User talk:EdJohnston

2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election

• Alluburam (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• AN3 case about Alluburam from last March

Despite your warning, User:Alluburam is reverting our users edits example: 2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election , I am so tired of reverting again his several users have been affected by him. Kindly please take necessary actions. regards Nahtrav (talk)

The page has now been fully protected for a week by another admin. If you see continuing problems consider opening up a new report at WP:AN3. EdJohnston (talk) 22:08, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

He is continuing his reverting in the 2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election page you can see from the page's edit history, the whole article has been transformed into Alluburam's imaginary favourite article. He is just reverting other users edits without any summary or reason. Also Have a glance at his talk page and see several users compaining and opposing him for their content deletion.His actions may led to discouragement of Experienced wikipedia users which is nothing but hunting down of Wikipedia's Policies. Please consider this problem as soon as possible Nahtrav (talk) And also Why I am reporting to you is I already have reported him in edit warring WP:AN3, but because of unknowing the way in filling up the details there, no action has been taken, So I request you to help me in reporting this issue --Nahtrav (talk) 10:24, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

IPs are at it again

• Battle of Kosovo (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Greetings and salutations!

• 46.217.31.208 and 46.217.31.163, likely one person from the vicinity of Tetovo, Northern Macedonia. From what I can tell, they have some experience adding citations. He/she/they are using WP: REFBOMB in an effort to give WP: UNDUE weight and notability to a minority view and promote it, while staying away from the talk pages. I would like to bring them to the talk page if I can.

I apologize in advance if I failed to bring sufficient information, I am still quite green at Wikipedia. If you need anything, please contact me.

Thank you.

LjaljaMM18 (talk) 17:30, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

The page is now semiprotected indefinitely by another admin under the Arbcom sanctions. I would have done the same thing. EdJohnston (talk) 14:45, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Technical request

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

Dear EdJohnston, I am writing to you because of a small technical request. In January 2018, my userpage has been vandalized with a small series of racially-charged edits (containing insults in my native language targeted at the content of my userpage), that are still viewable in the page's history. I want to request these revisions to be made un-openable (or whatever the technical term is for "deleting" those versions). These are the four versions: 1 2 3 4. Number 3 is the one with a highly offensive verbal attack that is my main issue. I realize that this is a minor problem, but let me know if executing this is viable. Regards.--Concus Cretus (talk) 23:16, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello Concus. I have deleted four revisions from your user page (edits made in Jan 2018 by User:Born.in.cssr) per your request. Hope this is what you needed. EdJohnston (talk) 13:25, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

That's it, thank you! --Concus Cretus (talk) 08:58, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Alluburam

• 2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hi EdJohnston. I saw Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Alluburam and was in the process of posting something there when it was closed. It's clear that Alluburam and Alluburam 2 are the same editor. I don't believe there's a need for two accounts based upon what's written in WP:MULTIPLE, and the fact that Alluburam 2 is being used to continue the disputes taking place at articles with edits like this and this is disconcerting. The issue, however, goes well beyond the claim of WP:SOCK and involves more editors than Alluburam. There's been edit warring going on at 2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election quite sometime now between Alluburam and other editors, and none of those involved seem to be willing to try and sort this out on the article's talk page. Alluburam has posted on the talk page before; he knows it's there, but has decided not to use it in this case. There's also nothing on 2022 talk page (or at Talk:List of current members of the Rajya Sabha as a matter of fact) from Dev Adhi; so, they're not trying to discuss. The IPs that show up might not know about the talk pages or may know and just don't care. Basically, all involved seem to have decided that edit warring is the way to go here and that's going to likely continue until an administrator steps in and takes action. If you look at User talk:Alluburam and Talk:2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election, you'll see that other editors have been expressing concerns about Alluburam's overall editing approach for some time now. You yourself previously blocked Alluburam back in April; so, maybe this now is a case of WP:CIR or WP:IDHT. There are also similar concerns (though not as many) being expressed at User talk:Dev Adhi. A discussion about all of these things could be started at WP:ANI or WP:AN3, but I'm wondering if there's another way to try and resolve things. The articles could probably be page protected to stop the IPs, but that won't really stop the registered accounts. Do you think a "last warning" to all involved from an administrator (you perhaps) will have any effect here, or is this ultimately something that's going to need to be resolved at one of the ANs? -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:31, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

My account is Alluburam. Alluburam is created by someone else with my name Alluburam (talk) 02:29, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Don't lie Alluburam 2 is yours you abused me from your second account Dev Adhi (talk) 02:52, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

The SPI case is ongoing and I've posted something there. If problems continue after that SPI gets closed I think one or more edit warring blocks may be needed. In the meantime, do you see a case for semiprotection of 2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election? And, is there a reason to alert User:Alluburam to the sanctions under WP:ARBIPA? The frequent opponent of Alluburam, User:Dev Adhi, has already been notified of those sanctions. I have not yet determined what the dispute on this article is about. Your only post on Talk seems to be about the style of headings, though it looks like you are correct on the style points. If it's actually a long-term fight about page styling I can see how that would be tiresome. EdJohnston (talk) 22:47, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

The article has already been WP:GOLD protected by El C per a RPP made by another editor; so, that should take care of edit warring for the time being. My only edits to the article have been related to formatting, non-free content, etc.; so, I'm not really sure what the disagreement is and why the edit warring has been going on. Most of those involved aren't really leaving edit summaries, and when they do they seem to be more about other editors than anything else. I'm assuming that there is some disagreement over the content and how to display such content, but nobody seems willing to clarify what that is; instead, they just seem to be reverting each other back and forth. I don't know much about ARBIPA, but it should apply to all editors equally in principle, shouldn't it? If that means 1RR is in effect, then many of those involved kicked through that door quite awhile ago. Many have also been pushing 3RR as well. It seems that political articles in general often are contentious, but his might even be more the case here because it appears to be an article about a currently ongoing election. Maybe the thing to do here would be to keep the article fully protected until the election is over and give those involved a chance to work through whatever disagreements they have though article talk page discussion. If they feel some edit needs to be made asap, they can use the talk page to propose it and then an admin can make the change if a consensus has been established to do so. There are a couple of empty sections and empty tables in the current version of the article and maybe it would be better to hide these for the time being until they can be sorted out on the article talk page. Perhaps the members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Punjab and Wikipedia:WikiProject Indian politics could help sort out whatever disagreements there are between these editors? -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:00, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

I see that other admins are attending to the SPI report, the content of which I am unfamiliar, but a quick note about 1RR. WP:ARBIND pages are not subject to 1RR by default. That action has to be authorized (and logged) by an admin, with a mainspace Ds/editnotice attached. I'd also point out that the page in question doesn't even have a Ds/talk notice that informs editors of the DS in question. I'll do that momentarily. HTH! El_C 10:54, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification El C. It looks like the article was directly created in the mainspace back in 2020 by a different editor, who most likely wasn't aware of ARBIND, and most of the main contributers probably also weren't aware as well; perhaps that explains why nobody bothered to ad a DS/edit notice until now. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:14, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Is meteoclub.gr a reliable source?

/* Original title was: Hello, I have a question about a Wikipedia Rule. */

• Weatherextremes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• https://meteoclub.gr

Hello, I have a question regarding Wikipedia:COI based on Wikipedia:Self promotion.

I found an user who's posting his own blog posts from a website (which is a forum/blog, made by himself) as "reliable sources" in many of the articles he edits. I think this is obviously not reliable but not even valid as a source itself. Is this valid on Wikipedia or there is any kind of procedure to be done? I am asking this first before doing any action, because I don't know exactly how to proceed. I saw you on the Active Administrators list, I hope you can answer me if it's possible. Thanks! --TechnicianGB (talk) 14:03, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:SPS a self-created blog would not be reliable unless it was created by person who was an established subject-matter expert. If you can post some examples here I will take a look. EdJohnston (talk) 14:16, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Hello Ed, sure, here you go: 1 2 3 just to put three examples. Now compare the source of these edits to this data coming from the same website website this data here, albeit being a blog entry has an official source and it's just re-posting the official data.

On the other hand, the 3 examples from above, are also user-made blog entries coming from non-official Greek weather data (neither HNMS nor even the National Observatory of Athens) but some kind of self made averages containing few years of data (climate standards are at least of 20 years of data) and if you notice under the "source" tag in these entries, there is just some bold text, as compared to this example (which I have mentioned earlier) where the source is clearly reliable and proved in another website.

Also, it's obviously self-made content as there are two proofs, the user editing these articles on the Wiki has a specifical username in that website (notice how the other blog entries are made by other nicknames) and also this same user uploaded to commons some of the pictures he has posted in these blog entries. The website itself may not be a blog, but it has blog/forum self user-made entries and the proof is right above the start of the page where the entries can be written by any member of the site as in Wikipedia.

In fact, the who we are section of that website (use Google Translate) says it clearly: The website was created on March 24, 2007 through a love for the weather and meteorology. The purpose of the website was and is to unite the amateur meteorologists of Greece in a website, where they will share in real time their thoughts, feelings, reports and weather forecasts / estimates. and this user is not in the administrators list, it's just an user who is able to write entries in the forum/blog section of the website, which is clearly stated in their "who we are" section as an "amateur website to share thoughts and feelings" so that's obviously not a source to take data from, as they're user-written entires, unless if they have official/reliable sources as in the example posted above.

Now, what's the problem with that site and Wikipedia? No problem, as most of the data is backed up by proper sources. But some of them aren't. And the things which I have said above are written by the user weatherextremes in Wikipedia, he has been warned before for the data he uses, as well as some of his edits have been reverted, but he keeps adding it back saying "it's a reliable source" when in fact it's a blog/forum entry written by someone (most likely himself) in that meteoclub.gr website. As well as the Commons uploaded files being the same as in some of the articles is another proof that he's the one writing some of the pages in that site to later use it as a "source" on Wikipedia. I don't have any problem with this user and he adds quite a lot of useful data to Wikipedia, but some of his edits include these self-made blog entries which are clearly unreliable and unsourced. Can you warn him on his talk page? As he doesn't seem to care too much about user warnings. You can see it in his talk page history as he's constantly blanking his own talk page, I have warned him for the same reasons in 2019, other users have done it either in his talk page or in the edit summaries when reverting/deleting his edits but he keeps doing the same again. --TechnicianGB (talk) 02:06, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Hello, first of all meteoclub is not a blog but one of the most respectable websites in Greece in terms of meteorology. Secondly, I have nothing to do with the website nor the website is mine. I do not understand why TechnicianGB suggests that I can not use the website as source. Please contact meteoclub for further information and clarification but I can declare that I do not have ownership of the website. I reference whatever I see relevant for an article and it is an important source for Greek meteorology which helps us add significant knowledge. Weatherextremes (talk) 10:55, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

@Weatherextremes: Hello, like I said above I don't have any problem with you and most of your edits are ok, the problem are few of them which use clearly unreliable made-up data from meteoclub. Meteoclub as it says in it's own "who we are" page, as I shown above, is an "Greek amateur meteorologists site where they can share their thoughts, feelings and personal weather reports" written by the own site's administrator. It's not a blog, but the sources you use are blog entries written by an user named "A-F" (I won't write his name but it's easily to prove) in the "sources" paragraph there is just bold text. Meteoclub is not reliable as it's own user-made data which can be written by any user on there. I have shown already an example of a properly sourced meteoclub entry like the Downtown Athens 1991-2020 data which uses an official Greek source, but the ones for example for Kasos or Lindos, amongst others, are simple short time made-up data with no sources to be proven. And a blog entry with numbers is not reliable by any means for Wikipedia. Also I don't know if you're the one posting them, but you have uploaded some pics in Wikipedia Commons claiming "self-work" and the same pics appear in the meteoclub.gr site added by that user named "A-F" as I have shown with links above as well.

In any case, the official Greek HNMS climate data for the entirety of Greece + islands is shown here: http://climatlas.hnms.gr/sdi/?lang=EN which differs enormously from what you post on meteoclub. Please stop using that site with personal blog entries because it's not a reliable source, unless if it's citing a major reliable source such as the "Downtown Athens 1991-2020" data. If you want to post clearly non-reliable things, use your personal sandbox. Thank you. --TechnicianGB (talk) 13:34, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

I do not post anything on Meteoclub. I am not even a member. I do use though pics, and articles of the website as reference. They are subject matter experts most of the writers over there. Physicists, geologists and so on. In fact one writer is a meteorologist (there are more meteorologists as far as I am aware) who is presenting the weather in a Greek nationwide TV network. So I do not post clearly non-reliable things as you suggest but always reference Meteoclub when I post something. Btw all the Meteoclub articles that I use have proper reference list. I don't know what you are on about honestly Weatherextremes (talk) 15:44, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

@Weatherextremes: Please stop, you're at one revert from breaking the three revert rule in the page Kasos and hardiness zone you keep adding the same as well in the page Hardiness Zone again adding that non-official and unreliable data. Even if we would take it as reliable, Hardiness Zones aren't calculated by only 7 years of data. The source is not HNMS and that specific page at the end where it says "sources" it just shows some bold text. Unlike the Downtown Athens page which shows as a source the website "magazine.noa.gr" and it's substantiated. Do you understand the difference now? Both are user-made blog entries, but one has sources to back up the data and the other one has just plain text which proves nothing. The user @Average Portuguese Joe: has pointed out the same before and you also didn't care about his words but just re-added your deleted edits.

Example, Downtown Athens has a provable source: https://www.meteoclub.gr/themata/egkyklopaideia/to-klima-ths-athinas which is " http://magazine.noa.gr/archives/4446 " but Kasos (among others) has only bold text: https://www.meteoclub.gr/themata/egkyklopaideia/perioxes-me-tous-hpioterous-xeimones-stin-ellada this is not reliable and unprovable, moreso when it's added by registered users in that site, no matter if it's you or another person, that's a simple entry that can be written by anyone just as I'm writing this on Wikipedia. --TechnicianGB (talk) 16:25, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Warning issued in his own talk page Weatherextremes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) he's at one revert from breaking the 3RR in both Hardiness zones and Kasos pages. Instead of trying to reach consensus and to explain his actions here or in the own pages talk page, trying to prove his source is reliable, he justs comes to write the same again without trying to prove his source is reliable.

When as I shown above in the own "meteoclub.gr" site with 2 different articles, one of them has a substantiated source and the other one just has some bold text where it says "sources" and just as said before, in the own TOS of that site it says "it's a meeting place for amateur meteorologists" but he again reverts saying it's official reliable data... I won't revert again as I've done it also twice and I don't want to be breaking the three revert rule. --TechnicianGB (talk) 16:39, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, User:Weatherextremes would be risking a block if they again revert at Hardiness zone as they did here, restoring material about Kasos and hardiness zone 11b to the article which is sourced only to meteoclub.gr. Such a claim would need a link to a WP:Reliable source that actually puts Kasos in zone 11b. The opinion expressed on a group blog such as meteoclub.gr wouldn't settle a question of fact about a hardiness zone. If User:Weatherextremes believes that meteoclub.gr should be considered a reliable source, consider proposing that at WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard to see what others think. If meteoclub has an article which *links* to some official data, if the link is specific enough to allow others to read the information, editors might add such official links to our article directly without going through meteoclub at all. EdJohnston (talk) 17:53, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

EdJohnston let's take things from the beginning. My reverts in both articles comes from a clear understanding that meteoclub is a reliable source. How exactly is it a personal opinion when the article on Kasos clearly references the HNMS data department and the Gkouvas (2012) equation placing Kasos in zone 11b? I strongly urge you to google translate the entire article and read the relevant bits. Here is an extract in Greek:

η Κάσος εμπίπτει στη ζώνη 11b, σύμφωνα με την εξίσωση του Γκουβά (2012)

The above translates roughly that using the Gkouvas (2012) equation, which is specially created for Greece's hardiness zones, Kasos is placed at zone 11b.

And here is the reference list in Greek from that article

ΠΗΓΕΣ

Ε.Μ.Υ - ΔΝΣΗ ΠΑΡΟΧΗΣ ΥΠΗΡΕΣΙΩN

Κλιματικές ζώνες ανθεκτικότητας φυτών της Ελλάδας (Inforest/ Γκουβάς, 2012)

I have been using meteoclub for long time and like I mentioned earlier it is an excellent source with reliable sources on Greece's data. Now it is annoying (very much so), actually bordering a personal attack that both TechnicianGB (talk · contribs) and Average Portuguese Joe suggest that I am either the owner or the writer of the articles. In my opinion, what is happening here is probably a spillover of an argument with a specific Portuguese user in a plant forum here [1]. Please take the time a read it so you will understand. I am user Manos33 (and I think it's fair for me to guess that one of them is user Cluster). As you will notice the only affiliation I have with Meteoclub is that I have nagged them for more than two weeks to look at the data I got from HNMS on Kasos! Occasionally also I had participated in the chat facility of Meteoclub and thats all my affiliation to them. So once the editor of Meteoclub had the HNMS data on Kasos, they decided to research a bit more and produced the article. Now the real question is if the article is a reliable source. An easy way to settle this would be to create a public email account and order the HNMS data for Kasos in order to have the extra verification. The HNMS data on Kasos covers 33 years of data worth. In any case that should be done in case there is consensus Meteoclub and more particularly this article is for some reason not reliable. Like I said many Greek scientists participate in Meteoclub and I understand that both users might not be aware of this as they are not a part of the Greek met community. Finally and just to address TechnicianGB's claims on Commons, I can confirm that I have used pictures from Meteoclub (I took screenshots if I remember correctly) but unfortunately at the time I was not well versed with Commons (well I am still not good at that) and probably claimed wrong authorship, its been so long that I do not remember all the details. Moreover, I take it I am free to blank my talk page in Wikipedia, this is my space on Wikipedia and using the fact that I blank my talk page as an argument of sorts makes no sense. In any case, I will move forward the discussion in the Hardiness Zones article proposing of a public email to verify the HNMS data since both users do not trust me or Meteoclub. Anyway, I am a wikipedia editor 11 years now and I try to be very careful when I use sources and Meteoclub is highly regarded in the Greek met community. Weatherextremes (talk) 13:05, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree with TechnicianGB (talk · contribs) here are my arguments as to why:

• The user claims he is not affiliated with the forum, but not only are his edits made right after a post is made, but he also uploads some of the photos of the website to commons as his own, providing notion, once more that this user might be related or even own the website.
• The user also claims the website is full of meteorologists, physicists, geologists, etc... do I need to say more? These claims are worth nothing and are digging him even deeper.
• Climatologically wise, most of the data, even if it's cited from reliable sources, is not even usable. 10 years or less of data for a climate normal (which is ~30 years) is just absurd, there is no info to how this data is measured (e.g. can be measured in someone's backyard, a strong no no in climatology). The clear discrepancies can be observed when compared to modeled data by HNMS [2] (e.g. While Meteoclub states that Lindos has an average temperature of 21.9°C, HNMS says the temperature in that same area is around 18.5°C)
• It's also funny the user suggests contacting Meteoclub while being accused of owning or being related to that same website. Average Portuguese Joe (talk) 18:11, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Copyrighted images uploaded at Commons claiming wrong authorship and no sources as well.

Related with the user Weatherextremes as well. Since the user is claiming he's not the one writing the blog entries in that website (albeit after the website gets updated, in barely few hours he comes to Wikipedia to put that data, but let's use the "trustful" card) there are some images uploaded by the same user in Commons claiming it's his own work (pics taken off meteoclub.gr) when just above he has said he only uses data from that site as he "is not even a member there" so all of these added images to Wikipedia Commons don't have the proper Author and Source then, as in all pages he claims he's the author and the source for all of these images. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ListFiles/Weatherextremes&ilshowall=1 so then all of these images should be removed because he doesn't hold the authorship for them. Am I wrong? Also that "Greece Köppen climate map" is the standard map coming from the Köppen climate classification guide which has real copyright. --TechnicianGB (talk) 16:47, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Edit warring at Germanic peoples

• Germanic peoples (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Sonnenrage (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Tristenschaible (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Hi Ed, we've been having trouble with a new edit warring editor and various ips at this article, who insists on imposing their preferred version of the article, regardless of consensus or the lack of it. It appears that editor Sonnenrage may be abusing his account with sockpuppets and proxied ips. He has engaged on the talk page, but there he's making comments such as "You are not honest" and "Once again, you are acting in bad faith."

He has commented most egregiously with this edit on his talk page after receiving a warning from another editor, in which he added the words: "You are criminal, traitor, enemy. You are worthless as a human being. You think you are a defender of culture? But you are ready to destroy everything that doesn't go your way. You are a liar. Deceiver. You are an enemy of freedom and truth. Oppressor. Karma will catch up with you, don't doubt it." Carlstak (talk) 02:42, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Wow! I have blocked Sonnenrage 48 hours for the personal attacks and applied a month of semiprotection to Germanic peoples. I will let User:Tristenschaible know they have been discussed here. The sanctions of WP:ARBEE apply to this article. EdJohnston (talk) 03:03, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Ed. Carlstak (talk) 13:57, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Goths update and question

Hi again. I wonder if you have any ideas about this RFC [3]? Obviously I feel you've had an influence on this use of RFCs, but it is not going well, and I continue to have concerns that the article has been quite deliberately and successfully frozen.

• I started this RFC after a previous RFC made clear that there was consensus to trim the sections relating to "pre" Goths before the 3rd century and handle them better in other articles. Srnec proposed this.[4] Before that RFC even closed, a new RFC was opened and much later closed by Krakkos which accepted this consensus and proposed, over a long period, 3 different draft versions of a new trimmed Origins section. I would say none of them were really in the spirit of the consensus or intended to go ahead, but they ground down everyone, as usual. (Only AFTER all drafts were rejected did Krakkos call for closure on several RFCs, and one of these re-confirmed the consensus that such a trimming was called for.[5])
• My RFC is therefore a new draft trying to achieve the desired result, after waiting to let people regain some energy. However, people are sick of it. The RFC template already expired long ago, and the users who have helped keep Goths moving along occasionally since the blocks last year, most importantly Srnec, have clearly given up on the article now and Srnec refuses to participate (as per discussion on their talk page [6]) despite this being their original proposal which several other editors liked. It is simply not true that RFCs work in situations like this. The original 3R case showed bad will and a desire to freeze the POV. In that situation RFCs can never work well, because anyone who does not want the article to change can simply use this extra hurdle to achieve that freeze in practice.
• In the RFC so far, editors who have taken the original consensus accepted by Krakkos and the closing admin seriously don't seem to have any problem with my draft. Berig and Krakkos are the only votes against my draft. Berig is however also opposed to the previously accepted consensus that there should be such a shortening in the first place. Krakkos is clearly also not really a supporter of the idea, and the three drafts were all against the spirit of it to begin with. (Both those editors have made statements that indicate they believe academia will be proven wrong by DNA testing in the future, and that academia is wrong because of ideology etc [7][8][9][10]. As you know, both editors have also made IMHO very questionable efforts to "make it personal" and try to get you to block me from editing on this topic because of this disagreement with academia.[11][12])
• More recently I have gone ahead and made an article to at least allow expansion of our coverage of this topic which so often overloaded Goths. See Origin of the Goths. As discussed on Srnec's talk page [13] that material can potentially now be merged to another article, but at least it can be worked on now without having to work on Goths which is effectively a frozen article. Since the blocks you put in place (even for technical edits where there is no sign of disagreement, as you said at the time) not even the original bibliographical problems in the article have been fully cleared up or ever explained as a true disagreement. Even the fact that there were 3 different versions(!!!) of the same DNA discussion could never be discussed in a good faith way and was insisted upon until Srnec removed them all.[14] (FWIW Srnec suggested I should ask for the restrictions should be lifted. See the user talk page diff above.) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:26, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

For me, this issue is receding into the past. Do you feel unable to make progress through discussion with other editors? EdJohnston (talk) 14:06, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

So an editor with a record of getting admins to block other editors, holds out for months or years defending things as obviously wrong as a tripled section, and you think the stagnation of the article must be the fault of the other editors, because they must be bad at discussing things? How do you justify this type of comment?

I have no problem discussing the article with other editors apart from the article owner who got the article semi-frozen. The problem is to find people willing to look at the article and its talk page over such a long period when every type of proposal is disputed and obfuscated. Since the beginning, you've continually taken the position that if someone's proposal is reasonable, then they should obviously be able to get edits done by other editors. Apparently they will come along, and volunteer to sift through every proposal, while being bombarded by the article owner. In fact we've been lucky to drag along a few editors who've done this for some basic things like that tripled genetics section over more than a year, but it can't go on forever, and it is especially depressing for all involved when we see how easily Krakkos could rewind all that work and force everyone to discuss everything anew, as I explained in previous discussions. This indirect editing method would not work on any WP article needing any substantial level of work, and it certainly can't work in a case like this where one editor wants to freeze the article. (You were asked on 28th February 2020 to intervene to stop changes on the article. Despite that being on 3R, only one edit was cited and the rest of the post was about how I had changed another article in the past.[15] This was clearly not just a simple 3R case.) If this indirect editing method worked, we could work like that on every article. But we can't. No one can. Editors should not be allowed to get their content protected long-term like this, and especially not based on the argument that without admin intervention other editors will change the articles?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:22, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

BTW my main reason for posting was to ask if I should do anything about the currently-running RFC. Did you look at it? The template expired, and generally the situation is messy. A lot of editors do not like this RFCs. Other editors have objected to the number of RFCs so I waited before opening one. In the meantime there were no less than three drafts were proposed within an RFC that was started before the RFC where it was proposed had ended. None of those drafts seemed to be aimed at fitting the bill. They've added to the general impression that this article is going nowhere, and is not an enjoyable article to work on.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:34, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I can't force editors to agree with you if they don't want to. Why not propose a formal closure of Talk:Goths#RFC to move ahead on previous Intro and Origins proposals. If you think anyone is violating policy, you should name them and consider ANI. EdJohnston (talk) 15:36, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Where did I ask you to force editors to do anything? I don't understand why you keep making negative caricature remarks that are so disconnected from what I am saying. I can only presume it is meant to be a light sarcastic insult? Anyway, I have simply been cautious of closing it too early because of the complaints from other editors about previous RFCs being opened and closed too quickly.[16][17] It seems everyone has their own idea about how RFCs should work, but also everyone finds them confusing when they need to be used often. OTOH I am also of course concerned about the fact that the template expired. Or is that no problem?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:51, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Aren't you here requesting admin action? EdJohnston (talk) 16:17, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

No. I was requesting advice on a currently active RFC, and giving a general update. I suppose the general update is connected to the edit block policy which I feel can't be justified. But that is for the longer run. For now the RFC is what I am trying to work with, and get finished off properly. I don't want the messiness to be turned into a complaint later that might be used to argue against the proposed edit going ahead. Do we need to reactivate the template? How long should the RFC go? Given that the template has expired, would people looking at project pages not be seeing this RFC? etc. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:00, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't want to give editorial advice. Above, you have stated that this is 'not an enjoyable article to work on', but that is not a problem for administrators to solve. You might discuss this with other editors on the talk page. The removal of an RfC template after 30 days does not prevent further discussion if there is still a chance of progress. If you want a formal closure of an RfC, the page at WP:Closure requests is available to you. EdJohnston (talk) 17:24, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

So now you say I asked you for editorial advice? Please stop reinterpreting me? I am not sure what is going on here, but I am trying to work within the system you've insisted upon in good faith as long as I can, and follow the normal steps until the point where I have to give up. Hopefully you are not trying to accelerate that. It is also not "my mission" (ref your sarcastic edsum). I started working on this article only last year when, as the links above explain, there was already a perception of years of arguments about the exact same issues which the exact same "passionate" editors are now trying to depict as personally coming from me. Please do NOT follow in that personalization. Concerning this RFC, further discussion HAS continued after the template expiration, but I presume the RFC has stopped being shown on project pages? In contrast to your misleading sarcastic remarks above, feedback has been positive about my draft. However, after so many useless RFCs, it would be a shame if someone says there was a fault in my handling of the technical formalities. (The editing block itself was supposedly somehow related, according to your own explanation, to technical edits, although actually the one edit mentioned on 28 Feb 2018 was not a technical edit. So I am being careful! Nothing wrong with that? I honestly find your reasoning very hard to follow.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:08, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I can no longer follow. You had better ask someone else. EdJohnston (talk) 18:17, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Like I said, I am playing safe, based on what has happened in the past. I take it from the above that you see no problems with the approach so far in this RFC.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:32, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Request for reduction in protection level

Hi EdJohnston,

The page named Rajput is under "Extended confirmed protection" for a long time (last time, you increased its semi-protection level). Due to this, a very few users can edit this page and experienced users with 500+ edits have a monopoly over the page. I found that there is some scope for improvement in the article. Therefore, I request you to reduce the level of page protection to semi-protection so that inexperienced users can also make contributions to the page. Dympies (talk) 01:58, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Articles about clans castes are often subjected to caste boosterism and promotional editing. The WP:ECP protection is a good way to keep this activity in check, since it ensures that edits are made by people with knowledge of Wikipedia standards. The EC protection is placed under the authority of WP:ARBIPA. If you believe you can offer something to the Rajput article, please make a proposal at Talk:Rajput. If you wish, you can use the {{Edit extended-protected}} template there to get the attention of an experienced editor to make the change for you. EdJohnston (talk) 02:52, 8 July 2021 (UTC)