Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

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Use the closure requests noticeboard to ask an uninvolved editor to assess, summarize, and formally close a Wikipedia discussion. Do so when consensus appears unclear, it is a contentious issue, or where there are wiki-wide implications (e.g. any change to our policies or guidelines).

Do not list discussions where consensus is clear. If you feel the need to close them, do it yourself.

Move on – do not wait for someone to state the obvious. In some cases, it is appropriate to close a discussion with a clear outcome early to save our time.

Do not post here to rush the closure. Also, only do so when the discussion has stabilised.

On the other hand, if the discussion has much activity and the outcome isn't very obvious, you should let it play out by itself. We want issues to be discussed well. Do not continue the discussion here.

There is no fixed length for a formal request for comment (RfC). Typically 7 days is a minimum, and after 30 days the discussion is ripe for closure. The best way to tell is when there is little or no activity in the discussion, or further activity is unlikely to change its result.

When the discussion is ready to be closed and the outcome is not obvious, you can submit a brief and neutrally worded request for closure.

Be sure to include a link to the discussion itself and the {{Initiated}} template at the beginning of the request. A helper script can make listing discussions easier.

Any uninvolved editor may close most discussions, so long as they are prepared to discuss and justify their closing rationale.

Closing discussions carries responsibility, doubly so if the area is contentious. You should be familiar with all policies and guidelines that could apply to the given discussion (consult your draft closure at the discussions for discussion page if unsure). Be prepared to fully answer questions about the closure or the underlying policies, and to provide advice about where to discuss any remaining concerns that editors may have.

Non-admins can close most discussions. Admins may not overturn your non-admin closures just because you are not an admin, and this should not normally be in itself a problem at closure reviews. Still, there are caveats. You may not close discussions as an unregistered user, or where implementing the closure would call to use tools or edit permissions you do not have access to. Articles for deletion and move discussion processes have more rules for non-admins to follow.

Technical instructions for closers

Please append {{Doing}} to the discussion's entry you are closing so that no one duplicates your effort. When finished, replace it with {{Close}} or {{Done}} and an optional note, and consider sending a {{Ping}} to the editor who placed the request. Where a formal closure is not needed, reply with {{Not done}}. After addressing a request, please mark the {{Initiated}} template with |done=yes. ClueBot III will automatically archive requests marked with {{Already done}}, {{Close}}, {{Done}} {{Not done}}, and {{Resolved}}.

If you want to formally challenge and appeal the closure, do not start the discussion here. Instead follow advice at WP:CLOSECHALLENGE.

Other areas tracking old discussions

• Wikipedia:Requested moves#Elapsed listings
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old
• Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion
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• Wikipedia:Templates for discussion#Old discussions
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion#Old business
• Wikipedia:Proposed mergers/Log
• Wikipedia:Proposed article splits

Administrative discussions

User:Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist and User:Licks-rocks civility concerns

(Initiated 8 days ago on 17 May 2024) – This discussion just got auto-archived at ANI before anyone got around to closing it, but there was a topic ban proposal in there with a decent number of votes. Could someone take a look at this? --Licks-rocks (talk) 09:56, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Requests for comment

RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes?

(Initiated 71 days ago on 15 March 2024) Ready to be closed. Charcoal feather (talk) 17:02, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

new closer needed
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Before I try to close this I wanted to see if any editors believed I am WP:INVOLVED. I have no opinions on the broader topic, but I have previously participated in a single RfC on whether a specific article should include an infobox. I don't believe this makes me involved, as my participation was limited and on a very specific question, which is usually insufficient to establish an editor as involved on the broader topic, but given the strength of opinion on various sides I expect that any result will be controversial, so I wanted to raise the question here first. If editors present reasonable objections within the next few days I won't close; otherwise, unless another editor gets to it first, I will do so. BilledMammal (talk) 04:43, 13 May 2024 (UTC) I am involved in the underlying RfC, but my opinion on the issue is not particularly strong and I am putting on my closer hat now. Per WP:INVOLVED, "[i]nvolvement is construed broadly by the community". In the Rod Steiger RfC, you stated: [T]o the best of my knowledge (although I have not been involved in these discussions before) every recent RfC on including an infobox has been successful. From this it is clear that the topic is settled, and insisting on RfC's for every article risks becoming disruptive. Although the underlying RfC was on a very specific question, your statement touches on the broader question of whether editors should be allowed to contest including an infobox in a particular article, a practice that you said risks becoming disruptive because the topic is settled. That makes you involved—construing the term broadly—because answering this RfC in the affirmative would significantly shift the burden against those contesting infoboxes in future discussions. That said, if you can put aside your earlier assessment of consensus and only look at the arguments in this RfC, I don't see an issue with you closing. It wouldn't be a bad idea to disclose this at the RfC itself, and make sure that nobody there has any objections. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:43, 18 May 2024 (UTC) Pinging @BilledMammal. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:45, 18 May 2024 (UTC) if you can put aside your earlier assessment of consensus and only look at the arguments in this RfC, I don't see an issue with you closing; per WP:LOCALCON, I don't see lower level discussions as having any relevance to assessing the consensus of higher level discussions, so I can easily do so - consistent results at a lower level can indicate a WP:IDHT issue, but it can also indicate that a local consensus is out of step with broader community consensus. Either way, additional local discussions are unlikely to be productive, but a broader discussion might be. Per your suggestion I'll leave a note at the RfC, and see if there are objections presented there or here. BilledMammal (talk) 02:37, 21 May 2024 (UTC) I don’t think that !voting in an RfC necessarily equates to being too involved, but in this case, the nature of your !vote in the Steiger RfC was concerning enough to be a red flag. Is it still your contention that “every recent RfC on including an infobox has been successful. From this it is clear that the topic is settled, and insisting on RfC's for every article risks becoming disruptive”? That was wrong (and rather chilling) when you wrote it and is still wrong (and still chilling) now, as the current RfC makes rather clear. - SchroCat (talk) 03:30, 21 May 2024 (UTC) Is it still your contention that “every recent RfC on including an infobox has been successful. From this it is clear that the topic is settled, and insisting on RfC's for every article risks becoming disruptive”? No. I've only skimmed the RfC, but I see that while a majority have been successful a non-trivial number have not been - and the percentage that have not been has increased recently. BilledMammal (talk) 04:13, 21 May 2024 (UTC) Part of my problem is that you said it in the first place. It was incorrect when you first said it and it comes across as an attempt to shut down those who hold a differing opinion. As you're not an Admin, I'm also not sure that you can avoid WP:NACPIT and WP:BADNAC, both of which seem to suggest that controversial or non-obvious discussions are best left to Admins to close. - SchroCat (talk) 06:44, 21 May 2024 (UTC) In general, any concern that WP:IDHT behavior is going on could be seen as an attempt to shut down those who hold a differing opinion. I won't close this discussion, though generally I don't think that raising concerns about conduct make an editor involved regarding content. However, I reject BADNAC as an issue, both here and generally - I won't go into details in this discussion to keep matters on topic, but if you want to discuss please come to my talk page. BilledMammal (talk) 07:53, 21 May 2024 (UTC) There was no IDHT behaviour, which was the huge flaw in your comment. You presumed that "every recent RfC on including an infobox has been successful", which was the flawed basis from which to make a judgement about thinking people were being disruptive. Your opinion that there was IDHT behaviour which was disruptive is digging the hole further: stop digging is my advice, as is your rejection of WP:BADNAC ("(especially where there are several valid outcomes) or likely to be controversial"), but thank you for saying you won't be closing the discussion. - SchroCat (talk) 08:10, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

WP:RSN#RFC:_The_Anti-Defamation_League

(Initiated 49 days ago on 7 April 2024) Three related RFCs in a trench coat. I personally think the consensus is fairly clear here, but it should definitely be an admin close. Loki (talk) 14:07, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Enforcing ECR for article creators

(Initiated 48 days ago on 8 April 2024) Discussion appears to have died down almost a month after this RfC opened. Would like to see a formal close of Q1 and Q2. Awesome Aasim 00:11, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Brothers of Italy#RfC on neo-fascism in info box 3 (Effectively option 4 from RfC2)

(Initiated 48 days ago on 8 April 2024) Clear consensus for change but not what to change to. I've handled this RfC very badly imo. User:Alexanderkowal — Preceding undated comment added 11:50, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

 Comment: The RfC tag was removed the same day it was started. This should be closed as a discussion, not an RfC. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:03, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Mukokuseki#RfC on using the wording "stereotypically Western characteristics" in the lead

(Initiated 45 days ago on 11 April 2024) ☆SuperNinja2☆ TALK! 09:41, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

See Talk:Mukokuseki#Close Plz 5/21/2024 Orchastrattor (talk) 20:34, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:SpaceX Starship flight tests#RfC: Should we list IFT mission outcome alongside launch outcome?

(Initiated 35 days ago on 20 April 2024) An involved user has repeatedly attempted to close this after adding their arguments. It's a divisive topic and a close would stop back and forth edits. DerVolkssport11 (talk) 12:42, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, the RfC was closed in this dif, and an IP editor unclosed it, with this statement: "involved and pushing"

In just over an hour, the above editor voiced support for the proposal.

I reclosed it, and the same IP opened the RfC again, with this message: "pushing by involved users so ask for more comments".

I reclosed once more. And then the editor who opened this requests opened it. To avoid violated WP:3RR, I have not reclosed it, instead messaging the original closer to notify them.

The proposal itself was an edit request that I rejected. The IP who made the request reopened the request, which I rejected once more. They then proceeded to open an RfC. Redacted II (talk) 12:58, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Hunter Biden#RfC: Washington Post report concerning emails

(Initiated 32 days ago on 24 April 2024) There's been no comments in 5 days. TarnishedPath^talk 03:20, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Deletion discussions

XFD backlog

V	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Total
CfD	0	0	10	28	38
TfD	0	0	0	3	3
MfD	0	0	0	2	2
FfD	0	0	0	6	6
RfD	0	0	4	23	27
AfD	0	0	0	9	9

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 27#Category:Unrecognized tribes in the United States

(Initiated 49 days ago on 7 April 2024) This one has been mentioned in a news outlet, so a close would ideally make sense to the outside world. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 13:56, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Stress marks in East Slavic words

(Initiated 20 days ago on 6 May 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:30, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Amina Hassan Sheikh

(Initiated 19 days ago on 6 May 2024) If the consensus is to do the selective histmerge I'm willing to use my own admin tools to push the button and do it. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:07, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Other types of closing requests

Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake#Talkpage_"This_article_has_been_mentioned_by_a_media_organization:"_BRD

(Initiated 40 days ago on 16 April 2024) - Discussion on a talkpage template, Last comment 6 days ago, 10 comments, 4 people in discussion. Not unanimous, but perhaps there is consensus-ish or strength of argument-ish closure possible. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to me that there is a consensus here to do anything, with most editors couching their statements as why it might (or might not) be done rather than why it should (or should not). I will opine that I'm not aware there's any precedent to exclude {{Press}} for any reason and that it would be very unusual, but I don't think that's good enough reason to just overrule Hipal. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 01:01, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2024 May#Multiple page move of David articles

(Initiated 25 days ago on 1 May 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:13, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Press_Your_Luck_scandal#Separate_articles

(Initiated 24 days ago on 2 May 2024) Please review this discussion. --Jax 0677 (talk) 01:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Agroforestry#Merge_proposal

(Initiated 23 days ago on 3 May 2024) As the proposer I presume I cannot close this. It was started more than a week ago and opinions differed somewhat. Chidgk1 (talk) 13:46, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2024 May#2018–2019 Gaza border protests

(Initiated 17 days ago on 9 May 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:13, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Number of page watchers tool deprecated

Hi. It's now possible to view the number of page watchers via the "info" action. For example, at <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&action=info>, you can see that Main Page has over 76,500 page watchers. In the coming weeks, I'll be deprecating the watcher tool. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:04, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

The info page itself has a link to the old tool at the bottom, under "External Tools" -- I have no idea how that's edited. NE Ent 02:20, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Pageinfo-footer. 28bytes (talk) 20:36, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for updating that page. :-)

The link is also available from MediaWiki:Histlegend. I'm thinking that replacing (rather than removing) the link from there makes more sense, but I think I'd like to develop a better target for the link first. I guess there are two approaches to take: (1) replace the watcher link with a link to action=info; or (2) replace the watcher link with a link to action=info with an anchor to the number of watchers row, preferably highlighted (like we do with clicked references). Option 2 is my preference, but the underlying HTML currently has no support for this. The tool is only deprecated, not yet abandoned, though, so there's time to work all of this out. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:31, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

I like (2), and I suppose this is better than nothing. (It's quite bizarre that the id for that sub-table begins with #, though. Is that typical?) AGK [•] 22:56, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

I can't code, so I can't solve problems, but I'm good at pointing out problems for others to worry about. Currently, if a non-admin clicks on your (MZMcBride) tool and there are less than 30 watchers, it comes back and explains "fewer than 30 watchers". If a non-admin clicks on the action=info page instead, for a page with less than 30 watchers, the page watchers line is just gone. So for non-admins looking at MediaWiki:Histlegend for a page with less than 30 watchers, clicking on "Number of watchers", for both options (1) and (2), are just going to confuse them. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:08, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

I see three bugs here, but I probably won't have time to file them until later. I'll post here after I do. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:39, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Is it anticipated that a link to the "info" action will replace the link to your tool? Otherwise, it seems the only way to get to the info action page is to manually edit the url. ‑Scottywong| squeal _ 19:13, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

If you go to the History tab for a page, there's a "Page Information" link in the toolbox on the left. 28bytes (talk) 19:14, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

That link isn't just on the history tab. KTC (talk) 19:18, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Depends on the skin; in MonoBook that's the only place I see it. 28bytes (talk) 19:34, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

In both Monobook and Vector, the "Page information" link should be present in the "toolbox" section of the sidebar for any action (history, view, edit, etc.). If it's not, there's a bug.

AGK: bugzilla:42629 is the bug you're describing, pretty much. Floquenbeam: bugzilla:44252 and bugzilla:44253 are the bugs you want. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:17, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I've updated User:Jake Wartenberg/centijimbo to reflect the change; if I've made any mistakes, someone please correct me, though I've obviously tested it on my own userpage and found no issues. Incidentally, should we perhaps move it to templatespace? It's Wikipedia-related (if not particularly related to improving the encyclopedia), and has been edited mostly by users other than Jake (who appears to be only intermittently active). — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 21:42, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Er, where is the "Info page" or "Info action?" I see no tab, page or button so labelled. Edison (talk) 03:20, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

There's a link to it from the history page. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 03:22, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

In addition, you can add ?action=info to the end of a URL and you'll get the info. Ryan Vesey 03:25, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I believe it's also linked to as "page information" in the toolbox on any page. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 08:49, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

• There is a related discussion at WP:VPT#Have we lost the count of the number of watchers?. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:45, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Translation into Russian

Every few days I see the edit filter catching translation of wikipedia page into Russian, eg Special:AbuseLog/8140504. Is this malicious or likely to be an accident - eg software that translates a browser page content, and then user hitting save? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:57, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

That's thoroughly weird. Why would the browser plugin translate some things but not others? But why would someone attempt to translate random words while leaving other random words untranslated? Even putting chunks through Google Translate takes a bunch of time, since there are so many untranslated words; what kind of vandal or other bad-faith editor would put this much effort into turning the page into macaroni? I can't imagine any logical explanation for it. Nyttend (talk) 21:13, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Update: I'm beginning to think that it's somehow automated, rather than being a misguided would-be translator. Look at what it did to the convert template: {{convert|5004|mm|in|1|abbr=on}} becomes {{convert|5004|мм|в|1|abbr=on}}. Wiktionary notes that в is sometimes a preposition with the meaning of "in" — humans would render this as "Дюйм" or keep it as "in", because no human would turn an abbreviation for "inches" into a preposition. Nyttend (talk) 21:23, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Google Chrome offers automatic translation of foreign-language pages, doesn't it? Couldn't this be a result of someone setting the browser to translate English pages to Russian and then trying to edit here? Jafeluv (talk) 18:16, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Here is another: Special:AbuseLog/8125404 a sencond level header translated, which I blocked as a spambot, but I now think this is inappropriate. And another Special:AbuseLog/8080180 just a third level header section being translated; Special:AbuseLog/8080167 another one. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:33, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

And this one didn't get blocked at all; how did it get through when the others didn't? Nyttend (talk) 14:14, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Edit filters are not guaranteed to run, perhaps due to too many resources being used. So it is not surprising that some are missed. Jafeluv could be on the right track. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:50, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

That edit was caught. The filter is warn only, though. And the foreign language filter wouldn't catch these because the edit delta was close to 0. Someguy1221 (talk) 10:34, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, well here is another caught one. Special:AbuseLog/8151197. So should we treat this as abuse? Or treat it as an accident? Or should we tighten the edit filter to catch this more? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:42, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Filtering IP edits that insert Cyrillic charactes into section headers would probably catch most of these. While there are legitimate reasons for using Cyrillic text in articles, I think having it in section headers is a pretty rare case. (Btw, I tested the translation feature with the newest version of Chrome and contrary to my suspicions above it doesn't seem to translate anything inside the edit box.) Jafeluv (talk) 10:28, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Excessive relisting of nominations at AfD

HERE is our guideline with respect to relisting deletion debates at Articles for Deletion:

"...if at the end of the initial seven-day period, the discussion has only a few participants (including the nominator), and/or it seems to be lacking arguments based on policy, it may be appropriate for the closer to relist it, to solicit further discussion to determine consensus. A relisted discussion may be closed once consensus is determined without necessarily waiting a further seven days.

That said, relisting should not be a substitute for a "no consensus" closure. If the closer feels there has been substantive debate, disparate opinions supported by policy have been expressed, and consensus has not been achieved, a no-consensus close may be preferable.

Relisting debates repeatedly in the hope of getting sufficient participation is not recommended, and while having a deletion notice on a page is not harmful, its presence over several weeks can become disheartening for its editors. Therefore, in general, debates should not be relisted more than twice. Users relisting a debate for a third (or further) time, or relisting a debate with a substantial number of commenters, should write a short explanation (in addition to the "relist" template) on why they did not consider the debate sufficient.

Extensions at AfD used to be rarities. However, participation at AfD seems to be down while automated tools have made deletion nominations easier than ever and lately these same automated tools are seemingly used to make third and even fourth extensions of debates, ostensibly due to lack of participation. No rationales are provided for these third and fourth extensions, even though the guideline is quite explicit that they should be. Little is to be gained by singling out the administrators who are punching some sort of "EXTEND DEBATE" button or whatever the hell they are doing; a quick glance at any recent daily AfD debate page should be sufficient. I would merely like to note that this is a problem — it clogs up the works at AfD — and the problem is getting worse. It is time for administrators to start exerting a little authority on nominations surrounded by apathy — either No Consensus Keep them or No Consensus Delete them if nobody cares enough to comment one way or the other... Carrite (talk) 18:57, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

• I have noticed this phenomenon as well. the last major discussion about this issue that I am aware of was Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Relisting straw poll, in late 20120 and the consensus arrived at there suggested that more than two relists are probably excessive in most cases although there is no hard limit. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:42, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
• If I'm relisting a debate for more than a first time I'll make a note on the AfD saying why I'm doing it (i.e. BLP issues, something that's changed on the article). Otherwise, they should be closed. Black Kite (talk) 21:28, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
• Treat them similarly to uncontested PRODs. Reyk _YO! 21:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
  • That is effectively one option. Closing as no-consensus is the other (per WP:NOQUORUM). Admin's call. I think that's reasonable.Hobit (talk) 01:03, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
    • Can a editor like me who is uninvolved close a long-running AFD as no consensus? This AFD[1] has been going on two weeks....William 01:47, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
• There's no such thing as a no-consensus delete, but if the only person who's cared to comment after ample opportunity is the nominator for deletion, then I'd say that's an ipso facto local consensus to delete (though of course that should be overridden if the closer judges the rationale insufficient or what-have-you -- successfully flying under the radar is no reason to carry out a bad deletion). —chaos5023 (talk) 21:55, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but my belief is that it is not written in stone that No Consensus closes are to default to Keep in every case. Many of these are more or less the same as uncontested PRODs, in my view, and "No Consensus" ending in deletion seems an appropriate result in some cases. Carrite (talk) 03:28, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Ah yes, this is right. Unscintillating has it in WP:NOQUORUM. No Consensus defaulting to Keep and "Soft Delete" are the options in this situation. Carrite (talk) 03:30, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
• This is covered in WP:Deletion process in the sections WP:NOQUORUM and WP:RELIST.  Unscintillating (talk) 23:52, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
• Some examples from AFD patrol:
  • Luis Livingstone (AfD discussion) — discussion opened on 2012-12-19, relisted five times
  • Helen Flynn (AfD discussion) — discussion opened on 2012-12-20, relisted five times
  • Rico Beats (AfD discussion) — discussion opened on 2012-12-23, relisted four times
  • European Kindred (AfD discussion) — discussion opened on 2012-12-26, relisted four times
  • Sad Beautiful Tragic (AfD discussion) — discussion opened on 2012-12-28, relisted four times
• There are quite a few discussions at AFD that look like this:
  • Public Relations Student Society of America (AfD discussion) — discussion opened on 2013-01-03, relisted three times
• Here are some discussions that look (as one's eye travels down a per-diem page) like they have participants, but in fact have none other than the nominator:
  • Fast + Epp (AfD discussion)
  • Kyong Hae Kim (AfD discussion)
  • Hookson (AfD discussion)
  • SERP-Chem International Master Course (AfD discussion)
• Uncle G (talk) 13:59, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

• I know I frequently relist in excess of the suggested limits. My reasoning is that someone has taken the time to find a problem with an article and, while I may not be knowledgeable enough to opine, I can see there are problems with discussion that are worth further review. Take Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Institute of Management of Sri Lanka for example. The only two people to comment are in favor of retention, but both of them seem to have a very poor understanding of sourcing. While it would be a candidate for a no consensus close, I have an unproven suspicion that further review by skilled editors would find the sourcing deficient. Leaving it for another relist seems like the best way to do that. MBisanz ^talk 17:33, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

This is of course part of a larger problem. After years of what I would call over-participation at AFD, the community seems to have swung in the opposite direction and AFDs with only one or two edits are now much more common than they used to be, or so it seems to me anyway. I think AFD got a bad rap because there were/possibly still are too many regulars with a WP:BATTLE approach to the process and that turns a lot of people off. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:34, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• I would strongly support the suggestions above to treat an uncontested, uncommented AFD in the same way as an uncontested PROD - perhaps relist once and then delete? This certainly won't solve all the problems of uncommented AFDs, but it'll simplify it a bit. It is certainly strange that we're effectively saying "using PROD is a quicker way to get something deleted" in borderline cases! Andrew Gray (talk) 11:41, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I would, and will, support that practice. Where I'm still conflicted is where the only comment is in opposition to the nomination or the only two comments in response to the nomination disagree, or where there are only a couple of people commenting and it is obvious that they don't understand our policies. MBisanz ^talk 23:10, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Need closers for WT:Requests_for_adminship/2013 RfC/1

The first round closes around midnight EST on Tuesday. I'd prefer just a little discussion of how the closers want to approach this before the actual deadline, since a theme here is that the standard RfC format hasn't worked for this problem, and I (and the voters) will be looking for your ideas. I was hoping for 3 closers. - Dank (push to talk) 17:44, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I saw this comment as I was about to post a reminder message to WP:BN. I take it no one's offering?—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 18:38, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I offered before and that stands, but only as part of a panel. Something this major will require deliberation and discussion, not a unilateral decision. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:33, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Great, was just about to ping you. - Dank (push to talk) 21:54, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm happy to serve as part of a panel. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 22:03, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I offered as well, and it too stands, but I would also recommend this be a panel because a close this big needs collaboration to ensure absolute neutrality.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 22:46, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad you're offering, Cyber, but this is an unusual RfC: after the first closing statement, the voters will decide whether they want you guys to stick around for the next close ... because you guys are charged with coming up with a good (or least-bad :) compromise later on, and "selling" that compromise to the voters is part of your job. Since there was an objection when you offered before, let's see if we can get 3 closers who don't get any objections. - Dank (push to talk) 22:52, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Fine. I'm ok with that. I'm just here to contribute to Wikipedia and help out.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 23:09, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, since everything seems to be running smoothly and we have at least two closers, I'd like to back off and allow the RfC to morph into whatever the participants and closers want it to be. Are you guys okay with asking the participants if they're happy to keep you as closers, after your first closing statement? Are you on board with the idea of trying to craft a compromise that you believe the voters will be able to support? Are you willing to discuss the approach you want to take to the RfC with the voters? If so, then I'm outtie. - Dank (push to talk) 15:54, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Big job for just 2 this. I think you should get another Admin. closer to help share the workload. Leaky Caldron 16:13, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

No argument from me. - Dank (push to talk) 16:16, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Leaky here. I would go as far as adding a fourth to the list of closers.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 16:21, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Odd numbers are generally preferable. No, it's not a "vote", but an intractable two-against-two split would just mean that we'd have to find three to five more people and start over. It would be better to prevent that from the start by having either three or five people involved. That said, I don't think I'd want to wish any RFA reform discussion on any of my friends.

(ArbCom should start handing out these discussions as sanctions: "You were rude, but it wasn't bad enough to desysop you, so instead your punishment is to close the next three policy-related RFCs." ) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:24, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I'll agree on the odd number, as we don't want to reach a situation where we have a deadlock. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:33, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Round One was due to be closed 8 hours ago. Also ... you guys are on board with the basic structure of the RfC, right? - Dank (push to talk) 13:14, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps it's something that not many want to close but, would rather get involved in. Perhaps it's time to look at some possible closers that aren't completely objection free.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 13:27, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I've made a proposal to the two current closers; hoping to get some resolution today. - Dank (push to talk) 14:02, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

If it prevents a clearly unsuitable candidate from closing the RfC, I am willing to offer my candidacy, but only if there are no better candidates (and I'm serious). Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 14:21, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I've hatted the RfC; proposal is at the top of it. - Dank (push to talk) 16:41, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Did you just call me "clearly unsuitable", or was that a general statement?—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 16:43, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I would assume that's a general statement, cyber. I'd be willing to help close this as well, if needed. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:47, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Yay ... but we may have lost one as well, Basalisk's talk page says he doesn't know when he'll be back, and he hasn't responded so far to email. - Dank (push to talk) 18:01, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Continuing topic ban violations by Apteva

As documented here since Jan. 10, Apteva continues to violate the topic-ban that the community overwhelmingly supported, which said (see [2]):

Apteva's persistent pushing of the theory that en dashes are never appropriate in proper names, such as the names of wars, comets, bridges, and airports, and his pushing of the theory that the MOS does not apply to article titles, has been disruptive. Based on the consensus reaction of the community, Apteva must refrain from any further advocating of these positions, or any position against en dashes or against the MOS being applicable to article titles, and must not make any page moves or RMs based on such theories. Violation of this topic ban will be grounds for an immediate block and/or a request for arbitration.

Unfortunately, the closer's statement of the ban to Apteva left him too much room to test the boundaries, by omitting mention of the part that I bolded above; he wrote:

Based upon both the below discussion and the linked RfC/U, it is clear that Apteva has exhausted the patience of the community in this area. On these grounds, the following is enacted: Apteva is topic banned indefinitely from modifying or discussing the use of dashes, hyphens, or similar types of punctuation, broadly construed, including but not limited to at the manual of style and any requested move discussion.

On Jan. 10, the closer User:Seraphimblade clarified:

For my own thoughts here, I would say that this edit is clearly related to Apteva's activity in the area of dashes/hyphens, and that this is both a violation of the ban and that no extension of the ban is necessary for it to be covered as such. I would see this as a clear attempt at gaming the ban by not technically mentioning the previous dispute subject.

Apteva's latest violation of the community-imposed topic ban is yet one more attempt to modify a policy page to not say that the MOS is applicable to TITLE styling: this diff – not just by advocating his approach, which would be banned behavior, but actually modifying the policy page! (I reverted)

This time, an enforcement block is unquestionably needed. Dicklyon (talk) 18:25, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

This is simply an editor who loves to disrupt Wikipedia to make a wp:POINT being disappointed that I was not blocked. The discussion on my behavior wasted countless hours and occupied 134 pages of text (about half a million bytes). Apteva (talk) 18:44, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Agreed that User:Dicklyon is continuing a relentless push against Apteva, and I advise to consider an interaction-ban between Dicklyon and Apteva, perhaps to include a MOS-topic-ban against Dicklyon. This endless pattern of Dicklyon dragging Apteva into ANI, RfC, AN, ANI, etc. is becoming too much. Dicklyon has been in over 130 talk-page disputes or debates with Apteva (see talk-page intersects). -Wikid77 (talk) 20:17, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

The fact that you escaped a block (and "merely" received a topic ban) should hardly be read as condoning your behaviour. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:58, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)No, this looks rather to be an editor who likes to WP:GAME the project by testing out the exact limits of their community-imposed topic ban, whether out of spite or just for the hell of it. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 18:59, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I certainly did learn from the experience, and have no intention of gaming or testing. I am here solely to improve wikipedia and no other purpose. Apteva (talk) 19:23, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• Continuing to toe the line this way, after coming so excruciatingly close to a block last time around, is a remarkably foolish thing to do. Enough of this at ANI, I think a block is needed. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 19:25, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Gotta love it how people quote topics that sound applicable but are not. "Gaming the system means deliberately using Wikipedia policies and guidelines in bad faith to thwart the aims of Wikipedia." My edit was solely to improve the link and make it more useful. Apteva (talk) 19:28, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Baloney. Your Wikilawyering notwithstanding, the standard, applicable definition would be "...using the rules and procedures meant to protect a system in order, instead, to manipulate the system for a desired outcome." It seems you haven't given up your desired outcome which, no doubt, you consider "improving Wikipedia". --Calton | Talk 09:44, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• What exactly is the allegation here? I'm not seeing anything particularly controversial about the edit which was allegedly the cause of this thread... Carrite (talk) 19:43, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

The offending edit removed the see-also link "* Wikipedia:Manual of Style (article titles) – for guidance on styling of titles", replacing it with just a generic link "* Wikipedia:Manual of Style", which was a step in pushing his disruptive agenda to say that the MOS does not apply to TITLE styling (see the bold in the resolution that the community overwhelming supported, above). He has been at this for many months, wasting megabytes of disruptive discussion at many venues, but refuses to ackowledge that consensus is against him. Dicklyon (talk) 20:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• (ec) This is part of the continued WP:IDHT problems discussed at the RfC/U and the topic ban. Although with this edit Apteva did not explicitly mention dashes and hyphens, it's part of the same dispute, from what I can see (and similar to what prompted Seraphimblade's clarification quoted above). The final clarification/warning from Seraphimblade has apparently not had much of an impact, so unfortunately we are left with blocking as the next measure. As they have not previously blocked for violating the topic ban, I would suggest a 24-hour block. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 19:47, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• I'll reiterate that I think this behavior is clearly part of the problem that led to the topic ban, as "Does MOS apply to titles?" was a common topic of contention during it, and Apteva's involvement with that question was overwhelmingly as relates to dashes. I don't have any particular opinion as to what the answer to that question should be, but it was an area Apteva was involved in as regards dashes and hyphens. I'm not impressed with the behavior here, and would not object to rewording the sanction if we need to do that, but the idea was to stay away from that area, not try to nitpick at technicalities. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:31, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• I think a 24 hour block would be appropriate here. --Rschen7754 21:43, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Clarifying that I would support all the way to indef, as it has been proven that Apteva is not willing to listen to consensus. However, the community isn't at the point of supporting an indef yet. --Rschen7754 06:17, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Apteva may have violated the topic ban by filing this AE case against Noetica. The comments by Noetica were given in the context of whether to include the Hale–Bopp comet in a list of article titles on the relevant policy page. It was clearly a discussion over the en-dash issue and reporting Noetica for comments made in that discussion would seem to run afoul of the "broadly construed" aspect of the restriction.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 02:21, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Let's see if I can summarize:

1. Changing, not removing, a see also link is pushing a disruptive agenda (per Dicklyon)
2. Even if the topic ban wasn't violated, the user should be blocked (per Paul Erik)
3. Apparently using AE is against a topic ban (per The Devil's Advocate)

It seems this can be closed as no admin action needed (except maybe some very large trouts). A few individuals need to find something more productive to do, it seems. --Nouniquenames 04:01, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Wow, that is not even remotely what I said. It is about the fact that he is using AE to report an editor for comments in a discussion about using en-dashes, an editor with whom he has disputed the use of en-dashes. Personally, I think discussing someone's conduct in a discussion about use of en-dashes falls under the "broadly construed" part of the restriction.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 04:08, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
• It's not what I said either. I do think the topic ban was violated; Seraphimblade's clarification explains why. The intention of a topic ban is that the user disengage entirely from the topic, which Apteva is not doing. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:38, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Block, fairly clear attempt to circumvent exact wording of topic ban. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:50, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
• Enough already. Apteva has been disrupting WP:MOS and WP:TITLE pages since October with his unique theory about dashes and comets. The theory got no support, and everyone else has moved on, but Apteva continues to disrupt MOS and TITLE. —Neotarf (talk) 06:10, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
• Without advocating a specific course of action (I'll leave that to others) these actions represent an unambiguous violation of his topic ban. The idea of topic bans is to allow a Wikipedia user to use their talents in areas far afield from ones that encourage them to have behavioral issues. Apteva is showing no signs that they wish to comply with this idea; indeed their actions seem to consist of testing the boundaries of the ban, which is a clear sign that they have no real intention of obeying it in the long term. --Jayron32 06:16, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Well said. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:55, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Concur with Jayron32, SarekOfVulcan, Paul Erik, Rschen7754, et al. (And see below for an issue no one's noticed yet that is blockworthy in and of itself.) Even without Seraphimblade's clarification that this activity is in fact directly covered by Apteva's topic ban, it would still be WP:GAMING/WP:LAWYERing to skirt the exact wording of it. Furthermore, even after the hopefully forthcoming block expires, the topic ban should be extended to cover the Manual of Style and its applicability more generally. Apteva (a.k.a. Delphi234 a.k.a. Oakwillow a.k.a. 199.125.109.*) has been arguing, tendentiously, disruptively and in an unbelievably parent- and forum-shopping manner, about style matters, from hyphenation to capitalization, at MOS, at RMs, VP, everywhere, for months on end, and not only has not slowed down after being RFC/U'd and WP:AN'd and partially topic banned, but has stepped up his pace, even disrupting WT:AT with off-topic rants, and trying to modify the wording of WP:AT against consensus, etc. It's long past time for this to stop.

  Some editors simply are not temperamentally suited, or knowledgeable enough, for collaborative editing and consensus building on style matters, because they are brow-beating prescriptive grammar holywarriors who believe they are "Right" and must "win" to address a "great wrong", by campaigning everyone else half to death, with the aim of simply wearing opposition down until nothing is left of them but a bloody stain. Such editing patterns become the end-in-itself of editing WP, instead of improving the encyclopedia when left unchecked, as Apteva's has. {{em|It's an unfortunate oversight that the topic ban was so narrowly worded, and this should be rectified}, as it was with PMAnderson (general MOS topic ban; he was eventually blocked permanently for abusive sockpuppetry used to evade the ban.)

  Another, now-obvious, alternative is an indef-block of Apteva and an application of such an extended topic ban to his Delphi234 sockmaster account. See this barely-escaped ban/block for deceptive sockpuppetry: User talk:Delphi234#Usage of multiple accounts. The Apteva account was permitted to continue to exist only after this editor clarified that User:Apteva would only be used for editing solar-power articles and related (and Delphi234 would not be used overlappingly). Yet here we are, with User:Apteva moving further and further away from such article writing toward WP:SPA-like, anti-MOS wiki-picketing and editwarring. The editor continues to use both User:Delphi234 and User:Apteva almost every single day to edit solar/wind/nuclear energy articles in a way that makes it seem like two independent editors, despite being administratively warned twice (on pain of loss of one account and a possibly long-term block of the other) against doing so, as impermissibly deceptive, by admins Lucasbfr (now Luk) and Wknight94, over four years ago. That seems like entirely separate grounds for indef-blocking the Apteva account, as well as for a temporary but not trivial block of the Delphi234 alter-ego (which the user says, at that user-talk discussion, is his main account). I repeat what several of us have been asking, at WP:AN and WP:RFC/U: How long is this user going to be permitted to abuse Wikipedia for his own entertainment and POV-pushing? (Reminder: We've been tolerating it, for no reason, since at least October 2008!) The similarity of all this to PMAnderson's pattern of abuse is striking (though his soapboxes tended to actually be considerably more reasonable than Apteva's). PS: For the record, I think Apteva/Delphi234 does good article writing and sourcing on topics he knows a lot about, such as solar power and the energy grid. Style in English-language formal writing, and how WP operates at the policy level are decidedly not among those topics.
  — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 09:52, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

  This requires more careful review. Delphi234 and Apteva's contributions have not been directly overlapping -- one edits nuclear/wind, the other solar, and every time Delphi slipped up and posted to a WP-space discussion instead of using the Apteva account, they self-reverted. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:26, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• The solar/non-solar energy editing is a hair-splitting distinction only Apteva is apt to notice or care about, since energy topics overlap (few articles on solar power never mention any other kind of energy, or vice versa). He's obviously using the two accounts to pose misleadingly as two different people editing energy topics, something that two admins told him to stop doing several years ago, or lose one of the accounts and be blocked for a while on the other one. His privacy claim is moot, since his attempts to hide the fact that both accounts are the same person failed dismally over four years ago. He also promised to use the Apteva account for nothing but solar editing, but has instead repurposed it for massive anti-MOS disruptive forumshopping. Either of those admins, or any other admin, would be within their authority to indef block the one account and block the other for some non-trivial amount of time on these bases alone. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 00:09, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• The correct response from Apteva would be something like "Hmmm, I did not think that would be a problem, but if people here think it is, I will make sure to give edits like that a very wide berth in the future". Examples of wrong responses are as shown above: accuse Dicklyon of disrupting Wikipedia, and talk about previous discussions wasting countless hours and taking half a million bytes. That latter point (the amount of time/space taken to discuss Apteva's behavior) would be sufficient to convince most editors to stay a long way away from the topic, but it appears that Apteva is made of sterner stuff than most editors, and more blunt instruments will be required. The next violation should invoke an indefinite block until a convincing reassurance is forthcoming. Johnuniq (talk) 10:01, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Looks like that conversation has already taken place: [3] —Neotarf (talk) 10:13, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Per blocking policy, blocks are not punitive but preventative and none is warranted as I obviously did not consider that an infraction or infringement in any way of the ban which I am under. I would like to call everyone's attention to the recent warning on my talk page, and suggest that is sufficient. I apologize for the trouble that edit caused. See also links do not have explanations, as what is an explanation for one editor is meaningless for another, and so bare links are all we use. So yes, sorry, and I do promise to do better in not making anyone think I am doing something that I am not in the future. Peace and happy editing. Now all of us I am sure have better things to do. There are certainly 4 million articles and a lot of other issues more important than this one, which has already been dealt with. Thanks. Apteva (talk) 14:23, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• As you say, per the blocking policy, blocks are preventative and a block here would be to prevent you from continuing to violate your topic ban. Precisely because there are 4 million articles to work on, why don't you take the hint from your topic ban and move on to non-MOS related stuff. Blackmane (talk) 14:40, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Be more than happy to. The best way to accomplish that is rescind the topic ban, or at least not issue a block. There is clearly no chance of my violating the topic ban though. Apteva (talk) 21:55, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• You've done little but violate the topic ban since it was implemented. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 00:10, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• Block for 1 month. Testing the edges of a broadly-construed topic ban is a great way to get the ban widened. 1 month block to see if it sinks in. Then offer some WP:ROPE. User has a habitual habit of promising not to be interested in something to avoid sanction, then returning to the same behavior after the waters have calmed (see my user talk). (Noting, as usual, that this does not mean that others involved in this dispute should not be blocked/banned; simply that this user should.) -Nathan Johnson (talk) 15:43, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support block - sigh, following on from the topic ban proposal which they show minimal respect for. Also, I still don't understand why this user has 2 accounts, and I still don't see how they think they will ever pass RFA with this kind of behaviour. GiantSnowman 15:51, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
  • A long block like that would not serve to do anything other than hurt Wikipedia. I recently brought a third article to GA, and would likely a fourth in the next month, which would be delayed a month should a long block like that be administered. This would be a classic case of biting your nose to spite your face. Look. I get it. I do recommend though, dealing with the incivility at the MOS. Not by blocking everyone or topic banning anyone, but by treating the talk page as a DR page and only edited if a DR volunteer is present and issuing warnings to anyone acting incivil, in particular, violating wp:FOC or WP:NPA. Apteva (talk) 16:01, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia will cope without you. Even on articles that you WP:OWN and that clearly no-one else could be capable of working on. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:28, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
      • That misses the point. Wikipedia is unstoppable, and with or without anyone will do just fine. However, it is not to our advantage to ask anyone to delay their work needlessly. I do not own any articles, but I am expert in a dozen subjects encompassing several hundred articles and I do focus most of my attention there. Apteva (talk) 16:53, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
• Question - would such a block apply to the Apteva account, or to this editor's other account(s) too? Andy Dingley (talk) 16:26, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Both/all - though as stated above I fail to see why they need a second account. It appears to be one used for the disruptive editing, and leaves an ill feeling in my stomach. GiantSnowman 16:29, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
    • I too would question the good hand / bad hand accounts, especially as they're clearly being used quite contrarily to how they proposed that they would use them. However that is a separate question. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:46, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, both/all - topic bans apply to editors, not accounts. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 00:02, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support block very clearly a repeat of the tendentious behaviour that led to the topic ban. Suggest 1 week, to escalate as normal if issues recur. Block should be implement on both accounts and I would endorse an examination of the Delphi234/Apteva overlap--Cailil ^talk 17:53, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose block and suggest dropping the topic ban altogether. --Nouniquenames 18:07, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support block. No idea why the editor's continuing test of the boundaries of the topic ban would lead one to conclude that the topic ban was the problem here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:08, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

  It seems the problem is not just one editor. --Nouniquenames 19:32, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

  I can only refer to my topic ban as the letter k ban, but it is a fact that it was imposed to get me to stop bringing up the letter k, even though I had already agreed to a voluntary moratorium, yet the very editors who wanted a topic ban keep bringing up the letter k themselves, as if now that there is one less vote they might be able to get agreement on the topic. So yes, vacating the topic ban is a valid proposal (and even vacated I would still honor the self imposed moratorium on bringing up the topic). Apteva (talk) 19:54, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

  • Psychodramatic histrionics like this refusal-to-get-the-point nonsense are not going to win you any supporters here, only cement resolve against your "righteously" indignant disruption. You're basically trying to hang yourself with rope you don't even have. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 00:17, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

  (to Nouniquenames) How is the problem not being just one editor a reason not to fix the part of the problem that is just one editor? We can block no disruptive editor until we can block all disruptive editors in one indivisible action? -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:00, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

  Imagine an area overrun with both snakes and rats. Both are annoying to the property owner, but a sort of balance is achieved between the two. Now imagine if only the snakes were removed. Basic biology tells us the place will be overrun with rats. --Nouniquenames 04:47, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

  Of course, how silly of me. Apteva's disruption was holding other users' disruption in check. Ridiculous. It is my opinion that the Wikipedia editor population is not analogous to snakes and rats, and your basic biology rationalization is just that, a rationalization. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:44, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• The first thing that needs to happen here is to limit this editor to one account. Regardless of whether they're legitimate per WP:SOCK, if we have an editor under a topic ban who's continuing to test the boundaries, I don't think we need to force the community to track the edits of two separate accounts. AGF only goes so far. Black Kite (talk) 20:33, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
  • What for? If I try to test the boundaries let me know about it. It is not going to happen. One warning is sufficient. As pointed out I am very careful not to conflate the issue or violate policy, and self revert when necessary. Apteva (talk) 20:44, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
    • You've already tested the boundaries more than once, and once should have been enough. Certainly before this thread, I knew that the Apteva account was under a topic ban, but had no idea there was a second account and I'd bet that applies to many other editors as well. Black Kite (talk) 20:46, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
    • (edit conflict) "One warning"— you mean other than the RFC/U and numerous noticeboard threads you've been the focus of? In which you did the same shameless "sorry sir, won't happen again sir" backpedalling that you've been doing in this thread? ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 20:50, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
      • Neither was a test. Both were made under the clear understanding that there was nothing wrong with the edit, as they did not conflict with the letter k topic ban. The RFC/U was before the topic ban. Apteva (talk) 20:52, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose block: The grounds for the block, as supposed violation of the prior topic-ban, are baseless. An edit to the policy wp:TITLE to re-link a see-also link to "wp:Manual of Style" is not a discussion about hyphens/dashes. Instead, the argument to block for a proposed topic-ban is a "straw man fallacy" of highlighting a different paragraph as if it were the actual topic ban. I hereby declare the improper topic-ban as vacated and request an uninvolved admin to unblock User:Apteva. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:00, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to restrict Apteva to one account

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

---

Several people above have commented that Apteva should be restricted to one account. There's no need for the community to monitor several accounts of a disruptive, topic banned editor when they edit on the same topics. Both the Apteva account and Delphi234 account have recently made edits to renewable energy topics. Diffs: as Apteva and as Delphi234.

• Support as proposer. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 21:49, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
• This is a solution in search of a problem. All solar articles are edited with this account and no solar articles are edited with any other account. All other energy articles are edited with the other account. No MOS edits are made by that account. None. The only three items edited with this account are WP:RCP, WP:RM, and Solar, as well as any WP guidelines or policies. There is a very clear distinction and no problem with doing so. Apteva (talk) 22:07, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Why would anyone possibly need one account for editing solar power articles, and another account for editing wind power or renewable energy articles? This is far from "a very clear distinction", in account terms. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:20, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

That is not a legitimate use of an alternative account. And is actually an admission of violating WP:SCRUTINY. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 14:33, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support as original proposer, above.  :-) The distinction Apteva is claiming is basically one that only he will notice, as energy/power topics overlap. Apteva/Delphi234 is clearly masquerading as two independent parties, and was warned not to do so, particularly in energy topics, by at least two admins, yet has continued to do so for several years, and this editor promised that the Apteva account would only be used for solar power topics, but has instead repurposed it for MOS-related disruption as well as pretending to be someone else while editing energy topics. The privacy claim made at User talk:Delphi234 is moot since that talk page and the sockpuppet case both make it clear they are the same user. If there was no evidence of disruptive editing by either account, no big deal, but the opposite is the case. Both userpages' talk histories consist largely of complaints and problem reports, which is always a bad sign. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 00:00, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support They can't even be trusted with one account. As they're not an editor in good standing - and it appears that they have indeed used both accounts to edit the same subject area, fully support this restriction (✉→BWilkins←✎) 00:53, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support per Bwilkins and my personal perspective of this situation. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 00:54, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support per Bwilkins. --Rschen7754 00:56, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Apteva has no real reason for using two distinctly-named accounts; the ones he provides are not necessary to productive editing and have the potential to be further misused. dci | TALK 01:14, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support reasonable restriction --Guerillero | My Talk 01:18, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support The extra difficulty caused by the second account far outweighs any benefit (no benefit?) created by the second account. Ryan Vesey 01:19, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support The promised clear purpose for each never happened. Patience has been exhausted far too much with just one account, we certainly don't need two to watch. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:24, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose - no clear evidence that multiple accounts are a problem here. --Nouniquenames 04:47, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

It has long been policy that alt accounts should not edit in the same topic areas as a user's main account. therefore, using two accounts to edit different articles in the same topic area in an almost identical manner is a problem, and that Apteva is doing so is clearly demonstrated above. And in case it is not clear I support this restriction. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:05, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support as one who has been frustrated in attempts to tighten up alt-account practices on en.WP. Alt accounts, except where admins really need them for a narrow range of purposes, lead nowhere good. Tony (talk) 06:07, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support - I don't see why xe needs two accounts, and that fact that xe appears to use them as good cop/bad cop is unsettling. GiantSnowman 10:12, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support The second bullet point in response to this proposal is from Apteva who could only offer "This is a solution in search of a problem" and "no problem with doing so" as reasons to oppose the restriction. After all the community time and effort spent dealing with this user, a good reason for running two accounts would be needed, and none exists. Given all the fuss, one account is more than enough for the community to monitor. Johnuniq (talk) 10:52, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support, editor can't be trusted with one account, as Bwilkins observed. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:48, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support as well. Blackmane (talk) 15:10, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support - I was initially unconvinced until I ran a wikistalk of Apteva and Delphi234 - the overlap is considerable on the renewable resources topic[4]. In light of this the policy issue for me is that it is unclear from the User:Apteva page that this is an alternative account. And while the User:Delphi234 age does clearly link to Apteva as its alternative account the other does not. Someone just viewing User:Apteva will have no idea that Delphi234 is the same person. This is made worse by virtue of the fact that Apteva has far more edits than Delphi234. And since there have been numerous pages where this overlap occured WP:LEGIT has been broken IMO. In view that Apteva has nearly 6,500 more edits than Delphi234 I suggest limitting them to the Apteva account--Cailil ^talk 15:27, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I see obvious links flagged between both accounts, "above the fold" on both userpages. As I'm unaware of a formal requirement to use any particular style or template to indicate this, then I see no breach. I also see only a trivial overlap between their edits. The claimed distinction is obscure and nit-picking, but has broadly been followed, such that I wouldn't claim it has been breached. Despite that though, I favour "de-alternating" this editor (specifically an indef ban on one account, without other prejudice). The reason is that although there has been no clear breach of policy on alternates, neither has any value been demonstrated for them. Alternate accounts exist, some use them, many dislike them, but our broad position is one of rather grudging acceptance. Yet to be accepted, they have to demonstrate some tenuous claim of need. The default position is not that everyone should have as many as they wish, unless proven otherwise. It's up to the editor wanting one to give at least some justification for this. Apteva is failing to do so. They're not an editor in sufficiently good standing to be given quite such free rein as is usually granted: they had that privilege once, AGF kept it for them despite repeated provocations, but enough's enough. This is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and we're going to let them back and edit in a while – but it's also the encyclopedia where many other editors run in circles after this sort of pointless editor-created malarkey and there is no inalienable right for one editor to keep generating more and more of it. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:23, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support - Whatever the circumstances were that prompted the allowance of the co-existence of the two accounts at the time, there appears to me to be no reason now to allow it to continue, considering Apteva's behavior. Further, I would recommend that an CU be run to be certain there are no other accounts. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:31, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

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

• Oppose one-account limit. There is insufficient evidence to show improper use of the 2 username accounts (Apteva & User:Delphi234), as somehow acting as if being 2 different people in deciding issues. Perhaps discuss this 2 more days, to see if any credible evidence arises; otherwise, remove the one-username restriction. However, I advise to check for collusion between several of the above editors who seem to dogpile in accusations against Apteva, then discount those "Support" !votes as being co-involved editors trying to force the outcome of a POV dispute. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:00, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

  You've missed the point. There is insufficient evidence to show proper use of multiple username accounts. Several of the editors being familiar with Apteva's disruption is evidence of sentience, not collusion; that you categorize their actions as a "dogpile" is evidence of your assumption of bad faith, not of their collusion. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:18, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

No, it is not an "assumption of bad faith" but rather, it is just "bad" when 7 or 9 co-involved editors support an unrelated sanction against an opponent editor, all within a period of 11 hours, when non-involved editors state there is no evidence of multi-account violations. -Wikid77 (talk)

Apteva blocked

I have blocked Apteva for a period of 2 weeks. His actions are an obvious violation of the spirit of his topic ban and there needs to be no ambiguity in his mind that the topic ban requires he stays away from editing in this area. I believe the comments in the main section demonstrate support for a block. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 00:29, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

What about the alternate account? GoodDay (talk) 00:43, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

 Done Although permanent resolution should come from the sub-section above (✉→BWilkins←✎) 00:52, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

So the ongoing discussion about a block above including suggestions as short as 24 hours was just taking too long? Seriously. What. The. Crud. --Nouniquenames 04:47, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

In cased you missed the policy, nouniquenames, a BLOCK applies to the person, not the account. As the editor in question has multiple accounts that they use in the same areas I merely made an identical-length block to the alternate account as per policy. Its final viability will be determined above. It was NOT indeffed because, as I noted, that's being discussed above. I think I now better understand your cryptic - and poorly-thought-out message on my talkpage now (✉→BWilkins←✎) 10:23, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm starting to wonder why Nouniquenames keeps turning up every time Apteva and his anti-MOS WP:TAGTEAM are under scrutiny, supporting them and running interference against everyone else's attempts to rein in their abuses. I also note a history of snarky, incivil edit summaries like "oppose another stupid idea" and "apparently no one has anything better to do", coupled with an excessive focus on lodging complaints against other editors, including handing out WP:TROUTs right and left. "Apprarently" not having "anything better to do" isn't something Nouniquenames has taken some time to self-reflect about. Hint: When consensus is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that the behavior patterns exhibited by an editor – Apteva in this case – are consistently and undeniably disruptive, tendentious and system-gaming, one is exhibiting a refusal to get the point problem oneself by throwing up repetitive, not-a-snowball's-chance verbal shields in efforts to defend the disruptor. PS: Yes, yes, three times yes, this has been taking too long, and the block was overdue (I also firmly predict it will be too short and will have little to no effect). Apteva has been at this WP:BATTLEGROUND-mentality campaign of MOS-attacking for months, and has been at abusing multiple accounts to deceptively edit energy articles for years. Very few editors get away with demonstrable patterns of disruption and sockpuppetry for this long. Delaying yet further while he continues to blame everyone else and insist he's doing the Right Thing, without any signs of understanding the views of others, and, well, blatantly lying about his willingness to stop, isn't going to help anyone or anything. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 06:45, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, taking too long. By about four months. Your early close of this enforcement request (which I reverted) didn't help matters, really. Dicklyon (talk) 07:13, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

By that point it didn't matter. The blocks were put in place already, despite the open discussion. Cowboy tactics in the worst way. Hatting was intended to show that there was no need or purpose in continuing the discussion (as the end result was apparently determined already). It's not that I doubted supports were lacking when compared to opposes, it's the blatant disregard for the very processes intended to promote a workable atmosphere. The Jamaican Bobsled Team clause, if you will. People should be screaming from the rooftops on this, but there's essentially silence. It's very disheartening. --Nouniquenames 07:24, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• The sanction might be enough to cause him to sit back and be more circumspect for about 24 hours after the block expires. What's more of a joke is that one or other account should have been indeffed for engaging in deceptive socking, but was blocked only for the same two weeks. Long live socking [sic]! -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 10:02, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

The false claim of "deceptive" is violation of wp:NPA. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:30, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

PC2 for Mangoeater targets

After this thread started, Francophonie&Androphilie had his username changed to PinkAmpersand.

As anyone who monitors AN/I, SPI, CSD, AFD, or even, lately, RFA [5] knows, de facto banned Mangoeater1000 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · logs · block log · arb · rfc · lta · SPI · cuwiki) has been incredibly persistent in his disruption, generally in relation to articles on NYU Poly (promoting it) and Cal Poly Pomona (trying to minimize it). It got so bad that two weeks ago Reaper Eternal full-protected Polytechnic Institute of New York University and List of NYU Polytechnic Institute people‎ until March 28 and March 6, respectively. To me this seems unfortunate (though I completely understand and agree with Reaper's decision), especially as both articles are in serious need of improvement. So, I was wondering if we could discuss the option of implementing Pending Changes Level 2 protection (in conjunction with semi-protection, probably). While there was never any community endorsement of its use, neither was there, as King of Hearts pointed out at AN/I recently, explaining his decision to apply PC2 to 1948 Arab-Israeli War, any consensus against its use, meaning that there's nothing to stop the community from making ad hoc IAR decisions to apply it to certain articles. (Elockid has since applied PC2 to First York, Transdev York, and York Pullman.) Clearly it's better to let users edit an article, subject to review, than to not let them at all, and both articles are monitored by several reviewers and admins. Furthermore, Mangoeater has been active since May, had his first sock blocked in July, and has been indeffed since October, so there's no reason to believe he won't just start up again come March. I suggested at the Arab-Israeli War AN/I thread that we hold future discussions PC2 discussions here, as AN/I can be so hostile that well-respected community members steer clear of it, limiting the degree of consensus that can be achieved on anything policy-related. So, I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Thoughts? — Francophonie&Androphilie^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 00:06, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Makes me somewhat uncomfortable. Not because I don't think putting PC2 on as an alternative to full-protection is a bad idea to protect against banned socks (etc.) but because the community consensus in the PC RfCs doesn't endorse PC2 and use of it is likely to lead to accusations that we are setting off down a slippery slope, on an express train through some undemocratic wasteland. So, yes, support in theory, but in practice it seems like the community will excrete a brick. —Tom Morris (talk) 01:04, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Incidentally, the previous discussion I mentioned can be found at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive781#What is the appropriate level of protection for an article with the following characteristics ? Everyone who commented agreed that PC2 was merited, simply leaving the question of whether the community allowed its implementation. The only objection to KoH's decision was by The Devil's Advocate, who himself noted that he supports PC2; considering that this managed to fall off the board, it's clear that no one, even at AN/I, had a serious enough objection to raise hell in the ways you describe. — Francophonie&Androphilie^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 01:43, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Both PC2 and full protection are game-able by socks, but this won't be substantially easier for them, while this will be substantially easier for good-faith editors than it would be to force them to use editprotected requests all the time. Nyttend (talk) 02:41, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support per IAR, even though I believe it would be more optimal to gain consensus for its use to avoid any possible shenanigans. I would also think an edit filter would be a good alternative in many cases, but here it seems that the behavior is not truly consistent enough for that.--Jasper Deng (talk) 02:51, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support, this seems to be one of those cases for which IAR exists. --Nouniquenames 04:43, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Note, if anyone would like to reference the note I ended up leaving on the talkpage of the article referenced above, that kind of note should suffice to explain the reasoning for the PC2. As long as we don't go PC2 on everything, I think it's okay for a very select few articles. gwickwire^talk_edits 04:47, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. A little ironic, because I like PC2 and detest PC1, but with the amount of dishonesty that went on with the original implementation of PC, I think anything that even smells of going against community consensus needs to be avoided. The primary opposition to PC was based on "slippery slope" style of arguments, and this just feeds them.—Kww(talk) 04:58, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose This is ridiculous. Maybe Elockid added PC2 by accident, but either way this should not be getting implemented like this, period. It can only create confusion for admins and reviewers. So I implore any admin to immediately remove the PC2 protection from any articles that have them. As far as I know this would just be the 1948 Arab-Israeli War article, the Transdev York article, the First York article, and the York Pullman article.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 06:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• How do you suppose it will confuse admins or reviewers? --Jasper Deng (talk) 06:11, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• I know it confused me to see an article on my watchlist (1948 Arab-Israeli War) with PC2 protection when I knew the RfC did not get consensus for that level of protection. You may also have the old "other people are doing so it must be acceptable" reaction and then have admins imposing PC2 protection like any other protection under the impression it is now legit. Not to mention that we don't have a clear procedure set out for reviewing changes of the sort PC2 is being used to stop in these ad-hoc cases. Although not related to the above, the whole notion of half a dozen editors using AN/ANI as a workaround for an RfC that involved several dozen editors is not the sort of thing I endorse.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 06:29, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, I don't understand your last sentence; could you clarify what you mean? Nyttend (talk) 06:12, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• I believe TDA is listing the four articles currently under PC2 protection (according to the relevant category; it's possible that others are, but haven't been tagged with {{pp-pc2}}, which auto-categorizes them). In response to TDA's general points, though, I, like, Jasper, don't really follow: This is about as visible a forum as it gets; if it's good enough to ban and unban users, I'd think it's good enough to apply protection to a single article. So I don't really understand what could be confusing about this. I don't see what's ridiculous about trying to stop a lone troll from permanently stalling the improvement of two articles in need of substantial cleanup. — Francophonie&Androphilie^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 06:26, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• You may find this astonishing, but plenty of people edit Wikipedia without paying any mind to cesspools such as this page and certainly many edit without looking at it on a regular basis. Circumventing a broad and lengthy community discussion involving dozens of editors by using AN because you want to thump on the socks is not appealing to me at all.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 06:40, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• I'm not circumventing consensus; I'm seeking it. Circumventing it would be to find some out-of-the-loop admin and email them to ask if they'd mind downgrading it to PC2. Starting a thread at the board that we use for some of our most substantial discussions is seeking it. "No consensus" is not a valid reason to oppose a proposal, for rather obvious reasons. If the consensus here is that this really needs to be done by RfC, so be it, but WP:PC2012/RfC 1 closed as "No consensus", so it's really not circumventing anything to start a discussion in a prominent community forum as to whether we should apply PC2 to a particular article. — Francophonie&Androphilie^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 06:52, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• I'd normally agree with you that you can't subvert a "no consensus", but since the original PC trial was marred by such blatant dishonesty and efforts to bypass our normal consensus process, I think we need to tread especially carefully.—Kww(talk) 16:11, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose I have been a firm supporter of using PC2 in limited circumstances, and this is certainly one of them. But the PC debate has been a feculent clusterfuck of drama in large part because of the failure to end the initial trial on time. As such, doing *anything* new with PC, including any use of PC2, without an explicit and broad community consensus, seems foolhardy due to the risk of disrupting the community. It's "cheaper in the long run", to do this right, even if it means a few full protects in the meantime. Want PC2? I'll be there at the RFC supporting it. But not until. --j⚛e decker^talk 06:35, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

  Moving to Support in view of listing at WP:CENT, which I believe will reduce the probability of bad splashback. --j⚛e decker^talk 02:35, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support In this case, I believe WP:IAR applies. This is a wayyy better solution than full protection here since good faith editors don't need to make edit-requests all the time. It also protects against socks. It's a win-win situation, and it works extremely well here. Vacation9 13:16, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Gives editors in good standing better leverage against likely POV changes from socks. Binksternet (talk) 14:45, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Use this as a test case if necessary but the more countermeasures we use for persistent socks the better off we will be.
   — Berean Hunter (talk) 16:06, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support, this is definitely the case for PC2 to be implemented on. A little concerned that PC2 had no consensus at the time of PC implementation, but in this context, I like it. Let's see if the community is willing to play ball. -T.I.M^(Contact) 00:39, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose if we were to every use PC2, this would be the type of case. But A) there is no consensus to use it at all and B) as Kww and others have said, there has been way too much drama around this in the past to open up this can of worms now. Fully protect it if needed, but PC2 is a really bad idea as it will create more drama and work than it will save. Hobit (talk) 18:12, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. PC2 has never been approved for use on Wikipedia (outside of the trial a couple of years ago). That it was approved was one interpretation of the close in June to the big PC RfC, but during the September RfC specifically on PC2, the case was convincingly made that neither the voters nor the closers in the spring had given PC2 much thought. PC2 would be something not only new, but revolutionary, on Wikipedia (creating a class of Wikipedians whose job it is to decide which edits of everyone else are good enough to stay and which aren't), so turning it on would require consensus; the RfC was closed as no consensus. To use it now is to say that developers and not the Wikipedian community have the authority to decide how we protect pages on Wikipedia. Reading quickly, I don't see evidence that any of the supporters above have considered any of the problems with PC2 that were pointed out in the September RfC. In particular, this is a critical stage for PC1, which is new and unexpected for most editors ... and now, as a result of allowing the use of PC2 here, an editor has just changed the table which is supposed to describe PC1 back into a table giving two PC2 options, which is going to make it even harder for people to get comfortable with PC1. Having said all that: IAR is policy, and I'm always in favor of non-disruptive experimentation. If this were just treated as a lone experiment, with discussion about possible positive and negative consequences and requests for alternatives that might be better than PC2, and if there were no changes to the main PC page, I wouldn't have any strong feelings about it. - Dank (push to talk) 01:24, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• I'd totally support changing it back when there are no article space pages with PC2, but it appears there are a couple currently [6]. Monty₈₄₅ 01:33, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• I've respectfully reverted you, Monty; if this proposal is successful, I'm planning on adding a few footnotes explaining that there've been a handful of IAR applications. But considering that the abbreviated table already links to the full one, I think it's unnecessary to revise policy based on the minority of cases. I'd like to make it clear to all who've opposed that I very much feel that a large-scale implementation of PC2 should only be conducted through an RFC, and that this noticeboard is not the place to establish binding precedent. Anyways, Dank, if I clarify that my intention, at least, as original poster, was only to, as you say, treat this as a lone experiment (and, looking through the support !votes, it appears to me that this is the general sentiment among those who support), would you perhaps reconsider your !vote? You make some very good points against PC2 in general, but you seem to concede that it could be effective here. — Francophonie&Androphilie^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 01:45, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• When this turns into an actual experiment ... with the supporters agreeing that the point is to try new approaches to a difficult problem, discussing pros and cons and alternatives on the article talk page, rather than taking the position that this is an approved protection tool that needs no discussion ... I'll strike my oppose, if this thread hasn't been archived. Note that a form of protection that would be obviously superior to PC2 (if used only for these rare cases of very determined socks) would be to make some pages require 50 (or 100 or 250) prior edits by new accounts; that wouldn't create a special class of editors charged with ruling on everyone else's edits, but it would succeed in frustrating the socks, and would make it easier for us to identify them, possibly before they can even edit their target pages. - Dank (push to talk) 02:49, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Do you mean as a sort-of ultraconfirmed usergroup, and corresponding ultra-semi-protection? gwickwire^talk_edits 03:00, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• You could think of it that way, though I'd want this to remain rare enough that it wouldn't make sense to talk on-wiki about a new "class" of Wikipedians ... just have the code exclude edits by people with less than 100 (or whatever number works best) contribs, for a handful of articles. Obviously not something we'd want to apply often, but it beats all hell out of PC2 ... particularly in this case, where PC2 is being used to let reviewers rule on whether edits are coming from socks ... when reviewers aren't being selected or encouraged to do any such thing, reviewers are supposed to be checking for vandalism and BLP edits. - Dank (push to talk) 03:06, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose There exists, as of this posting, 125,500 active users, of whom only 7,000 have reviewer capability(reviewers + admins). Only 3600 editors are watching this page, and obviously many of those are admins. Even if we assume there are zero admin or reviewer watchers, that means only 117,000 or 3% of active editors are monitoring this page. To disable the effective editing capability of 97% of Wikipedia editors without notice is disruptive to the editing process. NE Ent 02:30, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• I don't quite follow: Currently, there are only 859 users who can edit these articles, and very few of them probably ever will; if we implement PC2, any user (or, assuming we combine it with semi-protection, any autoconfirmed user) will be able to; yes, their edits will be subject to review, but I think it's safe to say reviewers will be very cautious before rejecting submissions that wouldn't fall under their purview under PC1. (In fact, we can explicitly mandate this, if desired.) I hate removing editing access to the encyclopedia that anyone can edit as much as the next guy, but that's why I'm suggesting this: Nothing less than PC2 will have any hope of being effective while Mangoeater's out there, and full protection is... awful. The question here is should we leave an article un-edit-able for three months over philosophical objections to the general theory of PC2? — Francophonie&Androphilie^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 07:39, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Full protection provides a clear and well known interface; PC2 does not, it provides a "fake edit" interface that makes it appear to autoconfirmed editors they're editing the current view of the page, but they're not. FPP is good because we know it's painful, which mitigates the temptation to overly apply it; because PC2 appears to be cheap there will be a tendency to use it more and more. Long term normal editors will have to become reviewers or the reviewers will have to spend more and more time reviewing. Now is the the time to address the question how will this scale? "Four" articles becomes 40 becomes 400... NE Ent 11:39, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
• Philosophical objections? Replying on your talk page. - Dank (push to talk) 11:46, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• I would support using PC2 on the pages only if we agree that it is a test case and the protection is temporary. (Having worked with Dank on some of the recent PC RfCs, I agree with many of his views on the matter.) ~Adjwilley (talk) 03:43, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose, largely per Kww. Let's not go down this road. We just finished a seemingly interminable process involving multiple RfCs and much contentiousness. Enough is enough for a while. While it may be tempting to make "just one exception" here, exactly how long would it be before someone wants another exception, and another, and another? And if the rationale given in those subsequent requests is compelling, what then? Somehow we got by for more than a decade without PC1, and we seem to be doing all right without PC2 now. Anyone who'd like to modify a fully-protected article can make an edit request. Rivertorch (talk) 10:36, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support with the condition that every registered (inserted edit - I meant autoconfirmed) user is given reviewer rights. Otherwise Oppose. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:51, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Maybe this is just a case of somewhat-too-deadpan reductio ad absurdum (in which case, well played), but granting all registered users "reviewer" status would not only make PC2 identical to PC1, but reduce both of their protectiony-ness to below that of the current PC1, since it would allow non-autoconfirmed but registered (and therefore reviewer) accounts to bypass the protection. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:56, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
    • I knew I should have wink-smiley-faced it. One of the reasons PC2 didnt gain consensus was the argument that it would create another layer of trusted users/permission levels/senority, however you wish to word it. Setting the reviewer bar as low as possible would eliminate that concern. However I did mean 'auto-confirmed' in the above, not merely 'registered' so have clarified. But I was only semi-serious. I would support admins ignoring the lack of community consensus regarding PC2 only if the reviewer bar was low, as accusations of power-gathering/protectionism are irrelevant at that point. Otherwise if the 'community' is not going to be made reviewers, then effectively the lack of consensus should stand, otherwise its just another wedge between admins and non-admins. Either respect lack of previous consensus, or hold another PC RFC (yes yes, another one). Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:47, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose I'm not usually a big fan of slippery-slope arguments, but in this case, it's compelling. We as a community have seen fit to keep PC2 from entering the admin toolbox. We've had one instance of PC2 slipping under the radar already; here we're asking for another. At what point are we admins just overreaching and ignoring the consensus of the community? I don't think this instance puts us over that line, but it's a line that we should be staying far away from. If it's not in our toolbox, we don't get to use it, period. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:48, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose obviously. WP:PC2012/RfC 1. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 19:39, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• So a lack of consensus is reason to oppose an attempt at getting consensus? Nyttend (talk) 17:22, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
  • With respect, I think you've got it backwards; it appears to me that the opposers are doing the things normally associated with trying to get consensus, such as pointing to past discussions and weighing pros and cons. I'm not saying that supporters don't know what they're talking about, and don't believe that ... but if I'm just looking at what's on this page, I don't see evidence that the people who supported before I weighed in were either considering past arguments or encouraging people to treat this as an experiment. OTOH, I'm not on board with "just say no", either ... the September RfC closed with a recommendation to look at this again in six to nine months, after we had sufficient experience with PC1 to be able to say something intelligent about where all this is going. Let's make it six months, and let's spend a couple of months looking at PC1, PC2, and alternatives to PC2. My preference, based on what I've seen so far, is stated in my thread above. - Dank (push to talk) 17:55, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
  • There's no problem attempting to get consensus, there's a problem with claiming consensus for so fundamental a wikitask as article editing on a page which bills itself as "This page is for posting information and issues that affect administrators ... Issues appropriate for this page could include: General announcements, discussion of administration methods, ban proposals, block reviews, and backlog notices." (emphasis original)NE Ent 18:15, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
    • But this does affect administrators because this thread is about a specific dane-braimaged sock and trying to effectuate countermeasures to halt him. Yes, Dank, my support statement above encourages this to be an experiment but one that needs done now not in one or three months. Mangoeater is wasting too much of our time and we are looking to halt him ASAP. This limited use on what, maybe 10 articles(?), probably would affect less than 100 regular editors. I'm not part of the discussions on PC and hold no particular opinions on them but my ears have perked up at the idea of seeing another tool in grasp for ridding us of some of the worst problem children.
       — Berean Hunter (talk) 18:50, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose' even though it might make my specific job easier. I am currently dealing with an edit request for one of the related articles, which I am answering in good faith, though it is made by a new SPI, and consists essentially of a request to restore the old and inappropriately promotional material. It is I think easy to justify my edits and non-edits, but I am editing through protection, which is always an uncomfortable position. The reason for my oppose is very simple: irrelevant to the merits of PC2, doing it now is hopelessly confusing. We have enough problems with PC1 being unfamiliar. Let's learn to use it first, and then see if the community wants to make a trial of going to the next level. If the PC1 experience is good, they probably will, so what we should concentrate on is getting PC1 to be part of the accepted and understood routine. DGG ( talk ) 22:32, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support as a one-off test case. Much of the opposition to PC2 (IMO) was more about "let's not do this kind of complicated thing yet", with a three-month delay suggested before reviewing the issue again, rather than "absolutely never". The expected flood of articles listed at RFPP for PC did not materialize. The couple of times I've checked, the entire queue has had a single-digit number of changes yet to be reviewed. The predicted endless complaints haven't materialized (well, I haven't seen any, but I am behind on my watchlist, so perhaps I've just not gotten to the pages where the whole world is freaking out). So I think that reality has proven less dire than predicted, and we could probably cut short the planned three-month system for such an appropriate use. (I don't think that I'd support its use at this time with anything less than a significant discussion here at AN.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:32, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

• Four other articles have PC2 protection so this instance would be expanding from several others.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 06:15, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

• Those of you who read F&A's linked discussion may or may not have noticed that my question was never answered. Now, I freely admit my ignorance: I am not very familiar with Mangoeater1000's case, and I don't know much about blocking account creation, but before I weigh in, I'd love to hear an explanation for why a hard block doesn't or wouldn't work on Mangoeater1000. Is he circumventing an account creation block, or is there not one currently in place? Full protection or PCPP 2 both seem excessive when they're essentially only there to thwart one persistent user. I can't disagree that semi-protection is probably insufficient here, but why is further protection the only answer? —Rutebega (talk) 20:49, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Just realized I can see the user's block settings in his block log, sorry. He's justifiably been indef hardblocked since December, which does raise the question of how he's been circumventing that to keep on socking. I'll wait for further comments on this before I cast my !vote. —Rutebega (talk) 21:01, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

• "Account creation blocked" only applies to the user account itself, and to its last-used IP address when autoblocked. However, after the autoblock expires, more socks can be created while logged out. Although CheckUser can help prevent this by find out and hardblocking the underlying IP address(es) for extended periods of time, IP hopping can and does occur.--Jasper Deng (talk) 06:50, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
• Pretty much everything has been tried. Skimming through a random sampling from Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Mangoeater1000, it appears that all (or almost all) of the 79-and-counting socks have been hardblocked. And according to the SPI archive, Avi and DoRD have now blocked at least 6 ranges. I don't know if those ranges were softblocked or hardblocked (or softblocked with account creation disabled), and I see that earlier on there was some hesitation to hardblock an NYU range that Mangoeater was using; if a CU is at liberty to comment on the degree to which IP-blocking actions have been pursued, I think that would be helpful to editors like Rutebega who want to be sure that PC2 is the only feasible alternative to full-protection before they consider supporting this. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 16:28, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose until consensus for PC2 is achieved first. 01:33, 21 January 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by EngineerFromVega (talk • contribs)

Comment: If anyone is wondering my rationale for applying PC2 + semi, here it is. As you may or may not have known, getting autoconfirmation is extremely easy. So easy in fact that a number of blocked and/or banned users have decided to take advantage of this ease of attaining autoconfirmation and bypass semiprotection. In some cases full protection has been applied to deal with the disruption, but from what I have seen, editors tend to opt for allowing at least some people (not just admins) to edit an article. There are really no other more feasible means of preventing the disruption while minimizing collateral. Elockid ^(Talk) 21:31, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose Many school articles--I would say almost all school articles-are edited mostly or entirely by students or alumni. Obviously, they're the people most likely to be knowledgable & interested. We just can't rely on a 16-year-old high school dropout(PinkAmpersand)--Unitskayak (talk) 22:24, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mangoeater1000 for Unitskayak. 72Dino (talk) 22:26, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
• That's a fucking low blow, Pablo, even for you. If you comment here again, I'll initiate proceedings for a formal community ban with the additional rider that talkpage access be summarily revoked for all of your sockpuppets, provided that they're CU-confirmed. I don't know what else we can do to make it clear to you that you are not welcome here, since you persist in this delusion that you'll be able to show up here at AN or at SPI, insult me and/or other editors, and come up with lies to defend your own actions, and wind up with anything other than yet another block. Incidentally, if you're aware that I'm not attending school at the moment, you're also aware that I'm clinically depressed, in which case you might want to take a nice long look in the mirror, and review your priorities here, and in life in general. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 15:41, 23 January 2013 (UTC) (the grandson of a former NYU School of Engineering professor, by the way)

• Too many comments here seem related to the use of PC2 as a standard form of protection. There's no consensus for it's use in that way, but it's use on certain articles may be beneficial to the encyclopedia. Maybe it can be used in some circumstances, but in each case should be reviewed to determine whether it's the most appropriate form of protection. Certainly protecting poor quality articles (such as Transdev York, which has now been nominated for deletion) isn't the best solution. Peter James (talk) 01:57, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support. The use of PC2 exclusively to prevent blatant sockpuppetry from autoconfirmed puppets (assuming this is what is going on here) seems useful, and a good application of WP:IAR. (I really don't think such protection should be for an indefinite duration, though.) Any further use of PC2 (such as to prevent edit warring) should not occur without broader consensus, as there are broader issues at play in those cases. — This, that, and the other (talk) 11:11, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
• Two comments (nothing more, since I already spoke above) — first, Unitskayak's opposition is by itself a good reason to support this move. Second, I'd say that we should only use PC2 when full protection is the only other option; we might as well let reviewers edit as well as admins. Nyttend (talk) 03:43, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support for the requested articles only. I believe that this discussion has been widely enough advertised (e.g. on WP:CENT) and open long enough that if there were any objections to using PC2 for this specific set of articles – rather than general concerns about a slippery slope – they would have been raised by now. I share the slippery slope concerns, and I hope that however this is closed, the close will not be interpreted as a mandate to adopt PC2 as a standard tool without a broad community mandate for it. But I think that the community, as represented by the editors interested enough to comment here, has the right to give this tool a try to address this specific problem. 28bytes (talk) 17:22, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support PC2 for one and only one article, to be selected by consensus. PC2 was originally put on hold pending data on PC1, now let's put it on hold pending data on PC2. A "trial run" of 3 months or so will allow us to better determine its efficacy, especially in juxtaposition to another article with similar issues. After a set period, we analyze what happened on each of the two articles and determine whether PC2 is worth using. —Rutebega (talk) 02:42, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support time-limited trial run on these specific targets, followed by a community discussion of the results. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:07, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
• Although I've been vocally opposed to PC2, I seriously want to thank everyone ... I believe people are doing a good job with this. We do need tools to help with Mangoeater ... I sure wish the Foundation would give us different tools, but they haven't and it doesn't look like they ever will. If people want to experiment and come up with guidelines that minimize some of the downsides, I'm on board. The one thing I'm concerned about ... I don't want to set up a two-month "experiment" in which we apply PC2 to one or two pages without experimentation, then declare it a "success" after nothing happens. If no one objects, I'll ask over at WT:MIL what they'd like to experiment with ... I really have no idea what they think about this issue, and I'd like to know, we have a lot of people who are very clued-in on dealing with persistent, obnoxious socks. - Dank (push to talk) 15:20, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Violation of WP:NOSHARE

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

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It has been brought to my attention at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Epeefleche#Outside view by IZAK that the account MrJuddsStudents (talk · contribs) is a shared account with multiple different "editors" moved in/out based on them being students of Danjel (talk · contribs). There is a reasoning for why the account is set up that way, but this reasoning is not listed as an approved reason for the sharing. I am bringing this question to clarify if this usage is permitted per the User Name conventions.Hasteur (talk) 04:11, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Of note, there is a discussion at ANI regarding Danjel. Danjel has elected to blank the AN notices from both accounts. Hasteur (talk) 04:12, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

As stated on my userpage, students propose edits that they want to make, I then directly supervise their work and take responsibility for the edits. This is necessary to protect their privacy and prevent them from posting from identifiable IP's per WP:CHILD as they are too young to legally own their own accounts, and to create a degree of separation between my work as an editor and my work as a teacher.

The account is clearly marked in several places as being connected with me, including in the edit notice, and on the User talkpage and vice versa on my userpage. The account has not, thus far, edited outside of its own userspace (where a student was preparing some work for later).

This is now the second thread started at an administrative noticeboard in retaliation by supporters of Epeefleche, whose conduct I have called into question at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Epeefleche, at which Hasteur is an active participant. The other thread is Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Short_term_block_proposal:_User:Danjel. This is now taking the form of WP:HARASSMENT, for the purpose of supporting Epeefleche's cause. Yes, I blanked the notices per WP:BLANKING. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 04:22, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Blanking vs dealing with them (or responding to them) has different perceptions. Blanking suggests that you deny the assertion. I cite your lack of any sort of edit summary acknoledging them instead going for a null edit summary or a system automation indicating reversion. Please indicate how calling the policy question on an account that may have been set up both in violation of laws regarding children and in contravention of wikipedia best practices. WP:CHILD is an essay specifically dealing with protecting children from predators whereas WP:NOSHARE is a policy that has very specific exceptions written into it. None of the exceptions seem to fit the situation here, so yes I think it's wise to call the question in front of a larger community if the account should be prohibited. Hasteur (talk) 04:28, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

[edit conflict] Thank you for the explanation, Danjel. What you're doing is definitely not permitted by the WP:ROLE policy. However, I seriously question the idea of sanctioning anyone for this account's behavior — it's being used to protect privacy, it's being done under direct supervision of an experienced editor who's taking responsibility for it, and it's being done in full acknowledgement without an attempt to avoid scrutiny. WP:ROLE was definitely not written for this situation, so let's implement WP:IAR here. Nyttend (talk) 04:30, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Nyttend: cheers. The first sane voice I've heard today. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 04:34, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

With the implication that the rest of us are not sane? Care to refactor your statement? Hasteur (talk) 04:36, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Nope. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 04:45, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)*2 Please illuminate how information revealed at the RFC/U that I have acted upon in what I the most prudent method constitues harassment? I echo the sentiments at the ANI thread that it appears you see editors who allign on the side of policy and best practices as being in collusion with Epeeflechee and therefore a WP:BATTLEGROUND. I strongly advise you to step back and give experienced editors and administrators the opportunity to consider your actions with regard to this account. Hasteur (talk) 04:35, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Role accounts are not permitted. Period. It doesn't matter what the purpose of the role account is, it's just not allowed, no exceptions. The editors who are using the account can create new personal acconts, or use IP accounts. There is now convincing reason -- except for avoiding scrutiny -- that they must use the role account. Block, please, for blatant violations of policy. Beyond My Ken (talk) 10:59, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually they can't make their own accounts. Or at least, Wikipedia shouldn't let them: COPPA. Hence why it's my account, under my responsibility, and I technically hit the "save page" button. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 11:44, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Every rule has exceptions. The reason for wanting to do this is ... significant, anyhow. I don't know whether it's compelling enough, but it merits discussion. The account doesn't at all allow them to avoid scrutiny. We owe them serious consideration, not just unthinking attempts to feast upon new users. WilyD 11:08, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something, the MrJuddsStudents account hasn't been used since September 2011, and the edits which were made under it were restricted to user space (and seem entirely inoffensive, and potentially useful). What's the issue here? - there seems to have been no harm caused by the account (even if it does at least technically breech policy), and no particular barrier to Danjel taking a different approach in the future given that this isn't a 'live' project. Nick-D (talk) 11:24, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Err, it was a group account so an elementary school teacher could easily keep an eye on what all the elementary school aged kids were doing. That seems like a worthwhile goal, although it's technically in violation of policy. Why someone's complaining now, I have no idea. WilyD 11:30, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I know why. As I said above, I've raised an RFC/U against a friend of Hasteur's. This ([the thread at ANI calling for me to be blocked]) seems to be retaliation by drama. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 11:44, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Is iar still a pillar? Yep.

Was content affected? Nope.

Is this even a current issue? Nope.

Should we move on? Yep. NE Ent 11:55, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Here is the contribution list for the account.[7] As you can see, the sole activity in the account is on a page in the account’s user space, User:MrJuddsStudents/List of Antarctica Flora and Fauna, and the last contribution by the account was more than a year ago. Interest in this account only arose during an RfC/U about an unrelated matter. See IZAK's view criticism of children's account. I too suggest moving on. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:03, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• I think we should drop this particular matter, but a wider discussion of how to handle situations like this with elementary students would perhaps be useful. Hobit (talk) 18:16, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• I need to point out that I'm seeing two misconceptions by danjel here. First, that COPPA prevents minors from creating or using accounts here. This is untrue - Wikipedia is not bound by, and doesn't abide by, COPPA. It's not and it never has been, though the fact that Americans tend to assume everything is ruled by COPPA makes this a common misconception. This is a multi-national website and has its own policies (and lack thereof, in some ways) regarding minor editors. Second, that his students could not edit out from under the umbrella of his account without grievously violating their own privacy. This is also untrue. Anyone can create an account (or they can be created for the students), and once they're editing under an account, their IP is not shown or available anywhere (except in the checkuser interface, but that's a very special niche case). Account holders are not required to disclose anything about themselves, and in fact minors who edit are encouraged (and sometimes forced) to not disclose any personal information at all; there is absolutely nothing to stop danjel's students from each creating a pseudonymous account, with his guidance on what to share/not share about themselves, and happily making all the edits that want.

  In other words, there's no valid child-protection or privacy-protection reason for these students to be sharing an account rather than each having their own, and given that their sharing an account with danjel is obviously not in line with our policy (which exists for very good reasons of attribution, among other things), it should stop. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:11, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

  • I'll disagree with the "there's no valid child-protection or privacy-protection reason for these students to be sharing an account". I wouldn't want my young children using their own account on any site that is open to the world. It may not be COPPA, but it might well be common sense. If my kid's teacher was to suggest having them edit Wikipedia, I'd want it done this way. And having an experienced editor taking responsibility for those edits would be good from Wikipedia's viewpoint. In this case he should have asked first, but not a big deal IMO. He made it clear what was going on, which holds to the spirit of BRD. Hobit (talk) 18:16, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
    • I will try to start an RfC on this over the weekend if no one else gets to it first. It isn't clear this is a good idea, but it's not clear it isn't, so a wider discussion would be nice. Hobit (talk) 18:17, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
      • I'm sorry if I wasn't clear - I meant there there is no reason among Wikipedia's policies/guidelines that makes what danjel is doing valid. If the children's parents object, that's an entirely separate issue (and has nothing to do with COPPA), and in my view common sense would say that if parents are concerned about their children editing wikipedia, that's better dealt with by not letting children of concerned parents edit Wikipedia than it is by violating Wikipedia's policies to do it anyway. It's possible that this jury-rigged solution pleases the concerned parents, but from Wikipedia's perspective, it doesn't matter if violating policy makes them happy, because it's still a policy violation. And I'll add again that by doing things his way, danjel is failing to attribute the work to its author(s) - a fact which parents and students may not think to care about, but one which Wikipedia's policies do care about. We don't prohibit role accounts just to annoy people - there are very good reasons why we hold to "one account-one editor". A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:29, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

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

Please block my account

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

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Over the last couple months I have found that I no longer wish to edit but I somehow lack the will to stop. I beleive in the project but I no longer believe it will succed and I do not believe that the majority of editors want me here anymore anyway. I am asking for my account to be blocked for a month. I believe that time will be sufficient for me to "break the habit" of wanting to edit and this will save me and the community the trouble of finding a way to get mysefl blocked. Good Luck to all who still have faith in the project. I wish I still did, but I don't. Kumioko (talk) 20:35, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

You might want to take a script enforced wikibreak. See Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/WikiBreak Enforcer. It will prevent you from logging in. Ryan Vesey 20:38, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes. what Ryan said. We generally do not block users upon request. Consider using the script above. Thanks for your contributions, Tiptoety ^talk 20:39, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

See Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to consider placing self-requested blocks NE Ent 20:43, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

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

What to do about obvious minority sentiments?

What is the proper course of action to take when dealing with a holocaust denier, birther, truther, tax protester, etc.? They can post stuff to talk pages without specifically violating any rules, though you know they will never, ever learn, and there's no point in communicating with them. Yet, a block or even a threat of a block seems too pre-emptive to make sense, unless we assume that all of this ilk are trolls. What is the general solution to this issue? --Golbez (talk) 21:35, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

And I apologize if a question like this doesn't belong here, it just didn't seem to fit in a pump either. --Golbez (talk) 21:39, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Ignore them (aka "Don't feed the trolls") if there is no point in communicating with them and they're not violating rules. If they are violating rules (disruption would be a likely one), then the usual rememdies. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:40, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

If you were referring to ImthatIm (talk · contribs), the answer is we block them on sight [8]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:43, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't wanting to bring up a specific person yet because honestly I was too lazy to notify them. So I went with the vague question. :P --Golbez (talk) 21:47, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

ps thanks for taking one for the team, I should probably send a fruit basket or barn star or something --Golbez (talk) 21:48, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Fruit basket will be fine. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:53, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Just want to note that we should be careful with true "minority" opinions; calmly and competently presented, they can be valuable. However, the four examples you provide (and the specific example you didn't provide, but FP@S ferreted out) aren't really "minority" opinions, they're "lunatic fringe" opinions. FP@S's solution is the best you can usually do in that case; I've never seen someone on the lunatic fringe back away from the cliff edge. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:55, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

On that note, I've been a part of this "CIA-funded cover-up of the truth" (aka "Wikipedia") for quite a few years now, but I've never received my money. Is issuing the check the WMF's job or do I contact the CIA directly? Thanks, Manning (talk) 04:11, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure that a user named "Manning" contacting the CIA would be prudent. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:14, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• It may not be relevant to this case, but advice concerning appropriate coverage of minority or fringe views can be sought at the Fringe Theories noticeboard.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 08:38, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Request a permanent topic ban on an editor who is making continual moves and ignoring ongoing discussions

Moved to WP:ANI

--Bbb23 (talk) 23:59, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Paid editor actively spamming

Hi, guys. We not a note via OTRS that Shark Internet Marketing is actively spamming people with their article-writing, link-adding service. Might be worth keeping an eye out for increases in promotional editing, in case some of their recipients take them up on it. (Why anybody would respond to - and thereby encourage - spam is beyond me, but somebody must or surely people would stop doing it.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:04, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

We need to figure out who that lady in the video is so we can AFD her article. <evil grin> §FreeRangeFrog^croak 23:28, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, just trolled their live chat feature for a bit to see what we're up against. It appears that the claims of a legion of editors who can help in editwars and AfDs is BS. Which means that all they're really doing is creating articles that meet our content standards... while I don't condone paid editing, it reminds me a little of a comedy bit I once saw about a bank robber whose ingenious plan is to simply work for a bank for a few decades, thereby stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars - at some point, "pulling one over on us" just becomes doing exactly what we want. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 01:22, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I always find it funny that companies/people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a Wikipedia entry when there are so many of us willing to write one for free if the person is notable. Considering the writing style of the page, I'd be surprised if any companies ever shelled out the money asked. Ryan Vesey 01:30, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

• I will try to be careful not to publicly out the man behind SharkIM (although all the needed information is public), but after some research I've managed to identify him... hell even got his phone and address! Guess all those years as a collection agent really honed my cyberstalking skills... A quick search for any wiki articles or accounts for him or associated companies/ventures turns up nothing, so at least that's one concern resolved. Might give SharkIM a call tomorrow, ask for a sample of their work, see if it's actually good or real cause for greater worrying. :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 07:57, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm not able to connect to the Shark Internet Marketing website. Have they folded their tents and stolen away into the night? Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:22, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
    • I still see live? :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 14:55, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

AfD question

If an AfD gets no comments, should it be relisted or treated as an uncontested prod? nableezy - 01:56, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Current consensus is that it should not be treated as an uncontested prod (except for certain exceptions); it should be relisted a limited number of times and after relisting, if no participants join the discussion, eventually treated as no consensus, defaulting to keep. 28bytes (talk) 02:04, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Could you explain that a bit? I dont see how it is functionally different. nableezy - 02:27, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Occasionally I see a proposal on a noticeboard or village pump to treat no-participant AfDs as prods but as far as I can recall none of them have gotten very far. As Reyk notes below, the closer has discretion to do this per WP:NOQUORUM, but doing that by default is not something that's gained consensus as far as I'm aware. (I could of course have missed such a discussion; links welcome.) 28bytes (talk) 07:01, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

My understanding is that the only part that's really different is the relisting part. According to WP:NOQUORUM, when there are no participants admins are just as free to soft delete as they are to default to keep. This is essentially the same as PROD, where admins won't delete if they disagree with the PROD rationale. It's just that in AfD, admins will usually relist in the case of low participation, unless the debate has already been relisted twice or more. There's nothing in the guidelines to say that they can't use one of the other options instead of relisting, though. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:39, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

It is functionally different, since an article which was kept can only be renominated if new circumstances have been discovered why this article is not suitable for Wikipedia, whereas if the article was left as no consensus it can be in principle renominated at a later time with the same arguments.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:10, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, but has that ever happened before? ZappaOMati 02:09, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shahira Amin. nableezy - 02:27, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

• Per WP:NOQUORUM, they can be treated as an uncontested PROD, but the closing admin has a lot of discretion. Reyk _YO! 02:40, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
• Reyk has this correct. The closing admin has a lot of leeway here. That's why they get the big bucks. Hobit (talk) 04:01, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
• If there has not been a contested PROD before and the nomination brings forth a credible rationale for deletion, then I would tend to soft delete the article. If there was a previously contested PROD, I would relist once, and if that doesn't help, close as "no consensus" with NPASR. :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 04:03, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

  I agree with this; it doesn't make sense to soft-delete something if a PROD has already been contested, so I would also tend to relist in these cases. Additionally, if there is already a contested PROD and the AfD has been relisted twice or more, I tend to leave a comment rather than close the debate or relist it again. I have been automatically relisting debates with no participants, but after this and the similar thread above, I think I will switch to soft deleting rather than relisting if the deletion hasn't previously been contested and I agree with the rationale. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:39, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

• I can't ever recall an AfD going for three relists without any comment from anybody at all. I would say that if after a number of relists, then if there really is no comment, then the community is not interested about the article, so close as "no consensus" and leave it. When in doubt - don't delete! If that leaves an unsourced ten year old BLP on here, somebody will surely notice. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:19, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

XKCD alert...

...for Star Trek Into Darkness. [9] - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:47, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

• Both capitalization versions have been SPP'ed and FMPP'ed, I FPP'ed ~*~StAr TrEk InTo DaRkNeSs~*~ just in case sincee XKCD readers can be rather creative. :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 05:58, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

  I've salted the mouseover text suggestions as well - ~*~sTaR tReK iNtO dArKnEsS~*~, xX_StAr TrEk InTo DaRkNess_Xx and Star Trek lnto Darkness. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:52, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Star Trek into Darkness

Moved from WP:ANI

Moved from ANI to consolidate discussion NE Ent 13:51, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the film article Star Trek into Darkness, there has been a very extensive debate about whether or not to capitalize "into" for the article title. I know, I know. There was a discussion to move the article to Star Trek Into Darkness that lasted from December 11, 2012 to January 9, 2013, and the discussion was closed as having no consensus. The discussion continued after the closure, but to me, it seemed to be winding down to accepting a modification of the lead sentence until we could find new evidence to revisit the article title. The discussion was posted at XKCD here, which led to an inflow of comments, mostly in jest. I assume this is what ultimately led to a new request to move, created by DillonLarson (talk · contribs), who previously had not edited since November 6, 2012. I do not think this new request is proper because there is no new evidence, and the arguments will be the same as it has been for the past two months. It stirs the embers when they were just cooling off. I wanted to see if there was a possibility of speedily closing this new discussion for being premature and very unlikely to be productive. Hence my request here for admin intervention. (EDIT: It's possible that the XKCD posting would lead filmmakers and linguists to comment on this issue. That's the silver lining I'm hoping for.) Erik (talk | contribs) 13:35, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to endorse Erik's request for a speedy no-consensus close of the move discussion. It would appear that maybe because of the coverage this page has received, non-regular and new editors are being attracted to this discussion. I know it isn't WP:CANVASSING, but it seems to have had a similar effect. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:58, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I'll also endorse Erik's request. It's far too soon for this to be started up again. douts (talk) 15:48, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

As much as I'd also like a speedy conclusion to the move discussion, it will solve nothing. Coverage of the discussion is now starting to spread to other websites (gizmodo, for one) and will only bring more people into the argument. And for "more people" read "trekkies", who will die for the cause. I think you'll find that this will simply run and run until "Into" is capitalised. Nsign (talk) 16:22, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Hence the parallel I made to WP:CANVASSING, as it brings with it a bias. We need to shut this down now. It is clear that a lot of the "new" contributors are not that familiar with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and are paying little heed to previous discussions on the matter. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:25, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Is the real name of this move "Star Trek into Darkness", or is it "Star Trek: Into Darkness"? As in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" rather than "Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:05, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I've closed the discussion with a note that discussion should be reopened before long. Nyttend (talk) 19:12, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Nyttend! Hopefully external assessments will be forthcoming. Bugs, my impression is that the filmmakers are using the title in different ways. They indicate in some promotional materials that "Into Darkness" is a distinct subtitle, yet in the official synopsis, they say in a sentence, "...Star Trek Into Darkness." So it's variations on this and the capitalization guidelines and people wanting to make exceptions because no outside coverage has used lowercase "into". Not to mention that comparing this title to previous titles may not be accurate, as it is a rebooted franchise. I think that's kind of it in a nutshell; the discussion is a lot of elaboration (and I do mean a lot) on all these different points. Hence why we need new evidence to establish consensus. Erik (talk | contribs) 19:22, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that the filmmakers use an "implied" colon in their titling. I note the silliness of "E.T. the Extraterrestrial" when it's "E.T. [....] The Extraterrestrial". It's funny how wikipedians ignore sourcing in favor of their own obsesson with their own manual of style. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:26, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Yep, I think the discussion has covered implied colons too. :) I certainly hope readers are like, "HAHA, Wikipedia is silly... hmm, this is a pretty informative article about the film..." Erik (talk | contribs) 19:29, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Where to post an RfC about Reviewer privileges?

Hm, I expect to be answered and trouted rather efficiently, but I cannot seem to find an answer; I'd like to propose that editors with the Reviewer flag, in addition to having their edits autoreviewed, would be able to edit FPP'ed pages. An alternative would be to have an additional protection setting, restricting edits to sysops & reviewers (for example, that wouldn't be used on MediaWiki pages and such).

In any case, I doubt this is the correct venue (although if it is -- good!), so please just point me in the right direction and it'll be a pleasure to direct myself wherever needed. :) :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 08:07, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:VPPR is one possible place, though a separate RfC page in the project space would also suffice.--Jasper Deng (talk) 08:11, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I can't remember where it was, but I'm pretty sure there was something a little while ago to try to split out some sort of "edit protected pages" right. It was a very sensible suggestion, but like most attempts to change anything related to admin, it hit the usual immovable wall. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see any chance of any proposal like this succeeding - there is always too much "No, that's not my pet solution, we should be doing X instead" opposition. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:52, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I got the idea from reading answers to questions in the current RfA. I find it a tad silly for an obviously experienced content editor to have to get the "full admin package" just to be able to bypass making edit requests. :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 10:12, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Yep, I agree. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:33, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

• The ongoing big RFA RFC is likely to cover unbundling as a possible solution; it might be worth holding off any other specific suggestions while that's going on. Andrew Gray (talk) 10:43, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Yep, category 3 in that RfC includes unbundling, and Round Two should be starting soon. Also, the ongoing discussion about PC2 suggests that the second RfC is coming sooner rather than later, and your suggestion feels more like a PC2 thing than a PC1 thing to me ... I wouldn't object to throwing that on the pile of things to discuss. - Dank (push to talk) 13:04, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

FWIW, the recent discussion about granting selected non-admins the right to edit protected pages can be found here. Graham87 12:14, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Waldorf education

Resolved by motion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment that:

1) Standard Discretionary sanctions are authorised with immediate effect for all pages relating to Waldorf education, broadly construed. This supersedes the existing Article Probation remedy set down in Waldorf education, remedy 1 and re-affirmed in the Waldorf education review, remedy 2.

This motion does not affect any actions presently in effect that were taken in enforcement of the old article probation remedy.

For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:56, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Discuss this