editors who are not involved in the underlying dispute." That in no way makes it clear that it's a site ban. :p I figured it out in context, though, based on the discussion preceding the ban, which is why I supported the ban. -- Atama頭 22:01, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Are these very long-term blocks on shared IPs really necessary?

I'm beginning to see a big increase in long-term blocks on shared IPs, especially those belonging to schools, colleges, and libraries, but also on other shared IPs. For example, this IP was blocked for three years. Three years! Think about it, high school in the United States lasts for four years; anyone that was a freshman at that school in 2010 will be a senior before they can touch the edit button from that network! This one was blocked for two years in 2011. I understand as much as anyone that administrators and vandal fighters are tired of the bullsh*t that some of these people keep dumping on us, but some of these IPs represent many, many individuals, and anybody accessing our wiki from these IPs are barred from improving our project because of a handful of troublemakers, unless of course they have an account. To be honest, this is beginning to remind me of TK's rangeblocks on Conservapedia, don't get me wrong, I liked TK and I'm proud to be a member of Conservapedia myself, but most agree that the ruthless mass rangeblocks were just too much, and most of those blocks have been lifted because of their potential to negatively impact the project. We're supposed to be the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, yet some people are unable to edit because their IPs are blocked.

Abuse reports could potentially be a good alternative to these long blocks, I know a lot of people here will say that abuse reports don't work, but I've had great successes with them at Conservapedia and Wikipedia. For example, no vandalism has come from this IP since I contacted the school about some vandalism referencing several students' names. The school was very cooperative, and was apparently able to trace down the vandal and punish her/him. Keep in mind that was a small school, so I'm guessing everybody heard about what happened and will not want to follow in that vandals shoes. An abuse report might not stop all vandalism at a larger school, but it can stun it. This IP stopped vandalizing for a month at least after an abuse report. The problem is of course that it probably wasn't the same users vandalizing each time. Enough abuse reports and word might make it around that Wikipedia is not to be messed with. Another thing that has been brought up is what if filing abuse report causes problems for someone in real life. Why should we care if John Doe can't go to prom or Jane Doe gets kicked off the cheerleading squad because they vandalized Wikipedia? Obviously the vandal doesn't, because (s)he wouldn't be breaking the rules if (s)he did. Unless we're talking about someone in Cuba or North Korea, I would guess that someone would usually get a warning and perhaps something like detention unless they've been in trouble before for internet abuse.

I propose that we limit blocks on shared IPs to one month except where networks outright refuse to cooperate or actively encourage vandalism. But that's just my opinion. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 01:18, 11 February 2012 (UTC) I propose that we limit blocks on shared IPs to one year, and require ISP/School/Employer/Etc contact before issuing blocks for longer than one month. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 03:19, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

There's nothing preventing them from creating accounts. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 01:29, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

• My first thought is that I don't like this idea. However, I'm curious: have you ever made an abuse report for an IP, and the vandalism stopped, and productive edits started coming from there? If not, then why in the world would your labor intensive solution be better than a long block? If so, then I'll think about it some more. Three years does seem like a long time, but I routinely make {{schoolblock}}s of one year, and if those switched to 1 month, you would dramatically increase the amount of crap we'd have to deal with. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:30, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I've seen some of these IPs that have had productive contributions in addition to the malicious ones while unblocked, particularly college and university IPs. For example, this one, although never reported for abuse, was blocked for a whole year after a vandalism spree, and it has had a mixture of malicious and constructive edits. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 01:45, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Almost forgot, this one, belonging to West Franklin High School, has been to abuse reports and has a mixture of malicious and productive contributions. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 01:51, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
• If three years is far too long, then one month is far too short. It is great to imagine the isolated cases where a new editor might first contribute from one of the problem IPs (positive: more editors), however we should also remember the draining effect on established editors of continuously dealing with the same crap (big negative: known good editors despair and depart). There have been several cases where an obviously mature individual from a school IP has requested that the IP be blocked because the individual is dismayed that their colleagues are damaging the encyclopedia—such potentially excellent editors understand the reason for long blocks and can work around them (make an account; edit from elsewhere). Johnuniq (talk) 02:28, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

  On the contrary. I am quite sure that a large proportion of the "please block my IP, there are many bad people here!" anonymous IPs are just trolls. However, you are right that three years is too long and one month is too short. Thirteen months is a sensible maximum. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:38, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

  • e/c I imagine there are times when long blocks are the best solution, and yes, filing ARs is tedious, but I think slapping another long, one year (or longer) block on a shared IP not long after another one has expired is the wrong approach; I think it might be more appropriate to start over with a shorter block and escalate back up to a year. As Johnuniq has described, abuse can cause established users anguish, and if an IP is harassing established users, then we need to do anything reasonable to stop the harassment. Something that disturbs me is when I see IPs that were once blocked, and didn't vandalize immediately after the block expired, but when an isolated incident of vandalism occurred, an administrator escalated to a longer block length. Wikipedia is supposed to be an open project, and we're supposed to assume good faith, but I can see it getting to a point where most schools and a significant number of universities and libraries are unable to edit Wikipedia. That's sad, to me any way. I also have to wonder about the effectiveness of blocking these shared IPs, since it seems to me that if someone wants to vandalize and can't do it at school that they would just do it elsewhere, unless they have no internet access elsewhere. I remember, when I was in high school, I would sometimes correct errors in pages (mainly typos and unnoticed vandalism) without logging into my account because I didn't want to get distracted from what I was doing (usually researching a topic). I imagine a lot of people would be bothered going home or registering an account to fix such things if they don't already have an account here. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 02:57, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Also note, I never thought that we shouldn't use one year blocks, I just think that we should at least contact the network administrators to let them know that we've blocked the IP due to abuse and can lift the block if they'll cooperate. Some schools would probably just assume it remain blocked, but it should be our goal to minimize the need for long-term blocks. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 03:02, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

• To answer the question in the header: yes. Absolutely. We frequently get multiple people vandalising from school IPs over a period of time, so reporting to the school and getting one kid detention (if the school bothers to do anything at all) isn't going to solve the problem—there'll be another one, and another one. So we block them, and no matter how long the block is, it's usually not long after it expires that somebody is vandalising from that address again, so it gets blocked again. Renewing the block every few days or weeks instead of every few years would massively increase admins' workload.

  By way of a possible counter-proposal, we could allow account creation from schools we block, since it's easy to just indefinitely block any vandalism-only accounts that spring up. But the autoblock on those accounts would still catch anybody who tried to edit from that IP for the next few days. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:23, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

• That is a good idea, except the autoblocks are hardblocks (if I'm not mistaken) and could potentially create more havoc for legitimate registered users than the soft-blocks with account creation disabled. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 03:27, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
• As a rebuttal to the notion that abuse reports do nothing as different people would keep vandalizing, we should encourage the IT departments to monitor the contributions from their IP address(es) for vandalism. Assuming they don't have a ton of IPs that they don't even need, it should take about a minute to pull up the contributions page every couple of days and pop every single one of the vandals for policy violations. Sooner or later, all of the users would figure out that vandalizing Wikipedia results in the vandal getting in trouble. Personally, if I was director of IT at an educational institution, I would do this and recommend to the principal that their computer access is revoked for the remainder of the school year as most of the ones that vandalize probably engage in other policy violations as well, especially the one's that engage in cyberbullying on here, and the OCD ones that keep coming back for more. It's their job to monitor for such policy violations. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 03:54, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

  Do you have any real-life examples in mind where school authorities have done anything to "monitor the contributions from their IP address(es) for vandalism", to your knowledge? Remember we need a few thousand such instances, for it to be worthwhile... --Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:12, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Someone, supposedly a cheerleader from what I've heard, got caught vandalizing Wikipedia in another high school in the local school district in '06, seemingly without Wikipedia even contacting them (and I'm still not sure if it was someone at the district or that school that caught them). This is what she did the next day, and the district blocked all of Wikipedia as a result. Obviously that's something we should stress that they do not need to do to stop the vandalism, and that we can manage the vandalism at our level without them needing to block all access. Additionally, when I was on the phone with an IT department for a school district in Illinois regarding Conservapedia vandalism, the IT person mentioned that they had similar problems with Wikipedia and dealt with it; apparently that school district would revoke the vandals' internet access for the entire school year over it. Also, I've seen evidence of action taken when vandals have sent me harassing messages from somewhere else after I reported them, in one case when I reported them to their DSL provider at home, and in one case when I reported them to their cellular provider. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 04:28, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

• (Per your notice on my talk), PCHS-NJROTC, I would love to stop blocking those schools and restart my writing. The current reality is that we don't have enough admin-hours even to amply warn and block, let alone contact the schools - i.e. we never know how many good editors do we scare away by blocks (surely we do), but we do know how many vandal edits come out from there. Further, more and more single-purpose accounts are being created recently for vandalism only (i.e. they are prepared to spend time on registration). A solution is more than welcome, but it needs proper thinking and a wide community discussion. Reaching out to IT departments is certainly a good idea, but I and most other admins simply do not have time for that (can WMF/ambassadors help there? - it is a top priority after all). I did have first-hand experience teaming with a college sysop to catch local Napster spam - he was a dedicated sysop and managed to identify real people with IPs in real time, but I saw how tricky that was. Materialscientist (talk) 04:10, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

  • I'm glad to see some openness to my idea, and I do understand that ISP is a cumbersome task; I do a lot ISP contacting for Conservapedia and it does take time to research everything and try to get them to work with you, and trying to work that in along with a job can seem damn near impossible at times. I also know that persistant vandals are annoying; I've been here since 2007 and have seen plenty of them. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 04:18, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I've only once contacted anybody over vandalism: it was for this edit (note that it's been revdeleted; sorry, non-admins), and I got cooperative responses from a school admin, a police officer, and the kid that was responsible. Nyttend (talk) 04:50, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I usually make contact whenever someone goes bashing other people, like that girl (I assume that it was a girl based on the edit) in Indiana that's rev deleted, but that's not the only times. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 05:00, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

• Something else I'd like to add is that it's not always schools that end up in this situation; I recall coming across an IP belonging to the United States Department of Homeland Security that was producing very childish and vulgar edits like the ones we see from schools, and it was on the fast track to getting blocked like the schools do. The sad thing is that it was obviously one person doing it and there were many other contributions that were legitimate from the IP, but I sent a report to Sprint's abuse contact (since it was through Sprint) and the vandalism ceased. This was sometime between '07 and '09. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 05:00, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

RFC on appropriate enforcement/handling of WP:NFCC policy #9

NFCC policy #9 says that non-free images aren't allowed outside content pages and specific limited administrative pages dealing with them. It doesn't say anything about how they should be handled or best practice. Sometimes deletion might be needed, perhaps sometimes it isn't and just removing (via editing) is enough. This RFC is to ask for users interested in NFCC to help draw up brief guidance in WP:NFCC for appropriate handling/removal of non-free images that breach policy #9.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 02:44, 11 February 2012 (UTC)