Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss proposed policies and guidelines and changes to existing policies and guidelines.
If you want to propose something new that is not a policy or guideline, use the proposals section.
If you have a question about how to apply an existing policy or guideline, try the one of the many Wikipedia:Noticeboards.

Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.

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Proposal:Create a capability and process to expunge a block from someone's record when all agree that it was an error

Proposal:Create a capability and process to expunge a block from someone's record when all agree that it was an error.

I always wondered about this in general and now know of a case. Such a block can have an immense impact on someone who cares and has a clean record. I learned that neither exists. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 04:39, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

There is a discussion about the technical and policy implications of this proposal at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy#Urgently required. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 14:49, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support - If technically possible - we all make errors (even admins when blocking) and these errors should not have a negative impact on the end user. Moxy (talk) 04:45, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
• Note: The purely technical capability exists, in the form of WP:Revision deletion#Log redaction, however the current policy states that:

Log redaction (outside of the limited scope of RD#2 for the move and delete logs) is intended solely for grossly improper content, and is not permitted for ordinary matters; the community needs to be able to review users' block logs and other logs whether or not proper [emphasis original]

Would you be willing to share the details of the case? A block record alone, if clearly mistaken, should not have "an immense impact on someone" as blocks are not brands or scarlet letters; the context should be evident, and if not, a note can be added to the log stating that the block was in error. Intelligentsium 04:51, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Note Redaction using revision deletion will not expunge the log entry, it will gray out and strike through the log entry so that non-admins cannot see who did the action, how long it was for, or what reason was given. A line will still appear in the user's log, it just won't say what happened. MBisanz ^talk 05:01, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Block log entries can also be oversighted. Of course, this would mean changing the OS policy. --Rschen7754 06:22, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Answering Intelligentsium, I'd rather keep it general. Hopefully that the proposal is just to have a general result (that the capability exist, and that there be a process for deciding to apply it) and that my question included the premise that all parties (including the blocking admin) agree is reassurance that I'm not looking for an out-of-context answer to take into a particular situation.

Answering Rschen7754 & Intelligentsium, as step 1 at Village Pump technical I asked if the ability technically exists and someone answered "no". So now I'd like to know who is right. (????)North8000 (talk) 13:27, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Removing the log entry partially (revision deletion) and completely (oversight) are both possible, but their implementation would go very much against the grain of what those tools are for. Personally, I'd rather not start down the (possibly) slippery slope of adding exceptions to those policies. Instead, when you unblock, just add a note in the unblock saying that the block was unnecessary/improper/whatever. If its expired already, do a quick block-and-unblock with a note that the original block was unnecessary/improper/whatever. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 14:22, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Any editor genuinely disturbed enough by the presence of a block log entry agreed to have been invalid, and determined enough to make a case for a change in policy, is not likely to be satisfied by a solution that creates another "corrective" entry in their block log. Leaky Caldron 14:29, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "What the tools are for" is doing what's right. What's right is that someone who's done nothing wrong should have an empty block log. — Hex (❝?!❞) 14:30, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

• Strongly support the modification of oversight policy to allow the eradication of block log entries created in error. It's not fair that a bad decision made by an admin should irreversibly stain a user's record, even if the blocking admin is subsequently subject to censure. I would add that it should be possible for an admin to request such eradication of a log entry they caused themselves. — Hex (❝?!❞) 14:25, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support: If it is discovered and agreed that a block was made per incurium then it seems only fair that the person should be entitled to have that wiped from their record. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 14:40, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. This capability is would be too easily misused. I would rather see people explain their block log as having an erroneous entry than have it wiped. Binksternet (talk) 15:17, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Support if only oversighter can perform this action. Binksternet (talk) 22:48, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that the past block may be used to justify another block without giving the editor a chance to explain that the previous block was in error. Monty₈₄₅ 15:21, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

• The current proposal is too generic. Even if it reached a consensus, we would then need to conduct a second RFC to actually implement a specific policy for dealing with it. There are two main questions, and both can be addressed in one initial RFC. Question 1: should 1a) RevDel policy allow for the redaction of block log entries; 1b) Oversight policy allow for the redaction of block log entries; 1c) no redaction. Question 2: If there is consensus in favor of 1a or 1b, what standard should be used for redaction/what process is necessary? Monty₈₄₅ 15:20, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support - see the discussion on my talkpage before Christmas. If someone wants an example case, I accidentally blocked an innocent user who provided some information at an SPI using SPI helper script. It's also possible to do similar with the checkuser tools - you tick a box for all the accounts you want blocked, and it is possible to tick the wrong box). In case folks think it doesn't happen often, User:Courcelles has two blocks from admins with bad aim, and User:Dougweller has one, and that's just from a couple of conversations. It happens more than you think.

The proposal I would support has four elements -

1. Full suppression is carried out by an Oversighter. Revdel is not used
2. The block resulted from a factual error(admin has blocked the wrong user or did not intend to block any user) not from an error of judgement on the part of the admin (admin intended to block the user, but block is not supported by policy/consensus).
3. The admin who made the block is the one requesting suppression

The user in such a case should be unblocked immediately upon the error being discovered and advised that suppression will be requested.

I think if the community also desires a process whereby it can declare a block to be invalid and request it to be removed from the record, it needs to be thought through and set out in more detail. I also think that there should never be a circumstance in which a blocked editor can request an Oversighter to suppress their block record. Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:26, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Elen....why would you exclude cases where the blocking Admin says that it was an intended block, but later decided that it was an erroneous decision?

I was thinking that the mechanism in your last post should be included eventually, but didn't want to complicate my proposal with it at this time.North8000 (talk) 16:55, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose: This seems to be a solution looking for a problem. I have never observed that a user has been unfairly judged simply because of a mistaken block, though I recognize of course that they occur. A block log is not a mark that condemns a user to ostracism for his/her wikilife, and I am sure there are cases where a block may be overturned, but later the original reasons for the block are later substantiated; in this case having the original block record would be helpful.

Moreover, I am somewhat disturbed by the sentiment expressed above basically to the effect that a block is some sort of conviction or prison sentence, and the log thereof a yellow passport that will cause a user to be spurned from every mairie in the countryside. Intelligentsium 17:26, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

• Agree with Intellegentsium's point. Also, we don't need to revisit such issues with more arguments and more "ivotes": ('it was mistaken -- no, it was not -- you're an idiot -- no you're a fool, etc.') . Moreover, a history of mistaken blocks by an adminsitrator should not be expunged. Perhaps annotations for incidental mistakes would be fine (I can't imagine a long or contentious discussion about whether to do that, but can't that already be done?)Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:35, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
• Comment/question I think that an erroneous block on ones block log does have an impact, even if it not the the extent of the over-the-top straw man descriptions of the impact (mentioned above.) For example, a "clean block log" is a widely-used term. Can an editor who has had only an admitted-eroneous block be said to simply have a "clean block log"? The answer is no. Some contortions would be needed like "technically not, but the one block was an error" which people are going to doubt, or if it is said that they do, people will look and say "well no" North8000 (talk) 17:48, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support both for blocks that were clearly errors (slips of the finger, wrong editor, wrong button, etc.) and also for blocks that a consensus of a hypothetical block-evaluating jury would consider to be bad blocks (violations of WP:INVOLVED; blocks from an admin desysopped for misuse of tools; blocks which normal, sane people would have thought were bad blocks if it had happened to them ... etc. etc.) Injustice damages people, and when it comes to block logs, injustice creates further injustices right down the line. Block #1 is a lousy block, block #2 was only done because there had already been a block allegedly for something similar, block #3 would have been kinda OK, possibly, but not really without warning and if blocks #1 and #2 had been properly recognised as wrongful; appearance at AN/I has a pile-on of drama-whores yelling "But see how many times he's been blocked already!" ... so EnthusiAdmin applies an indef on the basis of the "consensus" of the pile-on of people who haven't had the wit to analyse the previous blocks, and so on, and so son, and so on ... Pesky (talk) 17:57, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support As proposer. Comments elsewhere. North8000 (talk) 18:09, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
• Comment - the capability for suppression of blocks from the blocklog already exists; what's needed is agreement on when and how to use it. This could be used for completely mistaken blocks (oops! wrong user! type thing) at least. In addition, it's possible to annotate blocklogs where a disputed block remains - see Wikipedia:Blocks#Recording_in_the_block_log. Rd232 ^talk 18:18, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support. It is a relatively complicated work around to add a note that the block was unnecessary, and is much simpler handled by using an undo. As to the wording, all is undefined, imprecise, and superfluous. If we decide to allow it we can work out the details. There are basically two scenarios that I see someone tries to block Foobar, and accidentally blocks Footar. That can be reversed uncontroversially. The second is by editor error, this does not get reversed. For example, if someone loses count of their 3RRs (ignoring that 2 is prohibited, just not as strongly as 3 or 4), and gets blocked. That never gets expunged, even if they go on to become a Steward. What other types of mistakes are there? Apteva (talk) 20:47, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) But if an incorrect block is applied, it is actually less work to note that the block was unnecessary in the unblock log entry than to unblock, then suppress the block log; obviously the mistakenly-blocked user will not be expected to wait out the block! This also addresses your point that there be an undo - this is already handled by the unblock function.

As I see it there are two issues here: The first is, should a mistaken log entry be removable? If you edit the wrong page or perform an accidental revert, you can reverse it, but the edit remains in the history. Same goes for all other logs (move, delete, etc., with the exceptions set out in the suppression and oversight policy), whether the action was justified or not. The same arguments can be made about practically any mistaken action that happens to create a log entry, but I find it extremely unlikely that consensus will emerge to enable the editing of all logs. Logs are logs because they by definition record everything save egregious abuse.

The second and bigger issue is the perception that having a block on record, even if mistaken, in some way ipso facto "tarnishes" a user's reputation. This is why users are willing to have this discussion about block log but not delete/move/revert. My opposition stems not so much from the proposal itself as from this second issue. I firmly believe that this issue should be addressed, but this is completely the wrong way to address it, because it validates the claim that blocks are punitive and represent a stain upon a user's reputation which must be expunged to preserve his or her "good name". Blocks are not convictions.

The example cited by That Pesky Commoner above is unfortunate; not only does it not refer to any specific example of where such a thing has occurred or whether or not such a thing is a common occurrence among accidentally blocked users, but more concerning, it also assumes incompetence on the parts of the users involved. It assumes that users (and administrators) will not be circumspect or thoughtful enough to investigate the context behind the block. I am reminded of the old saying, Let people rise to your expectations (or something wittier, I forget); if you prepare for incompetence, then most likely you will encounter it. And even if that case occurs, where a user has a history of blocks, including one accidental or invalid block, that one fewer block is unlikely to change the circumstances.

The potential for abuse and the decrease in transparency in case an admin has a history of making bad blocks are also valid issues that other users have addressed better than I could. Intelligentsium 01:13, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. Incorrect blocks in block logs are valuable - not because of what they say about the blocked user, but because they may in some cases help expose a pattern of carelessness or ineptitude by the blocking admin. I believe the correct solution is the ability to edit or append clarifications to block log summaries when they contain false information, not to pretend it never happened. Dcoetzee 00:59, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Create a sortable "List of expunged blocks". We need to preserve the record, but it doesn't have to be atomised across individual block logs. Such a list would be much more likely to expose a pattern of admin incompetence than the current situation. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support based on Dougweller's reasoning. By the way, I have no personal stake in the matter, given no blocks, but overall it certainly creates bad feelings for users. The process of agreeing on what is to be expunged needs to be based on WP:CON I think. History2007 (talk) 01:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose If people are being stupid and misinterpreting a log file, that is the people's fault, not the log's fault. If you hide the log file, the people will still be stupid and draw their unwarranted conclusions from other sources. Kilopi (talk) 03:18, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• Per Elen. The "oopsy" block, where you didn't mean to block or accidentally blocked the wrong user, is uncontroversial. I think, if there is strong enough consensus here for Elen's formulation, we can go straight to the relevant policy pages and make the changes. As for blocks that were intended but later repudiated by the community or the blocking admin, we need to assess the extent of the problem and define precisely what kind of block can and can't be expunged, and what kind of record to keep. So, for now, I support immediately changing policy to allow suppression (oversight) of unambiguous oopsy blocks when that is requested by the blocking admin, and the creation of a sortable "List of expunged blocks." --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose per Dcoetzee. Expunging blocks might provide some relief to the blocked user, but it would also shield admins from scrutiny (this is regards to blocks rescinded by the community; oversight of unintentional blocks per Elen seems fair). Hot Stop (Talk) 05:38, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

If bad blocks are removed from the victim's block log but added to a publicly-viewable "List of expunged blocks" (either attached to the blocking admin's account or a sortable - by admin, date and victim - list of all expunged blocks) this will improve our scrutiny of admins. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 06:07, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

An alternative would be to establish a practice where any admin that makes a block which is subsequently overturned by consensus (or deemed a bad block by consensus after it has expired) is blocked for one second with a summary linking the discussion in question. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 15:47, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Excellent suggestion that addresses the problem! Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:34, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support expunging blocks: An undo could reverse several forms of unneeded block. Even a genius can make a mistake (Albert Einstein once mistakenly wrote "x' " where ex-double-prime "x' ' " was needed, or I could be mistaken), and there is no intelligence requirement for admins, so the community needs all the undo-admin help it can get. Other nitpick shades of undo can be discussed in other venues, such as line-hiding of borderline blocks, but a simple undo, or "erased block" rewrite of a block entry should be allowed as soon as possible. As a long-term editor with several improperly placed blocks, I can confirm that they are shouted, by many people, as evidence that "your next block will be indef" or the ever-snarky, "it can only end badly for you". I support the unblock, and any similar functions, to reduce the shoot-from-the-hip, knee-jerk, short-sighted actions of [wp:SNOW]]bunny admins. Also see: wp:MELT about the need to wait and re-think some decisions. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:01, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. We all make mistakes on Wikipedia. Most of the time, this is on an article or a project page. In such cases, either we fix our own mistakes, or someone else does so. Except for extremely serious cases (such as a major privacy violation or massive copyright infringement), we do not mess with the history. The same should apply for admin actions. We need to be very careful to try to avoid admin mistakes. But when it happens, we should just correct it, and move on. In the case of an incorrect block, it is definitely good form for the admin to state unambiguously (e.g. on the blocked users' talk page) that it was an error. But I don't support messing with the logs. If it comes up (XYZ was blocked before), simply explain what happened, and point them to the blocking admin or someone who knows about the error. Another serious problem with this is who has to agree to the expungement. If it's just the admin, then it is a way for them to (at least partly) cover their tracks. If it's more people, then consensus becomes a problem. Superm401 - Talk 21:16, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: WP:Perennial proposals#Prohibit removal of warnings is, I feel, relevant to this discussion. Toccata quarta (talk) 22:57, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support I agree that the official block log should have mistaken blocks removed. Not blocks that are simply overturned because someone else think enough time has elapsed, or the blocked editor is valuable, only blocks where a consensus of admins would agree that the block should not have been issued. I agree with Dcoetzee that I do not want the complete history to disappear, as it could help identify problematic admins, but I believe this is easily resolved, with either a complete history available in another place, or perhaps the incorrect block would be noted on the admins record, which preserves Dcoetzee's goal. yes, I fully understand that one ought to review a block log with care, but in the heat of a contentious situation, it would be unfortunate if an admin glanced at a block log, saw six entries, and didn't read closely enough to see that it was three blocks followed by three unblocks, each noting that the block was a misunderstanding. Why not make the block log informative, rather than a mystery to be analyzed?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:37, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Define all

The Proposal states "when all agree that it was an error", who is All?

• If All is everyone on Wikipedia, then the proposal fails with the first Oppose vote above.
• If All is just the Admin who made the block, then the proposal needs a huge rework for clarity.
• If All is everyone involved, then you need to define how to identify All and where to track their agreement.

JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 19:24, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

This is where I, personally, like the idea of a kinda jury of longish-term editors with a fair number of contributions (including at least 30% in article space) to review blocks. A consensus of a jury of "reasonable editors" (avoiding the possible sexism of "reasonable men" ;P) with perhaps 20 members should be sufficient. We do have to face the probability that the blocking admin themselves may never agree with that. Admins are human, and therefore like the rest of us not perfect. Pesky (talk) 20:29, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I feel like the jury idea is one doomed to fail, amidst various cries of cronyism, cabalism, policy creep, and needless additional bureaucracy... not to mention the people that don't get picked to be on the jury and subsequently get pissy about it. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:42, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

A jury is exactly what we don't want - it opens Pandora's box of other problems, as stated by EVula above, in addition to reinforcing the "court" mentality that pervades this thread. Sinking twenty users' time into this would be a terrible idea (time which could be used to edit articles). I thought the point of this was to be non-contentious; if you invite twenty users to have a discussion then naturally the discussion will drag on ad infinitum.

And just consider the negative impact that even one contentious expurgation would have; I daresay it would far outweigh the questionable positive impact that every noncontentious expurgation could have. Intelligentsium 01:30, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

In my proposal I used "all" as a simplification. It really translates to "If the admin who made the block agrees". And I deliberately avoided discussing (kicked the can down the road on) the possibility of a process to do this when the initial blocking admin does not agree. North8000 (talk) 22:08, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Why not just use WP:CON anyway. History2007 (talk) 01:52, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Yep. Community consensus is sufficient, and I don't agree with the blocking admin being able to veto expunging. How does that make sense? Consensus rules. For Elen's minimalist proposal, in the case of truly uncontroversial oopsies, it makes sense, but for cases where the community agrees the blocking admin exercised poor judgment, we shouldn't have to wait on that admin's approval for expunging. Too many cowboy admins here never admit they were wrong. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:37, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

More full views over at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy#Summary, but the cabalism / picking thingie could be addressed in some way like this:

(copied across) to avoid the cabalism thingie, how about having "block-log-cleaning-juries" drawn from a pool of suitable editors? Editors could opt-in or opt-out of the pool, and a panel of 20 (or whatever number) could be drawn from a list of editors who have chosen to be available to look at whichever particular block log is under discussion. It could work something a bit like opting-in for RfC's, to get a long-list for each case, and picking the working party from the long-list could be randomised.

Sometimes the solutions to perceived (and / or actual) challenges aren't hard to think up. I think, on the whole, it's better to be solution-focussed than problem-focussed.

I think that this situation is one which a panel of fair-right-minded editors would be likely to agree is the kind of block (Rodhullandemu's block of Malleus) which should be removed from the block log.

We need to learn lessons from Real Life, and one of those most needed (particularly in today's increasingly litigious societies) is the very human tendency for some people to indulge themselves with barratry. We do need to be very aware of the injustices caused by pile-on responses from those who may have an axe to grind, when we're looking at consensus, for example. Pesky (talk) 11:33, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - a block made in error is an important part of the blocking admin's record some of the time; we need to allow each user to make decisions about how much of a stain it is on the admin's record - for example, if we ever have a community desysop process, if the admin runs for ArbCom, etc. We should definitely make sure that the blocked user's log make it clear that the block was in error - but not hide it. Additionally, some times even a wrong block is important to show that the user should be aware of some thing - for example, there was a case where a new user did a fourth revert of a 3RR violation while logged out. While I (and several other users who commented there) had no doubt that the user logged out by accident, and the indef block for sockpuppetry was wrong, the user knows that if (s)he does this again, an indef block may be the result. And should it happen, admins need to be able to see the previous block to make the decision. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• This is where having a separate record for bad blocks would solve that problem. The full record of the block is still there for any purpose for which it is needed, but it doesn't get used by the inadequate in a "But he's been blocked X-number of times already! He must be really bad ... he should have learned his lesson by now!" argument. Again, being solution-focussed rather than problem-focussed is necessary, and fairly simple. Pesky (talk) 10:56, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Where would you put the record of people blocking lay preachers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.118.46.205 (talk) 14:04, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I would support some sort of "badf block" marker - provided that it doesn't prevent anyone from seeing the block details (blocking admin, blocked account, and block reason). Unfortunately, that's currently not possible. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:13, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I can't see any major technical issues with having something like that made possible. (and the comment about lay preachers ...(Theo-retically possible es.) ..d'uh? What was that about, and to whom was it addressed? And why is it relevant?) Pesky (talk) 19:23, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

My premature summary, overreaching interpretation and suggested next step / revised proposal

One person pointed out an ambiguity in my proposal (the undefined "all") which I then clarified, but that's now messy. I did a very fast count and it looks like a lot more support than oppose....not that means anything beyond maybe thinking about a refined proposal. More importantly, the reason cited by almost all of the "opposes" was that a record should be kept and visible, even of bad blocks. Finally, one or more editors pointed out the narrowness of my proposal as it only includes cases where the blocking admin admitted that it was an error. This "narrowness" was deliberate (to keep this from dying from complexity) but we should note that leaving it out does not weigh in against it. So I have a revised proposal which the above would indicate probable 90% or 100% support for. Lets let it sit a few hours without any "supports/opposes" in case anybody sees any error or ambiguities which we can fix. OK, it's been about about 9 hours. North8000 (talk) 00:13, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal When the the administrator who made a block subsequently determines that the block was in error, let's create the ability and expectation that that administrator can and will mark the block as being in error in a way that makes it very clear. This can be via a mark on that block itself, or the ability to create an additional log entry (without creating an additional block) This ability to mark the log shall only be used by an admin to mark their own block as being in error. The "expectation" will be created by some new wording in Wikipedia:Blocking policy. The idea of a system for the community to do this without agreement by the blocker is acknowledged and can be discussed later but (for simplicity) is not included in this proposal.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:02, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support As proposer. North8000 (talk) 00:13, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support - When acting as admin on other projects (not Wikipedia) I've even made mistakes of blocking the wrong person simply by pressing the wrong user information and imposing the block. I've always undone such blocks immediately and usually even apologized on the user's talk page with usually a note of praise of what that user has accomplished as well to try and smooth things over. Still, having the ability to mark in the logs itself that the block was in error would be useful. I've also stepped into wheel warring disputes as well where it was later determined by the community at large that the blocks were done in error and bad faith. While the ability to note a small text explanation is already in the MediaWiki software, what seems to be missing is the ability to retroactively mark a specific block as being done in error. Perhaps simply allowing an admin to make an "administrative" entry on behalf of that user in the block log that could be a standard summary field of any kind for any reason but would otherwise not have any impact upon the user? I could see this being used in other log entries too as a more generic tool. --Robert Horning (talk) 06:37, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support: this is obviously a good starting point for further work on less unambiguous areas. Pesky (talk) 12:14, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support I like the idea of creating an "whoops!" entry in the block log without having to re-block. An elegant solution. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 13:01, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support I can support the blocking admin marking a block as erroneous in the log. This is purely a case of adding information; I do not support removing information from any block logs. However, a block "being in error" should mean, "At the time of the block, there was not justification for blocking." It does not mean "Since block expiration, or since unblocking, the editor has edited productively." It is the goal that editors will return to productivity after the block is done. That does not mean it was mistaken. In other words, 'user forgiven' is not the same as 'mistaken block'. Superm401 - Talk 18:58, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support Per Superm401. Intelligentsium 02:38, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support as reasonable in the case of a bad block. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 03:41, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support new version. Having worked in a medical-related field, I've grown to appreciate the need for clear documentation, especially when errors are made. Even if you document it elsewhere, the record itself should be amended to indicate the error and what steps were taken to correct it. That way, there is no impression you are "hiding" the error. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:43, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support I'd like to go a little broader, but have nothing against starting with clean situations, and if it works well, consider expanding later, as noted by the proposal. I'd also rpefer that the block log look clean as opposed to being dirtied with an explanation, but that too can come later.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:59, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support. I'd go further and support bad blocks being expunged from the log as proposed above, but this is a good first step in that direction, with no obvious problems. Robofish (talk) 23:36, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support, good corrections, feasible solution, reasonable option. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:42, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support - Fair is fair. Blocks can have lasting consequences, needless to say, and this would fix simple human error. Jusdafax 23:46, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

Theoretical situation: Admin A makes a questionable block of User. Discussion, and then uproar on ANI, and eventually creation of a case at Arbcom where the Arbcom makes a finding that Admin A's block was wrong. Admin A refuses to make note in Users block record as described above indicating that the block was wrong . Is Admin then in violation of Arbcom's findings? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:13, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Well no one can be in "violation" of findings. They could only be in violation of sanctions. And that's a different issue, likely handled by ArbCom itself. It's not a requirement for the blocking admin to be the one who amends the block log, so it's not relevant to this. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:33, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

This proposal only covers cases where the blocking admin has determined that their block was in error. So, your question is not actually germane to this proposal. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:30, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Once again i believe there are procedural problems here:

• If a radical change to the way supposedly erroneous blocks are handled is seriously being proposed there needs to be a much more public process, as in a formal RFC, a listing at WP:CENT, possibly watchlist notices, etc

• Are we sure this is even possible with the current software? Big changes in the interface take months or even years to implement and can be quite expensive for the WMF to implement, has anyone even asked about this?
• Will this "notational ability" be given to all admins, enabling any admin to add notes to any users block log at any time?

Until these questions are answered I don't see much point in proceeding with actually discussing the proposal. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:57, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Answering you points and question in order:

• I don't believe that adding the ability and expectation that when an admin determines that their own block is in error that there is an ability and expectation to make a log entry to that effect is a "radical change". But review of this in a wider venue would be great, given that such a venue would be more likely to lead to implementation once decided. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:42, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
• If adding the ability to add a notation were a huge process (which IMHO is doubtful), then something needs fixing with the system. On the second note, it would kill every new idea and proposal to have to assume the worst and confirm the opposite prior to discussing. North8000 (talk) 20:55, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
• Regarding your "ability" question, Per the proposal, "This ability to mark the log shall only be used by an admin to mark their own block as being in error.". If you are asking whether admins would have the technical ability to do things that are in violation of policy (e.g. use that ability ability to add a notation for a non-allowed purpose), the technical ability to do things in violation of policy already exists for all admins and all editors including IP's, but immensely so for admins. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:35, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Assumption of guilt

We cant fairly make the assumption the previous block was valid. We can make a guideline that specifically forbids using previous blocks as a motivation to block a person. One time I was blocked for a few hours. Reason given: "dubious IP edits". It took a bit to long to get unblocked for my taste but no real harm was done. Pointing at such entry as if it demonstrates previous problematic behavior should be frowned upon. It smells WAAAAAAAAAAY to much like "making it up as we go along". We should simply close the old case and open a new one. The new one shouldn't be mistaken for reopening the closed one.

I've even seen a group of users report the same guy over and over again, each time assuming the previous reports had already demonstrated his wrongdoings. The uninvolved editor reviewing a report should never be expected to go figure out if the previous report contains evidence.

How many times you've seen the inside of a court room wont tell us if you are guilty or not. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 03:40, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree with you 100%, and your thought should be promulgated, but you'll have to rewire how the human brain works to fully make that happen. In the meantime my proposal is a partial step towards that end. North8000 (talk) 13:15, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Close?

The proposal went through 2 variations. The first was a bit vaguely written and call for the ability to completely expunge the record. There were approx. 11 in favor and 6 against. Very importantly, the reason cited by all of the "opposes" essentially said that the record of the block should be retained. I then prepared a revised proposal which was more specific, and called for the ability and expectation to mark (rather than delete) the log. Of the 10 respondents, support was unanimous. Moreover, the change clearly resolved the issue cited by all of the "opposes" in the first round. North8000 (talk) 01:27, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

What is needed now is to simply present this to the developers, most likely as a Bugzilla request with a link to this discussion noting this is now a formal feature request from the Wikipedia community and that consensus has been formed on the concept with unanimous support. While anybody can make that request, I would suggest that the original proposer make the formal request if possible with support on Bugzilla by as many people who want to follow/support on the Bugzilla request as well. "Advertising" this request on some of the various mailing lists would be useful as well for further discussion or support of this concept. I agree, this proposal should be marked as closed, although further action is needed. --Robert Horning (talk) 21:26, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Cool. I'll have to learn how to use that Bugzilla channel I know nothing about it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:38, 28 January 2013 (UTC) North8000 North8000 (talk) 16:04, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I learned and put in a request at Bugzilla. North8000 (talk) 18:51, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

They asked how it was different than the ability to create an additional block and immediately undo it. I provided various answers to this, most notably that this possibility was already acknowledged early in the RFC, and responses were made with that knowledge. North8000 (talk) 01:02, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Do the WP:CIV and WP:NPA policies apply to administrators?

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

---

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

If I lost my cool at another editor I would be sanctioned. Indeed. I fear that, as a result of this post, I will be watched more carefully in future. Nevertheless, I cannot help but comment that some privileged souls get to shout and swear, remain unrepentant and even have their characteristic famous uncivil outburst struck from the record and then get to arrogantly shrug it off. Another series of strongly uncivil attacks (here and here) are tacitly condoned because the attacker self-reverted acknowledged attack and grudgingly apologised citing provocation.

This post concentrates on administrator behaviour. It specifically ignores ALL potential mitigating circumstances

I have four questions arising from the above

1. Why are the civility and no personal attacks policies not being used aggressively on administrators?
2. Do we as a community trust administrators who react in such ways to always use their tools fairly?
3. How is revision deletion permissible in this case?
4. Are either of the above administrators open to recall? If not, why not?

Update: Added permalink to tacitly condoned

--Senra (talk) 14:02, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Comment to be sure, if I or any other editor told an administrator to f___ off, we'd be blocked. Far as I'm concerned the admins should be held up to the same standards we should be held up to (civility and NPA ). As to do I trust the admins, actually, most do a great job with their tools, like The Worm that Turned. Others, like Future Perfect and Beeblebrox, not so great.  KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh ...  14:16, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Far as you are concerned, you're lucky that goading and hounding with repeated WP:IDHT until you get your way isn't a blockable offense.--v/r - TP 14:54, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

That would very much depend on the admin you told to "f..k off"....and normally, before coming to the "f....ing" stage, there usually is some kind of history which would have to be taken into account...anyway, I agree admins should be held to the same standards when it comes to civility and NPA. Lectonar (talk) 14:52, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

They should be, of course, but are they? Doesn't seem like it to an outsider like myself. George Ponderevo (talk) 14:59, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

There are some regular users which get away with much incivility and personal attacks too. So this condoning of it is not necessarily a question of being an admin. Lectonar (talk) 15:03, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

So your position is that because, in your opinion, some "regular editors" get away with it, it's OK for administrators to copy them? How weird is that? Malleus Fatuorum 15:10, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

"Regular" editors don't get away with it, "Special" ones do.--v/r - TP 15:12, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

@Malleus, no, it was just an observation, and yes, it is my opinion...and who is talking about admins copying the regulars? Lectonar (talk) 15:15, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Not true example.©Geni 21:18, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Comment The second named has just voluntarily relinquished their tools under a cloud. Leaky Caldron 14:24, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• Have they? Are you sure? --Senra (talk) 14:45, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• Yes [1] Leaky Caldron 14:49, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Since the civility polices have proved unenforceable against some, I do not block anyone for them out of fairness.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:27, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

To set the record straight, Maunus stated that they were relinquishing his tools "under a cloud". Whether that is correct or not, it needs to be clear that no one made a decision about whether or not he resigned under a cloud. At least part of this cloud could probably have been avoided if the strict civility restriction against an editor had been enforced immediately. That didn't happen and Maunus lost his temper. He shouldn't have done that of course. I will say that Administrators probably get more personal attacks both on and off-Wiki than most ordinary editors. Whether we decide that they should be abnormally thin-skinned is an interesting question. - Wow, just looked at that permalink for 'tacitly condoned', it's actually the editor who is under a strict civility restriction - are his comments in line with such a restriction? I doubt very much that if anyone "told an administrator to f___ off," that they would be blocked just for that. Dougweller (talk) 14:44, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Comment I can note that this diff, linked to above, happened on the talkpage of a MFD-closing admin, which is the first place a complaining or questioning editor must go. There is no alternative. -DePiep (talk) 14:52, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• Beeblebrox actually does a damned good job. Users should have the perspicacity to differentiate between plain speaking and PA/incivility. I think it's a PA to even mention him here - has he been procedurally informed that he is being discussed? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:58, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• Did you really just say "Users should have the perspicacity to differentiate between plain speaking and PA/incivility", and "I think it's a PA to even mention him here" in the same sentence? "Personal Attack" has really lost all meaning. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:01, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• I know I should not ask this and I know I will regret it but how is Malleus Fatuorum (talk · contribs)'s infamous plain-speaking different from the event described above? --Senra (talk) 15:05, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• Are you asking me? --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:07, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• No. Sorry. I was asking @Kudpung --Senra (talk) 15:10, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Kudpung is trolling and not responding to my comment. -DePiep (talk) 23:20, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• Perspicacity doesn't enter into it. He admitted it was a deliberate PA and defended his entitlement to repeat it whenever he chooses. Leaky Caldron 15:11, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
• I don't think Beeblebrox's response to the block and lock were as understanding as they should've been, but I don't really see a problem with the comment itself. Kosh was edit-warring over an action Beeb undertook on his own talk page (an action which was very much called for, though I'm not sure if that matters). Blocks are preventative, not punitive, and so what if we occasionally curse out editors who are giving us a hard time? Take my edit summary here, for instance. I wanted to send a message of "I have no interest in taking shit from you", and that's exactly the message I sent. And it made me feel good inside to respond in kind to a homophobic troll, and caused no damage to the project. If Beeblebrox's insults cause Kosh to drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass, I think that's a very good thing. And if they don't, okay, he got a bit nasty - but what point is there in blocking him? — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 15:14, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

  As far as "so what?" I'd venture to say that every time someone flies off the handle and abuses someone else, they're not only affecting that other person - they're affecting the entire atmosphere at Wikipedia, and supporting the common belief that Wikipedia is a place you don't edit unless you like getting attacked, called names, abused, and having all your edits reverted by some nasty gatekeeper who thinks you're not good enough (yes, this is a common perception. Read the comments of any news article or discussion forum when it touches on Wikipedia). Nothing anyone does here is done in a vacuum, and with enough people running around believing it's their right to "curse out" and insult people who don't give them their way, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the only people who want to contribute to a project where that's ok are...the people who think that's ok. The rest, the people who think that just because you're volunteering doesn't mean you can punch people in the face whenever you feel like it, back away and sometimes flat-out run away. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:22, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• I'm loathe to wade into arguments like this, but while I wouldn't personally use the specific language that Beeblebrox did, I think the sentiment and background as to why he said it was fair game, to be honest. Kosh, you sent a user page to MfD that the community decided shouldn't be deleted. You sent it to a deletion review - same outcome. You then argued with Beeblebrox that the page should still be deleted, even when everybody else was disagreeing with you. That should have been your cue to give it a rest and find an article to improve. You cannot possibly compare rising to a bait with just out the blue name calling, which is something totally different. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:30, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

  But this leaves us with a sort of logical leap that not everybody makes, believe it or not. Step 1) Kosh does something he shouldn't have done. Step 2) Beeblebrox tells him to stop. Step 3) Kosh continues. Step 4) ???? Step 5) Beeblebrox gets to call Kosh horrible names. Why? What happens in Step 4 that makes the proper next step "hurl abuse" rather than any number of other things, from "ignore" to "report for edit warring" to "ask a calmer head to step in and try to explain it"? I mean, it clearly, clearly makes sense to at least a subset of people here, like you Ritchie, but it doesn't make sense to me and I can't figure out what thought process goes "Someone did something wrong? I'll do something wrong too, I'm now allowed, and that will definitely fix the problem!" A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:36, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Hatting tangential disagreement. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:57, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

@Fluffernutter - he was being responded to logically and was not being abused by me, so telling me to fuck off was innapropriate. (Look at the history of the page, I hurl no abuse, make no ad homs, just respond with refs and logic.)  KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh ...  15:58, 23 January 2013 (UTC) No, 'logic' would say that everyone else has rejected your position so you should review your position and find the fallacy. Logic was not your motivation.--v/r - TP 16:02, 23 January 2013 (UTC) Err.... look again... I had diffs from two sysops and one other user that supported my point. So no, the logic was sound and supported.  KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh ...  16:07, 23 January 2013 (UTC) BTW - I did actually acknoweldge the conseus on NOTBLOG was against me as well... so no IDT doesn't apply either You didn't give diffs, so that'd be hard to look at. You gave links to edit a page. You might want to read WP:DIFF. From archives that in one case is over 5 years old, by the way, and unrelated at all to the context of this case. So yes, this is a case of WP:IDHT and you did not have two sysops and one other user who supported your position about the page you wanted deleted.--v/r - TP 16:11, 23 January 2013 (UTC) Read it again. Beeblebrox's disagreement with me is that I believe policy supercedes concensus. He doesn't. The three I quoted hold the same view.  KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh ...  17:32, 23 January 2013 (UTC) You quoted nothing. Zip, zero zilch. What you did was you gave a link to an edit screen for an entire ANI archive that was 5 years old. I have no idea what on that massive page you are referencing at all. I have no idea who the admin is. Why? Because you didn't give a diff, you gave a link. And now I am seriously on the edge of joining Beeblebrox in the corner for admins who give you a nasty gram. But it comes down to this: you did not give any diffs. Click the links you put on his talk page and see what you get. If you do not know how to link to a diff, as I said you should read WP:DIFF to understand what one is. This is a diff and this is an edit box. Geeze, you should've just avoided this thread, you are not doing yourself any favors.--v/r - TP 18:49, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• I think everything has got out of hand. It was wrong to provoke someone, and it was wrong to rise to the bait. All I would do in these circumstances is to tell people to calm down, take a deep breath, and go and look at some pictures of cute fluffy kittens. If you want your pound of flesh out of Beeblebrox, then I won't stop you, but in my view, if there's clear provocation (and there was), then the provoker should get a similar sentence. And can you honestly say that blocking the pair of them is beneficial to the encyclopedia? We don't block people because we're angry with them. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:50, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it makes sense to anyone who has ever been charged with he responsibility of kicking people out of somewhere. The first thing you do is just tell them it is time for them to go. For 99% of people that is enough. They go, whether they agree or not, because they realize that their not going to get anywhere by arguing further. If they don't go, you tell them to get the fuck out and point at the door. This is almost alway enough for even the remaining 1% who dodn't leave yet. Sometimes it is not enough.

However, clearly it is not a case of me being "allowed" to do it since mere words so upset so many people here and there are now four five threads on my talk page about, arbcom is all up in my grill by email, and i got blocked. So Apparently telling an abusive person who won't stop posting to your talk page what you really think of them is not ok. Or is it, if you don't use harsh language? I have seen other users get away with insulting someone again and again in a normal content or policy discussion so long as they don't use "bad words" so where is the real double standard here? Obviously my approach is not one i would recommend to others since it tends to draw attention away from the persistent bully who refuses to disengage and get everyone in hysterics about a few bad words instead. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:56, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Why were you blocked? Not for your abuse towards another editor AFAICS. Please don't conflate your short block for a possible compromised account with what you should be blocked for. Leaky Caldron 16:05, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• I think WP:CIV and WP:NPA apply to us all. I tend not to block for WP:CIV violations, but do block for WP:NPA violations. WP:CIV is, indeed, cloudy, with "please stay off my talk page", "stay off my talk page", "stay off my talk page, damn it", "will you please stay the fuck off my talk page", and "fuck off" all meaning the same thing, and the line in the middle that crossed WP:CIV being fuzzy. It's fuzzy enough that I normally don't act. WP:NPA is different: an attack on another editor is an attack on another editor, and dressing it up in polite words or coating it with obscenities doesn't change it. "You obviously don't have sufficient intelligence to edit this article" and "You wouldn't recognize a fact if it bit you on the ass" are both personal attacks, and I'm inclined to block for either. I haven't seen a personal attack here. Is there one that I've missed?—Kww(talk) 15:57, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• It's certainly possible that a sole, unexpanded and unexplained Assume good faith or No personal attacks can be just as chilling as something like this. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:08, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Back to the original questions

Comment: (ec) Would future posters stick to answering (or dismissing) each question please instead of posting sycophantic defences or even attacking me. I'm thick skinned enough to weather such attacks but in my own defence, this was a carefully crafted post that was intended for WP:ANI. I sought and received advice from an (unnamed) admin at IRC who recommended I post it here --Senra (talk) 15:38, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The question is useless. If you expect administrators to quietly accept abuse by others then you will not have any administrators very soon. Your examples are likewise ridiculous since you can't show that administrators in general receive less strict warnings than non-admins by using two examples. Non-admins say "fuck off" too all the time with no sanctions. Is this good? No. Is it possible to avoid? No. What you are doing is taking isolated examples and turning them into the well-known conspiracy theory of "admin abuse", if you had ever been ad admin you would know that being an admin means constantly being abused by people who hate admins because they're admins, by people who disagree with any decision you make or any administrative action you take. Yes sometimes that means that an admin will fly off the handle. Which then results in endless drama and stupidity like this. How is that useful? Keep your own path clean. If someone tells you to fuck off, consider whether you might have deserved it, and if not then take it to the appropriate forum. A general question like this is utterly useless for everyone.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:45, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Senra, where have you been attacked? Please don't throw out wild accusations. I see no attacks targeted toward you in this thread or on your talk page.--v/r - TP 15:51, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

kudpung (talk · contribs) here and I would welcome the retraction of wild accusations above --Senra (talk) 15:58, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

WOW! Neither Kudpung's comments nor mine are personal attacks. So now I am questioning whether you understand what a personal attack is and in that regard whether your questions can be answered.--v/r - TP 16:04, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Personal attack inception, a personal attack saying someone responded to personal attacks with personal attacks? I have to say, Senra (and speaking as as close to "the civility police" as we appear to have in this thread right now), I'm not really seeing the attack in that diff. It seems to me that Kudpung was pointing out that you were being unvcivil by calling users names in the comment he was responding to. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 16:06, 23 January 2013 (UTC

Just throwing this out there: when someone calls things attacks and then says they're thick-skinned enough to weather it, they're not really being thick-skinned; they're just being thin-skinned with a side of passive-aggressive. Someone who was really thick-skinned wouldn't have cared enough to mention it. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:12, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I was criticised for asking what may turn out to be a reasonable question, criticised for making a personal attack and criticised for bringing it to the wrong forum. How is a question about policy in the wrong forum? I wasn't asked why I brought it to this forum. I see those as personal attacks on my motives and integrity and diversions from the main question(s) --Senra (talk) 16:18, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

It's not diversion, it's disagreement. You said "please instead of posting sycophantic defences or even attacking me." You posed a position and now your arguing that it's a personal attack or a diversion to defend a different position. Then you further claim others are personally attacking you, but your definition of a personal attack isn't in line with even the cloudy definition of the community's. That's not a diversion, that's explaining to you why your position is wrong in the first place.--v/r - TP 16:22, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• I specifically stated at the beginning that "This post concentrates on administrator behaviour. It specifically ignores ALL potential mitigating circumstances" yet posters still vigorously defended the subjects of my examples of WP:CIV and WP:NPA behaviour and even accused me of possible procedural errors (without checking). How is this part of the thread not an attack on me and a diversion rather than a relevant post on the question(s) raised? If you see my original post as a personal attack then I will get what I deserve; in the meantime, please concentrate on answering the questions raised --Senra (talk) 16:45, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• Let me try to get you to see why you can't make a statement like that. "Why does Senra hate Jews? This comment specifically ignores ALL potential mitigating circumstances. Please only answer the question." You see? You don't get to post an opinion and tell others that they arn't allowed to oppose your opinion. Sorry, not how discussion works. You don't get to dictate whether folks can oppose your position or not. You started with a loaded question which answering requires acknowledgement of the question as fact. That's why Fluffernutter is saying she is "taking the bait" and why no one else will answer you. Similarly, answering the question in my quote treats the statement as fact and then tries to answer it. It's a loaded question.--v/r - TP 17:01, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• Ok, I'll bite. Here are my answers:

  1) Why are the civility and no personal attacks policies not being used aggressively on administrators? Because they're not used aggressively against anyone anymore, because they're such hotly disputed topics. Blocks done as CIV or NPA blocks (at least on established editors) are nearly always undone within minutes, no matter how "aggressively" someone tried to handle the issue.

  2) Do we as a community trust administrators who react in such ways to always use their tools fairly? Tricky question. I don't think that admins who are prone to incivility are any more prone to flat-out abusing their tools, in general. I do, however, think their judgment is questionable (based on their lacking judgment about how to treat others), and would trust them a bit less to referee any type of heated situation. If they had a history of misusing their tools in anger, then I would be much more inclined to not trust them with admin tools. Does this mean I think incivility is becoming of an admin? Not a bit. But I don't think it necessarily follows automatically that "uncivil person" = "abuses their tools".

  3) How is revision deletion permissible in this case? I don't think it was. Our Revdel policy says "Especially, RevisionDelete does not exist to remove "ordinary" offensive comments and incivility, or unwise choices of wording between users, nor to redact block log entries", and the special page from which we do revdels reminds us that "Redaction to [...] hide mere poorly considered actions, criticisms, posts, etc, outside these criteria and without required consensus, or agreement by the arbitration committee, will usually be treated as improper use and may lead to arbitration and/or desysopping." This was a revdelete done apparently to remove fairly standard (though still unacceptable) incivility and/or to remove from view the poorly-considered action of an admin.

  4) Are either of the above administrators open to recall? If not, why not? For the former, I have no idea. For the latter, if they're not I would assume it's because they didn't choose the voluntary option of being open to recall. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:52, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• While there is a little more drama here, than is required to dialog the concepts, there is nothing new to discuss. Somethings on Wikipedia are less then perfect. Proposed solutions to date have failed to find consensus. No new ideas for solution are offered, and the tone here is too toxic to forward any suggestion with hopes of making a change. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 16:02, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

just to be clear i was asked if i wanted the edit summary revdeleted and i said i didn't care. The person who asked me is not the person who did the deletion but was rather a sitting arbitrator. I would assume this was done to try and reduce drama but it clearly didn't work since the comment had already been reposted and everyone was aware of it. And no, I have never believed that the completely toothless admin recall process has any merit and have never set my own recall conditions. I don't think most admins of the last few years have. And with that I would add that I agree with Jeepday, I don't see anything useful coming out of this thread and will probably not comment again. . Beeblebrox (talk) 16:10, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• " Blocks done as CIV or NPA blocks (at least on established editors) are nearly always undone within minutes, no matter how "aggressively" someone tried to handle the issue." - If this is true, this is very, very, very worrying. A single uncivil edit is nothing, a few we can ignore, but if there is a pattern, then this makes the environment unwelcoming and toxic, and as such the net bad is more than the net good, on the long term. That some well-known problematic editors in this respect are not banned is one of the stains of the current state of Wikipedia. --Cyclopia^talk 16:21, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that Wikipedians are a fairly diverse bunch that come from all corners of the globe, and all have different opinions on what's morally acceptable. That's why we will never ever agree on an acceptable level of civility that satisfies everybody, as a quick look at Malleus' block log (with each block being undone about ten minutes later) will reveal. Personally, recognising this fact, I subscribe to "Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others" - I'll "accept" all sort of "naughty words" in my direction if they've got a root of an argument in them, or ignore them if they don't, but I'll try to set a good example myself, and keep a tighter control on what language I use myself to others. I'd encourage everyone to do the same. And furthermore, if you stamp out bad language on Wikipedia, you'll still have to face it in the real world - I've been told to "fuck off" in real life, and knew that taking offence would be counter-productive. Furthermore, I could furnish you all with incredibly long and unbearably tedious tales of users I've had to encounter in my experience as an administrator on various forums and BBSes over the years who've decided to take offence at somebody and will not accept anything less than their permanent expulsion from the forum, then raked me over hot coals because I refuse to bow to their demands, and finally rage-quit the forum, explaining in great detail what a useless and incompetent admin I am .... but you'd get as bored of reading it as I am of typing this sentence. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:45, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Been there, seen that.--v/r - TP 17:09, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

"How is revision deletion permissible in this case?" That's the one thing here that troubles me. Apparently if you are high enough on the totem pole on wikipedia, your mates will strike embarrassing stuff out of the record for you, a concession that is specifically forbidden, is it not, for everyone else.Smeat75 (talk) 18:01, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Ahem. I am the person who did the revision deletion of the edit summary (and only the edit summary), and I did it because it contained a clear and obvious personal attack directed at another user. I would have revdeleted the same edit summary had it been brought to my attention had it been made by any other user. The nature of the personal attack is a perfect example of an edit summary for which revision deletion is appropriate; indeed, one of the main reasons that the tool was developed to permit revision deletion of edit summaries and log actions to remove these sorts of personal attacks. Risker (talk) 18:31, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I think this would be an interesting point of debate in some sort of AN or RfC context, divorced from this case, because "where is the line where a personal attack becomes revdeletable" seems like the sort of thing that admins can (and do) genuinely and in complete good faith disagree about. At any rate, I think it's clear from her comment that Risker wasn't "covering up" anything so much as she was trying (unsuccessfully, it turns out) to cut the drama off at the root, and I don't think whether he call was perfect is terribly relevant to a discussion about the initial (alleged, etc) incivility. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:37, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I would echo that opinion, I certainly do not believe that Risker was trying to shield me from responsibility for that edit summary, the emails I have received from the arbs about this express pretty much the exact opposite feeling. Agree that there may be a need for clarification here, but not a referendum on this one particular action. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:02, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I will just clarify slightly on Fluffernutter's comment. The revision deletion of the summary was *not* done to reduce drama in any way, shape or form. It was to remove a very clear and inflammatory personal attack directed at a specific user. I do not understand why there is a sense that such abuse should be enshrined on this project for eternity; it is unhealthy for the target, and unhealthy for the project as a whole, and the decision to approve the use of revision deletion for these situations was a very conscious decision of the community. Risker (talk) 19:32, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

As I've said elsewhere, the revdel was completely allowable under policy (I even considered doing it myself). The reason I didn't was because the phrase was all over the place and I felt that it would be trying to spit into the wind. In regard to "Would future posters stick to answering (or dismissing) each question please instead of posting sycophantic defences or even attacking me." by the OP, they're "attacking" you because it seems that you don't know when to drop the WP:STICK. --Rschen7754 19:39, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• Just my two cents: If NPA and CIVIL is ignored as much as some people say, we have a problem. Each time a regular user abuses someone, it sends a signal that some users have problems with Wikipedia. If an admin does it, it creates a bad atmosphere we will suffer for in the long run. Admins violating NPA and CIVIL should be dealt with just as strictly as regular users, if not even stricter. We have the tools to stop harassment (at least on-wiki), and as far as I can tell we're allowed to use them for such a purpose. Bjelleklang - talk 19:35, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Comment: I'm dropping this because I appear to have no community support. For the record, I do not have any axe to grind against either of the two named parties and I apologise to them for the trouble I caused. I just used them as examples of unfair treatment. It also appears that a sitting arbitrator can unilaterally redact the edit summaries of their friends using a personal interpretation of policy at best or against policy at worst without apparent redress. I am sick and tired of the seemingly one-rule-for-us mentality around here. It appears to be admitted there is no "single policy on Wikipedia that is consistently applied in all cases". I feel very much like a Plebeian—unworthy of knowing the laws by which I am governed --Senra (talk) 20:01, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Senra you definetly have an axe to grind. I'm the guy that got yelled at, and I have no opinion one way or the other about that edit summary.  KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh ...  20:59, 23 January 2013 (UTC) _{pardon the interuption}

Senra, you are seriously mischaracterizing my words to the extent that I ask you to remove the links. I said absolutely nothing about "without apparent redress", about a "seemingly one-rule-for-us mentality", and my actions were not a "personal interpretation of policy" any more than that of any editor carrying out any action is doing so using their own personal interpretation of policy. Beeblebrox isn't my friend, although like just about everyone else in this thread, I consider him a colleague. It is likely that this particular edit summary came to my attention because I am an arbitrator, but I am a Wikipedian first. Senra, if someone has made an inflammatory personal attack about you in an edit summary, and you were not able to persuade anyone to revision delete it, please let me know and we can review it together; I have no hesitation in revision deleting inflammatory personal attacks directed at our editors in cases where they cannot otherwise be removed. Risker (talk) 20:45, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Interesting, "I'm dropping this after I throw two more accusations." If your going to drop it, then drop it. Don't keep insulting people. The premise of this thread, which you started, began on a requirement that we acknowledge your opinion as fact. Next time, try it with more neutrality. Instead of "Why arn't admins blocked for incivility?" do "In which situations would an admin be blocked for incivility." One is loaded and the other is a neutral question.--v/r - TP 20:10, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Or, better still, "In which situations would an admin be reprimanded?" - doesn't even mention blocks or incivility, but discussion can still lead to them if need be. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:18, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• Fair comments. No loading intended. I have nothing against admins; I seek fairness everywhere --Senra (talk) 20:21, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• My only 2 cents is that I find it unlikely there exists a personal attack that needs to be REVDELed but doesn't justify at least a serious wrist slap and promise not to do it again. Yes, he was provoked. But an admin should have thicker skin. And I don't think this rises to meet our policy on REVDEL. I don't see how it comes close.

I'm not so worried about the personal attack happening (we all make mistakes) as I am worried about the lack of contrition. For the record, I actively like both folks in the discussion, but the behavior of both was poor (KV for not accepting consensus and badgering, B for the outburst). Both really should apologize and move forward. But I'm not seeing that happening, which is sad and likely to just create more issues down the road. Hobit (talk) 20:47, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• This thread would be entirely unnecessary if any of the Admins/Arbs who witnessed the offending commentary had had the balls to warm Beeblebrox and threaten him with a block. No one did and a plague on your houses for the lamentable failure. You all sat back and allowed him to dictate the discussion and even bring the discussion to close with the lasting comment that he will do the same again if necessary. Disgraceful Admin behaviour will always result in drama. Senior Admins especially, you need to take a look at yourselves. Leaky Caldron 20:54, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

  Leaky, Beeblebrox received the "compromised" block within minutes after he made the comment, and then was unblocked within minutes after that. At that point, a) it would arguably have been wheel-warring to reblock (depending on how you view the original block's cause), and b) discussion was ongoing on AN, and better judgment (as well as the leanings of policy) say admins should not cowboy up and take a unilateral action if discussion is still ongoing. To slap up another block right after he'd been unblocked - and I say this as someone who respects him but thinks he ought to have been blocked, alas - would have been upping the drama, would probably have started a full-on wheel war, and would have increased the probability of everyone digging into their trenches and lobbing grenades at each other. The only thing that could have reinstated the block without apocalyptic drama would have been for AN to reach a consensus to block. That didn't happen. Now, like Hobit above, I'm disappointed at the lack of understanding from the involved parties now, because it leaves me with little confidence that any of them won't do the same again...but the time for a well-supported preventative block has passed, as has the active name-calling. Being angry at everyone isn't going to get you anywhere here - we're all frustrated too, but we're doing the best we can to deal with this calmly and controllably, and that means without kneejerk reactions. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:03, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

His threat/promise to do it again at will remains there, dangling like a big swinging dick(head). You have not dealt with that. No warning was given, deal with it now and finally the quasi-polemic essay is still there, delete it. All Admin. actions short of a block that would be carried out instantly for a non-Admin editor. Leaky Caldron 21:08, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I get the sense you won't be satisfied with anything I have to say at this point, because you firmly believe we've all failed, but...Beeblebrox got a ton of non-templated warnings last night, ranging from requests to "please tone it down" to a whole AN thread discussing his errors to "emails [he has] received from the arbs" that apparently hold him responsible for his actions. Believe me, he's 100% aware that he screwed up and isn't going to get away with something like this again, whether he thinks he was right or not. Am I entirely convinced that he gets everything I wish he got about the matter? No, but I rarely am when editors run into trouble. I'm willing to give him the chance to demonstrate next time he gets into a confrontation (whether that be a week, a month, a year from now...) that he's learned. As far as his essay, we don't unilaterally delete stuff unless it meets one of our CSD criteria. As far as I can tell, B's essay meets none of them, which means it would need to be MfD'd to be deleted. If you want it to be deleted, I encourage you to pursue in-process removal by opening an Mfd. Heck, I'll probably vote to delete right alongside you. But you can't rage at us for not violating policy by deleting it unilaterally while also being angry that B violated policy. Either we follow policy, or we don't. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:25, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, he did get blocked. Albeit, briefly. I got no laugh out of it. I though it was kinda sad, if you want to know the truth.  KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh ...  21:01, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Leaky, when are you going to tell KoshVorlon to quit badgering admins with WP:IDHT before an admin has had enough?--v/r - TP 21:25, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not. I have no axe to grind with editors who do not personally affect me. Plenty of others will deal with him. Any Admin. acting the way Beeblebrox did, who won't apologise and who arrogantly postures that they will repeat personal attacks, are fair game, as is inaction by their associates. Leaky Caldron 21:41, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

"I have no axe to grind with editors who do not personally affect me" how does Beeblebrox words to Kosh affect you? Why is "arrogantly postures that they will repeat personal attacks" worse than "arrogantly insists they know better than consensus?" What is worse? Badgering and harassing and refusal to get the point, or telling someone to go away rudely? How are you now not an associate of Kosh's actions having been made aware of them and taking no action? How are you actions any different than any other admins?--v/r - TP 21:51, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

@TParis, Leaky doesn't know me, nor did Leaky and I talk about this at all.  KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh ...  22:13, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Admins acting in any way that contravenes policy or demonstrating untouchable arrogance is invariably infinitely worse than an editor's foolishness. As we see time and again, there is no way to deal with the arrogance of Admins. and some of you appear to thrive on that situation. An ordinary editor proclaiming "FUCK OFF YOU PETTY FASCIST IDIOT" would be blocked pronto, don't deny it. Leaky Caldron 22:16, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Here's my problem: you think it's an admin problem. It's an everyone problem and you're ignoring the instigator right above you because he's not an admin and that plays into your perception that it's an admin problem. Deal with the real issue. KoshVorlon is right there.--v/r - TP 00:48, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

KV hasn't been (s)elected for anything. Admins are chosen to act in a trustworthy manner. Anyone shouting "FUCK OFF YOU PETTY FASCIST IDIOT" cannot be trusted. Any Admin supporting such a statement cannot be trusted and any Admin. neglecting to take appropriate action when they see such a statement cannot be trusted. A lot of you therefore are untrustworthy but because it is a job for life we are stuck with you. Leaky Caldron 10:01, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Maybe you should look at the pool admins are elected from.--v/r - TP 13:51, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I had a different response in mind but I want to bring this to an end asap. If, in the future, I become frustrated by an editor to the extent where I cannot control my feelings and post a message or edit summary along the lines of "fuck off you idiot, you don't know what you are talking about", you are an Admin., will you unblock me on request? Yes or No. Leaky Caldron 14:13, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Depends on the circumstances. As I did with Kiefer when Bwilkins blocked him 3 weeks ago, I'd probably ask you to back away from the issue and agree not to pick up again until you have a cooler head and I'd let let ANI know what I was up to before I did it.--v/r - TP 14:59, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

and if I tell you that I reserve the right to repeat it in similar circumstances and maintain an essay in my user space to justify my stance, you would still unblock me? Leaky Caldron 15:30, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Reserve whichever right you want, it wouldn't help you if you did it again (within a reasonable amount of time). And per WP:ROPE, you'd be unlikely to get a chance like I'd offered again.--v/r - TP 15:33, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

"Fair game"? Given wikipedia's history with Scientology thats an interesting choice of wording. Objecting to inaction on the part of any given admin is somewhat unreasonable. Some of us earn our livings in ways that require us to be at times as much as 10 meters from a computer.©Geni 22:22, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Don't be obtuse. You know I'm talking about the Admins involved at the time. I don't care if you were 10 miles away, there were plenty who were not. Leaky Caldron 22:26, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually I don't know that. The obvious problem with that approach is that is simply reinforces the guide that you do not become involved in any thing with drama potential if you can avoid it. Since this leaves the field clear to those admins who care nothing for your opinion this seems counter productive.©Geni 22:40, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually I have no idea what you are talking about. I'm not responsible for which Admins deal with which matters on boards so my approach has no influence on anything. However, the following post by Sandstein sums up the current situation very well. Leaky Caldron 10:01, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• The CIV/NPA policies apply to all editors. However, in my experience, as a practical matter, they are not enforced against experienced editors who have many friends (which includes many administrators, but also other editors). This is an artifact of Wikipedia's wheel-warring policy and ochlocratic dispute settlement system: If an administrator blocks an editor who has many friends, they will raise a stink at a noticeboard, until they find an administrator who is either also a friend of the editor at issue or simply disagrees that the action at issue deserved a block, and enacts an unblock. Because of the wheel-warring policy, the block can't be repeated. Also, the stress and hassle of the whole process deters administrators from even attempting to enforce CIV/NPA policies against the editor in question. In this way, many habitually incivil editors (which includes many administrators) enjoy effective immunity from sanctions. I've long argued that this is a structural weakness in our project governance, but apparently there are just too many old-timers who feel that they have been around so long that they deserve to behave however they want.  Sandstein  08:51, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Well said. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:41, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Indeed, this reflects my understanding of the situation quite well, though it's not always "friends" doing the obstruction so much as it can be people who mean entirely well, but can't see the forest for the trees (i.e. Saying "We can't block so-and-so, it upsets them terribly and might drive them away!" but not noticing that so-and-so's behavior upsets more than just one person). A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:46, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

The wrong question

I am much more concerned with an admin's judgment as an admin than I am with any occasional outbursts of incivility. I'd rather have a potty-mouthed admin who makes the right decisions about blocking, protecting and deleting than an unfailingly polite one who screws up those choices all the time. Unlike some, I think our admin corps is, overall, pretty good, and even some of those I have had run-ins with appear to me to be, over time, adequate or better. There are, nonetheless, some whose conduct as an admin leaves me scratching my head, wondering how they ever managed to get the bit in the first place - and those admins concern me, not the ones who sometimes react all too humanly under pressure and vent their feelings.

So the larger question here is "What standards should admins be held to?", and the incivility question is only a very minor part of that more general concern - certainly not worth the amount of time and effort which is going into this discussion. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:27, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Beyond My Ken's comments. This thread is a distraction from real issues, another dramah thread for dramah bunnies. If someone is offended by an idiom that someone else uses, they can trout them (or use whatever version they personally prefer to express reciprocal incivility). Or better, they can take a wider perspective and stop being so precious and controlling. --Epipelagic (talk) 21:57, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The longer it is called "dramah" and shoved under the rug, the bigger the dramah becomes. Do you know what drama is? It's the crap that we keep ignoring because it's drama. You're propagating that drama simply by suggesting we ignore the drama. How about this approach: let's deal with it when it comes up so it quits smelling like a dead cat in the closet.--v/r - TP 00:52, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I certainly know about the central crap that we keep ignoring because it's inconvenient. And one of the best ways to keep on ignoring it is to focus instead on sideshows, like this one. --Epipelagic (talk) 02:38, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

@BMK, that is a valid concern, but admins don't get a pass when they get the bit. They should be held to the same basic standards as each and every editor. YPC should be sanctioned for violating his civility parole, but so should the admin. Should he lose his bit (or give it up)? Absolutely not, he's a good admin. But he was still in violation, and there should be consequences. Not that I expect any - the history of WP is to ignore violations by both admins and long-term editors - but it would be nice to be surprised, and find out that admins have to obey the same rules as the rest of us. GregJackP Boomer! 05:02, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

General policy question on profanity

Can I just get a quick survey here - how many people think it's acceptable for a user to tell another to 'fuck off'? That's pretty basic incivility in my book, but apparently a large number of Wikipedians have no problem with it - including Beeblebrox, as expressed here. I would hope that most of us could agree that profanity rarely helps improve disputes and ought to be avoided, but I seem to be in a minority on that one. But if 'fuck off' isn't incivil, then what is? Robofish (talk) 00:31, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• I agree with you, but I do indeed have the sense that we're a minority, at least of vocal wikipedians. I will say, however, that I'm not opposed to the general concept of "profanity" - it's when it's deployed against another person that I think it becomes a problem. And though I think telling someone to "fuck off" is unacceptably aggressive, on the scale of things I think aren't ok, I'm far less disturbed by that (since it's basically a rude "go away") than by name-calling or personal attacks against other editors (which is not only something you wouldn't say to your coworkers, but is also cruel and personally-directed). A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 00:51, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
• Depends on the context. On a user talk page, "I've asked you politely to leave 3 times, so now I'm saying fuck off" is acceptable to me. "Hello, welcome to my page, I dont care about your opinion, fuck off" is not.--v/r - TP 00:53, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, context is everything. Profanity is not necessarily uncivil (or even impolite, a related but not congruent concept), it all depends on how it is used, to whom, and in what circumstances. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:24, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with TP, it depends. For example, the first five times someone accuses me of (whatever, fill in the blank) that is not true, I'll probably explain and discuss it with them. About the tenth time, I may be to the point of STFU and go away. GregJackP Boomer! 04:10, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• "the context in which profanity is used is relevant" is in fact the entire point of that essay.. You will note that nowhere in my initial reply to the discussion that endedso badly did I say "fuck off"[2] The nasty all-caps personal attack that ended the conversation, yeah, I did that. I was frustrated and I let the persistent posting to my talk page goad me into doing something that, had I thought about it for two seconds, I knew perfectly well would just cause problems. So, no I would not expect to see anything like that from me in the future. Everything up to that point, including the "fuck off" close of the discussion, I stand behind. I tried to discuss, they responded with an unfortunate combination of cluelessness and arrogance. Since they had opened a DRV before even waiting for me to reply to their initial inquiry and I saw no hope of getting them to understand what consensus even is and how it relates to policy I indicated I was done talking about it and would rather they left me alone. They continued to post. I closed the thread and told them to fuck off [3]. They arrogantly re-opened the thread. Stop right there, and I look a lot less like the bad guy don't I? Then I did something thoughtless and stupid and none of that mattered anymore. So, that would be where I screwed up so far as I am concerned. Beeblebrox (talk) 06:48, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• Although the users above make good arguments, I believe it's inappropriate regardless of context. Like it or not a lot of users (and especially outsiders) doesn't read all the background leading up to a "fuck you message", and if they end up thinking that admins are allowed to behave that way, it reflects badly on the community. A couple of users further up noted that Wikipedia already has a bad reputation, and messages telling someone to fuck off doesn't really help on this, even if the user being told to do so deserves it. Bjelleklang - talk 07:53, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• I personally don't use strong adult language to other editors on Wikipedia, but I respect that other editors do, and suggest its appropriateness depends on the context. To give another example to what TParis said above, you can certainly create uncivil responses that don't go anywhere near naughty words - for example : ""Hello, welcome to my page. You're wrong. Please read WP:AGF, WP:NPA, WP:TPG, WP:CIVIL, WP:NPOV. HTH". I disagree with Bjelleklang's comment above, and suggest that if you wander into WP:ANI and made an off-hand comment about language in the middle of a heated debate, without understanding the full context and back story, you're likely to make things worse as attention turns to your comment, creating even more drama. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:24, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• "Fuck you" and "FUCK OFF YOU PETTY FASCIST IDIOT" are not the same thing, in my book. One might be written in exasperation the other is obviously highly personalised invective presumably based on interactions leading to the conclusion that the recipient is (a) petty, (b) fascist and (c) an idiot. Leaky Caldron 10:37, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• Using profanity (such as "fuck off") towards others, with the effect of offending them, is unacceptable under any circumstances, and should result in severe sanctions if it occurs after appropriate warnings. Wikipedia is a serious collaborative academic project, not a playground, and must cultivate a professional working environment if we want to retain competent editors. Unfortunately, for the reasons I've commented on above, structural weaknesses in our governance currently prevent us from doing so.  Sandstein  10:42, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• This statement encapsulates the severe, black and white, moral hard line that is wrecking Wikipedia. It is the single most effective way we can drive off the best and most competent editors. Never mind that the *morality* is a fantasy morality, and that the statement mischaracterises Wikipedia and academics. Wikipedia is profoundly anti-academic and "unprofessional", as these drama boards repeatedly demonstrate. Wikipedia is a playground, as these drama boards also demonstrate. Of course many academics use robust language, as anyone who moves among them knows. Some of our most able editors and admins occasionally use robust language. If Wikipedia is so rigid and lacking in administrative skills that it cannot accommodate them, then Wikipedia does not deserve to survive. --Epipelagic (talk)

• • What would an pro-man made climate change academic do if an anti-climate change academic was constantly hounding him about faulty or five year old data after being told of it's fallacies? (or vice versa, not trying to make this a climate change debate).--v/r - TP 13:50, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

    Most of them sigh, roll their eyes, and either write another blog post debunking the newest salvo, or they just killfile that person. I don't think many of them respond to it with rage and name-calling - if only because getting that het up, that often, would get downright tiring. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:56, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

    I was thinking more along the lines of face-to-face when I wrote the above, but you, Ma'am, have just schooled me. I've never heard of a killfile. I'm too young n00b for usenet.--v/r - TP 16:06, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

    @Sandstein: Sorry to disagree with you, but Wikipedia is not an "academic project", nor are the majority of editors academics, I don't believe. Wikipedia is, instead, an open source project to create a popular online encyclopedia, which is quite a different thing, and the standards of behavior for such a project should not be the same as those for a true academic project. (Besides, in my limited experience with academics, they appear capable of insulting and demeaning their fellow academics without the use of profanity, and do.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:48, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• Chalk me up in the "depends on context" column. I mean, c'mon, guys, at some point, they're just words. Expletives like "fuck", devoid of any real meaning, have only the power we give them. Sure, there's almost always a better (or at least, more entertaining) word than "fuck", but...it's not so much a "structural weakness" that's preventing us from banning profanity so much as a disagreement as to whether it really matters. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:12, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
• Saying "Fuck off" to another editor on Wikipedia is always uncivil and not in the least collegial. I cannot think of a context where it would be the right thing to do. Having said that, a single instance is not the end of the world, especially if it is followed by an apology and/or a retraction. While disruptive, it is not the biggest problem we have here. Having said that, I am disturbed at the idea that senior editors and administrators would actually defend the practice. To me, that shows very poor judgement. Bovlb (talk) 18:36, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
• The distinction, as always, is the difference between profanity and intimidation. The act of intimidating or bullying editors is not somehow "OK" if you swear when you do it. Profanity, outside of the context of intimidation or other forms of incivility, is completely benign, and conversely intimidation and incivility without use of offensive words is not OK. The obtuse defense that people who object to incivility and intimidation do so because they object to the use of words like "fuck" is a strawman argument, and dodges the main problem with incivil behavior. --Jayron32 19:57, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
• Should not be allowed - education may play a factor in this (not all can find the right words to express themselves) - I have always found that those that can communicate without profanity demonstrate a level of grammar and maturity that we should all strive for. Not that this is a work place - but its not a truck stop either.Moxy (talk) 20:03, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm perfectly capable of expressing myself without profanity. Every single time I have ever told a user to fuck off it was only after they refused to leave me alone when asked to. Incivility is often in the eye of the beholder, to me refusing to leave, be it a real physical location or a user talk page, is as or even more incivil /rude as telling someone to fuck off. And to then have that edit reverted by the same rude user with the edit summary "civility is policy" is far more rude. Again, not excusing what I then unfortunately chose to do, but somebody who won't stop oposting to your talk page after you have asked them to needs to fuck off, the sooner the better. self appointed civility cops cause problems, they almost never solve them. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:07, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

So why the need for "PETTY FASCIST IDIOT"? Maybe you should add that to your puerile essay. Repeatedly posting to your talk page - wow. Take a look at these edits and summaries [4] to my TP and tell me you have an excuse for abusing someone who has had the temerity to post to your talk page. You need to get a grip. Leaky Caldron 22:30, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

If you bothered to read my remarks before replying you will see quite clearly that I am in no way defending that edit summary and regret having posted it. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:39, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I read everything. Keep your childish insults to yourself, I have a perfectly good grip. If you had any integrity you would delete your silly essay. Leaky Caldron 22:43, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Guys, please consider the irony of getting into this sort of argument during a discussion on incivility before you go any further with this sub-thread. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 23:06, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Indeed it is increasingly clear that profanity is not needed to be rude. I find the condescending attitude that many users adopt of late much worse than using a bad word every 10,000 edit s or so. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:13, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

And I find arrogance emboldened by the inaction of others to be unacceptable. Here's a tip, someone gets to you on your talk page and you don't like it, there is a little link called "rollback". Click it and poof, it's gone. Also, you have many talk page stalkers, no doubt watching your back. Let one of the more mature ones deal with the offending poster, poof and they've gone. No need for you to loose your temper and create days of drama. Leaky Caldron 23:20, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I find your behaviour far more obnoxious than Beeblebrox dropping the F bomb. He's repeatedly said he regrets that unfortunate edit summary, but you refuse to accept that, and then you suggest he lacks "integrity" for writing an essay you happen to dislike. Coating this kind of unforgiving vindictiveness with a veneer of smug pseudo-polite baiting is IMO worse than any amount of profanity. Reyk _YO! 23:39, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

You can describe my comments anyway you choose. If I said what I really feel I would be blocked and I'm not giving him the pleasure of seeing that happen. The point you have conveniently overlooked is that it was not an "unfortunate" edit, it was quite intentional and was rounded off with an assurance that he will use it again whenever he wants to. That's an apology with teeth bared and is unacceptable. Leaky Caldron 23:54, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

And the point you have intentionally overlooked is that B is apologizing for the "fascist idiot" bit, not the "fuck off" bit. The latter will be repeated in the case of persistent nuisances, the former will not. Reyk _YO! 00:08, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

• The words "fuck off" are not necessarily more uncivil than the behavior that prompts them. If it is the first response to a good faith and politely worded request or inquiry then yes it is extremely incivil. If the statement is the result of someone being obnoxiously persistent after having been politely asked multiple ways to leave then it may not be uncivil at all.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:17, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
• I tend to agree more or less with fluffernutter and TParis regarding this issue, and even moreso with Jayron32. I note, however, that the header for this section is not "is it ok to say 'fuck off'" it is a "general" question about "profanity". "Fuck off" is not the same as "what the fuck?" which denotes bewilderment, not hostility or any negative meaning. So yes, context is extremely important. Disclaimer: I once, several years ago, said "Well, fuck" in a rather pointed manner, in disagreement that mere "profane" words were some kind of bright line across which no one should ever venture. KillerChihuahua 22:40, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Profane language isn't a big deal, IMHO. If an administrator or non-administrator isn't causing vandalism or using socks, then he/she can profane away. If it were up to me? I'd have WP:CIVIL & WP:NPA abolished :) GoodDay (talk) 01:48, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I did a quick tally of this thread and I see 7 editors (including 3 admins) who say yes (saying "fuck off" may sometimes be acceptable), and 6 editors (including 4 admins) who say no (never acceptable). (For 6 users who responded to this thread, I could not determine a vote on the question posed.) I thought this was an easy, clear-cut question, but the community seems about evenly split. That's a real surprise to me. Bovlb (talk) 06:06, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I strongly support CIVIL, and would like to see it more vigorously enforced. However, I will never support sanctions for profanity unless there is an investigation of the complete circumstances. The problem with those who want to warn/block editors for bad language is that they often express their opinion as if profanity were a really terrible thing (damaging the community and so on), yet those complaining about civility do not want to comment on the underlying issue—instead, they obfuscate the actual problem by harping on about a few bad words. There is a case now at ANI where editor A reported editor B for claimed systematic BLP violations. Editor C jumped in to support B by attacking A (offensive attacks on the integrity of A with no basis in reality). As the community let C get away with it, A used profanity. Anyone wanting to warn/sanction A because of a naughty word must first address the underlying issue if they want to assist the community and the encyclopedia—it would be totally absurd to sanction A's use of profanity when C is able to do much worse because "blocks are not punitive" and C has not repeated the nonsensical attacks. The problem with CIVILITY enforcement is that it makes no sense unless done fairly, and for that, trolling and incompetence must be regarded as worse problems than a few bad words. Johnuniq (talk) 06:41, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Profanity isn't the issue for me, it is the use of the personalised epithet, by an Admin., with a track record and accompanied by the lack of action by his fellow Admins and his assurance that if the circumstances arise he will similarly attack another editor who antagonises him instead of allowing others to resolve the problem. Don't include me on either side as it would be hypocritical of me to claim that I am civil when other editors such as Reyk tell me that my behaviour is obnoxious and that I demonstrate unforgiving vindictiveness with a veneer of smug pseudo-polite baiting. If my honest assessment of someone who should be setting an example is perceived in that way I fully accept the characterisation without complaint. Leaky Caldron 10:35, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree that personalization, which epithets can and do highlight and punctuate, is the problematic behavior and pillar issue. It's not the language; it's how it's employed. Telling someone "they are ..." or that they should do something anatomically interesting or impossible is incivil. There are other ways to be incivil, particularly apparent in the personalization issues, but those are some of them. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:39, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I am a serious editor. I see no reason Beeblebox be treaeted differently. Really, he got a REVDEL for nodrama?-=DePiep (talk) 23:57, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Request for closure

This is not a policy discussion, it is a discussion about me and if I should have gotten in more trouble for a badly-considered edit sumarry. Nothing but noise is coming from it, no policy change is even proposed, let alone being discussed. If there are those who would like to have a prolonged discussion about me and my evil ways they can open a WP:RFC/U whenever they are ready. If there is an actual proposal for a policy change that discussion can be opened at any time as well. This discussion has more than run its course, it seems clear that there are no retroactive punishments coming my way, and this thread is just prolonging the drama without presenting anything of substance. Please close and hat this. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:16, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree that there is no benefit in discussing your behaviour here, and I for one was avoiding doing so. I did find the question above, "How many people think it's acceptable for a user to tell another to 'fuck off'?" to be worth asking, and useful from a policy perspective. Perhaps we need to pose such hypotheticals in a separate discussion. Cheers, Bovlb (talk) 00:53, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Profanity hurts outreach

This is a little long, so I'm putting it in its own subsection.

On the general question, I think that serious profanity is always a problem for Wikipedia. The question has been studied by scholars, and the differences in cultural and gender responses mean that what you—I'm assuming that most or all of you here are native-English-speaking Western white males—think is "moderate" profanity is far more offensive to other people than it is to you. Furthermore, every culture has their own 'scale' of which kinds of terms are more offensive (e.g., which is stronger: sex-related terms or poop-related terms?), so when you think that you picked the lesser term, you may have accidentally picked what your reader believes is more offensive. Women in general (especially non-white women, but even western white women), find profanity far more offensive than men and interpret it as a signal that a website is a guy's locker room, not a place that women should try to stick around, or if they do stay, that it's a place where they will have to act male to be accepted.

It doesn't matter who the profanity is directed at. The ambient level of profanity at a website is used by potential participants to decide whether this website is a suitable place "for people like me" or not.

I don't think we will have a community consensus to block all profanity, because most of the people forming the consensus are white western men who accept it for themselves and worry that a strict enforcement will result in sanctions on themselves. It's about as likely as experienced drivers voting in fines for barely exceeding the speed limit for as little as one second. But among those of you who are thoughtful, and who would like to see more than just the articles favored by association football hooligans to be well-developed, please think about how even occasional profanity affects our efforts to encourage greater diversity on this project. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• I don't like the implication that people who deliver the occasional precision F-bomb strike are automatically "association football hooligans" who write inferior articles. I use profanity sometimes, and I've written on mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, computer science, and many other topics. Malleus has written brilliant content on nearly everything imaginable. There is no correlation between article work and profanity. None whatsoever. Reyk _YO! 22:17, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

  There are, however, other relevant correlations, including the ones between

  • the presence of profanity-spewing white males and the absence of women and non-white people;
  • having a male-dominated website and having more information about association football than about topics that are traditionally considered women's issues, like children's health;
  • having a white-dominated website and having more information about association football than about topics that affect people in developing countries, like poverty and neglected tropical diseases.

  What we've currently got is a community that (unintentionally) discourages participation by women and non-white people by using profanity and other forms of incivility to send a signal that this is a white-jerks-only club. There are consequences for this. One of the consequences is that WikiProject Association football has 65 featured articles, and WikiProject Children doesn't even exist, because so few of the people who would be interested in getting articles like Child past start class are willing to stick around a website that they perceive (regardless of your intention) as being hostile to them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

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

Autistic editors

Should we have some kind of guideline, or possibly assistance project/(?) for autistic editors and their parents? I can think of three cases I've seen where autistic editors' mothers have (apparently) appeared to ask people to be nice to their sons (1, 2, 3). It strikes me that we should be anticipating this happening and be prepared to help in the best way that we can. — Hex (❝?!❞) 23:09, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

As someone who made the mistake of revealing depression in confidence to an arbitrator, then having that arbitrator use that to attack me, by means of a "He is unsuitable for reasons revealed to me in confidence I can't say", I'd be really hesitant to tell anyone anything. Also, Fuck you [name redacted by me to keep things on topic]. Quite simply, if Arbcom would pull a stunt like that with a minor problem that affects about one in four, we shouldn't encourage anyone to reveal anything. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:15, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Hex but I think this is generally a greater problem of increased assholery from some of our editors. The rules of this place are hard to learn and many are counterintuitive but some editors like to block any user who isn't seemingly born with the knowledge to edit. I also notice that one of the folks you mention, Curtaintoad, was just blocked on 20 January based on an Arbcom decision? Not sure where that discussion happened but I cannot find it. I also know for a fact a large chunk of the community is here because they have social limitations (Autism is only one example). Many are antisocial in real life so there is no reason to think they wouldn't be here as well. I do not think we should be blocking for Autism unless the user genuinely does something bad. I think we should be encouraging people to edit in general, not sending a message that they aren't wanted. Kumioko (talk) 23:26, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOTTHERAPY. --Rschen7754 23:41, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

This seems like a solution in search of a problem to me. Fist of all the definition of the word "Autism" has been severely expanded. These days the word is used not just to refer to real Autism but to anything on the autism spectrum, including Asperger syndromeand High-functioning autism. Autisum is a disability, Asperger syndrome is little more then poor social skills and having your brain be wired in an unusual way. It's unlikely someone with Autism would be editing Wikipedia. As for Asperger syndrome, that doesn't need special treatment on WP, except maybe the same treatment we would give anyone with poor social skills. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 23:44, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

This essay has some useful information on how auties and nts can tolerate, understand, and collaborate effectively with each other. Kilopi (talk) 23:58, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Rschen no one is saying its therapy and throwing that out as a standalone bullet is just a bullshit reasoning to justify stupid decisions. If the user does something to justify being blocked or banned fine. Otherwise they should be treated just like any other editor. In fact I would say if the user self proclaims they have autism or something then we should give them a little latitude within reasoning. Otherwise we are just advocating them keeping it to themselves. I also agree with Kilopi. This recent indefinate block of User:Curtaintoad by Arbcom without discussion is just the latest in overreaching actions. Kumioko (talk) 00:07, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

You do realize that could cause huge amounts of potential drama - anyone could claim they were autistic and would get much more leeway than they usually would. This is just an open invitation for trolls. There is absolutely no way to verify if someone is autistic or not on the internet. - Rex (talk) 00:31, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

If they're editing WP, they're probably High-functioning/Asperger anyway, and thus wouldn't need special treatment. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 00:37, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

That's exactly true so then it also stands to reason we should not be indefinately blocking their accounts based on an assumption of Autism. Kumioko (talk) 00:38, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

What's this about blocking people for Autism. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 00:44, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Check out User:Curtaintoad.Kumioko (talk) 02:49, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I see a great many oversighted edits on one of their subpages. Without knowing any of their background, only your reply to Roger Davies' block notice, I would suspect that is more likely a case of a young editor revealing far too much about themselves without a proper understanding of the consequences is what led to that. And that would also be a preventative block, not a punitive one for being autistic. You are certainly trying to spin it into a block for having Autism, but I don't see any evidence to support that accusation. Resolute 03:05, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not trying to spin something up. The editor said they were young but no one took any action until his mother left a note on a couple users talk pages to be nice because he has autism. Then the user was blocked indefinately with a note to contact Arbcom. Also, since there were some revision deletions those of use without the tools can't see them, because of course we cannot be trusted with the tools. So your right I cannot prove that's what happened but the timing sure fits. I also have an issue with an Indefinate arbcom block based on WP:Child which is an essay. Not policy, not a guideline, its just an essay and its pupose wasn't even to do with a chold editor. As much as it may appear to the contrary though I really don't feel that strongly about it. In my eyes its just another editor that we blocked and told we do not want your edits. Lets also include that in this particular case this editor's mother is an editor here as well and I think probably watched his edits. Kumioko (talk) 18:56, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• Just noticed this talk - By chance I have been thinking about making a proposal that would allow editors with disabilities (like me with MS) to have an avenue of identification (if they wish to) and a central place for those editors to talk and gain assistance (like a wikiproject). I would presume people at Wikipedia:WikiProject Disability would be more then willing to help. I know of at least 10 editors here that like me use speech to text software on talk pages.But because of this we have had a few of them not being able to pass the request for adminship based on talk page grammar, instead of years of positive contributions and great personal interactions (I have had personal experience on this last point). Moxy (talk) 00:51, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
• No, there shouldn't be special treatment. Anyone can claim to be autistic, disabled, have some weird dyslexia, medically caused propensity to cursing, or whatnot. Don't even go there. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 01:20, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
• I'm going to give my opinion on this being autistic myself. Autism makes the person more socially out of place and tends to make them think more in a logical fashion. Yes, it's unlikely that severely autistic people will edit Wikipedia, however autistic people do tend to have special talents be it do complex math quickly or have amazing research skills and grammar. To make an analogy, they're like computers that obey strict logical commands and a narrow path. If anything happens that falls out of that path, it can lead to confusion, like me, all the way to an absolute total meltdown on their end. Is it likely that autistic people will edit Wikipedia? No. Is it possible? Yes and I think we should give them specific leeway in certain areas. If a person is autistic, they should be able to pick up policy and work from there fairly quickly. They may not understand the "spirit" of guidelines of policies and might take it too literally which is why I would extend leeway on their interpretation of policy and social behavior. Allow them to process what it really means before blocking them as incompetent and try to explain things in detail so they can understand it. Autistic behaviors will definitely be apparent here if an autistic person edits.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 02:51, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, I recall the first couple of times we interacted. I was very frustrated with you and when you mentioned your austism, a lot of your behaviors clicked from experiences with autism in my own family. But I think you've set a good example in that you adjusted your own behavior and I think you've become very productive. Whereas your first Rfba went terrible, now you're a candidate for BAG.--v/r - TP 17:07, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Why are we naming specific editors who are not of age in very public forums, again? --Rschen7754 02:57, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• We are all represented here by our behavior, nothing else. Whether autism, general incompetence, youth, having a bad day, or just not caring is the underlying source of a users troubles is ultimately not relevant. We don't let blind people drive school busses. Is it because we hate blind people, or is it because it just isn't feasible for them to do the job? We should never be asking about such things and a mere admission of a diagnosis should never be the reason for any sort of sanction, but by the same token it cannot be used to shield a user from responsibility for their own actions.

Outreach to such users to help them determine if they can learn to contribute constructively is a fine idea and I don't know that anyone needs permission to just go ahead and do so, although I am not sure structuring it as a wikiproject is appropriate.

If there is actual evidence that a user was blocked just for admitting to a diagnosis of autism I am sure we would all like to see it. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:43, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

See my comment above. Kumioko (talk) 18:56, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• Perhaps a general-purpose page with plain language and very few links could outline what avenues are available for anyone wanting assistance (I have pointed a couple of people to WP:HELPDESK with excellent results, and there's mentorship, the tea room, and no doubt more). However, Beeblebrox has the best response: while we might make it easier for someone wanting assistance to get advice, ultimately a user is defined by what they do, and editors who repeatedly generate disruption (whether to articles or the community) should not be at Wikipedia regardless of any medical explanation for their behavior. And of course no one has been blocked for revealing a medical condition—the example claimed above is clearly bogus (and those wanting more information should exercise restraint since Arbcom was elected to handle tricky cases, and calling for public explanations is misguided). Johnuniq (talk) 06:15, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that is definitely needed. When I clicked on "Help" on the front page just now, I did not see any directions to WP:HELPDESK . True, the helpful Teahouse was highlighted. But in general, English Wikipedia is a jungle (in at least three senses: wild, confusing, and inhabited by vicious animals [see the defenses of profanity below]). I have been active for a number of years, and I still regularly have problems . A few suggestions I made went basically ignored. From my perspective, it seems that a huge chunk of Wikipedia is dominated by 1) geeks who make things overly complicated and 2) fans of pop culture who put in sales and covers of (to me totally) obscure songs with-out any discussion of the musical (lyrics or compositional)aspects and other equivalent stuff about the latest sneeze by some Hollywood actress. (Sorry for the rant, but I believe in the Wikipedia cause, but get very frustrated at times.) Kdammers (talk) 06:51, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• If Editor X₁ expresses an opinion in forceful language and perhaps uses "bad words" to Editor Y₁, and Editor Y₁ freaks out because s/he can't cope with profanity, we typically see Editor X₁ sanctioned and sympathy and understanding offered to Editor Y₁. If Editor X₂ expresses an opinion in forceful language to Editor Y₂ that triggers Editor Y₂ because s/he has a medical condition (autism, Asperger's, depression, whatever), then we see Editor Y₂ threatened and WP:NOTTHERAPY tossed about, even though some understanding and sensitivity to Editor Y₂'s condition could have avoided any problem. X₁ may get blocked but X₂ probably doesn't even get advised about being accepting of and considerate towards individual differences and sensitivities. In essesnce, we accept that an editor can't handle profanity in a mature manner but won't accept and try to support and understand those with genuine medical conditions. It's another example where WP does not appropriately respond to the needs of the editing community.

  It is also tragic that Adam is correct above, disclosure has been used as a weapon and not only in his case where a campaign was waged by a then-Arbitrator who in the process demonstrated a profound ignorance of depression (no matter what that person might have claimed to the contrary). Disclosure is not a desirable option when ArbCom admits they can't handle personal information, and while stigma and ignorance means that open honesty will likely result in that editor being harmed (inadvertently or recklessly, or even deliberately and maliciously). Editors with mental health issues of some type are common, in my view, and most are assets to the project and valuable content contributors. Unfortunately, the community collectively is not sufficiently mature to handle mental health issues with anything approaching competence and decency, and so encouraging disclosure is not ethical. EdChem (talk) 06:30, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• I don't think that the maturity of the community is the issue at all. That is rather the point of both NOTTHERAPY and WP:CIR. We are not trying to "handle mental health issues." It is not stated anywhere that handling mental health issues is the responsibility of users who come here to try and edit an encyclopedia and it is ludicrously unrealistic as well as unfair to expect it of them, whether those suffering from such conditions self-identify or not. Beeblebrox (talk) 07:01, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, you are wrong. All I can say is that I was literally forced to reveal confidential information because, after revealing this in confidence, it was used to attack me, while it would not have actually significantly affected my editing in a negative way if it wasn't being used to attack me - it did mean I was not able to handle a three-month high-profile campaign of harassment, but... I doubt many editors would have been able to, and I doubt many of them would be editing again if they had. I can probably find the links if it's absolutely necessary, though I'd honestly rather not, as it would do absolutely no good to anyone to drag it back up, so... if you'll forgive me, can we just take this as a point made, and move on? Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 07:11, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• I believe the point is that if an editor is treated the same way everyone else is treated (i.e. warning when they are clearly making unproductive edits, etc), it's not peoples' responsibility as editors to walk on eggshells with certain people -- who may continue to make said unproductive edits -- just because someone claims they may have a mental problem that causes them strife because of it. It's not about being uncivil, but trying to be fair to everyone. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 07:24, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• While I see your point, my point is on a different issue: It's actively dangerous to tell people on Wikipedia about any conditions you may have. Also, knowledge of such conditions can be used to attempt to trigger an issue that would then be used as reason to seek the person being driven off the community. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 07:32, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• (e.c.) Editors who are excellent content contributors are assets to the project, and deserve to be treated with humanity and respect. If a colleague / acquaintance of mine had a mental health condition and my style was interfering with his or her productivity because of something I could easily alter but s/he could not, I would make an effort to behave in a human and supportive fashion and recognise her or his difference. NOTTHERAPY and CIR don't give carte blanche to chase away productive editors by triggering their mental health conditions. And, the maturity of the community is very much at issue when editor A driving editor B over the edge is considered B's problem but editor A saying a bad word to editor B is considered A's problem and potentially block-worthy. EdChem (talk) 07:14, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Nothing gives anyone carte blanche to chase away productive users. No one is arguing that. But it is not the responsibility of individual editors to be aware of other users conditions and to preemtively adjust their behaviors to avoid this supposed "triggering". You are deem to be suggesting that not only must the unpaid volunteers here handle these conditions but also that they are responsible for causing incidents where such users conditions becoem apparent. I don't think you are going to find much support for that idea. We go by behavior on-wiki, for everyone. Period. While we should all try to be understanding we are not responsible for other users behavior. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:28, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I think what Beeblebrox and others are saying is that their opposition to new policy is not the same as rejection of the idea that autistic editors arn't valued and welcome to contribute. They only reject the part of the suggestion that it's other people's responsibility to bend to their convience.--v/r - TP 17:01, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• I think we should provide adaptive resources for editors who are otherwise unable to participate as a peer in the rough and tumble of Wikipedia editing community. This could include mentors and proxies for example. However, I do not think it makes sense to require all editors to make individual allowances for social disability or various levels of editing incompentence beyond what has been established as the norm for civil discourse. Jojalozzo 01:02, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Hey, Im Curtaintoads mum. I dont know the many, many rules of wikipedia and doubtless I did the wrong thing by leaving a few messages on users pages re my son.

I wasnt asking for kindness, just understanding. I sincerely appreciate the attempts by some users to assist my son to learn the ways of wiki, but it is very complicated for him.

He has autism ok, Im not making it up (wish i was and I also know the diff between aspergers and spectrum disorders). I was reluctant to reveal this info because we have received a lot of discrimination in the past but i made the decision to do so because I could see that some people were becoming frustrated with his inability to comprehend (well intentioned) advice. I understand and support the policies re disclosure...but i naively thought my messages might help to calm things down.

And by the way, one of the big red flags of autism diagnosis is RIGIDITY OF THOUGHT so to all of those people who cant take a flexible approach to individual users, maybe take a look at yourselves?

I realise that his contributions were minimal, but he was learning.

As a result of his block, my account was also blocked from this isp...thanks a lot wiki.

I have suggested to my son to try again in a year or so.

He has a lot to learn, but he has a lot to offer.

Considering how far behind the starting block he is compared to the majority of wiki users, i couldnt be prouder and i will advocate for him to have the same rights as any user.

He NEVER once swore at other users, included profanities in his edits, intentionally committed vandalism or did anything he saw as negative.. I have seen a lot worse material come from other users.

He loves wikipedia and in time he will have a positive contribution.

Ok, so i know wikipedia is not a sheltered work shop, but I have to wonder if he would have been blocked if I hadnt mentioned his autism?...

Anyway, hopefully I havent broken too many rules this time.

Cheers WendyS1971 ^Talk 05:23, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Wendy.I am sure your son is a fine young man and I know we all hope that the current difficulties can be overcome. However, I don't know that we can even discuss how he came to be blocked as it seems there were multiple suppression actions involved. I don't actually know what the exact reason for the block is, it is not entirely clear but it appears the Arbitration Committee or at least some members of it felt that a block was needed for purposes of preventing whatever problem was being caused there. It appears related to WP:OUTING of some sort, possibly self-outing. So, it seems likely that the only way to resolve this, as it apparently involves sensitive information we can't really talk about here, is for Cuirtaintoad to contact the committee by email and discuss the matter with them. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:01, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• I think it is very bad to encorage people to self identify disabilities. There are enough people who are out there trying to claim any edit they dislike is motivated by some sort of antagonism that we do not need to encorage people to identify more. I think as it currently stands Autism is a too widely used term to have any real meaning in assesing other people. I think we should avoid labeling people.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:13, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

• "I think it is a bad idea to encourage people to self identify disabilities" might perhaps be a better statement. So many statements here are half useful, half misguided, it's all rather dispiriting. I hope I'll find the time to get back to this. (Beeblebrox, the one flaw in your thoughtful comment is that if a child has issues on Wikipedia, and the child's parent(s) are already involved, the best solution is for the parent(s) to contact arbcom, not the child himself!) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:59, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

• I would agree that people should be strongly warned not to reveal diagnoses. Wikipedia is a cyberbullocracy - as is the world. Those who hoard the intel are the unquestioned Gods, and they remain so because nobody seems to have the courage to ignore, to accept, to forgive, to not allow any tidbit of data they can get about someone to categorize them, to make them into a thing rather than a person in their eyes. Wnt (talk) 03:59, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

After communicating with arbcom I am satisfied that curtaintoads blocking was not directly related to the disclosure of his autism. WendyS1971 ^Talk 00:17, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

• Support creation/improvement of guidelines relating to health issues in general, but note that targeting specific conditions may not always be helpful, per Adam Cuerden. And if we're not going to encourage self-identification, then perhaps some content at WP:UBX/HEALTH needs further consideration. -- Trevj (talk) 09:22, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Several issues are being discussed here at the same time, which shows that this is a very important topic but unfortunately makes it very probably that we will end up with no concrete result. I'll try to stick to the original question. Apparently it was geared towards relatively extreme cases, but given that autism is a spectrum and we seem to have an unusually high proportion (compared to the general population) of editors who are somewhere on that spectrum, we should probably accommodate them as well.

Here are the main problems that I have observed in connection with editors on the autism spectrum:

• A tendency to explode in conflicts. It is normal for humans to have complex emotions that are mixture of several basic emotions. Apparently it is a typical symptom of autism that this does not work. As a result, if an autistic editor becomes angry, they will often be purely angry and very hard to calm down, and will easily get themselves banned. The concept of "cool-down blocks" is deprecated, but for some autists it might actually make sense as it would give them time to get into a different mood and talk things through with a relative, rather than immediately escalate things towards creation of long-term enemies or even permanent bans.
• Extremely literal interpretation of rules. (This is not just a problem with autists but also with today's American culture. In the US, even kindergarten children may get severe punishments for intelligently following the gist of a rule instead of slavishly following the letter.) This is fundamentally incompatible with Wikipedia's traditions that originated in wiki culture. Our rules emerge from practice, later someone tries to write them down, probably makes mistakes that are corrected etc. Each written rule comes with plenty of unstated assumptions such as "This only applies when there is actually a dispute, otherwise we just ignore it." Some rules contradict each other as written. Autistic editors need meta-rules which explain these issues to them. Normotypical editors tend to deny the existence even of those unstated assumptions and rules which they are following themselves. They must learn to become more aware of this issue and must become more open towards explicitly stating them.
• Obsessive behaviour. Some even concentrate on jobs that could be better done by a bot, and do them precisely like a bot would do them, with all the disadvantages. We have an approval mechanism for bots for the same reasons that some autists run into trouble. We usually address this problem with topic bans, but this only shifts the obsessive behaviour to a different topic.

Autists should not have to expose their problem. But we should absolutely help them to fit in. A new editor deals with good experienced editors who understand how things work, but also with inexperienced young editors who act as if they invented Wikipedia, disruptive sock puppets, editors with all sorts of hidden motives, and editors with various medical conditions that affect their on-wiki behaviour. A normotypical editor can filter this confusing input and still learn how things work. A normotypical editor will not even be confused by contradictory policies. But for many autistic editors this input is so chaotic that they can't learn from it how they are supposed to behave.

In the long run we need to rewrite our rules so that autists can understand them better. Paradoxically, it appears to me that the autistic traits of many editors are a key obstacle to this. Almost every attempt to streamline policies or to make the implicit context of a policy explicit runs into fierce resistance from editors who are overly attached to the precise formulation and structure of presentation and believe that the rule is meant to be implemented exactly as formulated, under all circumstances, and that it takes precedence over all other rules. The pages on which policies are written appear to be very attractive to autists. I think that's a problem because it's probably a huge factor in the development of ideological extremism and wiki-political factions. Hans Adler 13:20, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

All of those three things (especially the second) are common enough among all editors, not just autistic ones, and none of them should be grounds for instantly indefblocking someone. I think short cool-down blocks are good, because debates are more welcoming when people aren't raging their heads off. And something needs to be done about our contradictory policies, because all editors will cite the one policy which supports their case in a dispute while ignoring the other. If they must contradict each other they should be demoted to guidelines. - filelakeshoe 13:28, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I think cool-down blocks are extremely bad under normal circumstances. Sorry that I wasn't clear, but they should only ever be used after general permission by the editor in question.

Policies don't just contradict each other, they are even internally inconsistent. One blatant example is WP:NOTCENSORED. The content of that section says the opposite of its title, but there is no chance of updating the title to something more sensible. Hans Adler 14:34, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't see any inconsistency in WP:NOTCENSORED. Removing irrelevant material does not equal censorship. - filelakeshoe 14:57, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

The section explains in detail how censorship works in Wikipedia, through collaborative editing. We remove "inappropriate" material, not just "irrelevant" material. We remove even appropriate material, if it violates WP:BLP or the laws of Virginia.

The result of that section is that Wikipedia happily continues to censor in conformance with Western (mostly American) views, but defends content offensive to other cultures with the argument that there is no censorship. E.g. Genesis creation myth was moved to Genesis creation narrative because some Christians find the technical term myth, even in the technical phrase creation myth, offensive when it is applied to their own holy book. (The term was invented by Christians as an invective against non-Abrahamic religions.) But of course it is fine to use it for all other religions, and it's fine to put plenty of pictures on the Muhammad article because, supposedly, Wikipedia is not censored. Hans Adler 15:29, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Here's the problem I have with your analysis: I don't see anything in PubMed about Wikipedia and autism. I have no idea how autism will affect editor behavior online. If you're basing your views of how a handful of autistic editors you encountered behave, then you're coining a stereotype as comically as Bob Dylan's farmer cursing a no good dirty doctor Commie rat. If you're basing it by extrapolating from some real-world interaction, then you're making a bad extrapolation because ASD has been associated with poor understanding of nonverbal communication which is irrelevant to the online experience. And what alarms me is that you jump immediately to the suggestion that we ought to block people who self-identify as autistic under circumstances where we wouldn't block other editors!!! As if it would be any less of an injustice than doing it to anybody else. This is a direct example what I meant above. You pigeonhole somebody, pretend you understand them, then treat them as a thing rather than a person. Wnt (talk) 19:27, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

This whole conversation is a perfect example of why it simply will not work to do abything other than to judge each user's behavior equally, regardless of any disability/impairement/condition/etc. Such conditions may explain the behavior but they do not excuse it. In light of the feeling expressed here that we should discuorage autistic users from self-identification I would suggest that an off-wiki group of some sort may be a workable option. Users could discuss things there without tying themselves to an on-wiki identity, and experienced Wikipedians who have managed to edit productively despite such obstacles could counsel them. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:46, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

In an informal conversation I have given three examples of areas where I believe autists tend to be disadvantaged. If you think some of this was incorrect, then just say so, but blaming me for a lack of scientific research is not constructive at all but an extreme case of changing the goal post.

Next, what's so hard to understand about "[cool-down blocks] should only ever be used after general permission by the editor in question"? It is you who are jumping from this to generally quicker blocks for all autistic editors. I was talking about an option that we could offer to everyone who wants it, autistic or not. Most people (certainly me) would not like to be treated that way. But autists by definition think differently from most people, and I have a hunch that some (probably not all) would actually like to be forced off Wikipedia when they are in a bad mood, even though they are unable to act accordingly when it happens. I may be wrong, but I would like to hear that from someone who actually has experience with autism. Even for those who don't like it, such an agreement could still be a milder alternative once the topic of a permanent ban comes up. Hans Adler 13:11, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

If this is a good idea it should be a good idea to offer everyone, regardless of whether they have an autism diagnosis. In practice I think that an offer out of the blue to block people "if they want it" because they are autistic would be in very poor taste, while allowing editors to claim this as a way out of a ban would soon invite mockery. I don't see anything good to be achieved by treating people differently. Wnt (talk) 14:50, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

You are again making up interpretations of what I said that have nothing to do with what I want or how I said it. I am thinking of a page with advice for editors at various positions on the autism spectrum, which could, among tons of other stuff, include a hint that if they sometimes find themselves under serious stress but unable to log off, they might want to contact an admin they trust, or two, and ask them to block them quickly but shortly in such situations. Those admins would hopefully use neutral and non-confrontative block summaries such as "cool-down block as per user's earlier request".

Discussing all this in so much detail is really getting on my nerves because it serves no purpose other than hopefully, in the end, appeasing what may well be the only person who is misunderstanding me. You are consistently assuming bad faith and jumping to conclusions in relation to an informal proposal that seems far, far removed from any possible implementation. For me, this is a brainstorming session. For you, it seems to be the last reading of a law proposed by a devious evil party, and the last chance to prevent its implementation. If I liked power trips against minorities, I would have been an admin years ago and would be blocking people left and right for 'civility' violations. Hans Adler 15:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps I was overly strident above. My concern here is not about you being devious; my fear is that any practice of treating editors differently will fall down some sort of slippery slope and turn into a nightmare. Wnt (talk) 15:53, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

This sounds very fundamentalist to me. The world isn't just black and white, it has lots of shades of grey and even more colours. Obviously we shouldn't have different rules for different kinds of people. But basic humanity requires that we apply the rules flexibly depending on who we are dealing with. Editors who have specific problems do not have a right to be privileged in any particular way. That would lead to all sorts of play acting and gaming the system. But on the other hand, when an editor credibly claims to have a specific problem, or it appears to be the case, then not considering that information where it is relevant would be rude and unfair.

Fear of a slippery slope is rarely helpful. Hans Adler 20:49, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

WP:OWNTALK and WP:BLANKING

• I have proposed a change to the OWNTALK section of WP:TPG on the guideline talk page. I don't feel like I'm getting enough input on the talk page. Therefore I'm copying it here (see below the line). Please note that the topic was actually opened by an IP who had a question about the guideline. I used the question to launch my request for a change. I've left the question in, though, because some of the responses related more to the question than to the proposal.

To make it clear, I propose changes to two guidelines:

1. WP:OWNTALK. Change this sentence to: "Registered users may freely remove comments from their own talk pages ... (change bolded). (If my proposal is adopted, we may wish to add a sentence to make it more explicit that IPs cannot remove comments from their own talk pages.)
2. WP:BLANKING. Change this sentence to: "Policy does not prohibit registered users [] from removing ..." (addition bolded, deletion bracketed). Delete the bullet point that begins with "For IP editors ...".

--Bbb23 (talk) 23:59, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

---

Editors are permitted to archive or remove content from "their own talk pages", but I am wondering what is counted as one's own talk page in the case of someone with a dynamic IP address, such as myself. It happens from time to time that someone will post a comment to me on a talk page for whatever IP address my ISP happens to assign me this time around that results in a discussion. That discussion can go on for a while, meaning that sometimes when I come back to reply again, my IP address is different. In such cases, I always make an effort to make it clear that I am the same editor so as to avoid confusion about the different address. Now if I had a static IP address or were editing from an account, there would be no issue of whether or not I could archive or remove discussions. It seems to me that if a discussion were about editing I was involved in and the conversation were directed to me and I participated in it that I should be able to count the talk page as "my own" for the purposes of archiving or removing those discussions, even after my ISP has assigned me a new IP address. Does this seem correct? 99.192.90.228 (talk) 13:43, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

This issue has bothered me for a long time. In my view, the ability of an editor to remove content from their talk page should NOT apply to IP addresses, whether Geolocate says they are static or dynamic (Geolocate isn't always correct, and I don't know how to verify whether an IP address is static OR whether it will always remain static). I understand that some comments are directed at the individual currently logged in as that IP and it is understandable that they may want to remove it. However, (a) there's no way of verifying that point and (b) Wikipedia needs the history of the IP account on the talk page itself, not just in the revision history. If an individual wants more control of their talk page, they can register.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:28, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree completely. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:17, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Yup as far as I have always been aware, it doesn't apply to IPs. Atleast that is how I have see it treated in the past. And that is how I would want it to be treated. -DJSasso (talk) 20:11, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

That seems logical. --Nouniquenames 17:26, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

• If we were to change OWNTALK to indicate that it doesn't apply to IPs, we would also have to take into account WP:BLANKING. As it is currently worded, an IP cannot remove "templates in Category:Shared IP header templates and notes left to indicate other users may share the same IP address." The implication of that prohibition is that they can remove other material.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:17, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure it does imply that. Anyway, if we make the change you have in mind, we can simply start the sentence about specific items not to be removed with something like "in particular, you may not remove...". Nomoskedasticity (talk) 21:21, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Is there an actual page on which this is a problem? NE Ent 21:30, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

User talk:99.192.59.98 seems to be the page which prompted this discussion. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:50, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

::Oh. So I set up ClueBot to archive the old stuff. Problem solved? NE Ent 22:24, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

No, this is something that comes up often. I've reverted IP's removal of information from talk pages, but because the "policy" is unclear, when they've reverted back, which they have, I've dropped it. There doesn't have to be a current page on which this is a problem; it's a recurring problem.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:51, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

• I have publicly stated my personal view that the benefits of mandatory account creation would outweigh the downsides, and one such benefit is that it would avoid to dealing with the complications of single editors using Wikipedia from ever-changing IP addresses, which confuses the applications of guidelines such as this one, but also proper edit attribution. I do not believe changing this guideline to accomodate the particularities of accountless editors to be needed and while I understand the current consensus that users should be allowed to edit without an account, I think there is no reason not to encourage recurrent contributors to register and autoconfirm (or confirm) in order to access the full range of Wikipedia's functionalities. Salvidrim! ✉ 01:15, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Seriously. Just register an account. There's literally no reason not to. ‑Scottywong| spill the beans _ 05:14, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm totally in agreement that if an IP editor wants to maintain continuity across multiple IP addresses, even to the extent of "archiving" content on an IP address that is not his own, then really an account is the method to obtain that continuity.

I certainly do not agree that IP editors should be denied the same rights that registered editors have. We do know that most IP editors will be editing on IPs previously used by people other than themselves. We also know that registered editors are editing on accounts that should not be used by people other than themselves. On that basis, IP editors should have more right to remove warnings that do not relate to them, not less. Our not being able to "prove" that the warnings relate to them is neither here nor there - see WP:AGF.

After all, the purpose of allowing unregistered people to edit is to encourage their editing; how encouraging is it if they make an edit to improve a Wikipedia article, they see an orange bar with a complaint about them, they click on the orange bar, it lists warnings which they know do not relate to them (the warning also mentions that possibility, remember), so they rightly remove the warnings, and immediately they have some guy restoring the warning and telling them not to do that! --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:10, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

One way to avoid that result would be for the IP to respond to the warning rather than remove it.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:50, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Which registered editors could also do - but we don't force them to do it. So my point stands.

A large proportion of IP editors don't even understand why it is that their IP address was previously used by a different person, never mind manage to respond thoughtfully to messages left for that different person. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 08:00, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Registered accounts are kind of like residences with long term leases. You gotta follow some rules the landlord sets, but you can pretty much decorate however you want. Dynamic IP address accounts are like hotel rooms -- you're there for awhile and then you. If you check into a room and find the maid didn't clean up very well you should be able to take out the trash. So if the current user of an IP address wants to dump a message, what exactly is the harm?? NE Ent 03:15, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

That's a pretty poor analogy. It is typically IP editors who leave crap all around the place that needs cleaning up. WP:OWNTALK requires an OWNer -- something manifestly lacking with IP usertalk pages. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 03:27, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

As for the last few points, I don't think anyone here voiced anything against that -- a user on an IP address is perfectly entitled to blank his own talk pages, whether it bears warnings of earlier users of the same address or they were meant for him. This is more about editors whose IP address has changed, and wish to maintain the same rights over the pages of their previous addresses. Like keeping the keys to your previous hotel room, if you wish. At least that was the OP's original question and that's what I responded to. Salvidrim! ✉ 03:30, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The original question is not what is now at issue here. I am proposing a change to the guideline.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:03, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

You've not provided any form of coherent rationale for such a change. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 08:00, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose this entirely. No compelling reason has been given why IP users must maintain comments on their own talk paged in perpetuity, but registered users are allowed to remove them after they have been read. If an IP address is dynamic, then there's no need to maintain a message not intended for the next person to use that IP address. If an IP address is static, then there's no reason to not treat it exactly the same as an account. Either way, there's no compelling reason why IP addresses should be prohibited from maintaining talk pages the same way that registered users are. It should be noted that I used to argue and feel about this exactly as Bbb23 did above, but over the years I have changed my opinion based on two factors 1) it really doesn't matter that much and it generates far more drama every time it comes up, and for that reason a consistent policy that treats all users equally is more practical and 2) If we're going to be committed to treating all users equally, that includes extending the same rights and privileges to all users as far as practical, except in cases where they have proven that they are not to have those rights on an individual basis. That's the core of AGF. Understandibly, some actions taken against IPs do unfairly tar the innocent with the guilty (blocking a school IP to stop incessant vandalism prevents the good users from using it too), but in cases like this, where treating IP users differently does not provide any net benefit towards improving encyclopedia articles, I can't see us getting our panties in a bind over whether or not an IP user blanks their talk page or not. Given all of that, I have changed my stand on this issue, and really feel like its better if we just treat everyone equally on this matter. --Jayron32 00:08, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

• Thank you for the extended explanation about your evolving views. As a relatively new admin, I find this kind of historical perspective valuable.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:32, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

• And thank you for your kind words as well. I always try to be pragmatic and flexible in life, and I find that it is much more useful to abandon an idea if it is shown, by the evidence over time, to be bad. This is one of those cases, in my opinion, which is why I have done a 180 on this. --Jayron32 05:30, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - I do not see any compelling reason to not allow an IP to remove notices from the talk page. If the message was intended for the person who removes it, they have read it. If it isn't intended for the person who removes it there is a good chance that the person it was intended for will never see it even if it is left in place. Either way it having it on the talk page doesn't make any difference. Having the whole warning history on the page doesn't help us either, in most cases we shouldn't be looking at the old warnings to determine if a longer block is warranted on an IP address. We should apply the policy equally against all users. GB fan 00:26, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Partial support I think there is value to the community in preserving User namespace templates such as Shared IP header templates, User block templates (while a block is in effect), and Template:OW on IP pages. However, I do not think that warnings and general discussions need special protection. Jojalozzo 01:17, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. That's really an oppose as WP:BLANKING already covers this.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:29, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

• Why shouldn't an unregistered user be able to remove stale comments? For example, I left a note at User talk:66.25.155.10 in response to some article feedback a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if the user will ever see it, but what difference does it make if it gets removed by that user or by whoever else happens to be using that IP? Five years from now, nobody is going to care. Five weeks from now, it's likely that nobody is going to care. Why not let the next person using that IP blank the page? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:22, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Some regular editors use stable IPs to edit and behave pretty much like registered users. They should be treated in the same way. In any case, all messages are viewable in the history. LK (talk) 06:34, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. The proposal serves no discernible legitimate purpose and is likely to cause grief to some good IP editors. Constructive IP editors are even more likely than registered editors to just do and expect the right thing, as opposed to stupidly following rules that make no sense in the context and tolerating the same from others. For a historical example of the complications that can arise, see WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive200#IP user repeatedly removing WHOIS template from talk page and the IP's talk page just after the matter was resolved. Hans Adler 16:04, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Child protection policy

I just wrote about this policy at the Jimbo Wales talk page (as he made it to a policy). Overall I am just wondering if anyone remember in what way it arrived to the current consensus state of a policy what "should not be the subject of community discussion, comment or consensus". As I explained in my first post, it is about to add the translation as a rule to another language project. --NeoLexx (talk) 18:41, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

The policy is a good idea. I would just make one change in the wording: "who advocate inappropriate adult–child relationships (e.g. by expressing the view that inappropriate relationships are not harmful to children)" should be changed to "who defend inappropriate adult–child relationships (e.g. by expressing the view that inappropriate relationships are not harmful to children)". "Advocate" denotes that said editors are encouraging adults to have sex with children. If I say, "Drugs should not be illegal", am I advocating drug use? I hope we have consensus to make this change (and since this is a policy page, WP:BEBOLD doesn't apply). Guideline & Policy Wonk (talk) 02:52, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

> If I say, "Drugs should not be illegal", am I advocating drug use? Of course. Same way as if some John Doe says "Having sex with 8 years old should not be illegal" — he flies promptly and rapidly from the project. I hope we have full consensus on that ;-) --NeoLexx (talk) 11:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)4

Up to what age would that apply? Victor Yus (talk) 11:37, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

In this case you have a very strange idea of what legality/illegality actually means. Ruslik_Zero 11:44, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

"If I say, 'Drugs should not be illegal', am I advocating drug use?" Of course. Simply stating that you believe something is not morally wrong/should not be illegal (for many people, the same thing) does not amount to encouraging people to do it. The verbs "advocate" and "promote" mean to actively push for other people to do something. If you just disagree that people should not do something, that does not mean you think people should do it. If I don't go out there and say, "Hey, everybody, eat meat!", does that mean I'm pushing vegetarianism? I suppose most of you agree that water-skiing should not be illegal. Does that mean you go about saying, "Water-skiing is great!"? It really angers me when people misuse the words "advocate" and "promote" this way, and I seek to correct it when I see either of the words so misused. Guideline & Policy Wonk (talk) 07:55, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I have my own strong idea of what is legal and illegal, some people may have rather opposite and equally strong ideas. The policy is not about sharing these ideas or to enforce them over the country borders. What is "a child" is well defined in each society and every reader will get its own meaning of it. The policy - as I see it - is about to free up children (however it is defined in a particular society) from any personal anonymous volunteer help to arrive to the "right" (from that anonymous volunteer point of view) definition of a child and of a sex ready person. --NeoLexx (talk) 12:17, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Oppose your change would mean saying (in a UK context) "17 year old youth X should not have been be prosecuted for having sex with his 15 year old girlfriend" would mean a ban form Wikipedia. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:33, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose; not an improvement. As a side note, if you have your "own strong idea" about what is legal and illegal, you don't understand legality. You may have your own ideas about what ought to be legal or illegal, but the laws are generally reasonably clear, and you aren't entitled, for example, to decide that even though stealing cars is against written law, it isn't illegal because you don't think it should be. KillerChihuahua 14:38, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I assume you mean some other user with your Oppose as I didn't propose any policy change at all: see the very top for my original question. --NeoLexx (talk) 16:08, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
• Noone should advocate anything on wikipedia. Wikipedia is not the place to discuss whether anything at all should be legal or illegal. The policy is fine.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:48, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

The policy has the obvious weakness that it fails to define "inappropriate" (so if editor X expresses some view about what the age of consent should be, and editor Y believes that X's figure is too low, then the question of whether editor X is afoul of the policy can only be decided by determining which of editor X or Y is right in the first place, which can't be done objectively). But I think (hope) that in practice our administrators would be able to recognize the kind of person who actually poses a danger, and would not apply the policy in a silly way. Victor Yus (talk) 14:57, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

All advocacy is inappropriate on wikipedia.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:38, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

This policy is a late relic of the practice of Jimbo Wales, as founder of the Wiki, promulgating policies on his own. There was considerable objection to it - myself included - on the basis of the wording, which had some effect on it, and it is all recorded in the archives (Wikipedia talk:Child protection/Archive 1 to 7). I feel that the WP:Terms of use took a much better approach, which avoided some of the vagueness of the original formulation. I also feel (I'm nearly alone in this though) that the community should discuss these cases openly, like they did for one case on Commons, rather than leaving it to back rooms. The Penn State child sex abuse scandal reminds us of the sort of bad things that happen in back rooms. I have no evidence for this, but I suspect that part of the resistance to serious rewording of the policy is that Jimbo (rightly) wants to be able to tell media that Wikipedia has always had a policy against pedophiles hunting children here. There is some reason to fear that that could happen, though a larger number of cases (search "Wikisposure") involve ideologues who want to write some tolerance for these relationships into the articles. There is therefore a lot of blurring between pedophile POV-pushing and pedophile attempts to recruit children to their own private Wiki or porn site, which to my mind are two very different levels of trouble.

The problem with that, and with banning 'advocacy' in general, is that there is some reason in anarchist thought for people to do so, namely, because anarchists don't believe in ID cards and therefore aren't likely to accept a strict, arbitrary age limit written as positive law. There is also some belief among Muslims, such as in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, that these relationships should be allowed. In practice I haven't seen the policy turn into an ideological witch-hunt for such viewpoints, as I'd initially feared. In practice, the rules are actually underenforced - allegations can be made against someone in a public forum but it is not WP:revdeled, nor is the person accusing blocked, nor is the person discussed blocked quickly, or indeed, not until an amazing amount of arguing over the issue. I think we have a situation in which we have a policy not open to discussion that really needs to be discussed and adjusted, not for the purpose of allowing pedophiles to hunt kids here, but to refine our philosophy so that we can respond more effectively. Wnt (talk) 17:15, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

• I see no reason why someone should be advocating on wikipedia anything about age of consent laws. I see no purpose to doing so. The last thing we want is articles on such laws to be written with the intent of getting them changed. This applies just as much to people who feel the current laws set too low of ages, at least in some cases, as to those who feel the laws set too high of ages.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:58, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

That's true in general - Wikipedia's discussion pages aren't intended for debating of outside-world issues - but under normal circumstances, if you mention some view that you hold on some such issue (as people do, from time to time) it's not going to get you immediately thrown off the project. This policy creates a special case, in that it implies that expressing (a certain type of) views on this particular issue may indeed lead to your expulsion. I don't know if people with other "obnoxious" viewpoints would be treated similarly - do we ban holocaust deniers, for example? (Just thinking aloud, there's no particular point I'm trying to make here.) Victor Yus (talk) 11:05, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Done here? The Russian Pedia policy has apparently been rejected for the time being. [5] So further discussion about the English policy should probably go to its talk page. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:44, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Genre warrior has been marked as a policy

Resolved

 – no it isn't

Wikipedia:Genre warrior (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:01, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Nothing to see here folks, it's not a policy and the changes have been reverted. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:25, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

"Notability" of a geographical location

What are the criteria for "notability" of a geographical location?

I remember how a number of years ago, a user named "Ram-Man" or something similar went ahead and uploaded literally tens of thousands of articles on United States cities, towns, and perhaps other U.S. locations as well. "Notability" didn't seem to have anything to do with it: a one-house, one-horse place in the middle of nowhere got the same attention as a city of millions, even if the only people who really care that the former even exists are the (very) few residents and a handful of government bureaucrats.

To put this in perspective: suppose someone went ahead and did an article on every mud-hut village in Africa.

See Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features). The general consensus is that any officially-defined (and officially documented) populated location can reasonably be presumed notable; even the proverbial one-horse Wyoming town will feature in a lot of documentation. Problems around articles on African (etc.) places tend towards issues with the identification and availability of reliable sources than philosophical objections to covering these places at all. Andrew Gray (talk) 14:00, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

If that "mud hut" or small collection of them in Africa is on a formal list of places, such as Nyang’oma Kogelo in Keynya (to pick on one of those towns) it would be notable. This is a very old issue that has been resolved a long time ago. While you can certainly try to bring new perspectives on this issue, I would not expect there to be much support for widespread mass deletions of articles like this and other small towns. If you can find a list from the Kenyan government of towns in that country which includes some details beyond just the name and pure geographic location, I don't see any problem with somebody creating those articles. If anything, that mass creation of thousands of articles about small towns was in fact a major bonus to Wikipedia when it happened and commendable work when it happened, where that initial seeding of articles has blossomed into a great many well written articles often with edits by people who live in those small towns. If anything, it is a fantastic way to encourage new editors to become involved in Wikipedia if they improve an article like that. --Robert Horning (talk) 15:55, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

But Nyang'oma Kogelo is the hometown to much of the family of the leader of the Free World! Of course it has a claim to fame. I support articles on every city in the world, however, including every small town and even verifiable ghost towns like Hollywood, Pennsylvania. I should note that articles on species of animals, plants, fungi, protists, bacteria and archaebacteria are included without controversy. Basically, anything that's natural and verifiable (no hoaxes), including all natural languages, are considered notable. Being traditional also gets a subject a free pass. When arroz con pollo was nominated for deletion, almost everyone !voted to keep it. The things that get deleted due to non-notability are pretty much things that are recent and man-made: micronations, conlangs, contemporary songs, bands, companies, products, individual people not mentioned in ancient texts, individual animals, books, Internet memes and culture and web content, stores and other buildings and establishments, streets, movies, plays, protologisms and other things made up in eighth-grade gym class one day, granular articles on TV shows characters and similar things often denounced as "cruft", short stories, works of art, dance moves, skateboarding tricks, etc. Guideline & Policy Wonk (talk) 07:43, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Natural and verifiable isn't quite as simple as it seems; see WP:NASTRO for a counterexample. Andrew Gray (talk) 12:11, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

A lot of the arguments for notability of these small villages rests on two facets: 1) part of WP's function is to be a gazetteer, and 2) that documentation about any place can be expected to come in time, if from that place itself.

I would argue that we can maintain the first point with lists of such communities (when they are are not clearly notable themselves); on the second point, if the only source of documentation about the place is going to end up being documents from the place itself and likely the tiers of government that officially recognize it, it fails WP:V and WP:GNG (requiring third party sources). I know that the history towards such places has been counter to this, but I think that it is time for WP to mature past this, particularly as no harm would be done redirecting clealy non-notable places to lists of communities until such a time notability can actually be shown. No other area of WP gets this wide open allowance for inclusion, and while a gazetteer is part of our function, this doesn't require us to have separate articles for each entry. --MASEM (t) 16:20, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I think part of the reason that the community tends to allow this practice, while coming down hard on other marginally notable entities is that this has a relatively low potential for abuse. It has not been shown that one-horse towns are using Wikipedia pages for rampant spamming campaigns or eggregiously unbalanced attack pages the way that other types of marginally notable articles are. There are other rather large classes of articles besides towns, the kajillions of species articles, for example. For documented biological species of any kind, there's little effort made to delete the articles, even for microministubs, because no one is using these articles for purposes that run counter to Wikipedia's goal of providing a neutral encyclopedia. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. --Jayron32 01:24, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Image use

I want to include an image in an article, and find an excellent one on a company website. I know that I shouldn't just grab images from other people's websites, but if I contact the owner of the site and ask, and they give permission, may I use it on Wikipedia?

If I can, what would I put in the copyright information for the image? In what manner should I provide proof of permission? —Kierkkadon ^{talk/contribs} 20:03, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials. In short, ask them to donate it under [Creative Commons rather than just for Wikipedia. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:10, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Ah, that would be the guideline I was looking for. Thank you. —Kierkkadon ^{talk/contribs} 20:17, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

CSD G10

I recently marked Molemo Maarohanye for speedy deletion under CSD G10, but after looking more into the specific wording of that criterion I'm not as certain it applies.

Before I marked it (which blanked the page), the article had zero sources, but stated that the subject had been charged with the murder of four children, which is quite a significant negative claim. It appeared to be neutrally written, and the article itself (short though it was) did not have a negative tone, so does that criterion actually apply?

Regardless of whether I picked the correct CSD, I think the article needs to either go or change fast, because it either needs sources quick or at least needs to not claim murder charges. I'm also not certain the subject is notable. —Kierkkadon ^{talk/contribs} 20:53, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, my mark got declined. It would be nice to have an explanation though, still. —Kierkkadon ^{talk/contribs} 22:14, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I can't speak for the person that declined it but there is at least one source (the BBC article in the external links) that provided verification; no, its not how we like to do citations but that's never a reason to delete. Also, in further cases, when you tag an article for CSD, you should never touch its contents; wiping the article is inappropriate and if the article was inappropriate, the whole thing would be ultimately deleted. --MASEM (t) 01:44, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

All I did was use the Twinkle CSD function. In addition to blanking the page, it also sent a "Cease and desist, thou vandal!" -esque message to the fellow who "created" the article, but he had nothing to do with the article's content: he created a redirect some time ago and then other people came along and made it into an article. —Kierkkadon ^{talk/contribs} 02:26, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

In the case of an article exists only to attack someone, blanking the page is entirely appropriate. This is especially true if it is a new article because it lessens the chances of Google retaining a copy of the attack. Articles which are candidates for speedy deletion are no different from any other articles, so the advice of "when you tag an article for CSD, you should never touch its contents" is not based on any guideline or even good practice. Any halfway competent admin will check the history of an article before deleting it. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:45, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Courtesy blanking is appropriate for true attack pages, which this was not. Negative unsourced content about people, though, should still be removed on sight. You are responsible for all edits made with Twinkle, including the optional-but-included-by-default notifications when tagging a page as an attack. A more appropriate course of action here would have been to first edit the article removing the negative unsourced content, then research whether the negative information was verifiable in reliable sources and significant enough to bear mention in the biography, then finally add the negative information back in but now with a source. VQuakr (talk) 04:47, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

CSD was totally inappropriate in this case. It could not have been easier to find sources of the best quality for the claims in the article. (BBC, SABC, large local newspaper, all with in-depth reports.) And it can hardly be argued that a 25-year prison sentence is a minor event in a rapper's biography. None of our rules are completely fool proof. They were all written, and are constantly being changed, by volunteers on the internet and must be interpreted in such a way that they make sense. The unwritten assumption behind the "unsourced" requirement in CSD #10 is that it is unsourced even after you have made a minimal effort to find sources. Hans Adler 16:04, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Hans here. And Twinkle... that robot needs to be terminated with extreme prejudice. It seems to exist for the purpose of getting otherwise reasonable editors to trash newbies and start fights. Wnt (talk) 03:12, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Meh, people still own their actions. It is more of a bionic arm than a robot, anyways. VQuakr (talk) 04:47, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

RfA RfC round two

Hi all, the second of three rounds of the requests for adminship request for comment has begun. Please comment with your proposed solution there! Thanks, Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:21, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Also, I encourage anyone who knows how horrible it can be close enormous disputes to say thanks to Ed and Seraphimblade for their work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:04, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Adding content farms to the spam blacklist

Many Wikipedia articles link to mere content farms. Hundreds link to wisegeek.com alone. (For agreement on the worthlessness of wisegeek.com, see this discussion in a WP:RSN archive.) The links are worthless; yet readers who are less alert (or whose English is weaker) may not realize this, and may be taken in by them, and they are therefore detrimental.

Removing these links seems like whack-a-mole. What I'd regard as an obvious solution is to choose a content farm, remove the links to it, and add it to the spam blacklist. Links to it will not be added thereafter.

However, there's an obvious problem with this:

1. Wikipedia:Spam-blacklisting makes it clear that the spam blacklist is for sites that have been spammed (and indeed as only a last resort even for these). But:
2. It's not at all obvious that links to wisegeek.com (as an example) have been spammed: most, perhaps all, were instead probably added
   • by people unable to distinguish between good and bad sources;
   • by people too lazy to distinguish between good and bad sources;
   • by people desperate to cite any "sourcing", no matter how bad, for assertions for which RS cannot be found.

I therefore (A) tentatively propose that Wikipedia:Spam-blacklisting should be rewritten to allow the addition of content farms, while I (B) invite suggestions of better ways to deal with the problem.

(I brought this up here at WP:RSN -- probably soon to be part of archive 142 or archive 143 -- and am about to link from there to here.) -- Hoary (talk) 08:38, 6 February 2013 (UTC) slightly rephrased 09:23, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't know about the current practice, but I agree that we should be able to add content farms to the spam blacklist. Hans Adler 11:02, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

We already blacklisted examiner.com due to persistent spamming from the authors of the articles (they can get money for views). --Enric Naval (talk) 11:38, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Aha! So examiner.com was spammed. Well then, there we have an essential part of the justification for adding it to the spam list. But I've no particular reason to think that wisegeek.com (among many others) is spammed, no desire to spend hours of my limited lifespan looking to see whether it has been spammed, and no reason to think that links to it would be of any value even if it could be shown that they were all added with the most innocent of motives. ¶ My hunch is that unspammed but irritating junk sites have at times been discreetly added to the spam list even with no evidence of spam, but "don't ask, don't tell" isn't very satisfactory. -- Hoary (talk) 13:12, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

We could argue that by spamming Google, content farms are indirectly spamming Wikipedia. Also, if it is true that the authors for content farms are paid by success, then that would have results indistinguishable from a sustained crowd-sourced spam attack. But it would be cleaner to just say we can put content farms on the spam list once they are too troublesome to remove by hand. Hans Adler 13:23, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh but there are a fair number of content farms. Look at the fragrant array of "sources" lending credibility (ha ha) to the article Johann Theodor Jablonski. (Well, one of the sources is OK.) Should I identify each website as worthless, chase up the other references to this, delete these, and then remember to check every month or so thereafter that nobody has added new references to it? I'd rather the lot were deleted and then a measure put in place to prevent addition. ¶ Of course I'm not deluding myself that this practice would end the use of junk sources. Junk sources will afflict WP for ever. But let's try to reduce the problem, even if we can't end it. -- Hoary (talk) 13:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

It is clear that there are WP:RS issues with self-published essays and such. However, blacklisting those sites is a bridge too far. For example, an editor can link to a bad reference on a talk page and ask if anybody has a better source for X. Or take something they say to the Refdesk. The spam blacklist is already at risk for being abused in other ways. Wnt (talk) 03:09, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

It's true that links to bad references can be legimately posted on talk pages and to the reference desk, and that the inability to post them there would cause some irritation. But one can (I believe) always type something like "www.stupider.com/dumb_essay.html" and let the reader copy this and paste it where needed. ¶ I'm not suggesting that links to all unreliable sources, or to all junk, should be prevented via the blacklist. WP takes a dim view of "WorldNetDaily", for example; but I wouldn't attempt to put wnd.com on the list, if only because what is written on wnd.com can at times itself be of some interest. Thus my (tentative proposal) would be to limit the addition to content farms. It's hard (though admittedly not impossible) for me to imagine that a page on wisegeek.com could generate informed interest, for example, more than the most fleeting mention in a newspaper article. (As I view Google News, it has just eight hits for "wisegeek", none of them impressive.) ¶ I realize that spammed websites and non-spammed content farms would make an incomprehensible combination, that such a combination for a single blacklist could easily lead to the addition of various other kinds of websites, and that such additions could be counterproductive; and this is why I'm now tending to favor a second, separate list, one for wide-ranging content farms only. (I'm smugly assuming that an additional en:WP-specific blacklist is technically possible, and that some altruistic person would do the technical work involved.) ¶ Meanwhile, I have a couple of questions for Wnt or anyone who agrees with him/her. Many pages link to wisegeek.com. (True, many of these are talk pages. But many are articles.) Does this concern you? If it does concern you, what do you think should be done about it? -- Hoary (talk) 08:46, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

First, is there an existing way to filter the list to just the links in article space? If not, we should get one, because it will help people go over the list for articles they are interested in editing. After that, the answer is to patrol the links one by one, replacing with better content when available. Nonetheless, Wisegeek says it has about 200 contributors, apparently paid, so there's some kind of editorial process to it. Therefore it is not quite a blog/Usenet level source, not something that absolutely needs to be exterminated on sight, though of course usually its articles will be rehashing sources better reached directly. Wnt (talk) 18:54, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the ability to block certain domains in certain namespaces only would be very convenient. I have no idea about the technical (im)possibilities. I could try to educate myself, but then I might easily misunderstand something elementary. I think that Psychonaut would have a much better idea, and have therefore just now invited him/her/them here. ¶ On the quality of Wisegeek: The website tells us about the article creation process here. A couple of tasty quotes:

• wiseGEEK writers are asked to write at least five articles per week, or 20 articles a month, on average.
• We pay writers per article. Current rates range from $10 to $14 depending on the article topic.

I've just clicked on "What is a morpheme?" As far as it goes, it's not so bad (though parts are oddly hazy). It's not surprising that it doesn't mention, say, templatic morphology (whereby the words of Semitic languages have a kind of consonant skeleton, around which the vowels vary with tense, etc) and that it instead sticks to English. What is extraordinary is that it doesn't mention compounds ("blackbird", "pickpocket", etc): very common in English (and every other language I can think of) and utterly basic to morphology. The article is "Written By: A. B. Kelsey | Edited By: O. Wallace". There's no link for either Kelsey or Wallace, and neither name appears within this page, which is the only one I can find that writes up (some) contributors. I agree that most links to blogs should be eliminated; but really, many blogs command far more respect than this. (To continue with linguistics for a moment: I'd certainly consider claims made for the linguistics-related blogs of people with doctorates in linguistics who teach linguistics at properly accredited universities.) -- Hoary (talk) 05:02, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Is this how Wikipedia treats contributors?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:166.82.205.115&diff=537122923&oldid=537087991

"Hello, "Erik," or whatever your name is. Now, if you are done whining like a little bitch, please either kindly contribute to the encylopedia at hand, or GTFO. What do you think this is, Twitter? Oh, and the next time you are hanging around that cult-like website you control, can you do me a favor and tell that "Kohai" to go fuck herself? Same goes for KCO and CorriJean and the rest of that gang of patzer trolls you have sucking your dick. Welcome to Wikipedia, Brah! OGBranniff (talk) 22:28, 7 February 2013 (UTC)"

Wikipedia needs to start setting some guidelines and enforcing them. This behavior is unacceptable and explains why Wikipedia is continuing to decline. User:68.191.214.247

No, it isn't, which is why the person who left that message has been blocked. The Wikipedia community doesn't stand for that, and it's been taken care of. We can't stop people from doing that before they actually do it (not being mindreaders and all) but when it happens, as in this case, it is dealt with. --Jayron32 01:18, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

+1 If someone joins Wikipedia just to troll, s/he WILL eventually be blocked. Guideline & Policy Wonk (talk) 07:48, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Template talk:Sister project links#Wikivoyage hidden by default

This discussion concerns changing Template:Sister project links so that Wikivoyage is not hidden by default. Everyone who has commented thus far are active Wikivoyagers, and I think all of us were drawn to the discussion by a mention on Wikivoyage. I'm just dropping a line here to solicit comment on that page from others (so we don't run afoul of Wikipedia:Canvassing) before any changes are made. This is a common template that would be affected site-wide, so it's important that the discussion isn't driven by an interested party. Thanks. AHeneen (talk) 19:50, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Removal of information that only serves to antagonize

Alpha Phi's secret motto was published on a book then added to the Alpha Phi article. There were and are numerous attempts to remove it, I being probably replacing it more than most; usually citing WP:NOTCENSORED. I stopped, realizing that this information really is not useful, except perhaps, to antagonize (Nener-nener! I know your secret motto!) some people. Perhaps a policy should be added to allow removal of such content? I don't think that antagonizing Alpha Phi's members is helpful to Wikipedia. Jim1138 (talk) 21:33, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

If it's not widely reported, then it's probably covered by existing prohibitions against giving WP:UNDUE attention to WP:TRIVAl details. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:59, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

TRIVIA and UNDUE seem rather subjective, but then so is deciding what is undue trivia. There continue to be attempts to remove it from the talk page as well which are reverted. Perhaps it should be archived or removed by a white-listed user? Jim1138 (talk) 01:32, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

I feel it goes against Wikipedia's fundamental purpose of existing for it to start to play the game of keeping secrets. The UNDUE and TRIVIA memes seem to be used mainly as excuses to suppress information which is in fact no more trivial or narrowly reported than much of the information we do happily publish, but which happens to upset someone for some reason. Unfortunately it often seems to be the suppressors who care more, and therefore win the "argument". Victor Yus (talk) 10:53, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

It isn't our job to expose secrets... our job is to present relevant information about the topic, so our readers can understand what the fraternity is, what it does, where it came from, etc. Of course it is always a judgement call as to whether some bit of information is relevant or not. That is a matter for consensus at the article. But we should ask is the fraternity's secret motto really important for the reader to know? Does mentioning it really help the reader understand what the fraternity is, what it does, where it came from, etc. Or is it simply a bit of non-essential trivia. Blueboar (talk) 15:37, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

The last time the information was removed from the article was 20:35, 13 July 2012‎ and it hasn't been added back since then. The only place that it has been removed and added back in lately is on the article's talk page where IPs stop by and refactor others comments. GB fan 16:14, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

And I can't find any significant discussion or consensus as to its relevance or likely importance to the reader (how can we know that anyway? why not let the reader decide what she does and does not want to know?). As I implied above, the decision (like many others on Wikipedia, it seems) was not made in accordance with our theoretical procedures, but simply by way of who's prepared to edit war about it the longest. (Admittedly the argument seems to have been that the source was not reliable, rather than that the information was not important, but it seems the reliability of the source was only called into question by those with a clear agenda of suppressing the information.) Something similar happened at an article where a long-dead person had been identified as a child molester. Any information that seems "unsympathetic" or inconvenient to the subject appears to have an inordinately high barrier set for its inclusion, which just doesn't apply to other types of information. Victor Yus (talk) 17:10, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

USAmerican psuado history and bias

Again we have USAmericans altering factual information and replacing it with the fake history that USAmericans are taught in the article History of the London Underground we have the fake clain that the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel in New York City, opened in 1844 is somehow relevent to the underground railway and it is somehow the first it is not in reaql history or to people educated outside the USA the Wapping Tunnel in reality proceded it, how can we educate the USAmerican of real facts and prevent them from altering real facts and inserting their agena on this "encyclopedia" of course I am aware the encyclopedias in the USa probably do cotain lies such as this but wikipedia needs to contain real facts not agtendas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.163.45 (talk) 10:44, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

wikipedia is full of ERRORS, spreading rumors and lies! controlled by chinese communist party. it is so obvious.

if you are not controlled by chinese communist spies or being supported by the chinese communist government, why are you doing communist propaganda for them? and "protecting" Bo Guagua's article for "vandalism", even though everything which were deleted were based on the truth!

1. you don't know what nationality bo guagua is, did you ask him to show you his passport? and how do you know that he doesn't have another country's passport? but on your Bo Guagua page, you listed him as "chinese" as if you have verified that he indeed has a chinese passport.

2. you are promoting for his fake award! the British Chinese Youth Federation (BCYF http://www.bcyf.org.uk/) which gave him the award has already ceased operation. and if you go this fake award web site, "http://www.gbvcchina.co.uk/", click on "english", you will see that this UK award does not even have an english page!

3. the sponsors for this fake award were all from the chinese communist party! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CC6B:6B90:B5D5:B9DB:D33C:8DE (talk) 00:49, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Chinese communist spies are vandalizing communist son's article again! and i challenge you to show me which part of his fake reard section was NOT true.

Bo Guagua got vandalized once again, everything about his FAKE award were added which were based on Chinese news reports by well-established newspapers and magazines. the admins deleted everything about his FAKE AWARD, and are protecting the vandalized page once again. is your web site controlled by communist lovers?

the citizenship of chinese communist criminal Bo Xilai's son Bo Guagua is unknown, how can you say that his has a chinese nationality? did you see his passport or you checked his current immigration status with the home land security in the usa?

if not, how can you state that he is still a chinese citizen? you have no proof!

also, the entire section of the following was deleted by your chinese communist spies on this site. i chanllege you to list anything here that is not the truth. and everything can verified according the links. why did your stupid admins delete all of them then protect the article? what is the purpose? are you here to spread lies and rumors, and promoting for the chinese communist criminal?

EF∙Royal Cornell 2009 Big Ben Award and Ten Outstanding Chinese Young Persons Selection in the UK Charity Ceremony

According to Taiwan Apple Daily newspaper, the award he won was entirely fake.

On May 9th of 2009, a charity organisation registered in UK - British Chinese Youth Federation (BCYF http://www.bcyf.org.uk/) which the web site stopped operating after this award was given. The address registered for this organization was in a ghetto in London. The owner is Yinya Li (李引亞, English name: Jonsson Li) from city of Fuzhou of Fujian province, gave Bo Guagua an award during the first annual "EF∙Royal Cornell 2009 Big Ben Award and Ten Outstanding Chinese Young Persons Selection in the UK Charity Ceremony (TOCYP-UK)". at Le Meridien Hotel Piccadilly in London. No one from the UK government or any UK royals were present during this ceremony, but Chinese Consul Jin Shihong and his wife, the director of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London - Hu Baozhu, representatives from the Malaysian Embassy, the Taipei Representative Office and Singapore attended the ceremony.

The five judges were: Lord Tom Pendry, Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London - Hu Baozhu, Chairman of 48 Group Club Stephen Perry, Dr Xiaojiu Zhu who doesn't have a law degree who was hired as a legal counsel and to provide notary service for BCYF. She finished her biological education in the USA, then moved to the UK to work for a solicitor who immigrated from New Zealand to the UK. and the owner of BCYF - Yinya Li.

The official sponsors include: the Chinese embassy in the UK, All China Youth Federation (http://www.qinglian.org) under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, China Central Television, Phoenix Television and a free Chinese newspaper called 倫敦時報 (The London Times) not to be confused with the actual The London Times. The sponsoring media was Jonsson Li Publishing House (「歐金出版局（倫敦）」) whose owner is the same person of this award. 。

Marco Fu was also given the award, even though he lives in Hong Kong, and is a Canadian permanent resident. Daniel Jacoel who was the chairman of the 48 Group Club Young Icebreakers, was also given an award.

Let Me Be Me performed during the event. This event was only widely reported by news media in mainland China. Most mainland Chinese were given the impression that he won the award that was given by the UK government.

After 2009, British Chinese Youth Federation second web site (http://www.bcyf.org.uk) has ceased to operate. Their first web site ukbcyf.org expired. The web site of second annual EF∙Royal Cornell Big Ben Awards for the Top Ten Outstanding Young Chinese in the UK was moved to a web site based in China. Meanwhile, Big Ben Award Corporation started to offer awards to Chinese all over the world. Its English page is still empty. Their Chinese page "Contact Us" has no name, phone number or email address listed. Both web sites are registered to Yinya Li. The current address for "Big Ben Award Corporation" is located in a dental office in London.。 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:cc6b:6b90:2d68:299c:8c07:b726 (talk) 12:29, 9 February 2013‎

Scandals?

Category:Political scandals and all the sub-cats. Is this a correct term? Could a bot change them all to 'political controversies'? If not then it would be a huge pain to go through all of them. We just cleaned a few of the Canadian ones that contained biography articles, company articles, highways, islands, etc. Should they be re-named 'articles containing political controversy' Someone mentioned that 'scandal' is the tabloid term for controversy. Which wikipedia term is correct? Some articles do have scandal in the title while others have terms like fiasco, controversy, boondogle, Reverse Ferret, etc.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:46, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Categories named "Articles containing..." or things like that are usually for behind-the-scenes maintenance, not for content. So you need to pick a straightforward term, like "Political scandals" or "Political incidents" or whatever you think best.

Cats are not 'defining' items. Exact descriptions belong in the articles, not on the category names. Otherwise, we'd end up with names like "Category:Political scandals, incidents, controversies, fiascoes, boondoggles, and things given a name ending in -gate by the media", which obviously nobody wants.

The purpose is to group together pages that readers interested in <name of category> might be looking for or interested in. For example, if I'm really a Martian, but readers believe that I'm from California, or editors like you believe that readers who are interested in people from California might be interested in a page about me, then you should list me under Category:People from California (if I were notable, which of course I'm not). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:40, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm of the feeling that it would be incorrect to name Watergate anything but a scandal. (The article is even titled "Watergate scandal"!) Additionally, consider the fact that the main page is named political scandal. That is not to say that the category does not need cleaning, naturally. --Izno (talk) 02:53, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Remove WP:DEFINING

WP:DEFINING as a part of the guideline Wikipedia:Overcategorization does not comply with actual practice. Articles are routinely added to categories because the category is applicable to the subject, not because the subject is defined by the category. Very few people are defined by their year of birth or the university they graduated from; however, these categories are beneficial and are used in practice. I propose removing the section of the guideline, and replacing it with the current practice. Articles are placed into any category that is applicable to the subject of the article. Ryan Vesey 00:59, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

As a related issue... See: WP:Categorization of people#General considerations where it tells us to categorize by those characteristics that make the person notable. What university someone went to is rarely what makes the person notable. It seems that we have a lot of categorization rules that are routinely ignored. Blueboar (talk) 02:28, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

RFC regarding signature images in biographies

I've started an RFC over at Stephen King's bio. As it involves BLP issues it might be of interest to editors who monitor PUMP/POLICY. Thanks. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 02:38, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

sahaja yoga and in general: articles on religion

Hi,

I don't know wether I'm posting this at the right place, but I felt angry after reading two articles and googling around a bit and I didn't feel like editing. First of all, English is not my first language and second: I guess it's not a good idea to edit or contribute to a talk page when angry. I'm not a wiki editor anyway. However, I do feel I have a point so I guess the village pump is the place to leave something like a rant.

Like a lot of people nowadays, I use wikipedia as a source of information a lot, especially on topics I don't want to spend weeks or longer doing research on. I know a bit how it works, so I know not all information on wikipedia is always accurate. I do get the impression that articles on various religions, cults, sects, New Religious Movements etc. quite often are written and/or edited by people who actually belong to the group which is written about, so I won't get any objective information at all. In the past I was looking for sociological theories about the historical witch hunts and all the time I got trapped into articles which were used by Wiccans to shed their light on history. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Wiccans and it seems like these things have been improved or corrected by now. Now I read Dutch, English and German and compare different articles, so I might confuse some wiki's in different languages. Now I have also read quite some stuff about Scientology and about the history of Scientology on Wikipedia. The whole story seems to have resulted in a load of good and critical information about the CoS on wikipedia (well, at least on the English wiki, the Dutch one definitely is a different story). My compliments to the people who did all that! But I'm afraid it doesn't all stop with CoS...

However: the articles about Sahaja Yoga http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahaja_Yoga , and it's founder, [[6]], seem like a load of crap to me. This is most definitely not neutral information, this is a complete eulogy, to a certain level it might be promotion according wiki-guidlines. For instance in the part "Cult allegations and refutations", there is stated:

A 2008 court case in Brussels has ruled that Sahaja Yoga had been wrongly labelled as a cult by a Belgian state authority and awarded the group compensation.

Further on is stated:

In 2008 the Belgian newspapers De Morgen,[155] De Standaard[156] and Le Soir reported that the Court of First Instance of Brussels ordered the Belgian state to pay 1,500 Euros compensation to Sahaja Yoga for wrongly labelling the movement as a sect (cult). The Centre of Information and Opinion on Harmful Sectarian Organizations (CIAOSN/IACSSO) had given an unfavourable report on the meditation movement which was found to be unobjective and had resulted in the movement being defamed. The state appealed.

Now I felt I wanted to get a bit deeper into this and I found the actual court verdict from this appeal, which is quite nasty for Sahaja Yoga and it's late founder. You can find it on the site of the Belgian state organization IACSSO, both in Dutch and in French and it dates from 12-4-2011. You can find it here:

http://www.iacsso.be/actualiteit.htm

in Dutch there's this scan: http://www.iacsso.be/110412-hof_van_beroep_te_brussel-2008-AR-889.pdf

in French there's this one: http://www.iacsso.be/110412-cour_d%27appel_de_bruxelles-2008-AR-889.pdf.

The point is: the Belgian organization never did say that Sahaja Yoga was a destructive cult or anything like that. However, it did point out some things which this Court of Appeal found justifiable remarks, even according the ECHM. The French scan looks better than the Dutch one and I can recommend anyone interested in this subject to read this verdict carefully! As far as I get it, the Belgian Court of Appeal stated that a state organization may rightfully say that the founder of Sahaja Yoga did make anti semitic and thus xenophobic and racist remarks in her writings. And there is more, Sahaja Yoga lost the case completely! I'm amazed that the Belgian press didn't put any attention on this verdict (at least so it seems, they were probably too busy with other matters at the time). As far as I understand this verdict stands as long as there is no higher appeal (Cassatie) but didn't find any information on such an appeal. Did Sahaja give up? I would understand that, when I read this verdict. Now this verdict is almost two years old and hardly anyone noticed, even when a scan in two languages was put on the internet! I guess the writers and editors of the two wiki articles missed this one as well ... or didn't they want to know?

Another thing is: one organization which is given as a source in the wiki articles is "Human Rights Without Frontiers International" - this seems to me a bit shady small NGO - apart from it's own website there's not much mention of it on the internet. Is this actually a genuine human rights organization or a Brussels lobby group? Where do they get their money from?

One more quote: In 1995, Nirmala Srivastava was awarded an honorary doctorate in Cognitive and Parapsychological Sciences by the Ecological University of Bucharest, Romania.

Now that sounds like bogus to me and it's just supported with one dead link. Can someone find a reliable source for this honorary doctorate? I can't find anything about it, apart from Sahaja-sites. Anyway, there's a lot more like this.

Now I understand it's not possible to put a sign on articles like this, saying: "WARNING! Joining this New Religious Movement might be dangerous for your mental and physical health, your children might be put in some dodgy school in another country and you may not see them again for years, your marriage might get ruined or you might get put in some arranged marriage, if you suffer from epilepsy or when you are gay you might get labeled as 'possessed by an evil spirit' and it's founder is known for her anti semitic ideas and was a complete homophobe who stated she could cure homosexuality with yoga, just tell them you're HIV-positive and they won't even allow you to meditate with them". But that is just my opinion. Yes, I am biased! This whole thing is complete Mumbo Jumbo to me! They are most definitely not up front with their agenda! You have to dig really a bit deeper on the internet to find this out. And it's another good reason why I shouldn't edit those articles...

I'm afraid there's more examples of things like this on wikipedia and I don't have a clear proposal how to avoid them. But could somebody please have a closer look at those articles, maybe? I'd love to read something more neutral! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xochopili (talk • contribs) 02:57, 10 February 2013 (UTC)