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Requesting RfC be re-closed

An RfC recently asked how to summarize a section at People's Mujahedin of Iran. Stefka Bulgaria (SB) and I (VR) offered competing versions. @Chetsford: closed as consensus for SB's version, but graciously encouraged me to seek review here; I'm asking the RfC be re-opened re-closed.

• The RfC was closed Nov 29‎. Yet there was active discussion on Nov 27-28 on whether the proposals violated WP:DUE([1][2]) or MOS:WEASEL ([3]). But wikipedia has no WP:DEADLINE.

• Secondly, the SB proposal mass removes longstanding content. Major divergences from the status quo require a strong consensus (as pointed out by El_C). Although the RfC was closed as "seven editors support the summary proposal while three are opposed", I count 10 supports for SB and 7 for VR. The closer felt the opposition to SB's version was ambiguous; I disagree and have provided the exact comments (see below "Vote counts"). Given this, the policy considerations below and closer finding both sides' arguments "equally compelling", the result leans to "no consensus". Re-opening the RfC might change that. Also, there is recent indication that RfCs on that page are voted on without being read, so result should be based on policy not votes.

• Lastly, there were serious policy issues with SB proposal that no one responded to. This version's weasel wording ("various sources...while other sources...") implies a WP:FALSEBALANCE. Academic sources overwhelming say that MEK is a cult (list of sources provided here and here). Even SB acknowledged that no source actually dismisses the cult claims. Yet SB's version balances the opinion of peer-reviewed books and journal articles against those in newspaper op-eds. The argument that high-quality RS can't be counterbalanced with low quality ones was made repeatedly ([4][5]) but never got a response.

• • It was pointed out (but never responded to) that SB's version inaccurately implies that MEK barring children from a military camp was the only or main reason for the cult designation, but the sources instead give different, multiple reasons for the cult designation. This is worded as a strawman and misrepresents what one of the sources SB cited says (see below "What the BBC source says").

• • By contrast, most objections against VR proposal aren't policy-based. This policy-based objection was promptly corrected ([6][7]). I repeatedly asked for clarification of objections ([8][9]) but no one responded except Bahar1397 (and our discussion was cutoff by the closure).

Vote counts

Stefka Bulgaria's proposal was supported by MA Javadi, Idealigic, Adoring nanny, Nika2020, Bahar1397, Alex-h, Ypatch, Barca and HistoryofIran (only said "Yes per Stefka.") Vice regent's proposal was supported by Mhhossein, Pahlevun, Sa.vakilian, Ali Ahwazi, Jushyosaha604 and Ameen Akbar. The closer felt opposition to SB's proposal was ambiguous, but I disagree and providing the statements below. Mhhossein said "No, for multiple reasons..." Ali Ahwazi said "No... The proposed text doesn't represent the reliable-sources based on WP:DUE." Pahlevun said "...I strongly reject the proposal on the grounds that it contradicts with WP:RS" @Jushyosaha604:, said " The OP who started the RFC removed too much information" (only pinging because the closer felt their position was ambiguous) Sa.vakilian said "No...this RFC is not acceptable per DUE" Vice regent, said "Stefka's proposed version gives WP:FALSEBALANCE to both views".

What the BBC source says

SB's version says The MEK has barred children in Camp Ashraf in an attempt to have its members devote themselves to their cause of resistance against the Iranian regime, a rule that has given the MEK reputation of being "cultish". This wording makes it seem that children are simply barred from MEK headquarters, a strawman argument, even though one of the sources cited makes it clear that this is decades' long child displacement. It says, Not only was the MEK heavily armed and designated as terrorist by the US government, it also had some very striking internal social policies. For example, it required its members in Iraq to divorce. Why? Because love was distracting them from their struggle against the mullahs in Iran. And the trouble is that people love their children too. So the MEK leadership asked its members to send their children away to foster families in Europe. Europe would be safer, the group explained. Some parents have not seen their children for 20 years and more. And just to add to the mix, former members consistently describe participating in regular public confessions of their sexual fantasies. You might think that would set alarm bells ringing - and for some US officers it did. One colonel I spoke to, who had daily contact with the MEK leadership for six months in 2004, said that the organisation was a cult, and that some of the members who wanted to get out had to run away. The source also mentions that "no children rule" as being only one of many reasons (mandatory divorce, members not allowed to leave) for MEK's cultishness.

VR _talk 15:51, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Changing to request to re-close.VR _talk 19:41, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

The RfC was opened on 2 October 2020, and there had been absence of new participation towards the time Chetsford closed it. As Chetsford explained to VR, the RfC process "is a finite discursive arena designed to achieve a specific purpose and not an infinite chat room for open-ended dialog." Also involved editor Mhhossein requested for the RfC to be closed by an experienced admin, and that's what happened here. After the close, VR was advised to continue discussion on either the article Talk page or personal Talk pages, but both Mhhossein and VR have a tendency to instead complain each time a RfC in this article doesn't close in their favor, making it exhausting for everyone involved. The RfC was opened for two months, and was closed by an experienced admin who gave a thorough and policy-based rational for their close. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 16:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

• That RFC ran for way too long. VR constantly commented on votes that didn't support his proposal, so when he says "there was active discussion", that's basically him disagreeing with opposite votes. Secondly, the consensus was not to mass remove longstanding content, but to condense a lot of POV. Chestford's vote count was accurate and his closing remarks carefully followed guidelines. Stefka's proposal was more neutral, that's why it won consensus. Lastly, there weren't any "serious policy issues with Stefka's proposal that no one responded to." VR and Mhhossein have been arguing WP:FALSEBALANCE to keep in the article multiple quotes repeating "Democratic Iranian opposition political party = cult" while Mhhossein is removing multiple sources about a misinformation campaign that the Iran’s theocratic regim is running to characterize this political party a cult. Alex-h (talk) 18:09, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

• Endorse. Clearly the correct close.—S Marshall T/C 00:58, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

• • The closer said he has counted the votes. There are 9 supports and 7 opposes which use policies in their comments. Moreover, this page is under CONSENSUS REQUIRED restriction, and the admin who himself has proposed Wikipedia:Consensus required and has the most experience regarding page said earlier this restriction should be taken into account, given the fact that "key longstanding text" is condensed by ~60%. Such a mass change requires a strong consensus. Not to mention that VR has raised quite fair concerns which are not responded to. --Mhhossein ^talk 18:09, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Actually, this is what the closing admin said in their closing comment:

"By head counting, seven editors support the summary proposal while three are opposed. Looking more closely at the arguments there was an unambiguous consensus that the text in question needs to be shortened, which is consistent with past discussions. Insofar as to whether or not the proposed alternative text should be the text used to shorten the article, "yes" !votes argued the current text was WP:UNDUE and the proposal accurately and duely represented all content in a more succinct and readable form. The "no" !votes stated that the sources used to support the current weighting of perspectives were not entirely drawn from WP:RS and that the proposed alternative text was, therefore, not DUE. The "no" !votes also stated that, while "cult" was a contentious label, there was an abundance of RS that used this term to refer to the Mujahedin. In rebuttal, "yes" !voters said that the word "cult" remained in the article but was reduced in redundancy by the proposal which was not inconsistent with the closing decision in a previous RfC on this topic, or the policy aspect of the objection raised by the "no" !votes. Arguments advanced by both "yes" and "no" editors were equally compelling and virtually every comment cited a relevant policy and made a logical argument as to why policy supported their position. In these cases, our SOP (as described in WP:NHC) requires the closer "to close by judging which view has the predominant number of responsible Wikipedians supporting it". There is a consensus to adopt both the shortening proposal, and the specific text advanced in that proposal by Stefka Bulgaria. An alternate proposal by VK did not achieve a consensus, however, a number of persons who registered a "yes" opinion in that proposal did not express any opinion at all in the original proposal. Given that, it would be okay to open a new and more focused discussion as to whether or not the just-adopted shortened form should be modified in the way suggested by VK, however, keeping this entire RfC open for that reason alone isn't justified and would be unnecessarily confusing."

And here is the conversation that followed on the closer's talk page after this close. All concerns were addressed (in the RfC process and after by the closing admin). Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 18:39, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Don't bludgeon the process, please. Thanks.--Mhhossein ^talk 05:39, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Mhhossein, I added the closing admins' evaluation (which was needed after your comment). Please do not edit my comments. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 15:23, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

You could simply put the diff and everyone could see what you are talking about. That's clearly bludgeoning to unnecessarily put the whole text wall here and would like to ask you avoid doing that in future.--Mhhossein ^talk 14:37, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

• Not sure what the specific disagreement is about as I haven't followed the discussion too closely, but I'd be happy to clarify and add more details to my comments in case the RFC was reopened. Apologies for the ambiguity. Jushyosaha604 (talk) 20:06, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

• Neutral as Closer (but no fundamental objection to reopening): I closed the RfC in question and addressed some of the concerns the OP (and others) raised above at my Talk page here. However, as I said there, I think this was an exceptionally close decision. The OP is an outstanding editor who makes strong points in favor of reopening that are based on a GF interpretation of policy. While I don't agree with them and didn't, therefore, believe I could unilaterally reopen the RfC I would have no objection if the community decided to reopen it. Chetsford (talk) 21:11, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

• Re-open Re-close. Jeez, what a mess. This reminds me of what happened when the last RfC on the cult designation was closed/amended back in September (by L235). Same thing now in November (December)? Nothing learned? Yes, there remains a strong consensus to trim. But my sense is that there's only a strong consensus to trim within reason. In the last RfC, the proposal was to trim 800 words down to 40 words. This RfC proposes to trim it down to 80 words. Now, I realize it's double the word count, but whether one is cutting down the material to 1/20th of its former size or to 1/10th of it — either one of these still amounts to an enormous reduction. So, in either case, I would submit that there would need to be a strong consensus to trim that much sourced content. Whereas, if one were to propose trimming much less, a rough consensus ought to do. Anyway, having a cult designation super-trim RfC every 3 months is too much. Had I still been active as an admin in the article (with thanks to Vanamonde93 for picking up the torch), I probably would have barred this latest RfC from even proceeding (as such). It just isn't a sensible way to engage the problem at hand. It seems like a one-sided approach and a timesink. So, Stefka Bulgaria, maybe it's time someone else had go at it...? Because, coupled with your rather perplexing SPI (to word it gently) involving Mhhossein earlier in the week, it doesn't look like it's heading anywhere good. At any rate, maybe a pre-RfC consultation period wouldn't be the worse idea. Instead of submitting one super-trim RfC after another, why not work together toward a proposal that both sides could find palatable. Or am I just howling at the moon? El_C 09:18, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

I strongly support work[-ing] together toward a proposal that is both concise but also contains all the major points. We can use the two proposals in the RfC already (SB's and VR's) as starting points.VR _talk 11:23, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

I strongly oppose re-opening the rfc since it received concensus and was closed properly. If some editors want to shape the final outcome, then they should start a new rfc and see if that receives consensus, so I support working together in a new rfc. Idealigic (talk) 16:59, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Your use of the word "consensus" is too vague, Idealigic. Because what I am saying above (and have said in the prior RfC), is that one would need a strong consensus to reduce sourced material to 1/20th (prior RfC) to 1/10th (current RfC) of its former size. Rough consensus just isn't good enough for changes of that magnitude. El_C 17:14, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

The head count was 10 editors in favor of the proposal and 4 against it (and even some of votes that were against the OP’s proposal agreed the text needed shortening so it could be more neutral, so there was an unambiguous consensus that the text needs to be shortened, something also consistent with past discussions).In cases where arguments on both sides are equally compelling citing relevant policies our SOP (as described in WP:NHC) requires the closer "to close by judging which view has the predominant number of responsible Wikipedians supporting it".

The text was requested to be summarized because there a section in the article with the violating title “designation as a cult” (it violates WP:V and WP:OR) with exuberant number of quotes calling the democratic political opposition to Iran’s theocracy a "cult". The OP provided many sources about the Iranian regime running a disinformation campaign to label this political group a “cult” and other discrediting things:

• "A well-funded, highly organized misinformation campaign attempts to demonize the only viable alternative to Tehran’s rulers, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), whose four decades of opposition to one of the world’s most evil regimes apparently equates with being some sort of terrorist cult."

• "disinformation campaign to discredit the opposition, namely the MEK. The objective has been to show that no democratic alternative is available and that dealing with this regime or looking for change within it is the only option for the West. The campaign involves the use of social media, dissemination of fake news, provision of grants for biased and slanderous reports, and even hiring reporters directly or through middlemen. In testimony before the Canadian Parliament on July 5, 2010, John Thompson, who headed the Mackenzie Institute, a security think-tank in Canada, said a man tied to Iran’s mission in Canada offered him $80,000. “They wanted me to publish a piece on the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK). Iran is trying to get other countries to label it as a terrorist cult."

  ”

• "To my knowledge, the regime has not spent a dime on demonizing the elderly remnants of the monarchy, but it does pay journalists abroad to publish fake stories against the MEK. The head of a major Canadian think tank revealed that the Iranian regime embassy offered him up to $80,000 to refer to the MEK as a "cult" in his publications."

• "A 2011 report by the General Intelligence and Security Service stated that the government in Iran continued to coordinate a campaign financed by the Iranian intelligence services to undermine and portray the MEK in a highly negative manner. This campaign also involved the media, politicians, and public servants."

• "Teheran’s efforts to undermine the opposition People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (Mujahedin-e Khalq, MEK) in the Netherlands continued unabated in 2011. In a campaign co-ordinated and financed by the Iranian intelligence services, the media and a number of politicians and other public servants were approached with a view to portraying the MEK in a highly negative light."

• "The intensification of the MOIS research efforts already described for 2015 against the opposition "People's Modjahedin Iran Organization" (MEK) or theirs political arm, the “National Council of Resistance of Iran” (NCRI), was also found in 2016. The Iranian intelligence service continued to adhere to the strategy that the MEK targeted through Discredit propaganda."

• "“The Iranian regime has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to demonize the PMOI and portrayed it as a group without popular support,” Rafizadeh, an Arab News columnist, added."

• "The campaign to suppress and demonize the opposition, most notably the MEK, has been launched since the Islamic regime usurped power in Iran. In fact, the Iranian intelligence and security apparatus has been actively pursuing various activities against the MEK such as monitoring, assassinating and, more importantly during recent years, demonizing the opposition group in media. For instance, in 2015 and 16, the regime produced at least 30 films, TV series and documentaries to spread false allegations and lies against the opposition in Iran’s society. This is apart from hundreds of websites and exhibitions across Iran to pursue the same goal."

These are just some of the reasons mentioned in that discussion why this needed shortening, cleaning that section and preserving the main points. If new information needs to be added, then a proposition can be made explaining why it is needed and how they are in accordance to a summary style editing. That would be a fresh approach of building the article instead of the other way around (which has already proven not to work). Idealigic (talk) 12:16, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Why do you guys think bludgeoning the discussion with such a text wall can be helpful? As I told you, you did exactly the same thing at the talk page of MEK but it just made the whole talk page into a real mess. As a friendly note, this is not really helpful. --Mhhossein ^talk 14:28, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Idealigic's count of "10 vs 4" is wrong. There were two proposals: 10 chose SB's, 7 chose VR's (see collapsed section Vote counts for diffs and details) - this is not consensus.VR _talk 15:24, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

The main problem with a situation like this is that while everyone is in agreement it needed to be changed, there wasnt a particularly strong consensus for one version over another. Usually the argument is 'do we change it to this or not'. The standard wiki response in a non-consensus situation is revert to the status quo, that was clearly not an option here, as no one wanted that. Given the weight of arguments were roughly equal, it then does come to a numbers game. The alternatives are: extending the RFC to gain more input, by advertising a bit more widely, or just reclosing it as no-consensus and taking it back to the default state. The issue with leaving it open is there are not (from reading it) many more decent arguments that could be made on either side. Re-opening a discussion for the purpose of just hoping more people up the numbers on one side or another is just an invitation to canvassing. Just to be clear I Endorse the close as valid given the discussion there. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:48, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Only in death, you raise an important point about how re-opening the RfC discussion itself is a questionable proposition, though I think you also overlook some of the points I raised about the background behind the cult designation RfCs (plural). Especially, how WP:ROUGHCONSENSUS may be at odds with super-trimming content down to like 1/10th to 1/20th of its former size in an article as fraught as this. Again, I, for one, feel that the two sides giving a go to a collaboration in a pre-RfC brainstorming session could prove to be a worthwhile pursuit. We keep having the same side (and the same editor, in fact) in effect dominating the RfC platform when it comes to this matter. But, as for a mere re-open, it would, indeed, be folly. Procedurally, what I would favour (and I suppose what I originally had in mind) is an immediate re-closing, as opposed to relisting. And if it is re-closed affirming the result of the first closure, then that is what it is. Anyway, I have amended my original comment accordingly. El_C 17:02, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Only in death and El_C for input. Reason for re-opening was to get responses to two policy issues with SB version:

• SB's version misrepresenting the sources that say MEK is a cult (concern raised during RfC)
• SB's weasel wording equating scholarly sources to newspaper op-eds (raised during RfC[10]). Academic consensus is clear that MEK is a cult. Even SB admitted that no source dismisses the cult claim.

Neither concern was responded to during the RfC. I'm fine with a re-close as long as closer evaluates the merits of these two arguments.VR _talk 17:33, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

A "consensus to reduce but no consensus on exact wording" can be a good thing. This finding on the previous RfC actually spawned proposals and counter-proposals. That is exactly what is needed: less !voting and more WP:NEGOTIATION.VR _talk 18:04, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

• This discussion had been going on for months and a RFC was the only solution left for getting things somewhat fixed in the article, so in spite that there is not an overwhelming majority of votes for one version over another (although I also count 10-4 in favor of Stefka's proposal, and 6-7 in favor of VR's propoal), I agree with editor Onlyindeath that the close is valid considering the alternatives. Alex-h (talk) 20:57, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

See Vote counts, 10 chose SB's version, 7 chose VR's version.VR _talk 22:36, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

• There is nothing wrong with the first close. Ypatch (talk) 06:26, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

References
References

• Source restriction is what's needed at People's Mujahedin of Iran (and similar super-contentious articles). The sources being used on all sides (popular press) are not good enough for this topic. If we try to source a topic like MEK to popular press like BBC and arabnews.com, what we'll find is that the sources are all over the map and say all kinds of radically different things, depending entirely on who is publishing, who the journalist is, and who the journalist's sources are. We'll never get to any neutral truth about a complex topic like MEK relying on journalists. There are hundreds of academic sources about MEK. Those should be the only ones considered. The picture becomes much clearer when we rely on political scientists and other types of scholars, instead of journalists and activists, as sources. I think Chet did a fine job closing this complex RFC; sure, a no consensus close would also have been in discretion; sure, it could have run longer; Chet kind of split-the-baby with a close that addressed part of the issue and with no prejudice to further discussion of a remaining part of the issue; but without a source restriction, the MEK content disputes will never, ever be resolved. So I think step 1 is impose a source restriction, and then have whatever RFCs. But everyone's arguments would need to be re-evaluated once the source restriction is in place, and I think that will lead us to seeing that what's in dispute isn't quite as disputed by the sources as we thought it was (scholars agree about much more than journalists do). Levivich ^harass/_hound 18:57, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Levivich I fully agree with restricting to scholarly sources - this is exactly what I said above and was repeatedly said during the RfC[11][12] by those who opposed SB version.VR _talk 20:22, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

@Vice regent: I remember months ago El_C said scholarly sources had to be the core part of our discussions (@El C: Do you remember this? I can't find the diff). I want to say that ignoring the journalistic sources may be wrong, instead I suggest to give much more weight to the scholarly works. Btw, I would say inappropriate weighing of the arguments, is the most dominant issue here. Probably I will explain it in details later. --Mhhossein ^talk 13:46, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Mhhossein, sorry, nothing comes to mind. I mean, beyond the MEK, I generally favour citations which are grounded in the scholarship rather than in the mainstream media. As a maxim, the greater social-scientific detail a source provides, the better. But you work with whatever sources you got, I suppose... El_C 22:58, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome El_C. As a user involved in most, if not all, of the core discussions of the MEK page, although I believe sometimes journalistic works may frame a sociopolitical picture of the subject, I completely agree with favoring scholarly works over the ones from the mainstream media. Let's see what Vice regent and Levivich think? --Mhhossein ^talk 13:07, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome — what? I think you meant to say "thank you" and I was meant to say "you're welcome." Stop the Steal! Anyway, unless it's news, which is the domain of the media rather than that of academia. But after the fact, it's always a plus to have a reputable scholar emphasize and reaffirm (or qualify or whatever) this or that news piece alongside any other evidence. El_C 16:24, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

In my view, once serious scholarship becomes available, it should replace news media as a source in our articles. By "serious scholarship" I mean written by bona-fide scholars, published by real, peer-reviewed academic journals or in books (often edited by bona-fide scholars) published by university publishers (like Oxford University Press). Second-tier is non-peer-reviewed but still serious scholarly articles, in academic periodicals like Foreign Affairs, but in that case one must be careful to look at who the author is: an article by a politician in a periodical like Foreign Affairs is probably not going to make a good source; an article by a university professor published in the same magazine would be fine (but still not peer-reviewed, and may need attribution). Third-tier is top-rated news media, like BBC or The Economist or The New York Times. These should only be used when there is nothing available in the first or second tier. That will happen, of course, for any current or recent events. So as events unfold and are written into our articles, they should start with top-rated news media as sources, but then those sources should be gradually replaced as better ones (from scholarly publications) become available.

With a topic like "Is MEK a terrorist cult?", well, we don't need to go to news media. MEK has been around for decades now; a lot of scholarship has been written about it. It's possible to look at the scholarly works (books by university publishers, academic journals) and see if they describe MEK as a terrorist cult. For that question, we shouldn't even bother looking at news media, because news media will pay a lot of attention to, say, what the gov't of Iran or the US said about it recently, without filtering that "recentist" information through the sober lens of scholarship. So I wouldn't consider news media for that question, except I guess if someone is making the argument that "terrorist cult" is a recently-significant viewpoint, too new for scholarship but nevertheless significant enough to include in our article, in which case our article should cover that by making it clear it's recent, and likely by attributing it.

So basically I think I agree with Mhhossein about weight. While I said "source restriction", I certainly think that there is a place for news media to have a limited role (e.g., for recent events), but that scholarly sources should, as Mhhossein said, be favored or weighed stronger than news media sources. Ultimately as time goes on and scholarly sources are written, they should be replacing news media sources as sources in our articles. Levivich ^harass/_hound 17:26, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

In a sense, it's an approach that aims at drawing a parallel between the natural and social sciences. The mainstream media is fine for news, but beyond the contemporaneous, it is more encyclopedic to refer to the scholarship. Of course, the influence of political ideology tends to be far more pronounced in the social sciences than it is in the natural ones — but the principle is more or less the same. And, indeed, in the case of the MEK, there is no shortage of scholarly input on... pretty much anything. El_C 17:41, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

El_C: Hahaha, "I'm sorry (you're welcome)". I meant to say sth in response to your "sorry" (which I now see was not an appropriate reaction towards you). Thank you anyway. I think you raised this important issue of using the scholarly sources long ago and the outcome of ignoring that is showing itself just now. Also, thanks for your time Levivich. The explanation was quite comprehensive and reasonable. I agree with your points. --Mhhossein ^talk 12:40, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Looking at that YouTube comment section (in general, a nexus of wisdom and grace), I echo what Clever and Original Username. (full stop in the original!) said 5 years ago: the idea of Gene belcher saying fuckscape still makes me really uncomfortable. Amen to that. El_C 15:46, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Based on the discussion above, would there be broad agreement between El_C, Levivich, Mhhossein and myself that the RfC should be re-closed (not re-opened), where the closer takes re-evaluates the arguments based on Levivich's proposed "source weighting" (giving scholarly sources more weight than news media sources)?VR _talk 19:41, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

There are several editors here agreeing that there was nothing wrong with the first close. If the issue is instead "source restriction"/"source weighting" of third-tier media, then that is something that needs to be applied to the whole article and not to one particular section (like Alex pointed out below, which has been completely ignored for some reason). I will start a talk page discussion on the MEK page to see if we can first agree on applying "source restriction" to the article as a whole. If that passes, then that would answer a lot of questions about what should or shouldn't be in the article. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 07:12, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

I've started a discussion on the MEK talk page to see if we can first come to an agreement of applying source restriction on the MEK page as a whole. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 07:21, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Why do you think we should STOP everything until YOUR discussion is coming to a desired end? If you have something to say, simply add it here.--Mhhossein ^talk 11:01, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, I have added it here, as well as on the MEK's talk page. Levivich suggested that one way to make RFCs more straight-forward at the MEK page could be to first implement a source restriction there, AND THEN have whatever RFCs. So if a source restriction is to be implemented to the MEK article, then we first need to evaluate if this should/will come into effect, and if it does, then we need to determine how this will affect the vast number of media sources used in this article (and not only the ones pertaining to this RFC). Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 11:20, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Please stop changing Levivich's words. I don't think he meant we should wait and experimentally see if this approach works. My understanding of his words is that the RFCs would have different outcomes with source restriction in place. This stonewalling will not stop this RFC from reaching a conclusion. @Levivich: Would you please elaborate on this?--Mhhossein ^talk 17:20, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

@Stefka Bulgaria and Mhhossein: TBH when I wrote my comment, I had in mind a source restriction for the entire article at least, if not the entire topic area (WP:GS/IRANPOL), because I think that will help future content disputes as well as the present one (as Alex-h points out, a source restriction would affect much more content in the article than just what's at issue in this RFC; it could significantly change what we say about the topic in wikivoice). I'll say generally that by "source restriction", I don't mean source removal so much as source replacement, i.e., replace a BBC cite with an academic journal cite when one is available; I don't mean someone should delete everything cited to the BBC. In some cases, something cited to news media can't be replaced with academic sourcing, and in those cases, perhaps removal is the correct choice, but it's really a case-by-case analysis.

With regard to this RFC, I don't think a future source restriction could be applied retroactively. That said, we do have global consensus about WP:RS, WP:V, WP:BLP (where applicable), etc. So whether a closer of this RFC should weigh !votes based on the quality of sources... I think generally yes, it's OK for a closer to discount a !vote based on, for example, a deprecated source. Can a closer weigh !votes based on academic sources heavier than !votes based on non-academic sources? (Which is, I think, what the current disagreement is about?) I have no what the answer to this question is. To be honest I don't think I've ever encountered it before.

If a source restriction is put in place, for the article or the topic area, it will result in changes to articles as it is enforced. And those changes might make this RFC moot anyway, or it might give justification to re-visiting the RFC. I really don't know, it sort of depends on whether there's a source restriction, what kind of restriction exactly, and what the sources that "pass" the restriction say about the topic.

I get Mhhossein's point about not holding up this RFC close while the community discusses a potential source restriction. Maybe the best thing is for a closer to close the RFC now but recognize that the issue may be revisited in the future if, for example, the content changes because of a source restriction being enforced.

But it's probably best to get more outside opinions, esp. from admins, as this is AN and a contentious RFC. Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, or Merry Clausmas if you celebrate a secular Christmas like I do :-) (Non-administrator comment) Levivich ^harass/_hound 17:48, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

It was a clear and comprehensive explanation Levivich. The fact that issues should be investigated case by case is an important thing in your words, I guess. Also, let me repeat your "Can a closer weigh !votes based on academic sources heavier than !votes based on non-academic sources?" (I also believe this should be taken really more seriously now). --Mhhossein ^talk 19:12, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

There is a lot of third-tier (and fourth-tier) journalism in the MEK article. This for example:

• ”Hersh reported names of former U.S. officials paid to speak in support of MEK, including former CIA directors James Woolsey and Porter Goss; New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; former Vermont Governor Howard Dean; former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Louis Freeh and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton.”

• "The Intercept published that Bob Menendez, John McCain, Judy Chu, Dana Rohrabacher and Robert Torricelli received campaign contributions from MEK supporters.

• "According to Hersh, MEK members were trained in intercepting communications, cryptography, weaponry and small unit tactics at the Nevada site up until President Barack Obama took office in 2009."

• "According to the Intercept, one of Alavi's articles published by Forbes was used by the White House to justify Donald Trump Administration's sanctions against Iran."

• "Karim Sadjadpour believes the MEK is a "fringe group with mysterious benefactors that garners scant support in its home country", and that the population of its supporters in Iran "hovers between negligible and nill"."

The list goes on and on... Alex-h (talk) 19:51, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

• Besides El_C and Levivich, 2 other uninvolved users commented here. @S Marshall: and @Only in death: what do you think of the above proposal to re-close (not re-open) the RfC where the closer takes re-evaluates the arguments by giving scholarly sources more weight than news media sources? This was already stated twice during the RfC ([13][14]) by those opposed to SB version but never responded to during the RfC. WP:NEWSORG says Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics.VR _talk 12:59, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

See this discussion: the news sources are not contradicting the scholarly sources, they are just adding a different POV (that isn't in the article). Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 13:35, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Moreover, cherry-picking when source restriction should be implemented is the equivalent of cherry-picking our preferred sources. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 13:45, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

VR, you are overlooking the main argument here. Are we executing source restriction to the entire MEK article? We cannot execute source restriction to one sentence and not the rest of the article. Alex-h (talk) 14:54, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

• In response to Vice regent's ping: No, I don't think there are good grounds to re-close. I should disclose that on 8 February 2019, I closed an RfC about the lede of this article myself, and while I was evaluating that debate, I formed the view that this article is edited by people with a strong and active interest in the topic area who are very motivated to affect what it says. I think that in that environment, a closer needs to exercise a lot of judgment; and I think that because he needs to, he's therefore, necessarily, authorised to. He's within discretion and it ill behoves us to undermine him.—S Marshall T/C 18:40, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

S Marshall I appreciate your view, thanks for giving it. Do you have any comment on my (and others') view that the RfC proposal violates WP:V by misquoting a source, and violates WP:DUE and WP:NEWSORG by giving news sources similar weight as scholarly sources?VR _talk 04:10, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Vice regent in response to your poins:

1) The RfC proposal does not violate WP:V:

"Over the years, Tehran’s terror campaign at home and abroad has been augmented by a massive, well-orchestrated, well-financed demonization and disinformation campaign to discredit the opposition, namely the MEK. The objective has been to show that no democratic alternative is available and that dealing with this regime or looking for change within it is the only option for the West. The campaign involves the use of social media, dissemination of fake news, provision of grants for biased and slanderous reports, and even hiring reporters directly or through middlemen. In testimony before the Canadian Parliament on July 5, 2010, John Thompson, who headed the Mackenzie Institute, a security think-tank in Canada, said a man tied to Iran’s mission in Canada offered him $80,000. “They wanted me to publish a piece on the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK). Iran is trying to get other countries to label it as a terrorist cult.”

International Policy Digest

"To my knowledge, the regime has not spent a dime on demonizing the elderly remnants of the monarchy, but it does pay journalists abroad to publish fake stories against the MEK. The head of a major Canadian think tank revealed that the Iranian regime embassy offered him up to $80,000 to refer to the MEK as a "cult" in his publications... And yet, over the past several years, Iran’s state-run media has produced a total of nineteen movies, series, and documentaries—some of them consisting of up to twenty-eight segments of thirty to forty-five minutes each—that demonize the MEK. In 2018 alone, eighteen major books were published by the regime against the MEK. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei excoriated the MEK by name at least four times. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has directly blamed the MEK for organizing public protests."

National Interest

"Of late, the blather has gone from a wave to a barrage. A well-funded, highly organized misinformation campaign attempts to demonize the only viable alternative to Tehran’s rulers, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), whose four decades of opposition to one of the world’s most evil regimes apparently equates with being some sort of terrorist cult."

Arab News

All three sources support "while other sources say the Iranian regime is running a disinformation campaign to label the MEK a "cult", so WP:V has not been violated. If you think the text could be quoted better, then just provide a suggestion on the article's talk page and we'll get others to weigh in.

2) This does also does not violate neither WP:DUE nor WP:NEWSORG. One POV has 54 characters, and the other has 18 characters, so more weigh has been given to the POV with more sources. Also see the other sources provided here by Idealigic (there are plenty of sources supporting that there is a disinformation campaign by the Iranian regime against the MEK), so this content is clearly WP:DUE. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 09:05, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

As opposed to what you said, this version is truely violating NPOV (explained mutliple times). Anyway, this long wall of text does not discredit the important points raised by experienced users here. --Mhhossein ^talk 19:07, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

References

the close was clearly done correctly. Mhhossein, if you are really interested in making the article (topic) better and not just changing the outcome of this individual RFC, then propose something on the article's talk page that can be implemented to the whole subject instead to just the line you want to remove from the article. Barca (talk) 14:30, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Nope, the admin having the most experience with this page says it's not! Even the closer admin said he is OK with re-opening. --Mhhossein ^talk 19:02, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, Chet stood by his close, and S Marshall and Only in death also endorsed the close. Levivich proposed some kind of "Source restriction" to be implemented in the article or subject area as a whole, and I have since been trying to generate input on the article's talk page about this. About the RfC, it's been over a month since it was closed, and there was a general agreement by most (if not all) editors that the text needed to be reduced. Also I pointed out how the outcome didn't violate neither WP:V, nor WP:DUE, nor WP:NEWSORG, nor WP:NPOV (one POV has 54 characters, and the other has 18 characters, so both POVs have been represented). The RFC had been open for over a month, with little to none new input in the days before its closure. Moving on, if there is some kind of source restriction to be implemented in IRANPOL, then ideally an admin who deems this necessary will assist in setting this up so that we can apply it to the whole subject as well as future discussions and not exclusively to certain texts that some editors want changed. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 05:08, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

The closing admin starts his comment by "Neutral as Closer (but no fundamental objection to reopening)". By the way, "(one POV has 54 characters, and the other has 18 characters, so both POVs have been represented". LOL! Is it what you understand from NPOV? --Mhhossein ^talk 06:39, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

• I have asked the discussion get closed. --Mhhossein ^talk 03:39, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
• Since the Arab News was used as a source for the text proposed in this RfC, users might be interested in discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Arab_News_reliable_on_the_People's_Mujahedin_of_Iran?.VR _talk 14:41, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
• There are two important discussions regarding the super-trim RFCs (like the one that is the topic of debate here). You can find them "New restriction proposal" and "Confused". The OP of the RFC has promised to avoid opening such super trim discussions. --Mhhossein ^talk 07:47, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Kiki Camarena RfC

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

---

I'm requesting that this RfC at Talk:Kiki Camarena be re-closed. S Marshall's close stated that this text [15] did not have consensus for inclusion at Kiki Camarena; the close ignored available reliable sources and directly contradicted a clear RfC consensus:

1. . WP:CONSENSUS - 6 out of 9 editors argued that the text should be included in the article body and lead, and 5 out of 6 non-involved editors argued the same.
2. . Editors arguing for inclusion noted that WP:SECONDARY and tertiary WP:RS treat the allegations "extremely seriously" (e.g. [16][17][18][19]), and that arguments against inclusion were based on WP:OR.

S Marshall ignored both media and academic sources, and the consensus of editor arguments, in his close, effectively using the close as a supervote. He has acknowledged that his close opposed the editorial judgement of the community contributing to the RfC on his talk page: "I live in hope that the community's editorial judgment has improved" [20]. -Darouet (talk) 03:37, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

• Endorse Close The closer ruled, in several cases in question 2, lack of a consensus in support of an edit which is qualitatively different than a consensus against said edit; it seems consistent with the flow of discussion, and consideration of some include !votes which were more or less WP:VAGUEWAVEs. The closer's Talk page comment is ambiguous and could be interpreted in several ways; I don't think it's a smoking gun of supervoting. (Also, on the matter of question #3 I'm not getting the same numbers as the challenger; by my count, only three of nine editors explicitly supported adding text to the lead.) That said, the closer's judgment on Q4 seems to be on a question that wasn't asked in the RfC and didn't naturally emerge in discussion. However, it appears simply to be the editor's personal advice for next steps. Finally, the editor's decision on Question 1 doesn't appear to be in dispute by the challenger. Chetsford (talk) 04:11, 31 December 2020 (UTC); edited 04:28, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
• Comment. This is at least the third time a close by S Marshall has been brought here for review since June. Both previous reviews resulted in overturns (see here and here) after consensus developed that SM supervoted in his close. Based on my initial reading of this new discussion, that appears to be the case once again. -- Calidum 04:14, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

• In fact, if you examine User:S Marshall/RfC close log and its archives, you'll see that my closes have been reviewed many times on the admininistrator's noticeboard since 2014, and on the vast majority of occasions, I've been resoundingly endorsed.—S Marshall T/C 18:48, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

• Closer: Darouet misrepresents what I said on my talk page, he misrepresents my close, and he totally misrepresents the arithmetic. Chetsford has it right.—S Marshall T/C 18:52, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
  • The RfC was a simple one: "Should we include a section on possible CIA participation in Camarena's interrogation, and his case more broadly, using this text at least, [21] and based on these sources?" The link that explains "this text at least" includes lead text that summarizes the issue. Fully six editors asked to "include" the text, and only a tortured distortion of their comments can argue that these "include" votes implied inclusion of some of the text, but not other parts.
  • As I already stated, 5 out of 6 non-involved editors endorsed inclusion.
  • S Marshall, as to your own comment on your talk page - what did you mean when you wrote "I live in hope that the community's editorial judgment has improved", other than that you disagreed with the editorial judgements of editors commenting on the RfC? At best Chetsford states your comment "is ambiguous," and you've offered no other interpretation. -Darouet (talk) 22:33, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
    • It's not the numbers at all, Darouet. Don't count the words in bold: read. In fact that was a near-unanimous consensus to include the disputed information. When closing I observed that all the editors who said "include" were talking about the principle of including it. None of the editors who said "Oppose as written" were opposed to including it -- their objections were to your specific wording. And that's why my first finding was to include the disputed information.
      However, in that whole discussion, the only editor who supported your exact wording was you, and there was substantial and well-argued opposition to it. For this reason, in my finding #2, you are required to engage with the opposing editors and find a wording that includes the disputed information while respecting their well-founded concerns.
      And what I meant by my other remark is that I hope editors in this close review display better editorial judgment than in other recent disputes. I don't mind being overturned by the community: it's happened to everyone who's got any business closing discussions of this kind. But I dislike being overturned by people who've !voted without reading, understanding and reflecting on the disputed discussion, as has happened to me several times of late.—S Marshall T/C 00:59, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

      So in your view, the editors who wrote "oppose as written" supported including the section but not as written by the proposer, and the editors who wrote "include" also supported including the section but not as written by the proposer? Levivich ^harass/_hound 05:45, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

      • Levivich summarizes the absurdity of the close perfectly - editors supporting inclusion by a 2:1 margin are worse than ignored - their comments and reasoning are reversed. It’s a catch-22. -Darouet (talk) 07:01, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
• Let me break down my reasoning in more detail for you, Levivich.

1. Darouet writes an RfC in which he proposes to include six (6) paragraphs about alleged CIA complicity in the torture and murder of an American citizen.
2. Half a dozen editors support him.
3. Three editors pop up to oppose the specific wording that Darouet proposes. The concerns about wording are generally expressed late in the debate.
4. A large discussion ensues, with Darouet participating very heavily indeed, but little input from his previous supporters.

So I arrive and ask myself how to close it. Noting point (1), I decide to close it with utmost caution. Noting point (2), I close it in favour of including the disputed information. Noting points (3) and (4), I decide that although the disputed information may be included, the specific wording Darouet proposes doesn't enjoy consensus support and must be tweaked in consultation with the opposers, so as to take account of their concerns. Then I write this up as an RfC close and supply a few ancillary directions which are meant to enable Darouet to add the disputed information without having to go to a second RfC about exact wording.—S Marshall T/C 12:30, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

It looks a lot simpler to me: an edit was proposed, and six editors were in favor of the edit while three were in favor of including the content in some form but not as written. There was no policy-based reason to discount the !votes of those who supported making the edit. That's consensus to include. Overturn to "include". Levivich ^harass/_hound 18:46, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I am one of the non-involved editors brought to the RfC by RS/N. The closing editor makes several clear policy errors, and is egregiously partial:

1. Suitability as closer.

In their closing, the editor states The claim that the CIA was somehow involved or connected with Camarena's murder is of course an extraordinary one, and it requires in-text attribution to a specific source as well as an inline citation that directly supports the claim. The proposed addition is also long enough to raise concerns that it might give undue prominence to what may well be no more than a conspiracy theory. The notion that the claim, supported by multiple peer-reviewed academic sources, is of course an extraordinary one, is either based on an unsourced assertion by one involved editor, or a view that the closing editor brings to the discussion. Neither is appropriate. Similarly, the notion that it may well be no more than a conspiracy theory is either based on an unsourced assertion by one involved editor, or a view that closing editor brings to the discussion. Using assertions not based on policy, made by a single editor, as the basis for summarising consensus suggests a level of preconception, conscious or not, which disqualifies the editor as suitable for closing the RfC.

2. Misrepresenting !votes

The RfC question was not ambiguous: Should we include a section [...] using this text at least, and based on these sources? [my emphasis]. Those putting the case for inclusion were voting for the inclusion of the text by Darouet. The closing editor seeks to confuse the issue by creating four questions, where one was asked. They double down on this in the discussion above stating When closing I observed that all the editors who said "include" were talking about the principle of including it. The editor did not in fact make this observation, an astute choice on their part, given that any reasonable person can see it is obviously incorrect: they were talking about inclusion of Darouet’s text.

3. If the discussion shows that some people think one policy is controlling, and some another, the closer is expected to close by judging which view has the predominant number of responsible Wikipedians supporting it, not personally select which is the better policy.

Of the 5 non-involved editors supporting the inclusion of Darouet's text, all of them mention adequate reliable sources as the relevant policy, with 3 mentioning the prohibition on original research negating the extensive unsourced arguments against inclusion. All of which is ignored in the close. A disinclination to get involved in arguments amounting to attempts to disparage scholarly work, through amateur original research and attacks on the concept of scholarship (!) is surely understandable. Yet the closer claims here that they used this to infer a lack of consensus. The closing editor has not fulfilled what is expected as per the above.

Given that RfC closes are not binding, and the open bias in this instance, I don't see that the close has any relevance to the discussion about this disputed content. Cambial foliage❧ 15:00, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• –A content RfC is binding, unless and until consensus emerges that it's been superseded. That's why we have them at all: they're a way to resolve intractable content disputes. It's also the only reason why we need to have a mechanism for challenging and reviewing RfC closes. And closers are expected to show good judgment. Anyone who couldn't see that the allegation of CIA involvement in the torture and murder of a US citizen is an extraordinary one requiring extraordinary evidence, has no business closing an RfC of any kind whatsoever.—S Marshall T/C 19:23, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  No-one could accuse you of being shy in demonstrating your bias. Large parts of the English-speaking world would consider the possibility of such an occurrence as practically a truism, both in and out of scholarship. Yet you presume to know better, and pretend it is disinterested. As I said, totally unsuitable as a closer, something you ought to have taken the time to consider before seeking to make what has understandably been referred to as a "supervote". Cambial foliage❧ 00:11, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• A content RfC is binding, unless and until consensus emerges that it's been superseded. I mean, what that means is that a content RfC is binding until it isn't. Obviously we always have to go by consensus, but even the most uncontroversial RfC with the most clear and obvious outcome provides only a single snapshot onto consensus at a single moment in time. --Aquillion (talk) 21:53, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• • Saying this is largely supported by academic sources is a stretch. One of the sources is a book published by an unknown author with only 1 piece published. One is a book review, another is a passing comment. The “RS” cited, that I checked, barely make any such and instead attribute it to one lawyer and a bunch of unnamed alleged witnesses and then pose a question. There is no evidence of any kind, rather pure speculation. This has all the hallmarks, and the distinct smell, of being a conspiracy theory. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 07:55, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

  This is not the place to "relitigate" the RfC, but to discuss the various ways in which the close did not follow policy. If you have further comments on the sources proposed, use the article talk page. Making grossly misleading, and flatly wrong, characterisations of the book (professor emeritus of history at the University of Wisconsin ≠ unknown author) and other sources (two book reviews published in well-established peer-reviewed journals) will be equally unhelpful and pointless there. Cambial foliage❧ 15:49, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• I would argue that based on the closing rationale above, another RFC should be run immediately. Holding another RFC immediately after a previous one is unusual, but there are situations where it is appropriate, especially if a previous RFC plainly left key aspects unexamined, failed to resolve the core question, or if there were later developments that need consideration. And in this case the rationale for the close is Three editors pop up to oppose the specific wording that Darouet proposes. The concerns about wording are generally expressed late in the debate. A large discussion ensues, with Darouet participating very heavily indeed, but little input from his previous supporters. In other words, the reasoning is that there was a late development that most of the RFC didn't consider - but that means that the concerns used to decide it were only discussed at the RFC by four people at most and only for a very brief time; an RFC that barely considered something the closer identified as a key aspect is a weak consensus at best and can't reasonably be said to have resolved the underlying dispute. The appropriate thing to do in that case is to have a second RFC, running longer and with more participation, focusing on those concerns specifically. People above and below are warning against relitigating the RFC in a request to overturn it, which is valid, but the main reason those points are getting "re"-litigated here is because, due to being raised so late in the RFC, they were never properly litigated in the RFC itself, which indicates further discussion is needed. Also, I would argue that in situations like this (where an RFC has a point that seems significant raised late in its runtime), the best way to handle it is to relist it in order to get more discussion on that aspect rather than closing it in a way that disregards earlier opinions and basically decides it based only on the last handful - there is no rush. --Aquillion (talk) 16:43, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@Aquillion: 4 out of 6 editors who favor including the text as written address the some or all concerns of the 3 editors who oppose it. I think we can accept a 2:1 RfC outcome while still refining the text in question, since the question posed by the RfC, Should we include a section on possible CIA participation in Camarena's interrogation, and his case more broadly, using this text at least (diff), and based on these sources?, does not preclude refinement. -Darouet (talk) 19:53, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

I mean I was one of the editors who advocated inclusion, and I don't think my own arguments were weak, so obviously (if we're counting noses) I'm all for overturning this. But directly overturning an RFC is often difficult; whereas a second RFC some four months after the first is quite easy to obtain given that the first one clearly hasn't brought the matter to a conclusion and part of the rationale for its disputed closure was that there were questions that the closer felt had mostly not been considered. Regardless of the propriety of the closure, I don't think anyone can reasonably look at that RFC or the ensuing discussion and call the consensus backing it strong or conclusive, and I don't see how S Marshell could argue against a second RFC after stating in his rationale that the first one lacked sufficient discussion of key points. So rather than turning this into a personal dispute with S Marshall, it might be simpler to just call for a second RfC that unambiguously asks things like "should this be in the lead", "is the sourcing broadly sufficient", and "should we use Darouet's text as a basis" - this has been going on for two years already, after all; another month to obtain a bit more certainty in terms of a conclusion won't kill anyone. --Aquillion (talk) 21:53, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• Overturn, obviously, after looking more closely. As Cambial said above, S Marshall did not, by my reading, make any attempt to argue in his closing statement that the made by people arguing for inclusion were stronger. The closest thing to it is an obvious WP:SUPERVOTE where he states The claim that the CIA was somehow involved or connected with Camarena's murder is of course an extraordinary one, and it requires in-text attribution to a specific source as well as an inline citation that directly supports the claim. The proposed addition is also long enough to raise concerns that it might give undue prominence to what may well be no more than a conspiracy theory. The kind of addition that could gain consensus would need to be succinct as well as specific in order to circumvent this concern. The majority of respondents stated (often with detailed, policy-based explanations of why) that they felt sourcing was sufficient, and S Marshall makes no effort to even acknowledge that, let alone explain how their arguments were flawed. Worse, the final sentence imposes requirements that were raised nowhere in the discussion - it is pure WP:SUPERVOTE. --Aquillion (talk) 21:53, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Endorse Close: This looks like a good summary of the arguments made. It appears that question #2 was the contentious one. While I understand why some may have read that as "consensus against", I read it as "no consensus" with an understanding that it is an extraordinary claim and thus evidence in favor would have to be strong. Springee (talk) 15:26, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

@Springee: why do you think the arguments of 6 editors supporting inclusion of the text as written don't amount to a consensus, when only 3 editors, by comparison, oppose inclusion? Is a 2:1 margin not enough to determine consensus? Furthermore, from the perspective of consensus, don't you think it's significant that non-involved editors supported inclusion by a 5:1 margin? Especially with a number of them stating in their arguments that they have reviewed oppose votes and find them unpersuasive, since they attempt to impeach reliable sources through OR? -Darouet (talk) 21:28, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

In cases where a simple vote count is appropriate, which this isn't, the convention is that below 65% in favour fails, above 75% passes, and 65%-75% is the closer's discretionary zone.—S Marshall T/C 15:28, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

This aligns with my understanding. My feeling has been that, in pure numbers terms, 2/3rds is the consensus line (for or against) with less than 2/3rds being no-consensus. That line shifts or even is irrelvant if there is not a balance of arguments. Springee (talk) 15:52, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

• This "convention", which you have apparently manufactured for the purpose of attempting to defend your actions in this close, appears nowhere in the guidance around RfCs or general discussion closure. Five questions remain, which you continue to make no attempt to answer:

1. If you have strong opinions about the subject, which you double down on above (Anyone who [doesn't share my preconceptions] has no business closing an RfC of any kind whatsoever), why did you seek to make a supervote by closing? You are totally unsuited to close this RfC.

2. Why do you misrepresent the !votes for inclusion of Darouet's text by imagining additional questions for the RfC? The question was unambiguous, and the text can and will be refined in mainspace.

3. Why do you seek to make prescriptions on future development by imagining other additional questions, which experienced editors will ignore?

4. Why do you totally ignore multiple uninvolved editors collective views on which are the controlling policies (WP:SOURCETYPES, WP:NOR), but pick up on certain views each expressed by a single editor?

5. When WP:Discard indicates that only irrelevant arguments should be discarded those that flatly contradict established policy, those based on personal opinion only, those that are logically fallacious, and those that show no understanding of the matter, why do you give no reasons whatsoever for discarding the views of the majority of editors? Cambial foliage❧ 09:48, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• I won't attempt to answer those questions at this stage. The only uninvolved sysops who've participated in this thread so far are Chetsford and Barkeep49, which means my close is mainly being reviewed by those who voted, and now the thread's sheer length defends it against being read. I will answer your questions if a single uninvolved sysop suggests overturning; otherwise I would prefer to encourage review of my decisions by keeping the thread as short as possible.—S Marshall T/C 10:50, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

  I haven't reviewed the merits of the close so I have no idea there - I've only weighed in on what, in the abstract, I think makes a good close. However, and I admit to being a bit surprised I'm having to mention this to you of all people this, but any uninvolved editor (sysop or not) should have their voice considered when weighing consensus here about whether or not it was a good close. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 05:41, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

  The Arbcom election has taught me that meaningful engagement with your critics is optional.—S Marshall T/C 21:47, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

  ANRFC is clear that Any uninvolved editor may close most discussions, so long as they are prepared to discuss and justify their closing rationale. So if, as you state, you see discussing what you claim is a "rationale" as optional, then you are not to try to make any RfC closures at all. Cambial foliage❧ 14:22, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

  I've discussed and justified it a lot, though, haven't I. I'm not required to answer your specific questions.—S Marshall T/C 15:40, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

  No, you haven't. You haven't justified it at all, and you haven't tried to. You've largely expended text pretending editors made different arguments to those in the discussion. The substantive issues are that you ignored policy and did as you please to make a supervote. That's what the points above reflect. You haven't addressed those; you claim you're unwilling to. Don't try to close RfCs. Cambial foliage❧ 15:57, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

  I'm required to explain my close, and I've done so. The rules don't say I have to engage with trap questions from vexatious questioners, nor am I required to stop closing RfCs on the request of aggrieved participants. You could seek consensus here to bar me from such closures, if you like.—S Marshall T/C 16:50, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

  You're required to justify your closing rationale, not merely explain [your] close. No explanation of your pseudo-close/supervote was required: you had a strong opinion and felt it would be more effective formatted as a close rather than another vote. But your rationale – which based on your current contributions to this discussion we are forced to assume is non-existent – is required. The fact you desperately resort to characterising questions as "traps" suggests an inability to seriously answer them. Cambial foliage❧ 17:20, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

  I think S Marshall has been quite diligent in meeting their obligation for accountability as a closer of this discussion. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:49, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

  User:Barkeep49 Based on what, precisely? There are five questions around policy errors above with no attempt at an answer. Even the most salient, the lack of any reason given for discarding the views of a majority of editors, has received no attempt at justification or explanation. The only attempt at justification of any aspect of the close is here, where they argue to Darouet: the only editor who supported your exact wording was you which is just flatly, obviously not true; and there was substantial and well-argued opposition to it. This "well-argued opposition" contains not one single reference to any source refuting the claims in the scholarly sources. Zero. And that fact is picked up on by multiple uninvolved editors.

  It is astonishing that I need to draw attention, to a supposedly experienced "closer" and to an Arbcom member, to what User:Darouet already stated during the discussion in no uncertain terms: The evaluation of historians and journalists is worth more than the speculations of editors here. Closing editor considers that unsourced speculation well-argued; arguments reiterating WP:NOR are discarded. No attempt at explaining this decision is made, and the editor claims that engagement with your critics is optional, yet you argue that WP:ADMINACCT is diligently observed. Are we reading different policies? Cambial foliage❧ 19:34, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

  I have stated several times that I have not, nor do I plan to, evaluate this close challenge on the merits. Here are among the edits where I see S Marshall fulfilling their responsibility to be accountable [22] [23]. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:02, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

• Endorse largely per Chetsford and ProcrastinatingReader. The crux of the debate was WP:RS (and possibly WP:FRINGE), and specifically whether the provided sourcing was of sufficient quality to support the claims in the proposed edit. Early comments were yes, but then the quality of the sourcing was challenged. Following the challenge, other editors opined that it should be included but with due weight given to the claim's refutation and weaknesses. Marshall's close accurately reflects this in its conclusion (paraphrased as) "include, but not this specific wording". As for the "don't work on it in article space": while it's not binding, common sense tells us that it's probably good advice. A lot of the "next steps" parts of the close could have been more clearly delineated from the "summary/binding" parts, but this isn't an exercise in copyediting so I'll refrain from rewriting it. In sum, there's consensus to include, but certainly no consensus to implement OP's proposed wording. Essentially, that's S Marshall's close, so I see no reason to overturn. — Wug·a·po·des​ 06:36, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@Wugapodes: by a 2:1 margin, editors rejected the concept of including WP:OR text devoted to refutation and weaknesses of newspaper articles and academic publications. In the RfC, just one blog post was offered as a source to support that refutation [24]; another was proposed earlier on the talk page [25]. Are those the sources you have in mind, or are there others we've missed here? I don't even know how to begin drafting "refutation" text not based in sources: so far academics have only weighed in to support the allegations. As it is, it seems that attributing the allegations to the academics in question seems the best option, and that's exactly what most editors supported. -Darouet (talk) 04:46, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:NOTAVOTE I don't really care what the margin is, and bludgeoning this discussion with the same unpersuasive claims isn't going to win me over. As you'll see at WP:EXTRAORDINARY, it's not original research to qualify or question the reliability of minor sources--in fact, qualifying or attributing suspicious or fringe claims is our policy. While you attempt to impugn it here, this source was written by Elaine Shannon, correspondent and investigative journalist for Newsweek and Time, who Harper Collins refers to as an expert in terrorism, crime, and espionage ([26]), and who has covered these topics for almost 50 years. Meanwhile, ProcrastinatingReader analyzes the provenance of your sources above, saying: One of the sources is a book published by an unknown author with only 1 piece published. One is a book review, another is a passing comment. The “RS” cited, that I checked, barely make any such [claim] and instead attribute it to one lawyer and a bunch of unnamed alleged witnesses and then pose a question. There is no evidence of any kind, rather pure speculation. This has all the hallmarks, and the distinct smell, of being a conspiracy theory. As Location says below, WP:RS states that context matters, not simply the author and the publisher; however, there seems to be an argument above to ignore an evaluation of this context claiming do so is "original research". So yeah, I'm not drinking the kool-aid on this one, and it's quite obvious that you're trying to play up the quality of your sources to try and get your preferred text into the article. That you "don't even know how to begin drafting refutation text" is not my problem. If you seriously can't do it, then don't--other editors will get on just fine without you. But misrepresenting sources on the admin noticeboard isn't going to win you fans. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:06, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

It's not "analyzing" the provenance of the sources to simply lie about them, as is done above and which you repeat. Not an unknown author, that's a lie: Professor Emeritus of History at University of Wisconsin. Not 1 book review, that's a lie: two reviews of the book published in well-established peer-reviewed journals, both of which endorse the book's author's findings on this exact point. The claim made in the sources is exactly that which Darouet specifies in his proposed text. Repeating another editor's lies about the sourcing won't make them any less flimsy or demonstrably inaccurate. What you say about misrepresenting sources on the admin noticeboard is entirely correct – advice you would be wise to follow. It's true that it's not original research to qualify or question the reliability of minor sources. But in this instance, the attempts to question the reliability were made through original research, as was pointed out by multiple uninvolved editors. Furthermore, university presses and well-established journals are not "minor sources" simply because you deem them so on the basis of nothing in particular. Cambial foliage❧ 11:44, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

First, I suggest you be careful about throwing the word "lie" around, especially when making a point as silly as this one: Not an unknown author, that's a lie: Professor Emeritus of History at University of Wisconsin. Contrary to your assertion, a person can be both unknown and a professor emeritus. You don't suddenly become known because you retired, and there are plenty of unknown professors. If, however, you can name every emeritus professor from memory I would be quite impressed. Second, stop arguing against positions no one has taken in this discussion. For example, you bring up that The claim made in the sources is exactly that which Darouet specifies in his proposed text. Well yeah, obviously. No one is claiming Darouet's text was made up as a hoax. The point I understand PR to be making, and which I agree with, is that you both are being hyperbolic about the quality of sourcing. Third, while you admit that It's true that it's not original research to qualify or question the reliability of minor sources, you then immediately start trying to back track and explain why we should make an exception for you this time. It seems that your problem is that in this instance, the attempts to question the reliability were made through original research. Let's compare that with what WP:NOR actually says: "This policy of no original research does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources". So either you don't understand the original research policy or you are willfully misrepresenting it; I'll assume you just didn't read that part of the policy.

Finally, and to get to the heart of your comment, you are correct to say university presses and well-established journals are not "minor sources" but only because they aren't sources at all. They are publishers of sources. While the publisher is helpful in evaluating the reliability of sources, you cannot simply point to the publisher and claim a source is beyond question. To wit, you are making claims about the quality of your sources that show you either do not know about academic publishing or are misrepresenting the sources (and again, I'll assume you just don't know). You say two reviews of the book published in well-established peer-reviewed journals which sounds impressive if you don't know anything about book reviews. In fact, book reviews are not peer reviewed, so including that descriptor is misleading---sure the journal articles are peer reviewed but the things you want to cite are plainly not peer reviewed. As you'll see in the Chronicle of Higher Education article I just linked you to, book reviews are not held in particularly high regard by academics, and while they are certainly reliable sources, waving them around like a talisman to ward of criticism just isn't going to get you far with people who understand the academic publishing process. They are in fact minor, and as PR rightly points out, they do little more than repeat the book's hypothesis without significant evaluation. And certainly neither book review claims that the CIA assassination hypothesis is an unassailable fact. To quote Freije (2016) "The evidence for US involvement is compelling but, as Bartley and Bartley acknowledge, circumstantial". That evaluation doesn't get you as far as you seem to think it does, and it's certainly not an "endorsement" in any meaningful sense of the word. Circumstantial evidence is that which requires inference to come to a particular conclusion, and so scholars in the field---even the authors of the book themselves---note that the claims are not supported by any direct evidence or strong enough to preclude reasonable doubt. And that's what we see: reasonable doubt from not only our editors but from experts in the field like Elaine Shannon. As participants in the discussion argue and as S Marshall rightly concludes in his close, in this situation WP:DUE forbids us from offering only one side of this debate as if it is fact. As others have told you, this isn't the place to reargue the RfC, and so I'm not going to spend more time offering source analysis because if I cared about this topic I would have commented in the RfC. To head off further assumptions: I have read the discussion, I have skimmed the sources (I even have online access to the book through my university), and I have read Wikipedia's policies. Given all that, I maintain that S Marshall's close reaches the correct conclusion that the allegations of CIA assassination should be included alongside skepticism of that claim given both the discussion and project-wide consensus at WP:DUE. — Wug·a·po·des​ 03:52, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Pretty much as you say, Wug; exaggerated sourcing. Some more examples: this book review mentions the CIA once. It is being used to verify: Some journalists and historians have concluded that the killings of Buendía and Camarena were linked, since both discovered that the US Central Intelligence Agency was using Mexican and Central American drug traffickers to import "cocaine into the U.S. and [facilitate] the movement of arms to the contras." yet the source does not appear to do so. Further, as with this book review by the same author, it relies upon the Wisconsin professor's book (the first listed source). So 2 of the listed sources are book reviews of the first listed source, both reviews written by the same person. They're being used to fluff up the importance of the first, not as independent sourcing.

As for CF, if you really believe your sourcing is so convincing what you had to do was quite simple: rather than dump a bunch of links to sources, use {{tq}} and quote from each source the text which supports what you're trying to say with it. The people who are on the side of the sources don't need to spend paragraphs explaining their opinion; all they need to do is cite the source, provide a quote, and let the source speak for itself. That generally helps, although probably not in this case since the sources themselves are dubious. The entire argument rests upon a source by Bartley, pretty much. As some opposers in the RfC said, it would best be used with attribution. In my experience, almost every time people WP:CITEBOMB on a controversial point without specific quotes, or without links that easily verify the text, it's very suspicious and makes me even more inclined to check each source. Whenever I close an RfC I am very skeptical of low quality/non-evidence-based votes, and give far more weight to votes which analyse the sourcing in either direction. If only those refuting the sourcing choose to do so, as TheTimesAreAChanging did, then so be it; WP:NOTAVOTE applies. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 05:49, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Per your comment, I've quoted from the sources below. I have seen editors use "citebombing" to conceal weak sources, but if you actually take the time to read the sources, you'll notice that the text proposed in the RfC does little more than quote them, with attribution, and with a denial by the CIA. Adding a further denial by a journalist writing in her own blog doesn't change any of this. -Darouet (talk) 15:33, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

That was a huge amount of text expended Wug to buttress your argument against a point which literally no-one here or anywhere was arguing for: offering only one side of this debate as if it is fact. The text which was the subject of the RfC certainly does not do so. I'll assume you just failed to understand this when you read the discussion, but can't help but wonder if a sense of injury lead you to forget your own admonishment to stop arguing against positions no one has taken in this discussion.

With regard to there are plenty of unknown professors; I made the assumption, which I maintain is a fair one, that when ProReader and you used the word "unknown" in the context of this discussion, and in the phrase unknown author with only 1 piece published, it was meant to mean "unknown in the field" or "unknown academically", rather than "not famous". In the field, the author has been published in multiple journals from the 1970s to today (e.g. [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32]) and has authored or co-authored a number of monographs published by other university presses (e.g. [33] [34] [35]) as well as editing conference volumes, so in that sense is not "unknown". He is however, certainly not famous, so you are correct on that point: that is – in the sense of the word that is totally irrelevant to the point at hand.

This sentence you then immediately start trying to back track and explain why we should make an exception for you this time is simply manufactured out of whole cloth. There was no "back track". You made a general point about questioning or qualifying sources. It's not applicable here. No, WP:NOR is not applicable to talk pages. But none of the unsourced assertions in the extensive discussion, which amount to "I don't trust X" or "Y is a liar", can be added to the text in mainspace as a counterweight to Darouet's text. As the closing editor points out, those discussions were about the specific wording. So discussing claims that cannot appear in mainspace at exhaustive length is not questioning or qualifying sources or "well-argued opposition", but rather speculation, on about the same level as saying "Russell and Sylvia Bartley are GRU agents infiltrating academic publishing" and then expecting to be taken seriously. I suggested to the editors making these claims more than once during the discussion that they provide a relevant source. None did so.

"Well-established peer-reviewed" was included to distinguish the publications from e.g. the current sorry state of journal publishing. "Highly reputable and established" would have been more concise and can be inserted in its place. While it's true that book reviews are not peer-reviewed, you yourself point out that they are held to a certain standard, and are reliable sources. Your source analysis offers the notion that we should be too sceptical of these sources – written by professional historians – to include the claims with attribution as in Darouet's text, but nevertheless pay close attention to a blog post by a journalist (unmentioned in the RfC and first brought up here). This ventures too far into the ridiculous to merit extensive counterargument. Suffice to say that "The evidence for US involvement is compelling but, as Bartley and Bartley acknowledge, circumstantial", is certainly an endorsement insofar as the word "compelling" means either "Not able to be refuted; inspiring conviction" or "convincing".

What you say about circumstantial evidence was already raised during the discussion, by me. This you would surely have noted, rather than repeating it and wikilinking it ("waving it around like a talisman") as though it was a damning refutation (it isn't), if you had read and understood the discussion to the degree which you claim.

No "others" have told me this is not the place to reargue the RfC. That was something I pointed out in response to the comment that you quoted at length...in attempting to reargue the RfC. You say you have skimmed the sources and read the discussion. I don't doubt it, but I do question whether you have understood the relevant detail in a meaningful way.

As to stop arguing against positions no one has taken in this discussion...No one is claiming Darouet's text was made up, I'll simply leave what I wrote: The claim made in the sources is exactly that which Darouet specifies in his proposed text and the text you quoted: The “RS” cited, that I checked, barely make any such [claim], and will make no further comment, out of politeness. Cambial foliage❧ 10:27, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Cambial Yellowing, I did smile to see you criticize another editor with "That was a huge amount of text expended". I can only admire your unselfconsciousness.—S Marshall T/C 11:40, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad to give you what must be a rare laugh S Marshall, even if its cause is misplaced. The criticism was for argument against a point which literally no-one here or anywhere was arguing for; the quantity of text merely a passing comment. A subtle if crucial error, though given your recent difficulty grasping more basic elements of English meaning, an entirely understandable one. Cambial foliage❧ 12:41, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

I do apologize for my failure to understand basic written English. I hope that through diligent study, I can one day come to understand the immense subtlety of your arguments.—S Marshall T/C 19:03, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment. I have been indirectly referenced here by other participants in the RfC. The idea that that I am an "involved editor" who has "already spent years arguing against various versions of the text in question" is overstated in that I had only one minor edit to the article in 2015 prior to responding to a discussion regarding the reliability of a book that Darouet suggested shortly before the RfC. The material from that book that Darouet wants to insert into the article relies upon a number of dubious sources to makes a WP:REDFLAG claim that most recently has been embraced by QAnon supporters; it propagates the conspiracy theory that the CIA was involved in the 1985 murder of DEA agent Kiki Camarena to cover-up a drug smuggling operation to fund the Nicaraguan Contras. For what it's worth, various federal investigations long ago rejected the CIA drug smuggling claims, the largest homicide investigation ever conducted by the DEA identified Mexican drug traffickers as Camarena's murderers, and the head of the DEA rejected the involvement of the CIA in Camarena's murder as a "fable" that "has no basis in fact". WP:RS states that context matters, not simply the author and the publisher; however, there seems to be an argument above to ignore an evaluation of this context claiming do so is "original research".

Darouet's RfC was poorly phrased without any recommendation for specific text to be included. Per WP:BRD, S Marshall enjoined us to draft the additions and discuss them, but no one has even tried this. - Location (talk) 18:39, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

The RfC proposed specific text [36]. As to the QAnon link - doesn't this claim come from a single blog post [37], referencing a comment the author found on facebook? Historians and journalists have been covering the allegations of CIA involvement in Camarena's death for many years before QAnon even existed. Linking this to QAnon is deeply confused at best, and dishonest at worst. -Darouet (talk) 18:33, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Regarding "specific text", only five of the 12 sources you listed in the RfC were actually in the linked material, so I thought you had plans to use them. My apologies for misunderstanding your position on using them.

What is dishonest is the continuous puffery of conspiracy sources as "academic historians" or "professional historians" and diminishing those who have actually expertise as merely blog writers. Jeff Stein's SpyTalk column started in Congressional Quarterly in 2005, then made its way to Newsweek and The Washington Post before it was revived in its current incarnation as an online newsletter. The editors and contributors are a combination of veteran journalists, award-winning writers, and foreign policy wonks with loads of expertise. As noted in her Wikipedia article, Elaine Shannon has nearly 50 years of expertise related investigating and writing about organized crime, drug trafficking, etc. and she is still an active journalist. On the other hand, no one recognizes RH Bartley (who has published works on a variety of topics) or SE Bartley (currently a volunteer archivist for the Fort Bragg-Mendocino Coast Historical Society) as experts in this particular area.

Now you may have missed the gist of that part of my post, but it is a fact that far-right supporters, like QAnon, are increasingly embracing conspiracy theories (e.g. chemtrails, water fluoridation, anti-vax, HAARP, deep state, JFK assassination, Operation Mockingbird, 9/11) that have historically been supported by those on the far-left. I don't blame you for wanting to distance yourself or the "professional historians" from them. -Location (talk) 21:29, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

• Overturn - Levivich stated the reason succinctly, and I doubt anything I said would improve upon it. The arguments in the iVotes are pretty clear. Atsme 💬 📧 12:00, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

What is required to close an RfC in favor of a minority?

@S Marshall: your reasoning behind closing in support of "three editors" instead of "half a dozen" relies on what you characterize as later, well-reasoned RfC comments by a minority in the discussion. This is not an accurate reflection of the RfC outcome or talk page history: two of the three editors you side with in the RfC had already spent years [38][39][40] arguing against various versions of the text in question [41], which is what necessitated the RfC [42] in the first place. Non-involved editors supported inclusion of the text by a 5:1 margin (five [43][44][45][46][47] vs 1 [48]), and pointed out that the two editors objecting to the text based their arguments upon WP:OR objections to the reliability of all available academic sources.

1. Allegations of CIA involvement in Camarena's death were added to the article in 2013, when a number of former colleagues and agents began speaking to the press on the issue [49].
2. Those allegations remained in the article until exactly two years ago, when they were removed [50].
3. At that time I disputed the removal and looked into academic writing on the topic, where I found that multiple historians and regional specialists endorsed the allegations as likely true [51]. I re-wrote the content to fit with what historians have to say on the matter.
4. After nearly two years of talk page argument over whether ordinarily reliable sources can be reliable in this case [52] and having to deal with endless IP proxying or sockpuppetry [53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62], I launched an RfC to just resolve the issue once and for all.
5. Uninvolved editors supported including the well-referenced text by a 5:1 margin.
6. S Marshall, closing the RfC, sides entirely with two involved editors who commented at the end of the RfC, and who had opposed the addition of the content for years prior to the RfC being held.

Contrary to Marshall's statement, those uninvolved editors who supported inclusion gave very strong arguments for keeping the disputed text. For example see this excellent comment [63], pointing out that no academic sources can be found disputing the allegations:

Include Certainly this information sourced to the Bartley/Bartley book and some of the commentaries in journals should be included in the body and in the lead. Particularly the favourable review by Vanessa Freije, which specifically endorses the evidence on Camarena and interpretation presented by the Bartleys, that was published in The Hispanic American Historical Review. Alongside the Journal of Latin American Studies and the LAP it is the preeminent English-language journal in the field, and cannot simply be disregarded. It is important that the information is presented, as the Bartleys do, as circumstantial but nevertheless compelling. To those others arguing at great (!!) length against inclusion: if you wish to dispute the articles supporting the Bartleys' findings you are welcome to submit an article for publication to either of the aforementioned journals or any of several other excellent scholarly publications. But WP Talk pages are not the place for your research and rambling cant on a subject in which you evidently have little expertise. See here. My only caveat would be that Freije's support for Bartley should also be cited.

Of course, I have no undying commitment to the text specifically as written. But after two years of arguing about it and receiving clear RfC support, it's clear that the two involved editors that S Marshall supported in closing the RfC are simply not going to accept adding this information to the article. I wish that S Marshall had understood the talk page history before overturning the RfC outcome, or had carefully read the RfC comments and consulted the works of professional historians and regional specialists who remain, after two years of disagreement, totally absent from Kiki Camarena. -Darouet (talk) 18:32, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

• Darouet, perhaps you can enlighten me: why did you disregard the close for some months, during which time you were actively editing, and then suddenly start posting colossal screeds about it on AN during the holiday period?—S Marshall T/C 21:02, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I was teaching during the semester, and didn’t want to go to AN until the semester ended. -Darouet (talk) 21:36, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thank you for saying that it's clear that the two involved editors that S Marshall supported in closing the RfC are simply not going to accept adding this information to the article. I now understand that this is your actual problem with the close, isn't it? You don't want to have to negotiate with them because you don't expect them to compromise?—S Marshall T/C 01:09, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

The RfC was held after over a year of negotiations led to no resolution. Thank goodness at least that RfC editor comments so overwhelmingly supported available scholarship. I suggest that you consult that - this is, after all, an encyclopedia. -Darouet (talk) 01:19, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• It is inappropriate to suggest that an editor must convince everyone (I note that you also made this error in your closure, stating The debate includes several participants who adopt complex and nuanced positions, and offer detailed and persuasive arguments in favour of them, but even after all these words, editors don't seem to be changing their minds in any very substantive way.) Consensus is a matter of discussion and negotiation, but some disputes are ultimately intractable and require outside opinions - that is part of the purpose of an RfC. --Aquillion (talk) 21:53, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• Reading the RfC I gather that multiple editors supported inclusion on the basis of strong sourcing, then one comment came in refuting the sourcing as weak (which, honestly, reviewing the sourcing this seems accurate), and finally 2 comments implying they're open to mentioning it, but that it should be balanced with refutations of these claims. That seems to be the overall consensus: supporting inclusion of the point itself, but not necessarily the exact text proposed, and it should be balanced with sources refuting this CIA theory.

Comparing this to SM's close: I agree with Q/A #1 and #2, I think #3 was unclear / no discernible consensus. I'm not sure about QA #4 (cannot work on it in the live article), but this is a relatively minor point. I agree with the substance of the close; endorse close. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 05:51, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• On the question of what is required to close an RfC in favor of a minority, guidance suggests that, at a bare minimum, the rationale for discarding some arguments should be elaborated. The closing editor in this case did not even make an attempt to do so. Cambial foliage❧ 00:19, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• Question: What do you think about the S Marshell's opinion that The kind of addition that could gain consensus would need to be succinct as well as specific in order to circumvent this concern? That is the part of the closure that leaped out to me most clearly as a WP:SUPERVOTE - it seems to set specific, unambiguous requirements that S Marshell would need to see in order to accept any consensus, but those requirements don't seem to be ones that anyone else in the discussion even brought up. To me, that's the most clear-cut hallmark of a supervote - a closer who comes in, looks over the dispute, and says "oh, I see what the conclusion to this should look like!" rather than assessing the actual opinions and arguments being made. Likewise, I do not actually see any new arguments being made in the final two !votes - after all, they were people who had participated significantly before; all their concerns about sourcing had been previously expressed and did not seem to convince anyone outside the closer. There are some situations where sourcing concerns could be so stark that it justifies disregarding people who say it's met, but again, S Marshell does not even attempt to make that argument. --Aquillion (talk) 22:00, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• So, where the purpose of a content RfC is to resolve an intractable content dispute, the closer ought to try to show the parties how they can actually resolve it. The closer role is partly that of referee. At best, you make a clear finding for one side or the other, but where as closer you don't feel you can do that, then at second best you try to show the parties a way forward that gets to an edit that's acceptable to all sides without a second RfC. As a neutral party who's read the debate in detail, it's fairly often my practice to offer pointers about what kind of edit I feel could gain consensus. I mean, sure, I could have just gone "No consensus", hatted the discussion and moved on, but that's neither a decision nor a compromise and it just leaves everyone going in circles. I've been doing it for many years, it's SOP for me.—S Marshall T/C 22:40, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

  I disagree with that view of the closer's role. The closer should summarize the discussion, not act as an arbiter of the dispute. Levivich ^harass/_hound 03:32, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

  I agree with that. But I also agree with the idea that a closer, especially in a case of no consensus, can offer possible paths forward. Not an RfC but I did a version of this today. The key for this to work, I think, is that needs to suggest rather than proscribe and also be specific enough to be valuable but general enough that you're not being prescriptive. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:00, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

  There's a pattern on Wikipedia where content disputes get deadlocked into a permanent "no consensus" state, and this is where tempers fray, people start feeling the other side is stalling or filibustering, and content disputes escalate into conduct disputes. The right RfC close can get past that. I didn't phrase that part of my close perfectly, but I'm confident that the principle of the "roadmap to consensus" approach is right.—S Marshall T/C 09:13, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

  Are you saying you believe that the actual outcome of that RFC was no consensus? You seem to have indicated it above, as well (I mean, sure, I could have just gone "No consensus", hatted the discussion and moved on, but that's neither a decision nor a compromise and it just leaves everyone going in circles. Because that was not, by my reading, how you closed it. A closer's role, first and foremost, is to assess consensus; if you (as I read your statements) you're confessing that you believed there was no consensus in the discussion, and you imposed a consensus regardless in order to guide people towards a specific outcome, then you're admitting that you closed it improperly. It is also completely improper for a closer to impose a compromise - either there is a consensus, in which case you determine the consensus; or there is not, in which case you close as no-consensus. If you saw no consensus and wanted to workshop a compromise you should have joined the discussion as a participant in the RFC, rather than trying to close it with a WP:SUPERVOTE towards your preferred consensus. --Aquillion (talk) 15:07, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

  No, I was talking Levivich and Barkeep49 about RfCs in general. On this particular RfC, I don't currently have anything to add. I will, in due course, catch up with the sheer quantity of words that you and Darouet are posting, and may have something to add when I've read it all.—S Marshall T/C 15:37, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• But SM didn't close as no-consensus. He specifically found a consensus against a specific wording. If he did so while believing there was no consensus, then that was a misclose and needs to be overturned. If he wanted to join the discussion, he could have done so; if he felt he was qualified to mediate, he could have offered to do so. But attempting to impose consensus from above by declaring certain things as a consensus when they are not is abusing the role of closer. It certainly does nothing to resolve the discussion - I know that as someone who only casually participated in the discussion at the time, this absurd outcome has brought me into the discussion with a firm determination to reject SM's misclose or any proposed outcomes that rely on it, since it plainly does not represent any sort of consensus among editors (something SM seems to concede when he acknowledges that he should have at best closed it as a simple no-consensus.) Consensus-building needs to rely on actual discussions an debate; I can understand SM's frustration on seeing an intractable dispute, and his desire to cut through that by imposing an outcome from above (especially by ruling out outcomes that he personally finds unacceptable.) But a closer trying to impose an outcome only introduces additional toxicity and makes the process more difficult. No one who weighed in as an "include" in a discussion like that is likely to accept SM's close as accurate. That means that both sides of the dispute have even less incentive to concede or discuss - both sides are going to believe they have a consensus backing them, after all, and that a later RFC will back them up. Basically, resolving a dispute requires an accurate assessment of where things currently stand - when a closer fails to provide that, discussions are going to break down. --Aquillion (talk) 15:19, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Responding to your question, in my experience SM's closes sometimes mix determinations of consensus with his personal advice on what could achieve consensus. Both things have place in a close, but personal suggestions are not consensus. It's hard to tell, reading that, whether he means "it must be succinct to be added to the article" (which I think is what you've read it as, and that would be a supervote) and "I suggest parties try drafting a more succinct addition, which may address the concerns here, and testing that in a future discussion" (which is totally acceptable). I think he meant the latter, but it might've helped to clearly say that this was just advice. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:20, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

"Exaggerated sourcing"

Wugapodes has stated that arguments in support of the proposed text rely upon "exaggerated sourcing," and ProcrastinatingReader has said a strong argument should "quote from each source." I did not quote from the sources here because they are quoted from abundantly at Talk:Kiki Camarena, and because the text considered in the RfC is little more than quotes from sources, with careful attribution. The RfC text consists of two full sentences introducing the allegation, a summarizing quote from professor (and department head of social sciences at the University College Utrecht) Wil Pansters, a sentence introducing the Bartley book followed by a quote from the Bartleys, and lastly one sentence each devoted to lead DEA investigator Berrellez, a re-opened investigation by the justice department, and a denial by the CIA.

The proposed text that non-involved RfC respondents overwhelmingly endorsed (five [64][65][66][67][68] vs 1 [69]) does exactly what everyone here says is necessary: 1) actually quotes from reliable sources, 2) attributes claims, and 3) includes a denial from the CIA.

Now Wugapodes is stating that we should take this blog-post rebuttal [70] by journalist Elaine Shannon more seriously. We can certainly do that (note that Shannon's post was written after the RfC was launched), but other sources have emerged since this dispute began as well — including a four-part documentary released by Amazon, where numerous former DEA agents and Mexican police officers come forward to support the allegations — so new sources don't fundamentally change the issue.

Per ProcrastinatingReader's request, here's what the authors in question have written:

• Pansters, Wil G. "Drug trafficking, the informal order, and caciques. Reflections on the crime-governance nexus in Mexico." Global Crime 19.3-4 (2018): 315-338 [71] (Peer-reviewed journal article):

The Camarena affair constituted a turning point in the recent history of state-crime governance in Mexico, as it brought to light the complicity between drug traffickers and the Dirección Federal de Seguridad (DFS), which enjoyed the support of or worked on behalf of the CIA. Fierce reactions from the US, eventually led to the dismantling of the DFS.

• Bartley, Russell H., and Sylvia Erickson Bartley. Eclipse of the Assassins: The CIA, Imperial Politics, and the Slaying of Mexican Journalist Manuel Buendía. University of Wisconsin Press, 2015 [72]:

The preponderance of evidence now available in the public record, confirmed and further nuanced by our own cited sources and most especially by Lawrence Victor Harrison, persuades us beyond a reasonable doubt that Manuel Buendía was slain on behalf of the United States because of what he had learned about U.S.-Mexico collusion with narcotics traffickers, international arms dealers, and other governments in support of Reagan administration efforts to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The evidence we have developed also leads us to conclude that DEA S/A Enrique Camarena Salazar was abducted, interrogated, and killed for the same reason and that the two cases are therefore related. The import of this latter conclusion is that, contrary to the hero status accorded Camarena as an ostensible casualty of the "war on drugs," he was sacrificed by his own government in order to prevent exposure of a covert operation against the legitimate authorities of another country.

• Pansters, Wil G. "Spies, Assassins, and Statesmen in Mexico’s Cold War." (2017): 143-156 [73] (Book review in the European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies):

In a painstaking investigative process, the authors along with other journalists in Mexico and the U.S. became convinced that the Buendía and Camarena killings were linked, and much of the book is about the Bartleys trying to put the different pieces together. The most important element is that the interests behind both killings go beyond criminal interests and reach into the political domains on both sides of the border. In the mid-1980s, Mexico’s one party regime confronted serious challenges, while the Reagan administration was deeply involved in a Cold War battle against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Buendía and DEA agent Camarena had each separately discovered that the CIA was running a dark network, which involved Mexican and Central American drug traffickers that imported cocaine into the U.S. and facilitated the movement of arms to the contras. Nicaraguan contras were trained at a Mexican ranch owned by one of the country’s most notorious capos. CIA pilots flew many of the planes. The DFS functioned as the go-between, and hence involved the Ministry of the Interior. The Mexican army provided the necessary protection, and got a bite of the pie. Since the overriding concern of the CIA was the anti-Sandinista project, it trumped the DEA’s task of combating drug trafficking, and covertly incorporated (or pressured) parts of the Mexican state into subservience. Buendía had found out about the CIA-contra-drugs-DFS connection, which seriously questioned Mexican sovereignty, while Camarena learned that the CIA had infiltrated the DEA and sabotaged its work so as to interfere with the clandestine contra-DFS-traffickers network... ...a few years before [The Bartley's book] was finally published the fundamental arguments of the book had become widely known. In October 2013, former DEA agents involved in the Camarena investigation came out publicly in interviews with U.S. and Mexican media, in which they laid out CIA involvement in the case, its connections to drug trafficking, the conflicts in Central America, and the Buendía murder. The influential Mexican magazine Proceso led with the story for weeks. A retired senior Mexican intelligence official came out to corroborate the facts. Mexican journalist Esquivel (2014), criticized by the Bartleys, published a small book about it. So the core argument of Eclipse of the Assassins was already available to a wide audience when the book was finally published in 2015.

• Freije, Vanessa. "Eclipse of the Assassins: The CIA, Imperial Politics, and the Slaying of Mexican Journalist Manuel Buendía." (2016): 766-768 [74] (Book review in the Hispanic American Historical Review):

According to the authors, Buendía learned that the Mexican government was aiding the CIA in its proxy war against Nicaragua’s leftist government. Specifically, the CIA used a Veracruz airfield to transport weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras, and at the same time the agency trained Contras on the ranch of Guadalajara Cartel kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero. Bartley and Bartley find confirmation for these claims in US court case files, which include statements by ex-CIA and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents asserting that such operations involved the knowing collaboration of Mexican politicians, the DFS, drug traffickers, and the CIA, among others. Using these testimonies, which come from the trial for the 1985 murder of undercover DEA agent Enrique Camarena, the authors hypothesize that the United States played a role in the Buendía and Camarena murders to prevent the so-called “Veracruz link” from surfacing (p. 195). The evidence for US involvement is compelling but, as Bartley and Bartley acknowledge, circumstantial (p. 394).

As noted by professor Pansters, this has also received a lot of coverage in the mainstream press (e.g. Tucson Sentinel, Processo, LA Weekly, El Pais, Fox News, Fox News again, and USA Today). RfC respondents were correct to argue that the proposed text [75] was reliably sourced, and far from "hyperbolic," the proposed text should really be considered a minimum coverage for an important topic. -Darouet (talk) 15:28, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

• I stopped at the first paragraph. When I said that, I meant in the RfC itself (and I also said That generally helps, although probably not in this case since the sources themselves are dubious). Content discussions don’t really happen on the AN. In hindsight this section has gone off the rails; some attention was warranted to the arguments relating to sourcing which are relevant to the extent that the sourcing is problematic, but mostly limited to those explicitly stated in the RfC. The point I stated here was made in the RfC, and Wug elaborated on the same. Rebuttals should’ve been made in the RfC to the editors who made such points, not @ AN. The point here is that the close seems correct, and you’re always free to take the closer’s advice to draft a new RfC, ideally working with editors on the talk to construct a good proposal. You can perhaps put the above content into said new RfC, and it might convince editors. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:34, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: you've missed the point - the reason there's so much drama here is because this text was the subject of the RfC, and editors who endorsed the content (by a substantial majority) explicitly stated that they did so on the basis of the quotes above. Why launch a second RfC on the exact same material that most editors already agree is well supported by specific text in sources? -Darouet (talk) 15:41, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Because the text as written did not have consensus for inclusion. Mostly because it appears editors were not convinced by the sourcing and believed the text as written was UNDUE. I notice that above you have not addressed multiple of Wug’s lengthy points, such as the one on book reviews for example, which is one example of why this stuff might’ve been unconvincing. Ultimately, not all votes are equal and this isn’t a democracy. An editor who looks, sees 10 links and writes “Include, reliable sourcing” doesn’t get an equal number of ballots as an editor who takes the time to check each source and tear it apart. In the latter half of the RfC editors did so, and the tide of the RfC changed course. This is what the closer noted, and it seems there’s no consensus at AN to overturn the close.

I don’t understand why you’re seeking a close review when it seems you don’t agree with the conclusion. Ultimately, the walls of text are not going to produce good outcomes. Now, more uninvolved editors are going to be less likely to take time out of their own editing to read all of the above and get involved in a dispute they (generally) couldn’t care less about as far as content goes, hence you want to make it not so difficult for editors to weigh in. So I really think you’re kinda inadvertently shoot in yourself in the foot here. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:59, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

• Endorse close. Stop wasting time and pixels here and start discussing on the talk page what specific wording should go in the article: the RfC supported a section on alleged CIA involvement. Fences&Windows 01:15, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Close

Four editors have stated that the close should be overturned, while six have endorsed it. At a minimum, this shows there's no consensus here for overturning S Marshall's RfC close. I agree that enough space and time has been taken to argue these points, and this discussion should be closed. @Chetsford, ProcrastinatingReader, Springee, Wugapodes, Location, Fences and windows, Levivich, Cambial Yellowing, Aquillion, and Atsme: while S Marshall's close states there's consensus to include this material, it also states that there's no consensus to include the text I had drafted for consideration by the RfC. If any of you would like to draft text based on the sources available, please feel free to do so. -Darouet (talk) 23:18, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Like I said at the start, now that it's been four (closer to five) months, I would just go for another RFC - that's sufficient time, especially when the previous RFC's closure was contentious, and especially given that one of the reasons the closer gave for disregarding some of the opinions expressed was because he felt there were points made later on that weren't sufficiently addressed. Another RFC can go over each of the points raised in the previous RFC individually to address that issue. I would prefer to obtain clarity like that and know where we stand now (rather than 4-5 months ago) before we start discussing specific wordings. --Aquillion (talk) 23:22, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

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Talk:Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election#Emily Murphy and other things

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• Talk:Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election#Emily Murphy and other things

I request an administrator to review this section, and the editor who has written an extensive rant against a person related to the article. They are currently the subject of discretionary sanctions in the topic area. I don't wish for this to become a discussion about the editor but if this is in the wrong place, please let me know. I haven't notified the editor for that reason as well, but if it is still necessary then I will do so. Thanks. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:40, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

@Onetwothreeip, you still have to notify them. I took a look, but as I was involved at Emily Murphy, I can't act as an admin there, but I commented. —valereee (talk) 14:56, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

That person was Donald.Trump. The article was about he and his subordinates trying to steal an American President election. Arglebargle79 (talk) 22:03, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@Arglebargle79 has doubled down at that talk, now calling Emily Murphy an actual criminal and accusing me of having a COI because I'm telling them they shouldn't libel her. Special:Diff/998247947 —valereee (talk) 18:28, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Arglebargle79 has marched into this particular section of Wikipedia apparently with the agenda of vilifying President Trump even above and beyond the scope of the currently relatively NPOV article. I realize that Onetwothreeip wants to avoid making this AN an editor referendum, but I believe that Arglebargle79's conduct does need to be examined in full, particularly on that talk page. I am concerned that the editor is here to soapbox.--WaltCip-(talk) 18:41, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

And tripling down: Special:Diff/998293365 —valereee (talk) 22:56, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I've blocked indefinitely for the continuing BLP violations and general failure to Get It, as a normal admin action. Any admin may do adminny things with the block. (This action does not preclude the ban discussion below.) --Izno (talk) 02:56, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposed topic ban from AP32

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• I'll note that Arglebargle79 is already under a restriction for AP32: indefinite WP:1RR per 48 hours, and obligation to discuss reverts on the article's talk page, unless it's a blatant case of vandalism or a clear-cut WP:BLP violation. When I warned them a few minutes ago about BLP violations at AP32 articles on their talk, this was their response: Special:Permalink/998314071#January 2021. I propose a topic ban from AP32.
• Support as proposer —valereee (talk) 20:39, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support After I saw the above message I tried to leave some guidance, as an uninvolved editor, on the Talk page [76] suggesting they back off a bit. My hope was that this would arrest the need for a TBAN before it came to that point. They not only seemed to double-down with their next edits but then left a message on my Talk page [77] saying they had obtained information, via Twitter, of a "riot" that was going to happen in the next couple days and they needed to get the word out through Wikipedia [78]. There was also a somewhat confusing and (and I hesitate to use this word lightly) incoherent metaphor in which they compared their comments to Topol's 1971 musical film Fiddler on the Roof. At the very least this seems to indicate they're WP:NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia but are, instead, here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. The 1RR has only seemed to succeed in pushing the disruption "underground" - from article space to the Talk page. Chetsford (talk) 23:04, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support and also support the aforementioned indef block due to WP:IDHT to the extreme.--WaltCip-(talk) 13:21, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
• Arglebargle79 (talk · contribs) was indeffed by Izno at 02:53, 5 January 2021 for BLP violations. FWIW I support an WP:AP2 topic ban (not AP32?) but perhaps this could just be closed if people don't want to discuss. If the user is unblocked and repeats their attitude, would someone please let me know so I can AP2 topic ban them per the discretionary sanctions, although I think others would beat me to it. Johnuniq (talk) 00:09, 6 January 2021 (UTC) Groan, somehow I missed seeing Izno's post above. I'm sure it wasn't there five minutes ago... Johnuniq (talk) 00:12, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

  Schodingers post! --Izno (talk) 00:14, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support in case the indef is ever lifted but maintain indef block because I just read the discussion following their block and wow. This is one of the most blatant cases of WP:NOTHERE (if we're being charitable) and/or WP:COMPETENCE (if we're not) I've seen in a very long time if ever.- The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:09, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support ArgleBargle has been concerning in the AP2 area for some time; if they come back to Wikipedia they should edit in some other topic area for some time. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:40, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Sadly, I've seen ArgleBargle saying some pretty questionable things regarding AP32, and Wtmitchell and I have been discussing with them a lot on the Electoral Count Act page and I can totally see the arguments for WP:NOTHERE based on that. I've also looked at their conduct on the talk page and the repeated warnings made to them regarding AP32 and they've heeded absolutely none of the warnings. Sadly, even if they're editing in good faith, their actions seem to have wreaked havoc on Wikipedia and that simply cannot be tolerated. I propose a one year ban at the very least, and an indefinite topic block from AP32. Herbfur (Eric, He/Him) (talk) 16:42, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Just to add on, ArgleBargle's questionable POV/BLP edits literally drew the attention of the President of the United States. Seeing this just furthers the argument for an indefinite ban, unfortunately. Even if some might argue that the edit in question wasn't in violation of Wikipedia policies (it smacks of an NPOV violation to me but that's just my opinion), it shows the real potential for harm resulting from this editing. Unfortunately, it's clear to me that the indefinite ban is warranted, and shouldn't be lifted for a while. Herbfur (Eric, He/Him) (talk) 03:14, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support indefinite ban on grounds of WP:NOTHERE and WP:COMPETENCE. In my encounters with this person, Arglebargle79 seems to be either incapable or unwilling to leave his POV behind before making edits, and interjecting personal strong bias without actually reading the sources this editor cites. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:37, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support indefinite ban per WP:CIR and WP:IDHT. I am the editor who filed the two ANEW reports on Arglebargle that got them indefinitely sanctioned in AP2. That was the result of Arglebargle repeatedly changing Biden's photo in the 2020 Democratic primaries series, which they did because they "loathed" the picture. Complaining about that picture, they wrote some of the most deranged and nonsensical things I've ever seen on Wikipedia. And now I see that they are continuing to complain about it in their recent comments after being blocked. This is over something that happened in June, and they are still refusing to let it go. Arglebargle has repeatedly insisted that they did not, in fact, make disruptive edits that we can plainly see in the edit logs, and has blamed their own behavior on a "coterie" of editors conspiring against them. They are fanatically committed to vilifying Trump and anyone connected to him, and have shown zero willingness to understand or comply with our content policies, including WP:CRYSTAL, WP:BLP, WP:OR, and WP:NPOV. That they were blocked for BLP violations does not surprise me. A topic ban is long overdue. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 23:49, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

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Great Western Main Line

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I noticed from my watch list that someone has moved article Great Western Main Line and it's talk page from main space to Wikipedia project space. Apologies if this is the wrong place to post to get it resolved. Let me know if I should post elsewhere in future. Cheers, Gricehead (talk) 09:06, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Fixed. This is something that the new(ish?) method of having a dropdown to set the space parameter causes problems compared to (Back In My Day) having to type in any project prefix: it's easy to accidentally set something and not notice... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 09:42, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

misplaced move and its been cleared up by user:The Bushranger. Nthep (talk) 09:43, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

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Cyberbot I and lowercase sigmabot II are edit warring

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• Cyberbot I (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights)
• Lowercase sigmabot II (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights)

These two bots have decided to edit war over if there should be a sandbox header or not, so I don't know what to do.

Courtesy ping: cyberpower678 and Σ. JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 21:48, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Someone's cocked up lcsii's sandbox code, which is why there's oddities afoot. I'm looking into it. Primefac (talk) 21:57, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think they're edit warring. lcsii seems to be triggered whenever you add something at the very top of the page, not by whatever Cyberbot's been doing. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:01, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

It's {{Sandbox reset}}. I reverted the blanking and upgraded the protection. Sandbox looks good now. — The Earwig ^talk 02:04, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I have no idea how I missed that (looked at a dozen different templates and template redirects). Primefac (talk) 02:08, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I wasn't sure either, so I consulted the source code. (This was complicated by undetected IP vandalism that had deleted the source code. Sigh.) — The Earwig ^talk 02:11, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

GAH! I looked through that page a half-dozen times and somehow managed to miss that line... Primefac (talk) 02:13, 13 January 2021 (UTC) of course, the vandalism that removed that part of the page six months ago explains it!

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

Reviewing my topic ban

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post it. But over a year ago I was put on community restriction and was topic banned from adding my own photographs to any article which already contains an image. The only way I could was to propose it on the respective talk page and get consensus from it. I been doing that since then. I'm going to be honest at some point I might of violated my sanction at some point. A few weeks ago I did revert one edit by a IP user which replaced a photo already used on the article as the infobox.

Personally I'm getting worn out from having to gather everyone on the talk page every time I want to add a image taken by me, the reason they did the sanction in the first place because I did used to self-insert my photos in articles and often wasn't a improvement in the first place but I think I grown from that and noticed my flaws with some of my own photos and understand why editors might've been unhappy with my edits. I did try and ask for my sanction to be lifted however the admin who done it; GoldenRing has been inactive for over a year now. --Vauxford (talk) 21:54, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

• Link to ban discussion. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 22:28, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose lifting topic ban. I am the administrator who wrote the topic ban, which easily gained consensus. Vauxford, you state "Personally I'm getting worn out" with having to comply with the restriction, but I notice that you are not using the edit request process. That may help speed things up. The disruption you created was major, and I am not convinced that problems wouldn't quickly return if the editing restriction was lifted. Also, you used some highly inappropriate language in the discussion that led to the topic ban. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:22, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

  Please think again. The topic ban prevents the typical usage of edit request template. Typically an edit request template should only be used when a) consensus has already been established or b) the proposed change is so uncontroversial that further discussion is not required (fixing typos and such). Currently Vauxford may start a discussion for proposing changes, but even if consensus emerges and nobody implements the proposal, Vauxford may not make an additional (edit) request to implement the consensus. Politrukki (talk) 20:37, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support lifting TBAN I don't see any recent disruption. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:22, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Power~enwiki, isn't violating their topic ban less than three weeks ago, as admitted above, a form of disruption? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:44, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment) Difficult to evaluate this request without knowing Vauxford's track record for image proposals on talk pages. If all the image proposals gained consensus without disruption, then it might be time to lift the restriction. If none of the image proposals gained consensus, then it might not be time to lift the restriction yet. If it's in between, then that would require some thought. But right now there is no data in this appeal from which to base a conclusion. Levivich ^harass/_hound 02:28, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

  Support lifting TBAN — after reviewing the IP revert link above, the image proposal links below, and Vauxford's last 50 talkspace contribs (which go back to March 2020). It seems almost all of these image proposals gained consensus and discussion was brief and collegial. Seems to me that Vauxford knows what they're doing and is able to navigate articles without disruption. I don't think this TBAN is necessary to prevent disruption any longer. In fact, I think it's needlessly wasting the time of other editors. I don't want to call any editors out by name, but in reviewing some of these discussions, I saw multiple other editors over the past year express frustration with the fact that Vauxford has to post on a talk page to make uncontroversial improvements to an article. So I think lifting the TBAN would benefit other editors in this topic area. Levivich ^harass/_hound 03:37, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

  I agree that their talk page contributions have been collegial, and the communication has significantly improved. Unfortunately, a careful reading of your link shows that Vauxford has violated the topic ban several times:

  1. Talk:Škoda Octavia#Infobox
  2. Talk:Škoda Rapid (2012)#Infobox
  3. Talk:Mercedes-Benz GLB-Class#Article/image proposal
  4. Talk:Leamington Spa#Infobox photo
  5. Talk:BMW 5 Series (G30)#Infobox image
  6. Talk:Audi e-tron (2018)#Images proposal

  Making an opening statements is fine, but the topic ban does not allow making supplementary article talk page comments, unless answering to direct questions. Moreover, topic ban text says, "another editor can add that image to the article". Hence this main space edit would be a violation.

  I'm willing to believe Vauxford has not fully understood the extent of their topic ban and these violations may have been inadvertent. To my knowledge, nobody did bring possible topic ban violations to Vauxford's attention. Politrukki (talk) 20:33, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  That's true, I hadn't even picked up on that. To me that says more about why those specific restrictions in the topic ban (and similar "bespoke sanctions") were a bad idea. I think Vauxford's comments, on the whole, were productive and helped move those discussions towards consensus, even if they were violations of the TBAN restrictions. I was looking for incivility, edit warring, people complaining... but saw none of that; instead, I saw mostly people agreeing, and even where there was disagreement, the disagreement was stated but didn't turn into bludgeoning or edit warring. That nobody apparently complained about the TBAN violations, as you point out, suggests to me that there wasn't any disruption or real problem, and I would therefore characterize the TBAN violations as "technical violations". I take a big-picture view: Vauxford has been able to productively contribute in this area for a year and a half without causing trouble, and that's all I can ask of anyone, so I still support lifting the ban, even though you're right about there having been technical (in my view) TBAN violations. Levivich ^harass/_hound 20:49, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  I think it would be an absolute travesty if participants here ignored the fact that the disruption these sanctions were claimed necessary to prevent—otherwise they would be punitive—did not occur. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 08:07, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

• Diffs of the image proposals I made. Jaguar R1, Audi e-tron, Audi A3, Mercedes-Benz GLB-Class, Porsche 911, Porsche 992 Hyundai i10, Skoda Rapid (2012), Skoda Octvia and BMW 5 Series (G30) --Vauxford (talk) 02:35, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support lifting TBAN - Vauxford has since stopped self-inserting his images and has also stopped reverting those who replace his images - Only a few IPs have reverted him all for unknown/pointless reasons, Whilst there are some concerns with the rationale (as pointed out by Cullen) IMHO they're not enough to warrant an indef topic ban, Going forward I'm sure Vauxford will be more cautious with inserting his images in future. Thanks, 86.169.55.232 (talk) 19:53, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I'm not sure how keen I am to become involved with this, but two things do stand out about the discussion which I cannot resist mentioning:

* The opinions provided seem to come from people with little or no experience of Vauxford's wiki-constributions when he doesn't have a TBAN in place. If you don't contribute to entries on cars you don't come across Vauxford. So I took the liberty of alerting people to this discussion on the "Automobiles" project talk page.

* Although User:~Swarm~ has provided a link to earlier discussion on this stuff, it's not clear that any of those commenting have taken time to check it out. (Or any of Vauxford's other lengthy exchanges on admin noticeboards and elsewhere.) Might be worthwhile. Though it is - at least by most folks's standards - very long and in places rather angry

Regards Charles01 (talk) 21:05, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

I checked it out. The close said "A significant minority of editors also feel that Charles01 has been behaving badly and might possibly warrant some sort of sanction. I don't see a consensus for anything at this moment, but would advise Charles01 to take note of the depth of feeling among some editors here and avoid future conflict." Good advice, to which I would add: don't insult your colleagues by suggesting they !voted without having done the reading. Levivich ^harass/_hound 21:12, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support lifting the tban. I believe that Vauxford has had some time to figure why his behaviour was considered disruptive; in case he did not figure this, the tban can be reimposed. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 01:05, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support lifting TBAN I was involved in the original TBAN discussion along with observing and participating in some of Vauxford's photo discussions before and after the TBAN. I think his behaviour over the duration of the TBAN has been productive and has not fallen into the same problems that lead to the TBAN. Toasted Meter (talk) 05:36, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• @Vauxford: if the ban is lifted, what would you do in case your addition is challenged (addition is reverted or photo is replaced) by anyone, including IP editors? Politrukki (talk) 14:11, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  Politrukki Depends, the safe bet I think is take it to the talk page discussing the editor's reason why they replaced the photo. --Vauxford (talk) 21:05, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  Thank you for the response. That's kinda vague, as you admit below, but nice to know. Politrukki (talk) 15:04, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose lifting ban - "Getting worn out" from being required to get consensus is not a valid reason for having a topic ban lifted. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:38, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• That's not the only given reason. Another one is "I think I grown from that and noticed my flaws with some of my own photos and understand why editors might've been unhappy with my edits" ---Sluzzelin talk 21:49, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes, and they also said that what they would do if their addition was challenged "Depends". No, it doesn't depend, especially with their history. I do not trust their judgment, then or now. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:08, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• Beyond My Ken Fair point, what I meant by "depends", of course I would take it to the talk page but what if it something blatant for example, it was the wrong model or simply vandalism? I'm sorry if that sounded vague. --Vauxford (talk) 04:06, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support lifting tban per Levivich. Vikram Vincent 08:21, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support. I opposed this TBAN originally because I felt Charles01 was a large part of the original disruption (diffs provided there). Vauxford has had time to reflect and criticize their previous works, and I am glad to see that has been taken on in good faith there. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:17, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support - I supported restricting Vauxford from the beginning as his insistence on his photos was rather disruptive. I also took umbrage at his habit of adding every single photo of his across countless other languages in an effort to get his pictures used on as many Wikis as possible. I have seen real change since then, however - to the point that Charles01, who was one of those most aggravated with Vauxford is not opposing his full return, but may actually be aiding Vauxford by posting on the Automobile Project talk page.

I actually suggested to Vauxford some time ago that he should try to get the tban lifted, but he seems to have felt it worthwhile to wait a little longer (not something the troublesome Vauxford would have done). My one reservation is derived from his opening statement here: Vauxford states that he "noticed my flaws with some of my own photos" - the problem was never the quality of the photos, it was how he went about to place them above others' photos at all cost, with long grinding arguments and repeat reversals. But perhaps I didn't catch the intended tone and meaning correctly. Anyhow, I reckon that it is safe to let Vauxford back because he is now a known entity and would never be able to cause as much aggravation as before. Lastly, Vauxford is a mere 21 years old according to his userpage. Clearly one year can make for significant changes for someone who is still learning how to shave so young.  Mr.choppers | ✎  02:32, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support: What a convoluted restriction in the first place; it should frankly be a shining example of how NOT to design a restriction. Compliance is of course going to be a problem with something convoluted like that. I also interpret Vauxford's admitted violation as being marginal—an editor changed images in an infobox, and Vauxford undid it. It just happened that the revert was to an image he uploaded. Should Vauxford have recognized it was one of his own images? Maybe. Depends on how many images he's uploaded and whether there are any other obvious markings.
  I also question the underlying panic over someone contributing his own images to articles, even if it's a lot of images and a lot of articles. It's not like these are bad images, nor is it like there are obtrusive self-promotional watermarks, or like Vauxford is doing the gimmick of trying to make money from Commons by putting a big old tag on his images that says "Warning! This image is not public domain! If you need a license other than CC-BY-SA, please e-mail me!" If there's a fundamental problem with the images, I'm not seeing it. Gatekeeping/WP:OWN behavior isn't good, but that's not exactly the same issue. If Vauxford is going on a revert spree to restore his own images to articles, that sounds like edit warring and should be treated as such.
  In any case, Vauxford's contrition strikes me as honest, and based on what others have said in this thread I think the editing restriction should be vacated in its entirety. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 03:42, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

J4lambert, repeated unsourced editing & creating double-redirects following block

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

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J4lambert (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Repeated unsourced and disruptive editing. Indefinitely banned 4 November 2020 from edits relating to elections in the United States, broadly construed. Blocked 3 December 2020 following first ANI detailing very long-term disruptive editing pattern. Following unblock 10 December 2020, additional unsourced edits:

• Frutiger (typeface)—First edit, adding unsourced content
  • Talk:Frutiger (typeface)—Second edit, asking others to source user's own unsourced edit
  • Frutiger (typeface)—Third edit, making unsourced content a hidden comment
• Addition of unsourced content to Edd Kalehoff

Additional disruptive editing creating of double-redirects:

• Trump twitter ban
• 2021 NHL Lake Tahoe series

And further disruptive editing adding unnecessary/spam redirects:

• 1918 liberty loan parade
• Forza motorsport 8
• B117 pandemic

AldezD (talk) 03:21, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Those redirects... J4lambert (talk) 03:43, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I was previously barred from editing articles related to the US elections. J4lambert (talk) 03:44, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Pinging @JBW:, an involved admin. AldezD (talk) 13:25, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I am announcing my retirement from Wikipedia effective January 17, 2021, due to issues regarding my edits of articles for the 2020 United States presidential election. J4lambert (talk) 20:12, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Pretty well the editor's entire editing history since the recent block expired seems to consist of doing the things that led to that block, including blatant violations of their topic ban. I shall reinstate the block, this time indefinitely, which I warned the editor would be likely to happen if the same pattern of editing returned. (I had hoped that the block would prompt the editor to start taking notice of messages and warnings about unacceptable editing, and change their approach, but unfortunately that hasn't happened.) JBW (talk) 23:29, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

You know, it's an account from 2008 and all, but I couldn't help but on seeing J4lambert wondering if they were deliberately trying to "look like" Johnpacklambert... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:44, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

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

Unblock request by Ahrtoodeetoo

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

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Moved from Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

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

A simple perusal of my contributions shows perfectly well I am here to build an encyclopedia and have made ample productive contributions to the project, both recently and in the past. The blocking admin's explanation underscores the weakness of this block. Their justification is not about WP:HERE, but is about incivility. I think I was quite civil, but even if I wasn't, that's no basis for an insta-indef without a civility warning--DS do not apply here. If their justification was that I've been refusing to let people post non-mandatory comments on my user talk, that's not a blockable offense, that's my right. In fact, the blocking admin's repeated posting on my user talk against my express, acknowledged requests is harassment-- see WP:HUSH. I understand this is a block appeal, but I believe in good faith this admin is harassing me and this should boomerang. Please at least open this up to ANI because I think this is a total misapplication of policy. R2 (bleep) 18:03, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry for using the acronym "GTFO" and for calling 331dot a "pig." I do think they were reasonable in context, but I understand how they might be taken to be disrespectful and inconsistent with the spirit of the project and I won't do that again. I do think the community needs to have further conversation about admins' use of their authority in user talk spaces, but that's a separate issue. I also think the indef block was grossly disproportionate to the offense, especially in context, and a deescalation with a simple warning combined with an invitation to join the Teahouse discussion would have done the trick. But that is not an excuse. I'm also willing to engage in further discussion with the community to understand what my obligations are with respect to my user talk, and to comply with those obligations. R2 (bleep) 23:03, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

The above is copied from User talk:Ahrtoodeetoo#Unblock request. Note that 331dot modified the block reason after Ahrtoodeetoo's unblock request (first paragraph copied from unblock template). The second paragraph is Ahrtoodeetoo's last post to the thread. Politrukki (talk) 14:07, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

This isn't the place for a standard unblock request. And frankly, given the years of chronic incivility, I find the follow up request to be quite insincere considering just minutes before they were blaming everyone else for their actions. GRINCHIDICAE🎄 14:13, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I know this "isn't the place for a standard unblock request", but the circumstances are also unusual because of Ahrtoodeetoo's unusual "banning" of normal discussion on their talk page. I do wonder whether the subject line I picked is misleading because the community should not decide whether Ahrtoodeetoo should be unblocked. This should also not be considered a review of 331dot's acions.

Looks like there were mainly two reasons for the block: a) a note on their talk page: "Everyone is banned from my talk page (except for mandatory notices, of course) until further notice. And do not ping me. (see User talk:Ahrtoodeetoo#Important notice - please read before postng from 2019) and b) recent personal attack telling 331dot "GTFO my user talk, pig"[79].

When I saw the personal attack – and before Ahrtoodeetoo was blocked – my initial thought was whether the incident should be taken to ANI and ask whether a (short?) civility block would be necessary and request whether the community should ban the blanket ban Ahrtoodeetoo "imposed". I didn't know that a Teahouse discussion existed.

Disclaimer: I have collaboratively edited with Ahrtoodeetoo, but we may have had minor disagreements, at least indirectly. But both happened ages ago. Politrukki (talk) 16:13, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

As the editor who brought this user to the blocking administrator's attention through a Teahouse thread, I feel obliged to comment. I will not pass comment on the matter of civility, as the requestor's comments speak for themselves. However, under WP:ENGAGE, I struggle to understand why the requestor believes the notice "banning" other editors from posting on their talk page and pinging them is appropriate. Under WP:UOWN (which the editor cites themself), pages in user space belong to the wider community. They are not a personal homepage, and do not belong to the user ... other users may edit pages in your user space or leave messages for you. A blanket prohibition on both user talk page messages and pinging means that there is no way to bring a matter to the requestor's attention. That is simply untenable. (Non-administrator comment) Sdrqaz (talk) 15:07, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

"I'm sorry for using the acronym "GTFO" and for calling 331dot a "pig." I do think they were reasonable in context," I think that says it all. No it was not acceptable in context, and until they realise that I don't think an unblock from a civility block is justified. Canterbury Tail talk 15:13, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

As I pointed out on their talk page, this isn't their only foray into the world of attacks. GRINCHIDICAE🎄 15:14, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

• I am willing to answer questions if requested, but to avoid further accusations of harassment I won't make any comment here. 331dot (talk) 15:16, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment: re: "I'm sorry for using the acronym "GTFO" and for calling 331dot a "pig." I do think they were reasonable in context" (emphasis mine). If the editor believes this could be reasonable in any context I think there are problems waiting to happen. re: "but I understand how they might be taken to be disrespectful", editor seems to think the problem is with others perceptions and not their words, again I think a sign there are problems waiting to happen. Blocks are prevenative.  // Timothy :: t | c | a   15:55, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

• It's always a shame to see an otherwise productive editor indeffed over a lapse in judgment like this, but I'm not going to offer an opinion on the length of the block because a first-time civility block that's also a first-time indef should be, frankly, easy to get lifted with an unblock request. "I understand that my comments were uncivil and unacceptable in a collaborative project. It was a major lapse in judgment and I will do my best not to let it happen again. Sorry to [other editor]." That's all that's really needed (along with sticking to that sentiment). On the other hand, saying you don't think it was uncivil, and that it was in fact "reasonable in context" is not only going to result in a declined unblock, but will make the next unblock request more difficult (which isn't to say it's not still relatively easy to fix this if you want to). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:10, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
  • R2 has drawn my attention to this comment, which hasn't been copied here and is a step closer to the right direction. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:24, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Rhododendrites, what I'm struggling with a bit at the moment is how 331dot's messages can be construed as being harassment. Sdrqaz (talk) 16:31, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
      • @Sdrqaz: - I share that concern. SQL^{Query me!} 16:36, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
      • Sure. It's just a clarification that wasn't posted here which is, if not quite there yet, at least a step closer. The problem with having messages copied to ANI is that what's here is what people will primarily base their opinions on, rather than subsequent clarifications on the user's talk page. So the best thing at this point, R2, may be to take a couple days and start with a fresh request clearly articulating your perspective, keeping in mind that attempts at justification often throw a wrench into such requests when not entirely compelling. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:49, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

• I'm still on the fence about an unblock here, leaning slightly towards an eventual unblock. I was initially ready to unblock with a "Sorry, it was a lapse, won't happen again", and quickly escalated to the point that we had to move discussion off the user's talkpage. I was surprised to see the quick about-face, which is almost there. I'd agree with others above that "reasonable in context" is problematic, which is somewhat addressed here, albeit with a sarcastic "Really?". I do believe R2 is generally civil, and does good content work. They choose to work in a part of the project I stay far the hell away from because of the extreme toxicity and divisiveness (American politics) - and maybe it would be helpful to edit other subjects for a bit - that has to be draining. SQL^{Query me!} 16:35, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

  @Ahrtoodeetoo: (Replying to this message) I had indeed not seen this, which does a far better job at addressing the issue here. SQL^{Query me!} 17:04, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose unblock - 'I'm sorry for using the acronym "GTFO" and for calling 331dot a "pig." I do think they were reasonable in context' says it all. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:00, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

  Beyond My Ken, I have to ask. While you are considerably more polite in banning people from your talk page you are also quite prolific in doing so. Do you happen to have a total for how many you have banned from your talk page? PackMecEng (talk) 21:23, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

  BMK: Remember there's no need to respond to trolling. They're just trying to get a rise out of you. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:25, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

  Who is trolling? It was a serious question that goes to some of the issues in this situation. In the future please WP:AGF. Thanks! PackMecEng (talk) 21:28, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

  With respect, it didn't seem relevant to the matter at hand or necessary. Sdrqaz (talk) 21:47, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

  My thinking was the block in question had a lot to do with banning people from their talk page. I wanted to get a little more insight into what the effects of such broad banning can have on a users ability to communicate on this wonderful website. With that in mind BMK, as far as I know, has the largest list of users forbidden from communicating with them on their talk page. So I was looking forward to better understanding their point of view. Then, out of no where, I get accused of being a troll by some random person for no apparent reason. It is really disappointing. PackMecEng (talk) 21:58, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

  There's a big difference between telling individual editors not to come back and telling the community "don't talk to me OR ELSE". - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:16, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

  I did not notice an OR ELSE. You quote it, do you have a link so I can take a look? Also where would you say that line is? If I had to guess it is probably a few dozen at least that BMK has banned and I am still waiting on their thoughts on the matter. PackMecEng (talk) 22:49, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

It was very much implied in their blanket prohibition. As SQL has pointed out, BMK is not having an unblock request evaluated. Your dispute with BMK is not relevant to this matter and is best taken elsewhere. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:36, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Truly, I have nothing against BMK. There is no dispute with me and him. Nor am I trying to imply they did anything wrong, they did not. Please stay on track here. PackMecEng (talk) 23:44, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I have nothing else to say to that exhortation. Sdrqaz (talk) 00:49, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

• @PackMecEng: We aren't evaluating an unblock request for BMK. SQL^{Query me!} 23:09, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

  SQL, Correct. PackMecEng (talk) 23:10, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose unblock; Wikipedia is a collaborative project and the user has proven incompatibility with this concept. Special:Diff/999931299 alone is reason enough not to consider any unblock request for a while. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:51, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose unblock for now - while we certanily need good and productive content creators, the fact of the matter is that Wikipedia is a collaborative project. Editors here have to be compatible with collaboration, which the notice which may or may not have kicked off this whole mess is not. We have to be willing to engage with other editors, and pointedly cutting off the most major method of engagement is bad optics at best. Calling another editor a "pig" (in context, being addressed to an admin, is pretty clear in meaning) is wildly uncivil and the 'apology' for it smacks of not being sorry for it but being sorry for being called out for it (and I do think they were reasonable in context, but I understand how they might be taken to be disrespectful makes the whole thing a non-apology anyway - either they were reasonable or not and they were very not). Finally, regardless of the merits/reasoning of the original block, the user's conduct on their talk page since the block has left me very uncomfortable with the thought of an unblock at this time. If they are to be unblocked at the very least they need to issue an apology without any weasel words and understand and accept that their user talk page is for communication with them by and from the entire project and that while they can tell editors they have issues with not to post there that is for individuals they have issues with, not a pre-emptive total ban. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:16, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose unblock -They've not addressed the reasons for the block and give the appearance of WP:NOTCOMPATIBLE. (Don't talk to me?) Indef is not infinite. User can be unblocked whenever they address the reasons for the block and give the appearance of being able to collaborate. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 23:24, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
• I was all for supporting this, because I'm all for unblocks, but I can't support right now. Their comments to Bbb last year were awful, no one should call another editor a pig, and even the unblock reason here is unconvincing: " I do think they were reasonable in context, but I understand how they might be taken to be disrespectful and inconsistent with the spirit of the project and I won't do that again". No, they were not reasonable in context. At the risk of sounding patronizing, I think it's TOOSOON. R2 needs to stew on this for a little bit. Drmies (talk) 00:48, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose unblock for now. But let them make a standard unblock request in the future on their user talk page. (No need for another discussion here.) The banning of literally everybody from their talk page doesn't really work for me. The pages are there so people can communicate, and sometimes communication beyond required templates is necessary. I'm not sure where it all went wrong, but I miss the spunky little robot from 2 years ago. ~Awilley (talk) 04:55, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose unblock per Awilley. "Everybody is banned from my talk page" is a degree of petulance that goes above and beyond simple refusal to collaborate.--WaltCip-(talk) 21:17, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposal

Regardless of the outcome of this unblock request, it should be made clear to the requestor that per both WP:ENGAGE and WP:UOWN, the blanket prohibition on both user talk page messages and pinging is not allowed. (Non-administrator comment) Sdrqaz (talk) 17:07, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Sdrqaz I will note that users are free to turn off pings in their preferences so that they never see them and by extension inform others of that. 331dot (talk) 17:47, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

331dot, they are free to do so. But the text of the notice was that other editors shouldn't ping them (instead of a simple notification that pings had been turned off) and the requestor coupled that with a prohibition on others editing their talk page. That seems problematic. What if one has an issue with the content of their contributions or their conduct? Editors should not have to go straight to creating ANI threads instead of trying to hash out a dialogue at their talk page. Sdrqaz (talk) 18:02, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

In response to the request that I withdraw this proposal, I decline to do so. The proposal has its own subheading, which means other editors can respond to it separately if they wish. It is considered good practice (as far as I can tell) to allow other editors to engage with oneself on one's talk page. Sdrqaz (talk) 18:02, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I concur; saying "do not edit my talk page, ever" is behavior not compatible with a collaborative project. Communication is required, and the user talk page is pretty much the linchpin of communication on Wikipedia; furthermore the editor in question's reactions to people who do post there have been, from what I can see, not constructive - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:06, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

[1st] unblock request declined

Just noting to participants that I have declined the [1st] unblock request. El_C 00:50, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

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Publish article page Draft:Synergy_Inc.

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Hello,

Thank you for your help in advance.

I'm trying to publish the page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Synergy_Inc.

Please could you help me with this?

Thank you so much — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lighting100 (talk • contribs) 18:12, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Lighting100 In the future please use the Help Desk or Teahouse for questions like this. Your draft was unambiguously promotional. Wikipedia is not a place for companies to tell the world about themselves, and has no interest in increasing their exposure. When independent reliable sources choose on their own to give what I assume is your company significant coverage, showing how it meets the special Wikipedia definition of a notable company, someone will eventually write about it- but it shouldn't be you, and the company will have no control over any article that might be created about it. Please review conflict of interest and paid editing. 331dot (talk) 18:36, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Your link is broken. The deleted page to which you were trying to refer is Draft:Synergy_Inc.. - David Biddulph (talk) 03:47, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

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Micah Wright

• Micah Wright (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• MicahWright (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

We have an obvious COI editor here, beefing up their own biography and making two ridiculous claims of "right-wing vandalism". I believe the editor should be blocked; they should certainly be blocked from editing that article, possibly also because of their username. And while you're at it, please also look at MW's edits to User talk:Redfraud10202, and to that editor's edits. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 21:41, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

• I recommend at least a block for the username, with an explanation that, for their own protection, they need to verify their identity with the VRT, and that it can only be done via email. I don't think their edit summaries rise to the level of legal threats, so I wouldn't block for that. I do think they need somebody to explain to them that subjects of articles do not own the articles about them, and they may not control the content. Worst case, a long-term partial block might be in order. —C.Fred (talk) 22:11, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

As for the second editor, their first edit seemed to be good faith, but I have misgivings at least about the original research with the last edit to Micah Wright. That username is mildly concerning as well, but it could be mitigated if the user is a member of a First Peoples community and is acting in good faith to prevent misappropriation or abuse of First Peoples culture. —C.Fred (talk) 22:18, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Orangemike has blocked MicahWright for uw-wellknown (although at least from their edit summaries WP:NLT would also have been a valid reason...) - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:55, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

If they address the impersonation issue, then we can look at the WP:NLT. C.Fred thinks they don't quite rise to the level of an NLT violation; what do others think? --Orange Mike | Talk 22:59, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I have declined the rename request. I believe there are greater issues here than the user name. The user should not be allowed to edit the article, regardless of whether or not there is impersonation or a COI. Their attitude and lack of AGF may make them not compatible. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 00:29, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Closing of Mike DeWine RFC for the Impeachment Resolution Section

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Request administrator assistance, currently at Talk:Mike DeWine#RFC for the Impeachment Resolution Section.

The Redirect has been deleted.

William Allen Simpson (talk) 01:24, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

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A user is reverting me and says I'm a sockuppet

Can I please have an administrator to solve an issue I have with ShelteredCook? They accused me yesterday of being a sockpuppet of two accounts. I told them that I am not any of those users. I added my edits back to the Asian values page after I told them that I'm not a sockpuppet and they deleted it again without any explanation. I am very upset that I am being labelled a sockpuppet. I am not a vandal like the sockpuppet users. So why do they believe that I am a sockpuppet? My account is new but I have some understanding of Wikipedia because of a school project I did. So I know a few things on this site. They said my sources weren't added correctly and I know that but I copied it from the page. Can you please tell them to stop accusing me of a sockpuppet and to stop deleting my edits? UNFen (talk) 12:03, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

For context, here's the master's sockpuppet investigation and the LTA which explains the behavior behind their edits. You also did not notify me nor tagged me on purpose, despite the large warning sign at the top of the page. Also these claims – "I am not a vandal like the sockpuppet users" Sockpuppets ≠ vandals. Your other accounts weren't blocked for vandalism, but for sockpuppetry. – "My account is new but I have some understanding of Wikipedia because of a school project I did." What exactly is this supposed to mean? Perhaps you felt that you could be more bold and get uninvolved admins into the discussion as a CU check returned as "Possilikely" instead of "Confirmed", but the fact that you immediately defended yourself on the SPI as well as deciding to go on AN instead of waiting for another response on the SPI just shows how badly you want to dissociate yourself formerly as Sapah3 and continue editing as a "new account", despite the fact that there's a huge edit overlap as well as being from the same IP range. ShelteredCook (talk) 16:24, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

My edits are not the same as theirs though. I looked at your links and I can't find Asian values page on their list of pages. I don't even know what an LTA is to begin with. OK I didn't look at all the information before I came here so I didn't know I had to tag you. I don't have other accounts? Omg why are you attacking me like this? My school project was about Wikipedia and what the system is for editors here. I defended myself because I saw your edit summary. That's why I looked at your other edits to find the link and understand what was going on. I know how some things work around here, I'm not ignorant. How am I supposed to know that I'm supposed to wait for another response on the SPI? I've never been involved in such a thing. What's the edit overlap? The other user has not made edits to Asian values page (I looked at the links you gave me and I can't find anything) and what do you mean same IP range? You're just assuming I'm a sockpuppet without actually knowing anything about me. How can you know about my IP address if I have never shown you my IP address? I read your LTA and you're just assuming I'm a sockpuppet because the other user edits Asian pages too. Not everybody who edits Asian pages is a sockpuppet. Stop treating me like this. UNFen (talk) 01:16, 16 January 2021 (UTC) If this is how you treat new editors here then I don't want to be here. I feel so upset right now because you're saying all these things that aren't true and I don't know what else I can say to defend myself because you won't believe me. UNFen (talk) 01:20, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

You were already told on your other account FloralRiver about not having a clean start if there are active bans, blocks, etc but you did not listen at the time. That's why you were blocked (by SilkTork) for sockpuppetry. And to address this statement – and what do you mean same IP range? You're just assuming I'm a sockpuppet without actually knowing anything about me. How can you know about my IP address if I have never shown you my IP address? I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve by feigning ignorance once again (didn't you just mention above that you "have some understanding of Wikipedia because of a school project I did")? because a CU check on the SPI literally returned with the same IP range as Sapah3. I don't think it's just a coincidence that despite the range we have 2 different users making similar edits on Asian topics, with considerable prior knowledge of Wikipedia, and within the same time frame. ShelteredCook (talk) 13:48, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not that sockpuppet you're speaking about. I only made one edit to Wikipedia and that was to the Asian values page. I looked at the edits of the sockpuppet on your LTA page and they didn't make any edits to Asian values. You haven't said anything about this. I want to edit pages on Southeast Asian and Pacific topics, that's why I edited Asian values. They made edits on South Asian and East Asian topics, not Southeast Asia/Pacific. Our interests are completely different. If I was the same person as the sockpuppet user then I would have been blocked but I wasn't. You shouldn't assume everybody here is a sockpuppet and you shouldn't be so hostile. I said I did a project on Wikipedia for school, I know how things work here I'm not dumb. What time frame? I mostly edit Wikipedia at night time, yesterday was different because it's the weekend so I edited during the afternoon. I looked at your LTA and that sockpuppet's time frame is all over the place. Are you going to judge every new account that makes edits to Asian pages? It looks like you are looking at all of the Asian pages to find that sockpuppet user, well I'm not them. So you should leave me alone. You wouldn't have looked at me if I made my first edit to the Chamorro people page. I know you wouldn't have but you looked at me because I'm new and I made an edit to an Asian page. Typing this all out just made me realise how unwelcoming this place is. UNFen (talk) 15:22, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Accusation of trolling

In 'Talk' about article "Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2" (here) I wrote a new section (with comment "Not all available evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin") called == The origin of the coronovirus ==. In this text I wrote:

"The sentence: <<All available evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural animal origin and is not genetically engineered" is false and please delete it. Here are examples of articles questioning the natural origin of the virus:>>

1) K. Sirotkin, D. Sirotkin "Might SARS‐CoV‐2 Have Arisen via Serial Passage through an Animal Host or Cell Culture? A potential explanation for much of the novel coronavirus’ distinctive genome" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7435492/);

2) 2) Li-Meng Yan (MD, PhD), Shu Kang (PhD), Jie Guan (PhD), Shanchang Hu (PhD), "Unusual Features of the SARS-CoV-2 Genome Suggesting Sophisticated Laboratory Modification Rather Than Natural Evolution and Delineation of Its Probable Synthetic Route";

3) 3) Rossana Segreto, Yuri Deigin, "The genetic structure of SARS‐CoV‐2 does not rule out a laboratory origin. SARS‐COV‐2 chimeric structure and furin cleavage site might be the result of genetic manipulation" (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bies.202000240).

Moreover, the mere fact that there is a worst-case virus research laboratory in Wuhan requires logical skepticism to claim that the virus is natural. The quoted sentence is either propaganda or extremely careless."

The section was deleted and commented as follows: "Reverted to revision 1000320629 by Forich (talk): Rm ludicrous trolling of a discredited conspiracy theory". What is this treatment of users? After all, this is rudeness. At least the first paper should be taken seriously, not considered as conspiracy theory or trolling. What's more reprehensible, it happened in the discussion section, not the main article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.183.138.99 (talk) 13:10, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• It is a conspiracy theory to claim that COVID-19 has a non-natural origin. We don't entertain extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence -- Rockstone^{[Send me a message!]} 19:01, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• More admin eyes at Wuhan Institute of Virology and associated talk page appreciated. Falls under the COVID GS. Edit warring, lengthy repetitive fringe POV pushing on talk. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:16, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Copyright mistake

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I accidently plagiarized a source here, leaving text I copied as an aide-memoire behind by mistake. I think this needs redacting. Thanks! GPinkerton (talk) 13:45, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

 Done--Ymblanter (talk) 16:32, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Ymblanter, many thanks! GPinkerton (talk) 16:45, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

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Bit of an AfD backlog

There's a bit of a backlog at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old/Open AfDs. In particular, whoever closes Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jake Angeli deserves a barnstar - I'd rather not because I have a well-known dislike of all things Trump, but if people insist I really am the one for the job, I will. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:00, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Kudos to Ymblanter for closing that AdD about the flamboyant QAnon insurrectionist. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 21:10, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

For sure. Have some fresh organic food on me, Ymblanter! El_C 22:09, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Ban removal request of SashiRolls

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• SashiRolls (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

As a courtesy I am posting the following statement from SashiRolls to request the removal of their community ban. I make no endorsement of the request by doing so. I received it by email. 331dot (talk) 20:59, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

With these two paragraphs, I am requesting the standard offer.  I have continued being a productive wikimedia/mediawiki citizen while serving the maximum possible sentence, and am aware that this "community ban" is nothing to be sneezed at in the family of wp sites that I work on.  Since I was blocked,  I've limited my contribs to ht.wp, fr.wp, simple.wp, possibly meta.wp & Wikidata.  During that time, I've noticed that one does not encounter quite the same problems outside of a few areas on en.wp.  I have also worked on my own mediawiki installation quite a bit.  I will avoid the behaviour that led to the block.  As I bear no grudges, I don't see the point rehashing those matters in detail as I have no desire for my reauthorization to contribute to parts of the English Wikipedia to lead to any battles in the community.  That, too, is part of the wisdom of the standard offer.

My earliest account's contribs to en.wp were in 2006, though I've long since forgotten the password to that account and prefer my current pseudo.  I fully intend to continue participating on projects across wikimedia domains in this, WPs third decade. I have respected MastCell's block on en.wp since it was made, and since ArbCom ruled that they did not have the power to overturn it since it was within administrator discretion.  I was glad to see that when they kicked it back to the community, who changed policy so no other user would have such a hurried judgment passed on their work.  I am not requesting any special dispensations, just the authorization to return to contributing productively and with civility to the encyclopedia that anyone can edit.  I've seen quite a few pages that need work where I'm authorized to contribute. (These pages are not in the notorious problem areas where I ran into conflict with contributors that I will avoid in future.)

From SashiRolls' talkpage:
Some of the projects I am currently interested in, for information:

1. learning more about the citation templates, in an effort to be able to help make them more easily translatable between projects (cf. my user page at Wikidata). I am quite interested in the Wiki Function project...
2. jazz: I've noticed a fair number of things that can be improved on pages related to jazz, some of which are mentioned above on my talk page.
3. US Senate confirmation hearings: A (disambiguation?) page on this 1787-present history topic should probably be created in Wikipedia's 3rd decade of existence. (I will only be able to work on the pre-1932 elements of this page, but a disambiguation page can already be created with exclusively pre-1932 elements)

I have attempted to offer en.wp a gift for its 3rd decade: an offer to continue to provide volunteer labor, letting bygones be bygones. It appears that a number of people active in the recent US politics area still wish to exclude me, despite the fact that I am not asking to participate in that area.

I am well into my third decade of teaching now, having taught at all levels from primary school to Masters level and continuing education. I have worked in difficult situations (particularly in middle schools (e.g. religious minority schools at particularly difficult times, a reform school)) and in much easier ones (university, professional training, work with recent immigrants). I have a long history of working on "knowledge equity" not only at various MW sites but also, for example, at CTLF, at JAD, as well as on my own site (sometimes using mediawiki, sometimes using other markup tools). I am a published translator and writer. I also have a long-standing interest in NLP. Here, for example, is a very recent example of some colorful possibilities that simple "character styles" afford English-language teachers to help language-learners to understand the verbal system in English.

Again: I bear no grudges and I am not asking to be permitted to contribute to en.wp's notorious problem areas. Outside of these "recentist" areas, I have actually been involved in very little conflict. I am requesting this reinstatement of contribution privileges because I have something to bring to the table and because the current situation prevents me from working fully in other areas of the WP universe (I cannot for example create test pages in user-space to look into the Cite Q template on en.wp and must put up with being reminded I've been blocked each time I wish to copy a reference from en.wp to *.wp) This is a great chance to show that English Wikipedia is indeed a project that anyone can edit, as long as they follow the rules, and is not a website where anyone can "be diagnosed" or a site where personal grudges and turf war battle-grounding are the guiding lights.

ps: I have not contacted anybody about this request prior to their participation. I did send both El C and Boing! a short email after they gave their opinion: in El C's case it was to thank them for their many reasonable paragraphs, and in Boing!'s case it was for another reason unrelated to en.wp.-- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 14:21, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• Happy to be the 1st to support, as I feel somewhat responsible and still have a bad taste about how it all ended up going down. Likely, SashiRolls will continue poking at me on Wikipediocracy (yes, I am an avid reader — gotta get my daily fix of Vigilant, yo!), which is fine. But at least they'd be some 2-way communication, if he's ever interested. So, I am hoping to get a snowball rolling toward welcoming SashiRolls back to the English Wikipedia. Hopefully, the key role (though unwittingly) I played in his ban can carry extra weight to see this happen. El_C 21:21, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• This appears to be the discussion in which SashiRolls was CBANned. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:32, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support. I made my opposition to the ban clear during the original discussion, so I won't repeat it all here. SashiRolls is a productive editor who genuinely cares about this project. And I think the biggest problem is perhaps caring too much sometimes, about relatively minor things that really don't warrant the resulting passion. I see SashiRolls as someone who genuinely tries to address problems, but sometimes not in the right way. The promises above are what I'd hoped would be the outcome of the ban discussion, and I hope we get to see if the approach works. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:09, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  Oh, and kudos to El_C for taking such a constructive approach. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:11, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• Neutral I'm a firm believer in meatball:ForgiveAndForget but reading my rationale from the ban discussion, I'm not sure I'm willing to forget so quickly. My reason for supporting the ban went beyond their conduct towards El_C, and I said explicitly that I supported regardless of that spat because of the longer pattern. Now, of course, people can change, and we should encourage them to, and we should reward it when they change for the better. The comment by El_C certainly influences me as do Sashi's contributions on other projects (You can see them here). That said, a ban was not trivial to build consensus for and if unbanning is a mistake it may be difficult to do again. This isn't the usual WP:ROPE situation and we really need to consider whether the community can (or wants to) handle the potential time sink that would come with a reversion to old behavior. I don't have a firm opinion yet, but I wanted to point out what sticking points I still have so that others (especially Sashi) have time to address them. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:39, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • I've restored talk page access while this discussion is ongoing so that Sashi can participate without needing to email someone. — Wug·a·po·des​ 04:35, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• I am concerned about this statement in SR's unblock request: "I've noticed that one does not encounter quite the same problems outside of a few areas on en.wp" which, to me, is indicative of an attitude that the problems he was blocked over are systemic en.wiki problems, and not caused by their own actions. Because of this I have strong doubts about their sincerity in the rest of the request in the light of their long history of disruptive behavior, and about their ability to change their patterns of behavior. That they have edited elsewhere without problems is certainly encouraging, but is not -- at this time -- sufficient to overcome their past record. Therefore, I oppose lifting the CBAN without prejudice to a future request. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:10, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Neutral, because although they've stayed away for six months and constructively contributed to other projects, the disruption was long-standing and this unblock request seems like lip service - and the mention of "hurried judgment" makes me suspect that grudges may still be held. If they return the previous restrictions need to apply and any future blocks should be indefinite by default. Fences&Windows 01:54, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support I was against the block in the first place and nothing presented suggests that SR's did anything to violate the block or further antagonize the situation. Springee (talk) 04:14, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. This editor was unblocked in November 2018.[80] In that unblock discussion, numerous editors warned that this editor would resume the same problematic behavior that got them topic-banned from various areas, and which had earned them warnings from administrators for harassment, edit-warring, incivility, and other tendentious behavior. As predicted, post-unblock, the editor got temporarily blocked in June 2019, August 2019, October 2019, February 2020, and June 2020[81], as well was subjected to civility-related sanctions in May 2019, given an interaction ban in May 2019, and topic-banned from Am Politics in February 2020[82] before being indefinitely blocked in June 2020. Is there any editor who has run up as many sanctions in as short of a period? Note that this all happened after the editor had already been unblocked once and promised to be on their best behavior. Aside from their tendentious behavior and awful contributions to the topic areas of American politics and GMOs, the editor has spent much of their time before, during and after all these blocks on off-wiki forums expressing grievances about editors and the ways they edit the encyclopedia. The line "I've noticed that one does not encounter quite the same problems outside of a few areas on en.wp." alludes to the editor's belief that numerous editors on the English Wikipedia are conspiring together in a "cabal" against them. In their 2018 unblock request, they specifically tried to alleviate concerns about incivility and harassment by promising, "I have no intention of tracking down any more socking sysops, nor do I intend to lay down evidence of any further wrong-doings by anyone in the inner cabal, not to worry."[83] The editor did not adhere to this promise, as post-unblock, they relentlessly and baselessly cast aspersions on other editors, accusing them of surreptitiously working together or editing for pay. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 05:16, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. I agree with Snooganssnoogans; if unblocked, we will be back here with complaints within three months and the cycle will continue. Enough is enough.--Jorm (talk) 05:32, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose This is a highly intelligent person who has expertise that could be useful to the encyclopedia in theory. In practice, they are drawn to conflict and confrontation like a moth to a flame, because of aspects of their personality that other Wikipedia editors cannot fully understand, but all of us can see play out, over and over and over again. Just look at their blocks and bans. The fact that several of their opponents were also tendentious and disruptive is not an ameliorating factor. Instead, it shows their repeated and compulsive attraction to the honeypot of confrontation, tendentious editing and endless argumentation. We simply do not need editors with characteristics like this. We need level headed people. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 08:33, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose SashiRolls was unblocked in November 2018, with "considerable skepticism of unblocking" and subsequently racked up five blocks in less than two years (two of which were undone by the blocking admin), plus four other sanctions, until the ban was reimposed in June 2020. It's clear that unblock was a mistake which wasted plenty of time from constructive editors. I think we'll have to assume that something similar will happen if the block is undone this time. Even apart from that the unblock request doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Hut 8.5 10:51, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Opposeothers have made some good points about how we've been here before and the unblock was a mistake. But this request is also the sort of request where the editor says they've learnt, but most of the rest of the request seems to be spent demonstrating to us they haven't. When I looked at discussion that lead up to the re-ban, along with the arbcom case that came after, I'm not surprised to see the same. Of course they could have learnt in the 5-6 months, but clearly they haven't as they apparently didn't last time. It's clear that they're able to contribute productively, unfortunately they are unable to do so without also causing enough problems that harm outweighs the good. Nil Einne (talk) 11:26, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support I didn't vote on the original ban. I don't know what to make of the vote. The first 20 votes all favored a ban while the next 40 were evenly divided. While SashiRolls showed poor judgment in the past, I think it is normal after 6 months to reconsider the ban and give them another chance. TFD (talk) 11:50, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per Snooganssnoogans. By offering in their appeal that their ban was erroneous because it was enacted too quickly (in their opinion, though within policy at the time) shows that they don't think they have anything to learn from it. Someone who has said "I've learned, I'll do better" and was so shortly reblocked for the same behaviour so many times, and spends their time away harassing users via Wikipediocracy, doesn't belong on this project. Ivanvector's squirrel (^trees/_nuts) 13:25, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Neutral at present. Like BMK, I stumbled when I got to "[at ht.wp, fr.wp, simple.wp, possibly meta.wp & Wikidata] I've noticed that one does not encounter quite the same problems outside of a few areas on en.wp" in Sashi's unblock request. I find it very worrying. It does suggest that he thinks his "problems" are systemic en.wiki problems rather than his actions. Perhaps Sashi can elaborate on what he meant by it. Of course I'm also concerned by Snooganssnoogans's list of block and bans, and by the way Sashi squandered second and third chances before being eventually indeffed. Bishonen | tålk 13:31, 16 January 2021 (UTC).
• Support. As said Boing! said Zebedee, SashiRolls is a productive editor. SashiRolls's statement looks very convincing as they have demonstrated contributing to other WMF projects. It is also convincing that El_C is supporting unblock (for the reasons El_C explains). Politrukki (talk) 14:47, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't see much self-reflection or taking of responsibility in this request, just complaining (incorrectly) that their ban was "hurried judgment" and saying vaguely that they will "avoid the behavior that led to the block" without admitting what it was. They had a chance to return to productive editing in November 2018 and that did not work out; I don't believe that they will be able to avoid conflict and we should take the chance of more editors' time being wasted by further disruption. P-K3 (talk) 15:16, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support - per El C and Boing and standard offer. (I still disagree with how that site ban was imposed and I'm glad we changed the rules so that sort of thing won't happen again.) Sashi doesn't have problems editing anywhere except a narrow slice of enwiki. As long as they stay away from that area, and they said they would, they're a productive editor, which has been repeatedly demonstrated both on this project and other projects. Levivich ^harass/_hound 15:51, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support - it stinks being banned. GoodDay (talk) 17:25, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Snooganssnoogans comment here summarizes the past issues very well, as does the beginning of the original site ban proposal [84] at AN, ArbCom appeal[85], and ban review[86]. So much happened between that and Dennis Brown's 2016 block this is a last chance for SashiRolls to be a member of the community. . .[87] In all of that, Sashirolls was banned in part because the community was just exhausted with trying to deal with their toxic behavior (from more than just a narrow slice of WP) and the time sinks it created whenever editors tried to get help with it at admin boards. Much of that had to do with Sashirolls' WP:NOTTHEM and WP:IDHT behavior outlined in those links, and I have yet to see anyone else actually having a a ban related to posting at WP:AE itself[88], which should illustrate how serious the issues got and the high bar needed for reentry.

As others have mentioned above, this appeal shows no serious self-reflection and more NOTTHEM behavior. Prior to the ban, they had chance after chance after chance and kept squandering those. This appeal doesn't differentiate itself from all those past times, so the supports would need to go well beyond just saying it's been a few months, give them another chance. . . againⁿ since this has been repeating itself for years. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:05, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support. If this unban request is good enough for El_C, then it's good enough for me. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:12, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support per El C and Boing. Reblocks are cheap but effective and productive editors are not. Would welcome back the valued contributions but not the conflicts - I trust SR has learned from the previous events. Mr Ernie (talk) 19:12, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't know the editor, but somebody with this kind of block log is more trouble than they're worth to the project. Sandstein 19:29, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support. I've objected to the ban in the original discussion, and I support a lift both for the rationale given by me then, and that stated by Boing! now. I'm not irked by the statement on "a few areas on en.wp", which some commenters view as denying responsibility, since it is a fact of Wikipedia that battlegrounds beget battleground behavior, as much as the other way around is true. François Robere (talk) 20:24, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support Never should have been banned in the first place. The ban discussion was poorly-handled and too many participants failed to actually look deeply at the evidence. As for the fragment of the unblock request that's being heavily analzyed above, I suspect that many Wikipedians fail to fully appreciate just how problematic this community has become. "I've noticed that one does not encounter quite the same problems outside of a few areas on en.wp" Have any of you considered that maybe Sashi has a point? Many of us have had more than our fair share of toxic experiences here, and Sashi was the subject of a nasty site ban discussion. I think his observation is more insightful than it is alarming. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 20:41, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. First of all, I'll point out that SashiRolls is under a 1-way IBAN with respect to me, so no one else has to point it out. Like El C, I look at Wikipediocracy from time to time, and I've noticed that SashiRolls comments about me there, often in discussions where no one else has brought up anything about me, or comments about me after his post (including a comment about what namespaces I have and have not recently edited in, made just six days ago). So when I see "I bear no grudges" said here not once but twice, along with "let bygones be bygones" and yet referring to other editors who "still wish to exclude" him, I'm skeptical. Yes, I know that en-wiki IBANS do not apply to WPO – of course – but it's clear that he has not really put me or other editors he has had bad interactions with completely out of his thoughts, and saying repeatedly here that he wants to put it all behind him does nothing to demonstrate that he recognizes his own fault in that history. He has "respected" MastCell's block? What does that mean, he hasn't evaded the block? He is appealing as a "gift" to Wikipedia? That he wants us to help him "show that English Wikipedia is indeed a project that anyone can edit, as long as they follow the rules, and is not a website where anyone can "be diagnosed" or a site where personal grudges and turf war battle-grounding are the guiding lights"? It's not for the community to show that. It's for the person making the appeal to show that they really have learned from their mistakes – not simply to steer clear of some topic, but to steer clear of previous patterns of conduct. And this is the same pattern we have seen from him, over and over and over again. This wouldn't be a second chance, or a third. At the ArbCom request, he said "I will agree that I react badly to being continually targeted by a small group not representative of the larger en.wp community of contributors." ([89], see also [90]). Is that recognizing his own need to do better, or is it like saying I'm just sorry that you treated me so badly? WP:SO is like a second chance, not a bazzillionth chance. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:20, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Adding: His talk page access was restored in order to participate in this appeal, which is appropriate. But why had it been revoked? Because, while site-banned by the community, he was attempting on his talk page to solicit proxy edits on his behalf by other editors: [91]. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:35, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Oddly enough, the admin who revoked his TPA for 'proxying' had requested that Sashi post some sources. After Sashi complied with this request, JzG deleted their own comment and yanked TPA. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:26, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Per Tryptofish and KoA and Sandstein. SR has had plenty of chances to show they can be a productive editor and they just keep proving that they can't. Even saying above they are ready to forget and move on, but posts on other sites show different. No one person is so indispensible that we must over look all the strife they caused just so they could write here. Valeince (talk) 22:11, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per BMK. The single clause he pulls out speaks volumes: I've noticed that one does not encounter quite the same problems outside of a few areas on en.wp. Without further explanation and clarification, I can't help but read this as a sua culpa—in short, blaming someone (everyone) else. I see no real reflection or understanding of why the ban was necessary. Even a begrudging understanding would be nice to see. I sort of understand the grounds claimed for vacating the ban—that because SR doesn't want to participate in the topic areas where past problems occurred (and perhaps will commit to avoiding those areas) the ban is unnecessary to protect the Community and therefore becomes punitive. I believe this argument addresses a necessary element of an unban request—that it will no longer be necessary—but is not sufficient on its own. Even when the standard offer is invoked. Some understanding of why the ban occurred must be evident. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 22:47, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Note that the request appears to have been withdrawn. I find some of the language used there kind of irksome insofar as it looks like a doubling down on the failure to accept fault. Sometimes, as Marcel Mauss explained, gifts are not so easy to accept.—I'm not familiar with Mauss, but a 30-second search suggests that the reason gifts would not be easy to accept is because reciprocity is expected (in the cultures Mauss explored). I'll give the noticeboard role-players --and those who have explicitly stated they will not abuse the lifting of their topic ban from discussing me -- some more time to reflect on their behaviour and ask again sometime in the future. I don't even know where to begin here. Calling AN/ANI regulars "role-players" seems insulting, as does the statement that the participants in this discussion should reflect on their own behavior. The reference to "those who have explicitly stated..." is a mystery to me, but it sounds like an accusation that some participants in this discussion were motivated by a grudge. ... it is obvious at this point that there is still no consensus concerning my banning. This closing line is also very troubling; the original siteban was instituted with there having been a finding of consensus. A denial that consensus existed is the antithesis of accepting the ban and underlying behavior. In all I think the withdrawal statement hammers home why this siteban should not be lifted. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 23:47, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support, for several reasons. First, SashiRolls states, I will avoid the behaviour that led to the block, and I've seen quite a few pages that need work where I'm authorized to contribute... not in the notorious problem areas where I ran into conflict with contributors that I will avoid in future. Second, my observations of SashiRolls' edits over the years are consistent with what Boing! said Zebedee writes, SashiRolls is a productive editor who genuinely cares about this project. Third, SashiRolls' oblique comment suggesting that there are problem areas of en wiki is both diplomatic and accurate. Lastly, the admin El_C whose conflict with SashiRolls contributed to their ban has written, above, that they were unhappy the conflict ended with SashiRoll's ban. Given all these things I hope the community will accept SashiRolls' request to continue editing. -Darouet (talk) 23:03, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Fool us 3 times, shame on you. Fool us 4 times, shame on us (modified to make the community look less foolish). If that's too cutesy, then per Tryptofish. We already have direct evidence what happens when they're given another chance. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:14, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per BMK. The comment about not encountering "the same problems" outside of en.wiki carries a strong suggestion that SR has not acknowledged the issues with their own conduct that led to the ban in the first place, but rather regards it as a problem with the community. To consider an unblock, I would like to see full introspection and confronting the issue head-on, with concrete indicators as to how things will be different next time around. I don't think an offer to just stay away from a few areas of the wiki really constitutes that.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:14, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

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Request to reinstate removal of talk page access

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

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Since withdrawing this appeal, SashiRolls has made a snarky comment about me (without actually using my username) on his talk page, referring to the fact that I commented here having previously been under a 2-way IBAN ([92]). Pretty ironic, given that he is still under a 1-way IBAN, which he now appears to have violated. His talk page access had previously been revoked but was reinstated in order to make this appeal. That reason no longer applies. Please revoke his talk page access once again. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:40, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I think Sashi was referring to the fact that when you appealed your 2-way iban into a 1-way iban, you said And I think it's clear that I can be trusted. I plan to continue to voluntarily avoid the other editor. I don't want contact with them, and I have zero interest in editing the content areas where they edit, and avoiding them is just the right thing to do. I also understand and agree that if hypothetically I were to abuse the lifting of the restriction, it will be reinstated. Yet you've come out of retirement to lobby against Sashi every time Sashi is discussed on-wiki. Sashi appears to be citing this as part of the reason they withdrew their request. I don't think that's cause to revoke TPA (which shouldn't have been revoked in the first place, since the admin who revoked it was also the admin only editor other than Sashi who posted a message asking a question in the first place). I think Sashi not fighting the original TPA revocation, and their quick withdrawal of this unban request, goes a long way to demonstrating that Sashi is not interested in causing disruption. We should all just be grateful for that and get back to encyclopedia-building (or retirement or whatever), rather than causing more drama with an unnecessary TPA revocation request. Levivich ^harass/_hound 18:57, 17 January 2021 (UTC) Partly stricken/rephrased. Levivich ^harass/_hound 22:26, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

How about that bridge I was going to buy from you? If you cannot win the argument on the merits, change the subject. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:02, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

In any case, Levivich has confirmed that SashiRolls used his talk page to violate the existing IBAN. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:14, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I can also confirm this horse is dead. Levivich ^harass/_hound 19:21, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

[93]. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:30, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I-ban violation aside for Sashirolls, it's unfortunate Levivich is continuing to use admin boards about Sashi to hound Tryptofish. Part of the hope with Sashi's ban was to hopefully diffuse other editors who were going after those harassed by Sashirolls as Tryptofish was. Considering Levivich had been explicitly warned about tendentious behavior at ANI[94] that TonyBallioni opened, maybe it's time work on an I-ban for Levivich from matters related to Sashirolls or other editors? The battleground mentality from them of trying to constantly downplay Sashi's behavior and then project it back on to those who have had to deal with Sashi's attacks is starting to get rather sickening, especially when followed by comments like We should all just be grateful. . .

Of course talk page access for Sashi should be restricted again as it was only for the purpose of the appeal. This is a standard follow-up request. The badgering of those trying to get the countless problems with Sashi to stop are getting to be quite enough. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:04, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, no. That's not going to fly. Levi isn't doing anything wrong, and I'd recommend that you stop trying to create a chilling effect by misrepresenting an ANI thread from 8 months ago. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 21:43, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

• I'm of two minds here. First, the TPA was restored to participate in this request, which has been withdrawn; as such the circumstance for which TPA was restored no longer exists and it should be removed. On the other hand, I believe there was a point made somewhere above that the revocation of TPA was not necessary in the first place, and while I found the comment that led to this subthread irksome and evident of an attitude contrary to one needed for the ban being lifted (as I noted above), I think that given the context (a just-failed unban request) some leeway is normally granted for lashing out. In short, I think TPA should be revoked unless the original reason it was revoked is no longer valid. I don't think the new comment forms an independent reason to revoke. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 20:18, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• I think there are serious questions about the legitimacy of the original TPA revocation, and we should not revert back to that status quo until those questions have been satisfactorily addressed. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 21:45, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Oooh, "serious questions"! Well, well, well, we must be really concerned about that! So very serious that months passed with nobody raising them. Maybe it's the Deep State.

I think that it's shameful that no admin has acted on a very simple request that I made. Instead this sub-thread has just been festering here. And, it is simple. There was a long-standing community ban with talk page access revoked. The reason for restoring talk page access has passed. In the interim, whether it was venting or not, an IBAN was violated (and there were plenty of ways to vent without going straight to making it about me). Remove talk page access, close this thread, and if anyone really has additional issues to raise, raise a new complaint. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:14, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Have you asked the admin who restored TPA to revoke it? Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:27, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

If you're only interested in being obnoxious, you'll find plenty of opportunities for that on Reddit or YouTube. I don't know why you expect our admins to jump at the sound of your voice, but AN wasn't meant to be a repository for the demands of ostensibly retired editors. The reasons for the original revocation remain puzzling, and such a simple observation shouldn't prompt you to throw a mini temper tantrum. JzG asked Sashi to provide links to sources, Sashi provided the links, and then JzG removed his initial comment and revoked TPA on the grounds that Sashi was proxying. That was the reason for the revocation, and it seems highly dubious to me. We shouldn't reinstate it just because you asked semi-nicely. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 01:58, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Just noticed this subsection and request (been real busy elsewhere on the wiki, sorry), and upon having looked into the talk page revocation, what Lepricavark just said above reflects my own view 100 percent. Couldn't have said it better myself. I'm talking about the second half that starts with "JzG" — not the first ("obnoxious") half, whose tone and tenor I disapprove of. Also noting, of course, that I am very much recused from using any admin tools on Sashi (for or against) for the rest of my natural days. El_C 02:35, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

You're quite right. I should've known better than to respond in kind to Trypto's provocation, and so I've struck the offending portion of my comment.LEPRICAVARK (talk) 03:25, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

• I granted talk page access for the purpose of the appeal which has now concluded, and so I have restored the previous block settings. If the original TPA revocation was improper, then we need to come to a consensus on that, but we shouldn't set a precedent that editors can get talk page access restored just by filing an appeal. — Wug·a·po·des​ 05:33, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• We should extend the indefinite block. Mr Ernie (talk) 08:17, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

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User:BackEing webhost-ing

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

I wasn't sure where to bring this up, but besides the test edits to articles like iOS 14, this user has about 50 pages dedicated as an apparent webhost. Would the pages be evaluated one at a time or in bulk? Cards84664 03:05, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Red box on top would be good starting point. Their talk page would have been even better starting point given they are a new editor and may be unaware of WP:Webhost(edit-really, not a shortcut?). Not to say it's not a problem but processes need to be followed. Slywriter (talk) 03:16, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

@Slywriter:, I think you wanted WP:NOTWEBHOST. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:24, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I went through and cleaned up most of the pages, though I left a few that could possibly be encyclopedic. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:11, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. Cards84664 16:58, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

User: Naiman2020

Naiman2020 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This user is continually berating me and making harmful accusations about me as well as attacking my assumed religion through anti-semitism on the One Night In Miami page. I believe this editor is also editing anonymously pretending to be two seperate editors. (Samurai Kung fu Cowboy) (talk) 16:32, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Yea as was previously discussed on the talk page for One Night in Miami I am not user Naiman 2020. --2601:140:8B80:5F50:9C2:6FA5:79D8:BD29 (talk) 16:53, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Dozens of new accounts copyediting the same pages

Over the last week or so, there has been a lot of new accounts making copyedits to the same articles: Cham–Vietnamese War (982), Ibrahim Khaleel Inuwa, Qaransoor Party, Carmel Convent School, Pair Go, Majlis Amanah Rakyat, and several more. I had listed some at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/NhatMinh1701#More sockpuppets, but it quickly became evident that these are likely unrelated to that SPI.

Any idea what's going on? Does this fit in with a known LTA case or something else? — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:14, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

All of the listed articles are, or were, tagged for copy-editing. Articles with that maintenance tag show up at the Wikipedia:Community portal, which is shown to new users after they sign up (at least, I faintly recall that being the case when I was new). As a result these articles tend to attract a large volume of newbie edits, some of which are good, some of which are misguided, and some of which are blatant vandalism or spam. For example, you can see all the edits pouring in after someone put a copyedit tag on this article. I generally avoid using that tag unless an article is nearly unreadable because it often results in nearly as many bad edits as good ones. I don't know anything about that SPI case, but I would bet that most of these accounts are unrelated newbies. Spicy (talk) 23:30, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the explanation! I didn't realize that the copyedit tag pools new editors together so quickly like that. — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:49, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Probable STOCKs moment

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Hi all, I'm hoping someone can help me out. I went to nominate Category:International Digital Organization for Scientific Information academic journals for CSD deletion on G8, the category has only redirects to the category. I quickly realised that I hadn't nominated, but deleted the page (by CSD). I wasn't so worried until I saw a similar discussion on the topic that was kept so went to revert the action. I thought the page had around 20-30 redirects... It has well over 250. I've reverted the deletion of the main page, but would rather not be sat here for the rest of the year undeleting each individual redirect!

Is there an action (potentially interface admin task) that allows for multiple pages to be undeleted? I can't find such an option in my deletion log or any info on this anywhere. Apologies for any issues concerned. If there isn't a speedy way to do this, I'll do these all manually, but it might take me a little while. Thanks for any help you can be. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:27, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

This smells of bullcrap (not LV's deletion, but the existence of the cat). If it isn't notable enough for an article, we shouldn't use a self-referential category page to avoid AFD. power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:32, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

FWIW I don't disagree that there is a question to be asked, but that location would be at MfD. I'm super worried about the amount of redirects the page had - so sorry! Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:36, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm suggesting it's better to have the discussion first and only clean this up if necessary (possibly retargeting links, and possibly via the same bot that created the pages). Unless someone beats me to it, I'll probably nominate the page for MFD, or create an article on the topic and procedurally self-AFD it. power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:40, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

@Power~enwiki: Keep in mind that there are more of such categories, listed at the above-linked discussion. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 23:45, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

These redirects should be restored, per CFD consensus. This category is part of a defence system against predatory citations. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:24, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I know it's offtopic to the technical question of how to restore these, but I feel these MUST be re-targeted. I find the current situation akin to Escher's Drawing Hands and completely unacceptable. A category that exists solely to contain redirects to that category, because the topic is non-notable. HUMBUG! If these pages about something non-notable must exist "because they are useful to the project", it should redirect to the Wikipedia namespace. (there's a secondary issue of "how do we know these are predatory if there aren't any reliable sources about the publisher", but I'll save that for another page) power~enwiki (π, ν) 08:16, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I'll also take a moment to point out that [95] and [96] will find a bunch of articles with IDOSI-published citations, which should in all likelihood be removed/purged/replaced with {{cn}} tags. WP:UPSD will also make it easier to find them when editing the articles. The count is going down (about 25 left, down from 150+ a few months back). Any help you can give to get those out of Wikipedia would be great. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:33, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Happy to lend out a hand if you have any projects for cleaning up tags like this, but first I'd just want to get these back into place. If there is a technical way of undeleting several pages at a time, let me know, or I'll start doing them all manually later today. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:22, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Doesn't Twinkle have some sort of mass-delete/undelete tool per this? I don't 100% know how it works, but maybe open up your log at 500, copy and paste all the redirect deletions into a text editor or regex101.com, do a replacement to filter out the rest of the log entry so you're just left with the page names, turn them into wikilinks and paste them into your sandbox. Then run the batch undelete. Probably would take about a minute, if it works like how I think it does. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:44, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

- Thank you for this, I could kiss you (of course, I won't... Social distancing). I'll give this a go later. I was trying to do this outside of userspace, which is why I got confused. Thanks! If there is a discussion to be had - I suggest this is done and these categories marked to avoid issues like this. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:14, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, the {{Old CfD}} template should have been placed on the talk pages of all the categories, not one or so. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 11:18, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: here: User:ProcrastinatingReader/deletelist :) -- you can maybe run the batch undelete on that page (I don't know what format Twinkle accepts, hopefully that works). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:39, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for this. I have done this. I do think there needs to be a further discussion on how these should be treated (should these be deleted/hidden/reformatted to be done throigh wikidata etc.) but thanks for getting me out of a hole. Headbomb if I can help with some gnoming tasks to get the {{cn}} tags replaced let me know what I need to do. :). Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:31, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

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Preparing for the U.S. inauguration

Just a note to say, I hope some admin or admins (not me) are preparing to handle the articles Donald Trump, Melania Trump, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Inauguration Day, January 20. What always happens that day is that people start changing the articles from present tense to past, and from current title to new title, hours before the transition actually happens at noon eastern time. And then there is edit warring, reverting the changes, doing them again, all in good faith. So it has usually been necessary to 1) full-protect the article that day and 2) have some admin ready to slap in a pre-prepared updated version the moment the new president says "so help me God". I know this may seem trivial, but changing the article at the right moment and not before seems to be a huge deal here. Has there been discussion about this? Have the roles (4 of them) been volunteered for/assigned? We should coordinate beforehand, so that one and only one person at each article does the change. There's probably a better place than this board to work it out. I'm not asking to know the details. I just wanted to make sure someone is on it. -- MelanieN (talk) 23:45, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't know, MelanieN... I'm a bit wary of preemptive full protection. While I get the imperative behind being pragmatic about it, still, except for Melania's (and, as of now, also Jill Biden's) semi, all the other ones are already WP:ECP'd. Would that not be enough do you think to temper matters? Quick addendum: ah, I see that Mike Pence is semi'd, as well. El_C 01:07, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Of course you are right about pre-emptive protection. But it may turn out to be needed, not pre-emptively but because of chaos at the article. I'm just recalling the presidential pages four years ago, which were a madhouse. People changing, people reverting, edit conflicting - and then when the moment arrived someone (I don't know who) was ready on the instant to slap in a completely revised article. I thought that must be the system, that somebody was ready - because it would take many minutes to make all the changes after the moment arrives. -- MelanieN (talk) 01:39, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I have no problem locking down articles as tight as the checkpoints in Washington DC, if necessary. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:46, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I would advise against drawing parallels with rhetoric of that nature. No one will get killed or injured here on Wikipedia, regardless of anything. My point is that tons of editors will be watching those pages and ECP is a fairly stable proposition. Taking action, in part, as a sort of political statement is ill-advised, I challenge. Perhaps there will be some instability, but that should be weighed against keeping those pages open to established (EC) editors, even and perhaps especially during critical times... El_C 02:00, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Talk:President_of_the_United_States#Adding_time_expression_to_page This talk page discussion and the code suggested could be useful. Slywriter (talk) 02:20, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Interesting idea. As I understand it, that was intended to change the names on the "president of the United States" page. The cases I am talking about are where well meaning, Extended Confirmed editors start changing "president elect" to "president", and "president" to "former president", before the magic moment when the transition occurs - and other well meaning EC editors revert them. We can wait and see what happens, but we may find full protection to become necessary. I'm just saying we should be ready for the possibility. And that, whether or not it gets full protected, somebody should be ready with a fully-updated version of the article to paste in at the proper moment. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:24, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

P.S. For that purpose, I am tempted to go to the talk page of each of the four relevant articles and ask for a volunteer to prepare a page that has all the relevant updates made, and to paste it in at exactly 12 noon eastern time. Anyone here have a problem with that, or think I shouldn't do it? -- MelanieN (talk) 16:43, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I do not think this is a good idea. Because the articles still keep getting modified, before and after 12 noon ECT, the two copies need to be synchronized in real time, and I do not think this is realistically possible.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:32, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Then how do you deal with the need to make at least several minutes worth of important changes to the article at a given moment in time? Let a hundred people all try to do it at once and get in each other's way so that nothing happens? -- MelanieN (talk) 17:54, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

This happens every time we have some important changes in real life. I agree that if incorrect edits start at midnight, we will have to full-protect the articles. Then we do not need to have any other version, just make a replacement at noon. If there is no need to protect, well, there will be chaos for five minutes, no problem. Look at any article on say Nobel Prize winner in literature to see how this chaos gets resolved.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:04, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I think it's ok if the articles are changed earlier or later than the actual inauguration. Wikipedia doesn't need to be up-to-the-second accurate. It's also ok if these articles are unstable for a day due to the inauguration. They're pretty unstable every day, anyway. Please don't preemptively full protect, and please nobody full protect at the first sign of trouble or be quick on the trigger. Full protection is a last resort. Editing, and editing disagreements, are a normal part of the process. Levivich ^harass/_hound 16:50, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I would rather they be edited later than the inauguration instead of pre-emptively, because then we risk people creating a precedent of pre-emptive editing project wide. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 17:56, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

True: "later" would be policy-compliant, "earlier" would actually violate WP:NOTCRYSTALBALL. Levivich ^harass/_hound 18:06, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

We can at least try to maintain a semblance of being an encyclopaedia "that anyone [with ECP] can edit". ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:58, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, many IPs or drive-by editors will be changing the article at the stroke of mid-night Jan 20, instead of waiting another 12 hours. GoodDay (talk) 17:08, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

No they won't. The articles are all EC protected. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:17, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I presume they were being sarcastic. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 17:57, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

• Apologies to the contrary views above, but I would strongly support moving quickly to fully protect these articles through the inauguration at the first sign of trouble. Aside from the actual transition of power, we are not expecting any substantial biographical changes to these article subjects, and there is no doubt that numerous admins will be watching them and able to field requested edits on the talk pages. Left unprotected, the potential for mischief is high. BD2412 T 17:54, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  I agree with fully protecting them at the first sign of trouble; I just disagree with preemptive full protection.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:05, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  What about poor Mike Pence? What is he, chopped liver? On a more serious note, I oppose pre-emptive protection but support prompt full protection if disruption occurs. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:26, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  Surely he'll be ex-chopped liver on Wednesday. But yes, I agree. Leave the articles as they are, and then protect only if there's disruption. Then unprotect when the inaugurating is done and leave people to update them. There's no need to have a prepared version ready for the crack of noon - if anyone gets frustrated by edit conflicts, it's their own fault for trying to be a news reporter. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:04, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  • Surely, considering recent events, using butchered meat metaphors to describe Pence isn't wise. 174.254.192.246 (talk) 20:28, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

    IP editor, please see Chopped liver as an expression. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:54, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

• I take it, the expected contretemps is that at 0:00 UTC in the Pacific Ocean someone will go into tense changing and then there will be reversion, and so-on. Seems likely, but other than locking the articles as around 23:59.59, is there anything else proposed? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:39, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• I applaud MelanieN's attempt to organize this to avoid chaos. I understand the desire for preemptive full protection but, given existing protection levels, I'd be more in favor of simply providing a heads up that full protection will be enacted as soon as it is needed. I agree with Ymblanter's observation that having a new version of a page ready to go as logistical problems as they may have been legitimate edits within the last few seconds before the changeover. I hope someone will volunteer to help and to have the necessary edits available at the time they become appropriate, however I'm so disgusted with politics recently I'm not stepping up to volunteer.--S Philbrick(Talk) 21:32, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Locke'm down until Noon EST, 20 January 2021. GoodDay (talk) 21:54, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

You're assuming that the swearing-in will go as planned. I dearly hope that is the case, but in light of recent events -- and not so recent trends throughout the United States -- I won't be placing any bets on it. There are dark forces at work which very, very strongly do not want it to happen. I'm reminded of the line from The Godfather Part II "If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it's that you can kill anyone." I don't think that is going to happen, but there are many, many things that could. It's why I won't rest easy until Biden and Harris are sworn in, and even then... Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:15, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

---

Look folks, I hate to be that person (wait, do I?), but just because Wikipedia is hosted in the United States and most of its contributors are American, does not mean we ought to stray from policy here. WP:EMERGENCY is for emergency and that's it. Wikipedia is meant to be a scholarly pursuit. Yes, obeying US law is a given on the project (including WP:BLP), but we are not obliged (as a service to the US State or to Americans or even to our overall global readership) to be perfectly in-the-present in so far as junctures (including and perhaps especially pivotal ones) in American politics are concerned.

Our mission is WP:ENC and it is WP:ANYONE, even if we stretch the latter's definition by limiting it to the highest meaningful set of WP:XC. Whatever delays or even instability, we're probably talking about a minute or two, at most. We can absorb something whacky happening for that duration. If there is an embarrassment of some sort, sure, that would be unfortunate, but it would also go on to highlight the open nature of the project, which is something to be proud, but also vigilant, of.

So, in so far as the encyclopedia is concerned, whatever will be, will be. We will deal with it in due course. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Not really much else to do, or say. And to that: I'm sorry to say (truly), because I know it isn't intentional, but seeking anything beyond that, does come across as a bit of posturing (again, yes, I realize unwittingly so).</soap> El_C 16:39, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree with this posture (or posturing). Slap a scary "ongoing event, article unstable" atop the relevant articles if you want, and the editorial process will (or must) do the rest. Sandstein 18:49, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Haha! Burn! El_C 19:13, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

This is a good idea in any case, I added {{ongoing event}} to the articles on Trum, Pence, Biden, and Harris. I hope this is not going to generate an edit-warring so that the articles will have to be full-protected now.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:29, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

...And they have all been removed by Jack Upland--Ymblanter (talk) 08:29, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Honestly, Ymblanter, Jack Upland has a valid point. What are we telling our readership when we say initial news reports may be unreliable? This is not some town in, say, Syria. This is the US Capitol, with mighty military security and ample press corps members on-site. We have no reason to infer some sort of impending of instability that would affect those BLPs. All signs are, in fact, to the contrary — yes, even though there are some known-unknowns and maybe even unknown-unknowns. My assessment is that, at present, major instability appears unlikely. So, for us to preempt by declaring it to be otherwise so, that's a mistake, I think. El_C 18:02, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Gah, I guess it's moot now, seeing as it just happened minutes ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/us/politics/biden-president.html El_C 18:05, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

This is the instability of an article. For example, today someone added information that Pence is not a vice president anymore, and the article had this false information for two hours. Anyway, now it is indeed moot.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:31, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Ymblanter, right, as I note above, it is indeed moot now, so I don't want to belabour the point, but my point was about what we are telling the reader when they face a tag which, again, declares that initial news reports may be unreliable, when there was a faint chance of that. Anyway, glad we got over this hurdle without major problems. El_C 19:02, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

WP:RFPP backlog

There is a huge backlog of 40+ requests. Help requested. Thank you. — Amkgp 💬 18:58, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

We are fine there for the time being, thanks everyone who helped clearing the backlog.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:43, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

WP:UAA backlog

There's a backlog of nearly 40 on the page. Letting y'all know. Thank you ~Gwennie🐈｟💬 📋｠ 06:26, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Hardcore pornography in PornHub article

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I was looking up information on PornHub to try to understand the timing of the internet pornography phenomenon.

I knew better than to search on Google, so I looked up their Wikipedia article. It turns out that the first image on their article is the front page of their website which is a series of hardcore pornographic images. The images are not blurred either.

Many people may have reasons to look up information on PornHub, parents, people struggling with pornography addiction, and possibly even children for a school project. None of them should be subjected to hardcore pornographic images (especially children) when looking up such images.

Is there a way to get this removed from the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:584:100:DD60:573:92F9:8D58:3FFC (talk) 11:05, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

This is more suited for the article talk page as it doesn't specifically require an administrator. However, Wikipedia is not censored for any reason. It is reasonable that an image of the front page of a website would be visible on an article about that website. There are options both here on Wikipedia and on your personal device to suppress the display of images one might find objectionable. 331dot (talk) 11:10, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

This is referring to the screenshot, which does indeed contain some rather small images of porn. I'll leave it to others to decide whether this is OK.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:13, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

The screenshot image, in the infobox, is hidden by default. To see it, you have to deliberately request "[show]"? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:32, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Not on mobile devices. Minerva doesn’t support collapsing, so it’s expanded by default. You can verify at en.m.Wikipedia.org. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:55, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. One wonder if the editor(s) who added the image knew that. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:59, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

It's also only a representative sample, because it consists of a selection of thumbnails of videos that change on a regular basis.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:35, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

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Find/replace of names across various non-live pages

Just wanted a second adminly opinion about this IP range, which appears to be doing a find/replace on various names. While it appears like it's motivated by good intentions, so that links point to the correct target article rather than redirects, the changes are being made in odd places, like sandboxes, user warnings, discussion archives. And, talk page comments are being refactored, in some cases, without there being any benefit to linking.

What's the wise approach here? Leave it alone? Block the range? Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:18, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Warn the user about WP:NOTBROKEN. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.132.240.72 (talk) 21:29, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate the chip-in, however this is an IP-hopper, which makes warnings a bit difficult, as we would have to first find their next batch of edits, do so at the very same time they're making the changes, and then hope they don't hop to a different IP after the warning is left. A block, at least, would get their attention. Also, per that guideline, "Spelling errors and other mistakes should be corrected" and that's presumably what they're trying to fix. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 01:27, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

WP:Username policy and QAnon

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• WP:Username policy

Would you consider a QAnon-based username to be a violation of username policy? It could be considered "disruptive or offensive". Specifically thinking about one I just saw based on the "WWG1WGA" hashtag. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:20, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't consider it disruptive or offensive, nor any other violation, unless the username also contained some of the more offensive parts of the conspiracy theory. That isn't to say I'd rate their long term prospects very highly. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:34, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I would regard it as a violation. SarahSV ^(talk) 18:48, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Definitely a violation, IMO. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:25, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Ah! Not sure which got posted first, but I blocked WWG1WWA2021 based on the username and raised the issue of the block over at WP:ANI, specifically Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Block_review_-_qanon_username. Sorry, the discussion is in two places. I have no problem if someone wishes to close the WP:ANI discussion in favour of this one. --Yamla (talk) 19:29, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Yamla, ha no worries! I posted my question after their first two edits (which seemed to indicate NOTHERE, but I was giving some benefit of the doubt). The contributions following, which I only just now saw, are clear NOTHERE. The AN/I thread you posted is a good way to look at this one singular case, while this thread is about any and all QAnon accounts. I see that there is some support for autoblocking any WWG1WGA-named accounts among these few to chime in, so far. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:47, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

• Clearly a good block per "Usernames that are likely to offend other contributors, making harmonious editing difficult or impossible; e.g. by containing profanities or referencing controversies.". Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:37, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

  Agree, and that's the reason. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:00, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

  Agree, this seems to me to satisfy the or referencing controversies part Asartea ^{Talk | Contribs} 08:02, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

• A QAnon-related username would be provocative and I agree with Beyond My Ken here. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 00:42, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
• Political based usernames are inherently disruptive. Conspiracy-based ones, like lunchtime, doubly so. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 04:00, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
• Exhibit B: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#AnonQuixote GPinkerton (talk) 04:28, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

• I dunno, I think that the name is a little too far from "QAnon" - when I saw it at AE, no connection even occured to me. However, if their edits are QAnon-oriented (I haven't looked), then the combination of disruptive edits and the name would be enough to be blocked, I would think. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:28, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I regard it as a violation, which why I completely purged Special:Contributions/WWG1WWA2021. But, no, I don't regard the AnonQuixote username to be a violation, even if that username does push that particular envelop. Note that they are inches from being topic banned from the 2021 Insurrection and 2nd Impeachment topic areas, so one may draw their own conclusions... El_C 07:53, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes, as I said above this seems to clearly satisfy Usernames that are likely to offend other contributors, making harmonious editing difficult or impossible; e.g. by containing profanities or referencing controversies. (bolding mine) and therefore a violation of the username policy Asartea ^{Talk | Contribs} 08:04, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, as others have said, it falls into the "referencing controversies" criterion. But a note of caution - personally, although I'm vaguely aware of QAnon, it's something I've tried to steer clear of so I wouldn't have realised that "WWG1WGA" was a QAnon reference - on the face of it it's a random string of initials and numbers. So we need to be careful that we don't bite admins who decline such a block - and of course, the more eyes on WP:UAA the better as it's often backlogged anyway. WaggersTALK 10:28, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

  That said, a quick internet search of any reported username should tell us what we need to know! WaggersTALK 10:30, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't use this username on any other site. AnonQuixote (talk) 00:11, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

• Statement My intent with this username was a play on words on Don Quixote, due to my propensity for "tilting at windmills" on issues I feel are important, even if it means getting beat up by the local rustics sometimes, combined with the fact that I'm an anonymous (well, psuedonymous) user. The similarity to QAnon didn't even occur to me.

However, now that it's been brought up, I'm a little concerned that it could be interpreted in that way, leading to unfair bias against me. Is there a way to request it be changed without losing my contribution history, settings, etc.? If so, I request it be changed to the more whimsical User:NachoPanza, to reflect my status as humble helper who loves snacks. AnonQuixote (talk) 00:11, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Changing username for information on how to request a user name change. It is unfortunate that innocently chosen names can run into problems such as yours. - Donald Albury 00:27, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

AnonQuixote, I think your name is different enough that you don't have to change it if you don't want to. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:59, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

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Promotional account

Wackyweasle (talk · contribs) is, by their own admission, a promotional account. They've set up Memorial bracelet to promote their products, and are now trying to get Draft:Post-Combat Related Incident accepted. --Un assiolo (talk) 11:16, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting this. The promotional stuff has been deleted and they've been given a 4im-spam and a COI notice by Deepfriedokra. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 04:17, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Personal attack

VeerAbhinavGurjar personally attacked me and Rajput community [[97]] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pseudo Nihilist (talk • contribs) 13:39, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I assume that it isn't that great, but how am I supposed to tell what it actually says? Is that Hindi? El_C 14:16, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Using Google Translate I got this: "Live in wikipedia while staying in position It is more read and written then come to the table and talk with the facts n figure. You are Phool" RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:25, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Google Translate, ever the poet. That does have a certain lyrical flow to it, I admit. El_C 14:34, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Nevertheless, is it not a requirement on En.Wikipedia that editors must communicate (Samuel L. Jackson notwithstanding) with each other in English? --WaltCip-(talk) 14:57, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

"Must", no, but it sure is helpful for those of us who are trying to intervene in conflicts. Primefac (talk) 15:00, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Actually, "must", yes, although we tend to turn a blind eye to the occasional lapse. ‑ Iridescent 15:14, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I know we're getting into pedantic nitpicking, but that says "should" not "must". Primefac (talk) 15:15, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I can't read Devanagari, but taking a look at GT's romanisation: Keep in your lane when editing Wikipedia. If you think you're so educated, then bring facts and figures to the table when talking. You're the progeny of those **** Mughals. For reasons that I won't list here per WP:BEANS but shouldn't be hard to figure out, I'd recommend the next sentence (with the number) be oversighted.

Translator's note: "keep in your lane" is my best attempt at translating "auqaat mein reh kar"; it's the kind of phrase my boss might tell me should I decide to question a decision of his, for example, and carries a connotation of "you lowly ____". your friendly neighbourhood Desi 16:07, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, missed that part (suppressed). Primefac (talk) 16:09, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Anybody who slings "stay in your lane" at another user (which seems to be happening increasingly often) is engaging in behavior not compatable with a collaborative project IMHO. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:10, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Doesn't the part translated as "You're the progeny of those **** Mughals" qualify this editor as disruptive and worthy of blocking? --Orange Mike | Talk 19:26, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Simon nepali, repeated unsourced editing

Simon nepali (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Repeated unsourced and disruptive editing. Gave him a warning but he vowed to continue and also seems to be a bigot. Unsourced and/or targeted misinformation in

• Province No. 1
• Bagmati Province
• Gandaki Province
• Lumbini Province

SimulationWig (talk) 16:28, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

• Simon nepali, you are this close to an immediate indefinite block for disruptive editing, including the comments on your talk page. Drmies (talk) 16:34, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I think Simon nepali should be banned. The user is still continuing to vanadalize the pages mentioned above. SimulationWig (talk) 03:07, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Canyon dhb Soreen Page Name Change

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Hello,

Please can someone update the following page name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canyon_DHB_p/b_Soreen

The new page name needs to read: 'Canyon dhb SunGod'.

I am not an admin of this page and therefore cannot update this.

Please can this be done asap, the name of the team changed as of 1st Jan 2021.

Thanks, Chloe — Preceding unsigned comment added by CNGallagher (talk • contribs) 18:02, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

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Motion: American politics 2 (1992 cutoff) enacted

A motion regarding the American politics 2 case has been enacted after it reached majority support following a Request for Amendment. The motion is as follows:

Remedy 1.2 of the American politics 2 case ("Discretionary sanctions (1932 cutoff)") is retitled "Discretionary sanctions (1992 cutoff)" and amended by replacing the words "post-1932 politics of the United States" with "post-1992 politics of the United States". Any sanctions or other restrictions imposed under the discretionary sanctions authorization to date shall remain in force unaffected.

For the Arbitration Committee, Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 22:33, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Motion: American politics 2 (1992 cutoff) enacted

Block this vandal

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This user r s g t b is constantly vandalising and removing large amount of sourced info from hindi wikipedia pages pls block him to stop further disruption

[[98]] [[99]] [[100]] [[101]] [[102]]

All the case of him vandalising pages — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pseudo Nihilist (talk • contribs) 14:17, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

• We can't do anything on hi.wikipedia. You will have to ask the administrators there (and you have). --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 14:22, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

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Time-sensitive close needed for Donald Trump

A little over a month ago, Mandruss far-sightedly opened a discussion at Talk:Donald Trump seeking to pre-write the first paragraph we should use for the page after he leaves office. I put it at ANRFC a week ago, but it still has not been closed. It's now less than an hour and a half until the inauguration, which is cutting things more than a little close. Could someone uninvolved please tie it up?

More generally, we should expect changes at a bunch of other related pages, most of which don't have as thorough planning as was attempted at Trump's page, so assistance maintaining order from anyone inclined to help out would likely be appreciated. Hopefully this transition goes smoothly. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:44, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

@Sdkb: there is no deadline for updating content, we are an encyclopedia, not the news. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:57, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Xaosflux, I have to disagree with portions of that essay and certainly with its applicability to this sort of situation. Yes, we are not news, but for content as visible as the lead paragraph of Donald Trump, the deadlines are immediate. Failing to properly wrap up the prewriting process would likely lead to more disruption to the page than necessary, which is a tangible harm when it's getting hundreds or thousands of views per minute. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:07, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

@Sdkb: this looks like a bunch of editorial squabbling - if something is inaccurate and no one can agree on new text - just remove the inaccurate text editorially. Without getting deep in to that big discussion - it should be very uncontroversial to change is the 45th and current president of the United States. to served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 - while everything else is being sorted out. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:17, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Xaosflux, no, that would be controversial. There was discussion about questions such as whether to use "was" or "served as" as the default fallback. The sentiment seems to lean toward using "was" to my reading, but I was a participant, so I shouldn't be making that judgement call. That's the roll of a closer, which is why I'm asking for one. It's not as simple as just asserting an easy answer and ignoring all the efforts of participants to work out a consensus ("editorial squabbling"). You don't have to be the one to make the close, but it'd be very nice if someone did. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:30, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

I left a note on the page, an editor made a change already and it made the article "better" by removing the "is" - discussion for further improvements should certainly continue on that article talk. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:03, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

• Update: And, as predicted, the situation there is now a complete mess. Some of us are trying to figure out what's closest to the status quo, plenty of others are unable to restrain themselves from debating the content questions (someone needs to write an essay along the lines of "figure out the process before you engage in the debate"^{Update: Written. 02:44, 21 January 2021 (UTC)}), and the live page is misaligned with the prevailing consensus/option closest to the status quo but the 1RR is preventing the necessary reverts. Could an adminexperienced editor please come in with less of a light touch and set things on a productive path? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:00, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

• Just saying...why is an admin needed to settle a content dispute? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:27, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

  The Bushranger, fair point. I used "admin" because of the name of this noticeboard, and because this is an instance in which we need mopping (i.e. moderation and assessment of consensus, as opposed to participation in the discussion itself), but any experienced editor could take on that role. I'll strike the word admin in my comment above, but the main point remains exactly the same. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:25, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

@Sdkb: notably, dragging an "admin" in is likely to just get you a full protection and referred back to the talk page - I've been trying to avoid that hoping that ECP editors can collaborate better. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:19, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: All that needed to happen was for someone to assess the discussion and formalize the "no consensus, so default to interim proposal 2 as the closest to the status quo" result, which I think would have been pretty apparent to any experienced closer. That would have settled things and was what I was asking for above, but it didn't happen, which led to the mess we ended up with. It's mostly settled now, and I don't see a need for full protection, but it didn't need to be this complicated. (To note a bit of context, Mandruss, who often helps keep that talk page under control, is currently on a wikibreak, which creates a bit of a void.) {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:43, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Apparently I spoke too soon. The sunk costs are mounting (there are at least four talk forks now), and it seems like they'll just keep mounting until someone steps up and makes the close. This mess was predictable and avoidable—chiding editors to stop squabbling and collaborate better is not a substitute for actually making closes so that we have a shared and enforceable understanding of what the status quo is. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 13:44, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

• I don't think a "time-sensitive close" for Donald Trump is needed immediately, since he seems to have taken care of that himself for the time being. We might need one in the future, though. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:50, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Username policy question

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

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What's the current consensus about people using character names for their username? For instance, User:Lieutenant commander Spock? As far as I know, only a very limited number of people have played this character, would this then violate the proscription against usernames which impersonate other people? Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:23, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

User notified. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:25, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

How is this different from SarekOfVulcan (ha!) or Beeblebrox? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 18:39, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Very good question (although I wasn't aware that "Beeblebrox" was a character name). I assume, then, considering the very long tenure of these editors, that character names are OK? Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:49, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Even if there were WP:IMPERSONATE concerns, Beeblebrox is no longer President of the Galaxy, and even if he were, the President of the Galaxy holds no real power. So I think we're in the clear. --WaltCip-(talk) 19:02, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

"not to hold power but to distract attention away from it!" GPinkerton (talk) 19:05, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Haha! (@WaltCip and GPinkerton:) El_C 19:16, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Ah, geez, of course! It's been so long since I've read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I completely forgot! What a doofus am I. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:41, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

From what I can tell there's no pushback against using character names. I wouldn't bat an eye towards a user that identifies themselves as AnakinSkywalker (heck, I came across a user who used a derivative of a character from an anime series). The most compelling argument I can think of is that they're impersonating the character, which isn't much in itself, as what harm's being done if people mistakenly assume the actual Darth Vader is editing the article about petunias? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 18:55, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

If they implied they were the actor of the character, then I'd raise an eyebrow in the direction of WP:U (and WP:BLP), but as claiming you're a fictional character can only be a fiction any sanctions would, themselves, be works of fiction. translation for those less in need of a burger right now: it's fine - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 19:44, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

What Beyond My Ken. You didn't know that we had an editor with two heads and three arms :-) I'm thinking of having a pan galactic gargle blaster to celebrate today's events later tonight. Cheers. MarnetteD|Talk 19:01, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Hoist one for me too, please. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:42, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh no, not again... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 19:44, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Let's not forget Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington of Harry Potter fame. Here's a fun game - how many admins' usernames can you put into square brackets and get a hit? Gadfium takes me to Feersum Endjinn, and I'm pretty confident that Gamaliel is not the real Gamaliel. I think the policy is there to prevent people impersonating folk that they could plausibly be - I don't see any reason to think it would apply to fictional or historical characters. GirthSummit _(blether) 19:58, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

... and admins Lady of Shalott and Carcharoth. There are certainly examples for both categories which aren't appropriate, but then they will be violating username policy for other reasons. ---Sluzzelin talk 20:30, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Do DABs count? If so, even The Bushranger is one. Pahunkat (talk) 20:37, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

I am Sheriff Woody but don't tell Buzz... Woody (talk) 20:39, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Not Woody Woodpecker? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 20:43, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

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I just want to add that I'm sorry I missed this amusing discussion. Excellent close though. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:40, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Late to the party, too. I, too, would be disappointed if I had to change my name after 14 years. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 07:45, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Ditto, but mine isn't as obvious as it's a (fairly simple) anagram of the name. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 17:29, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

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Talk page editnotice/MediaWiki page edit request

I cannot properly create my talk page editnotice with four tildes with the nowiki markup, it automatically gets converted, what should I do? 54nd60x (talk) 05:26, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I also have a MediaWiki page that I want to request to edit, should Is nnounce on Talk page or here? When I edited it said talk pages in MediaWiki talk Namespace are not watched by many users. 54nd60x (talk) 05:43, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The first question involves a technical issue and would be better at WP:VPT. However you could try <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>. For the second question, it would be better to link to the page here. By the way, your signature appears to be 296 characters, not including the time/date. That exceeds WP:SIGLEN. Johnuniq (talk) 06:48, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: Resolved my SIGLEN. Now for the MediaWiki edit request, please import my changes from my sandbox.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 54nd60x (talk • contribs) 07:22, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Redoing ping to Johnuniq. Graham87 07:25, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

That relates to MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-forbidden-edit. Please make an edit request at its talk page because it appears to be active and that is where people familiar with the page will expect it. You might post here if there has been no reply for a week. It would also be desirable to briefly explain the difference and why it would help (do that there, not here). Johnuniq (talk) 08:26, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

User:President of Dabo and User:Republic state of dabo

• Republic state of dabo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• President of Dabo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• IndonesiaAltWar (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• ArmyOfDabo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Can someone please take a look at these two users? I removed user talk from one of them and placed a note about what user talk pages are for, then a day later, I noticed the other user. This may be a case of socking, or at the very least two kids having fun, and using WP as their forum. I do not have the time today to delve in to this. Also may need a Checkuser here. Thanks. -- Alexf^(talk) 09:49, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Also User:ArmyOfDabo, User:IndonesiaAltWar. There's a handful (as in, one hand's fingers worth) of possibly-productive edits amongst this group, but there are others that are outright vandalism [103] and it's blatantly obvious their all-but-sole purpose is to roleplay something they made up one day, including editing acutal pages to reflect it. I'm also 90% sure this is all one person using multiple accounts, and between all of this I'm blocking the lot of them. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 17:18, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

True-scientific accuracy on the Third Planet from the Sun

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Please, correct on Wikipedia: BCE/CE instead of BC/AD. We have to support CosmoTerraReason, not illusion (religious or other). Finite Cosmos, finite TerraFamilyShip, finite truths, needing finite protection. Stop damaging lies! CosmoTerraSophy, still some time to learn it.Iohana4 (talk) 12:25, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Per MOS:ERA, either system is appropriate and we should not change the convention already present in an article. Username6892 12:47, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

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

Flyer22 and WanderingWanda case dismissed

The Committee has received word that Flyer22 Frozen (talk · contribs) has passed away. Accordingly, the currently open case is dismissed. We would like to express our heartfelt condolences to the family of Flyer22.

Passed 9 to 0 on 17:35, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

For the Arbitration Committee, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 19:36, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Flyer22 and WanderingWanda case dismissed