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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Administrative discussions

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

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

Requests for comment

RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes?

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

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

WP:RSN#RFC:_The_Anti-Defamation_League

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

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Enforcing ECR for article creators

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

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

(Initiated 47 days ago on 8 April 2024) Clear consensus for change but not what to change to. I've handled this RfC very badly imo. User:Alexanderkowal — Preceding undated comment added 11:50, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Initiated 31 days ago on 24 April 2024) There's been no comments in 5 days. TarnishedPath^talk 03:20, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Deletion discussions

XFD backlog

V	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Total
CfD	0	0	10	36	46
TfD	0	0	0	3	3
MfD	0	0	0	4	4
FfD	0	0	0	6	6
RfD	0	0	4	28	32
AfD	0	0	0	23	23

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

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

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

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

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Amina Hassan Sheikh

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

Other types of closing requests

Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake#Talkpage_"This_article_has_been_mentioned_by_a_media_organization:"_BRD

(Initiated 39 days ago on 16 April 2024) - Discussion on a talkpage template, Last comment 6 days ago, 10 comments, 4 people in discussion. Not unanimous, but perhaps there is consensus-ish or strength of argument-ish closure possible. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

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

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

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

Talk:Press_Your_Luck_scandal#Separate_articles

(Initiated 23 days ago on 2 May 2024) Please review this discussion. --Jax 0677 (talk) 01:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Agroforestry#Merge_proposal

(Initiated 22 days ago on 3 May 2024) As the proposer I presume I cannot close this. It was started more than a week ago and opinions differed somewhat. Chidgk1 (talk) 13:46, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 16 days ago on 9 May 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:13, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

ANRFC again

Here's a story, for those who haven't met their recommended daily allowance of drama yet: Over the last few months, we've had a series of RFCs at WT:MEDRS, some of which would have benefited from closing statements by experienced admins. Most of these RFCs have dealt, directly or indirectly, with whether sources from a particular country, whose academic journals are under political pressure to publish only The Right Answer™, are desirable sources. (The overall "vote", if you care about numbers, is about 3 to 1 against this idea.)

We've simultaneously, and not really as a result of this, had another one of our periodic fights about the exact scope of MEDRS, with the usual (i.e., very low) level of immediate success, but with some useful and interesting comments that might eventually help us improve that guideline. This fight mostly covered the question of whether and when information about violent crimes needs medical sources, e.g., rather than legal or social ones. Having both of these fights at the same time, and mostly involving the same people, has been more than a little inconvenient.

(I'm omitting names, because identities actually don't matter much, and I don't want to bother with a long string of notifications or to have anyone think that the problem is just one person's personality.)

Order of RFCs:

• The first round was originally closed by a NAC who was TBAN'd (from something unrelated to the RFC) last year. Multiple editors involved in this RFC were also involved in the TBAN discussion. As it happened – I explicitly do not allege any sort of dishonesty here, but rather an unfortunate circumstance that the NAC may not even have noticed – the closing statement was in favor of the minority who favor citing politically manipulated journals and against the editors who voted for the TBAN. "Losing" editors have made this NAC suffer for volunteering to close this enormous discussion.
• Then we had a long fight about whether there exist things that are related to health, but that aren't exactly intended to be covered by MEDRS (e.g., violent crime). Initially, there were two of these RFCs; thankfully, the OP for the first stated that he formally withdrew it in favor of the other, and it therefore did not end up in the laundry list at ANRFC. (If it had, then we might have ended up with contradictory closing statements.) The second one was closed, about two months after it began, by an admin who deserves praise, because this was not a small task and because it was impossible to avoid disappointing some good editors. The thoroughly explained closing statement is getting a few complaints, but IMO they are largely respectful complaints, and I expect the overall dispute to settle down as people find ways to adjust and meet their needs.
• The second round on politically pressured sources demanded that ediotrs pick a way to implement the first RFC even though they objected to everything about the close, from the outcome to the identity of the NAC. This newer one was closed the other day by an apparently innocent editor, who created an account two months ago and has made exactly 384 edits so far, including closing several RFCs and a lot of edits about a movie. The new editor has tried to provide helpful advice, like narrowing down the five options to the two least-contested.
• Now we have another RFC that's trying to force people to pick between the two least-contested wordings about political sources, even though the clear signal from the editors is that they do not want any of those options at all. Realistically, I expect this to either keep going for a month, or for someone to propose a TBAN against the OP.

Why I'm bothering telling you about this:

The fact that two NACs have tried to close some of these incredibly contentious RFCs on hot-button issues means that we have a structural problem with ANRFC. We have a lot of "process" and a lot of "activity", but the RFCs that need admin attention aren't getting that attention.

I don't believe that this is due to having too few admins, because we had too few admins a few years ago, and we didn't really have this problem a few years ago. What's changed since then is:

• One editor has been filling ANRFC with about 90% of the RFCs that have expired. The number of listed RFCs has gone up 3x to 4x compared to 2012, although the number of complicated or highly contentious RFCs does not appear to have changed. (I've checked the RFCs listings for formatting problems off and on for years, so I've got a decent idea of what goes through the pipe.) Listing almost everything might make the signal-to-noise ratio unfavorable for admins. When you see that there are dozens listed, with no sense of priority and with many that can have nothing more than a rubber-stamp on a nearly-unanimous vote, it would not be unreasonable to start ignoring the whole list. It's also on a separate subpage, which means that changes probably aren't appearing in your watchlist.
• We have formally agreed that NACs can and should be encouraged to close all sorts of discussions, and we have relied upon their experience and wisdom to stop them from stepping into a mess like this. I actually saw the ANRFC listing for one of these a while ago, contemplated adding a note warning off NACs, and I decided that such a comment was unnecessary, because it was so obviously contentious that nobody except an admin would touch it. I was wrong. At this point, it might be reasonable for WP:NAC and related advice to stop assuming that all editors have the necessary experience and wisdom figure out which discussions come with a free bull's eye target for their backs.

I'm not really proposing a specific solution here. Instead, I want to point out that there is a problem, and that I have identified two separate factors that I believe are contributing to it. There may be others; I would really appreciate hearing ideas about other probable factors. I think that if we can identify the probable causes for this, then we might be able to find a way to make this system more functional. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:48, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

WP:NAC is less relevant than WP:Requests_for_comment#Ending_RfCs and WP:Closing_discussions#Closure_procedure. You were wrong in thinking a non-admin would not close the discussion because becoming an admin bestows no magical consensus deciding powers. In fact the majority of admins have little/no more experience in that area than many long-time editors. Not to mention the 'this is a contentious RFC' line is trotted out whenever someone disagrees with the result. Just because people have different opinions does not make something contentious. Although I will agree that most of the MEDRS stuff does follow that path by MEDRS own design. The problem at this point is not with non-admin closures, or closures in general, its that MEDRS is full of people who want MEDRS to apply everywhere. Even when it really shouldnt. Some of the recent articles I watch where people insist on a MEDRS compliant source - crime articles for example - are not remotely medical, yet people are seriously arguing crime is always a health issue so MEDRS should apply. Now couple that with the fact that at MEDRS, people generally fall into two camps, a)editors demanding the highest possible quality source (the inference being: Western published) and b)editors who want the criteria lowered so they can use all sorts of crap as a source anywhere MEDRS applies. This wouldnt normally be a problem (people arguing in their walled gardens) except for the aforementioned over-reach of MEDRS scope. It has the potential to impact large sections of wikipedia. At this very minute people are arguing over wording that (as it reads) says "Do not reject a high-quality type of study due to personal objections to the study's inclusion criteria, references, funding sources, country of origin, or conclusions." Anyone who spends any time at RSN knows that (apart from possible country of origin) those are considered all the time. The problem isnt with ANRFC, discussion closing etc, the problem is MEDRS and the crap thats argued over there. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:03, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I was thinking that a NAC wouldn't close those discussions because I figured that they had a decent sense of self-preservation, if nothing else, and that nobody in his right mind would really want to close a discussion involving thousands of words and lots of yelling. About half the list at WP:BADNAC and its #Pitfalls section applies, too. But that assumes that the NAC has enough sense to figure out when "a closure may be controversial or not clearly unambiguous". Or even "The non-admin has little or no experience editing Wikipedia generally", for the newbie. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:19, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

• I don't know anything about this specifc situation but I do agree with WhatamIdoing regarding over-reporting at ANRFC. It's become a bloated mess that is often longer than the whole rest of this noticeboard, and as a result suffers from disinterest. I think a re-organization of ANRFC is in order, something that would make it clear what is a priority that really needs a close and what is just a low-level content dispute that petered out days or weeks ago. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:17, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• When I tried to deal with the over-reporting some time ago, merely removing stuff that didn't need to be listed, I got reverted: [1] and [2] were followed by reversions by Dicklyon (who hasn't touched ANRFC since his unblock) and by the 90%-filling editor. We need to enforce WP:ADMINSHOP — when an admin has responded to your request, don't re-post the request as if it had been removed by accident or by a vandal. If you don't like being told that it doesn't need a formal close, ask another admin privately; I'm not trying to shut down the asking entirely. Nyttend (talk) 04:39, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• I fully support reigning in ANRFC. This even came up at one of the Village Pumps last fall, and I tried to get Cunard to quit spamming ANRFC, but got nowhere. I'm not an Admin, but even I took to knocking out some of those entries a few days back as "Not done" as they were clearly "uncloseable" – a significant percentage of the entries that keep getting spammed to ANRFC simply don't belong there. (As an aside, it might be good if something like that – "Uncloseable" or "Declined" – is added to the other options at ANRFC like "Done" or "Not done"...) But I think it's going to take concerted action from Admins to reign ANRFC back in. Heck, it might even require a temporary Topic Ban in one case... But this is going to have to be done by Admins – after all: this is your page here. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:05, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• From what I am seeing here, I think a formal RFC on ANRFC is in order to establish some reasonable guidelines and best practices for what should be reported there and how to handle the sheer volume of reports. I have been trying to force myself to take a prolonged break from creating policy RFCs, but I would offer up User:Beeblebrox/The perfect policy proposal as guidance for anyone wishing to construct such a process. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:16, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
• As a NAC that has closed quite a few RFC's on WP:ANRFC, I see no problem with the listing of RFC's in bulk. The editor opening them may not be aware of where to request a close and may just think its automatically done because the header is automatically removed. I honestly believed that when I started editing. The RFC's go down to a respectable level before more are added. As the editor who specifically requested an admin to close the last RFC on MEDRS, even if I were not involved I would not have closed it. Not because it was contentious, all RFC's are contentious to some extent, there is a disagreement, thats the reason a RFC was started in the first place. The reason is that a NAC was completely ignored when last a NAC closed a RFC there. There was no respect for the process and edit warring ruled. The RFC close was not followed, but the larger number of editors edit warred to keep the page exactly as it was. AlbinoFerret 00:10, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

  The problem is that it's obfuscation through volume. I stopped looking there when I realized I was wasting my time going through all manner of discussions that are 1. almost without exception the most stunningly boring issues imaginable and 2. didn't need a formal close anyways. After a little while I felt like it'd be less painful to pound my nuts flat with a ball peen hammer, and judging by the size of it now I don't seem to be the only one. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:07, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

  Agree with TBotNL – a significant percentage of the content getting put up at ANRFC are either, 1) not actual RfCs and thus don't belong there at all, or 2) are RfC's that are "unclosable" either because no real "Support/Oppose" voting took place or because there was too little discussion to even establish "Consensus/No Consensus". I doubt anyone has an issue with real "problem" RfC's being posted to ANRFC – the problem is 1) the volume of postings to ANRFC, and 2) the relative percentage of "junk" entries there. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 02:02, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

  I have been checking for non RFC's for the last three months. I have seen some editors request a close of a discussion they are a part of. So far the only discussions that I have seen that are listed as a RFC had a RFC header removed by Legobot. AlbinoFerret 02:20, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

  I haven't scrupulously checked, so I'll concede that what you say may very well be true. Nonetheless, even if they had proper "RfC headers", some of the ones I've seen were not properly formatted as RfC's, and thus shouldn't have been put up at ANRFC. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 02:32, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

  The bulk listings by Cunard rely entirely on the removal of RFC tags. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:19, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

yep. Just putting {{RFC}} on a page does not mean it has to have a formal close no matter what. Robotically reporting everyhting that has had that header on it at some point without seeing if it really needs a closer is a disservice to the community because it increases backlogs and leads to disinterest in the whole process. Look how bloated it is right now. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:17, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree with you. There isn't currently any way to differentiate "bulk listing just because Cunard wants (almost) every single RFC to get a formal closing statement" from "this one really needs outside intervention", and the sheer volume of the bulk listings discourages people from searching for the critical ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:19, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

• Thank you to the WP:ANRFC closers, particularly the recent prolific closers AlbinoFerret (talk · contribs), Fountains-of-Paris (talk · contribs), Graeme Bartlett (talk · contribs), GRuban (talk · contribs), and Robert McClenon (talk · contribs), for your hard work.

  Mariah Carey birth years discussion; a "consensus is clear" close is referenced 16 months later to enforce the consensus

  Here is a "consensus is clear" closure request from September 2013: link. The consensus was already implemented. Mariah Carey's two possible birth years were added to the article. An admin wrote "no need for a formal close of this". I asked again for a close after someone reverted against consensus, and Armbrust (talk · contribs) closed it.

  In January 2015 (16 months later), a new editor disputed the consensus version, saying only one year should be listed. Another editor responded with a link to the RfC, Talk:Mariah Carey/Archive 9#Request for Comment: Birth Year. Had the RfC not been closed by an uninvolved editor, it would have been far more difficult to ensure the consensus is respected. "Read an uninvolved editor's summary of the RfC" is more likely to be heeded than "read this long, unclosed talk page discussion".

  Of course something like this doesn't happen to all "consensus is clear" discussions. But it is impossible to distinguish between the two types because we cannot see into the future. It is impossible to determine whether the consensus will be overlooked or ignored in the future. And it is not worth the time to hazard a guess because as S Marshall noted "Necessary or not, it's no real effort to close them" and as Ncmvocalist wrote, "it would take more effort to discuss whether to close or to discuss why signed comments were deleted".

  Why closing discussions is important

  Scott summarized it very well at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure/Archive 1#Too many discussions being added:

  Lack of resolution to ongoing debates is a continuing issue on this project. If there are too many things listed here, it's because there are too many things left unfinished. It's a reflection of reality. As Cunard points out in his admirable response in the "September 2013" link above, not having a formal closure can also lead to misinterpretations (or deliberate ignorance) of consensus by persons in disputes, and not provide a recourse for editors attempting to enforce consensus. Having an accepted closure to point to will be immensely useful in many subsequent debates. We should encourage these. Making them is tough work, and I think that's what's putting editors off doing it, not seeing the number that need to be done.

  Robert McClenon, one of RfC's dedicated and hard-working closers, explained why formal closure of even seemingly "consensus is clear discussions" is helpful at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive268#Benefits of Formal Closure:

  I have closed several RFCs where I thought that consensus was clear, but that required follow-up for either of two reasons. Either one of the posters ignored the consensus, in spite of the formal closure stating the consensus, or one of the posters objected to the close and requested that I re-open the RFC to allow them to insert a statement. When there was move-warring against consensus or edit-warring against consensus, formal closure put the enforcing administrator on firmer ground in enforcing consensus. Formal closure establishes what the consensus is, unless reviewed. Otherwise the resulting WP:ANI thread would itself have had to establish consensus before warning or blocking, causing drama on a drama board. In cases where I have been asked to re-open a closure, I have instead asked for closure review. Without closure and closure review, the most likely result would have been edit-warring.

  Recently closed RfCs

  1. Talk:Kuwait Airways#RFC: Should a threat of legal action by the Secretary of Transportation against the airline be included in the article? (closure request):

     The discussion was split 3–2 to include the material in the article, but the closer closed the RfC as allowing the material based on strength of argument. Without an independent closer, the policy-based conclusion would not have been reached. The discussion looks like "no consensus", which means the material is excluded.

  2. Talk:2015 San Bernardino attack/Archive 5#RFC Victim names (closure request)

     The discussion was contentious and from at a superficial glance looks like "no consensus", which means all of the material is excluded. But the closing editor carefully read the discussion and wrote a nuanced, eloquent summary of the discussion and the applicable policies, allowing part of the material to be included and part to be excluded.

  3. Talk:Siachen Glacier#RfC: Should the infobox say that the glacier is disputed ? (closure request)

     The discussion was split 5–3 to say that the glacier is disputed in the inbox. Without an independent closer assessing the strength of the arguments, this could be considered "no consensus". The closer reviewed the discussion and found there to be a consensus based on the strengths of the arguments to say that the glacier is disputed. The closer further noted that there was no consensus about how to word this.

     The close paved the way for a second RfC, Talk:Siachen Glacier#RfC: How should the infobox say that the glacier is disputed ? (closure request). The second RfC achieved a consensus for how to word the dispute in the infobox.

  The RfC close that prompted WhatamIdoing's post here

  WP:ANRFC has worked well for the past four years. If there are problems like inexperienced editors incorrectly closing RfCs, then those can be individually handled.

  I think the RfC close that prompted WhatamIdoing's post is Elvey (talk · contribs)'s close of Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)/Archive 19#Request for Comment: Country of Origin. An RfC closure review was filed yesterday here. Non-admins have closed contentious RfCs in the past and have done a good job doing so. If there is a problem with this particular non-admin close, then it will be overturned at the closure review.

  Cunard (talk) 06:59, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

TLDR. The same thing is the reason why ANRFC is pointless; you overwhelm the important things with the trivial. Nyttend (talk) 18:42, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

As a point of fact, the RFC closing that prompted this was the one in which an editor with a two-month-old account and a grand total of 384 edits tried to issue a "ruling" in a controversial change to a major sourcing guideline. There is nothing about a closing review process that can fix the busted process that led such an editor to believe this was a good idea.

Also, I believe that all of us who frequent the drama boards are tolerably familiar with your belief that flooding ANRFC is a net benefit and that getting a single editor's view of a one-time discussion enshrined forever as The Consensus™ is a good thing. The fact that I disagree with your view does not mean that I'm unaware of your view. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:28, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Cunard will often request "an experienced admin" vs "an experienced editor". Is there merit to having some categories based on this assessment? Cunard, what's the rationale for asking an admin close an item vice an editor? Alternatively, maybe categories based on Cunard's rough judgment: "likely contentious"/"not likely contentious". Would that poison the well though? --Izno (talk) 15:03, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing If the problem is that an inexperienced editor closed a RFC, the problem isnt with listing RFC's, but the editor who did the close. I am not placing the blame on the editor though. To my knowledge there is no policy, guideline, or even essay that controls or gives guidance on what qualifies as "experienced", and believe me I have looked. There is a need to spell this out, WP:CLOSE would be a great place for it. Maybe giving a minimum time/edit count to reference if you should be closing as an editor. It wouldnt be perfect because 3 to 6 months editing on a contentious topic to me is a greater teacher than doing a year of spell checking and removing stray commas on seldom edited topics. But at least it would give editors some idea if they should be closing. AlbinoFerret 17:48, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

You and I are looking at the situation from different perspectives. IMO the important problem is not that an inexperienced editor closed an RFC. (That's easily fixed, with little long-term harm beyond possibly driving away an innocent and potentially good new editor.) The important problem is that the request for a closing statement was not visible to the small number of experienced policy experts who should have closed it.

User:Izno, what do you think about putting Cunard's NAC-suitable requests on a completely separate page? WP:AN would transclude only the smaller number of requests that are made by participants or that Cunard believes shouldn't be handled by a NAC. The less complex ones could go on another page. Perhaps admins would be more likely to see the ones that they need to look at. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:35, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

You could technically put them all on the same page and only transclude the interesting ones here ({{#ifeq:{{PAGENAME}}|Administrators' noticeboard|<includeonly>}} and etc.), but yes, that was my general gist. Alternatively, you can keep them all on the same page and then just add some more subsectioning e.g. == Possibly contentious RFC == and ==Likely not contentious RFC==; everything still shows up here but I think the admins figure out what they need to then. Those are still solutions which may have problems (c.f. my comment earlier about possibly poisoning the well--Cunard brings up an example above that looks non-contentious but really isn't). --Izno (talk) 15:51, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, my personal opinion is that the latter concept is the better one. In fact, ANRFC was previous "sectioned" until several months ago when somebody decided it was a "brilliant" idea to remove the sections. But, at the least two sections: 'Contentious RfCs' (which would be transcluded here), and then a more general 'Unclosed RfCs' (which wouldn't be) would be a vast improvement. Also, it needs to be clear that non-Admins can "reject" RfCs from the second list if they are not properly formatted RfCs or are otherwise uncloseable, without fear of such judgements being frivilously reverted as a matter of course; also NACs need to have the authority to move entries from the first list to the second one if they determine that an RfC isn't "contentious" enough to require Admin attention... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:09, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Whenever sections are introduced, it seems that someone eventually removes them after a few months. Maybe the next time they're restored, there should be a hidden comment saying "Please do not remove these headings even if the section is empty." Sunrise (talk) 22:59, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

@IJBall Very sensible idea, I also suggest to allow/recommend that if a NAC sees a RFC that requires an admin in the less contentious area, the NAC can move it into the admin section. AlbinoFerret 23:17, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Not relevant

User:WhatamIdoing, what is happening is because the WMF is refusing to hire competent people to override bad decisions made by editors and admins. Wikipedia is obviously broken. QuackGuru (talk) 17:18, 21 January 2016 (UTC) See User talk:Nyttend#RFC — QuackGuru's idea of a bad close is one where the admin assesses consensus and closes a discussion likewise, because "The closer must find out who is right or wrong." Would someone mind instructing QuackGuru on the standard method of decisionmaking here at Wikipedia, with a firm reminder that repeated attempts to have decisions closed because one side is right and the other wrong will result in QuackGuru's twenty-fifth block? Nyttend (talk) 18:40, 21 January 2016 (UTC) According to User:Mrjulesd Wikipedia is not a vote.[3] QuackGuru (talk) 19:53, 21 January 2016 (UTC) The WMF will continue to refuse to get involved in content decisions, including the content of guidelines such as this one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:28, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

RFC review request: Request for Comment: Country of Origin

Location:Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable_sources (medicine)/Archive 19#Request for Comment: Country of Origin

Specific question asked:

"Should we change MEDRS, which currently reads:

Do not reject a high-quality type of study due to personal objections to the study's inclusion criteria, references, funding sources, or conclusions.

to

Do not reject a high-quality type of study due to personal objections to the study's inclusion criteria, references, funding sources, country of origin, or conclusions.

This proposal is to address only the addition of high-quality sources into the guideline

Concerns over the closing of this RFC have halted its implementation. The question is specific to only High-quality sources.

Discussion

• Endorse The RFC was specifically about High quality sources and this was spelled out in the RFC question. The question had a very narrow focus. The closer rightfully discounted comments that were about low quality sources as off topic. AlbinoFerret 19:50, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

  This is nonsense; who defines what a high or low-quality source is? There is no clear-cut process that is accepted by all, and actually the entire reason for the guideline. What if you define it depending on "personal" reasons — then you nullify the entire clause? The RfC concerns sources on Wikipedia. CFCF 💌 📧 07:52, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

  The guideline already gives reasons not to reject "high quality" sources for reasons like funding so that argument fails. But this is not a place to reargue the merits of the RFC. 13:48, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

  No, but it is important to note the actual coverage of the RfC, which is all sources that would go on Wikipedia. CFCF 💌 📧 15:40, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

  Not all sources, only high quality ones. Your statement is one of the reasons I endorse this close. The RFC was a very narrow focused one and the off topic responses were obviously discounted, and your repeating them here doesnt invalidate the close. AlbinoFerret 15:53, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

  I'm kind of inclined to go with "this is nonsense", but because Albino has misquoted the guideline again, and therefore his objection is irrelevant (NB not wrong, just irrelevant). A high-quality type of study is not the same thing as a high-quality source. A systematic review is a very high-quality type of study, but it can be a remarkably low-quality source for any given statement. For example, a systematic analysis of whichever studies I have photocopies of in my filing cabinet would be a high-quality type of study and a low-quality source.
  The fact that the closer made the same mistake, not to mention also introducing ideas never mentioned in the discussion at all, are both reasons to overturn it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:05, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Regardless if it is "type" or "source", I used source because thats what they are, sources. We are still talking about high quality, and simply because a high quality type or source is from a specific country is no reason to disqualify it. That premise, that just because something is from a specific country it fails, is troubling regardless of what criteria you are looking at. In any event this is off topic for a review as it is just re-arguing the RFC. AlbinoFerret 17:33, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

"Type of study" and "source" really are very importantly different concepts!

• A meta-analysis is a type of study. They are often done well, but they can be done very, very poorly. All meta-analyses are high-quality "types of studies"; some meta-analyses are impossibly bad "sources".
• A good textbook is a source. It is not any kind of scientific study at all. That doesn't mean that the textbook is a low-quality source. It just means that this particular type of source doesn't fall on the levels of evidence scales. A good textbook can be the best source for many medicine-related statements.

The disputed sentence is part of an entire section ("Assess evidence quality") on how to tell which type of study is better evidence than another. A type of study is all about scientific levels of evidence. It's not "simply high quality" or the entirety of whether a particular source can support a particular statement; it's very specifically about "high-quality types of studies" (emphasis in the original). A specific source (=a specific publication) can be a very high-quality source despite containing no scientific evidence at all. Similarly, a source could use a very good type of study – something that rates high in levels of evidence – while still being a very bad source indeed. To determine whether a source is a good one, you need to look at more factors than merely the levels of evidence (="type of study"). "Assess evidence quality" is only one of six major factors that MEDRS encourages editors to consider, (mostly) in addition to the five major factors that RS recommends for all subjects (see WP:NOTGOODSOURCE for a brief list). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:57, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, that argument failed in the RfC because editors were objecting to certain Cochrane Reviews simply because they had Chinese authors, and since Cochrane Reviews are prestigious reviews of reviews and meta-analyses, that means they are both the "highest quality source" as well as "highest quality study type". For the purposes of the RfC, there wasn't a difference, and editors who objected because of problems with lower quality references (type or source) missed the point and their votes were tossed aside. Objections were raised on the basis of potentially biased low quality Chinese published primary research (RCT's), which wasn't ever the point. Those are low quality sources and study-type . Naturally, the editors raising these objections weren't happy when their off-topic arguments were counted as such. LesVegas (talk) 14:16, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing You missed my point in again trying to explain type and source again. The point being that regardless if you are looking at type or source, country of origin as a basis for exclusion is troubling. AlbinoFerret 14:45, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: I think that if you're bringing this here at this point, you should present the entire context, such as the two subsequent RfCs about the same question. Sunrise (talk) 01:21, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I would rather start at the beginning and discuss one RFC at a time as it may not be necessary to review them all. The next RFC was closed no consensus and as a NAC I agree with that closing, but if someone disagrees with that close they are welcome to start a review for it. Though I dont know why a review for a no consensus close is necessary. There appears to be a current RFC that has recently started that I just became aware of today, but we are far from the close (about 3 weeks) of that RFC for a review, if it is necessary. AlbinoFerret 02:06, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I think it should be clear that whether the other RfCs should be reviewed is not the point. The point is that you selectively omitted context in a way that favors your preferred outcome. With regard to the current RfC, if you're implying that you didn't perform due diligence by reading the talk page before coming here, then I don't think that helps you. And perhaps you forgot, but you did not "just become aware of" the current RfC, because you commented in it. Sunrise (talk) 22:57, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Link to related discussions:

1. Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Questions about RFC closure - Country of origin
2. Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#What does MEDRS cover?
3. Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#RfC: How to Implement the Country of Origin Closing

Cunard (talk) 07:07, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

• {{Do not archive until}} added. Please remove the {{Do not archive until}} tag after the review is closed. (I am adding this because RfC closure reviews frequently have been archived prematurely without being resolved.) Cunard (talk) 07:07, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Just a note, Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#What does MEDRS cover? was on a different topic and section of MEDRS. AlbinoFerret 14:32, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

See Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)#Questions_about_RFC_closure_-_Country_of_origin. The closer wrote "Opinion in discussion appears evenly divided between Support for either 1, or 3, or 5 with No Consensus. In addition it is #3 which is the most contested. A new RfC which would rephrase the material as something like a choice between some version of #1 and some version of #5 would likely lead to an outcome." Fountains-of-Paris" The more recent RfC overrides the previous RfC. QuackGuru (talk) 16:24, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

QG your comment is about the second RFC, and a no consensus closing does not override a previous RFC. AlbinoFerret 16:35, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes it does. You did not mention the other RfCs when you began this discussion. Do you stand by that decision. QuackGuru (talk) 16:49, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Sure I do as posted above this is a discussion on one RFC, all the rest is off topic. AlbinoFerret 17:29, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

There is a third RfC that rejects the use of country of origin. See Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)#RfC:_How_to_Implement_the_Country_of_Origin_Closing. QuackGuru (talk) 16:49, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

• Overturn close. The closer neglected to take into consideration comments made by others.

Revert 1.

Revert 2.

Revert 3.

Revert 4.

Revert 5. The closer was trying to force changes in.

It is suspicious the close was on 18 October 2015 and months later it is brought up here. The other RfCs show a clear consensus to not include the language that is against MEDRS to use low quality bias sources. QuackGuru (talk) 16:49, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the second editor to perfectly explain why the close should be endorsed. The RFC question was not about Low quality sources but high quality ones. Anyone replying with a low quality source comment was off topic. Also thank you for pointing out that the RFC was ignored and the only reason it was not implemented was edit warring, hence the need for this review. AlbinoFerret 17:29, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Using low quality bias sources is against MEDRS. Confirmed bias sources are not high quality sources. QuackGuru (talk) 17:33, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

The RFC question specifically was talking about a section in MEDRS dealing with High quality sources and never mentioned low quality sources. Regardless of low quality sources, can you address why the close was wrong when closing on High quality sources without going off topic into low quality ones and rearguing the RFC? AlbinoFerret 17:41, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

MEDRS should not be used as a platform to include bias sources in articles. A high-quality is not from a country of origin that is known to be bias. QuackGuru (talk) 17:51, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

That reasoning seems to exclude someone for extraneous considerations relating to your own subjective notions about ethnicity

Wow, that's reasoning seems to exclude an entire nation's population for extraneous considerations relating to QuackGuru's subjective notions about nationality that should have no quarter here. @Kingpin13: do you think it's OK to advocate we reject all studies from a country even though surely some studies from all countries exhibit some bias, and no country is a source for nothing but biased studies? You've blocked users for overt bigotry before. Where's the line? --Elvey^(t•c) 00:49, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Overturn. I have never edited anywhere near this issue. A well intentioned but inexperienced closer got in the middle of an attempt to rewrite policy to win a content dispute, they gave a consensus contrary to a roughly two-thirds majority (which included some of our most respected editors[4]), and the close explanation effectively affirmed the majority concerns. The close had the good intention of saying people shouldn't baselessly reject reliable sources, but the proposed policy change is pointless once it's re-written to explain that closing intent. The community is now engaged in a clusterfuck of additional RFC's trying to respect that awkward close - by rewriting it in a way that almost no one is going to consider a meaningful improvement. This should not have gotten a consensus against the majority, not unless it's an experienced closer who knows how to send an against-majority close on a constructive course. Alsee (talk) 01:18, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

• If this appeal is going ahead, I'll copy my comment from the long discussion at WT:MEDRS about the original close: "I don't think there's a rule about NACs while under sanctions, but I'd consider it a bad idea myself due to the necessary level of community trust. In this case there are actually connections with the RfC - Elvey's topic ban followed some highly acrimonious interactions with User:Jytdog (one of the editors !voting Oppose), and the t-ban was supported by several other editors who also !voted Oppose here. I read the close as likely being an attempted supervote, especially after their subsequent actions - joining the edit warring over the RfC result, telling editors questioning the close to "drop the stick" and other less complimentary things, and ultimately trying to archive this discussion. But either way, the close unfortunately perpetuated the dispute rather than resolving it." To clarify the first part, Elvey is under a topic ban from COI broadly construed and the closure could easily be interpreted as a violation of that as well, because conflicted sources were one of the points under discussion. Sunrise (talk) 22:57, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment What I find interesting is that Albino Ferret, who agreed with the close, is actually the editor endorsing its review. That shows character. Every editor opposing it, including those here, were well aware they could have Elvey's close reviewed at this administrator's noticeboard. I, other editors and even an administrator reminded everyone opposed to the close about this review process several times. But the editors who disagreed with the close resorted to edit warring to keep the change off instead of having it formally reviewed. LesVegas (talk) 00:01, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
  • This isn't actually surprising at all. The closing statement was so far from the actual consensus that editors have refused to allow its few supporters – namely, you and AlbinoFerret – to implement the alleged consensus. Getting Elvey's closing statement affirmed here is the only possible way to get MEDRS amended to permit you to cite studies Chinese journals that have been identified, in academic studies, as being biased due to government pressure to only publish results that support the political party line. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:40, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

There are a couple of facts I need to correct. First, there have been many supporters beyond Albino Ferret and myself. In the original RfC there were 7 for the change and several more editors have come along since and voiced their support. Even DocJames said the sources in question (Cochrane Reviews with Chinese authors) were undoubtedly of the highest quality. And this isn't about the Chinese published journals you speak about and never has been, although even in the worst case scenario evidence shows that they are still more reliable than much research with industry funding, and we already prohibit rejection of these sources based on funding. That was a point that nobody refuted in the RfC and one that the closer commented on. The final tally was 9 opposed to 7 support (if you read Herbxue's in the misplaced section below), but all but 1 of those 9 votes opposed were votes that failed to stay on topic and didn't stay relevant to the actual question asked in the RfC. As Albino Ferret (who has closed many RfC's) said, an experienced closer would throw these out. The 1 vote opposed that did have a partially relevant point was Richard Keatinge's, and this point was rightfully mentioned in and became part of the close. LesVegas (talk) 05:31, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Once again, MEDRS does not insist that editors use research paid through industry funding. What it does say is that you can't toss out sources with a higher levels of evidence because of your personal objections (i.e., something not widely supported in academic literature) to the funding source in favor of lower levels of evidence. You may not substitute a cherry-picked primary source for a widely respected meta-analysis merely because you believe that the author is a surgeon and is therefore gets paid to prove that surgery works (=real example, and the one that prompted the addition of that line to the guideline). That canard has indeed been refuted, by me at least twice.

If you're interested in financial conflicts, then you'll want to read the section of MEDRS at WP:MEDINDY.

I agree that you and AlbinoFerret are not the only editors to have supported this change. AFAICT, you two are the only ones who continue to push for its inclusion against the actual consensus there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:07, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I'm afraid this really isn't the forum to discuss this. We've already gone round and round about industry funded primary research making its way into higher levels of evidence many times, which was always the point. So I'll have to politely decline discussing this further here so as to not overburden potential reviewers with in-depth side arguments we have already gone back and forth on many times. LesVegas (talk) 14:16, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

• Overturn I am glad to see this here. The closer, Elvey, has a block log as long as my arm. The latest restriction (not in the log) was a community imposed TBAN from COI matters, imposed here on August 7 2015, due to disruptive behaviors, mostly directed at me, over COI matters. I am strongly identified with WP:MED around here, and I was dismayed to see Elvey close the subject RfC just a couple months after that TBAN was imposed. He doesn't ususally close RfCs, and in my opinion this was yet more disruptive behavior, clearly going against the established WP:MED editors who were uniformly opposed to the motion, and supporting the alt-med editors who were arguing on its behalf. (The origin of the RfC was the desire of advocates of acupuncture to use sources from China that present acupuncture in a favorable light, when there is a boatload of evidence that these studies are poorly done and controlled; these editors have continued even here to make the inflammatory argument that the exclusion is due to racism or bias, when the problems are well established in the literature as I pointed out in my !vote here) Elvey himself made thatthe "bigotry" argument just now in this dif with edit note: "Nationalist bigotry?"

I'll add here that Elvey ignored the COI TBAN and is on the verge of getting a 3-month block for doing so per This ANI thread, with an additional TBAN for SPI matters added (per Vanjagenije's comment to him here.)

And I'll close by saying that in my view the close did not reflect the policy-based arguments that were given, and again in my view it was just disruptive. Jytdog (talk) 01:34, 27 January 2016 (UTC) (redacted for clarity per markup Jytdog (talk) 17:16, 27 January 2016 (UTC))

• Comment. The problem lies in part with the way the sentence is written (my bold):

"Do not reject a high-quality type of study due to personal objections to the study's inclusion criteria, references, funding sources, country of origin, or conclusions."

If it said "do not reject a high-quality study" because of country of origin, that would make sense – if it's a high-quality secondary source we should use it no matter what country it stems from. But what is a "high-quality type of study"? A secondary source (e.g. a meta-analysis) is not ipso facto high quality. So that implies that, when choosing a low-quality study (but a supposedly high-quality type), we can't factor in where it comes from, and that makes no sense.

It would be better to say something like: "Do not reject a high-quality source simply because you do not like its inclusion criteria, references, funding, country of origin or conclusions." Discussion can then focus on quality, rather than origin. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:08, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Editors are trying to use MEDRS to include low-quality sources in articles from a country of origin that is known to be bias and of low quality and pass it off as a high-quality source. QuackGuru (talk) 13:21, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Check-in on Neelix G6 speedy criterion

Hi admins! On November 24, 2015, the community endorsed the temporary usage of speedy criterion G6 to short-cut deletion of redirects created by Neelix: "Any administrator may delete any redirect created by User:Neelix as uncontroversial maintenance under the WP:G6 speedy deletion criterion, if they reasonably believe that said redirect would not survive a full deletion discussion under the snowball clause." Multiple editors have been working at this problem for nearly two full months, and recently some Neelix-created redirects have led to time-consuming discussions again (Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2016 January 18#Perfumedly for example). Supposedly Legacypac has again begun to receive flack for his work on this issue, and seemingly as a result there are more obvious deletes getting sent to WP:RFD again (see today's log for good examples). Because of this, and because the Neelix G6 amendment was meant to be temporary, I'm seeking to either reaffirm its endorsement, or else rescind it. Also, since the page listing all of the redirects created by Neelix is so long that it crashes my computer, I guess I'd like a progress update. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 18:45, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank-you for raising this.I assess that of the 50,000 redirects [5] created and only edited by Neelix maybe ten thousand have been deleted, but there are more then 20,000 that remain unchecked but appear very similar to the deleted ones. There are some distinct varieties such as 1. fake or extraordinarily rare words created by adding multiple suffixes [6] [7] 2. non-english words with no affinity for the target [8] and [9] 3. generic phrases that happen to be meanings of non-English names [10], 4. straight up stupid redirects of words and phrases that have nothing to do with the target, or are directed to an obscure target instead of the Primary one. 5. Sliding words together to create fakecompoundwords [11] [12] and I'm sure a few more types I'm forgetting. Legacypac (talk) 20:19, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for all your work getting rid of this garbage. If there is still that much of it we should certainly keep speedy deleting it. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:12, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Ivanvector (and yes, I did mean to ping you this time), Legacypac, and Beeblebrox - I'll be more than happy to slog through checking some of them out in my spare time. However, I don't want to create more work for folks, so here's a question. I checked out 2 just now, the first, Kayte, has a rationale on the page, which seems to be correct. The second, Mathyu, has no rationale, and seems to be simply a very bizarre variant of the name, Matthew. Would that second one be of the type that should be marked G6? Onel5969 ^{TT me} 21:23, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Kayte, to my surprise, survived an RfD [13] leading to the explanation on the redirect page. Turns out it is a rare enough spelling no other bio exists on Wikipedia with that first name. I'd speedy Mathyu [14] as nonsense. Maybe we should start posting "Looks ok" on the talk pages of redirects we have checked out to save others looking at them again? Legacypac (talk) 21:29, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) My interpretation (and intent, FWIW) was, basically, if you have to ask whether it qualifies or not, it doesn't, list it at RfD. Speedy should be for very obvious cases, and the idea was for this to be a "delete-on-sight" criterion for the most obviously deletion-worthy of them, to save a whole bunch of time and hits on the database. It's working against that idea to be placing tags on the redirects that have been "checked", I think. Mathyu is a borderline case I think. If this had gone to RfD, I think you'd find that some editors endorse it as a phonetic redirect, while others would suggest deletion because of its limited utility, but I couldn't say for sure from here what the outcome would be. On the other hand, a redirect like Tradeunionistic should have qualified for deletion without Legacypac having had to identify it and list it at Rfd first (it was eventually speedied under different criteria), and there have been a large number of those.

I have an idea in my head to make a list of the discussions we've already had at Rfd on Neelix-created redirects and look for common themes, so that maybe we can determine which types of these are not surviving discussions, and provide recommendations that are better than just my wild guessing. I might work on it tonight. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:49, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I've partly created the list at User:Ivanvector/Neelix RfD list. I've only done a few days' worth and don't have more time to work on it now, but I'll check in on it later. Feel free to edit. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 22:42, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

• I'll ask again but why are people reverting to restore the entire gigantic list? It's in the archives if someone wants it with the original numbering. All that's doing is discouraging more outsiders from helping something when their computer hangs for no reason. I can't tell what's been reviewed and kept unless I check each blue link manually which is quite silly. Those rules are part of the reason why so few people are helping. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:44, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not understanding your question Ricky. There are two lists of Neelix redirects I'm aware of. One by target and one numbered to just over 50,000 - both linked at the top of User talk:Neelix The "by target" one is less useful today because links don't turn red in it. The 50,000 numbered list is better because deleted links turn red, but sadly it does not show what the targets are so each has to be manually checked. It is also a really big file! If anyone has a better list, please post it. Legacypac (talk) 21:52, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

If you have WP:POPUPS enabled you can hover to see the target of a redirect from the link. That might save some time. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:55, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Why not just remove the red links? See User talk:Anomie/Neelix list. I tried to manually remove some to shorten the page when it was started but that's been reverted without explanation. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:00, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

• I agree it would be nice if that list were broken up. My computer can't handle the full list, and lots of people are using computers with less power than mine. It seems to be about 1250kb as a full list. Even if we split it up by 10,000 redirects per page, that would be a significant improvement. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:54, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

• I say make a bot request for a bot to just get rid of the red links. The original will still be in the archive, and it'll cut down the list. You could also ask for someone to split the list into smaller chunks but seriously just removing the red links alone will make the page manageable. Plus again the original full list is in the archive so why the absolute desire to keep a monster than is literally unusable by most people on the page? Look I'm just making a suggestion. If everyone here is intent on making this awful for anyone else to help, that's on them. I asked for help and got this 46k list into something manageable. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:00, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the good ideas on making the list more manageable - let's figure that out on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anomie/Neelix_list Legacypac (talk) 22:22, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Good news - the list has been broken into 5 lists with editable sections so it is much easier to work on. Please help at the link just above. Legacypac (talk) 23:42, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• I had forgotten how bad it was. Drmies (talk) 05:05, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I found more stupid breast screening ones just for you Drmies. Legacypac (talk) 23:42, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• I haven't read every single word in the section (too discouraging) but to respond to the original question, I support the continuation of the special g6 CSD. Let's keep in mind the extremely low damage created by an incorrect deletion. It means if someone is looking for an article about X, and they enter X they will find it but if they enter Y they might or might not. And if they report that Y is a reasonable search term for X, it can be created in seconds. Literally.--S Philbrick(Talk) 23:14, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Exactly! Deleting a redirect with no incoming links that was created with NO thought is not going to damage the project. In the last few days I've CSD'd hundreds and hundreds of redirects based on 'non-words' and made up phrases with ZERO real word use. Put the redirect in quotes, Google it, and get results like 16 hits to wiki mirrors or a few French hits or finding the Neelix target list is the only result on Google for the supposed word! These fake words are just as harmful as building redirects like junkityjunk or nonsensively or Neelix should be banned forever and pointing them at random pages except worse because many look somewhat plausible. These get robotically copied into the free dictionary etc and escape into the wild.

For my efforts the peanut gallery is voting on banning me in another ANi thread for my alleged Neelix crusade (could that be closed already?) in the case of WV - reverting some of the CSD's and disruptively voting in RfD with personal attacks against me for making the nominations. Legacypac (talk) 23:42, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Deletion backlog

Category:Non-free files with orphaned versions more than 7 days old has a backlog of ~370 items. I've just done 50 but while I did, about 50 more were added. If anyone has the time, it's relatively simple work and instructions are provided. Thanks, BethNaught (talk) 13:36, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Is there a reason why these can't be deleted by bot?  Sandstein  13:41, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, there is a good reason: The tag might have been used in error, or maliciously. Manual checks are required.--Müdigkeit (talk) 14:03, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Very much so. I watched this category for a couple months about a year ago, when the backlog was much worse. In my experience, about 20-25% need further administrative attention, running the gamut from nonfree images illustrating biographies, to mangled bot uploads, to full 1080p screenshots being passed off as sufficiently reduced in size, to not actually being non-free at all (typically for failing c:COM:TOO). If all you're doing is clicking on the "Rescaled per F5" link from the simple instructions, you're not doing it right. —Cryptic 06:13, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Backlog busted. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:54, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Long term abuse

Moved from Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Long_term_abuse

 – Malcolmxl5 (talk) 17:33, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case § Motion: Future Perfect at Sunrise case request, integrated version I think we should start thinking about whether TW and the standard UI can be tweaked to provide a "long term abuse" flag, to help build best practice into everyday actions. For example, patrollers may be dimply aware of LTA and may revert edits linked to same (as was the case with Grawp and Willy On Wheels years back), but our structures mean that centralised data collection is difficult. I am not thinking of anything massive here, just a checkbox "possible long term abuse" or some such which flags all parties to step back and cross-check. Guy (Help!) 12:17, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

This would probably be better at WP:AN. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 14:38, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Twinkle feature requests belong here (and you need GitHub account). --QEDK (T 📖 C) 15:32, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

@Guy: I definitely agree that this should be reposted/moved to WP:AN where Admins can discuss it in more detail. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:54, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Unsurprisingly, I think this is a good idea regardless of the fate of that particular motion. WT:TWINKLE is another good place for suggestions on-wiki. Having a consistent way of labeling actions as LTA reverts would also help in data collection about how much abuse comes from a particular case and how much time and effort is being spent dealing with it. I imagine it'd be more persuasive to show good data about a problem if/when we have to ask the WMF for assistance dealing with it. Opabinia regalis (talk) 23:12, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Seconded. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 02:40, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

• We have LTA and had for years, the problem is 1) It is basically moribund, no one clerks it or does anything to new requests to update or add new cases and 2) It is not prominently linked from anywhere nor frequently referred to. I'm not sure if 1) is a cause of or an effect of 2) but those are major issues. I've noted twice in as many months on this very board that Category:Wikipedia long-term abuse – Pending approval has not had any action on it in quite some time, some pending requests have been around for many months with no one approving or declining addition to the main list. I've not worked on that particular task in the past, and it isn't really in my skill set, but there are users who ARE good at clerking similar boards (like SPA or ARBCOM) and it would just require people with that skill set for taking up the ball and running with it. I think it SHOULD be a working process that allows us to refer others to problem cases, and where we can keep historical data on problematic trolls and other badly disruptive users so patterns and the like can be more easily recognizable. The process exists, we just need a dedicated group of users who are willing to maintain it. Since no one is, it has basically died, but not for lack of usefulness, just for lack of anyone doing anything to keep it useful. --Jayron32 00:44, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
  • I'd be happy to spend some time to publish some of those LTA reports; are there any instructions anywhere that I can follow on what needs to be done? Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 07:44, 27 January 2016 (UTC).

Need help from a bureaucrat or person with similar access

In the context of my last entry on AN/I, I need both help and advice on how to proceed. At the risk of repeating myself: IP-hopping stalker reverts my edits every chance he gets, disappears for 6 years, comes back doing the same thing. My solution last time was to contact their ISP, making it known that I was doing so. And I got far in the sense that I actually received a response, this is also where I got stuck when I was asked by the ISP abuse department for "server logs", after which I found out I had to contact a bureaucrat here, which I then did, and was told that for all intents and purposes, the article history IS the server logs. Is there any other kind of information that you guys can provide me with or I can somehow get my hands on for when the ISP abuse team starts demanding evidence/data to corrolate IP activity with user activity? Eik Corell (talk) 13:22, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Bureaucrats have no special access to "server logs" or similar. –xeno^talk 14:23, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

If you want information that correlates IP addresses with signed-in users, only the Wikimedia Foundation has access to that (funtionaries like checkusers and developers may have access to that, but must defer to WMF when someone wants specifics). It's my understanding that WMF will only disclose such info when compelled to by a court order or similar warrant (due to criminal or civil proceedings). You can certainly ask the WMF for help, but they may tell you that you'd need to complain to the police if you think the law has been broken. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 14:51, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the contributions history for a page is the equivalent of server logs, and the WMF certainly won't correlate an IP address with a registered account without something like a court order. They've told me that in the past when someone was after my IP address. Doug Weller talk 16:48, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

It's my understanding that with the modern ToU, the WMF reserves the right to voluntarily disclose the information to ISPs themselves when filing abuse reports. I'm pretty sure they still won't disclose it to third party filers without a court order or similar.

However I don't think this has anything to do with accounts. From reading the linked discussion, it sounds like the editor isn't using an account, so their IP is already exposed via the contrib history. The problem is the ISP is asking for server logs by which I'm pretty sure they mean regular HTTP/S server logs. This is a problem because 1) the WMF doesn't log everything anyway AFAIK only a sample (like 1/1000), although I'm not sure if this applies to edits as well (possibly the CU data comes from such logs just in a more userfriendly format) 2) they're not likely to disclose it even though it relates to an IP editor.

Unfortunately convincing the ISP that the contrib history is in fact better than regular server logs since they clearly and easily link the contribution with the IP is likely to be difficult. Particularly if you're a third party rather than the WMF. (Admitedly want they may want is the contrib history and server logs anyway, even though the later provides little advantage.)

I guess the additional logged info that is accessible to a CU (like user agent) may be enough to convince the ISP regardless of the source or whether it's in a normal log format. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure the WMF won't disclose this to a third party even for an IP and CUs definitely won't. So I guess we do get back to the earlier point namely your only real hope is to convince the WMF to file the abuse report themselves. If the IP is only occasionally doing this, then disappearing for long stretches, I suspect it'll be difficult to convince them to intervene.

Nil Einne (talk) 08:48, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Assuming the ISP took you seriously, and you actually got hold of the logs they require (unlikely, the WMF is not going to hand over connection logs to a private third party company absent any court order), the first thing they will do is talk to their customer for a response. That is the point where this ends. Reverting your edits on wikipedia is neither criminal nor harrassment - by design wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit and allows non-registered users. Their customer will say to them 'Im having a dispute over content' and thats the end of that. Since they pay their ISP money, unless there is the likely threat of legal action an ISP will not take action against their customers. I say this from long experience of tangling with ISPs over genuine harrassment issues. If there are threats of violence etc, report it to the police, and they can request the info needed if they think its credible enough. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:00, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Enforcement of the ArbCom Arab-Israeli restrictions

Hi, I'm a sysop on fr:wp where there are talks about implementing a similar policy than yours regarding the ability to edit the Arab-israeli conflict articles for accounts that have less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure. My question is technical, how do you make sure this type of accounts can't edit those pages ? RegardsKimdime (talk) 13:14, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

@Kimdime: Right now it is enforced by Special:AbuseFilter/698. MusikAnimal would be the person to contact about specific details. Jbh^Talk 13:35, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks--Kimdime (talk) 22:09, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

@Kimdime: You may also want to take a look at this related proposal. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 00:16, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Floquenbeam reappointed an Oversighter

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions that:

Floquenbeam (talk · contribs), who resigned from the Arbitration Committee and voluntarily gave up the Oversight permission in July 2014, is reappointed an Oversighter following a request to the Committee for the permission to be restored.

For the Arbitration Committee, Kharkiv07 (T) 00:15, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Floquenbeam reappointed an Oversighter

NFCC tagging by bot, and all of my changes after review being undone-request for admin oversight

Recently the Non-free_Scout_logo_nocontent tag was TFDd (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2016_January_6#Template:Non-free_Scout_logo_nocontent) and replaced by User:Primefac as "replacing template use per TFD outcome using AWB". On his talkpage, Primefac was notified by User:Marchjuly that the images should be judged on a case-by-case basis, "many of the "Non-free Scout logo nocontent" tags were added a long time ago and either simply ignored by the uploader (and tus the problem remains) or never removed when the problem was fixed. I think many of the images you have tagged do have non-free use rationales; the question is whether they are valid nfurs.". The deprecated Non-free_Scout_logo_nocontent tags were bot-mass-replaced without review, vide https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Primefac&offset=&limit=500&target=Primefac for January 21, 2016, too many to diff-list here.

Yesterday I went down the list and added appropriate text to several dozen of these images in article space.

In several others I found that the old Non-free_Scout_logo_nocontent tag had not been removed even after the issue had been corrected years earlier; the tag should have been removed years ago as each issue was addressed. User:Gadget850, who placed the tags 4 years ago, retired in July 2015. It's easy to tag-and-forget, we've all done it.

In yet others I found there was no justifiable reason for the image, so I did not remove the NFCC tag. I proceeded to work on all these images.

Later yesterday, marchjuly undid all my edits, claiming "Re-added template. An administrator will remove it after assessing it". I have seen how the regular image-issue admins deal with images, almost always favoring deletion.

Again today, marchjuly just follows behind me and undoes all my edits without concern for their merit, or following to see where the images actually link.

I am asking for an impartial administrator to look at each of these images in turn. The only way I think these can be reviewed impartially is by an admin who does not frequently get involved in image deletions. Case-by-case may take longer, but it is much more honest than a steamroll mass deletion. There is no reason for them all to be deleted because they all have the same, often inaccurate tag.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 06:33, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I was pinged so I'll respond. It appears that as result of Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2016 January 6#Template:Non-free Scout logo nocontent, files which had been tagged with the deprecated {{Non-free Scout logo nocontent}} were being re-tagged with {{di-fails NFCC}} by Primefac. I have quite a number of files on my watchlist, so when I noticed a few of these changes I posted at User talk:Primefac#Non-free files related to scouting/guilding and asked about it. I then added more of the files which were tagged to my watchlist so that I could go back a take a closer look. I saw Kintetsubuffalo removing the "di" templates often with the edit sum "old tag had improperly been left on" or "appropriate text commentary added". While it's true the templates were added by a bot, the non-free concerns in many of the files were not and have not been resolved. The template instructions also say "Note that if you think the image should not be deleted, please discuss the matter with the editor who placed this template on the image. You can also place comments on the image talk page." which I assumed means that only an administrator should remove them and that Kintetsubuffalo doing so was premature. So, I re-added the templates and then began posting comments on file talk pages, such as File talk:Druze Scout Association.png#Non-free usage, File talk:Scouts Polynesiens.svg#Non-free usage in Conseil du Scoutisme polynésien, File talk:Iraq Boy Scouts and Girl Guides Council 1980s.png#Non-free usage in "Iraq Boy Scouts and Girl Guides Council" and "Rub el Hizb", File talk:Catholic Scout Association in Israel.png#Non-free usage in Arab and Druze Scouts Movement or File talk:Scouting in Saint Martin-Sint Maarten.png#Non-free usage, explaining my take on the non-free usage of the image. My intent was to get to all of the files which were tagged and post similar messages on their talk pages. In the same manner, any editor including Kintetsubuffalo could also post on a file's talk page and comment on the file's non-free usage. My understanding of the template is that the administrator who eventually reviews the file will look at the talk page for comments and then decide what to do. If re-adding the tags was inappropriate on my part, then it was a mistake made in good faith and I apologize to Kintetsubuffalo and anyone else involved. I am assuming that the administrators know to look at the talk page and decide or suggest that further discussion is needed via WP:FFD. If it's more appropriate, however, to nominate them now for FFD instead of waiting for the speedy to be resolved, then I will go back and self-revert and add {{Ffd}} instead. I just want to add that I did not remove any of the images which were tagged by Primefac, I simply re-added "di" tags which I felt were inappropriately removed. The only scouting logo I have removed today was here per WP:NFCCE because it lacked the non-free use rationale required per WP:NFCC#10c and was being used in a gallery which is typically not allowed per WP:NFG because such usage is considered to be decorative and fail WP:NFCC#8.

As for Again today, marchjuly just follows behind me and undoes all my edits without concern for their merit, or following to see where the images actually link, I think that might be in reference to this edit where I did revert Kintetsubuffalo, but only because they reverted here which actually re-added the incorrect article to the non-free use rationale and was unnecessary since Salavat had already fixed the problem here. I've tried to explain this at User talk:Kintetsubuffalo#File:Movimiento Scout Católico.svg so hopefully that particular edit is no longer an issue. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:34, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Unless you've specifically directed the admins and interested parties to look at the talk page, there is no evidence to suggest that they do indeed look at the talkpages, and I have been involved in enough of these deletions over 10 years to see that.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 05:57, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

The template clearly says "Administrators: Check the image talk page for comments before deleting this file." I am not aware of any way to specifically direct an administrator's attention to the file's talk page other than by posting on the talk page itself. If a file is deleted in error, then it's undeletion can be requested via WP:REFUND, can't it? A post may also be made on the deleting admin's user talk page asking for clarification and whether they checked the file's talk page before deleting it. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:38, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Some variant of {{Hang on}} seems to be needed here, like how {{Di-replaceable fair use}} has instructions to apply {{Di-replaceable fair use disputed}}. (Template:Hang on immediately categorizes pages it's on into CAT:CSD, so it's probably not a good idea to use it directly.)

Speaking solely for myself, though I don't usually monitor CAT:DFUI, I do do a fair amount of work in the other nonfree image deletion categories. I don't notice comments on file talk pages until after deleting their files mainly because they're essentially never relevant - out of the tens of thousands of images I deleted last year, I remember exactly one having a comment that wasn't either a Wikiproject banner or vandalism. —Cryptic 08:20, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

OK Cryptic. Is there another way to direct an admin to check the talk page before deleting the image since there seems to be no "hang on" for this situation? Can you just post something on the main file's page? For example, something like the following:

Administrators: Please check the file's talk page because comments regarding its non-free usage have been posted there.

Otherwise, I don't know how to tell an admin to look check a file's talk page any better than what the template currently says. Even if it's common practice for admins to not check file talk pages before deletion (thus making any talk page post basically pointless), there's still the "Note that if you think the image should not be deleted, please discuss the matter with the editor who placed this template on the image." Isn't that still more appropriate than simply removing the template before it has been reviewed by an admin? Once again, I only re-added the templates because I thought that they could only be removed by an admin after they had verified whether there was a problem with the file's non-free use. If anyone can remove them, then I will self-revert and nominate those files which I feel do not satisfy the NFCC for discussion at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Would that be an acceptable way to try and resolve this? -- Marchjuly (talk) 09:10, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

{{Di-replaceable fair use disputed|Please see the talk page and WP:AN#NFCC tagging by bot, and all of my changes after review being undone-request for admin oversight}} at the very top would be more likely to be seen, and I don't think anyone who wants these images deleted would object to them moving to WP:FFD; but neither of those methods are going to fulfill Kintetsubuffalo's (entirely reasonable) request for an admin who doesn't normally work in image deletion to look at these. —Cryptic 09:36, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I just re-added the same templates that were removed. Your suggestion of "di-replaceable fair use disputed" seems workable, but that's mainly used for NFCC#1 issues, isn't it? As for a non-image admin looking at files, that's fine because I only re-added the templates so that the files could be reviewed by any admin. But, that review would be because the files are tagged for speedy deletion. Even if they do not meet the conditions for speedy, that does not preclude them being nominated for discussion at FFD, does it? I mean articles which are inappropriately tagged/declined for speedy or are de-prodded can still be brought to AfD, can't they? Doesn't the same also apply to files? -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:02, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I was bold per Cryptic's above suggestion and went ahead and added {{di-replaceable fair use disputed}} to all of the file's where I re-added {{di-fails NFCC}} tags. This is hopefully acceptable to Kintetsubuffalo since it will be pretty hard for any reviewing administrator not to see the new template. I believe I got all of the files I re-tagged, but please let me know if I missed any and I will add the template asap. Or, another editor can add it if they want. I did not re-re-add a "di-fails NFCC" tag to File:Scouts du Burkina Faso.png even though I still think there are still some outstanding NFCC issues which need to be resolved. I will discuss those at WP:FFD. I will also start a discussion at WT:NFC to and ask that the wording of templates such as "di-fails NFCC" cannot be clarified a bit to avoid any confusion and also make mention of "di-replaceable fair use disputed" or a similar template for those contesting such nominations. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:39, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

MarchjulyFWIW, I appreciate your efforts to go back and add the clearer tag. We're still at cross-purposes, but that was big of you.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 04:25, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

No worries. I think we've disagreed about stuff in the past and probably will do so again about something else in the future, but I also think we are both here to try and improve Wikipedia and are acting in good faith. As I said in my above post, if I missed a file or two, or if there are other files which were tagged, then feel free to add Cryptic's suggestion to the file's page right below the "di-fails NFCC" template. The only thing you need to remember to do is to remove the "tlp|" from {{tlp|Di-replaceable fair use disputed|Please see the talk page and [[WP:AN#NFCC tagging by bot, and all of my changes after review being undone-request for admin oversight]]}} so that the template is not treated as a wikilink. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:28, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure why this tempest in a teapot can't be resolved. I support Kintetsubuffalo in his effort to fix the images and their templates. --evrik ^(talk) 03:53, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• Some time ago, users added {{Non-free Scout logo nocontent}} to file information pages, confirmin that the files violated WP:NFCC#8. The only thing which happened in 2016 was that the syntax was changed: one template saying that the files violate WP:NFCC#8 was replaced by another template saying that the same files violate WP:NFCC#8. If a file no longer violates WP:NFCC#8, or if the original template was misapplied, then I assume that the admin who evaluates the tags will remove the tag and possibly remove the file from some pages but keep it on pages where its use is appropriate.

This matter also started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#Tidying up "di-XXXX" templates for non-free use. I left a comment on that page about talk pages and templates for disputing tags. --Stefan2 (talk) 14:00, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Paul Robinson (footballer, born 1979)

Could an Admin please semi-protect Paul Robinson (footballer, born 1979), it's being targeted by vandals for some unknown reason. Thanks, JMHamo (talk) 14:45, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

 Done by Gfoley4 following a request at WP:RFPP. Jenks24 (talk) 14:58, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Ooops, I goofed!

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

---

It is a common and normal human failing to downplay one's errors. How many times does an investigative journalist turn up on the doorstep of some public figure accused of an interesting scandal (diversion of government funds to build a new wing on their mansion, sending photographs of party members to ex-lovers etc.) and the answer is "No Comment"?

We're all public figures here on Wikipedia, and our admins are a little more visible than most, I guess, being magistrates, maintenance workers, local politicians, teachers and donut-munching deputy sheriffs all in one. They fill an important role here in our community, and for the most part they do a fine and thankless job.

But every now and then, like every other human being, they screw up a little.

Twice recently, I've found an admin to have made an error. Probably an honest error: an oversight in haste, a failure to know every single line of every statement of wikiprocedure, whatever. But when the mistake is raised privately, the response has been "No comment".

I don't think that's what we should expect from admins. I think that if admins are expecting others to toe the line, comply with policy, admit to misbehaviour and face consequences, then they should accept the same in their own wikibehaviour. If they get something wrong, as every one of us does from time to time, then what's wrong with admitting it?

OK. Rant over. This example, from an admin I've never dealt with in the past, is an honest mistake, so far as I can see. I'm not looking for any blame to be laid or action to be taken. The thing's past and let's keep it there.

But the problem remains. An admin makes a mistake, responds "No Comment", and if the matter ends there, then there's a sour taste and a lack of transparency. That's not good for the community, when editors begin to doubt the powers that be, such as they are.

The incident in question is on WP:3RRN now archived here. These two editors had previous history of edit-warring, resulting in User:Dennis Bratland receiving a warning.[15]

This incident is pretty straightforward: each party reported four reverts by the other and each claimed they had only made three. The admin, User:KrakatoaKatie, blocked one editor (User:Spacecowboy420), saying:

I am sure that she believed she was correct, but she actually erred here. WP:3RR states (in part):

Bratland had made four reverts in 24 hours: three on one word, and one on another. Both parties had crossed the bright line.

SpaceCowboy420 raised this in an unblock request here and later on KrakatoaKatie's talk page here. No comment, except to say "See you in court." So, here we are.

Admin Krakatoa Katie has indicated that she will respond here. I'd like to hear what she has to say. Again, I don't think she has done anything wrong beyond being unaware of the exact wikilaw, and she acted in good faith, but there are wider implications here, and I believe that this is an appropriate forum to discuss them.

1. If an admin makes an error and polite discussion ensues over the problems this has caused, is a "No comment" response appropriate? This forces the editor to either give up in frustration, or "take it to court", which can be a daunting process for some, especially new editors.
2. If the editor is blocked, the difficulty level is higher. There is a (possibly indefinite) delay before the wronged editor can take it further, and if the admin refuses to acknowledge or engage in polite discussion on the blocked editor's talk page, then that creates more frustration with Wikipedia and its processes.

Can we do anything to help both admins and editors work through such issues in a transparent and non-judgemental fashion? --Pete (talk) 18:29, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

In retrospect, I should have blocked both editors and fully protected the page, though much good it would have done. One gets upset because another wasn't blocked, another gets upset because another was. They throw accusations of sockpuppetry around but won't take it to SPI. They're still edit warring over the word 'winningest' on Harley-Davidson XR-750, they're still sniping at each other over multiple articles about motorcycles, and they're dragging it out from my talk page to Swarm's (two separate sections) to SQL's to others, I'm sure. It's becoming a problem with each of these editors disrupting all over the encyclopedia. Topic bans may be in order, but someone else needs to do it. I have no opinion on the article content and I'm not going to take any further administrative action here. Katie^talk 18:56, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

With all due respect, Katie, I'm not concerned with your actions as an admin. I believe you acted in good faith in that incident. I'm interested in your inability to respond in polite discussion when the error was pointed out. --Pete (talk) 19:08, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

• (ec)Unblock- both editors crossed the 3RR line, so they either should both be blocked, or neither should be. As Pete says, one revert by one of the parties was disregarded for erroneous reasons. This could unfortunately give the impression of playing favourites. Reyk _YO! 18:57, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

• In such situations like this? the article should be protected. If blocks are going to be handed out? it shouldn't be to just one participant. Certaintly not 60hr blocks, for sure. GoodDay (talk) 19:02, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
  • The block was 24 hours, not 60 hours.[16].—Bagumba (talk) 20:54, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
    • Pardon me. I was speaking of Administrator Swarm's 60hr-block of Skyring. GoodDay (talk) 16:07, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
      • They are different circumstances. See the AN3 closing in Skyring (aka Pete)'s case. Suggest continuing in a different thread, if necessary.—Bagumba (talk) 21:57, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
        • Okie Doke, no prob. GoodDay (talk) 22:08, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• Lousy block, and attempts to evade valid criticism after the lousy block don't impress me. KrakatoaKatie should be sent back to admin school, if we had such a thing. Meantime I don't think she should exercise admin tools unless she is able to grasp the magnitude of her error. I don't see such understanding in her statement above. I would welcome further reflection on her actions followed by a better statement. Otherwise my respect for her judgement skills will be permanently tarnished. Realistically we do not desysop for one stupid mistake followed by avoidance. In a way that's a shame sometimes. --John (talk) 19:10, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to avoid criticism. I'm open to criticism anywhere and I try to respond as politely as I can. I think what happened on my talk page was the editors in question started talking amongst themselves and I wanted that to play out, without realizing I let it go on too long without my own input. Sorry about that to all involved. As I said above, I should have blocked both editors and protected the page. No excuse for not doing that. We've got a problem now, though, with the disruption spilling out in multiple places, and that needs to be discussed somewhere. Katie^talk 19:27, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

@John: I also don't think Katie was attempting to avoid criticism. See my comments below (or diff here)—Bagumba (talk) 20:59, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Fair points, KrakatoaKatie, and I apologise if my comment was unduly harsh. I think when I looked at it the edit I found troubling was this one. It is always better to deal promptly and openly with such requests, rather than refer them to a central venue like this one. But I accept you made an honest error and have acknowledged its seriousness. Thanks for that. I also agree there is a wider problem. --John (talk) 23:46, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

• These discussions would take far less time if Pete/Skyring would simply tell the truth. I wish I could make this brief but the facts don't allow it; we have to wast valuable time with point-by-point refutations of Skying's ludicrous howlers.

  Skyring habitually posts statements which are blatantly untrue, easily disproved by the page histories, or easily Googled reliable sources, and when you point out that he's making erroneous statements, he doubles down, and fills talk pages with long rants repeating the same unsupported claims. Fundamentally, Skyring never gets the point. At least four admins, Drmies, SQL, KrakatoaKatie, and Swarm told Skyring to drop the stick, but here he is. Can't ever drop the grudge and move on. It gets so frustrating that you are sometimes drawn into making personal attacks, like when I said "You are a ***** liar, Pete".

  Drmies pointed out that while "f***** off" is not usually considered a personal attack, calling someone a the other thing is, and so I WP:LISTENed and resolved not to keep calling Pete that and instead tell him to "f**** off" as often as necessary when he is posting more of these false claims.

  The MOS winningest debate? All about opinions that defy gravity, or verifiable, reality-based facts that force us to one conclusion. The VW emissions violation debate with me, Skyring and John? Some thing: let the sources guide us, or make up our own tone and wording with no regard for external sources. XR-750? Dodge Tomahawk? Also a basic question of whether we arbitrarily ignore what's in the sources based on ignorant opinions, or whether we follow wherever the sources lead us, like it or not.

  The falsehoods that this thread begin with are the howlers that these admins ignored Skyring's whining and said "no comment". Not true. Look, anybody can read the record. He was told, 1.) admins are not required to use their tools 2.) the target of the complaint was blocked 3.) one of the reports against Dennis Bratland (moi) was for 3 reverts, not 4, and item 4.) Skyring was blocked for edit warring after having posted in the discussion at the MOS talk page, proving he was already aware of it, and edit warred more after he was "officially" notified of the discussion he had already participated in, and edit warred again after he agreed to stop! Wow! No wonder. 5) He was told that his block was also the result of his history of 3RR blocks, harassment, Wikihounding, refusal to drop the stick and arbcom interaction bans from his obsession with getting even with others (as he is doing right now).

  Maybe Skyring doesn't like the answers he got, yet here he is, with the chutzpah to baldly accuse these admins of not explaining their decisions, of saying "no comment". The whole premise is a lie hi-fucking-lariously bullshit.

  I'm sorry I don't have every single diff of the above events, but Skyring has been disrupting Wikipedia for something like 12 years and he is very skilled, and prolific. He gets away with it partially because it's so much effort for one person to collect all the evidence, and so much work to review all of it. Look at virtually every page he has posted on in the last several weeks: the evidence proving he is making false claims is all there. It would be wrong to call him a purveyor of falsehoods for that, but who could blame you for wanting him to "f*** off" after wasting so much time learning that he never should have started this because the facts don't bear out a bit of it.

  @KrakatoaKatie: The reason I have not taken this to SPI is that I already did and the IP trail doesn't support it. I've said that whether they are the same person, or several people, intentional or accidental, the behavior shows that they are meat puppets who edit in a coordinated, tendentious way, they have admitted tracking my contribution list to find targets, and that is Wikihounding and meat puppetry. But they'll never get blocked for it unless a volunteer spends a great deal of their time researching it, and that's a thankless task. Look at the admins who are now facing blowback for trying to mitigate some of the damage caused by Skyring, Spacecowboy420, 72bikers and Zachlita. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:58, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: KrakatoaKatie erred in their interpretation of 3RR, but there's no denying the blocked editor was edit warring. Being that the editor who made the report to AN3 was also warring, alternatives such as full protection would have been better options. I don't think she's been intentionally ignoring the requests. The block was 24 hours, and the unblock request was clearly against WP:NOTTHEM, and the block expired. Looking at the related thread on her talk page, it started off as more about THEM, before others turned it into a TLDR mess over the related debate over the word winningest. Katie's suggesting a topic ban for multiple editors is not far fetched. See the chaos and voluminous text at related threads over an MOS debate on winningest, MOS debate on article tone, and the ongoing AN3 report by the OP here, Skyring, on Dennis. Skyring themselves has already been blocked over this winningest debate . The winningest participants need to WP:DROPTHESTICK.—Bagumba (talk) 20:47, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Speaking of dropping the stick, Bagumba… I've made it quite clear that this discussion isn't about any of that. I'm not criticising Krakatoa Katie for her admin actions. I believe she acted in good faith. It's the consequent question about admins withdrawing themselves from polite discussion, even when they have made an honest error. If you want to bring up other matters, perhaps another forum? Or well, take your own advice and drop the stick? Please. --Pete (talk) 20:56, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
    • You are more than welcome to present the date of my last edit related to winningest in comparison it to yours. Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 21:12, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
      • "Gaslighting" is the specific term for the type of harassment Skyring is doing to you and the rest of us here.Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:24, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

• Was anyone checking out what Skyring was posting at the exact time he was here projecting his own inability to drop the stick onto Bagumba? He's over at Talk:Harley-Davidson XR-750 pestering me to keep debating him about Winningest! Less than 1 hour after that, he's back here skeevishly trying to take the high road on dropping the stick. But wait it gets better: I said to him: "It's WP:WABBITSEASON, bud. I just can't do this with you any more". And does he finally stop debating winningest? Of course not, he goes on hectoring me: "Just out of curiosity..."!!! This is gaslighting, it's provoking more pointless, lame discussion then attacking others for beating the same dead horse. Swarm specifically told Skyring it was these kinds of two-faced broken promises that bought him a 60 hour block. Back on January 14, Drmies warned Skyring: "Dennis Bratland may be wrong in all kinds of ways, I don't know, but hounding is still a policy violation. I really, really, hope that you two can leave each other alone." And, of course, Skyring made another false promise "Thanks for the advice. I'll do more watching and less helping."
• The other boomerang Skyring has coming his way? Forum shopping. He's said he's not here to get any one de-sysoped, and not here to criticize any admins. Why the hell is he here now? Same old same old: to get Dennis Bratland. He wanted to get me blocked, twice, at AN/I, and didn't get the outcome he wanted. He asked to get me blocked twice at 3RR/N, and didn't get the outcome he wanted. He took it to 3 (or was it 4?) different admin's talk pages, and didn't get the outcome he wanted. So now? Here he is, at AN, posting false assertions and disingenuous canards hiding his real purpose: trying again, in yet another forum, to get Dennis Bratland blocked. If he doesn't get the block he's after today, is he going to be allowed to keep coming at me in yet more forums until he gets the revenge he seeks? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:50, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Pete, Katie and all concerned. The block was short, I was curious if it was a result of an error, or just me deserving a block. I was also curious as to why other parties were lucky enough to avoid a block. Those questions have been answered. I stand by my comments that Dennis was in violation of 3RR and should have been blocked, but for a stale violation that wouldn't seem to help much. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 07:04, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Not trying to pile on here as this subject matter has nothing to do with me. But really do not appreciate my name once again brought up about sock and meat thing. Dennis you openly stated that the IP trail doesn't support it. So there is no evidence to support it yet you continuously make these false unsupported accusations. Then repeatedly go on too attack other editors of making false or unsupported claims. Not sure if you are aware that is a bit of a contradiction as well this claim. they have admitted tracking my contribution list to find targets I have never done this or made that statement and I could be wrong but not aware of others making that statement either. Or am I aware of some conspiracy out to get you as you have repeatedly stated verging on sounding like paranoia. But you have openly admitted this. When someone has brought scrutiny upon themselves for disruptive editing, whether Wikihounding, as in your case, or forum shopping, in Skyring's case, it's necessary to track their contributions. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 06:57, 12 January 2016 (UTC) And that was proven by him posting on my talk page just moments after another editor he deems disruptive that he follows around. Even when asked politely to stay off my talk page with harassing messages. Dennis you are aware the admin has stated she made a mistake in not blocking you. Because I see no remorse no apology no humility nothing just more attacks more incivility. And you have gone on to the very same misconduct of the 3rr rule. Having not been reprimanded on your misconduct has just seem to emboldened you. And maybe you feel like the rules don't imply to you. Because it has made you a bear to deal with when a editor does not share your views. None of this gives me any pleasure to say. And as I live a very active life I have limited time to come here and edit. But instead editing I find myself either defending myself or in some drawn out debate over what should just really be a trivial matter. 72bikers (talk) 08:42, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

This statement by Dennis sums up how much respect he has for Wikipedia and the attitude in which he interacts with others: " instead tell him to "f**** off" as often as necessary" while it might not be a personal insult as per certain guidelines, it shows a total lack of respect for his fellow editor and a very aggressive, confrontational and provocative attitude. How this attitude can be seen as compatible with a group project like Wikipedia is beyond me. I see no reason why Dennis should be allowed to continue editing, especially when he sees nothing wrong with acting like this towards fellow editors. Indef block please. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 09:08, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

IP evidence is not definitive proof of socking or not socking. The above comments are yet more evidence that these guys follow each other around, yapping at each other's heels "me too! me too!" It doesn't matter if they are intentionally acting as meat puppets, or if it is entirely accidental that they ignore Wikihounding policy, click on my contributions list, and then each, individually, without coordination, choose to hound me and all agree to oppose me. The point of WP:DUCK, which Spacecowboy420 and 72bikers have proven once again, is that the behavior is the problem, regardless of what caused the behavior. The behavior is Wikihounding and meat puppetry. I've posted many diffs showing they track me, and they have admitted the click on conbribs for that purpose. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:13, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Rehashing the edit-war and block is pointless, IMHO. What's done is done. The problem as I see it is that if an admin is unable to engage in polite discussion with the person they have just blocked, where an error has been made, they are unable to respond effectively to correct the problem. If the blocking admin has been called away from Wikipedia for some reason (travel, illness, parturition, drunkenness, whatever) or feels that they haven't made a mistake at all, or just doesn't want to admit it, then there is perceived injustice.

When unblocked, there is the chance to discuss with the blocking admin, but again, if the admin is unable or unwilling to respond to a polite request, the next option seems to be here or WP:ANI

I'm not saying this is the case here, but some admins (being naturally human) are inclined to take shortcuts, and "No Comment" is certainly an easy option to take, especially if one feels that errors are things made by others. --Pete (talk) 15:55, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

"Collapse digression"? You mean the part about the WP:BOOMERANG that you've earned? I don't think so, bud. I can see why you'd want to suppress any thought of that, but you're the guy who jumped from one venue to another to another bleating "Dennis Bratland! Dennis Bratland!" It is a fact that you are gaslighting, hounding, and that you are pushing a vendetta, and forum shopping to get your way. Don't try to censor it. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:17, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Collapsing of comments: "Collapse digression" refers to Pete's edit summary when they attempted to collapse a large set of comments here at 15:55, 27 January (UTC), which included remarks concerning them. While WP:TPG allows an editor to be bold when they believe a discussion has gone off-topic, the guideline clearly states: "Your idea of what is off topic may be at variance with what others think is off topic; be sure to err on the side of caution." It's clearly not productive to edit war on what is "off topic", as they did again in another attempt to collapse the same comments at 16:41, 27 January. Please leave it to an uninvolved editor at this point. Personally, I think WP:BOOMERANG is fair to discuss. The accused, Katie, opined that "Topic bans may be in order", while John stated "I also agree there is a wider problem".—Bagumba (talk) 21:49, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Stray observation: Skyring grumbled but moved along when apparently male admins SQL, Drmies, and Swarm told him to drop the stick. But when an apparently female admin, KrakatoaKatie, ignored him, it seemed to inflame his sense of male entitlement, and precipitate this bizarre attempt at public shaming. Far fetched? I don't know. Is Skyring gaslighting? Is he as obsessed with me as Captain Ahab? Is he being so two-faced that it almost seems like a put on, like performance art? Maybe. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:55, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• And now the gaslighting and beating a dead horse goes one and on. After four days, Skyring doesn't get the block he wanted at 3RR/N, after canvassing all sorts of talk pages, and forum shopping it to this noticeboard. So today, he floats the frankly batshit insane proposal for an indef (!) block for my 3 (not 4) reverts last week is that today I made two reverts. Where? Right here!

  "Discussion – polite discussion, as opposed to ranting at others – is far more productive" he says. So he comes here and I gave him the discussion he value so much, but it doesn't go the way he likes, so he tries to squelch it. I object -- Don't collapse my comments, bro! And what does Skyring do? He reverts! After edit warring over refactoring other people's comments, he heads else where to sniff, "edit-warring is wrong"!?! Edit warring is wrong, Skyring? How many times have you edit warred today? Well, here obviously. Fine, whatever. Where else?

  Here you reinstated your own personal attack on Miesianiacal (talk · contribs), where Skyring hits him for "a long history of severe violations of Wikipedia rules" Skyring? WP:POT much? Who has a longer history of violating WP rules? Longer than any of us? You, bud. Skyring calls Miesianiacal's good faith edits "vandalism", (that's the civil way to reach consensus, right?). Calls his ideas "odd" and calls him "often wildly out of touch with personalities and issues here." Which, even if true, is using WP:EXPERTISE to WP:OWN a topic and discourage participation and input. Who was it who said "Discussion – polite discussion, as opposed to ranting at others – is far more productive"? Uh, Skyring said it.

  So, If I should be "indef blocked" for two reverts today, shouldn't Skyring be indefed for his 3 reverts today? The day before today the guy who said "edit warring is wrong!" reverted twice.

  The common denominator behind all this drama is Skyring. He's obsessed chasing his white whale and has lost all perspective. He's had blocks and interaction bans before for exactly the same harassment. At the minimum, Skyring needs an interaction ban to stay the hell away from me. And if you really want the disruption to end, tell 72bikers, Zachlita, and Spacecowboy420 to leave me the hell alone too. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:44, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

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

FPAS case request

A motion has been enacted in lieu of a full case. For the Arbitration Committee, Miniapolis 18:13, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Future Perfect at Sunrise case request

Restoring warnings

Hello, I wanted to advise you that user:BobKawanaka keeps restoring warnings on the talk page of user:166.173.251.120 after I told him that he needs to stop because user:166.173.251.120 unfortunately has the right to delete warnings on his own talk page. I do not know how to handle this one, so I need an administrator to make the final judgment. CLCStudent (talk) 15:53, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

That being said this looks like another one of the IP's that the 166.X troll uses (who has been banned). RickinBaltimore (talk) 16:17, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

His | edit summaries don't look very promising. I'm thinking a block would be good. KoshVorlon 16:29, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• The IP has been blocked as a vandal, so that part's done. As to the warnings, CLC is correct, any user may remove almost anything from their talk page, and warring over it is not a good use of anyone's time. Hopefully that's all that needs to be said about it. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:34, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

"being ineducable"

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

---

Note: This section was mistakenly placed here by me when it should have been located at WP:AN/I. The discussion as far as 05:59, 28 January 2016 has been moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#"being ineducable". My apologies. --₪ MIESIANIACAL 06:48, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

@Miesianiacal and LilaTretikov: the term ineducable refers to mental disability. Unless you publicly disclaim this assertion with respect to me throughout Wikipedia, all rights are reserved. M Mabelina (talk) 07:04, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

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

Bullying of Female editor by Shootingstar88

I am a female editor and a female human. I have been personally attacked by editor Shootingstar88 accusing me of not being a female?? The gender biased personal attack on me is here. [17]. I retaliated to some degree on my talk page, but would never attack another editor in this way. I did believe that Wikipedia is trying to encourage female editors to participate, but this type of attack doesn't help that cause!!Charlotte135 (talk) 00:42, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I am happy to prove my gender to any editor too. How can I do this please?Charlotte135 (talk) 00:43, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I couldn't figure out why it would matter to Shootingstar88 whether you were male or female, but after reading the diff you provided, I see that you have somewhat misrepresented what they said. The nub of their claim was not that you weren't female per se, but that you are a men's rights activist masquerading as a female in order to push a men's rights POV on articles about women, and not get negative feedback for it. That's really quite different from what you reported here. Shootingstar88 is essentially claiming that you are not editing from a neutral point of view and are hiding your bias and philosophical conflict of interest bu pretending to be something you're not. So proving that you are female (which I'm not sure you can do - although someone from the WP:OTRS team can correct me on that if I'm wrong) doesn't really solve the perceived problem of bias and lack of neutrality. I would say you need to address that question, and not the other - and Shootingstar88 actually has some good advice for your there:

When I came here, I had trouble with the other editors too. But I discussed the issues and got over it, because in the end if you cite good studies that reflect the majority consensus in scientific literature then no one can revert your edits. Good research means you have to read a lot of scholarly reviews or replicated primary studies from pubmed or sciencedirect.

I think you should consider that. BMK (talk) 04:03, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi. I am specifically talking about me being accused falsely of not being a female and extreme gender bias!! Wikipedia talk of how many men are editors compared with women and I am accused of not being female. This is extreme sexism. So, who is the WP:OTRS team? I am desperate now to prove my gender!! Why the hell should i have to though is the point. And here you are Beyond My Ken dismissing this personal attack. What type of sexist culture exists here??? Charlotte135 (talk) 04:11, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

You are supposed to notify Shootingstar88 of this thread so that they may participate in the discussion.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 04:39, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I haven't looked into the underlying dispute at all, but that remark is definitely inappropriate on Shootingstar88's part. For the record, Wikipedia:Harassment is a policy (so are Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:Non-discrimination policy, but we'll leave those aside for the moment...). You don't need to prove anything about your identity. Nor could you, because gender identity is self-determined; we have to take your word for it by the very definition. — Earwig ^talk 04:44, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

So, this was stated by Shootingstar88 four days ago and you followed with attacks against them and Flyer22 Reborn. What is this? Is this some kind of tactic? You seem to launch your own attacks (edit summary - "Leave me alone Flyer22 and shootingstar you are just cheap, nasty bullies.") But now you show up four days after and wanting something here? It is called a boomerang. Your heat-to-light ratio isn't looking good so far.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 05:30, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Comment: Anyone wanting to know why I, Shootingstar88 or others feel the way we do about Charlotte135 can see this topic ban discussion. They can also see this and this section at Shootingstar88's talk page. And, yes, Charlotte135 commonly misrepresents people's comments, views and behavior. And even if one were to prove that Charlotte135 is female/a woman, it doesn't negate the disruptive editing and POV-pushing that Charlotte135 engages in when it comes to gender topics. Furthermore, as noted by me, Montanabw and CFCF, Charlotte135 was WP:Hounding Shootingstar88. I stated the following to Charlotte135 at Shootingstar88's talk page: "You saw Shootingstar88 editing domestic violence articles, and you even complained about Shootingstar88 editing the Intimate partner violence article. You stated, "Disturbingly though, while this witch hunt goes on and on, much to the pleasure of Flyer22reborn and her colleagues, editors are quietly continuing to quickly delete significant sections of the intimate partner violence section, basically in an attempt to convey to readers that men are the only perpetrators of IPV and women the victims. As anyone here can obviously see that is just not what the science says! Is this what Wikipedia represents? I'm a woman, but I'm also a scientist, and it is clear that the frantic additions to support a topic ban above, is about this censorship and agenda on Wikipedia and it appears.'" Charlotte135 has denied stalking Shootingstar88, even though the evidence is clear. Charlotte135 plays the victim when called out on violating Wikipedia's rules, and then asserts that Montanabw, CFCF and Gandydancer are a part of a gang (are my gang) intent on making things difficult (for Charlotte135). Quite frankly, I'd rather never interact with Charlotte135 again in my lifetime; that is how frustrating an editor Charlotte135 is. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:58, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

The reason I posted here is that I am a woman!!! And I am more than willing to prove it. I thought Wikipedia encourages women to join Wikipedia. Flyer22reborn you keep bringing up my editing at the domestic violence article because I dared, as a scientist to stumble across the article and saw extreme bias of you and a few editors However I've moved forward. How would you like your very long history of blocks and sockpuppetry between you and your brother in your parent's place every time you try to edit an article??? I just want the accusations that I am not a woman to stop! Full stop. I have periods each month, I have breasts and a vagina, but still I get accused of being part of some mensrights group and that I am a man. I want it to stop. That's it. Nothing more. No tactics. No bullshit, just stop the gender bias.Charlotte135 (talk) 08:14, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Here is another example of shootringstar88 and flyerreborn accusing me of not being a woman. [18] I'm just sick of it and want it to stop. I am not a man and I am not a bloody mensrightsactivist!! Show some respect! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charlotte135 (talk • contribs) 08:24, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Here is what another uninvolved editor who noticed the bullying going on, wrote to Shootingstar88. Shootingstar88. I have never met Charlotte135 but I have no reason to believe that she is a man masquerading as a woman. I am in favour of having more women contribute to Wikipedia. Does that make me a woman masquerading as a man? Biscuittin (talk) 00:09, 25 January 2016 (UTC) I very much appreciated them standing up for me.Charlotte135 (talk) 08:29, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I think there are two things to look at here:

The first of them of them is the pov-pushing Charlotte 135 has been accused of, and Charlotte 135 has accused others of, to look if it is really POV-pushing or not.(on both sides, ofc).

The second of them are personal attacks on Charlotte 135 regarding gender... and the follow up incivilites by all involved editors.

I'll split it up in two sections.--Müdigkeit (talk) 09:04, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Charlotte135, you asked, "How would [I] like [my] very long history of blocks and sockpuppetry between [me] and[ my] brother in [my] parent's place every time [I] try to edit an article???" I'd respond the way I've already responded to you on the matter; Alison saw that comment, by the way, judging by her thanks via WP:Echo. I already told you that if you have doubts about my innocence with regard to sockpuppetry, ask her. Otherwise, you just look desperate every time you try to mention my block log, which includes clear edit summaries about unjustified blocks and one block to protect my account when it had become WP:Compromised. I don't have a long history of blocks. Why don't you actually count them? You can keep misrepresenting my block log and trying to divert the attention from your bad behavior as much as you want to, but it will not work. Now do stop obsessing over me. And, oh, I wasn't living with my parents. My teenage brother was living with me. I'll go back to ignoring you now. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:28, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

No, I was just sick of you and others trying to drag me back into the domestic violence article. I've walked. But you and Shootingstar won't let me go. Here you and Shootingstar actually posted a separate section on domestic violence on another article's talk page. Then you Flyer22 went ahead and deleted it from the record! Here is the entire conversation [19]

Why do you and shootingstar keep dragging up the bloody domestic violence article. It is an extremely biased article which is filled with POV, but I don't care. I've walked and got on with editing. Nonetheless I'm a big girl and promise not to bring your sockpuppetry and history of blocks up again, albeit in reaction to your constant attempts to continue beating a dead horse. Just stop the accusations over my gender and your mensrights crud. Please!Charlotte135 (talk) 10:45, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Personal attacks and incivility

This is clearly inappropiate. Don't speculate on any editors gender. Accusing someone of representing a wrong gender based on their views is unacceptable. User:Shootingstar88 please tell us why you did that. And please promise not to do it again. An apology would be good as well.

This is already a very angry post...

and no matter how someone attacks you personally, you must not tell anyone to grow up, User:Charlotte135. Editors at Wikipedia are asked to respond to personal attacks with civility. Not with other personal attacks, which just puts oil into the fire and makes the situation difficult to resolve(and can lead to sanctions against you as well!).--Müdigkeit (talk) 09:04, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Müdigkeit, that sounds fair. I'm a big girl and accept that my reaction to these comments was not ideal. I have read the policy you pointed out too. I apologise for my reaction.Charlotte135 (talk) 10:49, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

'Totally agree Müdigkeit, speculation on who someone is, which is what shootingstar88 did (not just gender, but in particular who they are ) is edging very close to outing, I'd request that edit ( the first one you mention) be revdel'd and ShootingStar88 needs to back off Charlotte135 unless proof of his accusation (through the appropriate channels on Wikipedia) can be offered. KoshVorlon 11:53, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Well the thing is, Charlotte clearly *is* an MRA (directly or indirectly) from perusing their editing history. While it is statistically unlikely such a person is female, there are highly active male feminists, so I wouldnt concentrate on their gender. Just focus on their POV-pushing. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:09, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Is that an attempt at a joke at my expense Only in death? And what exactly is "an MRA" by the way? And what is a female MRA? I actually do identify as a feminist, by the way, as did my mother, but what the hell has that got to do with anything either?? What business is it of yours?? How is this gender bias, gender attacks and extreme incivility tolerated by administrators?Charlotte135 (talk) 17:48, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't think User:Only in death is making a joke. “MRA” is an abbreviation for "Mens’ Rights Activist," a movement with which you would appear to hold some sympathy. The overwhelming majority of Mens’ Rights Activists are men, but of course women might support that movement just as many men support feminism. There's no bias in that observation, no attack, and no incivility that I can see. MarkBernstein (talk) 18:48, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Disruptive RFC needs closing

An excavator driven by a climate change denier, still digging industriously.

Biscuittin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is apparently unhappy with the tone of the article on Climate change denial (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), because he thinks we do not give enough weight to the denialist viewpoint. This has resulted in a long series of conversations at various venues, which have as usual supported the scientific consensus view. Since Biscuittin seems unwilling to accept the answer no, I proposed that he take one of two courses: walk away, or start, and abide by the outcome of, an RFC. Sadly his attempt at an RFC is simply to rehash the same nonspecific and unactionable WP:IDONTLIKEIT. See Talk:Climate change denial § RfC: This article is unencyclopedic and does not comply with NPOV. I think this RFC needs closing as obviously unactionable and Biscuittin needs counselling on how to start an RFC that can actually yield any kind of result. Either than or the whole thing needs to go to WP:AE, since people are losing patience with the constant demands to be "fair" to climate change denialists. 10:24, 28 January 2016 (UTC)Guy (Help!)

Addendum: some bizarre choices of location for canvassing.

WikiProject meteorology, arguably valid

WikiProject earth science, arguably valid

WikiProject cosmology, WTF?

WikiProject solar system ditto

WikiProject physics srsly? And twice?

WikiProject chemistry also twice

WikiProject plants also [20] twice

WikiProject animals

WikiProject geology

WikiProject soil.

I think this looks like disruption and a case of WP:RGW. Guy (Help!) 10:36, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I have changed the RfC heading to Talk:Climate_change_denial#RfC:_Is_this_article_encyclopedic_and_does_it_comply_with_NPOV? and struck out part of the RfC to accommodate objections from other editors. I have not been canvassing, I have just followed the advice at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment#Publicizing_an_RfC. I have posted news of the RfC on several Wikiproject science talk pages because I want to get comments from a broad range of editors with an interest in science. So far, the same small group of people have been making the same assertions over and over again so it would be useful to have a wider range of contributors and this is the reason for the RfC. Any disruption has not been caused by me but by a small group of editors who want to maintain the article as it is, in spite of its unencyclopedic tone and failure to comply with WP:NPOV. Biscuittin (talk) 11:08, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Two editors appear to be trying to prevent me from publicising this RfC. [21] [22] Biscuittin (talk) 13:49, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Agree with Guy. And this isn't the first waste-of-time from this editor. This is within the area of climate change; what about some sanctions? William M. Connolley (talk) 14:05, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I should point out that it was Guy who suggested that I start an RfC. [23] Biscuittin (talk) 14:32, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Is this a trap? Suggest I start an RfC and then sanction me for following the suggestion? Biscuittin (talk) 14:35, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

No, it's not a trap, but you treated it as if it was: rampant canvassing in completely inappropriate venues for an RFC that is of no use whatsoever other than as a venue for you to continue making vague and nonspecific demands to change the article because reasons. RFCs are supposed to be specific and actionable. The only likely action from yours is a trip to WP:AE. Guy (Help!) 15:42, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

@William M. Connolley: The user was alerted in December. If you believe sanctions under ARBCOMCC should be applied, WP:AE is the appropriate venue. --Izno (talk) 15:57, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Martin Hogbin

Martin Hogbin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log).

The user consistently makes disruptive edits and his contribution to Wikipedia on the talk pages of the applicable articles is normally nothing constructive but him unreasonably claiming everything is too promotional. If you search for the word "promotional" within his edits, you'll see a large amount of those cases. One of the last incidents involved him trying to completely remove the occupations of those on the list of vegans, where his actions had already led to a large portion of the useful information being removed, such as the band names for musicians that aren't known for their solo work.
He has been warned yet continued to make numerous disruptive edits ([24][25][26]). Not only that, but he appears to be extremely biased when it comes to editing articles about animal rights and such, which falls under the definition of "Bias-based" from WP:COMPETENCE. An admin already put a link to that page on Martin's talk page. --Rose (talk) 04:39, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Even after I started this discussion and Martin was made aware of it, he continued being disruptive and made an edit asking to "find [him] some reliable sources" to support the commodity status of animals. As Sammy mentions below, this subject was discussed at length and put to rest back in June-July and Martin was among the people involved; as SarahSV summarized back then: "Martin, you've been offered sources, from the United Nations to commodity markets to academic sources, including several in the article. The onus is on you now to provide sources to support what you're saying.". The bottom line is that this is exactly the pattern of his behavior that almost everyone talked about below. --Rose (talk) 16:25, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

• Nothing actionable here My interactions with Martin may be found primarily at Talk:Carnism (where I was usually agreeing with him) and Talk:Veganism (where I sometimes was). He is not exceptionally good at building consensus in controversial areas, but I don't think there's any fair case to be made that he edits in bad faith. He is consistently civil, even when others are less so (e.g. User talk:Martin Hogbin#Final warning). His contributions are almost always from the same POV, "disagreeing with editors who are promoting a green political agenda" [27], but they are generally reasonable. He has a tendency to spend a lot of time on frustratingly subjective points (are livestock "commodities"?, etc), but that's no grounds for admin action.

Do I think it would usually be easier to reach consensus without his input? Regrettably, yes. Does that imply the articles would be better without him? Not at all. FourViolas (talk) 06:25, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that at one point he expressed the view that there should be no positive information about veganism in that article. That was the definition of neutrality to him. Just because some of his (reverted) edits lead to people paying more attention to some sentences doesn't mean that he's the reason it happens. It's just like some inexperienced vandal putting insults on a page about someone, another user reverting those yet noticing some other issues while doing so and making changes to improve the article. Should we thank the vandal for that and take no action? I don't think so. The problem with Martin is even worse as he's not new here so he deliberately makes those disruptive edits and starts practically pointless conversations repeating the same words ("too promotional") over and over again for months if not years now. --Rose (talk) 06:37, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Also, to add to the above and respond to you saying "He has a tendency to spend a lot of time on frustratingly subjective points, but that's no grounds for admin action."; I disagree with that. His behavior forces other editors to dedicate a lot of their time just to try to make a case to him because otherwise he would (as the past has shown) make the same kind of unacceptable edits that would have to stay in the article. After days of multiple users proving something to him, as it was in the discussion about whether animals are treated as commodities, he may lay low but then he comes back and brings up the same subjects. This is the very definition of disruptive editing. --Rose (talk) 07:01, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

• Unfortunately I think FourViolas, as usual, is exceptionally patient. Martin has a long history of strong views on green topics broadly construed, dating back years (see e.g. his global warming skepticism [28],[29],[30]) and several editors have mentioned his disruption on articles such as BP. He argues at tremendous length and frequently raises the same issue over and over. Notably, I have almost never seen him support his views with sources of any kind. To mention just one recent example pertinent to veganism, he attempted to present the fact that animals are commodities as a "vegan opinion" here, and then argued this at length at Talk:Veganism/Archive_10#Commodity_status_of_animals. Despite being offered high quality non-vegan sources showing that animals are regarded as commodities, including with the specific phrase "commodity status" which he insisted on, he maintained that there was something implicit in "commodity" which implied that animals are mistreated, or treated exactly the same as inanimate objects. As always, he never provided a source for the idea that the word has this connotation, or that this was intended. When an editor arrived who wanted the UK-based Vegan Society's definition, "the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals", to be given priority in the lede, Martin endorsed this - blatantly contradicting his view that the lede should not contain vegan "opinions" as noted by SlimVirgin. He then suggested several sources which he presumably knew could not be used - several primary sources from other vegan societies [31] and a couple dictionary definitions [32] including a disparaging joke from Urban Dictionary. This is literally the only time I have ever witnessed him cite a reference for anything. And this is just one of many episodes - generally speaking, he argues at tremendous length without familiarizing himself with the topic or supporting his views. As in this comment where (in the course of dredging up another discussion which had gone on ad nauseam) he suggests that other editors "could find (an RS) somewhere to support what (my acquaintances) say", he does not seriously engage with the project, and makes never-ending demands on other editors' time. --Sammy1339 (talk) 07:30, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment There isn't a competence or civility issue IMO. My interactions with Martin Hogbin are limited to articles involving veganism and I do not regard him as having a destructive influence on these articles, even in cases where I disagree with him (and there have been several occasions over the last couple of years). In regards to him removing the occupations from the image captions at List of vegans I actually disagreed with this action but I found it well-intentioned and he did not edit-war when challenged. Animal rights are an emotive issue at the best of times and there will always be regular disputes on these articles. I would be more concerned if these articles were exclusively edited by editors all of the same mindset. The example raised above about "whether animals are treated as commodities" is a good example of this: some editors—I being one of them—expressed some concerns about what we felt was "broad" language used to define "Veganism" in the lead of the article. Some editors may have disagreed with those concerns, or even consider then unfounded—and it's perfectly fine to adopt a different position in a debate—but ultimately disagreement is not disruption. Betty Logan (talk) 07:38, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

It's perfectly fine for sure but this isn't about him simply disagreeing with some editors. Pretty much all the editors that have made comments in the Final warning section on his page have different views within the so-called "green" subjects but currently nobody's trying to say they take it over the top and act in a manner that is very disruptive. --Rose (talk) 07:51, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

• The problems are long-term and wide-ranging, not only to do with environmental issues. Martin arrives at articles about which he has strong views but no knowledge, and proceeds to equate his personal opinions with NPOV. He often appears not to have read the key sources even when someone else has typed up what they say; or he misinterprets them or suggests inappropriate sources and edits; and he misunderstands policy. This continues for months or even years. It stymies article development because editors spend so much time dealing with it, and people become unwilling to develop the article because new material will give him more ammunition.
  For an example, see Talk:Battle of Britain, where in June 2015 Martin wants to add some counterfactual history, [33] having already suggested it at great length in 2014. [34] See Trekphiler's responses, e.g. "More to the point, this has been already (fairly exhaustively) hashed out, yet Martin Hogbin refuses to let it die," and "Have you just ignored everything I've written on this subject?" and "the dead horse comes to life again." Those exchanges illustrate the problem well (WP:TENDENTIOUS, particularly WP:REHASH). Pinging Binksternet and Coretheapple, who I believe have also encountered it. SarahSV ^(talk) 08:26, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
• My own interactions with Martin Hogbin have been limited to the Battle of Britain page. I can't say if it rises to the level of disruptive, but I sense a strong strain of refusal to acknowledge views other than his own. I'm not immune to strong views, nor really inclined to change them, so I appreciate it's not exactly easy; I get the sense it approaches willful ignorance, a "don't confuse me with evidence" attitude. That said, I should say I've seen his edits on other pages, & they don't seem contentious or controversial; it may be this only arises with "pet projects". That may be trouble enough... TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 19:10, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

• Immediate action needed. I sincerely appreciate the opinion of FourViolas up above. Since he has rarely encountered Mr. Hogbin, I suspect his opinion is typical for those not familiar with the long-term problem. However, for those of us who are aware of this problem, particularly editors who focus on content building like SlimVirgin, it is frustrating that Mr. Hogbin has spent 57% of his contributions,[35] the majority of his long Wikipedia career, using talk pages to push unusual, often contradictory POV that keeps editors running around in circles wasting time. It is difficult to determine if he is consciously doing this on purpose or if there is something else at work. Although I have encountered him in many places, it was my experience with him on March Against Monsanto (especially on the talk page, likely archived now) that led me to believe we have a serious problem. I would like to first propose limits on his talk page interaction. For example, "Martin Hogbin is limited to one talk page comment per day per article." That would go a long way towards mitigating the immediate issue. Viriditas (talk) 19:26, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

• Just saw the ping. I agree with Viriditas above in all respects, based upon experiences at Talk:BP. Coretheapple (talk) 14:38, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

• I worked with Martin on the BP article. He seems like a very nice person but as an editor he was the type that constantly made me feel like I wanted to tear my hair out. Same issues as discussed above. Gandydancer (talk) 16:37, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I hope you still have some hair left Gandydancer. We have to accept that people may have fundamentally different opinions on a subject. The way to deal with that in WP is by civil discussion. I can assure you that I understand how frustrating it can be when someone else does not seem to understand what is perfectly obvious to you but there is never any need to resort to personal attacks, insults, or threats like some editors (not you) are doing here. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:11, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Martin, the problem isn't that you have an opinion. The problem is that you are engaging in explicit civil POV pushing and ignoring talk page discussion by keeping a discussion open in perpetuity and constantly changing the framework of the discussion to allow it to continue indefinitely until you get your way. Viriditas (talk) 19:47, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

• I haven't seen diffs of bad behavior on talk pages. I also don't understand people's wishes to limit other's participation on talk page of all the places. In addition I also don't understand accusations of POV pushing because whenever someone accuses of that I guarantee you they push their own POV all the time. --Mr. Magoo and McBarker (talk) 14:47, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

• I've encountered Martin Hogbin in a few places covering topics such as probability, mathematical physics, Midway, and a third opinion response. He devotes a lot of energy to his positions, but that can be good or bad. I agree with some of his positions, disagree with some others, and am out of my depth in still others. I don't see anything outrageous in the diffs above, and the talk page dialog does not appear disruptive. He can be pointed, intense, and demanding, but it takes two to tango on a talk page. If someone responds to Martin, then he will respond. If the other person stops responding, then Martin will stop responding. It might be annoying, but trying to revisit a topic 6 months later does not seem outrageous. Martin can be difficult and he can be wrong, but I don't see the behavior here being actionable. Glrx (talk) 04:02, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• Many months ago, I interacted with Martin Hogbin, around British articles. I found him to be quite pleasant & easy to collaborate with. GoodDay (talk) 16:17, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Comments from Martin Hogbin

I am involved in a content dispute in the Veganism article with the editors who are making this unpleaseant personal attack on me. Unlike some here, who have resorted to persistent personal attacks, my contibutions there have conformed to the normal standards of discussion and will continue to do so. Through civil discussion we are now beginning to make some progress on that page. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:25, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

The section where you said "now we seem to be working better together" and that you're now referring to didn't even involve any contributions by you. The only comment you made there was irrelevant and didn't lead to any progress in that regard whatsoever. --Rose (talk) 09:41, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I noticed that. It actually begged the suggestion that people were working better together because of your your lack of participation, rather than in spite of it... _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 19:12, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I support the suggestion to begin with restricting/curtailing Martin Hogbin's article talk page privileges. It appears he has good intentions but his behavior is disruptive to the project. IjonTichy (talk) 04:20, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

This now seems to have turned into a vendetta against me by every user that I have ever disgreed with. My editing and talk page comments are based on the fundamental principles that: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view, editors should treat each other with respect and civility, and that what we write in article should be supported by reliable sources rather than an expression of our personal opinions. I believe that disputes are better resolved by civil discussion than by edit warring, threats or personal attacks. That is what I am doing and it is what will continue to do. We either stick to the original principles of Wikipedia or we give in to mob rule. Martin Hogbin (talk) 23:38, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

On the other hand, you have repeatedly and quite openly expressed a POV bordering on an agenda, and you've repeatedly misused the article talk page to push your agenda. By limiting your participation on article talk pages to one comment a day, we can begin to restore normalcy and consensus building. Viriditas (talk) 01:29, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

"There has been considerable support for this article being a lipogram, not just from JJB. I think you should assume some good faith on his part. Just that he wants one thing and you want another is not a fair fair reason to assume bad faith on hos part. So, why should this article not be a lipogram? Martin Hogbin (talk) 19:32, 1 October 2010 (UTC) ". You kids are adorbs.Dan Murphy (talk) 04:56, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• De-archived January 28. Martin Hogbin continues to be a disruptive presence. He comports himself in an overtly polite manner while manipulating the system to disruptively push his idiosyncratic points of view, which have ranged from climate change skepticism to counterfactual history to the opinion alluded to by Dan Murphy above - I didn't know the half of it. In present case of veganism, where for the past six months he has been pushing the idea that calling animals "commodities" is rhetoric - in defiance of all sources - he refuses to drop the stick. He has been soapboxing about the issue on other pages, for example here and here, in the hope of persuading other editors to support him in the ongoing RfC. Notice how in the second diff he even discourages the other editor from taking the issue to the appropriate talk page. He also abusively AfD'd commodity status of animals, offering nothing that approaches a valid deletion reason. And he has now gone back to fighting over a related issue with the lede sentence which was raised and resolved six months ago:[36]. Individually, his actions may seem minor or harmless - collectively, they form a campaign. Too many editors have sunk too much time into dealing with this. --Sammy1339 (talk) 15:45, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

• I want to clarify that when I write "manipulating the system" I am referring to his way of using multiple fora over the long term, avoiding overt rule-breaking behavior, and appealing to others who may be sympathetic because they don't know the context of the problem. There is an essay on this: WP:Civil POV pushing. --Sammy1339 (talk) 16:35, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I am in the same position as Martin Hogbin. I am constantly being accused of POV-pushing by people who want to push their own POV. Biscuittin (talk) 17:05, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

• comment/request@User talk:Sammy1339 Sammy, please can I respectfully suggest that you drop the references to other editors being "overly polite" or WP:Civil POV pushing. I am also on the receiving end of such name calling (not from you, of course) and it is really unpleasant and inflammatory. When has it ever been a crime to remain civil? Please take this message in the way it is intended.DrChrissy ^(talk) 17:33, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

@DrChrissy: I can understand how this essay can be misused, and that is probably why it is not policy. From what I've seen I think the accusations against you are without merit. However, the contents of this essay describe Martin's behavior almost to a T. The crime isn't remaining civil - the purpose of mentioning civility is to alert people to the fact that his politesse is superficial. It is impossible for me to imagine that all his endless needling objections are genuine. I don't claim to know why he's doing it - to be generous to him, maybe there's no ulterior motive and he simply enjoys arguing for its own sake. However it's not constructive and he is pushing particular (and often peculiar) points of view for months and years on end. --Sammy1339 (talk) 17:42, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Sammy - thanks for the reply. I think your much greater long-term experience of editing in this area makes you much more qualified to comment on this than myself.DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:00, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Backlog at UAA

There's a serious backlog at Wikipedia:Usernames for administrator attention for any admins who can find a few minutes to stop by and help out. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 18:05, 28 January 2016 (UTC)