Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Multiple vandalisms by IP user using various addresses from University of Leeds

IP User 129.11.174.166, 129.11.174.84, 129.11.174.134, 129.11.174.139, 129.11.174.142, 129.11.166.201 has been extremely persistent in wishing to introduce nonconstructive edits to EPR paradox. At first, I thought that this person was merely a misguided, but good faith editor. Now it has become apparent that this person is a vandal, with edit comments like "Kindly make proper research before you type. Einstein's name in German is spelled [ Ahlbert Ainshtain ]" with gross misspelling of Einstein's name. Both User:Skysmith and I have been undoing this person's edits, and in the Talk page, User:Spasemunki mentions that he has had previous experience with this IP editor back in October. I had reported this user on WP:AIV and I was advised to bring up this situation here. Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 00:00, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

School range block, maybe? Oshawott 12 ==()== Talk to me! 02:04, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Looks like it may have to be. Pranksters like this one can really ruin things for everybody else. Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 05:02, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

The range among these IPs is 129.11.160.0/20, and it is now blocked for two weeks. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:35, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 00:39, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

This IP user has found another IP address to vandalize from: 194.80.232.19, also belonging to University of Leeds. Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 18:25, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

User:Surtsicna

This very active and valuable user is well known to habitually personalize many discussions, disregarding basic guidelines under WP:TPYES that we should not do so, and for often being aggressive. Something like this is an example where I believe the habit carries this user into behavior which is inappropriate for Wikipedia work. Thus, I feel the user needs a reminder that civil behavior is expected of us all, always, toward each of us, no matter how much we disagree. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 12:06, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

This and this are the edit summaries that SergeWoodzing called a "personal critique", then again, and again. Even though he acknowledged here to another user that it was the edits that were called unnecessarily pedantic, he still has the need to portray the other user as a bully and himself as the victim. A half of virtually every discussion with SergeWoodzing, be it mine or someone else's, consists of the other user explaining that he or she did not mean to hurt his feelings. I have had it. This behaviour of his has been plainly described as ridiculous whining for complaints like these at ANI before. Others have observed this annoying tendency too, saying: "Pieter Kuiper can call article content a hoax and a BLP problem and SergeWoodzing will immediately cry 'I'm being personally attacked.'" I do not appreciate being pestered by these accusations, and I feel that the user needs yet another reminder that histrionics such as these waste everyone's time. Surtsicna (talk) 12:52, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

IMHO, this is really a content dispute. FWIW, there's inconsistency among the Swedish consort bios, concerning what to show (Queen of Sweden or Queen consort of Sweden). With the likely accession of a Queen regnant (which will be shown as Queen of Sweden in the pros, I assume), we should likely get the consistency established for the Swedish consorts. GoodDay (talk) 13:07, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

This is a reoccurring behavioral problem, not a content dispute.

Citing 8-year-old arguments isn't helpful. I have learned a lot about civility and WP:TPYES over the years. What I want to know here - indeed need to know - is whether or not the community considers this acceptably civil behavior, such as we all are expected to adhere to. I too can be sarcastic, belligerent and personal in every debate and edit summary, if I choose to be. Nowadays, and for years, I have chosen not to be. I've learned that such behavior is neither allowed (???) nor constructive. Please reply to the issue! --SergeWoodzing (talk) 10:24, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Five years ago you were told at ANI that there is nothing uncivil about commenting on edits, yet here you are again. Obviously you have not learned a lot since then. Surtsicna (talk) 12:39, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

PS In comparison to the reoccurring behavioral issue in this case, the article content is of little of no importance, to me or to this community. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 10:30, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I am waiting for an administrator to tell me if this is acceptable behavior, and if the user seems habitually to disregard some basic WP:TPYES guidelines such as not to user-personalize entries on article talk pages. I have never (never) claimed that "commenting on edits" is uncivil. Obviously, the user h-self is going to want to defend h-self (with a few personal slurs thrown in, as usual), but that's not what I'm looking for here. We need administrative guidance on this behavioral issue. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 18:10, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

• It makes no sense to look at one diff in isolation. Looking at that discussion, it seems to me that you are both over-personalizing the issue. I'm sure you both think the other one started it, or the other one is incrementally worse. I have no interest in estimating who is 43% responsible and who is 57% responsible. I wish you'd both dial it back. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:05, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Floquenbeam, I have provided the rest of the diffs. This and this are the edit summaries that SergeWoodzing called a "personal critique", then again, and again. I called that ridiculous whining. Do you think I was being personal when I described the changes as unnecessarily pedantic in the edit summaries? Do you think that SergeWoodzing's complaints are not ridiculous whining? Surtsicna (talk) 19:28, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
    • Yes, I know, I read that thread and this thread. I think your original edit summaries were unnecessarily almost-but-not-quite-too personal in isolation, to which SW then overreacted, to which you overreacted, to which SW overreacted. I assume there is some prior history here as well. There is no bright line personal/not personal dividing line, it's a continuum. In an escalating feedback loop like this, it makes no sense to say "all comments up to this point were ok, all comments after this point weren't". Both of you need to recognize that every time one of you said something snarky, the other one replied with a comment or action that was 50% more snarky. In the end, the important takeaway is that you're both making each other, and other people, marginally less happy to edit with you. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:38, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
      • There is nothing personal about stating that the newly introduced wording is unnecessarily pedantic. I will not walk on eggshells simply because one user cannot take the most harmless criticism of his work. Experience has shown that he will complain about being abused anyway, be it me or someone else. Surtsicna (talk) 20:09, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

There is nothing (nothing) in evidence of my behavior during the last few years as being anywhere near the picture painted of "snarky" me here. Some of us try to improve. I think I've done well and I almost never have any trouble with anyone anymore, because I've taken WP:TPYES "Comment on content, not on the contributor: Keep the discussions focused on the topic of the talk page, rather than on the editors participating." and other guidelines, experiences and criticism seriously. But is this "And ridiculous whining makes me lose control over my eye muscles" acceptably civil behavior which is supposed to inspire for such improvement, is it a negligible boo-boo which any one of us should be able to fine A-OK? Please reply to that issue, if at all! That's what I keep asking. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 14:39, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I have directly answered that question already; it makes no sense to look at one comment in isolation. Since both of you are convinced that the other editor is 100% at fault, and apparently do not value uninvolved feedback from someone unless they agree that you are 100% innocent, it might be best for the two of you to just continue making each other miserable. At some point, it will start making other editors miserable too, and at that point we can block one or both of you. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:26, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I did not seek any intervention, nor do I ever feel miserable on Wikipedia. If I did, I would leave. The histrionics are almost as amusing as they are annoying. I do promise to tone down my response to them to just eyerolling and calmly going on about my beeswax. I am sorry for the time you spent on reading all of this silliness. Surtsicna (talk) 16:32, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Summary of what I get out of this:

1. It makes no sense to report a comment like "ridiculous whining makes me lose control over my eye muscles" because it's "one comment in isolation".
2. I "apparently do not value uninvolved feedback from someone unless they agree that" I am "100% innocent".
3. I am as guilty as anyone, despite the fact that I try very hard (for years now) to be civil and adhere to WP:TPYES
4. Without ever having to apologize, we all can be as snide, rude, sarcastic, belligerent and uncivil as we please, as long as we do it as "one comment in isolation".
5. A comment like "the histrionics are almost as amusing as they are annoying" is OK too.

A sad day for me on Wikipedia, and a sad day for the project, I think. Will file this in my What's The Use? Department and still try to be civil and avoid personalising talk page entries. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 13:43, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Personal Attack on Me by HafizHanif

HafizHanif is sending personal attacks on Talk:Muhammad#Alternative_proposal:_Central_figure (diff) and most recently, stated (here) "myopic minds fail to understand", referencing Pinkbeast. I removed their initial attack, only for them to declare me "dead" and restore it (here) - death threats.

Note that in the scope of the discussion, none relate directly to the debated modification to the article. Instead, I am being targeted and harassed for religious reasons and ad hominem (basically, the first two points and possibly the fourth on WP:WIAPA. Please ensure this stops. Thank you, – Batreeq ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 23:19, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

This is an odd first. The record clearly shows after I cited primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, that particular edit was removed by the person making the accusation. They also called out "personal attack". I understood that accusation meaning I personally attacked the man believed to be a prophet (the article's subject - who has been dead for hundreds of years, thus the mention of a dead man), not the contentious editor. I had previously expressed how Muhammad was, according to his poetry and what contemporaries talked about him, a murderer (the cutting off of heads and fingertips). I think this is an issue of comprehension and a misunderstanding regarding the subject of my comments. Notice also I had ceased corresponding with the edit warring editor after an inability to convince them of their subjective nature regarding the subject matter. As to my response "myopic minds", I am referring to what I previously mentioned regarding editing efforts from unqualified persons and the apparent inability to objectively edit the article. It is a general statement regarding the unsophisticated nature of most Islamic articles. -- HafizHanif (talk) 23:53, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

This does not relate to the specific controversial edits being debated, and you used your interpretation of facts to launch a personal attack (you even said "I personally attacked"). Article talk pages are not soapboxes and I merely responded with the accurate info to diffuse the situation and prevent it from escalating. It is never acceptable to insult the mental states of individuals as any editor out there with a mental disability may feel distraught (disability is listed on WP:WIAPA). – Batreeq ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 00:07, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

So I note two things:

1. This was not a death threat against User:Batreeq; Batreeq misunderstood the "personally attack a dead person" edit summary.
2. If User:HafizHanif doesn't stop taking every opportunity to attack Islam all the time while pretending he is only having policy discussions, I will just block him indefinitely, and with very little if any further warning. Multiple editors at that page have told HH to knock it off because he is disrupting discussion. He needs to listen to them if he wants to keep editing here.

Hopefully that's clear. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:01, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Floquenbeam, just saw your response - thanks. Can the unrelated/attack comments be purged from the talk page and replaced with {{RPA}} (no, it's not "censorship" but it's not a soapbox for general discussion of the article's subject [as the top notice reads] either, HH)? – Batreeq ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 00:08, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of removing soapboxing that's interweaved with comments by others. IMHO it causes more confusion than it solves. In particular, it's not good for an "opponent" (for lack of a better word) to do it, that often just escalates things. I'm more interested in preventing future soapboxing. Other admins may disagree, so if others think it should be removed they shouldn't worry about my disagreement, they should do whatever they think best. I'm about to go offline for the evening. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:16, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Both HH and Batreeq could use a bit of encouragement to stick to the point. What's this screed got to do with the question at hand? Also, Batreeq is engaged in a lengthy exercise in IDHT - it seems pretty clear that the vast majority of commenting editors are perfectly happy with "founder", but they won't knock it off. Pinkbeast (talk) 13:32, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

No worries! Was just defusing the attack. – Batreeq ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 01:52, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

So my response regarding a linear understanding of prophetic procession was labeled 'soapboxing' and summarily removed. I think this manner of narrow-minded critique is why so many wiki articles are not only poorly written, but poorly managed. -- HafizHanif (talk) 19:34, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

User:GiantSnowman bot-assisted rollback of good-faith edits

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

---

I came across this while patrolling RC.

GiantSnowman (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) reverted 416 edits] earlier today. The reverts all bear the same time stamp to the nearest minute leading me to conclude that an automated tool must have been used. Each of the reverted edits had been made over the course of the preceding few days by Veryproicelandic (talk · contribs). GS then left a uw-vandalism3 template on Veryproicelandic's talk page, has not made any explanation (or any other further edits)) in the ensuing several hours. There was no discussion that I could find, of any kind, prior to the mass revert.

Veryproicelandic's edits appear to me to have been good-faith edits, made manually, at considerable effort, to articles on a wide variety of topics. I am frankly baffled as to the substance of the underlying content dispute.

GS has previously made large numbers of reversions that also appear to be bot assisted as in each case, dozens of contributions (albeit fewer than 416) of a single user are reverted within a one-minute period. See, for example, this instance where 100 edits by an IP were reverted. There was a prior incident where over 300 edits by a group of related IPs were reverted over the course of several minutes; subsequently, GS asked for assistance here at ANI to place a range block citing the addition of unsourced material.

I am concerned about this at five levels:

1. WP:BOTP, a policy, covers the operation of bots and has specific requirements for: prior approval, rate throttling, flagging, and communication. The policy makes it clear that high-speed, bot-like edits require prior approval, even if they involve manual steps.
2. WP:ROLL, a guideline, discourages the use of rollback for reversion of good-faith edits, and requires explanation on a suitable talk page in those instances where good-faith edits are rolled back.
3. There is a pattern of a lack of discussion before and after these rollbacks are performed. For example, GS archived these questions without answering them after reverting over 100 good faith edits for which he had offfered only a generic explanation.
4. The reverts are indiscriminate and are not limited to removal of unsourced information. Some of the reverted edits are ones that made mechanical or formatting changes only where sourcing cannot possibly be a factor. Some reverts do not result in removal of the unsourced material but rather reversion to old statistics.
5. GS's own very similar edits to the same subject material typically do not include sources, again leaving me baffled as to the real motive.

This conduct appears to have been going on for quite some time, for example a year ago, after reverting a good-faith edit, GS characterized the edit as vandalism.

I would like to ask for the community's assistance in reviewing the matter, clarifying policy as appropriate, and providing a proper welcome and show of support to the editors who have been on the receiving end of this.

Respectfully, The Uninvited Co., Inc. 23:58, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

I think I know the tool used. If you have a look at User:GiantSnowman/common.js, User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/massRollback.js is installed for GS. That will be the tool used to make these edits, and it is very useful for dealing with bona-fide vandals (so useful, I forked it). I need more time to make a judgement on the edits at hand, but an accidental misuse of this tool will revert all edits by the user where their revision is the current version (to some limit, of which I'm not entirely sure). So clearly, using this on an established editor can produce the disastrous results above. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 00:09, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. It looks like the tool is only limited by the number of edits that can be displayed on a contributions page, which is limited to 500 if you use the UI, and (I believe) 1000 if you modify the URL. Has there been any discussion specific to the use of the "mass rollback" tool and how it fits in with WP:BOTP? The Uninvited Co., Inc. 00:17, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

You can hotwire the url to get up to 5000 entries on a user contributions page or page history. EEng 02:42, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Does the tool also automatically leave a vandalism warning on the user's talk page? Because GiantSnowman did that too. Unless this is an unintended side effect of using the tool, it makes it harder to believe that the mass reversion was accidental. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:19, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

David Eppstein, I took a quick look at the code at User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/massRollback.js, and no - it does not appear to leave vandalism warnings. SQL^{Query me!} 01:34, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

this warning template is most likely manually placed, based on the edit summary.--DBigXrayᗙ 07:34, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

He has reverted my good faith edits as well, including correcting "men's" to "women's" under "women's competition" here: [1], and a researched change to Fuad Ibrahim, which he realized was correct... [2] ater reverting three times and telling me I would be banned from Wikipedia because of vandalism: [3]. It's awful "administrators" like him that give Wikipedia a bad name. Thank you! 70.21.191.151 (talk) 00:10, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I was hoping that we wouldn't have to escalate this here, but I agree with Uninvited's report. I noticed this today when GiantSnowman mass-reverted 50-100 edits of Veryproicelandic (talk · contribs), with a generic edit summary typical of rollbacks against vandalism. All of the edits I spot-checked (including the specific one that was warned) were not vandalism — they were good faith attempts to clean up {{underlinked}} banners by adding more wikilinks and undertaking other minor improvements of prose, or in some cases removing inappropriate underlinked banners when there was no opportunity to add more links. I wouldn't necessarily have made quite so many new links myself, and there were some minor style issues (e.g. capitaization) with the edits, but that's beside the point. Veryproicelandic is understandably upset, and despite much of a day having passed, GiantSnowman has yet to apologize or respond (despite being required to per WP:ADMINACCT). I thought at first that this was a case of an inexperienced editor misusing rollback privileges and having to be told how to use rollback (or if continuing to not get it to have rollback privileges removed) but with Uninvited's investigation above I see now that GiantSnowman is actually an admin who should definitely know better, and that this is part of a much bigger problematic pattern of edits. I think we should give GiantSnowman some more time to respond, but (as I already said on VPI's talk page) I think an apology and a reversal of these reversions is called for. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:17, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

This isn't the first time I've heard (or seen) mass reversions of an editor's edits (though never nearing 416 edits!) and I've wondered how to address this situation when I've had questions about the rationale. Labeling an editor's work "vandalism" when they are good faith edits can only lead to trouble when you have powerful scripts that can do mass reverts which clearly means that each edit isn't being evaluated as to whether it is damaging or helpful. I look forward to hearing from GiantSnowman and, frankly, any admin who makes use of these scripts to do mass rollbacks on what the threshold is for reverting all of an editor's work. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:06, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

This is a nuclear weapon - treat it with care. The warning on my script's documentation page

I use my user group highlighting script, which naturally limits the damage a misapplication could cause, I cannot see myself reverting an extended confirmed user like that. I'd absolutely say that these scripts should only be used in the case of obvious vandalism, but would oppose any move to ban them as against BOT policy. If used correctly, these scripts are an invaluable tool against vandals, especially sophisticated vandals making automated edits. WP:IAR is clearly applicable to their existence. For example, my script fork effectively is a form of non-admin block, in that it reverts a user's edits almost as soon as they are made. Automatically. In theory, a user could start making good faith edits and I would be responsible for any resulting 3RR violations. I have reverted a good faith edit with it due to a dynamic IP, where a former user was good faith, the current a vandal. Anybody using these scripts must understand that they are powerful tools, which deserve respect. I will check contributions with this script if there's an older edit that's been reverted, and restore good faith edits caught in the crossfire. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 01:28, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

• It's a pretty dry-cut case of semi-automatic editing. Tools never need to be approved and the user using the tools are 100% responsible for the edits made on their behalf. Of course obvious bugs to the tools should to be addressed by the author(s), but no one is obligated to use the tools.—CYBERPOWER (Merry Christmas) 01:33, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

  Cyberpower678, I would respectfully disagree based on testing the script just now. This is functionally identical to a bot. I was able to revert a few changes my test account made rapidly, with no intervention or human judgement for each edit. In a semi-automated editing scenario, I would picture it as in AWB, where you must confirm each edit. SQL^{Query me!} 01:46, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

• @SQL: This is basically WP:MEATBOT, which is quite clear that a short burst of fast editing is not itself disruptive. If these tools were used for their purpose, we wouldn't be here. I'd persoanlly stick witb 100% operator accountability, rather than restricting the scripts themselves. My script is particularly interesting wrt to the bot question. It makes a succession of very rapid edits, which a human has effectively signed off on. Then it starts making automated edits at a far more sedate pace (unless the target account is running a bot). ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 02:08, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

  Bellezzasolo, I may have phrased that poorly. The point I was making was that the script I tested can't be described as semi-automated editing. SQL^{Query me!} 02:18, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

• I don't know that I've had dealings with either GiantSnowman or Veryproicelandic. But if this happened to me, I'd be seriously upset about it. According to his user page, Veryproicelandic edited under a previous name (which he identified on his user page). His edit history goes back to 2006, and no blocks under either. Unless there is more to this than immediately has been mentioned here, I think some accountability and editorial recompense is due here. GiantSnowman has some explaining to do. — Maile (talk) 01:34, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) When I see a mass edit, I expect to see a link to the relevant discussion. If I don't see one, then the editor making the changes should expect to have the edits mass-reverted per WP:BRD. I will normally post an appropriate warning. Mass changes like those made by Keizaal are absolutely and completely unacceptable and stretch good faith to breaking point. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:36, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7: The least courtesy that could be extended in that situation is an edit summary. The script offers that facility, when reverting non-vandalism there's no excuse for not using an edit summary, certainly with a change of that scale. If an edit summary is used, a rollback is treated as an undo, wheras plain rollback is not meant to be used for good faith edits. Again, the facility to leave an edit summary is offerred. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 01:53, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm wondering if Giant Snowman's account got hacked and somebody else used it to make all of those rollbacks? Sakura Cartelet^Talk 01:55, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

This is an Admin making mass edits that make no sense. Best to block them until there is an explanation on their talkpage. This could get seriously out of hand. Legacypac (talk) 02:15, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

The best explanation I can find is that this was a mistake; should the reverts be mass-unreverted? power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:17, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree I'm more inclined to believe this was a miss click of some tool or mass rollback script. Hopefully when Giant Snowman is back they will be able to confirm as such. As far as the issue of the account being compromised; it doesn't seem likely. I'd expect to see more damage from a compromised account. --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 02:20, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

For the record, my script does prompt for confirmation before performing a mass rollback. Not that click-through syndrome isn't a thing. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 02:38, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

• Just noting GiantSnowman also mass-rollbacked 500 of my edits a couple months ago. He then tried to self mass-revert, but this didn't really work and he ended up re-instating vandalism in countless pages. L293D (☎ • ✎) 02:45, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

• A couple of things:
  • If there's consensus that these edits weren't vandalism or vandalism-adjacent - which it looks to me like there probably is - someone can just mass rollback them all back to veryproicelandic's version (with an edit summary!) But be careful, as L293D notes, it's easy to mess up. The only edits that you can display on the contribs page are the ones you actually want to revert.
  • It makes no sense to claim GS is somehow "violating ADMINACCT" by not replying, when he has not been online since doing the rollback and vandalism warning. We are not required to be online 24 hours a day. He hasn't even seen all this yet.
  • To answer Liz, I've used the mass rollback function a few times, always either with a clear consensus, or because it was clear vandalism. It's use isn't rare. I would never have used it in a case like this.
  • I have a few ideas about how this could have happened, varying from 100% good faith mistake to 100% bad judgement, with a couple of possibilities in between too. The thing to do is wait until GS logs back in.
  • Whether a mistake or a bad decision or somewhere in between, an apology is in order. But we need to be patient and wait for GS to actual log in before he can give one.
  • Suggestions about blocking his account without waiting for an explanation is a perfect example of people who shouldn't be editing ANI.

--Floquenbeam (talk) 02:54, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

417 incorrect rollbacks => no evidence there was a reason for this => possible compromised acct. Given we have had 4 Admins compromised recently it is not an unreasonable possibility. Maybe Flo should not be editing ANi? How much damage could an Admin account do with automated tools while we ponder. Flo would likely block a regular account first and ask questions later. Legacypac (talk) 03:04, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

• (following from notice at WP:BOTN): User driven scripts are outside the purview of WP:BAG to review, and the closest part of the Bot Policy I see is in affect would be Wikipedia:Bot_policy#Bot-like_editing - which says that disruptive edits are just that. As such, WP:DISRUPT applies more than anything in the bot policy so far as the 'edits' go, as well as the rollback guidelines. User scripts themselves require no approval, however the effects of using such a script (including the possibly of disruption due to flooding of RC or WL's) is the responsibility of the editor executing such a script. In this case, the script appears to have legitimate uses for administrators in specific situations. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:07, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

• I remember the incident L293D is referring to, though I don't recall where the relevant discussions took place. But IIRC, L293D was using AWB to make very minor changes (U.S. to US) in line with updated MOS guidance, and pursuant to a local Wikiproject consensus, rather than a community consensus? I think that's what it was. And it caused a bit of unnecessary drama, but the situation was under community scrutiny and there was never any consensus that his changes should be reverted. It was a minor thing, and the standout moment of the whole situation was GiantSnowman inexplicably executing a mass rollback on L293D, which resulted in actual damage to the project. So, this isn't a one-off situation, and I'm utterly shocked that they haven't learned from that debacle. Mass rollback is one of the most drastic measures you can ever employ on this project, and it should only be used in extreme situations and with extreme caution. I don't think GS is demonstrating the judgment/competence required to use this tool properly, and the issue can and should be easily rectified by deleting the script.  Swarm  talk  03:14, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
  • most drastic? Special:Nuke would like a word... Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 03:22, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

• Having had the chance to go out, eat dinner, and play trivia... I've had the opportunity to ruminate on things. I still submit I did nothing wrong. I know I've been pure in my intentions, which, in the worst case, should've merited a "here's what you're doing wrong, Veryproicelandic." Nope, I instead got the Order of the Up Yours (the message), with "You Schmuck" clusters (the reversions). For no reason... and I read the vandalism section carefully. Twice. If I vandalized this site, then Michelangelo vandalized the Sistine Chapel. Now, I -do- appreciate the support I've gotten from all of you in these comments, I should like to say...

As it stands, I'm going to withhold my goodwill from the site (I call myself a Wiki angel, or whatever it's termed when someone comes here in an attempt to make small changes for the common good). I'm not going to be angelic when some mod with an issue says to desist. But please know: this is me refusing as a matter of principle and mild retribution. I wasn't banned. This is my choice to stop helping. I don't like being called an asshole, whether that term be rendered as vandal, saboteur, miscreant, or whatever...

What would I like to return to my angelic ways? An apology in nice big bold letters from Snowman (bold, not normal typeface), and reversion of -all- my edits, all 400+ he screwed with, less any he or anyone else can show are demonstrably improper. Which shouldn't be any.

I'm interested in seeing how this all plays out. I have no financial or other stake in this, save for my reputation here. Let's thus see how Mr. Snowman replies. And I invite him to do so forthwith. I'm listening. Tell me why I'm a vandal, amigo. I'm waiting... Veryproicelandic (talk) 06:35, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Inspot checked the rollbacks and you are no vandal User:Veryproicelandic. All the ones I checked were good improvement. I suspect this was a stupid error or a compromised acct. Either way all your edits need restoring amd you are more than free to revert GiantSnowman on every edit that someone else has not already restored. It will be good for your edit count. Keep up the good work. It is users like you doing linking, fixes and deorphaning work that make articles more useful to readers. Legacypac (talk) 07:04, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

• Thank you, Legacy. I appreciate the affirmation. I say again: if I'd wanted to do malevolent things on here, I would have years ago, and to historic levels. I'm not like that. I'm about being positive in my influence. I will not screw with a resource of the world. My things are linking, stubbing, and making stuff readable, for those who care. Deorphaning is a more time-consuming thing- I want to create change that can be seen and felt quickly. One day I might go back and fix titles, etc, that are lacking in sources. I do what I like to do and can do easily. Lots of work to be done on matters like that. I'm not too good at creating infoboxes and charts on here, so I let the next guy handle those. And I continue to wait to know why I'm a vandal... Veryproicelandic (talk) 07:51, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

GS is in the UK so I imagine will see this fairly soon, please be patient and remember not all editors are in the same time zone as you. Fish+Karate 08:24, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Gosh, what a thing to wake up to. No I have not been hacked or compromised. No I am not using a bot. I used the 'mass rollback' tool. I then went to bed. No it does not add a vandalism warning automatically - I did that manually. I mass reverted Veryproicelandic's edits because I noticed them (amongst other things) deleting valid infoboxes from numerous articles (see eg here and here) and using inaccurate/misleading edit summaries in the process (what 'flag' was removed?!) Having read the above thread, I apologise unreservedly to Veryproicelandic for the misunderstanding, and have self-reverted my edits. I'll also be more careful about use of 'mass rollback' in future. GiantSnowman 08:47, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

The 'flag' being removed is the {{underlinked}} template, as I suspect you know perfectly well. ‑ Iridescent 09:33, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Nope, I've only ever called them 'maintenance tags'. In the area I edit, 'flag' refers to literal flags. Nice to see you AGFing though, particularly given that the editor in question has accepted my apology. GiantSnowman 09:37, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't want to get into this mess except to say if I saw that that edit summary I would probably have asked the same thing, 'what flag'? I've heard of people talking about 'flagging' an article for attention and understand the meaning, but I don't recall I've ever heard someone refer to such a template as a 'flag' before. Again, I make no comment on any other aspects of the case like how to respond given such confusion. Nil Einne (talk) 09:56, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

It seems you did the same yesterday to User:Jamieroot11, reverting 32 edits in one minute, with a vandalism warning, only to have to remove your warning and apologise, while still blaming the editor because they didn't use a good enough edit summary[4]. In reality, they were updating stats in the infobox with the edit summary "Updating bio stats"[5], so it seems strange to blame thee edit summary for any confusion.

On 2 December you reverted some 40 edits by User:Footballinbelgium and gave them a final warning for adding unsourced content. Too bad that the things they added were to the infobox (where everything or nearly everything is unsourced) and were correct, e.g. Sam Valcke[6] really is 1m88cm according to Soccerway, and Marius Noubissi really is 1m80cm according to The final ball, in both cases sources already present in the article.

The same day you rollbacked 11 edits by User:Statements2019. You left a much nicer statement at his talk page, and they have since been blocked as socks, ut the use of rollback for non-vandal edits like this one, which was improving the article (replacing outdated unsourced content with up-to-date unsourced but correct content), is again an incorrect use of rollback.

At first sight, your batch of 30 rollbacks in 1 minute to edits by User:Davidstockholm also was incorrect, the editor genuinely was improving articles with updated statistics (e.g. here) and you rollbacked him with a final warning anyway.

With this editor, I see you giving them warning after warning, going back for months, even though they made correct edits all the time. These football articles are sourced to soccerway and the like, as you well know, and there is no need to add a new source to change the match statistics, nor to reflect a new club if that is updated in soccerway as well. I mean, it's not as if you add sources for your changes[7][8][9].

Getting it wrong once (even if it with 400+ edits) is not a problem. Getting it wrong all the time is seriously worrying. I don't know for how long this has been going on, but it is a big problem. Fram (talk) 10:13, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Yep, I've used rollback to "to revert widespread edits (by a misguided editor or malfunctioning bot) which are judged to be unhelpful to the encyclopedia" (as allowed by rollback!) when it appears that edits are not constructive or vandalism. In the area I edit (football/soccer), we have a major problem of editors adding incorrect statistics to infoboxes. I review a small sample of edits, and if they appear dodgy, I mass rollback. If I'm wrong, then I'll revert and apologise. I've already said I'll be more careful in my use of it. GiantSnowman 10:20, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I think given the wealth of evidence above about your use of mass rollback, it might be better to check all the edits you are going to rollback before you roll them back. Or stop using the tool entirely. Fish+Karate 10:29, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Yep, I'll definitely be using it far more carefully/sparingly. GiantSnowman 10:32, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Super Mario Effect at play. If he was not an Admin his rollbacker flag would he gone and sanctions would be imposed. What was done to Veryproiceland is pretty serious, leading to assumptions it had to be a misclick or compromised account. To roll back over 400 gnoming edits as vandalism based on a misunderstood edit summary and no spot checks is pretty crazy. Legacypac (talk) 10:42, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Err As I've said, I did do a brief sample before rollbacking... GiantSnowman 10:44, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Agreed with Legacypac here. I was looking further back, and the pattern is the same over and over.

28 November; you rollback 5 edits by User:Caitlinwebb3 and then block her. The reason? While the editor is updating the stats (correctly), they don't simultaneously update the "club-update" parameter (which indicates the last time the infobox numbers have been updated). Slightly annoying, perhaps. Rollbackable vandalism, no. Blockable, certainly not. What you do is revert the editor, and then readd the same info 8 hours later, with the proper formatting.

On 27 november, you rollback 50 or so edits by User:Cipow, including stuff like this? This, again an editor adding correct info according to already present source Soccerbase[10] (and who does update the date parameter in the infobox)? Like the editor said to you: "It's very simple - You saw one or two articles with no references and reverted 20 odd perfectly referenced articles."

Please stop using rollback completely (certainly the mass rollback tool), and don't block editors for what are basically formatting errors but in any case good faith edits. A next ANI discussion about these issues, if they would continue, is unlikely to end without sanctions. Fram (talk) 10:47, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't know how many more times I can say "sorry, I'll be more careful in future" before people start listening. GiantSnowman 11:08, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Well, you could start by going over your batches of rollback use, vandalism and block warnings, and actual blocks, and self-revert and/or apologize to those where no vandalism happened. Fram (talk) 11:30, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I've already self-reverted and apologised to editors in question. GiantSnowman 11:36, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Really? User talk:Caitlinwebb3, User talk:Cipow, User talk:Davidstockholm, User talk:Footballinbelgium, ... LikeI said above, you issued a non-apology at User talk:Jamieroot11, blaming the rollback on his incorrect edit summaries, even though these were quite accurate and clear. You didn't apologise to the other four I identified. I have seen no evidence of self-reverting either. And that doesn't even take into account that you should check your many other cases of mass rollbacking as well, as it seems unlikely that these problems only started a week ago or that I found all instances in this short time. Fram (talk) 11:55, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)On the topic of "club-update" / "pc-update", this has been discussed quite recently at WT:Footy here and User:GiantSnowman isn't the only admin who takes the view of reverting if the timestamp isn't updated. There is reliance on WP:BURDEN to support this, and there is a tendency to WP:BITE or worse. It would be much better for the reverter to correct the information, or as a minimum include a helpful edit summary and talk page notification if reverting these WP:AGF edits. Cheers, Gricehead (talk) 11:37, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

The Super Mario thing is specious - that refers to an admin being desysopped back to a regular editor instead of being blocked/banned, much like big Mario gets reduced to little Mario instead of dying. None of the rollbacking carried out by GS involves use of administrative tools, and his sysop status isn't really relevant. If a common or garden editor was making errors in the use of the mass rollback tool, in this way, they would be given clear instructions to either stop using it, or at least stop making errors using it, and if they failed to understand why what they were doing was unhelpful and/or carried on doing it, they'd be formally barred from using the tool. I don't see why we would need to change that approach here. GS has been given a clear message that he needs to take far more care. He has agreed with this, and has apologised, and he will be well aware that people will be 'checking his work'. I think that's sufficient for now. Fish+Karate 11:45, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

• This is the second time in a week that I've come across a example of questionable judgement by GiantSnowman and I don't find his responses so far to be satisfactory. Fram's suggestion that he stop using mass rollback seems prudent under the circumstances. GiantSnowman would you agree to voluntarily stop using mass rollback and to carefully check each edit before applying standard rollback from now on? In other words, stop using rollback to simply revert edits that you personally disagree with.- MrX 🖋 12:14, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

For the umpteenth time, I've already said I will. However, your insinuation that I have misused rollback on 'edits I don't like' is false. All my reverts have been good faith, "to revert widespread edits (by a misguided editor or malfunctioning bot) which are judged to be unhelpful to the encyclopedia" as is allowed. GiantSnowman 12:53, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Not sure that inadvertent misuse is any different to repeated incompetent use. Either applies. Leaky Caldron 13:01, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

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

Question re the rollback tool

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

---

To my memory, I've never used the tool, because I never figured out what it was for. Well .. at least I now know what it does. Any article history where I compare revisions gives me 3 Rollback options (Rollback AGF/Rollback/Rollback Vandal). So, obviously it's an admin tool, because I certainly would not have loaded a script for something I know nothing about.

Given what has happened here, and given that this seems to not be the first for this editor, in light of what Fram has listed, could we eliminate the Rollback as part of the admin bundle of tools? It would be optional based on request. If mis-used, the tool could be taken away from an admin without eliminating the other tools. We could grandfather in the tool for those admins who already have it, and proceed forward with the rest. This seems to be a dangerous tool to automatically include in a set of tools. — Maile (talk) 12:19, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

@Maile66: What you see is not an admin tool. ——SerialNumber54129 12:58, 5 December 2018 (UTC) See------------------->

I have rollback pretty much from the moment it was available, and I have extended experience with the flag, but to be honest, I never used (consciously) these three options you mention (which appear above the edit summary), I only use the rollback button which is right of the edit summary, next to the undo button. This one is harmless as it only can roll back one edit. (I still sometimes misclick, and just today I accidentally rolled back several edits on an ArbCom Case page, but this is easy to notice and to repair). If the rollback vandal button performs mass rollback without a prompt, it is dangerous and must not be shown, but I do not believe this is the case. (I wanted to test it in my sandbox, but was just scared). I guess mass rollback comes from a script. If this is the case, mass rollback must in any case come with a prompt, and can not be accepted if the edit summary is not filled in manually. But I guess this is a different problem, not what you mention.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:48, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

The mass rollback tool is not an admin function, it's a bit of javascript. The only "rollback" that 'comes with' the admin bit is the same one everyone else with rollback permissions has, and I do not think that this needs to be unbundled from admin rights. WP:NUKE is an admin function, but that's not what GS used. Fish+Karate 12:59, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. A usual (non-admin) rollbacker can only roll back all edits of the same user on one page at a time without a prompt.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:11, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Exactly - (rightfully) slap my wrists for being overzealous with my reverts, but do not say I have been abusing admin tools or anything like that. That is not the case. GiantSnowman 13:26, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

GiantSnowman's voluntary restriction

The discussion above should not have been closed so abruptly, and certainly not with so much vagueness. I understand GiantSnowman has agreed not to use mass rollback in the future and that he will carefully check each edit before applying standard rollback from now ("For the umpteenth time, I've already said I will."). If I have misinterpreted his intent, please say so.- MrX 🖋 13:31, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

To clarify - I'll continue to use mass rollback against clear vandalism/socks etc. However, I'll be far more careful about using it in greyer areas (such as this incident and some others highlighted by other users). GiantSnowman 13:54, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm glad I asked. I don't think that's satisfactory in light of the previous discussion. I'm not at all confident in your judgement to use mass rollback in the rare circumstances that it's actually called for.- MrX 🖋 14:00, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Why does GS not simply require the user who has made the "defective" edits to change them / rollback themselves? That way there is no room for error. There is no rush. Leaky Caldron

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

• It should be clear that this report documents an admin engaging in the repeated abuse of mass rollback. They have not given a response that suggests that they appreciate the gravity of the situation, and they have not provided a convincing resolution, and have only vaguely stated that they "will be more careful". In this context, a unilateral close of ongoing discussion, with a declaration that the issue has been resolved voluntarily, is concerning, and reeks of the admin corps protecting itself. Mind you, I'm a believer in admin solidarity, but not if one of us is repeatedly behaving like an idiot and then completely dismissing the community's outrage. I would simply like to make my dissent to the closing statements known for the record.  Swarm  talk  08:32, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
  • "Abuse" implies deliberate malice; I don't think that's the case here. Better descriptions would be "inadvertent misuse", or "worrying incompetence". Fish+Karate 10:28, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
    • The former and not the latter! GiantSnowman 15:30, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Ironically, when I raised that same concern, the discussion was closed and I was threatened with a block. You're an admin, so your YMMV.- MrX 🖋 15:30, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
    • I threatened you with a block because you weren't trying to address the issue, you were just chasing GiantSnowman around demanding they do what you say. That's not appropriate. As an example of what you should have done instead, see Fram's post below. @Swarm: please strike/retract/modify/(whatever) your "behaving like an idiot" comment, it is a clear personal attack, and there's already a lot of hostility here about admins getting away with things that non-admins would be sanctioned for. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:48, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
      • That's a blatant lie. GS followed me to Bbb23's talk page and I simply asked him to clarify his ambiguous statement. It was entirely appropriate and all you did was inflame the issue as you seem to be trying to do now. Please stop.- MrX 🖋 15:57, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
        • No, I didn't follow you anywhere - I was pinged by @Ivanvector: in this edit. Please can people start AGFing and stop accusing me of things?! GiantSnowman 16:01, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
          • "Followed", not in the perjorative sense; "followed" as in, you arrived there after me. Ivanvector fabricated the narrative that I chased you around.- MrX 🖋 16:04, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
        • (edit conflict × 2) This is you demanding (not asking or suggesting) that GiantSnowman comply with your demand. This is you saying their response was "not good enough", implying that you were going to continue hounding them about it until you deemed their response worthy. This, well, really I just didn't appreciate this. These were all after you were asked twice to stop. If I've misinterpreted your motive then I apologize, but I would appreciate if you would retract your "blatant lie" comment. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:07, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
          • No, it was not demanding. It was clarifying what was asked, explaining my understanding of his answer, and commented that I didn't think the answer was sufficient. I'll be happy to retract my "blatant lie" comment if you will retract your comment about chasing GS around. Fair?- MrX 🖋 16:12, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
            • No, I don't agree to that. When the first discussion was closed because GS had already answered the questions to everyone's satisfaction (other than yours), you started a new discussion below to continue your pursuit. When that one was closed, you went to the closing admin's page and demanded it be reopened so you could continue your hounding again, and when that admin didn't respond you just kept right on going on their talk page. If you don't see what's wrong with this, you are heading for a block. You might disagree with my interpretation of your actions but there is no fabrication involved here. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:21, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
              • MrX, enough already, please. Drmies (talk) 16:30, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
              • Apparently neither of us agree with the other's interpretation of the facts. I'm fine with leaving it at that.- MrX 🖋 16:47, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Time for a formal restriction?

The voluntary restriction from yesterday seems to be worthless. Today, we get things like [11], where an editor changes an unsourced old kit for a club (used in 2014 and thereabouts) to an equally unsourced kit, which is the kit used last year (home kit in both cases, I haven't checked the away kit). This is not clear vandalism by any stretch of the imagination, and no indication that it is a sock either. Not a rollback candidate at all. The same here, where again it looks as if the rollbacked edit was better than the one reverted to (see the current kit e.g. [12][13]. We can't take away rollback from an admin, but we can impose a topic ban. Other solutions are welcome as well. Fram (talk) 15:19, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

It'd be nice if you notified an editor when you propose an editing restriction about them - good job I happened to see this post on my watchlist, isn't it. It was the rollback of a new editor who has repeatedly added unsourced and unexplained content to articles. Those rollbacks are allowed as they "revert widespread edits (by a misguided editor or malfunctioning bot) which are judged to be unhelpful to the encyclopedia". GiantSnowman 15:27, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

It's a continuation of a section about you, not a new section. And your definition of when rollback is allowed has been shown to be defective just yesterday, and you said you would be much more careful, not "I will continue to use my own rules like before". Like I just explained and showed, the editor was replcaing outdated unsourced content (the kits) with more up-to-date, correct, but still unsourced content. That's no reason to rollback (or to threaten with blocks), and these are not edits which are "unhelpful to the encyclopedia" (or, for that matter, "widespread"). Fram (talk) 15:38, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

It's a section that was closed (twice) and which I had presumed was done with. I have not said "I will continue to use my own rules like before", do not try and put words in my mouth or misrepresent my stance here. Have you even bothered to look what I did with the editor's other edits? I'll give you a clue - I didn't rollback them. I reviewed them and undid them as unsourced and left a warning. Trying to claim that I'm rollbacking editors willy-nilly is absolutely false. GiantSnowman 15:41, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

So these abuses of rollback are allowed because you didn't rollback his other edits? That's a novel excuse. As for putting words in your mouth, I said "you said X, not "Y"". I literally said that you did not say that... My claim is that you are rollbacking edits where there is no justification at all for the use of rollback, and this a day after you were brought here because you did the exact same thing time and again with many editors recently. You made a clear statement that "I'll continue to use mass rollback against clear vandalism/socks etc. However, I'll be far more careful about using it in greyer areas", but there is no evidence at all that you are more careful at all, since you still use rollback where it is not allowed at all. Fram (talk) 15:50, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

It's not abuse at all - and as previously stated the rollback is allowed. I've directly quoted from WP:ROLLBACK to show that it is. I have taken on board everything that was said in the previous discussion. PS I'm still awaiting an apology for not informing me of this discussion :) GiantSnowman 15:54, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, obviously two edits that improve the encyclopedia are the same as widespread edits that are unhelpful to the encyclopedia. Quoting policies is very good, understanding them (and applying them correctly) would be even better though. Fram (talk) 15:56, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

How were those edits, made by an new editor with a short history of only making disruptive edits (adding unsourced and/or nationalistic content), "improving the encyclopaedia"?! I've lost count of the number of vandals I have encountered over the past 12 years who have messed with kits in infoboxes. GiantSnowman 16:04, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I have explained enough times how these edits which you rollbacked were clearly improving the encyclopedia, in the same way that your "unsourced" edits updating the number of games people have played improve the encyclopedia. Looking at their other edits, I don't see the disruption you claim, I see a new editor who needs guidance on the replacement of "English" with "Cornish", and who should get our thanks for their other changes. this is their first edit: birth date is correct and sourced[14], place of birth is correct and sourced, youth club is correct as well. The only "disruption" is changing English to Cornish, which is something we don't do but which isn't vandalism. When they made the change again, but without the Cornish aspect, you again blindly reverted, and then readded 90% of the same information in your own name[15] using the sources already in the article; you could just as easily have just formatted the edit by the "disruptive" editor instead, instead of bombarding them with warnings of increasing severity. Here as well you removed a clear improvement, adding the correct name of the manager to the infobox. Yes, it was unsourced, just like everything else in that infobox, but that's no reason to remove it. Using their "disruptiveness" as an excuse for your rollbacking of other edits they made only shows that you seem to have developed an "all new editors to football articles are vandals" attitude which is not how we are supposed to treat newbies. You need to check if their edits are improvements or if they are inserting false information, and only then should you treat them as disruptive or as vandals. Having this as the default approach is not acceptable. Fram (talk) 07:19, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support (suspended comment since GiantSnowman is going to be away for a few days; see below) ban on the use of rollback, whether by UX or by script. Sorry, GiantSnowman, these are clearly inappropriate uses of rollback, and we just went through this yesterday. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:01, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Actually, suggest this should be a ban on the use of rollback without an edit summary, as that does seem to be the problem with the latest rollbacks. These were not obviously vandalism, and while reverting might have been appropriate, doing so without saying why (which implies vandalism as a rationale) was what was actually inappropriate. As far as using Twinkle's green or blue rollbacks or the massrollback scripts (which all allow entering an edit summary) there doesn't seem to be a problem there as long as GS describes what they're doing. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:12, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Which I've already started doing, before this thread kicked off, see here. If that's all that is required (and yes, I probably should have been doing it earlier!) then that's easily solved and I'll do it for all. GiantSnowman 16:24, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'd like to believe that this is an issue that could be resolved through discussion, and in light of your comment below I've struck part of mine above; hopefully we can discuss more after your weekend. The problem I see here is that you're interpreting as clear vandalism edits which are not so clearly vandalism to those of us who don't edit in these topics, and really the bigger problem is that you're rolling back new-ish editors who probably don't know that what they believe to be a good-faith contribution is problematic: you haven't given any indication as to why, just, they made an edit and now it's gone for no specified reason. That's why nobody should ever make a revert of any kind without an edit summary giving a reason, other than cases where it's obvious that the editor clearly knows that what they're doing is wrong. Any not-obviously-disruptive edit is exempt from standard rollback, and that includes unsourced edits, editing tests, content with glaring English problems, and even in cases where you're reverting a banned editor you should probably say so in the edit summary (the policy says you don't have to but also warns to be prepared to explain). And for widespread unhelpful edits the policy says you must provide an explanation somewhere - why not in the edit summary? massrollback allows this, unless you're using some script that doesn't in which case you should stop using it. Please consider this, but do enjoy your weekend. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:39, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

WP:ROLLBACK allows the rollback of edits "judged to be unhelpful to the encyclopedia". Therefore I'm simply using my judgment and experience in those areas. In 99% of cases (and the 1% will have been oversight) I have always left a talk page template message explaining why. I acknowledge I should have used the massrollback (which btw is the only script I use here) edit summary function as well, something which I started today prior to Fram raising further concerns. GiantSnowman 16:44, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

The policy allows that iff you provide an explanation somewhere. I would suggest, and I'm going to suggest it as a change to the policy, that you should use an edit summary in those cases, for accountability, even if that edit summary is along the lines of "please see <page where you've provided an explanation>". You're already using the script so it should not be difficult. Otherwise, I'm satisfied. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:56, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

FWIW I'd support (and obviously follow) such a policy wording change. GiantSnowman 16:59, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Comment - I'm logging off in about an hour for the weekend (nowadays I'm busy most long weekends, as you'll see from my editing history/user page updates, before my 'fans' accuse me of running from this) and likely won't be back till Sunday/Monday. This means I won't have chance (for better or worse) to respond to any comments. All I will say is this - I know I've been overzealous at times with rollback, but never maliciously or abusively. It's always been to revert clear vandalism, socks, or edits which I have "judged to be unhelpful to the encyclopedia" (as is allowed). I'll note Fram, while trawling through my contribs for these 'latest indiscretions' (which, for reasons I have already explained, I don't think are - otherwise I wouldn't have used ) has conveniently ignored my rollbacks exercised at this AN request. You'll note that for those edits I provided a bespoke edit summary explaining what I was doing and why I was rollbacking. That's something I should have done before, I know. I apologised for my edits the other night (accepted by the editor in question and a decent number of others) and have genuinely committed to being more careful, given that my reverts have sometimes caught up valid edits. Whenever that has happened I've apologised and self-reverted. If that's not enough and you still want my blood, then fine. I'll come back to the outcome in a few days. If it's as I fear then, given how I've felt over the past 24 hours, I probably won't return to editing at all tbh. I've been an editor for nearly 13 years and an admin for nearly 7, with no blemishes. It genuinely feels like I'm being harassed hounded out and it's deeply unpleasant. GiantSnowman 16:23, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) The problem is he wants to use rollback in grey areas - with grey seemingly covering hundreds of useful edits. I was unconvinced yesterday that he actually took responsibility for his abuse of rollback and that was confirmed today. Cries of harassment are misplaced - if he was not an admin he would have been blocked or sanctioned by an Admin already. Legacypac (talk) 16:37, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

• Again, rollback is allowed for edits "judged to be unhelpful to the encyclopedia". I judged these edits to be unhelpful, as they were unsourced and unexplained and in an area that has been ripe for vandalism in the past. Again, that is allowed per WP:ROLLBACK. So are you saying that I am not allowed to use rollback for edits even though WP:ROLLBACK says I am? GiantSnowman 16:40, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
• The edits by MrMo4 (talk · contribs) are all unsourced, and unexplained, and they include BLP material. Rolling them back, and warning for it, is not wrong, even if they replaced equally unsourced material. If unsourced material has been in the article for a long time, and if we have no reason to suspect it's somehow false or contaminated, we typically don't remove it, unless it's otherwise troubling. But if an editor keeps making unsourced and unexplained changes, after being warned a few times, what reason does the average admin/editor/reader have to trust the information? And what are Template:Uw-unsourced2, Template:Uw-ucblock, etc. for if not that? Given the pattern of MrMo4's editing, these reverts and warnings are par for the course. Drmies (talk) 16:42, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Question, since we're being pedantic about policies: a good-faith replacement of unsourced material seems as though it invokes the "challenged or likely to be challenged" clause of the verifiability policy (see WP:MINREF), even if what it's replaced with is also unsourced. How does reverting such an edit interact with the WP:BURDEN section of the same policy? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:01, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
    • Ivanvector, my point is rather that in this case, that of MrMo4 there could have been legitimate doubt about the good faith of the editor. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 17:51, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
      • Not if you actually looked at their edits. What are their mistakes? They added unsourced content (mainly to unsourced infoboxes), but all their added content was correct, and all their added content was a real improvement bar the replacement of English with Cornish (the player is Cornish, but we use the official football countries, not some regionalistic indicators). With some guidance on this latter part, this good-faith, helpful newbie could well have turned out to be a good new editor. Now, we have one editor less. This is a rather severe example of WP:BITE, coupled with misuse of rollback. Fram (talk) 07:19, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

• GS, no one doubts your good intentions, but if you "judged these edits to be unhelpful" when they were actually helpful, and if you've done that repeatedly, that means your judgment has been poor. You should either improve it or stop doing those reverts. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 08:53, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

• Also, GiantSnowman, please don't describe this as your being harassed. As an editor for nearly 13 years and an admin for nearly 7, you should know that you're expected to be able to account for your editing and/or use of the tools to which you have access. Being asked to do so is not tantamount to harassment and nobody is trying to hound you out. The concerns, I think, at this point, are the fact that you apologized and said you would be far more careful about the use of rollback, and then promptly resumed doing the same things. That's exactly why WP:IDHT was written. You say this is deeply unpleasant for you, but how do you think those well-meaning editors you're mass reverting without explanation feel? That's exactly why WP:BITE was written, addressing the fact that some behaviours drive potentially productive new editors off the project rather than helping them. Fish+Karate 11:57, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Time for policy adjustments?

Shouldn't we modify all the policies saying that rolling back of edits which are not vandalism (obvious blatant clear vandalism as per WP:VANDALISM) must contain a custom edit summary (which only applies if the roll back is performed by script, usual rollback may not be used for anything different from vandalism) and must be preceded by a message at the talk page of the user who is affected?--Ymblanter (talk) 17:21, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I'd agree, but would say vandalism and reverting socks are the exceptions (you wouldn't post at a sock's talk page per DENY). Everything else needs a manual edit summary and talk page post. GiantSnowman 17:27, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Possibly serious BLP violations as well, though I have difficulties imagining a real situation when the problem of massive BLP violations could be solved by rollback.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:31, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm all for checks & balances. - FlightTime (open channel) 17:37, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes. Rollback is frequently troubling enough already in the hands of Recent change patrollers. Only yesterday I talked to someone who had simply rolled back (with Twinkle, maybe, I don't know) an IP edit without explanation. That this is done without explanation is the norm, these days. But mass rollback, which is a magnificent tool, is a bit different. Above, someone said "there's no rush"--IMO mass rollback is precisely also for those cases where there is a rush, where a boatload of unhelpful edits need to be reverted before subsequent edits, including those by SineBot etc., make the edits inaccessible to rollback. But I'm straying from Ymblanter's point a bit--of course rollback edits, vandalism or not, should be accompanied by an edit summary (Twinkle can now add "good faith" or "vandalism", right?) And a mass rollback should be enacted with a decent edit summary. Now before some archeologist dives in to find me mass-rollbacking without explanation: if I run into a sock of some LTA, I'm going to hit mass rollback as fast as a I can and click right through--but in such a case the subsequent block will make that motivation clear. And Ymblanter, frequently that does involve massive BLP violations, including outing and harassment. Drmies (talk) 17:52, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

• Have a gander at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Proposal: changes to the Rollback policy. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:46, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I think we need the flexibility to allow some room for judgment and discretion -- both qualities that admins are expected to possess.

The goal of the policy for rollback and vandalism is that people using rollback have to judge the intent of an edit. There are dozens (if not hundreds) of rollbacks every day where the edit being rolled back was the addition of the word "poop" somewhere in the article. I guess we were all 9 years old at one time or another. Similarly there are dozens (if not hundreds) of edits being rolled back where random chunks of articles were blanked, "John Doe is a great minecraft player" is added, or dates are changed to clearly implausible ones. There's no point in discussing any of these edits with their perpetrators because they already know what was wrong with their edit. We have the "Your test worked! Use the sandbox in future" template for these which puts the very best possible construction on the editor's intent. The use of that template is optional.

Where the subjective intent of a change is unclear, it is incumbent upon admins to slow down, check the facts, check history, check other contributions, and determine how to proceed. It is appropriate to treat edits as vandalism when it becomes clear that the individual who made it was working in bad faith -- they weren't making an effort to contribute useful information, or were deliberately and knowingly ignoring our way of doing things. Otherwise, it is important to communicate, and to take the time to make clear to the other contributor why their change is being reverted, with specificity. This is settled policy and is the foundation of how we build articles. Any edit that is a good-faith attempt to improve the encyclopedia is not vandalism and, if reverted, requires an explanation. Where and when this explanation must be provided is a matter more open to interpretation and judgment. The less clear the situation, the greater the requirement to discuss in advance rather than notify post hoc. Where a good-faith edit is a combination of the useful and the problematic, it is broadly incumbent upon Wikipedians deciding what to do with the edit to allow the useful portions to stand.

Anyone who has done much RC patrolling will realize that admins are going to make the occasional mistake due to the sheer volume of questionable edits. I get that. But as a general rule, admins are expected to make the right call the vast majority of the time, slow down, explain what they are doing, explain policy, welcome people, etc. UninvitedCompany 18:08, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Don't need more policy creep. Do need more willingness to call out crappy reverting and to shut it down through restrictions or technical means if it doesn't stop after gentle feedback and guidance is attempted. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 21:02, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Simon Wessely

• Simon Wessely (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This is an article that's on my watchlist because it catalysed my acceptance of an RfA nomination something over a decade ago. It has been under attack for a long time, by a subset of chronic fatigue syndrome patients who utterly reject the possibility of any psychological component to the disease, reject the term CFS, insist on "myalgic encephalomyopathy" (ME), despite the absence of any evidence, as far as our article goes, that it is actually a form of encephalomyopathy, and so on. Basically Wessely tried CBT with patients, apparently had some success, and the "ME" activists cannot accept that because, in their minds, it means the disease is psychosomatic. That is not at all what it means, there are plenty of real diseases where CBT helps, but never mind.

So that's the backstory.

Today a new user, Rainywednesday (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), has piled in to add a claim that "In a 1993 meeting with a minister for the disabled Simon Wessely claimed that “Benefits can often make [ME] patients worse". That is a pretty nasty piece of writing, and it's sourced to an article in the Independent by someone with zero other articles on their byline. It turns out to be a submitted article by an "ME" activist and not by an Independent staffer. The user provides links to purported minutes of the meeting, I am poring through a looooooong pdf right now, also hosted on the blog of another "ME" activist. I am treating this a BLP issue right now due tot he extensive history of vicious attacks at that article (check the deleted history - Jimbo nuked it at one point). That said, I think it's borderline and more likely to be quote mining than deliberate falsification. Guy (Help!) 00:31, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Oh, the user says there is "a long history of bigotry surrounding ME/CFS". That is a MASSIVE red flag in this case. The "ME" activists consider the suggestion that psychiatric or psychological interventions might help, to be a bigoted attempt to dismiss their symptoms as "all in the mind". This is not true, of course, and also a red herring: PTSD genuinely is all in the mind but is utterly debilitating, as I found out. If anyone can find the text in this bundle, I'd be grateful. It would help establish whether this is WP:UNDUE quote mining or a legitimate quote. Guy (Help!) 00:51, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Wessely’s theories are a good 25 years behind the times, though; we now know CFS/ME is virus-mediated in a similar vein as Guillian-Barre (which, unlike CFS/ME, is more common in men than women and is therefore not considered partly “psychological” in nature). Also, unsurprisingly, his antiquated, now wholly discredited theories have been recently seized upon by the loathsome incel community as ‘proof’ that while men get really sick, women are crazy neurotic malicious liars pretending to be sick to hurt men. Do you really expect the user - or anyone, ever - to believe that there isn’t malice behind these theories? 24.76.103.169 (talk) 03:32, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Response to Guy from Rainydaywednesday

This is interesting. I raise concern about the history of bigotry surrounding ME/CFS, and that's used to tie me to a bigoted view of the motivations and beliefs of 'activists'. Guy's 'backstory' is so confused and misleading that it will take considerable time to properly pick it apart. It might be best to leave that until after looking at the specifics of this one reversion dispute.

I added this sentence to the section on controversies surrounding Simon Wessely:

"Minutes from a 1993 meeting on CFS with Minister of State for Social Security Nicholas Scott record Wessely claiming that "Benefits can often make patients worse". "

Guy reverted this, saying "Not in source, not independent, usual suspects saying usual thing.". I thought that the "usual suspects saying usual thing" was a bit unpleasant, but I had added in the name of the Minister myself in order to provide a link, so then changed the sentence to make it close to what was in the source:

"In a 1993 meeting with a minister for the disabled Simon Wessely claimed that “Benefits can often make [ME] patients worse.”"

The Independent article I was citing states:

"“Benefits can often make [ME] patients worse” claimed psychiatrist Simon Wessely, one of the originators of the biopsychosocial model of ME, in 1993 in a meeting with a minister for the disabled."

Guy reverted this edit, saying that "Still WP:SYN because the source still doesn't say that. Guy (Help!) 18:43, 5 December 2018 (UTC)"

Guy has not explained what it is that he believes the article does not say.

Furthermore, because I care about accuracy, I had already checked the source of this quote, which was the minutes of the meeting written by a Civil Servant, Dr M McGrath Secretary to the Disability Living Allowance Assessment Board. These minutes are available at the UK National Archive, and were released following an FOI request. For anyone wishing to check directly with the UK National Archive, their reference for this file is BN 141/1, but it is not possible to link to this source for a digital copy. A digital copy of this file has been placed on-line here: https://valerieeliotsmith.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/natarchbn141dss.pdf

It is slightly embarrassing that Guy has said he is "poring through a looooooong pdf right now" and "If anyone can find the text in this bundle, I'd be grateful." When I posted a link to this file I had told him that the quote can be found on page 10 of 235. I had tried to make things easy for him. I think that those minutes appear a couple of times in the bundle, so hopefully he'll find one version or another before too long.

If we put aside the prejudices and stigma that can surround ME/CFS, I thikn it's fair to say that my sentence was accurate and provides some useful information about why Wessely may be seen as a controversial figure.

Just to be clear, and I resent the seeming need to comment on this, I do not have an ideological opposition to psychological research or interventions for ME/CFS, nor do I think that any benefits coming from psychological therapies would indicate that ME/CFS was "all in the mind" (a bizarre phrase to use anyway). I also don't think that these sorts of misguided concerns are what motivates most of those patients who have been speaking critically of poor quality research or misleading claims about the efficacy of CBT or GET. Instead, this seems to be a bigoted straw-man created by those who are unable to understand the true reasons for controversy in this area.

In recent years many academics, including psychiatrists and psychologists, have been speaking out in support of ME/CFS patients raising concern about methodical problems and statistical spin, particularly as it relates to the PACE trial, a piece of research that Simon Wessely described as "a thing of beauty". This has been covered by the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/opinion/sunday/getting-it-wrong-on-chronic-fatigue-syndrome.html Sense About Statistics: http://senseaboutscienceusa.org/pace-research-sparked-patient-rebellion-challenged-medicine/ Science Based Medicine: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/treating-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-with-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-and-graded-exercise-therapy-how-the-pace-trial-got-it-wrong/ In a special edition of the Journal of Health Psychology: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1359105317722370 And so on.

For those pseudo-sceptics who had simply trusted the stigmatising smears and prejudice promoted by authority figures a decade ago I'm sure that this is very confusing. It's obvious that when homeopaths run a nonblinded trial in which participants in one arm are told they are receiving an effective treatment, results for subjective self-report outcomes will not be reliable and those who claim otherwise can be laughed at... but if trials of CBT are criticised for doing the exact same thing, shouldn't that be dismissed as militant anti-psychiatry? https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1359105317700885

Everyone can see how the poorly founded and exaggerated claims of behavioural interventions altering gay men's sexuality were stigmatising and led to social problems, but if ME/CFS patients raise concerns about similar problems, doesn't that mean that they're assuming mental health problems are not 'real'? Peter Tatchell has commented that "Attempt to stigmatise ME/CFS #PACEtrial campaigners reminds me of when I protested aversion therapy for LGBTs" https://twitter.com/PeterTatchell/status/772035205695672320 and "Isaac Marks moved from aversion therapy to a trial of CBT for CFS. Why was he still respected? Lessons not learnt." https://twitter.com/PeterTatchell/status/778256247300775936

I see that Guy has now described Wright's Independent piece (classed as a 'long-read' by them) as "an op-ed by a member of the anti-psychiatry advocacy community". Where has Wright described herself as a member of the anti-psychiatry advocacy community? Is this label applied simply because she is a patient with ME/CFS? Is it acceptable to be dismissive of journalism about an illness because the author suffers from it themselves? I saw that the PACE trial authors had tried to ensure that a patient academic publishing criticism of their work in a peer-reviewed journal was made to declare their diagnosis as a COI. Would such an attitude be seen as acceptable for those suffering from AIDS or depression?

Wright's article includes this paragraph from someone who fell ill with ME/CFS after being engaged in gay rights advocacy: "Adam Lowe, an author and journalist with ME is also demanding accountability. “One of the most common misconceptions about ME patients is that we’re anti-psychiatry and resent all treatments that imply even a partially psychological cause for the illness. This is another myth that needs to be challenged. I’m a strong believer in adequate mental health provision for everyone as are most ME patients."

Guy makes some more confused claims about the controversy over the naming of ME/CFS/SEID. It is of course not the case that a preference for ME requires one to be committed to a particular pathology for ME/CFS. Lots of medical conditions have names stemming from tradition or old ideas. We now know that the flu is not caused by the influence of the moon. The term CFS can cause problems for patients, and many have been unhappy that some researchers chose to promote the use of CFS over ME, but that is no reason to assume that they are idiots.

One reason why patients a troubled by the use of CFS over ME is that it leads to them having reduced legal rights. PACE trial researcher Peter White gave a talk on the PACE trial's results to his employers at Swiss Re insurance, and the legal advantage the 'CFS' diagnosis provides to insurers was explained there: "A final point specific to claims assessment, and a question we’re often asked, is whether CFS would fall within a mental health exclusion, if one applies to a policy. The answer to this lies within the precise exclusion wording. If the policy refers to functional somatic syndromes in addition to mental health, then CFS may fall within the exclusion. If the policy doesn’t refer to functional somatic syndromes as well as mental health then it would be difficult to apply. The point made is that a diagnosis of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or ME (a term often used colloquially instead of CFS) is considered a neurological condition according to the arrangement of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) diagnostic codes whereas CFS can alternatively be defined as neurasthenia which is in the mental health chapter of ICD10." https://web.archive.org/web/20130824093822/http://www.swissre.com/clients/newsletters/Managing_claims_for_chronic_fatigue_the_active_way.html All three of the PACE trial's primary investigators declared insurance industry COIs, and this was one of the issues covered in Wright's piece.

In 2013 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Social Security Administration announced their intention to ask the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene an expert committee to examine the evidence base for ME/CFS. When this report was published in 2015 one of the conclusions they reached was that "The committee agrees that the term “chronic fatigue syndrome” can result in stigmatization and trivialization and should no longer be used as the name of this illness." https://www.nap.edu/read/19012/chapter/9#227

Guy describes me as having 'piled in' - does he just mean that I added one sentence to an article? He says of my edit "that is a pretty nasty piece of writing" - in what way is it 'nasty'? More importantly, is it inaccurate?

I've not done much editing on wikipedia, only a few CFS ones, but the experience has not been great. I think I've won out in the debates I've engaged in but it's been tedious and I've often avoided commenting when other people were clearly promoting misleading claims because of this. I'm also going to ignore some of Guy's misleading claims above. I fear that we're already at the point where my attempting to clarify just some of the misconceptions here will be viewed as tldr evidence that I am an unreasonable obsessive.

Does Wikipedia have any policies in place for addressing problems with a culture of prejudice? If so, I think that the way some editors write about ME/CFS needs to be looked at. If not, I think that you're long past the point of needing one.Rainywednesday (talk) 04:43, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

References

So you don't have to comb through it, folks - that paragraph from the Indy feature: "The biopsychosocial model, and the assumption that if people who become disabled from conditions like ME adopted the correct attitudes and behaviours they could recover, seems to appeal to politicians looking to cut the costs of disability payments. “Benefits can often make [ME] patients worse” claimed psychiatrist Simon Wessely, one of the originators of the biopsychosocial model of ME, in 1993 in a meeting with a minister for the disabled. If giving disability benefits to patients, such as those with ME, may foster a culture of dependency, then cutting these benefits can be presented as a positive intervention. According to a document promoting the biopsychosocial framework circulated by Lord Freud, the former minister for welfare reform, it is important for those with health problems like ME to “recognise that the sick role is temporary, in the expectation of recovery” and that giving disability benefits to such patients, may foster a culture of dependency." Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 05:16, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

That not is dispute. I take it the issue is whether or not the op-ed in Independent is a reliable source for Wessely having said that. I suspect at least that the report, being activism, is shorn of context. Rainywednesday's repeatedly bombing it into the article lede here strikes me as problematic. [Add: so here's a relevant tweet from Wessely[16] Yes, he wrote these words - but he now says they are too crude ... so putting this front and centre in his bio certainly is problematic.] Alexbrn (talk) 08:19, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Is there some reason this is at ANI? It looks like the sort of dispute best discussed elsewhere like at WP:BLP/N. I'm not really sure what sort of administrative attention is required. I appreciate there have been problems in the past, but the editor above seems to be engaging in discussion and there have been sources provided. Whether or not the sources are good enough is something which should be handled via ordinary WP:dispute resolution. If there's some fear of WP:sockpuppetry or something, that's one thing but none seems to have been presented and in any case, it's probably better handled at WP:SPI. Nil Einne (talk) 09:45, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I see Guy appears to have exceeded 3RR. Is the administrative issue whether the editing falls under the BLP exception of WP:3RR or Guy needs to stop? Nil Einne (talk) 09:50, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Exactly, it's a BLP exception specifically due to the history of activist attacks at this article (check the deleted history for some real pearls). As you see above, these people want to right great wrongs - the claim that Wessely's views ib CFS are out of date is telling, since the alleged date of the statement is 1993 and Wessely has not worked in CFS for a long time (his focus now is PTSD). There is a desire to rewrite history. In this case the "source" is an op-ed by an ME activist (Google is a thing, folks), a class of source that has been consistently problematic in that article. Again, check the deleted history, you will see just how bitterly some of these folks hate Wessely. But you have to know the history to see the problem, so I brought it here for more admin eyes. As an aside, the question of whether the claim is true or not is only part of the issue, there's also the possibility of cherry-picking or quote mining. I still haven't found the purported minute of the meeting. The PDF is 235 pages and is not searchable, my Adobe subscription has lapsed so I can't OCR it. The fact that this has not been reported by any source other than this activist seems to me to be the clincher: the article's comment is clearly motivated by personal animus towards Wessely. Guy (Help!) 11:26, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Guy, see Wessely's tweet I linked above for the National Archive excerpt. Alexbrn (talk) 11:47, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Guy says: "I still haven't found the purported minute of the meeting. The PDF is 235 pages and is not searchable, my Adobe subscription has lapsed so I can't OCR it." As I've now repeatedly told you, the quote is on page 10 of that document. How can you find this simple task such a struggle?

Guy says "these people want to right great wrongs" - I'm almost impressed by your continued willingness to use terminology like 'these people'. Don't you think it's ironic to raise concerns of an ideological commitment to righting great wrongs leading to unreasonable editing, considering your own apparent fear of 'these people': "activists unhappy with any possibility that CBT might help with CFS (they utterly reject anything other than a purely physical cause)". Everything I've said can be shown to be accurate, whereas I do not believe that the same can be said of you. I care about accuracy - if that's seen as a bad thing on wikipedia then that is worrying.

Guy says: "The fact that this has not been reported by any source other than this activist seems to me to be the clincher: the article's comment is clearly motivated by personal animus towards Wessely." This is such warped reasoning it's barely comprehensible. If Nathalie Wright was the only person to have taken the time to read the 235 pages of government records Guy is now having such trouble with, and the only person to quote from the minutes of Wessely's meeting with the Minister of State for Social Security, then why would that indicate that the articles' comment is clearly motivated by personal animus towards Wessely? Is it really the case that some at wikipedia have so absorbed ideological opposition to 'original research' that they now think it is evidence of animus for a journalist to engage in such work? Fair journalists would rely only on information already reported by others?

Alxbrn says: "Rainywednesday's repeatedly bombing it into the article lede here strikes me as problematic." My edit was to the second paragraph of section 2.1 of the Wessely article. Why have you described me as "repeatedly bombing it into the article lede"? In our dispute about your attempt to include a stigmatising claim within the lede of the CFS article I raised concern that you were allowing prejudices to affect the editing of wikipedia. Could it be that prejudices led to you making a misleading claim about me? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Chronic_fatigue_syndrome&diff=prev&oldid=864475590

Alxbrn says: "That not is dispute." Actually, Guy had repeatedly disputed the content of the article, saying things like: "The source inserted by user:Rainywednesday, a single-purpose account, does not contain anything like the content of the edit." If Guy has now changed his mind about this, I have not seen him acknowledge anywhere that he got this wrong.

Alxbrn wrote: "Add: so here's a relevant tweet from Wessely[32] Yes, he wrote these words - but he now says they are too crude ... so putting this front and centre in his bio certainly is problematic." I inserted a sentence about this meeting in the second paragraph of section 2.1, and I included the date of the meeting so people would know it was not something that happened recently. Guy claims that "There is a desire to rewrite history" - but surely it is trying to use someone saying that their earlier claims were 'too crude' as a justification for removing information about these earlier claims from their biography would be an example of rewriting history.Rainywednesday (talk) 13:38, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Page 10 says, point 7 of 7, "As regards benefits:- it is important to avoid anything that suggests that disability is permanent, progressive or unchanging. Benefits can often make patients worse". However: page 8 has the first three of Wessely's numbered points, then page 9 is the first page of a letter from Aylward, then page 10 has points 4-7, which, in the context of the PDF, is a non-sequitur, followed by page 11 which is the conclusion fo Aylward's letter and one has to assume that pages 8 and 10 belong together. And far from being the dismissive and flippant response as presented by "ME" activist Nathalie Wright, his previous point was "TREATMENT is difficult, extraordinary sensitivity is necessary. Great flexibility is essential in treating these patients, each case is different" and so on. To cherry pick the closing sentence without noting the context that Wessely's clinical work indicated that prolonged inactivity caused adverse physical and psychological consequences, is misleading at best and actually more like opposition research. Guy (Help!) 21:49, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Flippant? Your emotional responses are a distraction from what is important, which is accuracy. Wright accurately quoted from the official record of what Wessely said, yet you seem to be trying to present her as having twisted Wessely's words into being dismissive and flippant as an act of 'activism'. Why do you think that those previous points from Wessely's talk do anything to undermine the legitimacy of Wright's work? So far the most stinging criticism you've made of her work is to just repeatedly refer to her an an "ME" activist. Given the growing awareness of the methodological problems underpinning Wessely's research on CFS 'rehabilitation', and particularly the PACE trial he described as a "thing of beauty", the earlier parts of his talk make him look much worse to me: https://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40359-018-0218-3

Do you think that Wessely had some reliable evidence to show that benefits can make CFS patients worse? If so, why hasn't he published it in the 25 years since this meeting?

I'm not sure if you have any real concern about the National Archives file, of if you're just complaining about the way these sorts of documents are often scanned and compiled. If you want to inspect the paper documents themselves you can go to the National Archive.

I note that you've not responded to the points I made, or apologised for the misleading claims you made earlier. Rainywednesday (talk) 00:05, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I have, you just didn't like the response, but I will repeat it here if you like: stop POV-pushing, this is a biography, if you continue adding poorly sourced negative material then you may be blocked from editing or banned from this and related articles. Guy (Help!) 19:41, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Possible hoax on Syed Soleman Shah

Editors are adding different languages and calendars to the article, completely inappropriate. LivTheAlpaca (talk) 22:54, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

A speedy deletion may be needed here, not sure what makes this person WP:NOTABLE. IWI (chat) 23:00, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I’ve tried to remove some of the nonsense but Innocentbadshah (talk · contribs) is now edit warring. IWI (chat) 23:28, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

If a book written in foreign language and can not be translated yet to English and also not available online,,, so how should be cote that where we need it??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Innocentbadshah (talk • contribs) 23:34, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

The sources are questionable; I think this page may be a hoax. Could I have some input from more experienced editors? IWI (chat) 00:09, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) (Non-administrator comment) It's fine to use non-English sources, although English sources are preferred if they exist. This isn't nonsense, ImprovedWikiImprovment; it is the ancestors of the article subject. Whether it's worth mentioning in the article is a content dispute, and should be discussed at the article's talk page, not edit-warred over... —{{u|Goldenshimmer}}｜✝️｜they/their｜😹｜T/C｜☮️｜John 15:12｜🍂 00:12, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I've struck part of the above comment as it sounded like IWI needed to go to the talk page, which they already had. Sorry, ImprovedWikiImprovment. —{{u|Goldenshimmer}}｜✝️｜they/their｜😹｜T/C｜☮️｜John 15:12｜🍂 06:57, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I also had a conversation about it on their talk page. A haven’t reverted again so just by looking at the article you’ll see the major issue with it. And I’m nearly certain that it’s either a hoax or not notable. IWI (chat) 09:15, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't see anything that's not in English in the article other than citations. I also don't agree that being in Hijri calendar is a good reason to remove a date; instead it would be better to add the CE equivalent: "Other era systems may be appropriate in an article. In such cases, dates should be followed by a conversion to Dionysian (or vice versa) and the first instance should be linked" (MOS:ERA). In terms of being a hoax, maybe so, but at least the books linked are real (I haven't been able to check their contents, though). By the way, what is the agreement mentioned here? Also, why on earth is this inappropriate?! —{{u|Goldenshimmer}}｜✝️｜they/their｜😹｜T/C｜☮️｜John 15:12｜🍂 12:27, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

The removal of the speedy deletion tag was an obvious thing to do; the user placed it there out of rage. The "rage agreement" was on the user's talk page and is visible. IWI (chat) 14:07, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

@Goldenshimmer:The text was non-English (including a different calendars), not just the sources. I can’t find anything in the subject, I think it’s a hoax. IWI (chat) 00:17, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

The main concern was not the decendents section but the family section. His date of birth was given in a foreign language and I can’t find anything about this person. I don’t think they existed. IWI (chat) 00:24, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

The 'owner' of the article having the same last name as the article subject makes me think this is a hoax article, probably with the same name as our hoaxster. I can't find any of the sources, but given the article has been around for a while I don't think speedy deletion is the way to go as it's not a 'blatant' hoax, so it needs to go to AFD, for failing WP:V. Fish+Karate 12:23, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Now at AFD, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Syed Soleman Shah. Fish+Karate 12:28, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

It’s terrible that this article has been here since 2011. The author appears to have made other articles that are hoaxes in the past. On the basis of WP:NOTHERE, I suggest an indefinite block. IWI (chat) 13:58, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

@Fish and karate, Goldenshimmer, and LivTheAlpaca: I’m concerned that all articles they have created may either be hoaxes or not notable, such as Syed Muhammad Masood. IWI (chat) 14:10, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I would like to not jump to conclusions. One article is at AFD, where it will have 7 days to be discussed and the veracity or lack thereof of these sources can be reviewed. If that's proven to be ropey then other articles can be addressed. I have asked the relevant Wikiproject for the language (Pashto) to see if the scanty sources which are provided are in any way relevant. Fish+Karate 14:32, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Here is the list of page creations, ignoring any they may have created using IP addresses. IWI (chat) 14:19, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

• I suppose it is possible this is a hoax; Google translate says this is Urdu (or maybe F&K is right and it's Pashto, I don't even know that), and I don't speak it any more than F&K or IWI. More investigation is needed. But User:ImprovedWikiImprovment is making a serious rush to judgement, and suggesting an indefinite block at this stage, before we really know what is going on, is exactly the kind of behavior I think should be prevented at ANI with liberal application of topic bans. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:36, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

  What he said. The sources are a mix of languages including Urdu, Pashto, and Arabic and mostly PDFs so not really translatable for non-speakers (as Google Translate, which isn't great but can at least give you a sense of what something says, can't do PDFs). We have to be careful not to expect perfect English sources for every article, and we should try to encourage articles on non-English topics, to try and address cultural bias. I hope this is not a hoax. Fish+Karate 14:37, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough, allow me to rephrase: if this is a hoax we should A. Indef the user and B. Check the other articles they have created. IWI (chat) 14:56, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Consider what a user said on the page’s talk page back in 2016; doesn’t prove anything but just shows this isn’t the first time an editor has had a concern about the article. IWI (chat) 15:04, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Just be careful and destroy all my articles and contributions to Wikipedia!!! What the non-sense is going here with me! Delete my user page and my contributions. No need to waste my energy on a platform reviewed and administrate by such group of people who even not aware of a language and using abusive language about other peoples living in world with different lifestyles then their! Thanks and bye bye! Syed Saqib Imad — Preceding unsigned comment added by Innocentbadshah (talk • contribs) 02:40, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Progress being disrupted

Hi, I'm a professional copyeditor/writer and am currently trying to improve the Ada Lovelace article. However, my progress is being obstructed by one particular editor (Xxanthippe) who appears to be standing guard over the article and preventing things from moving on. His initial revert Special:Diff/871944954 was at 09:44 on 4 December, when he assumed good faith and asked me to comply with WP:BRD before proceeding. I've attempted to do this, but it has proved to be ineffectual as no-one else has raised any objections to my recent edits, nor do they seem interested in discussing the matter.

In the meantime and as a compromise, I decided to continue my work extremely slowly (barely a couple of minor edits every few hours), thus giving people the chance to review/revert each one as we go along, and so far no-one else has complained about this. However, this morning Xxanthippe has accused me of potentially edit warring through my recent actions, which I strongly refute. I consider his interventions to be a case of disruptive editing as he is preventing me from making progress, without providing any concrete arguments to illustrate his specific objections. This is hugely frustrating and precisely the type of behaviour that drives away conscientious contributors like myself. Luckily I am fairly thick skinned but there is a limit.

As a result, I have ceased editing the article until further notice and have made a second attempt to garner support from the community. But I'm not too hopeful about this, as I suspect people are either disinterested or don't want to get involved, and I predict a stalemate. Please can you advise. Rodney Baggins (talk) 11:16, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

@Xxanthippe: Hiding behind BRD, as you do on Talk:Ada Lovelace, helps nobody. The onus is on you to explain why these reversions - [17], [18] - were appropriate. Reverting swathes of constructive edits because you don't like them, and saying "BRD, take to talk page" is obstructive and unhelpful. To paraphrase you, it's not "bold revert", it's "bold revert discuss". Please therefore fulfil your part of that bargain, and explain why the edits were reverted, and what was wrong with them to the point that the status quo to which you reverted was an improvement. Because, to me, they all seem to be well-meaning and valid improvements. Fish+Karate 12:12, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Comment about the content dispute made on the talk page Talk:Ada_Lovelace#WP:_Copy_editing. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:46, 8 December 2018 (UTC).

I expand here on the content dispute. WP:Copy editing, when needed, is welcome but it must be consistent with the subtleties and nuances of the subject to which it applied. In the case of the popular and much edited Ada Lovelace article there are several complexities that are dealt with well by the formal biographical sources for the article, and those should be born in mind when editing. A particular issue is the naming of the many people that appear in the narrative, which has been discussed much on the talk page. The complexity is exacerbated by the British system of titles that were frequent in the aristocratic milieu in which Ada moved. Ada herself had at least three different styles of address throughout her life, with formal and informal variants. Also did her husband and some of her relatives. In a previous version of the article, there was a list of these, which I will restore in due course to give clarity to the reader. The solution adopted by contemporary biographers, and in particular Ada's, is to use the same name for the same person throughout the narrative. Unfortunately, this is not done in the article. She is called "Ada Byron", "Ada Lovelace", "Lady King", "Lady Lovelace" and "Lovelace"(which is incorrect and sexist as that term refers to her husband alone and thereby attributes her achievements to him). They are all basically correct (except for the last) but are confusing for the new reader. The edit that I reverted [19] changes "Annabella" to :"his wife". Well, Annabella was his wife as further reading reveals, but the use of multiple terms for the same person, is poor style, confuses the reader and is inconsistent with modern biographical writing, where clarity is paramount. Also, why was the perfectly good blue link to Deed of separation removed? There are other issues that I don't have time to go into. I find of the edits proposed so far, a few detrimental, a few beneficial and many doing little but churn the article to minimal purpose. The practice of editing scholarly articles may differ from editing non-scholarly ones where "It look OK" may suffice.

[20] Remember that Wikipedia is a collaborative, consensus-based environment. Be bold in making changes, but if you find that your work has been undone by another editor, visit the talk page of the article and start a discussion before reinstating it.

According to Butcher's Copy-editing, "The good copyeditor is a rare creature: an intelligent reader and a tactful and sensitive critic; someone who cares enough about perfection of detail to spend time checking small points of consistency in someone else's work but has the good judgement not to waste time or antagonize the author by making unnecessary changes. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:35, 9 December 2018 (UTC).

References

Speaking generally, if you start a brief discussion on the talk page outlining why you believe the changes you are making improve the article, it's sort of incumbent on the other editor to explain why they believe they aren't if they want to continue to oppose your changes. If after a few days of no negative feedback on a proposed change, it's probably fair to take it as WP:silence suggesting WP:consensus and you can make your edit again referring the talk page discussion in the edit summary. If an editor still reverts you even without explanation, you shouldn't edit war but you can wait for them to join the discussion, or even directly invite them. If they still don't join the discussion you can try again, and if they still revert but don't join the discussion then you can start to consider bringing an ANI case. If they do join the discussion and give reasons why they feel your changes are not an improvement but you don't agree, then WP:Dispute resolution outlines ways to try and resolve disputes, including ways to try and get feedback from other parties if discussion between the two of you is looking like it won't come to consensus. Note as mentioned on the talk page, it can sometimes be better to break down a major edit into smaller parts so it's easier to follow what changes are being made. Nil Einne (talk) 15:30, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

OK, for my part, I've agreed to step back from the article to await input from other interested parties, and hopefully some constructive feedback from Xxanthippe, which I have requested on more than one occasion to no avail. The overall result of all this is that my planned improvements to the article have been delayed until at least next weekend, and beyond, as free time is increasingly difficult to come by as Christmas approaches... So you see how the disruption has perpetuated itself. I will check in again next Friday, having giving 7 days for discussion/feedback. Thanks. Rodney Baggins (talk) 16:36, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I commented on the article talk page. Xxanthippe is being annoying imho. Rodney, you don't need to wait a week. A day or so is plenty in this situation. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 03:23, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, discussion is now ongoing, so we'll see how it goes. This ANI can probably be closed now, but I might have to get back to you depending on how things work out... Rodney Baggins (talk) 11:08, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Secondststudio

I'm not sure what's going on with this editor, who has been on Wikipedia since 2009, but their recent edits are very disruptive:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barbara_Januszkiewicz&oldid=872506605
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Barbara_Januszkiewicz&oldid=872525019
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Barbara_Januszkiewicz&oldid=872521840
• and this request for help, formatted as a draft article page

It seems like they might be not in the best state of mind, based on the comments. I warned them to please stop destroying pages.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 17:39, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Might this be a compromised account? ^Semi_Hypercube ✎ 18:10, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I believe that it's a COI problem since all edited pages are connected with the subject. Skirts89 (talk) 19:08, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I would advocate for a short block, to let the user have an opportunity to get reacquainted with our policies and procedures before such heavy-handed editing continues. Ifnord (talk) 00:48, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

It looks like the edits by this user have stopped as of a few hours ago, so I'm going to hold off on taking any administrative action. I left the user a warning here instead. If the disruption continues, I would also support a block in order to prevent further disruption. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 04:18, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

This appears to be resolved as the user was indefinitely blocked for promotional editing and a username violation.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 12:22, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Edit-warring BLPCRIME violations after warnings and a block

• Greywin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 2018 Freiburg gang rape (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

User Greywin was blocked (by me) about a month ago for refusing to engage in a discussion when this page was protected (also by me) and engaging in personal attacks instead. Having returned from the block, they are again disrupting this article's talk page with novel interpretations of our biographies of living persons policy, and edit-warring to restore info (such as this) which many other users have suggested violates the policy, as it is a clear allegation of crime committed by a living person. It appears they are not going to stop this, and so I am suggesting that Greywin be topic-banned from all articles and discussions about crimes committed or alleged to have been committed by living persons (essentially, topic ban from WP:BLPCRIME-related pages). Or just indeffed. But I'd like this to be a community decision rather than just me blocking them again. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:36, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Oh, and posting the compulsory notice on their talk page reminded me that they've been alerted to the discretionary sanctions on BLPs from the last incident. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:38, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Considering their edit history, a topic ban on BLP crime and an indef might amount to the same thing. As such I will support either remediation; since both will result in this particular WP:RGW issue being resolved about the same. Simonm223 (talk) 19:42, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Users are constantly violating WP:TPNO, editing my posts, removing even sourced material covered by highly reputable sources like Frankfurter Allgemeine. This is no joke anymore, this is MASSIVE CENSORSHIP and a violation of basic WP principles like WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NPOV, freedom of speech and so on. Obviously for reasons of WP:IDON'TLIKEIT.--Greywin (talk) 19:44, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

NON-ADMIN COMMENT As has been repeatedly pointed out to Greywin, undoing violations of our WP:BLP policy is a specified exception to WP:TPNO. --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:52, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

There is no violation of BLP policy. But there is a serious, serious violation of the basic principles which I pointed out.--Greywin (talk) 20:02, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

It's worth noting at this juncture that several of Greywin's edits to this talk page were just revdelled for BLP violations and for copyvio. Simonm223 (talk) 20:04, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

By a small circle of people promoting their common political viewpoint instead of displaying information from WP:RS.--Greywin (talk) 20:12, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry, did you just suggest that Primefac is in a WP:CABAL with me and NatGertler? Just want to be clear. Simonm223 (talk) 20:25, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Don't know what he is. As he didn't write anything and deleted while the discussion is ongoing.--Greywin (talk) 20:31, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Re "Did you just suggest that Primefac is in a CABAL with me and NatGertler?", There Is No Cabal (TINC). We discussed this at the last Cabal meeting, and everyone agreed that There Is No Cabal. An announcement was made in Cabalist: The Official Newsletter of The Cabal making it clear that There Is No Cabal. The words "There Is No Cabal" are in ten-foot letters on the side of the 42-story International Cabal Headquarters, and an announcement that There Is No Cabal is shown at the start of every program on The Cabal Network. If that doesn't convince people that There Is No Cabal, I don't know what will. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:01, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support indef per their comment "MASSIVE CENSORSHIP and a violation of basic WP principles like WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NPOV, freedom of speech and so on". Qualitist (talk) 19:46, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

For what? For bringing in material from Frankfurter Allgemeine, which is deleted on a talk page and for critizing this? This is absurd.--Greywin (talk) 19:50, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support t-ban or indef — For what has already been described and comments like this. Rather obvious this editor cannot be neutral in this area and he has thoroughly demonstrated a bad case of WP:IDHT. BLPcrime is already suffering enough from lack of serious consideration, so another editor inflating that issue does not help the project.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 20:20, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Oh, and the other editors on this topic are neutral? User:Deb for example, hounding me for month, tagging every article by me, if political or not? Or User:Simonm223, who is very obviously acting out of political motivation (according to his user page)? If you would leave it to them to decide what is notable, every article in this topic would have been deleted - as they were placing all of them on AfD. Every article was kept there... But it's ok, settle the score and kill the messenger to get the "balance" or "NPOV" that you want.--Greywin (talk) 20:30, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

• I've indefinitely blocked Greywin. ANI is not on my watchlist, but BLPN is, and I'd made the choice after reviewing their actions there: they continued to hint at and imply on a public page that someone had committed crimes that they have not been convicted of. That is not acceptable. As the conduct was ongoing and involved a living person, I felt a block was needed immediately to contain the damage to a living human being. If ANI decides for a lower sanction, any admin is free to change it in view of the consensus without further consulting me. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:38, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Given the type of articles-in-question, I believe the appropriate phrase might be "Book'em Danno". GoodDay (talk) 20:52, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Or "Wiki 'em, Jimbo!" EEng 01:28, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I support the decision to indef the user. Given the edits and the user's responses here and in other places, it's clear that the disruption would've continued until this was done. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 04:12, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

His immediate unblock request and comments above are worrisome. Legacypac (talk) 20:43, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support indef because I've complained about this user's inability to comprehend NPOV at the relevant noticeboard, but if anything he has got worse. One has to wonder why he doesn't edit at German Wikipedia but instead spends his time here criticising other editors for "not understanding English". Deb (talk) 10:00, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

KidAd

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

The following edit[21] to American politician Kevin Shelley appears to violate KidAd's topic ban.[22] Normally I would warn the user instead of reporting the violation, but he just came off a one-week block for previous violations of his topic ban,[23] and there was zero response to my last attempt to engage with him.[24] --Guy Macon (talk) 21:57, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

There's also this edit to Lee Holloway. Whether they don't or won't get it, they're clearly not gonna abide by the ban. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:18, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

He also appears[25] to have followed me to Liberty University, which is described in the lede as "a "bastion of the Christian right" in American politics, the university plays a prominent role in Republican politics". So, a clear violation of the topic ban. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:33, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I have blocked them for a month, doing now necessary administration.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:37, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Eh... He did have edits relating to academia before he started a crusade against your dirty, un-American, Godless, inhuman, delusional liberalism, so I could imagine it being from that and not necessarily continued harassment. Liberty University is definitely a factor in right-wing American politics but it's a grey area for the topic ban. The Shelley and Holloway articles were obviously within the field of American politics, though, he has no real excuse for those edits. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:39, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

• The user disagrees with the block and asks it to be lifted. Whereas I do not agree with their arguments, I would welcome comments of uninvolved users here on as the duration of the block I have chosen has been appropriate. (I am off to bed now).--Ymblanter (talk) 00:10, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Entirely appropriate decision. I also wouldn't be opposed to unblocking him now with the understanding that the next violation is grounds for an indefinite block. But up to you. Good night! NW (Talk) 01:06, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

• A clear violation, and the editor has exhibited IDHT behavior recently -- they violated their TB smack in the middle of an appeal to remove the ban! (see recent AN archives) They haven't earned any dispensations. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:10, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• At this point I don't think KidAd should be unblocked. I think I made it clear that the ban included all edits to post 1932 American politics when I said, "As you know you are banned from editing anything to do with post 1932 American politics.". The response to my post indicated a lack of concern about violating the topic ban while a ban appeal was taking place. ~ GB fan 01:37, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• The block length as it was set (1 month) seems appropriate to me, but I'm not against reducing the block duration (or removing the block) with the condition that he asks any questions now and asserts his full understanding of the topic banning policy and what it means, and he acknowledges that a block of significantly longer duration (up to and including an indefinite length) will be applied if the user's topic ban is violated again. KidAd was given plenty of warnings, followed by the appropriate alert here that provides information and explains this process. Later, this user was sanctioned and placed on a 3-month topic ban from post-1932 American politics and appropriately notified here. The notice cited the exact reasons that led to the decision (which appear to be sufficient given the user's disruptive edits to the topic), and included a link to the topic ban section that clearly defines what this means and includes a very detailed example. A responsible user would have asked for clarification before making questionable edits if they had any questions - this user did not. KidAd even received a warning here for their edits made to two different articles that violated this ban, and KidAd did not follow up with any questions. Despite these opportunities to comply with the ban, ask questions, and have a clear understanding of the process that may be confusing to KidAd, he violated the topic ban again and was blocked for one week (notification is here). During the user's one-week block, he was also given advice on what he should do in order to turn things around, avoid further sanctions, and improve their editing. Despite this, the user violated their ban yet again, was given a one-month block for this, and notified. I'm the type of person that naturally leans toward giving users another chance and trying to educate and help them (as you all know), but I'm sitting here in the "neutral zone". I'm sympathetic and I don't want to see someone who really does want to improve and learn sit blocked for so long, but their edits in violation of policy and the numerous chances given that weren't taken by KidAd make me unwilling to take the lead on lowering the user's block duration. If another admin does, I see nothing against it, but I think a month is also fair. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 04:01, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

  I think at this point I am the only admin who can reduce the block, because it is an AE block. I will be still waiting for more opinions.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:08, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

• I'm leaning towards keeping the one month in place or at most, reducing it to 2 weeks. Before they were blocked the last time, they made multiple violations and were warned at least 2 times to stop [26] [27]. Once they claimed they didn't think it applied because the person wasn't a politician [28] although they work for a think thank and most of their article is related to political issues. Maybe the other time they thought it was okay because they were simply trying to recruit someone else rather than directly edit, I don't know. It got ridiculous when in the middle of a topic ban appeal on ANI [29] they started to edit the articles of the current speaker of the US House of Representatives and as well as the article which lead to their topic ban in the first place, with edits which clearly weren't copyedits. I guess they recognised that they had clearly violated their topic ban so their only response was "Ay caramba" [30] and then after being blocked, to post a quotation from the The Gulag Archipelago [31]. To their credit they didn't even try to appeal the first time and dealt well with being the victim of a joe job. But their second edit after coming back was to copyedit the article of a politician [32]. They were already told (per earlier link) that they really need to familiarise themselves with the topic ban. They were also told they need to edit other areas, that they "can't discuss political topics or political editors or political anything" and even when their topic ban expires they should still limit themselves to non controversial edits on political articles [33]. While they were never explicitly told that staying away means no copy editing the articles of politicians, or that an example of a non controversial edit they could make when their topic ban expired would be copy-editing, they've also shown little regard for the topic ban. They've made no real attempt until this appeal to try and properly understand the scope of their topic ban e.g. by asking questions. I'm not even sure if they've read WP:TBAN. While their next violation is likely to be an indef whatever happens, it would be good if it doesn't come to that. IMO a long block is more likely to get the message to them that they need to take this seriously, no messing around testing the limits and instead seek clarification if they're uncertain of the limits. Since multiple people have already tried to get this message through them on their talk page and it hasn't stuck until now, maybe a long block will. Nil Einne (talk) 13:09, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

KidAd asked me to let everyone at ANI know about the conversation we are having on his talk page. BTW, I welcome comments and/or criticism regarding how I am trying to handle this. If you think that I could use a better approach, please tell me. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:09, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

In that discussion, KidAd insists that they now (at last!) understand what their topic ban means. Color me unconvinced. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:22, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Why do I have that slight feeling that after the month topic ban of his, something unexpected is going to happen. Aceing_Winter_Snows_Harsh_Cold (talk) 00:36, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Here is my thinking on this: he is either going to follow the rules or not. Reducing the block to two weeks doesn't really change the probability of him either following the rules or not, so per WP:ROPE I say make the block two weeks with a strongly worded warning about the indef waiting for him if he does it again. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:27, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, Guy, I strongly disagree. I'm not buying the "I didn't know what a topic ban meant" routine. If he's legit, let him sit out the month and think about what he did wrong, and come back chastened and ready to follow the rules. I see no persuasive argument for giving him a break. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:41, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Impersonation attempts

Someone has been impersonating KidAd in an obvious Joe Job to try to get him in trouble. The latest attempt was removed within 2 minutes,[34][35] but everyone should be aware that there are have been messages from IP users pretending to be KidAd. (And no, I do not think that KidAd is stupid enough to engage in ssockpuppetry on the ANI page.) The person doing this may be someone who has tangled with KidAd on one of the politics pages. Alas, that doesn't narrow it down much. :( --Guy Macon (talk) 05:23, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Gaming of autoconfirmed status by User:IAFIS

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This new user created their account on November 6, [36] then waited 10 days before editing. On November 16 they proceeded to make 10 trivial edits, ending on December 6, 30 days after they created their account. [37]

I don't believe that it is a coincidence that 10 edits in 30 days are the usual markers for becoming WP:Autoconfirmed.

On the 30th day, they started editing a controversial article, Gavin McInnes, and continue to do so.

I believe that they deliberately gamed the system to become autoconfirmed in order to edit other controversial edits which are or may become semi-protected. I ask that an admin look into this. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:04, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Notified. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:06, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

This is a smear made by Beyond My Ken without any evidence being used to intimidate. I am new to wikipedia, should I report him for this to an admin or possibly the proper section of ANI? Like other users stated the McInnes page wasn't even protected when I first edited it so the complaint BeyondMyKen is making here makes no sense. Just joined last month and all of my edits so far have nothing to do with alt-right or white supremacist figures (like Beyond My Ken has tried to imply) except the Gavin McInnes page (who isn't even a white nationalist, he seems to identify as more of a libertarian or "new right"). All of a sudden two editors Calton and Beyond My Ken jump all over me accusing me of being a sock based on zero evidence. I believe what is going on is these two users have political agendas and are trying to smear me as a "sock" to prevent me from contributing and editing on Wikipedia. IAFIS (talk) 06:10, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

No evidence? The evidence is clearly stated above. You can disagree with it, you can say it's not adequate or convincing, you can say that there's no violation, but you can't say that I didn't present any evidence. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:13, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Not only no evidence but you appear to be trying to manipulate admins to look into me because you have some sort of political agenda. I made two legitimate edits that you didn't like to the McInnes page and you immediately began proclaiming I was possibly a nazi alt-right sock (again, based on zero evidence). Like several other users here have already stated, you also made up stuff like autoconfirm status needs 30 days when it's only 4 days. You also lied about the Mcinnes article being protected when it wasn't. So your whole premise that I planned on editing the locked McInnes article by making exactly 10 edits is complete B.S. Like I asked you to do on your talk page, please leave me alone and stop harassing me on wikipedia. By the way, is this how wikipedia is supposed to work for new users? Are editors who have political agendas supposed to try and silence other users?

P.S. I actually made 11 or 12 edits (including creating my userpage) when I first edited the McInnes article not 10, and if anything the Neil Degrasse article (which was actually protected) would be what I was trying to contribute to. IAFIS (talk) 06:21, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

You made 10 article edits. The rest of what you said is hooey. I lied about nothing. I was honestly mistaken about 30 days, and I never said that Gavin McInnis was protected. What I said, precisely, was:I believe that they deliberately gamed the system to become autoconfirmed in order to edit other controversial edits [typo for "articles"], which are or may become semi-protected.

Clear? As for your question "is this how Wikipedia is supposed to work?" You really don't need an answer to that, do you, because you've had plenty of past experience with how Wikipedia works, haven't you?

And "manipulating admins"? That's a pretty low opinion you have about the intelligence of our admins, isn't it? What you'll find -- or what you already know -- is that admins, for the most part, follow the rules very precisely as they understand them. They may see what's happening, but decide that the circumstances don't exactly fit the letter of the policy, and therefore they don't act. That can be frustrating, but I understand it. It doesn't mean that they don't recognize the nature of the problem, it just means that they hold tightly to their responsibilities -- after all, they are accountable for their actions. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:17, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I didn't claim to have made 10 edits (you did), I said I made 11 or 12 (not including my userpage) so what you are saying is "hooey". You have repeatedly lied once again smearing me (I think this is the FIFTH time you have smeared or attacked me for no reason in the past 24 hrs. Apparently you seem to be a political activist smear/attack/try to silence others type of editor not an honest wikipedia editor. You again insinuated above that I am a previous user or a sock who has plenty of past experience. Why has this user BeyondMyKen not been penalized yet for this abuse by a neutral and honest admin?? IAFIS (talk) 07:27, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

You seem to have some difficulty comprehending the written word, so I'll pass on any further discussion with you. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:39, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Don't change your comments after others have responded to them, it's dishonest. See WP:TPO. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:43, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Don't accuse others of having changed their comments when they haven't, it's dishonest. Just like you have been dishonest throughout this whole process, beginning with lying about how autoconfirm status works to make it seem like I was a previous banned user or sock. 07:48, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Oh, sweet Jesus, don't you realize that everything's in the history?:

• At 2:39 [38], in response to your comment beginning "I didn't claim to have made 10 edits...", I posted the comment beginning "You seem to have some difficulty..."
• At 2:40, 1 minute later [39], you posted a 13-byte change to the comment I had already responded to.

Therefore, you changed your comment after I had already replied to it. Please don't do this again. And kindly stop accusing me of lying when you have presented no evidence of such. All you have shown is that I was wrong, something I had already admitted to below, two hours earlier. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:27, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I am new to wikipedia (despite your harassing accusations) so please forgive me if I made a mistake above, I didn't know I was doing anything wrong by simply tweaking my comments. I can't read your mind but it seems pretty obvious to me (and other users) that you are acting in bad faith and operate on wikipedia with a clear political agenda on top of that. Besides several users pointing out how the Mcinnes article wasnt locked so there was no reason for me to "game" the system, an admin below named Oshwah pointed out my initial edits were not trivial, and besides I didn't join wikipedia in the first place to make "trivial" edits, I joined because I have been a reader of the site for about 7 years and wanted to contribute myself. I never thought people like you (who apparently are protected by like-minded admins who share your politics) would jump all over me after just a few weeks of editing and accuse me of being a nazi sock. I just hope a fair-minded admin (seems like there aren't many according to what an IP user said on my talk page) penalizes you, and other users who misuse this encyclopedia in similar ways, have a good day. IAFIS (talk) 09:03, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

10'edits in only 4 days => autoconfirmed, a stupid low bar for page creation. There is no rule against this. Legacypac (talk) 00:10, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Also, Gavin McInnes isn't protected anyway (or hasn't been since 30 November, when it was fully protected), so it doesn't actually matter if they were autoconfirmed or not. Black Kite (talk) 00:12, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it is a ridiculously low bar, and yes, I know that that particular article isn't semi-protected, but this behavior is nevertheless gaming the system, making precisely the right amount of edits in exactly the correct amount of days to be autoconfirmed -- if autoconfirmation is supposed to be the "first line of defense" against people who are only here to harm the encyclopedia, then we ought not to make light of those who manipulate things to get that status. I suggest their auto-confirmed status be revoked, but if no one is willing to help defend the project by doing that, at the very least this editor's behavior needs to be kept an eye on, as their editing on Gavin McInnes is verging on disruptive. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:06, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm hesitant to call the user's edits "trivial" by this definition, or an attempt to make edits to Wikipedia with the sole intent of gaining the autoconfirmed status and by gaming the system. I've seen and put a kibosh to many abusive accounts that have done this, and the edits they make are much more obvious and put much less of an effort into making good-faith changes to articles compared to this user. The accounts I've seen that actually game the system (usually LTA socks or those wanting to disrupt the project) will just edit their own sandbox or other page in their user space and just repeatedly add and remove a single character until they hit the edit count needed (10 edits for 'confirmed', 500 edits for 'extended confirmed'). As pointed out above, the article in question (Gavin McInnes) isn't and wasn't under any kind of protection; if the user's intent was solely to edit disruptively and cause bad-faith damage to the project and the article, they could have just done so immediately. I'll acknowledge that the user's edits are interesting in that they make nine edits back in November, then later jump straight into editing a controversial topic. I don't blame editors for being suspicious and keeping an extra eye on IAFIS because of this. However, I can't take any administrative action against someone solely based off of "suspicions" like this - especially when (minus the suspicions) the edits appear to be made in good faith. Editors can keep an eye on things if they feel that it's necessary (it's not a wrong thing to do), and we should hold this user to the same level of accountability and treat them like we would anybody else. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:25, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

This is absurd. It isn't 30 days to become auto-confirmed, and the article being edited isn't semi-protected. There's absolutely no auto-confirmed gaming to be worried about. There's nothing that possibly could or should be done here, other than a fish dinner for BMK. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:04, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Only slightly absurd, actually. I was wrong about 30 days (Four days to be autoconfirmed? Really!? What's the point, it's a joke. Why do we even bother waiting, just hand out autoconfirmation as soon as they sign in!!), but I am right about IAFIS bearing watching, and will gladly lay odds on that.

As for the fish dinner, fine with me, as long as you cut the head off and serve it in Memisen. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:32, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes 4 days, but that little cooling off period for WP:ACREQ has dramatically reduced crap page creation. Anyway 30 days is not a factor here so no gaming. No opinion on the user's edits. Legacypac (talk) 05:12, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

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Reporting BeyondMyKen for harassment

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The above section has been closed. I began typing my response around 8:50 but had to stop to take a phone call, and then finished up and posted it 12 mins later but it was closed by then. So I am posting it here below and also reporting BeyondMyKen:

I am new to wikipedia (despite your harassing accusations) so please forgive me if I made a mistake above, I didn't know I was doing anything wrong by simply tweaking my comments. I can't read your mind but it seems pretty obvious to me (and other users) that you are acting in bad faith (and operate on wikipedia with a political agenda on top of that). Besides several users pointing out how the McInnes article wasnt locked so there was no reason for me to "game" the system, an admin below named Oshwah pointed out my initial edits were not trivial, and besides I didn't join wikipedia in the first place to make "trivial" edits, I joined because I have been a reader of the site for about 7 years and wanted to contribute myself. I never thought people like you (who apparently are protected by like-minded admins who share your politics) would jump all over me after just a few weeks of editing and accuse me of being a nazi sock. I just hope a fair-minded admin (seems like there aren't many according to what an IP user said on my talk page) penalizes you, and other users who misuse this encyclopedia in similar ways. IAFIS (talk) 09:32, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Can a neutral admin please penalize Beyond My Ken in some way? If you check his and my talk pages (and other pages) you will see he has accused and harassed me on at least five occasions (possibly six), doing all sorts of things like accusing me of being a sock based on zero evidence, insulted me (called me "ultra stupid"), and also accused me of "gaming" so I can edit a locked article (again based on zero evidence). Several other users agreed with me on the AN/I section that his accusations were baseless, yet he continued to attack me. On the McInnes article he also claimed there was "clear consensus at WP:RSN" for something that was not true, and appears to be a blatant lie.

For the record another user named Calton also accused me (without any evidence) of being a sock and and an alt-right nazi, although they didn't continue to attack and smear in the manner BeyondMyKen did. IAFIS (talk) 09:32, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

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

^^ ^^

Ymblanter please explain how I was "problematic", and why was the above section closed after just 15 minutes? Can a neutral fair-minded admin please help out here, is this how Wikipedia works? Thanks -- IAFIS (talk) 10:42, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Go make some productive edits and stay of the Admin board. Legacypac (talk) 10:49, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

You got into a scrap with another editor. That scrap was brought here, and no action was determined to be necessary at this time. Continuing this further will almost certainly result in sanctions. Mr rnddude (talk) 10:50, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I would suggest that a neutral admin indeed looks at this and blocks IAFIS for disruption. They wasted already enough of community time.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:55, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Beyond My Ken disrupted and wasted community time, I'm only defending myself. Thanks Mr rnddude, I got it, I won't post anything else on this page unless another user smears me again and accuses me w/o evidence of being a sockpuppet, or an alt-right neonazi white nationalist, or "ultra stupid". BeyondMyKen was the initiator of the conflict and the clear aggressor and should have been sanctioned, but I guess Wikipedia doesn't work that way -- IAFIS (talk) 11:37, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I think WP:HERRING may be somewhat useful here. By preliminary checks, that first question by BMK is a question, and no warnings or harrasment have been spotted. Also, it seems that you are not listening to outcomes made here on ANI. This ain't the first time you've tried to get BMK blocked. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 12:05, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Where have I tried to get BMK blocked? You just made that up, I never once asked that he be blocked, I asked that he be penalized or sanctioned for his obvious harassment and intimidation tactics that he used against me. Unlike other users here who appear to have political agendas, I don't want to permanently block people from editing wikipedia.--IAFIS (talk) 12:19, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

@IAFIS: What I found spot checking your edits are statements falsely attributed to the group's lawyer that is significant language directly copied and pasted from the article and the opinion of no one other then the author, Arun Gupta.[40] So, yes, there are significant problems with these edits of a sort I personally don't have much sympathy for, however, I think you will find this community is very patient...Seraphim System ^(talk) 12:25, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Nothing was falsely attributed, please re-read the article again. The group says it is anti ILLEGAL immigrant(good IMHO) and anti-muslim(not good and stupid) and that it has members of all races and backgrounds so how can it be considered "white nationalist"? For the record I have no sympathy for white nationalists or racists, it just seems like a lot of people here have political agendas where they want to quickly smear and label certain people in certain ways so they can shut down any debate, even though this is supposed to be a neutral encyclopedia for all. IAFIS (talk) 12:36, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

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• Ivanvector, Bbb23, this person, who runs dozens of socks, harasses one of our editors by way of ANI, and appears to be essentially a POV editor who claims they're just here to add balance, gets only two weeks? Did I miss any extenuating circumstances? I'm going to have to eat a chocolate croissant to get over this surprise. Drmies (talk) 17:04, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

• @Drmies: See my comments at User talk:Enjois.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:11, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Two weeks is standard for a sockmaster's first block, and I'm not sure it's been established that any of the user's edits from any of their accounts (or taken as a whole) would warrant longer. None of the accounts have been blocked, none appear to have tag-teamed on any articles or vote-stacked any discussions, but they have definitely been avoiding scrutiny. I of course don't object if someone decides to lengthen this, the diatribe on the master's talk page is not promising considering the topics they edit in. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:14, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

• I disagree that there is any "standard". I recognize I'm more likely to indef a master on a first offense than others, but the length of the master's block is discretionary, and, in my view, with this master I wouldn't have spent more than about 10 seconds thinking about it before doing so. At the same time, I rarely override another member of the SPI team, and even with your permission, I would be reluctant to do so.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:23, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

In this case, when I said "I don't object", I was kinda hoping one of you folk would pull the trigger. They've talked themselves into it with TPA revoked anyway. At least one of their socks has been warned about DS in AP2, and this has gone on plenty long enough. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:35, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: Sorry I didn't get that. Sometimes you need to hit me over the head with a hammer. I obviously endorse your indefinite block. It is a CU block, isn't it? So much verbiage in the block entry I can't tell for sure.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:41, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Definitely a CU block, plus all the other stuff. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:46, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

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Anti-Semitic triple parentheses

Aspensti made two recent edits adding the anti-Semitic triple parentheses to the articles of Kirsten Gillibrand (diff) and David Paterson (diff). I thought the account had perhaps been compromised, because these two edits are the first since July 2017; however, I see that the account has performed similar edits in the past (example). I am not sure what to do with this issue, so I thought it best to bring it up here. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:37, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Unexcusable. Indef blocked Courcelles (talk) 14:50, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

non-administrator comment Given the sort of edits being done, I suspect that this is less a case of someone trying to put triple-parens into Wikipedia, and more someone who has a browser extension that adds such parenthesis to every web page (yes, there are such extensions, for sad reasons), and is missing that that is happening in the edit window. So user should be blocked with an explanation until they acknowledge the problem on their talk page and says that it has been fixed (through turning off the extension or editing with a different browser.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:52, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

@Courcelles: Thank you for the quick response!

@NatGertler: Yes, the same thought about the browser extension had occurred to me. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:54, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

If they explain they are using such an extension, AND confirm it has been turned off , any admin has my clearance to unblock, of course. Courcelles (talk) 14:57, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That does seem to be the case, but good block nonetheless. Adding neo-Nazi symbols into Wikipedia is inexcusable and grounds for immediate indef. The fact it's happening unawares because the user has an antisemitic browser extension installed is not grounds for leniency. We did the same for users changing Trump to Drumpf not too long ago. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:58, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

To be honest, this is not exactly common knowledge that three brackets is an antisemitic symbol (I did not know this before I saw this thread, and I am supposed to be knowledgeable in this subject). It is too late now, but it might have been a good idea to check that the user is aware of that.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:18, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Fairly common knowledge, I'd say. And the fact that the user has such a browser extension means they are highly unlikely ever to be welcome here. Guy (Help!) 15:27, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessarily common knowledge, but I strongly suspect the user knows: what other reason could there be for adding three parens?--Bbb23 (talk) 15:30, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I meant. Maybe it's not common knowledge for everyone, but clearly this user knows what it's about. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:02, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't think anyone was calling for them not to be blocked, just that we shouldn't view them with the degree of suspicion about their editing intent that we might view a standard vandal with (although I wouldn't criticize anyone who was now looking at their edits with an eye to the politics of them; such extensions are intended for those with anti-semitic views.) Given that they might not even be aware of what their edits were doing and why, I've added a note to their talk page. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:49, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

It all depends on what the User says, in this instance. The User's response is what matters, in this instance. If this was inadvertent, according to the User, their account should be unblocked. Ping Aspensti Bus stop (talk) 15:54, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

The only explanations I can see are either (a) the editor is deliberately inserting triple parentheses, or (b) the editor is running the Coincidence Detector extension. I can think of no conceivable way in which one could do either by accident. ‑ Iridescent 16:07, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

According the this Vox article some people are using triple parens in solidarity with those who are being targeted, this is intended to render triple parens useless as a mark of who is jewish. So I don't think that having a browser extension adding triple parens is proof that someone is a bigot. Tornado chaser (talk) 16:22, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

That's wrong. The "solidarity" thing was putting triple parentheses around *one's own name* - this anti-Semitic user has a browser extension that puts triple parentheses around explicitly *Jewish* names, as in this edit. This user should be indeffed and never allowed back. Why would we want an editor who subscribes to vile neo-Nazi white supremacist browser extensions? This isn't an accident, this user demonstrated their ideology is incompatible with decent society. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 16:42, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

@NorthBySouthBaranof: I should have looked at the diffs first, that does look like a Nazi browser extension, Nazis have no place here. Ever. Tornado chaser (talk) 17:48, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Their browser extension also replaces instances of "Israel" with (((Our Greatest Ally))) as seen in the Kirsten Gillibrand edit. I can't believe we're talking about ever unblocking this user - they're clearly a neo-Nazi. Nobody uses this vile nonsense unless they're actively engaged in anti-Semitic hatred. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 16:43, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

The provisions at WP:MOS would not support triple parentheses (except at the article called Triple parentheses). It is only antisemitic if the User says it's antisemitic. If the User claims its use was inadvertent, then we should accept and unblock. Sorry to repeat myself. Bus stop (talk) 16:49, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Please explain how it would be "inadvertent" to make tiny minor edits to articles about Democratic politicians while using an anti-Semitic browser extension to pump them full of an anti-Semitic symbol. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 16:53, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Nobody has to explain "how". Bus stop (talk) 16:58, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

So you're saying that we should just unblock someone who made a bunch of neo-Nazi anti-Semitic edits over the last year and a half as long as they say "oops sorry I exposed myself as an anti-Semite, I'll be careful to be more subtle next time"? Like, you're saying this is the kind of user we *want* on Wikipedia? Because as far as I'm concerned, Nazis should be no more welcome on this website than child sex advocates. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:06, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

A lot of people do a lot of dumb things, NorthBySouthBaranof. What are triple parentheses? We don't coin new block-able offenses based on punctuation marks. You are essentially arguing that because they used triple parentheses for a year-and-a-half that we should block them now. If punctuation was such a big bug-a-boo why didn't we warn them before now? We don't need to compound dumbness with further dumbness. The notion of using triple parentheses to identify Jews is dumb enough. Do we have to block people for falling prey to all the dumbness embodied in this new thrust to use punctuation to advance ethnic causes? Bus stop (talk) 17:28, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

The instances where "Israel" was replaced with "(((Our Greatest Ally)))" is pretty solid proof that the triple parentheses were meant to highlight Jews. This is further reinforced by the fact that triple parentheses were only added around common or famous Jewish names. It's not just punctuation, they were using software that exists solely to cast Jews as The Other, a method started and used primarily by Neo-Nazis. Stop enabling them with an argument that amounts to "I didn't know that so maybe it's not true." Ian.thomson (talk) 17:37, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

The countermeasure to that is not to block. The countermeasure is to allow the User to speak, but this time using proper language. You are arguing that this is not only punctuation but it is only punctuation. You are saying that I am "enabling them" but I am enabling them to participate constructively in this project. It is only a punctuation mark that is separating them from being blocked and editing constructively. I am glad that I am standing for "enabling them" to contribute to the encyclopedia constructively in the future. Bus stop (talk) 17:50, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm not drinking your Flavor-aid until you can provide a meaning for the triple parentheses within the context used besides the antisemitic one. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:53, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I am completely accepting of the findings at our article Triple parentheses. But the User should not be blocked for something so arcane and without warning and if they make a simple statement that they didn't intend anything antisemitic and that it happened inadvertently and that they won't be using triple parentheses again. The issue is resolved at that point. Bus stop (talk) 18:00, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Bus stop Even if the changes were made by accident, ultimately that would be because the person uses anti-Semitic software. I don't remember who said it originally, but again we need WP:NOFUCKINGNAZIS. —{{u|Goldenshimmer}}｜✝️｜they/their｜😹｜T/C｜☮️｜John 15:12｜🍂 17:00, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)That's not the only instance where Israel was replaced with "(((Our Greatest Ally)))." They have been using the antisemitic browser plug in for two and a half years: [41] [42]. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:04, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm having trouble seeing how this could be an accident either unless this plugin downloads, installs and runs itself; the fact that they have this plugin at all is indictment enough. Mr rnddude (talk) 16:55, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Just a note to say that Aspensti was asked not to do this on their talk page last year, with a link to our article on triple parenthesis, and a note that it might be their browser doing it automatically. Hard to believe that they didn't know it was problematic. GirthSummit _(blether) 18:26, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

@Girth Summit: Well, that pretty much rules out the only mitigating factor I could think of: Unknowingly doing it while (on occasion) using a compromised shared computer. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.8% of all FPs} 22:37, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I find what is being said by users like Bus stop a bit bizarre here. The user is clearly aware (or even if we go hardcore AGF, must have become aware) of what the meaning of the triple parentheses are. Thus -- it's clearly an intentionally provocative behavior. WP:NOTHERE, block him while it's easy, before he learns to push Nazi POVs more subtly.--Calthinus (talk) 20:06, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Community ban proposal

Based on the evidence of using an anti-Semitic browser extension to make edits inserting anti-Semitic symbols into Jewish-related articles spanning, as User:Ian.thomson has noted, more than two and a half years, I believe this user is not someone we want back on Wikipedia in any fashion. I am proposing a community ban on User:Aspensti for using the encyclopedia as a platform for neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:09, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:09, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support - Nazis get the fuck out. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:20, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Bishonen | talk 17:22, 8 December 2018 (UTC).
• Oppose although in this case indefinite should mean infinite, not undefined, and nobody should even think of lifting the block. On a check through the last few years of edits, we're only talking five problem edits at my count out of 1500; I don't see any benefit in converting the block to a ban just for the sake of it, and doing so would in my opinion devalue the intention behind bans as a signifier that an editor is particularly problematic. Note that WP:NOFUCKINGNAZIS, being cited above as justification, is a personal essay in userspace, not policy, guideline, or anything remotely official. ‑ Iridescent 17:29, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

(For what it's worth, when I linked WP:NOFUCKINGNAZIS earlier, I didn't even realize there was a page there, thought it was just a red-link someone thought should exist. It wasn't intended as a rational for a CBAN, which I haven't commented on, just as an endorsement of its title, although its content looks helpful too. In terms of a CBAN, I think it's a bit sad that there isn't a rule that nazis are all considered banned automatically, but don't see why I shouldn't support this. —{{u|Goldenshimmer}}｜✝️｜they/their｜😹｜T/C｜☮️｜John 15:12｜🍂 18:10, 8 December 2018 (UTC))

If the blocking admin hadn't said If they explain they are using such an extension, AND confirm it has been turned off , any admin has my clearance to unblock, this proposal wouldn't be necessary. Anyone who would intentionally use such an extension for any reason is not someone we want editing the encyclopedia. Nobody downloads that extension unless they're a devoted anti-Semite. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:22, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support About the only thing I can think of that's at all innocent is some misunderstanding of wikimarkup, e.g. isn't {{{1}}} the wikicode for the first string passed to a template? Even then, though, this isn't being done to a template... I mean, I suppose he could have been lied to, or have been using a roommate's computer, or something, but that's for him to argue, not us. Ban. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.8% of all FPs} 18:35, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support this is vandalism by any other name. Unlike some people I'm not afraid to denounce Nazis. I'm also disturbed by User:Bus stop's repeated excuses for this behavior. Maybe Bus stop should get a censure. Legacypac (talk) 18:37, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment I find Bus Stop's reasoning to be unpersuasive, but I fail to see how a censure is needed. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:27, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support based on what is written above. Ktrimi991 (talk) 18:38, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support. AGK ■ 18:56, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support, and Bus stop needs to think a bit more about the behaviour that they're trying to defend. Res ipsa loquitur applies here with respect to Aspensti. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 19:10, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support There are 2016 and 2017. talk page notices about the user's use of triple parentheses with links to the wikiarticle. Meters (talk) 19:21, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Fuck this guy.--Jorm (talk) 19:25, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per the reasoning of Iridescent; as a personal opinion, there's no chance of the character ever being realistically unblocked (unless a wandering admin has forgotton what the view out of a Hotel Arbcom window looks like); but a racing certainty of WP:CREEP. I also agree with Jorm's reasoning, if not their !vote  :) ——SerialNumber54129 19:32, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support (non-administrator comment) There really aren't very fine people on both sides. I saw the issue from last year, but I did not look back far enough to realize this was spanning 3 years, with the appropriate warnings. It's hard to image the editor in question is ever going to make useful contributions to the project. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:27, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support. I hadn't seen that the User had been warned before. Bus stop (talk) 19:32, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support This editor ignored two previous warnings and yet continued to add neo-Nazi garbage to the enyclopedia. What they did to former Congressman Steve Israel's name is especially appalling. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:33, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support. We don't need anyone who dumps anti-semitic code into articles. Binksternet (talk) 19:46, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support Warned before, still doing it. Somebody who runs this sort of script is a Nazi. If it happened once, perhaps they were editing from a public computer, AGF and all. In response to above mentions of the self-identification/solidarity movement, that does not involve running a script that changes names. This is how that's done ->> (((∰Bellezzasolo✡))) Discuss 19:47, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support: might as well. --K.e.coffman (talk) 19:54, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support - was warned twice with a link to our article on what they mean, and count me as one of those who didn't know this was common knowledge. If this browser extension doesn't have the ability to disable it on certain websites, like many extensions do, then they should have absolutely known this was going to cause serious problems here. Shame on them. Isaidnoway (talk) 19:55, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support clearly WP:NOTHERE, so why should they be here?--Calthinus (talk) 20:03, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support - No excuse shall be given to an apparent, and quite possible deliberate use of a Neo-Nazi Chrome extension while editing Wikipedia, considering the timespan and multiple warnings. We don't need to have someone screaming insidious joy while inserting fashy trash here. Give Nazis no platform. Tsumikiria (T/C) 20:27, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• weak/conditional support. The more I read here, the more there is to explain, but when you get right down to it, the evidence here boils down to use of unusual punctuation and I'm somewhat reluctant to see a community ban placed on this basis. I'd really like to hear from Aspensti (who hasn't edited since this discussion began) before this is enacted. GoldenRing (talk) 21:15, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Strong unconditional support - No conceivable excuse for this behavior. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:26, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support - They were warned in July 2017 not to do this. Their continued use of this abhorrent Nazi signal makes their intent quite clear. - MrX 🖋 21:48, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support - I'd support this even if they hadn't already been warned about it and continued, because this is about the integrity of Wikipedia and the necessity of zero tolerance for this kind of thing. But they had been warned so there's not even a possible mitigating circumstance. --bonadea contributions talk 21:54, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support - And this grotesque behaviour has been noted for 2 years? Sorry, but zero tolerance for the oldest pathological hatred in the book. Simon Adler (talk) 21:58, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

• Floq: I hope you can guarantee us that if any soft-hearted (or weak-minded) admin was to unblock this editor in the future, you'd be right there with us in asking ArbCom for an immediate de-sysopping for overturning a de facto community ban. That's really the only reason to go through with this, to ensure that any unblock has to be run by the community first, and cannot be undertaken on the responsibility of a single administrator. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:36, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
• @Floquenbeam: I understand your motivations, but you cannot unilaterally deny the community the right to decide on a formal ban. I have, therefore, reopened this discussion. When it is closed, it needs to be closed as a formal ban discussion. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:12, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support per most of the above, how is this still a discussion? The Moose 09:20, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

• Because someone just reopened it ‑ Iridescent 09:28, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
• It needs to be open for long enough to qualify as a formal community ban and to be closed as such. At WP:CBAN it says "Sanction discussions must be kept open for at least 24 hours to allow time for comments from a broad selection of community members" (emphasis in original). Floquenbeam closed it at 23:30, 8 December 2018 (UTC), less than 6.5 hours after the ban was proposed, and I reopened it at 09:12, 9 December 2018 (UTC). I reckon that means it needs to stay open for around another 17.5 hours, at least, to qualify as an acceptable community ban. Please, folks, let's not have another (well-meaning) fuck-up like we just had at AN - and just stick to the rules! Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:32, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

USER:Calthinus

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

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IS doing unjust edits forcing people do break three reverse policy with his companions, you need to pay attention to this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Calthinus https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Skanderbeg&action=history He is deleteing posts in talk pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.149.9.21 (talk) 17:26, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

OP blocked for a year (and only because we do not block IPs indef), legal threats removed from talk page.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:34, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Does anyone want to revoke talk page access? I am not very good in Serbian, but I guess they write smth about "fucking Albanians".--Ymblanter (talk) 18:13, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

@Ymblanter and Iridescent: Thanks for dealing with the IP editor. Their words in Serbian meant: "I've killed over 100 fucking Albanian terrorists you think I'm kidding". I have seen other similar comments in the past, and the best thing to do is ignoring those people who make such comments. Ktrimi991 (talk) 18:34, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Done. GoldenRing (talk) 18:59, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

@Ymblanter, Iridescent, and GoldenRing:, i just awoke here in the morning on my side of the world and i find multiple IPs making death threats against me. I just took a look at the edit histories of the IP accounts and they have placed similar comments on other respected editors pages. What's the best course of action here (as one does not know if this IP has personal information through goodness knows what means and may actually carry out those threats)?Resnjari (talk) 19:09, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I guess the best is to write to ArbCom.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:19, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Resnjari - We'll look into this matter and take care of it as best as we can. I assume that they're being made on your user talk page? I'll check things there and handle things that I find. In the meantime, it's best that you don't respond to any of those threats and just ignore them completely. However, if you feel threatened or genuinely concerned for your safety due to the threats, you can contact Wikimedia's emergency team by following the directions here. Best - ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:22, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Resnjari - Are you able to email me the list of IP users that you see were making threats against you? I only see one IP (who is now blocked), and I want to make sure that I locate and take care of all of them. You can email me by clicking here. Thanks :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:26, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

2C0F:F930:0:3:0:0:0:221 appears to be an open proxy, but in any event I've given it a six-month vacation. 178.149.9.21 geolocates to Trstenik, Serbia, which would tally with the anti-Albanian sentiment, so I assume that's the true user IP. I haven't seen any others. ‑ Iridescent 19:30, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Iridescent - Perfect. :-) Resnjari, if the IP users are listed above, don't worry about emailing me. If we're missing any, please let us know. Best - ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:35, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks @Oshwah: for deleting those comments from our talk pages. I have been threatened in the past but today's guy was very aggressive and insulting. Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:36, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

@Oshwah, Iridescent, and Ktrimi991:, in those comments by both IPs there are clear death threats and threats of violence to the people pinged by the first IP and comments left on multiple editors talkpages by the second IP. I read Serbian. Its disappointing it has to come to this with some people out there in the digital space.Resnjari (talk) 19:42, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I have notified Oshwah about the other comment.Resnjari (talk) 19:43, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Two years or so ago I was threatened in a similar way because of my "pro-Serbian" edits. Today I was threatened because of my "anti-Serbian" edits. I guess trying to be as neutral as I can is a crime. Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:46, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Resnjari - Indeed, it is quite unfortunate that people resort to such words in order to push their opposition or to get their point across. Such threats are absolutely against Wikipedia's policies and won't be tolerated; please don't hesitate to let myself or someone else know if you see more threats like this being made and we'll do our best to put a kibosh to it. While such threats should (and are) always taken seriously and as if the user has the intent or the means to carry them out, just know that such threats are some people's method of handling conflict (as low as it sounds). Many are also trolling. :-) That being said, (I'm stating this to everyone in general) all threats of harm should be reported by following the directions here and regardless of whether you're the recipient or the witness of them, or how serious you believe the threats are - report them! :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:52, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

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

Wow that escalated fast... uh, hey guys, I think I came late to the party here but would someone mind sending me by email or something what these death threats, now apparently suppressed, that were directed to me were? --Calthinus (talk) 20:08, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Hey @Calthinus:, I just sent you an email with some death threats. As the IPs said, "I would be careful when crossing the street" . Ktrimi991 (talk) 20:13, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I just sent you an email with some death threats – Rather an odd way of putting it. EEng 02:40, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Well, they literally asked for it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:40, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Talk:List of_bitcoin_forks#Contentious_revert_by_Primefac

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

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Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

• Talk:List of bitcoin forks#Contentious revert by Primefac (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

• Fresheneesz (talk · contribs)
• primefac (talk · contribs)
• Praxidicae (talk · contribs)
• Ladislav_Mecir (talk · contribs)
• Jtbobwaysf (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

A number of editors are consistently reverting additions to the page List of bitcoin forks even for additions that are well sourced. Multiple users have complained on the page that too much content has been removed. The users reverting these additions are not giving anywhere near sufficient reasoning for their reverts. After attempting to discuss the issue, most of the users that are reverting these additions simply aren't discussing the issues at all. Specifically, User:primefac and User:Praxidicae only responded a single time to my discussion specifically about their edits, and their responses completely ignored the problem I had with their edits. Those two users have ignored subsequent requests to comment on which they think aren't reliable and why. User:Retimuko has reverted my edits multiple times, and yet hasn't said a word about it on the discussion I created about this.

User:Ladislav_Mecir has been the only person willing to discuss, however he hasn't been very cooperative. His opinion is that the source I chose are not reliable, but he hasn't given me good reasons he thinks that. He chose to focus on the only one, of 8 sources I have to choose from, that is self-published, and only gave reasons that contradicted wikipedia policy. At first, he claimed that self-published sources can't be used at all. Then once I show him that wikipedia policy accepts self-published sources in certain cases, and that this situation met all the criteria to be accepted, he claims that the source isn't giving information about themselves, when it clearly is. When asked to comment on the other sources, which should all be less contentious since they're not self-published, he completely ignored me. This isn't the behavior of someone that wants to ensure sourced quality content on wikipedia.

Key diffs and timeline

• Praxidicae was the first to revert one of my edits, and he did not assume good faith when calling the sources I used "refspam" (which they absolutely are not), and inexplicably references WP:WTAF even tho that page is about redlinks and I did not add any redlinks. If he was talking about the external links I added in to the home pages of those coins when he said "refspam" (even tho they weren't being used as references), he should have simply removed the external links and kept in the content.
• When I reverted his edit, asking him to discuss his content removal on the talk page, Primefac then made some edits:
  1. He first added redlinks to the page.
  2. Then he removed all the content I had added citing "rmv redlinks per convention" when he was the one that added those redlinks in the first place, and made no mention of the reason he removed all that content.
• After I discussed changes to my edits to address any concerns those editors had, after waiting a week without hearing any further discussion, and having not heard any good reason my sources weren't entirely usable, I added just one currency out of the list of those I had sources for.
• Then Retimuko reverted my edit still without discussing anything on the talk page, even after I had asked him to discuss.
• After reverting that, asking again for him to discuss the content he's removing (and him simply not discussing it),
• Ladislav Mecir made the most recent revert which accuses me of violating the revert sanction. I think this is an absurd charge since I put up content that had been modified and discussed

It seems clear to me that these editors are trying to keep this page on lock down, and are harassing other editors with wikilawyering and stonewalling techniques to get their way.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

I've started a thread to disucss this issue. I've invited the users involved to comment and discuss. I've discussed extensively with the one user willing to have a discussion. I've proposed alternate edits based on the discussion with better and more sources. I've tried (and failed) to gain an understanding of why these users think my edits aren't up to wikipedia standards.

How do you think we can help?

I'd like to get external opinions on whether my edits are up to wikipedia standards or not (and if not, why not), as well as get opinions on whether the conduct of these editors (that are consistently reverting the work of me and others) is appropriate behavior. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fresheneesz (talk • contribs) 23:43, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

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

SideShow Bob - Multiple personal attacks and now one more

Sideshow Bob has been active for many years and has so far made many personal attacks, insults and other sorts of behaviour not accordance with the rules of Wikipedia. He has just recently, on the page Mihailo Lalić, called my edit (with ref) - idiotic, followed with undone. Please help me and other Wikipedians in this situation. Thank you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sideshow_Bob

Mm.srb (talk) 01:07, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Can you provide some diffs illustrating this behavior? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:03, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Here's one. But that's about all I can be bothered to look for now. Mm.srb, you'll have to do better than this. Drmies (talk) 02:11, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

As long as we're doing the OP's job, here's another.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:16, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

User:Caltraser55

Caltraser55 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). New account, lack of substantive contributions. Account created only for push own photomontage to article of Brisbane. In addition, vandalisms - for example: removes posts by other users: [43][44] (two times), removes data (-17,156‎ b) and sources without consensus [45], personal attacks (four times) - two examples: [46][47], edit-warring (many times) with pushing own graphics [48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57]. Discussion on his user talk page (he received a few requests and warnings by few users), requests and warnings in description of changes and requests and warnings in Talk:Brisbane do not help (also warning, as last warning). For several weeks still the same troubles with him. Unreformable user, account created for vandalism, spreading problems and pushing own graphics. The user has made 70 editions, almost all of them are vandalisms, controversial changes, personal attacks and the fight for his graphics as photomontage. My suggestion: to block indefinitely. Subtropical-man (talk / en-2) 00:15, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

User:Ridiceo

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

This editor began editing roughly one month ago focused almost entirely on the Gab (social network) article. The thrust of their editing has been downplaying the association of the site with its far-right userbase. They're a very high content, high effort editor, and have filled sections and sections on the talk page with their opinions. From what I understand, they believe that the sources we are using are inherently opinion based if they describe something as 'far-right' e.g. 'For example, if a reliable source posts that "Far-right social network Gab", we don't include that Gab is "Far-right" simply because the author *thinks* it's far-right.' for several sources which describe Gab's user base as far-right. I don't generally agree with what they say, and I'd say most of the editors on the page don't either. Most recently, myself and two other editors who are perhaps similarly exhausted have each linked Ridiceo to the WP:DEADHORSE essay. This has not dissuaded them, and they continue to insist that what they would like to be done on the article be done, and continue to revert to their preferred version. PeterTheFourth (talk) 07:28, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

@PeterTheFourth: I was just composing my ANEW report. Shall I go ahead and file it or copy the diffs I composed here? Tsumikiria (T/C) 07:34, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

@Tsumikiria: Uh, I'm not sure what the protocol is here. Like, I genuinely have no clue - I think it's generally frowned upon to pursue these things in multiple avenues though, so copying here may be best. PeterTheFourth (talk) 07:36, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

The following was my draft for ANEW containing diffs of the user's edit warring over the last week. Peter was a little faster in filing ANI. Tsumikiria (T/C) 08:09, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

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

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User:Ridiceo reported by User:Tsumikiria (Result: )

Page: Gab (social network) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
User being reported: Ridiceo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Previous version reverted to: diff

Diffs of the user's reverts:

1. diff 2018-11-30T11:18:45
2. diff 2018-11-30T12:49:42
3. diff 2018-11-30T13:02:18
4. diff 2018-12-05T08:18:55
5. diff 2018-12-05T09:10:15
6. diff 2018-12-05T09:40:56
7. diff 2018-12-05T09:41:50
8. diff 2018-12-05T13:59:22
9. diff 2018-12-05T16:25:30
10. diff 2018-12-05T16:51:41
11. diff 2018-12-06T00:49:42
12. diff 2018-12-06T00:58:40
13. diff 2018-12-06T01:00:57
14. diff 2018-12-06T01:03:43
15. diff 2018-12-06T01:07:01
16. diff 2018-12-09T01:37:51
17. diff 2018-12-09T01:44:48

1. Repeatedly removed well sourced, consensus content: "known for its far-right user base"
2. Repeatedly removed well sourced, consensus content: "The platform itself has engaged in antisemitic commentary."
3. Repeatedly replaced well sourced, verified content "The site is a favorite of far right" into "The site has become increasingly more popular with far right"
4. Repeatedly inserted {CN} tag to unwarrantedly undermine well-sourced content
5. Repeatedly unwarrantedly replaced or removed due weight content from verified sources to confrom with POV "softer tone"

Diff of edit warring / 3RR warning: [58] [59]

Diff of attempt to resolve dispute on article talk page: diff No, actually, the entire talk page. All of us have been in conversation and trying to resolve this issue with the user for weeks, to no avail.

Comments:

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