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Ip Disruption

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

---

Fever (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) ( Asdroot (talk) 15:54, 24 September 2019 (UTC))

lblocked. El_C 16:23, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanq,"B0nadea" is a Religious username prohibited in Wikipedia.

[1]

[2]

The Ip main aim is to disrupt following page. Fever (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) Please protect page from further disruption(Asdroot (talk) 16:41, 24 September 2019 (UTC))

Yes, religious usernames prohibited in Wikipedia.

I've already sprotected the page in question. Don't worry, that IP is an LTA that's following me. El_C 16:57, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

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

QuackGuru and disruption over e-cigs and pod mods

Pod mod (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

QuackGuru (talk · contribs)

WP:AN is pushing a backlog drive on AfC. Accordingly RoySmith took pod mod into mainspace [3] (so thanks for that). QuackGuru has now removed it [4] as "Redirect non-notable hoax article. (Please do not restore the mass failed verification content. See WP:CIR."

I was thus prompted to raise the following with them:

Pod mod

I'm concerned about your removal of this article [5].

Firstly, we have an AfD process. I'm sure you're familiar with it. It's fundamental here that we operate by consensus. We do not support single-handed deletion of articles like this.

Secondly, your reason for removing this article was "Redirect non-notable hoax article. (Please do not restore the mass failed verification content. See WP:CIR.)" [6] That's four separate claims as to why it should be removed. Yet these are unrelated claims, and you have shown no reason to support any of them. In particular, alleging a "hoax" article is a strong allegation against the editor who created that article and should not be made without some evidence to back it up. Importantly though, you then went on to add content from this article [7] to a new section Construction of electronic cigarettes#Pod mods. So which is it? If this is a "hoax", why are you propagating it further? If these sources failed verification in one article, why are they now acceptable in another?

I'm also less than happy about you using inlined ELs rather than correctly formatted citations and references. [8] Is there any particular reason for this?

Once again, your editing raises concerns. You are quick to add a warning banner about Discretionary Sanctions to this article, but you don't point out that you were the editor warned when such sanctions were applied Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Editor_conduct_in_e-cigs_articles#QuackGuru_Warned.

This blanking of an article was inappropriate and disruptive. It goes against our accepted practice re AfD, should such an article really be inappropriate. Your allegations against it are unsupported, and also targeted against a specific editor, Sydneystudent123456. Your re-use of some content from the article also rather defeats the claims you made against it originally. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:21, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

QuackGuru blanked that without reply (they habitually blank all items on their talk:, rather than archiving). They similarly blanked a second request to discuss this.

I don't see this as acceptable editing, especially not when it's WP:OWN over a whole topic space, one which QuackGuru has got into trouble over before. We work by consensus here (do we still?) Single-handed deletions are not how we do things! I don't myself know if pod mods are notable (to the level of a distinct article) and had already asked as much on the talk: page. (I'm in the UK, I don't vape, I'm unfamiliar with the subtle variants). It does appear now that pod mods are a topic of some debate and we have coverage of them under the broader e-cig articles and also at Juul, the major commercial brand. But this is primarily a behavioural problem – single editors don't get to blank articles, the reasons given are hand-waving at best, certainly not supported by any evidence or specific claim, and when challenged like this it's incumbent upon WP:BOLD editors to be ready to at least discuss it. I would have un-redirected the article and AfDed it myself, except for the second refusal to discuss. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:14, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Huh. QuackGuru said failed verification, so I was expecting something really ridiculous like the sources didn't actually exist, but that's not the case. Haven't looked into it thoroughly yet but I'd say whatever QG saw that led him to just instantly blank the page is not obvious, at least to me. I think it's possible this is a reasonable action (the redirect only, not the subsequent interactions), but it really needs to be explained. Someguy1221 (talk) 13:39, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

• Agreed. If it had been a "hoax article" then we have WP:CSD#G3 for that and at least an admin and a second pair of eyes would have seen it.

They still haven't communicated, but they have been busy editing and they've added a comment as an edit summary [9] about "Please don't restore content that failed verification or use poor source such as a blog. See https://www.caferacervape.com/blogs/news/a-brief-history-of-pod-mods-and-open-system-low-wattage-devices" However that source wasn't being used in this article, so I fail to see the relevance of mentioning it. Nor is a misleading note in an edit summary an acceptable substitute for discussion via a talk: page.

I half expected QuackGuru to take their usual line that "all sources must meet WP:MEDRS". Except that here [10] at Construction of electronic cigarettes they're happy to reference The Verge [11] and here [12] at Juul they're adding links to the SF Chronicle [13]. Maybe they think that it's OK if these ELs are inlined, rather than presented as citations? Andy Dingley (talk) 14:15, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

I have undone the redirect. If anybody feels this article should not exist, please to take it to WP:AfD for a proper discussion. @QuackGuru: I explicitly draw your attention to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Editor conduct in e-cigs articles#QuackGuru Warned. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:02, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

• And now of course, a personalised warning, and some WP:CANVASSing in another WP:FORUM, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Pod_mod, but still no discussion. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:32, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• QuackGuru is now proceeding [14] to strip sections out of the article, by their usual process of denigrating sources. This is inappropriate: they show no issue with those sources, the claim "commercial source" is not enough to start section blanking, they have shown no error in those sources, they have shown no error in the content and it is against WP:PRESERVE to act in this way to dismantle an article with no effort made to find other sources. We are still awaiting any response from them here at ANI. These edits are disruptive, and they are disruptive in the way for which an explicit DS has been in place on QuackGuru themself for some years. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:02, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• And now pejorative comments like this, "please stop restoring original research". But there was no such restoration. This is just throwing phrases into the edit log and hoping that some mud sticks. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:26, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• I got a failed verification tag from QG for something that I thought to be uncontroversial. Not sure what is going on but it seems QG is holding this article to a higher standard than others. I added a section to the talk page to discuss and hopefully he responds. spryde | talk 18:30, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
  • It's my impression that QuackGuru is very frequently concerned that anything short of plagiarism might not be true enough to the cited source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:06, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

• QuackGuru seems either unable or unwilling to communicate with other editors. They will adopt some particular idea, then defend it to the death and happily edit-war to do so, but simply will not express to others what it is beforehand, thus avoiding a whole lot of argument. I cannot understand why this is, but it does make editing around them particularly difficult. They seem to go out of their way to post half-truths to talk: pages: something which can't be said to be definitively wrong afterwards, but is especially unclear and misleading at the time. So when complaining of a source, they refer to it by a URL that isn't even used in the article, rather than pointing to its use in that article. They complain "don't restore OR" when nothing has been either deleted or restored. They will insist that all sources meet MEDRS, even for simple matters of commercial business (but are happy to use non-MEDRS sources themselves). They remove content as "not relevant" even though it is highly relevant to the broader context of understanding the article, just because it doesn't contain a specific easily-matched word (I've written AI reasoners which suffered much the same problem). And throughout all of this, other editors are simply wrong: there is no room for debate or opinion, it's QuackGuru's version or nothing. That is not how we operate. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:33, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

• Quick example: Tagging the text, "Pod mods come in varying shapes and sizes and some resemble USB devices." as "fails verification " See "The palm-sized device resembles a USB flash drive,,," Obvious FV content." from a source which contains the literal text, "The palm-sized device resembles a USB flash drive".

So, sorry QuackGuru, but that is not an obvious verification failure and you have failed to state what particular arcana is offending you. This is a collaborative project involving other editors and if you are going to oppose other editors over minutiae such as that, it is incumbent upon you to at least explain the issue.

Similarly, "they do not prodcue smoke" when tagging "Pod mods are portable devices that people use to smoke" as OR. Well, sorry QuackGuru but this is smoke; smoke by its technical broad definition includes pretty much any particulate aerosol produced by heat and that includes pyrolysis rather than combustion, and e-cigarettes et al certainly perform pyrolysis. Also modern language has yet to catch up fully with its terminology and possibly "smoking" may not be the best verb to apply here, but in no way is this WP:OR. It is simply another pejorative use of terminology by you to tag it as such, as an inevitable waypoint towards its removal. This is sheer sophistry on your part, to a level where it's deliberate and it's disruptive. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:46, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Andy Dingley: technically the content did fail verification since AFAICT, no where does the source say "pod mods come in varying shapes and sizes", it only suggested one possible shape (and possibly size). But I'm not sure that tagging it FV was the best way to handle it. Nil Einne (talk) 07:00, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• This is not a problem of content, it's a problem of behaviour: that's why it's at ANI.

Far better editing by QuackGuru would be to list any problems on the article talk page, to make specific statements about what is wrong with them, then to put forward intended solutions: a change of wording, a need for a better source, even the need to remove a section. There might not even be much need for discussion: maybe some of these problems and remedies would become so self-evident that all would be in immediate agreement (there seems to be zero evidence of a POV disagreement). But they are doing none of that. Instead we see unexplained changes made directly to the article. We see threats [15] to delete the article again as "unsourced", when this is a clearly untrue and hyperbolic statement to make. QuackGuru's editing style makes collaboration impossible: in a context where reversions are restricted (and they've made that sanction threat clear enough, even though it's not even clear it applies) their technique is to "capture the high ground first". Anyone disagreeing with QuackGuru will be described as edit-warring and instantly reverted. The changes they're making are unexplained and unjustified (even if correct, or at least their underlying reason needing to be addressed) and they're making the change first, then being forced to provide some sort of justification afterwards. This makes it very difficult for another editor to provide a different remedy to the same (agreed) problem.

Consider the case of the physical resemblance to USB sticks: this is a most trivial issue. Yes, there may be some minor inaccuracy in there and it might need to be fixed by some very minor copyediting on non-contentious wording. But instead QuackGuru is attacking the sources, slapping on a "failed verification" tag, advocating deleting the entire article because "100% fails verification". An editor trying to fix the descriptive wording problem then has to fight uphill, justifying their changes in terms of dire actions like "removing an {{OR}} tag from an article subject to MEDRS", "Re-introducing content that failed verification", "Using sources that do not meet MEDRS". This is to skew the entire editing process unfairly in one editor's favour! They might as well start asking, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of Quora?"

This is a behavioural problem (and they still refuse to engage here), it's disruptive, it's a severe form of WP:OWN and it needs to stop or be stopped. Andy Dingley (talk) 08:55, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Andy Dingley, except that you explicitly said

Quick example: Tagging the text, "Pod mods come in varying shapes and sizes and some resemble USB devices." as "fails verification " See "The palm-sized device resembles a USB flash drive,,," Obvious FV content." from a source which contains the literal text, "The palm-sized device resembles a USB flash drive".

You cannot have it both ways. You made a big deal over the fact that the content does not fail verification because the source explicitly mentions it resembles a USB flash drive. But you completely neglected to mention that in fact the source only says that. It does not support the claim "pod mods come in varying shapes and sizes". Therefore as I said, the failed verification tag was technically correct, regardless whether or not it was the best way to handle it. (And I've already said it wasn't.)

I would note that the reason I realised this is because I nearly faulted QuackGuru on my talk page for them adding a failed verification tag when it wasn't justified since I WP:AGF that you were correct. Thankfully this didn't happen since I double checked myself before leaving my comment.

If you want us to focus on the problems with QuackGuru's editing you need to avoid making misleading claims. From my experience a good way to ensure any complaints you have at AN//I get ignored is by ensuring that we are pointlessly arguing over what the person complaining about said because they are careless or misleading in what they say. As I've said, it seems to me QuackGuru's editing does have problems, so I have no idea why you insist on bringing up stuff that detracts from that point.

Nil Einne (talk) 13:30, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• This has never been about the accuracy of the article complaints here, so much as the appropriate remedies for how to fix them. The text in the article was over-specific for what the source literally stated. If an editor sees that as a problem, then there are quick, easy fixes to that such as either rewording to only match what can literally be supported (one observed device resembles such a device) or else (as appears likely to be the case) noting that resembling USB devices seems to be an ongoing theme across the market and finding additional broader sources to support that broader claim. But shouting "FAILS VERIFICATION!!" from the rooftops and demanding the article is deleted as a consequence is an over-reaction. A disruptive over-reaction. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:48, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Here's a straightforward example of disruptive tag-bombing: [16]

"...however the health risks are currently undetermined as they are new productions." {{CN}}

"...the health risks of these are also unknown and not well-studied." {{CN}}

Two tags of those added, where a high school philosophy freshman should be able to spot the fallacy.

If the text read, "the risks have been quantified", then that would be a WP:biomedical claim rightly needing WP:MEDRS. But it isn't, it's the opposite of that. It falls under WP:BLUESKY. They are new (this is unchallenged, and anyway met by RS elsewhere) and there are no known studies. If an especially pedantic editor wanted to qualify the wording of the statement (at the cost of losing clarity as an encyclopedia) then they could reword as "No studies are known at present (2019) to the authors of this WP article", which would be pointless yet justifiable. But to demand citations is ridiculous: "New things are unknown" is not merely uncited, it is unciteable, and that is a matter of classical logic, not medical quackery. To then take that as an excuse for deletion (read the edit summary added) is disruptive above all else. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:04, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• Without wanting to express any strong views about Quack's overall editing, I request that, if any decisions need to be made, you all please kindly limit the number of RFCs involved. A couple of months ago, QuackGuru had ten (10!) separate RFCs about e-cigs underway at one time. As some of you know, I've followed the RFC advice pages for years and years, and I cannot recall a single instance in which another editor had even half that many content RFCs underway at one time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:11, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• Agreed that this is WP:OWN behauvior, and QuackGuru has staggering 2,449 edits in e-cigarette according to Xtools edit count. Not everything related to e-cigs should be vetted by one person. --Pudeo (talk) 19:21, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• My impression which seems to be supported by WP:AfD, WP:ATD-R and Wikipedia:Merging is that it's not always necessary to AfD something where merging or redirection while keeping the old article is the desired outcome even if these are possible outcomes of an AfD. If it's expected to be uncontentious, no discussion may be needed. It may also be acceptable to rely on other forms of discussion like RfCs. This is in part because merging or redirecting (while keeping the article) are explicitly not a form of deletion as no admin action is needed and the edit history is still there. These actions can be reverted by anyone like with normal editing processes. However it's recognised that many editors will not be aware of this, so care needs to be taken and sometimes AfD may be better. Note that this is explicitly not an endorsement of QuackGuru's actions. If you've found a hoax, it needs to be deleted so you should use some deletion process. It's harmful to simply redirect or merge a hoax as you're running the risk someone will revert to the hoax either intentionally or accidentally. But I agree with others it doesn't seem this is a hoax, based on the sources and the fact the info was merged anyway. QuackGuru's other actions here also seem concerning. Nil Einne (talk) 05:58, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

It's been pointed out to be my QuackGuru they didn't merge content so I've struck that portion of my comment above. Instead I will say "But I agree with others it doesn't seem this is a hoax, based on the sources and the fact that the info or very similar info already existed in another article they redirect to. It possible that some of the content in the original article failed verification and this needed to be dealt with, but it's clear that the article itself and the concept it dealt with was not a hoax. To reiterate what I said, if it was a hoax it needed to be deleted outright not simply redirected." Nil Einne (talk) 06:51, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• " These actions can be reverted by anyone like with normal editing processes. "

No, they can't be "reverted by anyone". It needs a particularly thick-skinned editor to disagree with QuackGuru. Their immediate reaction is to place a dire warning box on the editor's talk: page, threatening sanctions (despite the fact that ArbCom's ruling behind such sanctions was directed at QuackGuru). Then they fire up threads in the walled garden of the medical project, demanding the use of sources to MEDRS, just to say what year a commercial product was launched or whether it's the shape of a USB stick. And they will still not join the debate here at ANI, a thread specifically about their behaviour. This is QuackGuru going out of their way to place barriers in front of other editors, and that's usually an effective strategy to imposing their single viewpoint onto articles. This has nothing about article quality or verifiable standards, it's about refusing to cooperate. Andy Dingley (talk) 08:16, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

So, you're saying that "dire warning box" is too frightening? --Calton | Talk 08:38, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• I've always said that. It's completely unfit for purpose. It threatens other editors, it's unclear as to what it means, it's unclear as to how other editors ought to respond to it or should change their editing. It's used by a handful of established editors in order to intimidate others, and it's often highly effective against blameless new editors (read some of the Teahouse reactions to being hit with it).

Worst of all is its lack of clarity. It doesn't link to any good explanation of what "Discretionary Sanctions" are and what they mean for ongoing editing. The justification for them (i.e. the source ArbCom case) is hidden and mostly irrelevant to the current situation. These DS boxes are mostly used by two editors: one who favours a DS box linking to an ArbCom case that was rescinded or else (in this case) a case where the editor pasting the warning box was one of those being admonished by ArbCom.

So yes, this is just a scary stick to try and frighten other editors with. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:02, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Regardless, that has nothing to do with my point which is that there has never been any policy or guideline requiring that redirects and merges must go through AfD. Nor my point that redirects and merges are explicitly not a form of deletion and can technically be reverted by anyone (given the limits of page protection, edit filters, and editor blocks). Note I also said that QuackGuru's actions were wrong here but that doesn't change the general point I made which you challenged. QuackGuru should be called out for their problematic editing. What you've alleged of their behaviour may be a problem, but failing to use AfDs for merges or redirects it not itself a problem unless the conditions when they did so is a problem. Likewise, if QuackGuru prevents people reverting when they should and can that's a problem, but that doesn't change the way merges and redirects operate. That said, I'm not sure that QuackGuru is even putting barriers in place for reversion. Giving a discretionary sanctions notice to someone who had not been notified seems fair enough. I'd note an editor does not need to be "thick-skinned", they just need to properly understand the notice or the discretionary sanctions process in general to know that such notices are irrelevant to whether or not they can revert if justified and of course that QuackGuru's actions would also be covered under the discretionary sanctions regime if their actions are. Not to mention skin thickness does not matter if the editor has received a notice within the past year meaning they cannot receive another one. Nil Einne (talk) 13:18, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• I've no objection to the use of either AfD or talk: page discussion, or anything similar, but there needs to be opportunity for discussion by some means, and QuackGuru is doing their best to avoid it at all. Their actions are instant, so that WP:FAIT applies, and they're hedging even the smallest issue around with the biggest obstacles of MEDRS etc that they can.

Juul is pretty obviously investing in high quality design to make an attractive product, more than a merely functional one. It does have resemblances to a USB stick, in both size and shaping. The amount of arguing against this and the sources involved, and the implication that the article needs to be deleted as a result, are out of all proportion to the underlying issue. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:38, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Nil Einne, the discretionary sanctions notices are scary for most people – perhaps for almost everyone except the few editors who like to spam them around at every opportunity. We've tried to clarify the wording – I was involved in the effort to specify that this situation exists because of other editors, and doesn't say anything about your own contributions – but they are still perceived by the recipients as direct and immediate threats. I have been wondering whether it would make sense to ban their delivery by people who are in disputes. In the current free-for-all situation, an editor who is edit warring can drop that notice on your talk page. In that situation, it is no wonder that people think the underlying message is "Let me own this article, or I'll get you blocked". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:26, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Have to disagree. For new editors, yes I agree they are often scary and confusing. For anyone familiar with the regime, they are generally not scary. For editors who aren't new but are also less familiar with the discretionary sanctions regime IMO it varies. I have said before that IMO it's best if an editor involved in a dispute with another editor, or who simply often disagrees with the other editor doesn't hand them out. Instead an uninvolved editor or even better someone friendly with the editor should hand them out. But I also feel that any ban on people who may hand them out would carry a reasonable risk of making the regime less effective. I myself have handed them out on a few occasions, mostly when I see someone at one of the ANs who is editing the area and where I feel there is a chance the regime may be useful. I admit this may not be ideal, but I generally avoid simultaneously criticising the editor a lot or getting involved in any dispute. Thinking more of something I said above, I wonder if it may be helpful to add something to the template emphasising they apply to all editors including the one handing out the notice if they are involved in the topic area. But this is perhaps getting too far off topic. I stand by my claim that you do not have to be a thick skinned editor to be largely unaffected by the possibility of notices. For example anyone familiar with the regime or anyone who has already received a notice and some other editors. This is particularly significant here since RoySmith and Andy Dingley themselves seem to be 2 of the major editors involved in the article and I do not believe either of them should be affected by receiving a discretionary sanctions notice. The creator User talk:Sydneystudent123456 doesn't seem to have received a notice either [17] Nil Einne (talk) 16:49, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

It's possible true that "anyone familiar with the regime" will be unaffected. However, that restriction basically excludes 99% of registered editors. In my experience, it's really hard for long-time editors like us to even imagine what our system looks like to people who aren't us. For example: Less than 10% of registered editors (all accounts, ever, specifically at this wiki) are autoconfirmed. The median number of undeleted edits for registered accounts is zero. Think about what that means for our assumptions about what "most" editors do or think or feel. We are not like most editors. I might receive these notices with the realization that another editor is trying to escalate a dispute. The median editor receives them with as little nonchalance as they would receive notice of a dispute from their nation's tax agency. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:14, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Well I never disputed that discussion should be allowed. My point was and remains that we should not conflated merging and redirection with deletion, and also that other processes can be used instead of AfD for that discussion. I felt this was important since the initial comment seem to come close to suggesting the opposite. I don't really see a point to argue content issues like what Juul makes and USB sticks on this page and was never suggesting we do so. My point with that was that the content did fail verification. As I said, I don't think adding a failed verification tag was the right way to handle that but I stand by my view it's very confusing to imply the content did not fail verification when it did fail verification (even if some part of the content was verified by the source). Nil Einne (talk) 16:53, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• So, still no response from @QuackGuru: and the WP:OWN continues on the article(s). Per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Editor_conduct_in_e-cigs_articles#QuackGuru_Warned, is it time to escalate to WP:AE? The edits themselves might be debatable as a content issue, but the refusal to discuss is disruptive. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:28, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
  • My original post a couple of days ago got lost in an edit conflict. It may be time to escalate this to WP:AE if you think that helps resolve this issue.
  • After I read this comment I decided to make a quick post here.
  • I am discussing the issues on the talk page, but this is a new article and there are very few editors watching the article. The edits themselves can be considered a content issue. I made a bold edit to redirect it because the Construction of electronic cigarettes article discusses the different types of devices and there was a lot of misinformation about the pod mods in the new article. There is new content about pod mods in the Construction of electronic cigarettes that is 100% sourced. See Construction of electronic cigarettes#Pod mods. I wrote the content myself and I did not copy content from any other article. Having a splinter article seems more like a WP:REDUNDANTFORK. QuackGuru (talk) 18:21, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

I've had similar problems with Quackguru, and I haven't managed to discuss most of them them productively: see this discussion, and much of my talk page. Aside from my own ignorance and mistakes (advice welcome), there are a few recurrent sources of conflict, which it would be good to have resolved.

On merging, redirection, and deletion, I'd like to raise what I see as obfuscation of article and talk histories (example, original article) and, more trivially, QG's own draft space (for instance, pages titled with totally unrelated word, or an IPA schwa character). QG's manual archiving of talk page discussions, which matches the clear-desk ethos of QG's talk page, can be inconvenient to part-time and intermittent editors.

Draft-replacing content is fast, but it feels a bit like driving a flail tank through a community vinyard to till it.

I really don't like it when QuackGuru privately writes a parallel article in the draftspace, then overwrites the multieditor article. It is especially frustrating when QG has, while writing the draft, been asking other editors to fix problems identified by QG in the article (or delete or redirect the article), without telling them of the any plan to replace their work with the draft. If editor efforts are in competition, anyone who spends less time editing than QG, or edits more slowly, is at a disadvantage.

QG sometimes uses language I find needlessly threatening (prod example). I have, in the past, overreacted to QG's warnings (though not that one). I've learned that the best response to threats of formal complaints is to urge QG to follow through with them. QG often repeatedly raises issues with my editing. When the issues are irrelevant to the discussion at hand, or when I have acknowledged faults, apologized, and fixed, or when the forum is one I only come across by chance, this feels like mudslinging (example).

I strongly support inline tagging, but I often find QG's tags trivial (some phrasing and page number requests) or incomprehensible (many fv tags). Quackguru seems to mostly think that every sentence must have exactly one source at the end of it. It is also difficult to steer between Scylla and Charybdis with closeness to sources; QG opposes both excessively close paraphrases as copyvio and excessively loose ones as failed-verification. This leads to passages in the first style below:

Anon was born in the 19th century[1]. She was born in Nowheretown[2]. Her parents worked as cobblers[3]. Her mother was named named Anan[3]. Her father was named Anen[4]. Anon attended Nowheretown School[4]. She studied basketmaking in her first two years at Nowheretown School[4]. She also studied applied agrostology in her last year at Nowheretown School[5]. In 1882, the Nowheretown Post described her as a "elderly lady".[6] In 1882, the Journal of Applied Agrostology said that she was well-known to for her "application of agrostology to basketmaking"[7]. She died in 1882[8]. Her son gave the Nowheretown Botanic Gardens and Handicrafts Museum her collections[7]. Her collections included herbarium specimens and furniture[7].

Anon was born in Nowheretown[1] in the 1880s[1] to two cobblers[3] named Anan[3] and Anen[4]. At Nowheretown School, she studied first basketmaking[4], then applied agrostology[5]. In later life,[6] she became well-known for her application of agrostology to basketmaking[7][8]. When she died at an advanced age in 1882, the Journal of Applied Agrostology published an obituary praising her work. Her herbarium specimens and furniture were donated to the Nowheretown Botanic Gardens and Handicrafts Museum[7].

Example obviously made up, to avoid using a controversial topic. I'll also give a real style example; readers may also wish to see if they can spot the two paragraphs of QG's style in Nicotine marketing. A few examples of citation disagreements, all from one page:

• Talk:Heat-not-burn product/Archive 2
• Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive 1#Confusion
• Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive 3#Copyright violation
• Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive 9#Bogus_citation

QuackGuru has argued that that all sources must include wording matching the article title. This severely constrains editor judgment in determining the article scope and providing context (example). Likewise constraining is Quackguru's view that an image cannot be included in an article unless a source says that it illustrates the article topic (one "humorous" example).

Because we have a history of conflict, I probably don't see QG's best side; we all tend to give more consideration to those we respect, an exacerbating feedback. The next two paragraphs may therefore be unduly harsh.

I rarely get the sense that QG is intellectually engaged in a content discussion, and discussions with QG tend go nowhere via long strings of characters. I often find QG's posts unclear, and it takes several exchanges to extract a meaning I'd expect to get in two sentences. QG often does not answer direct questions, and reiterates the same points or ones I find logically unconnected, until I've wondered if my own posts are even being read. This communications burden often puts off other editors who would otherwise engage on topics of interest to QuackGuru (example). I think a majority of my talk page posts have been made in response to QG; I never came in contact with QG for the first decade or so of my editing.

Obviously I disagree with some of QuackGuru's interpretations of rules, and formal guidance on these issues might help reduce conflict. However, more generally, I feel that QuackGuru tends to focus overmuch on using rules to control article content, rather than on understanding and improving content. I'm therefore not sure that providing more rules would help much (especially since combativeness tends, even with the best will in the world, to be infectious). I'm not sure what would help, though QuackGuru has some views. HLHJ (talk) 22:02, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Edited in response to User talk:HLHJ#Allegations without supporting evidence. HLHJ (talk) 22:48, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

This very much matches my experience of dealing with QuackGuru. They seem to be more interested in content as a sequence of matching text strings and they have no interest in or understanding of any meaning behind that. They are also persistently either unwilling or incapable of communicating with other editors to any normal level: they see interaction as a series of barriers and obstacles, not as an opprtunity to share information. The "I would have commented to this ANI thread about me days ago, but there was an edit conflict" claim is simply not credible. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:07, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Actually, I do think that QuackGuru is interested in the meaning of content, as QG edits on specific topics of interest, with an identifiable point of view on those topics (which I do not consider unacceptable, or avoidable). I find I can often predict which statements QG will tag and remove, and if and how QG is likely to alter statements, but I find it harder to predict what objections QG will make to the statements. I haven't gotten the impression that QG is very interested in teaching me or learning from me, which I would be OK with if we were not in conflict. I'm not very good at social interactions myself, and I have sympathy with editors who want to minimize the social side of editing; there are unobjectionable ways of doing this. HLHJ (talk) 00:13, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Well I am out. I normally don't edit controversial things and I try to avoid WP:MEDRS sections of articles as I don't feel comfortable judging if sources are reliable enough. I still think this is a valid article separate from e-cigs as there are a few articles on Google Scholar from JAMA and NEJM which focus on Pod Mods in general.There are also a handful of articles in mainstream sources that also focus on the category rather than a specific brand. That makes it pass WP:GNG in my eyes but apparently not in others. spryde | talk 11:46, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

I've stayed away from this discussion for a few days since I felt I'd said enough and it was better to let others comment. Since it still doesn't seem to have achieved a clear resolution and there are suggestions for AE I'll just make a few final comments.

One, I think QuackGuru's refusal to engage in this ANI is concerning. While sometimes when it's without merit it's fair enough to just let others deal with an ANI on your behaviour, and it's easy to harm yourself with poorly considered posts at ANI; IMO there were enough serious concerns here to warrant at least some comment. It's clear QuackGuru was paying attention since they quickly approached editors who had commented when they had concerns (me and from the sounds of it HLJH).

Two, I'm also concerned there has been no real engagement with QuackGuru on Talk:Pod mods over article content issues. Whatever concerns there over QuackGuru's conduct, I do not believe they warrant ignoring their attempts at engagement, especially since one of the concerns was their refusal to discuss their concerns over article content. To be fair (paraphrasing here) 'should I delete half the article content as unsourced' is not something that's easy to engage with. But when QuackGuru raises specific concerns over specific text failing verification (or whatever), I think at least some action should be expected even if it's just a quick comment 'no you're wrong, the source says XYZ' or minor rewording to fix the problem or finding a new source or whatever.

Three, and bear in mind I have basically no experience with AE and I'm not an admin, I feel if an AE case is raised it would be best to concentrate on clear cut examples. For example whatever problems there may be with posting discretionary sanctions notices unless these are clearly inappropriate (user is already away, user never edited the area) I have doubts they'd get much heed. Likewise saying something did not fail verification because it mentions USB-likeness when it didn't mention the other stuff may not be a great example. Either say that even if it technically failed verification blindly tagging it along with a whole load of other content was not the best way to handle it. Or find refs which do support this content add them and if QuackGuru continues to complain because they don't like 2 sources then maybe you have an example. (I think the former already happened but it's still IMO an example of what happened early in this case that would best be avoided at AE.)

Nil Einne (talk) 07:46, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

• Gah the article on pod mod needs work. These are simply a form of electronic cigarette. Does it need its own article? Not convinced... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:37, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

• No-one is disputing that it needs work – except perhaps QuackGuru, who thinks that such work is impossible and the whole lot needs to be deleted.

Are they notable? Well, my first comment on the talk: page was to ask just that. QuackGuru thinks they're distinct, and has created a CFORK on that basis. I'm still unconvinced (I am too busy to do any editing for the next few weeks), but if they are (and I think they are) it's because the Juul is not merely another e-cigarette. Whether there are any pod mods other than Juul is a separate question. But it seems (from what little I've had time to read) that the difference with them is nothing to do with replaceable coils and it's actually about the chemistry of the fluid used. Juul is using nicotine salts, which appear to have significantly different biological effects. If pod mods are really different from other e-cigs, it's this different chemistry which makes it. However QuackGuru has already stripped the redlinks and decided that it's "just not notable".

They are impossible to work with. They do not engage with others, they do not engage with serious efforts to try and answer specific issues, they just keep re-posting "Can I delete all this yet?". They don't need permission to do so in the first place: they need to justify it. But asking over and over again is a way to get this "permission" by attrition and omission. If they simply persist long enough, more and more editors will say "Well I am out." and when it goes quiet, they can delete the article "because no one complained beforehand". That is not acceptable editing: we have to collaborate here, and none of us get to simply ignore the others. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:40, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

As someone who is a domain expert in certain topic areas who, like QuackGuru, has a massive edit count in those articles and been involved in numerous content disputes, I have also had WP:OWN thrown at me in content disputes by other involved editors. It is both really disingenuous and a very clear case of fundamental attribution error (i.e., a cognitive bias) to ascribe another editor's reversion of your edits and those of others who are a party in the dispute as WP:OWN without a clear statement of ownership. An editor is violating WP:OWN if the they make a statement of ownership and/or take action to prevent all others from modifying an article so as to effectively retain an exclusive right to edit an article, decide what content it shows, or otherwise dictate what an article states (that's also what ownership of literally anything entails). If you don't have clear evidence of an editor making such a statement or rolling back everyone's edits to an article, do not cite that policy. It is pointlessly inflammatory and I've personally found it annoying to be on the receiving end of that. Frankly, I don't know what experienced Wikipedian would actually believe that they have, or could possibly retain for any length of time, an exclusive right to anything on Wikipedia (the only exception would be the copyright to any CC-BY-SA-3.0-licensed article text that an editor contributes, as that is an exclusive right). Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 05:52, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• Read the other page discussions. There's little edit-warring in mainspace, because they've already slapped warning dialogs around to threaten some unspecific editing restriction. But on the talk: discussions, we keep looping through the same sequence. "There is a minor wording issue over a very minor topic, where the source does not use those literal words" – 'OK, what change is needed? Just do it' – "This source FAILS VERIFICATION so I've removed it altogether." – 'Don't do that. It means the content doesn't match, not that the source is bad' – "I'm going to delete the whole article again" – 'Why are you ignoring the ANI thread?'.

This is OWN, even if not in mainspace. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:31, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

I have been thinking over my last post, and I have an example of QG responding to new editors. QG reverted the mostly-easily-salvagable edits, but spontaneously posted on the talk page with some explanation of why. This suggests to me that QG is willing to teach newcomers, but is not always using effective methods (in this case, the new editors did not engage). Sometimes QG has spent far longer getting me to fix problems than it would have taken for QG to fix them and post saying "You should have done this" (example); I think this is partly communications difficulties.

QuackGuru often adds very high densities of inline tags to content I've written, and insists that I fix the content. Some of the reasons behind the inline tags are trivial fixes, things you'd think would be easier to fix than to tag, but most of the problems QG points out are not obvious, and I find many debatable. Any fix I attempt is usually swiftly re-tagged, accompanied by talkpage posts that my changes have made the content even worse, and it would be best to delete the lot and start again. When I add templates criticizing content in articles in which QG takes an interest, QG has reverted the addition (invariably, as far as I can recall). QuackGuru occasionally reverts edits of mine that QG requested via inline tags (for instance, the addition of a large number of verifying quotes, accompanied by translations from the French and German, which took me some hours of editing time: 1, 2, 3).

I don't think this behaviour motivated by bad faith. QuackGuru believes that I lack the WP:CIR to edit, so I think the motive is to improve the content by protecting it from me, keeping me busy with makework until I move to another content area. This is logical and effective, in the short term. Taking the long-term consequences into account, though, it also turns editors wanting to work in this area into opponents instead of collaborators.

For me, this discussion is therefore not primarily about the podmod article (I've been uninvolved with it, apart from a point-of-information talkpage post in answer to a question), or any one article.

I'm a bit uncomfortable addressing all this in the third person. QuackGuru, I know you are reading, and I'm not intending to ignore you, slight you, or speak behind your back. I'd be happy to discuss the roots of our editing conflicts with you in another forum, including a more private one. HLHJ (talk) 15:10, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• Without recommending a remedy, I would like to say that QG has severe OWNership issues with regard to e-cigarettes. I mean, he truly believes he owns the subject and no one else should be allowed to edit there. I tried to get involved with the coverage about recent illnesses and deaths from vaping, but was totally stonewalled and eventually gave up. His style includes spinning off multiple sub-articles, so that he can put disputed content into all of them and no one can keep up. His articles are so technical and detailed, and so focused on single individual studies (quite the opposite of how MEDRS is supposed to work), that there is literally no way for a reader to gain an overall understanding of the subject. I tried for several weeks to make a few of the articles more readable; no luck. I tried to get him to tone down his promotion of the theory that the recent illnesses and deaths are caused by Vitamin E acetate; no luck. The investigating agencies are saying over and over that they don’t know the cause and there are many different histories of what the affected people used in vaping, but he is convinced acetate is the issue and his articles convey that. I know he is a very prolific editor, but IMO what he produces is non-neutral and unreadable, and his attitude is the very opposite of the collaboration that Wikipedia is supposed to be about. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:37, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

• • Please provide evidence of spinning off multiple sub-articles, so that I can put disputed content into all of them and no one can keep up. The only recent spin off was "2019 United States outbreak of lung illness linked to vaping products". It is way too long to merge. There is a summary in the safety article. I also started "Vaping-associated pulmonary injury" after discussing it with WikiProject Medicine.
  • You stated "I tried for several weeks to make a few of the articles more readable; no luck." Can you provide diffs where you tried to make them more readable?
  • See "The CDC stated that the cases have not been linked to one product or substance, saying "Most patients have reported a history of using e-cigarette products containing THC. Many patients have reported using THC and nicotine. Some have reported the use of e-cigarette products containing only nicotine."[5] Many of the samples tested by the states or by the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) as part of the 2019 investigation have been identified as vaping products containing tetrahydrocannabinol (or THC, a psychoactive component of the cannabis plant).[8] Most of those samples with THC tested also contained significant amounts of Vitamin E acetate.[8]"
  • The CDC and the US FDA have both reported similar things. I included content from both of them. QuackGuru (talk) 16:03, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
    • I’m not inclined to spend much additional time over this, but if you insist: Here, on September 7, was where I updated the article and put the CDC warning into the lead. This was the “Safety of electronic cigarettes” article (before you spun off the separate article about recent illnesses), so a CDC warning about safety seemed like the single most important thing to have in the lead. But you immediately removed it,[18] falsely citing “failed verification” when in fact it was well cited. Correction: your reason for removing it from the "safety" article was that it was mentioned in two other articles. So that means it can't be in the "safety" article where it is clearly relevant? That's an example of how you use (and misuse) subarticles.

For some reason you strongly objected to putting any warning into the "safety article" lead, leaving the lead full of years-old studies indicating that vaping could be relatively harmless or even beneficial. As recently as September 11 the lead of the safety article still didn’t mention the outbreak of disease and death. In fact it said (based on a 2016 report) that the risk of serious adverse effects was low, while it rambled on about possible battery explosions. I remember arguing with you about the necessity of putting the warning in the lead of that and several related articles; that argument is here. Finally on September 11 I was able to get a sentence about the outbreak (without mentioning the CDC warning) in the Safety article lead.[19]

Now that I have researched this, at your request, I see that this issue wasn’t just with me and it wasn't just one article. Doc James inserted the CDC warning into the lead of the main Electronic cigarette article three times on September 7, and you removed it three times, [20] prompting him to issue a warning on your talk page.[21] In other words, you kept insisting the warning couldn’t be in the lead of any article, even though that was only your own opinion, vs. well supported arguments to include it from two other people. Like I said, you don’t believe in collaboration or consensus; you believe you OWN these articles. That is not how Wikipedia works. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:22, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

You added on September 7, a CDC warning. This was added to the Safety of electronic cigarettes article before I created a spin-off. I removed it, along with rewriting other content, correctly citing "failed verification" for "WDHS2019". Both citations did not verify the same claim for "In 2019 hundreds of cases of severe lung disease were reported among users of e-cigarettes." The US-centric view for "recommending against the use of e-cigarettes because of their association with severe respiratory disease." was not a neutral summary for the lede. It was replaced with neutral content. See Safety of electronic cigarettes: "In 2019, an outbreak of severe lung illness across multiple states in the US has been linked to the use of vaping products.[23]" Also see Electronic cigarettes: In 2019, an outbreak of severe lung illness across multiple states in the US was linked to vaping.[105] Adding a US-centric warning to the lede of "Safety of electronic cigarettes" or "Electronic cigarette" is not neutral. The outbreak is in the US only. More than one editor objected to including a US-centric warning. See Talk:Electronic_cigarette/Archive 31#US-centric. Simply stating the facts in the lede that there is an outbreak is far more neutral than including a US-centric warning. I did add the CDC warning to the Electronic cigarette.[22] It is still in the Electronic cigarette. See Electronic_cigarette#Positions_of_medical_organizations. I did add it to the lede of the Positions of medical organizations on electronic cigarettes article. QuackGuru (talk) 18:11, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Simply stating the facts in the lede that there is an outbreak is far more neutral than including a US-centric warning. And that's what I did, here, although apparently even that wasn't worded to your satisfaction and you reworded it. I'm done here, but my comments stand: you insist that everything at these articles, great or small, has to be done your way. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:09, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

You added "In September 2019 the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported an outbreak of severe lung disease in the US associated with the use of e-cigarette products.[16]" The CDC reported an outbreak in September 2019, but the outbreak started before September 2019. I fixed the inaccurate content. When did the outbreak start? "Cases involved in the outbreak of severe lung illness associated with vaping products were first identified in Illinois and Wisconsin in April 2019.[13]" I wrote accurate content without misleading or biased content. QuackGuru (talk) 19:24, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

See here. QuackGuru (talk) 19:42, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Propose ban

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

---

I've largely stayed out of this, but I've slowly come to the conclusion that QuackGuru is a lost cause. We should just WP:CBAN him and stop this endless time sink.

I made an attempt to work with him. See the Talk:Pod mod#Failed verification content thread. He questioned whether Research reveals potential health risks in aerosolizing nicotine salts and metal toxins that are produced was verified by the cited reference. I decided to investigate.

My first task was to find a copy of the reference, and discovered that it existed on-line, so I updated the reference to include the URL, and some other minor reformatting while I was at it. This earned me a complaint 10 minutes later that, The citation was formatted but that does not solve the FV problem. I continued to read the cited source and concluded that QuackGuru was correct; it did indeed not verify the claim made in the article, which I stated on the talk page. Amazingly enough, his response to my agreeing with him was yet another salvo.

Somewhere in there, he dropped a Template:Ds/alert on my talk page. What purpose this served other than an attempt at intimidation, I can't imagine. I've got a pretty thick skin, but I imagine most new editors would be scared by this and disengage. Which I assume is exactly the intended result.

Irksome habits like continually blanking their talk page, while not forbidden, certainly does make it more difficult to interact with them.

Every interaction between him and other editors that I've observed over the past few days is aggressive and just attempts to bludgeon the enemy into submission rather than engage in a productive discussion with them. It is good that they insist on correctness and verification through reliable sources, but they take it to such an extreme that nobody can work with them. This makes them a net negative to the project.

I count 19 blocks, spanning 12 years, for QuackGuru already. It's hard to imagine that any additional attempts at behavior modification will be any more successful than the past ones. It's time to cut our losses. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:12, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

QuackGuru has been very productive in Wikiproject Medicine articles...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:38, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

QuackGuru has done good work over the years. I agree with a fair number of the concerns they raised at the pod mod article. Their redirect with the claim that it is a "hoax article" however is not accurate and I would advise them to be more careful with their words. Not sure I see the issue with this notice.[23] I had a personalized notice placed upon my talk page about the existence of DS with respect to gun related issues a few days ago.[24] I took it as a useful FYI. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:16, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Agree with Doc James. Clearly some concerns raised here are valid, but just as clearly some are overstated. The volume and quality of QuackGuru's work is impressive. I agree they need to improve their collaboration. But a ban is over the top. Cloudjpk (talk) 20:26, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose ban QuackGuru operates in Wikipedia's most controversial medical spaces. I perceive QuackGuru to be an advocate for the consumer, medical journals, and WP:MEDRS standards. Most commonly QuackGuru is in conflict with editors who advocate for or sympathize with the position in alignment with corporate industries well known for aggressive propaganda in favor of harmful health practices. In this case we are talking about nicotine use where a billion-dollar industry is selling a drug with health effects and which is lobbying globally to control the conversation. Everyone who edits the Wikipedia nicotine articles will be read by a billion people including all journalists, lobbyists, doctors, policy makers, and the lawyers in the related lawsuits. The money tied up here is obscene considering that advocacy for science in this space has no budget, and in large part is defended by QuackGuru with support of others. When Wikipedia is the target of hundreds of paid lobbyists I expect missteps and misunderstandings from any volunteer editor. I do not perceive the problem here to be QuackGuru, but rather, the center of the problem is the topic itself and the infinite funding available to pay people to endlessly argue the minutiae of the topic to the limits of the Wikipedia process. Most people who edit here are not lobbyists but propaganda is in the heads of everyone who thinks about this topic and extreme caution is a useful norm for this space. QuackGuru knows the wiki bureaucracy and runs discussions and editing discussions by wiki process. I expect content in this space to move slowly and be more cautious than in other articles where a billion dollars and national economies are not the stakes of what Wikipedia publishes and which politicians read when they are making laws. If anyone enters such controversial topics then they should expect bureaucracy, be forgiving, move slowly, and feel free to call on mediation processes such as seeking comment from WikiProjects such as WP:MED or any lightweight process such as WP:3O. I understand why anyone would be frustrated in such unusual articles but this is how extreme controversy works on wiki. The environment is crazy and everyone who enters it will have to abandon some humanity and become a bit of a robot and bureaucrat. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:44, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose ban per Bluerasberry. It is regrettable that QG causes frustration but the topics are frustrating with conflicting interests colliding. I have not checked all relevant edits, but I have seen that QG is on the side of reliable sources. Johnuniq (talk) 23:53, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

• And by implication, anyone who disagrees with him isn't? Andy Dingley (talk) 23:59, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
• He is on the side of the reliable sources that support his position, but resorts to all sorts of tricks to ignore or downplay those that don't! Johnbod (talk) 03:29, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose ban after reading the thread, the underlying issue is literally just a content dispute in a contentious topic area which has gotten out of hand. Content disputes in such subjects are not unexpected/infrequent and sometimes editors who are party to one − myself included − make errors in judgment. That is absolutely not a suitable justification for a site ban unless said error is particularly eggregious. Personally, I think everyone involved should just take a step back, take some time to cool off for a day or two, then come back to the table to discuss the issue and sort out the underlying problem. I don't think anyone who is a party to this dispute is currently acting in an appropriate manner for the purpose of dispute resolution; dispute resolution involves identifying underlying issues, correctly interpreting and applying relevant content policy, and trying to find common ground. In other words, take some time to cool off and make the effort to talk it out; do not neglect engaging in a discussion with all involved parties on a talk page or escalate further argument by making baseless inflammatory accusations pertaining to behavioral policies, applying unfaithful interpretations of content policy as justifications, or otherwise undermining the dispute resolution process. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 05:52, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - The basis for this complaint is invalid. There is quite literally nothing wrong with performing a unilateral blank-and-redirect in good faith, per both deletion and redirection policies. If such an act is contested, it can be reverted and discussed and proceed to dispute resolution, just like any other content dispute. As a matter of policy, and contrary to the OP's claims, it is not considered to be either disruptive or an inappropriate circumvention of deletion process. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 23:15, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - No good reason given. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:11, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. As other's have mentioned, the basis of the complaints were invalid, and the doubling down trying to get a site ban after the initial section didn't gain traction looks like battleground behavior that has no place in a DS topic. If RoySmith was actually a regular in the topic I'd suggest a WP:BOOMERANG in the form of either a topic ban or interaction ban for RoySmith to try to settle the topic down, so I'd at least suggest a decent sized WP:TROUT instead.

My understanding based on when I see QuackGuru's editing pop up here is that QuackGuru often acts through WP:STEWARDSHIP in e-cig topics, and those in content disputes with Quack are trying to portray that as WP:OWN here instead. If advocacy is still a problem in this subject that gets stewards acting terse while still engaging in discussion (which seems to be the case when you look at diffs or lack thereof vs. claims made at this ANI about Quack), the DS need to be enforced more stringently to the cut to the source of the disruption. I haven't seen anything presented here that indicates Quack is a true source of disruption in the topic (and I'd change my mind if I did), much less the entire project. This ANI reads as an attempt at a gotcha of a frustrated editor in order to win a content dispute though. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:52, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose: I fail to see a legitimate policy-based reason for this suggested sanction. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 14:45, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

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

Propose small measures applying to all parties

(originally part of ban discussion) QuackGuru is a bit of a Wikidragon, and does write large amounts of content. As BlueRaspberry points out, this is an area in which content is expected to move slowly, so QG's wish to make drastic changes causes more conflict. I do not see QuackGuru as always being on the side of the evidence: short example. However, I do not see this as sufficient reason to ban. I'd suggest the following remedies, all of which should apply to everyone in this topic area, not just QuackGuru:

• the same standards should apply to one's own edits as one applies to the edits of others. Editors should avoid COI by not removing templates criticizing their own content, unless they have a good-faith belief that the problem has been fixed (not the belief that it never existed).
• we should not template things that are easier to fix than to template.
• fv tags may be hard to understand. Inline tags in this topic area should have a informative |reason= parameter, and may be deleted if none is supplied by an editor aware of the need.
• all edits in this controversial area should initially be made incrementally. Only after incremental addition of content fails should an RfC be used to add the content. An RFC should not be started before the matter and the RfC question have been discussed on the talk page.
• any non-minor edits suggested by declared COI editors should seek talk page consensus before inclusion in the article.
• long reverts, especially reverts of several weeks of complex good-faith edits by multiple editors, should be clearly labeled as "reversion to version of [timestamp]". Discussion should not be avoided.
• it is not OK to follow the letter of rules, but circumvent their spirit. Misuses of process, such as getting a consensus for deleting an article in order to replace it with a version one has already written, should not be undertaken.
• in this controversial area, we should avoid doing things that curtail or hide talk discussions, such as needless discussion forking, manual archiving, and using WP:G7 to delete and immediately recreate pages.
• DS notifications, formal or informal, should not be repeated more than once a year, or made in a way that implies personal criticism or threat. Generally, the matter should only be raised with the formal template.
• per Wikipedia:Citation overkill, two or three citations may be used to support a single sentence. Per convention, different citations may be used to support different parts of the same sentence. Where it is simple, these citations should be separated so that it is obvious what section of the sentence they support (for instance, a citation at the end of each clause: Smith said X[1], and Jones said Y[2]). Where this would contort the sentence structure or otherwise impede readability, Template:Refn may be used to insert a note clarifying which fact comes from which source.

Is there anyone who feels that their editing would be seriously hindered by following these guidelines? HLHJ (talk) 15:10, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Proposed editing restrictions short of a ban

I don't think a ban as justified at the moment, but having read this thread its clear that QG's approach to editing in this is not without problems. Accordingly I think restrictions should of a topic ban should be tried first - I'm thinking perhaps in the eCigs topic area:

1. 1 revert restriction.
2. A revert of anything that is not self-evidently vandalism or a personal attack must be explained on the relevant talk page.
3. Prohibition on converting an article to a redirect. They may propose merging and/or redirecting on the talk page, and they may nominate for deletion.
4. Prohibition on moving any page to or from draftspace. They may propose doing so on the talk page.
5. No significant addition or removal of content without first getting consensus on the talk page.
6. No placing tags (including failed verification and citation needed) on an article without first either (a) rewording the content to match the source, and/or (b) attempting to find (alternative) sources that do verify the content. In all cases the actions must come with explanation that allows other editors to understand both what the problem is and the reason for it - including use of the reason= parameter. Thryduulf (talk) 16:00, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• support Andy Dingley (talk) 16:41, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
• oppose per reasons given in previous section by half a dozen editors, to restrict such a capable editor is not beneficial to anyone--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:48, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Being "capable" is not enough - you need to be able to work with others in a collaborative environment. Without restrictions QG is not, presently, able to do that per all the evidence in this and previous discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 23:01, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• Ive worked w/ QG on Vaping-associated pulmonary injury which is all over the news, there have been some 17 deaths(and cases here in the U.S. and Canada) we both worked together to form/create the best article with the current information available on this condition... that is being capable--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:48, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

• Unable to support "No significant addition or removal of content without first getting consensus on the talk page." Not clear what "significant" means. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:49, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @Doc James: instead of throwing out the whole thing over a minor detail, propose either a way to determine what "significant" means or propose an alternative. This isn't dissimilar to the attitude that's causing many of the problems in this topic area. Thryduulf (talk) 23:01, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
    • User:Thryduulf I have received death threats via twitter and requests that my university fire me for my editing of e-cig content. To say it mildly this is a controversial topic area with editors with financial conflicts attempting to suppress concerns (to be clear I am not making this claim about anyone involved in this discussion currently). Well QuackGuru and I do not always agree we are generally able to find something we can both live with. Of your suggestions which I have numbered I would support the 6th (but I would support it for all involved). Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:50, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
      • That is horrible. I'm sorry you are both dealing with death threats and intimidation. It says something that anyone edits in this area voluntarily.

Thryduulf, are you thinking of some limit on the proportion of the article, or number of facts, changed in a given period? I said "incremental" above, which is not much more concrete than "non-significant"; I meant changes submitted to the article as they are written, and not en-masse. Belatedly, I think there might a problem with WP:FIXED here. Reverting excessively large undiscussed edits is an option, but then the article still turns into a series of RfCs about warring versions, rather than a collaboration. I'd prefer RfCs about individual concepts of content, not entire articles; the discussion is apt to be more substantive, and the end article better. It might get us a bit farther from arguing over sourcing rules, and towards assessing balance of evidence. Maybe we could try presenting an argument for both sides in discussion, reciprocally? Sadly, I've found myself spending more time on the less content-concerned discussions, like this one, simply because they are more antagonistic and thus clamour for attention. HLHJ (talk) 03:51, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Why do you "prefer RfCs about individual concepts of content, not entire articles"? Is it because I proposed a draft and I gained consensus to replace the older versions with the expanded version? Read this comment: "there are so many problems with the main article that it is a bit shameful WP allows work like this to remain."[25] Editors were disappointed with the older version. User:Sunrise closed the RfC. See Talk:Heat-not-burn product/Archive_8#Older_versions_or_expanded_version. QuackGuru (talk) 04:46, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@Doc James: I am not attempting to defend or downplay any of that behaviour from SPAs et al, it is indefensible, but none of that excuses the bad behaviour exhibited by QG. Proposal 6 (thanks for numbering them by the way, that is helpful) could indeed be applied to editors generally - and discretionary sanctions are authorised for the topic area. However I don't think that alone gets to the heart of the issues with QG's editing.
@HLHJ: I don't regard proportion of an article as a useful measure as it categorises rewriting two sentences of a one-paragraph stub is vastly more significant than rewriting two sentences of an article that is multiple pages long, yet the effect of the changes may be more significant on the latter (depending on the detail, obviously). Number of facts changed is a better measure, but again it depends on the detail - if you're updating figures to match the latest released version of statistics everyone agrees are relevant then that is really only one change despite many different facts being changed and in many circumstances wont be controversial. However changing just one fact by switching from one source to a different one could be very significant, especially if one or both are (allegedly) partisan. It really needs to be something like "does this materially change what is being said?" or "is the source used to verify what I'm adding/removing/changing controversial?" and if the answer is yes, then it's a significant change, and if the answer is no then it wont be in most circumstances.
@QuackGuru: RfCs only really work when the question being asked is focused and specific. This is almost always vastly easier to achieve when dealing with individual items of content than dealing with whole articles. The comment you quote is a good example of one that is unfocussed and woolly essentially to the point of being useless. Be specific - explain what the problem is, why its a problem, what would be better and why that would be better. Then do the same for the next problem. Thryduulf (talk) 09:55, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

The HNB article was like a stub by my standard. There was little content in the lede and the writing was incoherent. My proposal was to expand every section of the article. HLHJ was still complaining about the article after I expanded it. The solution was to start specific RfCs to resolve the remaining disputes. There was a previous RfC that was malformed. See Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive_7#RfC on solid tobacco heated using external heat sources. Those issues were unresolved. I eventually started RfCs to address the concerns. I left it up to the community to decide. See Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive_10#IQOS_content and see other RfCs such as Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive_10#Pyrolyse. QuackGuru (talk) 15:09, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

• oppose Agree with Ozzie10aaaa and Doc James. I also agree that QG has problem behavior. But this is not the solution. Cloudjpk (talk) 17:02, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
  • So what is? Thryduulf (talk) 23:01, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
    • I've added proposed editing restrictions for e-cigsCloudjpk (talk) 21:01, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support per nom. I personally don't want to see QG banned, and I think this is a reasonable stopgap measure. — Ched (talk) 10:27, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Doc James. I've had a fair bit of contact with QG. I won't deny QG can be a little stubborn and pedantic, but I've never had cause for a second to think he is biased. He genuinely has neutrality and the interests of the encyclopedia at heart and these proposed sanctions are an over-reaction. -- Begoon 10:37, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I too don't doubt QG's motives, but that doesn't mean his behaviour is not disruptive. Thryduulf (talk) 15:05, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Honestly, I think banning QG from ecigs would be a net positive for him and the project. Of all the editors with whom I agree (and I do agree with almost everything he writes), he is the closest I have come to asking for a siteban. Guy (help!) 11:21, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I am doing a fair amount of editing across multiple e-cig articles. There is bound to be some conflict with the amount of editing I have been doing. The RfCs helped resolve the issues. You closed two of the RfCs. See Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive_10#WHO_claim and see Talk:Electronic_cigarette/Archive_31#Nicotine_and_Passive_vaping_sections. QuackGuru (talk) 15:09, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - As I said above, the complaint is invalid. There is quite literally nothing wrong with this user performing a unilateral blank-and-redirect, per both deletion and redirection policies. As a matter of policy, and contrary to the OP's claims, it is not considered to be either disruptive or an inappropriate circumvention of deletion process. It should be treated like any other content dispute, not dragged to AN/I. Looking at the above section, this was already pointed out, and the OP seems to be ignoring it. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 23:20, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

  I don't think I support this proposal but as I think the first person to point out redirection does not need an AFD and may not even need discussion (05:58, 27 September 2019), can't say I agree QuackGuru did nothing wrong. As me, DocJames and others have said, calling it a hoax was clearly wrong. Firstly while the article had problems, it was not a hoax. Regardless of the merits of the blank and redirect, you can't just go around using misleading summaries when doing so. It confuses the hell out of other editors and provides no understanding of why you did the blank and redirect. Frankly no edit summary would be better than the one they provided. QuackGuru was an experienced editor, so they should have recognised this was not a hoax and they should have not called it one. Second, if QuackGuru genuinely believed the article was a hoax, then simply blanking and deleting was not the solution. Perhaps blanking and deleting was okay as an interim measure, but they should have immediately moved to having the article deleted after that. We cannot allow hoax articles to hang around in main space lest people accidentally or intentionally revert to them, or copy their content. Nil Einne (talk) 22:01, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

  Please see my updated edit summary. QuackGuru (talk) 23:47, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

  Your second edit summary was better but still somewhat unclear. The fact that a blog is used or some of the content failed verification is not itself a reason to blank and redirect. AFAIK at least some of the content did match the citation. You seem to have a decent level of English, so I have no idea why you couldn't have just left an edit summary like "Blanking as most of the content appears to fail verification" if that was your opinion. Frankly though, if you had just left the second edit summary the first time around I think me and at least some others wouldn't care so much. Again, as an experienced editor you should not need someone bugging you on your talk page to tell you how utterly confusing your first edit summary was. Further (other than the updated summary) AFAIK you never provided an comment on your use of such an utterly confusing edit summary or at least you hadn't on the original ANI discussion despite having multiple days to do last I checked. And as I said elsewhere it's not like you were super busy doing something else, you were able to directly respond to people who posted to the ANI when you had issues with what they said. A simple "sorry I was wrong to call it a hoax, don't know what I was thinking" or whatever would have at least provided some clue you recognised the problem. Ultimately though, whatever you did do afterwards, my main point stands which is I disagree that you did nothing wrong since you did initially use that edit summary and it took someone asking on your talk page for any clarification. Nil Einne (talk) 10:50, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per DocJames. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:21, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Swarm, DocJames, and others. Discretionary sanctions are already in effect in the topic, and any restrictions through them should apply to all editors, not just one who actually seems to be following WP:FOC here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:52, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support: But definitely would also strongly support a compromise in specifics with the issues presented by Doc James and those who feel similarly as I feel their concerns have merit. Waggie (talk) 23:02, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose: per the good Doc James. Significance differs from person to person, and there's really nothing wrong with what QuackGuru did, as Swarm rightly notes. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 21:42, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support Thryduulf's proposal, largely with the same feeling as Guy. If "don't place tags without genuinely trying to WP:SOFIXIT first" is too complicated, then a full TBAN is an option. For context, I just had a long and frustrating chat at WT:MED (until I gave up, because life's too short to keep explaining simple facts to people who are very highly motivated to not listen). In this conversation, Quack was apparently able to look at images like this shield-shaped product and this long, skinny one and still desperately trying to convince everyone that "different sizes and shapes" was a hopelessly unverifiable claim that urgently needed to be removed from the article. I don't think that the inability to see what's plainly in front of your nose is either "nothing wrong" (to quote Javert2113's description) or what we need in an editor who gravitates to controversial subjects. I'm thinking about the intersection of WP:COMPETENCE, WP:THERAPY, and WP:BOGO: If you are unable or unwilling to admit that those products aren't all the same size and and shape, then I really don't think that the rest of the community should spend this many hours (for years and years and years – has anyone ever written a complete list of the many previous bans and restrictions?) to you overcome your limitations. I'm perfectly willing to take names for the list of volunteer mentors, though. If others really want to dedicate their wiki-lives to mediating these questions, then that's okay with me. "Y'all should just put up with his rigid thinking and obsessiveness and find ways to work around it. I'm gonna go do something easier and more fun" isn't what the project needs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:15, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per DocJames and BMK. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 11:01, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Swarm. Buffs (talk) 15:24, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
• No point. I assure you on the basis of extensive personal experience that you will never change QG's behaviour. No amount of handwringing or exhortation will have the slightest effect. Tbanning him will work; any other sanction is exactly the same as doing nothing. And Tban proposals relating to this editor never get any traction. QG does genuinely good work fending off advocates and SPAs. This makes him useful to MEDRS, and thus editors active in MEDRS appreciate him and show up to defend him against Tbans (although most of them will acknowledge that he does display some behavioural problems). I personally raised this with Arbcom in 2015 and they couldn't change him. Neither can AN/I. This is why we have QG --- one of Wikipedia's most often-sanctioned editors, and a person with massive control issues and extreme IDHT, running off the leash and hounding away editors who demonstrate considerably better judgement than he does. I still hope that maybe one day QG will do something so egregious that his MEDRS buddies can't save him, but it is not this day.—S Marshall T/C 02:46, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I use quality sources including MEDRS-compliant sources such as reviews.
  • You suggested others were IDHT about sources.[26] What about you? You repeatedly deleted a review and replaced it with popular press sources.[27][28] QuackGuru (talk) 04:13, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
    • The fact that you're answering with whataboutery is telling. If you believe there's a problem with my edits, please do open an AN/I on me. I've always welcomed community scrutiny.

      Listen, QG: you do use good sources, almost always. Specifically, you go through the good sources, you find a statistic, you cite the statistic extremely thoroughly, you attribute it carefully, and you insert it into the article next to other statistics about the same topic. This produces something that looks superficially like a paragraph of text, but isn't. A QG "paragraph" is in fact a bullet-point list of statistics that's been disguised by removing the bullets. And the paragraphs you remove -- the paragraphs other editors want to insert and you edit-war to prevent -- are the paragraphs that move beyond the premises that you love so much and onto thesis and conclusion. When editors want to do this you behave as if they want to violate NPOV, when in fact all they're trying to do is make an article that fucking well goes somewhere. And the IDHT in this is because I've told you all this before, and you ignore whatever I say because it's me saying it.—S Marshall T/C 18:02, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

      • You have not provided a single diff. But I provided diffs.[29][30] You supported this. The proposal made no sense. The entire e-cigarette aerosol article was deleted and replaced with some content from other articles. I started a real RfC. All those edits were undone. See the expanded new article. QuackGuru (talk) 18:38, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
        • It's absolutely true. I've provided no diffs. I said that you're one of Wikipedia's most sanctioned editors. Nobody who's got any business closing AN/I discussions will have got all the way down to here without checking that point, so diffs are needless. I've described your behaviour accurately, and that's easily checkable from the diffs provided by others. And I've given a recommendation to the closer, which is that there's no point giving you sanctions that fall short of a topic ban. Arbcom weren't able to rein you in, discretionary sanctions weren't able to rein you in, and in fact your disciplinary log is clear evidence that nothing short of a topic ban will make the slightest difference to your behaviour. And you're responding with diffs from four years ago that Arbcom have already seen and dealt with by way of a resounding yawn.—S Marshall T/C 13:55, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
          • Arbcom has not seen and dealt with you removing a 2014 review in May 2016. Why did you replace a review with popular press articles?[31][32] A review is a higher quality source than popular press articles.
          • See a random diff from 2017: "Some researchers and anti-tobacco advocates are concerned that irresponsible marketing could make e-cigarettes appeal to young people.[81][57]"[33] You claimed the sources verify "anti-tobacco advocates". Where does the sources verify "young people"? You think authors of e-cig research are "anti-tobacco advocates"? You don't like the word youth? Is it because marketing to youth has a negative connotation for the e-cig industry? Now there is an entire section on marketing to youth in a new article.
          • Citation 81 verifies "E-cigarette marketing may entice adults and children. Citation 52 verifies "E-cigarettes may appeal to youth because of their high-tech design, large assortment of flavors, and easy accessibility online."
          • You previously stated "QG does genuinely good work fending off advocates and SPAs." Do you acknowledge you added content that failed verification? QuackGuru (talk) 14:20, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
            • Lol, I acknowledge that I've often added content that fails your interpretation of verification. You think that anything that isn't directly taken from an academic source is inadmissible. Incidentally, the reason why WP:V explicitly tells you not to violate copyright is because nearly ten years ago, I personally put that in. Nowadays my original phrase has become a whole paragraph, because people citing sources too exactly has been a serious problem.

              As I said, if you think my edits are problematic then you're welcome to open an AN/I on me below: I'll happily respond to them there. But this thread is about your behaviour.—S Marshall T/C 20:23, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Proposed editing restrictions for e-cigs

A key part of the problem is unsourced and failed verification content. Accordingly I suggest these restrictions on policy violations:

1. Prohibition on unsourced content. If there is no citation at the end of the claim it is considered unsourced content
2. Prohibition on failed verification content. If the citation does not completely verify the claim it is considered failed verification content.

Anyone violating these restrictions more than once in a one week period is topic banned. They would have to be warned about the first violation before they would be topic banned for the second violation.

• Support. Cloudjpk (talk) 21:01, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Missing the whole point. No-one is trying to push unverifiable content here. Rather QuackGuru is using that as a dogwhistle complaint against our normal standards for what really constitutes "unreliable" or "failed" sourcing. To implement this would be to also give them a tban-on-request stick against other editors, contrary to all our normal TBAN process. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:50, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
  • For almost all content related to nicotine, it is against our normal standards to add or restore "unreliable" sources and "failed" content. See WP:MEDCITE. QuackGuru (talk) 23:20, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Andy Dingley. There is no need to define unsourced content and/or failed verification any differently to the way it's done everywhere else on the encyclopaedia. Indeed, doing so would likely do more harm than good. Thryduulf (talk) 22:58, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
  • !00% of the content in Electronic cigarette is sourced and it is peppered with hundreds of MEDRS-compliant reviews. Following V policy is very simple, IMO. QuackGuru (talk) 23:20, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support This is already the case everywhere. WP:V: Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed. And it is a blockable offence to restore it without a valid source. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:09, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
  • "Violating" WP:BURDEN is not generally considered a blockable offense, especially, and most relevantly, when we're talking about restoring blanked content that (a) doesn't actually need a source according to any editor except one who wants every single sentence followed by an inline citation to a plagiarized or near-plagiarized reliable source, or (b) the content is already cited elsewhere in the article. Wikipedia:Tendentious editing and Wikipedia:Disruptive editing will both get you blocked, though. Have a look at Quack's very lengthy block log if you want proof of what we actually block editors for. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:29, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support both 1 and 2. There are issues with unverifiable content being added and restored here. Recently sourced content has been replaced with failed verification.[34][35] There was a RfC about the safety content. See Talk:Electronic_cigarette/Archive_31#Safer_than_tobacco_claim. I started RfCs to deal with failed verification content. For example, see Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive_10#Pyrolyse. If anyone feels that their editing would be seriously hindered by following verifiability policy then maybe they should not be editing this topic area. This will help with behavior modification and to cut our losses with repeat offenders. QuackGuru (talk) 23:20, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support - It is not quite correct to say that this is already the case throughout Wikipedia. WP:V doesn't prohibit unsourced content, it can be added to articles, but is subject to removal at any time, and can't then be restored without a source. That's not the same thing as is being proposed here, which is that unsourced content is prohibited from being added in the first place. There are no sanctions specified (which is a problem with the proposal) but I would assume that any editor making multiple infractions of this would be subject to blocks. I do wonder, though, if it would not be better simply to place E-cigs under community general sanctions as a tidier solution. (See WP:General sanctions#Community-authorised sanctions for a list of currently active community-imposed general sanctions.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:19, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @Beyond My Ken: Per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Editor conduct in e-cigs articles#Discretionary sanctions the previous Community-authorised sanctions for this topic area were withdrawn and replaced by arbcom discretionary sanctions. Thryduulf (talk) 13:37, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
    • Ah, thank you, I wasn't aware of that. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:56, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @Beyond My Ken: maybe I've misunderstood what you're saying but this proposal explicitly says (and said [36]) "Anyone violating these restrictions more than once in a one week period is topic banned" if they've been warned. Once an editor is topic banned, the norm is they will be subject to escalating blocks if they edit in violation of their topic ban. Technically this doesn't cover people who violate these restrictions once every week but such gaming of restrictions tends to be dealt with the same as violating them. Nil Einne (talk) 22:24, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support: Clearly QuackGuru is a little too aggressive in this topic area, and hasn't backed down from that stance despite people raising concerns. Waggie (talk) 02:28, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

So you want to give them the power to TBAN opposing editors, just on their say-so? Did you intend your support comment to apply to the proposal it's tagged beneath? Andy Dingley (talk) 14:56, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

DS are already in effect in the topic, so "opposing" editors (or anyone) can be topic banned if their behavior is disruptive, contributing to a battleground mentality, or causing other editors to be terse. For instance, when an editor such as Andy Digley exhibits battleground behavior in their comments at this ANI towards QuackGuru, that can be a good indication to admins that they should be topic or interaction-banned in order to cut down disruption in the topic. I went looking at the talk pages to try to verify some of your claims about Quack, but I'm already seeing some hounding of Quack on the talk pages here and here where you're unable to WP:FOC at article talk pages and more interested in hounding QuackGuru who actually was engaging in content. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:52, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi Andy Dingley, not based on someone's say-so. Concern has been raised, and after reviewing the situation QuackGuru is, in my opinion, clearly overly aggressive in this topic area, based on own behavior. I also do believe that you are correct in that I posted my support in the incorrect proposal here. I have struck my support here. I support Thrydulff's proposal, as I believe that will yield sufficient results in this situation. Waggie (talk) 23:00, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support the ideas in theory, but the discertionary sanctions should already be tamping down or removing editors that are causing problems in these two areas, so any admin can enforce this already. Given the battelground behavior I'm seeing at this ANI that appears to be mostly one-sided after not looking at an e-cig page for some years, it's clear the discretionary sanctions need to be enforced in general to cut that behavior out. I'm mostly seeing QuackGuru sticking to content while others are more focused on QuackGuru here, so fixing the latter battlegrounding should alleviate some of the terseness coming from QuackGuru (which isn't sanctionable in the first place). I'd sure stick to focusing on content and not responding to WP:BAITING comments like in this section. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:52, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Battleground? I'd remind you that QuackGuru began this by falsely describing this as "Redirect non-notable hoax article.". It is not acceptable to attack multiple other editors like this and to accuse them of creating hoaxes. This isn't merely a difference of opinion, it's an accusation of fraudulent editing. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:40, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

What did the updated edit summary state? QuackGuru (talk) 22:47, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Funny looking sort of apology. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:02, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose - using a sledgehammer to crack the wrong nut. Will cause more trouble, not less. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 21:07, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Near the start of this thread, WhatamIdoing stated, "It's my impression that QuackGuru is very frequently concerned that anything short of plagiarism might not be true enough to the cited source." I've seen QuackGuru do this various times, and his odd interpretation of verification has gotten him in plagiarism trouble before. As seen here, an editor brought plagiarism to his attention. Also, here in a different ANI thread, Doc James stated, "They closely follows sources which is generally a good thing. Agree with the concerns around them adding FV tags as sometimes it is appropriate to paraphrase more." Needless to state, his faulty "failed verification" tags are a big issue. Somehow QuackGuru got it in his head that we can't summarize a source's words, like we are supposed to do if not quoting the source and if WP:LIMITED doesn't apply. If an editor uses their own words to summarize a source's text, you can expect QuackGuru to add a "failed verification" tag. This has got to stop. It is one of the more problematic aspects of his editing. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:04, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose the requirement that every fact be followed by a citation. The table that User:HLHJ put above is, in my experience, a remarkably accurate illustration of what's Quack wants. We need well-writing articles that contain verifiable contents and present all perspectives in WP:DUE weight. The overall goal is almost unrelated to whether or not there's an inline citation after every piece of terminal punctuation. Nobody wants {{fv}} content. The problem here is what happens when one editor perseverates in declaring a fact to have failed verification after multiple other editors tell him that he's wrong. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:21, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:NOTPERFECT. These restrictions are too onerous. Buffs (talk) 18:19, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. No need when arbcom DS are in effect anyway - this would just add more surface area to wikilawyer about. Alexbrn (talk) 14:00, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Malyasian IP attacks Singaporeans

See archived link at wp:ANI: [37][38][39]

• 2001:D08:2082:72C9:1:0:C89:93B6 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
  
• 2001:D08:1013:B64A:1:2:84C3:E309 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
  

Vandalism by Unintelligible personal attack. Gundam5447 (talk) 15:09, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Blocked these two for 48h--Ymblanter (talk) 15:29, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

@Ymblanter: This is a long-term problem (search AN and ANI for "2001:d08") that I think could benefit from a longer-term rangeblock. At Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1019#Malayasian IP attacks Singaporeans, I've identified the seven (of 256) /40 ranges within 2001:d08::/32 that are the source of the problem. I think this user does more damage by attacking other IPs than any possible inconvenience that may occur to others in that range that would have to create accounts. IIRC, they also perform lots of unsourced, mostly chinese-language edits to Singaporean television shows that I doubt are getting any sort of verification. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 16:45, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

I am familiar with the problem, but I prefer to leave range blocks to administrators who can better estimate the effect of collateral damage from the range block.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:54, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

• 2001:D08:DB:E328:BD96:FAC1:2763:881B (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
  
• 2001:D08:1201:4640:1:0:4662:F7A2 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
  
• 2001:D08:2080:C2E5:1:0:2EED:6164 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
  

Vandalism by Unclear personal attack. Even if I warn, an IP address is changed and repeated. Gundam5447 (talk) 09:33, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

• 2001:D08:1030:BAD4:1:0:955D:8D38 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
  
• 2001:D08:1281:F0E5:1:0:53D5:6348 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
  

Vandalism by Persistent impersonation. Even if I warn, an IP address is changed and repeated. Gundam5447 (talk) 13:44, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Pilose399

WP:SPA and probable WP:COI editor on Judge Rotenberg Educational Center. The user is whitewashing the facility's human rights violations. Most of this user's edits are reverts and he has never discussed on the talk page. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 17:21, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

This is clearly slow-motion edit warring from Pilose399 and, unless there's some compelling answer he gives here, given the lack of effort to discuss I think an indefinite block is in order; indefinite in this case would mean until he agrees to discuss these edits on the talkpage. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:32, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

And he continues to revert. The sooner this guy's banned, the better. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 19:31, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Bump. User continues to revert. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 15:42, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I warned him with You still have not responded or taken action to the inquiry regarding your appearance as an undisclosed paid editor. If you make any additional edits without complying you may be blocked from editing. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:19, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

WP:NOTHERE by 68.198.161.155

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

I'm not even fully sure what to do with this, but this ip editor does not appear to be here to build an encyclopedia. If they are, they certainly are unable to adopt a WP:NPOV. Looking at the IP editor's block log, edit summaries, and filter log, they have a history of disruptive editing. While I gave them a level-3 warning just now, I think that the editing history strongly suggests this is one individual who, having received multiple warnings and one block, does not need a repeat of escalating warnings before a block. EvergreenFir (talk) 04:45, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Blocked for one week. El_C 04:55, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Appears to be a sock of indefinitely blocked user Jb3842. See this previous discussion (pinging @Tgeorgescu: and @DMacks:) Dorsetonian (talk) 06:55, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@El C: Thanks!

@Dorsetonian: Good catch. I'll keep an eye on the IP. EvergreenFir (talk) 00:00, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Yup. Not even slightly HERE. DMacks (talk) 02:51, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Edit warring in Operation Peace Spring/2019 Rojava offensive

• 2019 Rojava offensive (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• A4516416 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Vanilla Wizard (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Takinginterest01 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Sakura Cartelet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 86.50.68.196 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This page is currently subject to community sanctions as part of the Syrian Civil War, which I'm informed limits users to 1 revert of logged-in users every 24 hrs.

There appears to be substantial dissent over a variety of topics [especially the page name], resulting in users User_talk:A4516416, User:Takinginterest01, User:Sakura_Cartelet, and IP address User_talk:86.50.68.196 appearing to exceed the 1 revert/day limit.

I don't feel qualified to comment on whether the reverts in question are of clear vandalism [which would not be subject to the sanctions], and so think that an administrator should ideally sort it out. Reyne2 (talk) 05:59, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Neither page had the {{Editnotice SCW 1RR}} editnotice present, I have added it now. I will warn the relevant users as well. However, users may not have been aware of this set of restrictions. ST47 (talk) 07:00, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Naturally, both sides immediately proceed to break 1RR again. I'll full protect the article if this keeps up. ST47 (talk) 07:30, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

No, it's better to issue blocks than fully-protect such a high profile article. Note: I had already semiprotected the article for one week. El_C 16:30, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Requesting different discretionary sanctions on 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria

Hello, the page 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria is under community sanctions of Limit of one revert per 24 hours restriction when reverting logged-in users on all pages related to the Syrian Civil War and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, broadly construed. I would say that such sanctions are detrimental when editors are adding live updates to the article about the ongoing battles. The additions just overwhelm 1RR. For proof of that, Slatersteven discussed that We are not a live news feed on the talk page, to which EkoGraf replied that We have always, for the past seven years, provided live updates as you put it regarding the capture of territory or casualties sustained during an offensive or a battle in the Syrian war. We also did the same thing during the previous two Turkish offensives into Syria. So there is no reason not to do so now as well. I’m thinking we need a different sanction, maybe 3RR plus consensus required for restoration of disputed material. starship.paint (talk) 00:22, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@El C, ST47, and Reyne2: who commented in the above. starship.paint (talk) 05:25, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Not the red text again — my poor eyes! Anyway, under what DS did you envision the new sanction to be applied as, instead? It seems that the most suitable restriction would be under the current SCW General Sanction. I have no objection to removing 1RR and applying consensus required, instead. El_C 05:46, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the text colour change (déjà vu!) El_C 05:55, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, this seems to fall under the Syrian Civil War since Turkey/SDF are participants... starship.paint (talk) 06:00, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Technically, I'm not sure how to even modify {{Editnotice SCW 1RR}}. I suppose it could substituted...(?) El_C 06:33, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

At any case, I would rather hold off until ST47, who applied the GS, weighs in. El_C 06:42, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Consensus required is fine, although I believe it's generally harder to police and allows more "gaming" than 1RR. However, this isn't like AE discretionary sanctions where an admin may place the sanction on a given article. The SCW/ISIL 1RR is automatic, just like the ARBPIA 1RR, consensus would be required in order to change it. And yes, we'd have to update the editnotice and talk notice templates to support this, as I don't believe it's been done before. ST47 (talk) 06:46, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Much as I agree that "consensus is required" can be gamed by obstruction I feel it may be the only way to deal with the tendency for the page to have every announcement by the Turkish media immediately put in no matter how trivial or transitory.Slatersteven (talk) 08:50, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Rogue or mistaken deletion of my sandbox

My sandbox was deleted because I supposedly asked to delete it [40]

In fact, I never asked to delete my sandbox. Why should I?

--Zadrali (talk) 10:26, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Except of course you did ask for the sandbox to be deleted. I have restored it now. In future please be more careful and approach the deleting admin first before coming to ANI. GiantSnowman 10:33, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

77.162.226.226

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

I would strongly recommend that an administrator checks all the edits made by a long term IP vandal 77.162.226.226, many of which I have just reverted as they were either definitely or possibly incorrect. Their edits seem to be nothing short of vandalism or deliberate inclusions of incorrect information. ― C.Syde (talk | contribs) 10:58, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I have blocked for 31 hours and other editors have reverted all their edits. If the problem returns after the block expires, please report to WP:AIV. -- Ed (Edgar181) 14:27, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Idf22341 claiming a Wikipedia Employee ID #

As of this version of User:Idf22341, and this version of User talk:Idf22341, this user has claimed a "Wikipedia Employee ID #." Surely this can't be allowed? (As a side note, the user is already listed a Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Farsi15 and, as of this moment, WP:AIV. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 11:36, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I indef blocked Idf22341 for the obvious block evasion. -- Ed (Edgar181) 11:48, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

On keeping off talk pages

Would someone please have a word with User:Notrium, who is persistently needling me on my talk page? - MrOllie (talk) 12:47, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

• Couple of points:
  1. Removing that link wasn't "vandalism" as Notrium claims. It's just an editing dispute.
  2. Personally I think the link is a little bit spammish but mostly benign.
  3. If you don't want Notrium posting on your talk page, simply remove their posts every time they make one. They'll soon get the hint. Reyk _YO! 13:02, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

In looking at this discussion it looks like User:Notrium has the support of an administrator as well as well. You might want to read what C.Fred's saying to you carefully. (struck for being incorrect) It looks like C. Fred is supporting Mr. Ollie as well, however Notrium's point is well taken, it's not "your talk page" and people can still talk to you under certain circumstances. Necromonger...We keep what we kill 13:05, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

This is a novel interpretation of "So I endorse MrOllie's removal." - MrOllie (talk) 13:06, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

(ec) Eh? It looks to me as though C.Fred is agreeing with Mr. Ollie. Reyk _YO! 13:07, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) I recently learned the hard way that ignoring a "stay away" (under WP:NOBAN) carries at least the appearance of WP:Harassment and even if you have a good reason (or think you have a good reason) to ignore the NOBAN request, doing so invites a lot more trouble than its worth. See also removal of other people's comments per WP:OWNTALK NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:04, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Further, accusing an editor of vandalism due to a disagreement over content is a personal attack. Notrium should be made aware that further such claims could lead to blocks. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:38, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I didn't specifically mention blocks, but I mentioned that it could be interpreted as harassment. I also encouraged them to continue the discussion somewhere other than MrOllie's user talk. —C.Fred (talk) 17:12, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

And they have complied; it's on my user talk now. Bishonen | talk 15:59, 12 October 2019 (UTC).

Death threat by 201.231.232.178

The above IP made an apparent death threat ("shoots the head") in an edit summary ([41]). TomCat4680 (talk) 13:11, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I have blocked this IP address for a period of 1 week for vandalism and inappropriate edit summaries. Mz7 (talk) 13:22, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Nate Speed. If the IP is static, a longer block may be warranted. -- Ed (Edgar181) 14:56, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

That's a different LTA, actually. They're similar in some respects, but Nate Speed doesn't care about Regular Show. This one mostly adds hoaxes to cartoons that have ended their run. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:36, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Is there a better place than this for long complaints?

I'm putting together a notification/complaint which is turning out to be lengthy, not least because it draws on extensive sources. I don't want to post it here if it's not the right place - what should I do? I've tried to edit it down and it's quite difficult. Vashti (talk) 14:38, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

@Vashti: This board is for urgent, or chronic and intractable behavioral problems. If that's what your report is, it should be made here. You could also post it on WP:AN. But regardless, I recommend you keep your post as short as possible. Folks just straight up don't read long WP:WALLs of text. Condense it to the most egregious diffs and let them speak for themselves. While there is no official word limit here, you may find the advice of WP:AE relevant: keep complaints under 500 words and 20 diffs. Captain Eek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 15:53, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

What about if it deals with off-wiki activity? Vashti (talk) 15:59, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

In that case I recommend you to send it to ArbCom by e-mail, arbcom-en@wikimedia.org. It's still worth keeping it as short as possible. Bishonen | talk 16:09, 10 October 2019 (UTC).

I will do that. Thank you. Vashti (talk) 16:15, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

BTW, to be clear, length aside, any complaints which involve off-wiki evidence should not generally be posted anywhere on wikipedia with a small number of exceptions. Nil Einne (talk) 06:09, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Tmayerferg101

This user continues to make unsourced additions to personnel sections in Depeche Mode articles despite receiving a final warning for this at the beginning of October. I didn't bother adding another one today because in all their time here, they have yet to explain or communicate the reasons for (what I believe to be) their disruptive behavior. Examples of their unsourced changes can be seen here, here, here, here & here with edits specifically focused on adding vocal or instrumental details to these sections. As someone that owns all the band's albums, I have yet to see these details in the artwork and the editor refuses to cite. Please could an admin remind the editor of the importance of WP:V. Robvanvee 15:00, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

These don't much appear to be unsourced: [42]. Many of the sources add note who was singing/playing the various songs. I would concur it isn't WELL-sourced and could be better, but I'm not seeing the level of disruption you're alleging. WP:NOTPERFECT applies. Buffs (talk) 18:08, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm not alleging anything that isn't the case as far as I can see. They make repeated unsourced changes and additions despite being reverted with explanatory edit summaries, have received a final warning for it and have yet to communicate at all on their talk page or any talk page for that matter regarding these issues. Furthermore, I'm not suggesting anything happen to this user other than a gentle reminder from an admin so please point out at what point exactly I allege any specific "level of disruption" from this editor? Robvanvee 18:19, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

While you are at it, please show me where this editor has ever cited a source? I'll show you where they have added spans of unsourced info to articles. Robvanvee 18:34, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Tmayerferg101's edits are clearly unsourced, and to an extent, disruptive. The sleeve notes of Depeche Mode's albums do not list individual credits/instruments for each band member, and if many of the sources do list such credits, how come Tmayerferg101 never cited these sources? Ever since this user started editing last October, not once did they provide an edit summary or cite a single source. Even when the user is reverted and/or warned, they never make an effort to communicate with others – instead, they simply resume their unsourced additions. snapsnap ^(talk) 19:24, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

When you're adding them to an info box, it's usually assumed it's in the text somewhere and isn't required per WP:LEAD. Buffs (talk) 22:25, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

You're completely missing the point. Did you even bother to check out the diffs Robvanvee provided? Tmayerferg101 doesn't even make changes to the infobox, they're just persistently adding content to the personnel section that is not supported by the album's sleeve notes or any other sources in the article. WP:LEAD does not apply here at all. Like I said, the user never cites sources, never justifies their edits and hasn't once made an effort to communicate with other editors. There's a clear case of disruption on Tmayerferg101's end. snapsnap ^(talk) 02:05, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I was using that as an example; sorry if I wasn't clear. These additions can all be sourced relatively easily and I don't see it as disruption. Buffs (talk) 15:41, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

That's beside the point and does not excuse Tmayerferg101's behavior. As it's been said a gazillion times, the user never cites sources or provides edit summaries – how is any of that constructive editing? WP:V states, "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution", which is something Tmayerferg101 has clearly failed to do. snapsnap ^(talk) 03:16, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

"Can be easily sourced" you say. Are you suggesting we run around after them adding sources to their edits? Do you understand the policy of verifiability as SnaSnap and I have have already pointed out? I feel like we are attempting to explain this to Tmayerferg101 and to you at this point...over and over. Please take the time to read this. It's a big part of Wikipedia. Robvanvee 09:44, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Revoke talk page editing for 71.13.112.146

• 71.13.112.146 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

After a temporary protection by Yamla, the IP has continued to spam more unblock requests several days after. Can an admin either put an extended lock to the page or just revoke their talk page editing privileges for the remainder of the block? Thanks. theinstantmatrix (talk) 20:15, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

 Done Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 22:29, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Disruptive AfD behavior of User:Sk8erPrince at AfD Ryan O'Donohue article

Sk8erPrince was previously indefinitely blocked topic banned for 6 months for behavior at AfDs and then after the topic ban was lifted it was reinstated because Sk8erPrince the behavior. Next, Sk8erPrince was indefinitely blocked for creating a sock account to continue disruptive behavior at AfDs. It is unclear whether the topic ban for Sk8erPrince at AfD was ever lifted. Note: Both topic bans were lifted (the latest on Sept 1, 2019). however the tendentious editing and placing the repeated AfDs on the Ryan O'Donohue article is disruptive.

1. Sk8erPrince nominated the article Ryan O'Donohue in July 2017 for the first time and then received a Indefinite 6 month topic ban from any edits relating to deletion process on English Wikipedia August 5, 2017 The ban lasted 6 months. Here is the discussion and topic ban at WP:ANI The editor had the topic ban lifted and The Topic ban was then reinstated at ANI 18 days later. The editor again appealed and was given one final chance September 1, 2019.
2. While topic banned in (March 2018) Sk8erPrince started a sock account called MizukaS Specifically to nominate this article for AfD a second time. Sock Investigation confirmed at that time March 2018 User:Sk8erPrince was indeffed. Seems to have been unblocked September 2018?
3. Next Sk8erPrince nominated this article for a third time and is now WP:TENDENTIOUS and disruptive on the AfD. It is unclear whether or not the Indefinite topic ban from any edits relating to deletion process on English Wikipedia was ever lifted.

I propose Indefinite topic ban from any edits relating to deletion process on English Wikipedia

• Support as proposer Lightburst (talk) 03:34, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello there. I'm not sure why you thought an ANI report is necessary when you have made no attempts to discuss any issues you have with me on my talkpage. I consider myself to be someone that can be reasoned with, and I am open to other perspectives. Quoting one of the points at the top of this page...

Before posting a grievance about a user on this page:

*Take a look at these tips for dealing with incivility

*Consider first discussing the issue on the user's talk page

*Or try dispute resolution

In any case, since you decided to file the report with no warning, allow me to defend myself.

First of all, I would like to clarify that my Tban *did* get lifted through an AN discussion, which you could view here. That should ease any doubts regarding my AFD permissions. At the moment, I have a total number of zero editing restritions. Personally, I feel like you should have checked whether or not my TBan was actually lifted - after all, participating in deletion processes and discussions with a TBan is a serious offense, and I would be immediately sanctioned. The fact that you did not lowers the merit and credibility of your report.

Speaking of credibility, "Sk8erPrince was previously indefinitely blocked for behavior at AfDs and then was later indefinitely blocked for creating a sock account to continue disruptive behavior at AfDs" is factually incorrect. I was only ever indeffed once on this account. The first time I was blocked, it was for a duration of 6 months, and it was for civility issues rather than AFD (though my TBan was restored following the end of that discussion). Anyway, check my block log if you would like to double check.

Secondly, while I did sock as MizukaS in the past to circumvent AFD restrictions, I had already served my time with an indef block that lasted for 6 months before I successfully got it appealed. I understood that socking is wrong and deceitful and that if I wanted to participate in any deletion processes, I would have to appeal my TBan; which I did.

The only intent I had for the third and final AFD nomination of the Ryan O'Donohue article is to have a thorough discussion regarding the subject's notability. The first nomination was speedy closed because I had a Tban at the time, and the second one was closed because I was socking. They were closed due to procedural reasons; hence, there was never a proper AFD discussion for the subject. As the nominator, I remain unconvinced that the subject is notable; however, I will accept the outcome gracefully and I shall not renominate the subject for a 4th AFD discussion.

It is also important to note that AFD1 was conducted in July 2017, AFD2 was conducted in Februrary 2018, and AFD3 was nommed in September 2019. Individually, the AFDs are about 1 year apart from each other. Given the span of 2 years, there was plenty of time for editors to search for reliable sources and further expand the article. If I had renommed the article for AFD every single month, then there is an actual issue. In any case, given the thorough discussion in AFD3, there is no point in objecting the outcome; hence, there will not be a 4th AFD.

Lastly, I would like to clarify that I did not insult any of the editors that participated in the 3rd AFD; I simply disagreed by linking policy. In AFDs, there are bound to be agreements and disagreements. I have no objection to backing off of this particular discussion and let it run its course, since I had said my piece there already; and to also avoid blugeoning. I trust the closing adminstrator's judgement and I will not object the outcome.

PS: I would like to do a quick analysis of the AFD - basically, I was debating whether or not WP:NACTOR alone is enough to keep an article; I have reasonable doubts regarding that, so I challenged the Keep camp by asking for significant coverage regarding the subject. The only sources I was able to find were trivial mentions, and in my opinion, that does not qualify for WP:SIGCOV. Nowhere did I belittle them; it was simply a disagreement. Since the AFD is nearing its end, the closing adminstrator could determine which side has more merit. Sk8erPrince (talk) 04:38, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

You are correct about the first 6 month topic ban. However I have corrected the record to show that the ban was reinstated so you were twice topic banned. Lightburst (talk) 19:19, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose- Sk8erPrince is not under any current editing restrictions and their behaviour right now doesn't justify imposing a new one. I suspect this is more about removing someone with different opinions from the AfD process, than about any sort of actual disruption. Reyk _YO! 04:52, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• Comment Sk8erPrince has good point here that whatever else, your failure to talk to them over your concerns especially considering the age of most of what you highlighted makes opening an ANI discussing them questionable. Even more so since there seems to be no reason why you didn't talk to them, it's not like they banned you from their talk page or something. They had problems in the past but it's been a while now. If they're falling back into those problems and I'm not saying they are, then talk to them about it first. To illustrate the problem, you say "It is unclear whether or not the Indefinite topic ban from any edits relating to deletion process on English Wikipedia was ever lifted." Then the very next sentence you say "I propose Indefinite topic ban from any edits relating to deletion process on English Wikipedia". So basically your suggesting we hold a discussion over something which may be completely unnecessary. If Sk8erPrince is already topic banned, they can be reminded of their topic ban and unless they successfully appeal it, future violations can be enforced. As it turns out the topic ban was lifted, I'm sure you would know this if you asked Sk8erPrince about it. But you didn't. Nil Einne (talk) 05:54, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

  BTW, the comment number 1 is always also very confusing given your later comment. If Sk8erPrince was topicbanned for 6 months in 2017, then this topic ban will be over unless it was extended in some way but you did not highlight any extension. So there would be not "it is unclear", since it's clear. But the topic ban you highlighted (more direct link [43]) was not a topic ban lasting 6 months. It was a topic ban with a minimum of 6 months required before an appeal. (A very common requirement.) This is an important distinction. Nil Einne (talk) 06:06, 11 October 2019 (UTC) 12:49, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

  P.S. When I wrote the above, I wasn't aware the topic ban had only been lifted less then 2 months ago. This makes any return to past misbehaviour far more concerning. And looking at the AfD, the number of replies Sk8erPrince seems to have made does seem concerning. I still stick by my comment though, it's very difficult to assess an ANI when no attempt at communication has been made. In fact, in some ways, this further illustrates the problem. If you'd opened an ANI and told us 'they were topic banned, the topic ban being lifted on 1 September' this would be far more effective then 'they were topic banned, maybe they're still topic banned but let's hold a discussion over the exact same topic ban anyway'. Nil Einne (talk) 06:25, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Nil Einne, I understand that excessively responding to the opposing side of the debate constitutes as bludgeoning, which is why I clarified that I shall not comment on that AFD any further and let it run its course. In the future, I will make no attempt to refute *every single* Keep vote (or vice versa) in AFDs. I went overboard this time, and I admit that I could have done better. Ultimately, it is up to the closing admin to determine which side has the stronger arguments. --Sk8erPrince (talk) 06:40, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support topic ban, but only on Ryan O'Donohue-related topics I see little to no evidence of abuse beyond topics related to R O'D pbp 04:27, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussion about now corrected opening: Corrected to: Sk8erPrince was twice topic banned and reinstated, also Sk8erPrince was once indeffed for socking

@Nil Einne: I did tell them in the AfD to stop the behavior. And then I found out this has been a pattern with the user and it has resulted in a six month ban with a final warning. Seems the editor is determined to delete this article - even going so far as to create a sock account for that purpose. The editor is WP:BLUDGEONING the debate at AfD and here. To clarify - the editor was indeed ideffed for socking. But was given six month suspension for the type of uncivil behavior at AfD. The past and present behavior is well outside the norms of acceptable WP behavior. The last WP:ANI result, the six month ban from AfDs, and the socking indef along with present behavior, show that the discipline did not have the desired effect. Lightburst (talk) 14:03, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

@Lightburst: If you want to have a serious discussion with someone over their behaviour, you should do so on their talk page. AFD isn't the place to discuss someone's behaviour. It may not be unreasonable to leave a simple comment, 'I think you should cut it out' or similar, but clearly any proper discussion, which should be held before opening an ANI, cannot be held on an AFD. We have very good evidence for this since you told use 'I want to topic ban this person, but actually maybe they already have that exact same topic ban'. It's almost impossible to recover from that since it's very difficult to believe you've actually had a proper discussion with an editor over their behaviour when you didn't even know if they are already subject to the exact same topic ban you were proposing because you never asked if their topic ban had been lifted. Also we do not 'discipline' people on wikipedia. Nil Einne (talk) 14:30, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

@Nil Einne: Good suggestions regarding communicating on talk page, however not required - "suggested". I did not consider this a dispute between me and the editor, so dispute resolution is not appropriate. This is an editor who repeated the same behavior that resulted in a ban for behavior in the WP community. We have established that the editor was topic banned for 6 months and given a final warning. It is clear that I do now know that the ban was lifted with a Final Warning, also clear that the discipline has not had the desired effect. You can decide not to call it discipline, but being banned from Wikipedia is discipline - and it is progressive and corrective - not putative and destructive. I am pointing out an editor who has engaged in a pattern of disruptive behavior. Lightburst (talk) 14:50, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Turns out the editor was AfD topic banned twice after having the 2017 topic ban lifted the editor repeated the behavior and was again topic banned for the same reasons. This is likely why the editor was issued a final warning.. I amended the statement. In addition the most recent topic ban was just lifted September 1, 2019. I made the corrections to the opening statement and provided links Lightburst (talk) 17:36, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

You made an erroneous report on me with no attempt at communication on my talkpage, as well as getting the timeline and several points wrong; on top of that, you did not even try to verify whether or not my TBan was lifted. Sure, you may not be *required* to talk over the issue with me on my talkpage first, but it is still highly recommended. Why else would that point be mentioned at the top of this page?

There are plenty of other things that are not required on Wikipedia, such as writing edit summaries. People still write them anyway because it is a customary practice on the project, and they are helpful to everyone involved. It is a good idea to engage in customary practices, even if you are not required to do so.

And while I admit that I was verbose in the 3rd O'Donohue AFD, accusing me of "attacking" other editors when I present counterarguments is ridiculous. [1]

In the past, I participated in AFDs uncalmly and *actually* belittled the opposing party, instead of quoting policies in my rebuttals. For the sake of comparison, here are some links to older AFDs, when my behavior was truly problematic: [2] [3]

For all intents and purposes, I'd say that I participated in the third O'Donohue AFD in a relatively calm manner. If presenting valid, policy-quoted counterarguments is considered to be "attacking", then I find your understanding of the AFD process as well as your understanding of its established norms to be questionable.

At what point have I "bludgeoned" here? So it's wrong to provide my own defense and point out factual errors in your highly misleading report? You only backpedaled when others pointed out the mistakes in your report; which greatly damages the credibility of your report. Also, to quote the Requesting Blocks section from the blocking policy page: Users requesting blocks should supply credible evidence of the circumstances warranting a block. In this case, it's a TBan that you are trying to impose on me, but the same logic applies. So far, your report has proven to be discredible on the grounds of uncertainty, lack of proper research on my history as well as presenting factually incorrect information, which makes me to believe that you did it with the intent to mislead.

Evidently, a lack of research has been conducted on how many times I've been indefinitely blocked, which you could easily verify by checking my block log. I was only indeffed once, yet you claimed that I was indeffed twice on this account. You also did not verify whether or not my deletion process restrictions were lifted before you filed the report. With such uncertainty and a lack of any attempt to talk over the issues first, I am sure you could see that the validity of your report is highly questionable.

Last but not least, your claim that that I made a sockpuppet to specifically to renominate the O'Donohue article for an AFD is also factually incorrect. Let me quote that part of your report real quick: While topic banned in (March 2018) Sk8erPrince started a sock account called MizukaS Specifically to nominate this article for AfD a second time. While not an excuse, the sockpuppet was made to circumvent my AFD restrictions; the edit count on the sock clearly shows that it was made with more than just renomming the O'Donohue article for AFD. Consequently, I paid the price for such an offense, and I had already served my time.

With that, I have said my piece, and I shall not comment on this report any further. --Sk8erPrince (talk) 22:34, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I was the one who initially closed the first topic ban discussion for Sk8erPrince and registered it at Editing Restrictions. In a review of the case I see nothing wrong here, Sk8erPrince has correctly nominated an article for deletion citing a justifiable reason for his case for which others have agreed (in point I fact I am of the mind that the article should be deleted, I see no major credits to justify having it here). That being said, I do see that Sk8erPrince has replied to each of the Keep !voters to the effect of attempting to explain why exactly their keep votes on NACTOR grounds are incorrect. Accordingly, I would remind Sk8erPrince that such activity - while technically allowed - can be construed as disruptive editing, and accordingly would recommend that the editor refrain from commenting or replying to the other side, we are all of us going to have different opinions and that should be OK. Remember, its about consensus, not about !voting, and accordingly administrators will take the stronger arguments in the debates. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:00, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Vane323

Since 9 October, I began to undo the editions of the user Vane323 in the article Lo que la vida me robó. Since then, it has initiated a long dispute over the content Vane323 is adding. Although I have reverted several times, and I leave messages in his discussion, the user does not respond to the messages and uses the edit summary to talk with me. I already asked him to stop adding irrelevant information about who killed some characters, but he doesn't stop.-- Bradford ✉ 16:04, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: note Special:Diff/920767127 and Special:Diff/920767239 popped up in recent change patrolling (first one handled by Jebcubed, second one handled by myself), so it might be worth keeping an eye on this thread. Thanks, SITH (talk) 18:47, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Persistent addition of unsourced material / BLP after final warning

Gopaljirai (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – On October 11: Continued addition of unsourced personal information about a living person after numerous warnings. Note there is nothing in the linked bio supporting this date of birth either. (This was reported to WP:AIV but redirected here for procedural reasons.)
Toddst1 (talk) 17:18, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Blocked indef, until they begin to respond to other editors' criticism. 2280 edits with zero edits to a talk page (except to delete about 2 dozen warnings). --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:23, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

User talk:Nwafor Andrew

Just read this. Nwafor Andrew has repeatedly uploaded copyvio images. Plus he continues to recreate an autobiography of himself Nwafor Andrew. He has been warned multiple times but has continued to do so without discussing. Again, just read his talk page. From AnUnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 23:35, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• Per User talk:Nwafor Andrew#Contested_deletion, it would appear that the article in question is not an autobiography; rather, the username is simply incorrect. Moaz786 (talk to me or see what I've been doing) 00:17, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Still, wouldn't that be impersonation? From AnUnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 02:39, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Help with WP:IDHT, WP:NPA, and WP:INCIVIL behavior from IP

Once Bermuda was protected due to edit-warring from 104.218.174.219 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) in response to reverts from myself (I recognize that I made too many reverts as well, I thought that referring to the existing discussion and that the subsequent revert edit summary was completely invalid) and ultimately The Grand Delusion who made the RPP request, the IP editor jumped to the article talk page to make baseless accusations against me.

Despite 2 explicit NPA warnings on the IP's talk page and 3 requests to stop in the article talk page referring to several baseless accusations / personal attacks:

1. Warning 1 and request to stop NPAs 1 for:
   • Personal attack 1
     • revert trolling; user has wilfully ignored numerous authoritative sources over a period of six months in bizarre campaign of misinformation
   • Personal attacks 2-4 in rant 1:
     • You are now removing accurate, sourced statements purely as a wilful campaign of misinformation.
     • instead choosing to ignore such, snipe at other users and revert pages to poorly sourced, blatantly false claims.
     • Your bad faith demands to use the talk page as some sort of attempt to block other users from correcting your edits are disgusting.
2. Warning 2 and request to stop NPAs 2 for:
   • Personal attacks 5-7 in rant 2:
     • Your ongoing refusal to actually engage other editors on this site for the past six months is pathetic.
     • You have made no attempt to refute or even acknowledge the multiple, authoritative sources on population figures provided to you and instead continue to force through your edits
     • It should certainly be ridiculous enough for you.
3. Request to stop NPAs 3 for:
   • Personal attacks 8-11 in rant 3:
     • I see you continue to ignore all sources provided to you.
     • You claim that you are engaging in discussion. Where? (Moreso WP:IDHT than NPA)
     • You do not respond to questions, suggestions or ideas posed to you, instead your responses are little more than simply pasting your claim that we should only use your source across every page.
     • As mentioned...REPEATEDLY...you have had six months on some of these sources and have said nothing; you clearly aren't interested in doing so. That is not building consensus.

These accusations come from a gross mischaracterization of a past civil discussion on my talk page with another editor. The IP's ranting is disruptive, consists of personal attacks (WP:WIAPA #5), and persistent despite requests to stop. The content issue is a genuine topic of discussion, but the IP refuses to actually talk about points I raised in the past and instead make repeated false accusations of "trolling", "misinformation", "ongoing refusal", "pathetic", "force your edits through", etc.

Sorry for the bother. I could have perhaps spent more time elaborating on why those accusations were false and addressing the sources presented in the IP's second rant, but I figured that civility would have been afforded by the first or second warning. The IP hasn't commented on any of its edit-warring warnings, NPA warnings, and requests to stop accusations. — MarkH21 (talk) 03:04, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Kahisaleem

Kahisaleem was blocked a few months ago for creating unsourced articles. He has re-created a drafted/deleted article, Hildan. I recently added the BLP no references tag, but he has deleted it (see this). Meanwhile, he has refused to communicate with anyone and has showed no sign of responding to warnings. From AnUnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 03:22, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I've deleted the article (again) and salted it. If s/he intends to recreate it in the mainspace it'll either have to go through AFC or it'll be a good example of disruptive editing in which case we can block the user. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:48, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Kahisaleem has now created the article again, twice: as Hîldan and using an (arabic?) title that can't be Wikilinked [44]. 86.143.224.244 (talk) 04:53, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Further to this, I see that an article created by Kahisaleem concerning a satellite TV channel (or supposed channel - I can't find obvious evidence that it actually broadcasts, rather than being web-based), NewMax Tv, states that a Kahi Saleem is one of the owners. 86.143.224.244 (talk) 05:08, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, he's blocked now harshly:

This user is currently blocked. The latest block log entry is provided below for reference:

05:07, 12 October 2019 TomStar81 talk contribs blocked Kahisaleem talk contribs with an expiration time of indefinite (account creation blocked, email disabled, cannot edit own talk page) (Using Wikipedia for promotion or advertising purposes: Persistent addition of unsourced content)

I suggest a close. From AnUnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 15:59, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Is the solipsism block really justifiable, though? Such blocks are generally reserved for persistent sockpuppeteers or people who've exhausted the patience of admins at the talk page and the admins' email accounts. —v^_^v ^{Make your position clear!} 18:20, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Are you saying that he's clearly meaningfully contribute to an encyclopedia? He would fit cleanly under multiple block rationales such as not here to contribute to an encyclopedia, not communicating, and advertising. From AnUnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 20:06, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

That isn't my implication what-so-ever. Even if they're blocked for being a spammer, they should still have talk page and email access unless and until they abuse those privileges. Generally the only time that a first block also revokes talk page and email access is if the blocked user is a known persistent sockpuppeteer. —v^_^v ^{Make your position clear!} 23:31, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

2A02:587:2961:6600::/64

• 2A02:587:2961:6600::/64 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))

Please, block the range. IP socking and edit warring by WhiteStarG7 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki), alongside another their IP sock 94.66.59.149 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)). Incnis Mrsi (talk) 07:37, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

 Done, for 2 weeks--Ymblanter (talk) 18:21, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Just a note… WhiteStarG7 and IP socks were never blocked here before, hence there was no block evasion. It’s a disgrace for the site that reports like WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1017 #IP socking in edit wars are ignored, but it is a fact. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 18:32, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, I blocked for disruptive editing, after checking that most of the edits for the last two weeks were not productive, including blatant vandalism--Ymblanter (talk) 18:36, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Recently discovered that WhiteStarG7 has been socking as Special:Contribs/2a02:587:ac7d:4200:f8bf:94d7:65b7:7f6d within the same /32. Unfortunately that bad edit evaded my eyes. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 13:22, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Vandalism in Niger State and automatic tools

On 9 October between 18:40 and 19:09, an IP in a series of edits [45] removed the whole content of Niger State leaving only a hatnote. Apparettly, I was the first user to notice this five minutes ago. It is a reasonably high-profile article. The article stayed empty for about 40 hours. Whereas we all know that vandalism happens, and of course nobody is responsible for monitoring all the articles, is it clear why such an blatant and obvious misuse of the edit button was not caught by automatic tools? Should we do something about it?--Ymblanter (talk) 10:56, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Since you've blocked that IP, and there hasn't been any activity for a couple of days, I think wait and see is the best option, for now. (I considered sprotecting, but thought better of it.) El_C 13:03, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I think automatic tools are just, generally, a hit-and-miss proposition. Needless to say, added to my watchlist. If enough ANI readers do so as well, I think the likelihood of this repeating again would greatly decrease. El_C 13:06, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, but I do not think the IP specifically targeted this page. My question is more how we can improve our workflow to avoid this - it certainly should be possible to catch page blanking?--Ymblanter (talk) 14:53, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Maybe so, but I still think it's gonna be a hit and miss thing — though admittedly, this goes (far) beyond my technical expertise. El_C 15:09, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

user:Slatersteven

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

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I don't know if this is enough for a administrator intervention but this user has now for 2 times stopped discussing with me at the talk when proven wrong. I think he is trolling me and just want an admin to condemn him so he stops doing it. If you read these two talk discussions [46] and [47] (especially the last messages) You'll understand what I mean. Thanks. KasimMejia (talk) 11:45, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

When did I stop discussing with you? If you mean this [[48]] there is no requirement for me to respond instantly, I do have other things to do. As to the other, the last comment was mine so it is hard to see how you can claim I stopped discussing with you.Slatersteven (talk) 11:49, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I will admit its getting to the stage of having to bite my keyboard (to paraphrase).Slatersteven (talk) 12:10, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Editors are not required to respond to talk page comments, and they most certainly are not required to respond to a talk comment within 8 minutes. To expect such a thing is beyond ridiculous and is certainly not an Administrator Noticeboard issue. Canterbury Tail talk 12:44, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

• Move to close before this boomerangs. It's clear that Slatersteven was just enforcing core policies and guidelines (e.g. WP:NPOV and WP:RS) and tried to explain it to KasimMejia in good faith. This isn't an ANI issue. SITH (talk) 12:53, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

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

Ruining a RfC (canvassing)

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

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Panam2014 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This editor has pinged editors who are known for having anti-Iranian opinions. Ruining the RfC. What steps should be taken?--SharabSalam (talk) 14:25, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@SharabSalam:All people who I have pinged are from Talk:Houthi movement/Archive 2 (only socks and banned users haven't been pinged). Your opinion is complotist. You are not able to prove your allegations. But you are clearly not neutral because you attemps to exclude users who have not the same opinions than you. --Panam2014 (talk) 14:27, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Panam2014, You have selectively pinged unrelated to the discussion editors who are known for having anti-Iranian opinions.--14:28, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@SharabSalam: your claim is a lie. I have pinged all the users who have participated to the previous discussion. If I had pinged only users who have pro-Iranian opinion or only anti-Iranian, it is a selection. Not here. --Panam2014 (talk) 14:29, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Panam2014 You have ruined the RfC because of your obvious canvassing. Admins should do something with this.--SharabSalam (talk) 14:39, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@SharabSalam: again, you are not able to prove (the so claimed obvious canvassing, we must bring proofs or stopping your allegations) your allegations because they are false. Whether you like it or not, I notified everyone. Point bar. So stop lying.--Panam2014 (talk) 14:42, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Panam2014, You didnt ping a lot of users who were in the archive. Only those who you saw have anti-Houthi point of view. You have ruined a RfC.-SharabSalam (talk) 14:46, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@SharabSalam:Again, you are not able to prove your allegations, so stop now only if you have proofs against me. I pinged all of the non banned users from here. You are not able to give the name of the "forgetten users". A lie repeated a thousand times does not become a truth.--Panam2014 (talk) 14:48, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Could you two please stop this aimless back and fourth. Who wasn't pinged, SharabSalam? Please feel free to ping them now. Panam2014, the pings were not really necessary, the RfC was seeing enough participation. El_C 14:50, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Panam2014, You can find a lot of non-pinged editors like Drmies. Where is Drmies in your canvassing ping? Drmies should block you for not inviting him/her.-SharabSalam (talk) 14:51, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@SharabSalam and El C: Drmies was an administrator (like to others admins). He was an arbitrator not a participant to the discussions. Stop asking admins to block me, I is not a constructive action.--Panam2014 (talk) 14:53, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Panam2014 Yea. Drmies had a neutral point of view; not gonna ping them. I didnt ping blocked editors, Lets ping Icewhiz a blocked editor. too much to believe-SharabSalam (talk) 15:03, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Drmies should block you for not inviting him/her — don't be absurd! El_C 14:56, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Its sarcasm!.-SharabSalam (talk) 15:03, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Okay — that was not clear, though. At any case, please don't further undo my closure of this report. El_C 15:06, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

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

184.98.237.86

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

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user:184.98.237.86 is making legal threats. CLCStudent (talk) 16:57, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

A user (that IP) apparently impersonating John Queeley has been making threats on this page to delete it "or else." But couldn't you just AIV him?From AnUnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 17:04, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I do not feel it is obvious enough to go to AIV, but if you feel it is, you can report her. 17:08, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

lblocked. El_C 17:11, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

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

Wave of Vandalism Incoming

• Versions of Justice League
• Justice League (film)

There has been a fan controversy over the 2017 film Justice League and the supposed existence of a version called the Snyder Cut. Apparently the hardcore Snyder Cut fans don't like what Wikipedia has to say about it, because the Snyder Cut twitter is now urging as many people as it can to create single-purpose accounts to change the articles to their preferred viewpoint.

One IP editor 2405:204:5702:ABC2:0:0:130D:18A4 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) has already joined the party. I requested the semi-protection of Versions of Justice League and notified Talk:Justice League (film) of what is going down. I would recommend administrators keeping an eye on both pages. DarkKnight2149 17:11, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

And here's another single-purpose account that just joined in - Bjthegeek (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Nearly all of their edits are trying to remove the same information they don't like from Versions of Justice League and they claim to be a part of "the movement". They have a history of edit warring with these edits as well. Clearly WP:COI. DarkKnight2149 07:17, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Portal updates reverted

Noticed today a few reverts of portal updates (on my watchlist) by admin BrownHairedGirl with the edit summary "Revert undiscused change of format; unexplained, sneaky addition of dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries, let alone discussed". I took a look at a few to related the revert explanation with what happened prior. In the case of Portal:Ontario admin Northamerica1000 left a note at Portal talk:Ontario#Portal updated about the updates being selected from the old stock and new FA/GA articles and also replied to a post at Portal talk:Ontario#Portal status. At Portal:Latin America agree there was no talk (not that's its needed) but the revert has now left the portal in a state of disrepair as sub pages were deleted. So I look at how many were done and to my surprise many many reverts have been preformed... reverting what I believe most will think are good faith editions of one admin by another admin. I see that Northamerica1000 did leave some message on talks and explains were article selection came from despite the edit summary above as seen at Portal talk:Guyana#Portal updated - Portal talk:Cars#Portal updated.... is no prior announcement a reason for reversal? I fully disclose that me and Brown dont see I eye to eye on their approach of deleting portals one by one and have had heated words over this and the reversal of updates (sure I will be chastised despite the post not being about me or any reverts to my additions this time) . What can be done about these two admis that cant communicate with each-other? What can the normal editor do to preserve edits that are believed to be done in good faith if an admin is fighting with another admin?--Moxy 🍁 18:11, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Umm... to ask at the talk page first? Or are you already at the point when this is not possible anymore?--Ymblanter (talk) 18:16, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I believe my horrible relationship and prior interaction with Brown would lead to a disagreement over any productive talk...despite that I have posted at Portal talk:Ontario#Portal status hoping for more of an explanation...but also see that its on its way to being a mass reversal way beyond my ability to talk on many many talk pages.--Moxy 🍁 18:23, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Moxy has given up any pretence at civil discussion with me, and just responds to me with pure personal abuse. Even when asked to strike the most blatant, Moxy refuses.[49].

Any further discussion on this is unlikely to be fruitful until Moxy retracts their personal attacks, and agrees to follow WP:NPA in future. Since Moxy brought this to WP:ANI, I think that WP:BOOMERANG may be relevant. I have more to add if Moxy wants to go down that path … but it seems to me to most unwise for Moxy to rush to ANI after a barrage of pure personal abuse. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:31, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

• This is called the "Bold, Revert, Discuss" cycle: WP:BRD. NA1K Boldly edited; I Reverted; now we Discuss. Normal editing practice.

NA1K has restructured dozens of portals into a format which displays no visible, linked list of the articles on rotation … and has sneakily added dozens of new articles to these portals with no visible list anywhere of the articles which have been added, no link even in the edit summary. None of the changes I reverted linked to any discussion anywhere.

If Moxy or anyone else disagrees with these reverts, then they are welcome to open a discussion on the relevant portal's talk page.

I no see consensus anywhere that it is appropriate for one editor to wander around portal space, sneakily adding dozens of sneaky articles to many dozens of portals with no evident attempt at discussion or even at leaving informative edit summaries. Portal-space is not one editor's private list-making playground. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:25, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

But as seen above and for example Portal:Latin_America action history they are saying whats going on in many cases. Can you explain how they are being sneaky and how adding GA and FA articles being trasculded is bad? Are you planning on joining ongoing talks he started?--Moxy 🍁 18:40, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@Moxy: that comment is a great example of why you would do better to recuse yourself from discussions such as this, because you have a habit of missing the point and ignoring the facts.

You linked to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Latin_America&action=history Portal:Latin_America

Now see my edit summary: "Revert undiscussed change of format; unexplained, sneaky addition of dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries, let alone discussed"

Note:

1. I said there was no discussion of the change of format. Am I wrong? If so, post the diff of the edit summary which links to that discussion
2. I said "sneaky addition of dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries, let alone discussed". Please post the diff of any edit summary on that page's history in which NA1K linked (or even named) an article they added.

Take your time. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:49, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

You are correct as I already noted above in this case they did not post on the talk page first ...but its clear what they were doing adding FA and GA articles trying to fix up the portal that was tagged as needing updates. Now because of your edit its full of red links with empty boxes and now needs updating again. I know your not a fan of portals and of Northamerica1000 and I....but it looks as if your going out of your way to stop updates so portals are primed for deletion (just looks bad at face value).--Moxy 🍁 19:02, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Moxy, it continues to be very difficult to discuss anything with you when you continue to simply ignore the facts: that NA1K did not disclose which articles were added. There was no link in the edit summaries, and no list that you can identify.

Yes, NA1K did identify in some (tho not all) edits that they were adding articles FA- and GA-class ... but not which FA- and GA-class articles. The problem there has been widely discussed: that selecting articles solely on the basis of top quality means that the selection reflects the choices of editors of which articles to develop, and this often leads to a highly unbalanced set (see WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Donald Trump for an example of the huge POV bias which it caused on that portal).

Anyway, since you have once again reverted to your habitual assumption of bad faith, your welcome short break from simply responding "crap talk is not enough to make this discussion fruitful. I have set out genuine problems which I sought to address within the normal BRD cycle, and since you repeatedly fail to understand the problem and jump to your usual ABF, I will leave this discussion until a more constructive editor comments. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:37, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

It seems your saying an edit summary like this would be ok...but not a generic note about adding FA/GA articles? Still odd one admin feels the need to police the edits of another admin. Are you willing to talk about selection of articles as many talks were open and awaiting input..because as of now it seems we cant move forward on any updates without your ok to do so.--Moxy 🍁 19:51, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

BTW, I had previously raised with NA1K the uncollaborative nature of these "black box edits", which systematically fail to disclose what has been added to the portal. See e.g. this reply to NA1K on 19 Sept[50], in which I wrote Example text

Yet on 12 October, nearly 3 weeks later, NA1K was adding articles to Portal:Latin America without disclosing in the editsum which articles had been added, e.g. [51].

This has been happening on a massive scale. It appears that NA1K is busy trying to single-handedly take ownership of the article listings for a signifiacant chunk of portal-space, which leaving no directly-visible-audit trail of what they have done. Not having visible links to the articles added means that verification is a horrendously slow and difficult task, and NA1K already knows that a) it need not be that way, b) it's easy to avoid. This editing pattern from a very experienced editor like NA1K indicates either an editor choosing to be sneaky and uncollaborative, or an editor with WP:LCIR issues. (Personally, I suspect both, but that may be a separate discussion).

Reversion is just a starting point for discussion. I hope NA1K and any interested editors will now discuss:

1. what general criteria should be applied to the selection of articles for portals
2. How those criteria should be applied to any given topic
3. Whether relevant WikiProjects should be notified of any proposed mass changes to a portal
4. Whether it is ever appropriate for an editor with no demonstrable connection to or expertise in a topic to add masses of articles to a portal without an attempt at prior consultation, and especially whether they should single-handedly do this to dozens of portals

These are of course issues which should have been addressed years ago by the portals project, but this is just one of their many catastrophic failings which left portals in such disastrous shape that over 900 of the 1,500 pre-portalspam portals have been deleted as one or more of broken/abandoned/almost-unread/unsupported-by-a-project/redundant/too-narrow. It is sadly unsurprising that may actions here have been criticised by a vocal portal fan who neglected to actually verify my edit summary against the history which I had reverted, and that the lack of transparency in this stealthy mass-takeover of portals by NA1K is apparently of no concern. It's helpful that Moxy has taken a break at ANI from his stream of personal attacks, but the rest of it is a good illustration of why portal-space is so problematic. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:24, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia would be better off, without portals. GoodDay (talk) 19:24, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Agree 100% better if they are all gone...but the community has repeatedly said no. So what are we to do when we have one admin trying to update portals and another admin reverting updates based on their personal criteria, dislike of portals and dislike of an editors good faith editing habits.--Moxy 🍁 19:33, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Usual ABF from Moxy, ignoring the substance of my concern, and misrepresenting my motives.

ANI isn't a good place to play that game, Moxy. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:39, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Thats way there is a post here...to find out why your reverting additions and leaving some portals all messed up (dont think its done on purpose just going to fast) . I posted here as we have a problem communicating and though it best others get involved and see if your reasoning for mass reverts of another admis's edits are based in logic or not.... because there was zero attempt from what I could see by you to join the chats Northamerica1000 already started about just this. As any one can see Its not like me and you could talk about this in a normal productive manner.--Moxy 🍁 20:09, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Moxy,

1. I am not doing mass reverts. I am individually checking portals, and reverting to what appears to the latest version free of the sneaky additions.
2. the logic of my reverts was explained in the edit summaries. Even when I explained out that logic for you in detail here, you still failed to comprehend the very simple issues which I had noted in the edit summaries.
3. I have been fixing portals as I go. If you identify outstanding problems which I have missed, please leave a note on my talk.
4. Nobody has identified any other discussions.
5. You unwillingness or inability to conduct a civil, coherent discussion has not been resolved by a change of venue. You have just dropped the direct personal abuse, but you have neither gained coherence or desisted from your habitual ABF

... and you still haven't identified any ANI issue. This discussion should just be closed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:24, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I belive I have outlined the problem well. I personally think your reverts were detrimental to most portals leaving them in a state ready for deletion. Not sure why the edits could not have simply removed any offending articles or why you have not join any chats that were already started. I am wondering if you can't communicate with Northamerica1000 about this perhaps best to leave this so called problem edits to others to review. It's hard for us normal editors to get involved when the conflicting administrators won't even speak to each other. If other think all is OK with your edits we can move on....but the motive looks very questionable in my eyes.--Moxy 🍁 20:47, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Moxy, you continue to refuse or fail to comprehend the simple problem I have set out: that there is no visible list of what articles were added, and even editing he portal produces no linked list. I am astonished that you find this so difficult to grasp.

The only way to view such a list is to edit the portal, and manually copy-paste the links one-by-one into a search box, or process them in my text editor to make a linked list to save in my sandbox. I refuse to go to all that effort simply to review the work of an editor who refuses to use adequate edit summaries.

As your comment why you have not join any chats that were already started … for goodness sake, quit wasting my time until you read what was written. As I noted in my point #4 above Nobody has identified any other discussions.

It really is ridiculous to have ANI disrupted by a timewasting editor who repeatedly ignores what is written.

Over and out. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:09, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Comment - So I just took about fifteen minutes to take a look at a few of the edits. All I can say is: Yikes. The "undiscussed format changes" that NA1000 has been making, is removing non-existent DYKs, which BHG is re-instating. Refer to any of 1, 2, 3, and 4 from the past few hours. The other format change is adding in a section where good/featured articles can be featured, such as at Portal:New Zealand (5 – and read the edit summary, it's clearly explained). Let's just focus on one for this case, Portal:Panama. Compare the portal after NA1000's edits, to the broken state of the portal that BHG is reverting to. If this were any IP or normal editor, no-one would hesitate to call it vandalism. In the past three hours, BHG's made 19 such mass reverts (and they are mass reverts, NA1000 has made dozens of smaller edits to each individual portal, all of which have been reverted). Every page (while it exists) should be left in the best possible state they can be, and not reverted to a junk state. In my opinion, this is sanctionable behaviour. Mr rnddude (talk) 22:02, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

• @Mr rnddude:

1. As you should well know, good faith edits are not vandalism. See WP:NOTVAND
2. 1, 2 did indeed have broken DYK sections. My bad; I had been watching out for that, but evidently missed those, and they are now fixed.
   3, and 4 were already fixed. You just didn't check the latest edit.
3. You wrote the portal after NA1000's edits, to the broken state of the portal that BHG is reverting to … but you sneakily didn't show the version my latest edit [52]. If you want to critique my edits, please don't misrepresent them by omitting my next tidyup edit.

Indeed, NA1K was often adding in a section where good/featured articles can be featured. However, as I noted in every edit summary of my reverts … neither in NA1K's edit summary nor anywhere on the face of the portal is there any link to which articles have been added to those section. So neither readers nor other readers can review what has been done. As I noted above, indiscriminately selecting articles by quality can produce hideously unbalanced portals, and NA1K's approach has created a black box. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:57, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@Mr rnddude: note that all the portals you listed had edits which gave no explanation of what was being added, e.g.

1. Portal:Panama: "Maintenance: Portal updated / further expanded with more new content"[53]
2. Portal:Croatia: "Maintenance: Portal updated / further expanded with more new content"[54]
3. Portal:Somaliland: "Maintenance: Portal updated / further expanded with more new content"[55]
4. Portal:Cuba: Maintenance: Portal updated / further expanded with more new content"[56]

In most cases, there were multiple such edits to each portal.

Note as above, that effects of these additions are not visible on the face of the portal, because NA1K's edit left the portals with no visible lost of articles. NA1K had turned the portals into black boxes of hidden lists, whose content can be seen only by purging the page enough times that you hope all instances have been displayed.

This lack of transparency both in editing and in result creates a serious barrier to scrutiny of the state in which these portals have been left by an editor who seems to be on a personal quest to create lists of the key articles on dozens of topics in which they have no identifiable expertise, and show no sign of consulting with the relevant WikiProjects.

There may be some good in what NA1K has done. But the problem is that we simply don't know what's good and what's bad, and can't tell without a huge amount of work to get past the barriers erected by NA1K's sneaky editing habits. And yes, the previous state of the portals often was junk -- but replacing abandoned junk with the hidden result of one editor's drive-by listmaking is not the solution.

I suggest that NA1K a) discuss the structures they are applying, and try to resolve the issues; b) propose their lists of articles, explaining the criteria by which they have been chosen … and notify the relevant WikiProjects and other interested parties. Portals are supposed to be gateways to whole topic areas, and it is utterly absurd to have a large chunk of those gateways built unilaterally and sneakily by one editor without expertise in the subject area. -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:22, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Again, I'll pick on a single example: Portal:Croatia. The "no explanation of what was being added" articles in your diff are Franjo Tuđman, President of the Presidency of SR Croatia, Socialist Republic of Croatia and Croatian kuna.1 Anyone interested in the topic area would not need an explanation for these. Tuđman was president of Croatia prior to and during the Yugoslav Civil Wars. SR Croatia is one of the six republics (and two autonomous provinces) of the former SFRJ. As to Kuna, that is the official currency of Croatia.
... and can't tell without a huge amount of work to get past the barriers erected by NA1K's sneaky editing habits - You were saying something about good faith?
But the problem is that we simply don't know what's good and what's bad - You mean you don't know.
[B]ut you sneakily didn't show the version my latest edit – You mean this? The one with the poorly formatted banner, that doesn't link to the central article (Panama) in its introduction (doesn't even have an introduction), and that has no image in the "Selected image" section? Versus this where the banner is properly formatted, has an introduction and links to the main article, and that has an actual image for the "selected image". Mr rnddude (talk) 00:12, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@Mr rnddude: if you ever again want to lecture anyone about good faith, here's a top tip: don't do so in a post in which you carefully lift quotes out of context in order to mispresent the person you are lecturing.

The way you snipped up my comment the problem is that we simply don't know what's good and what's bad, and can't tell without a huge amount of work to get past the barriers erected by NA1K's sneaky editing habits in order to misrepresent the whole was artful … but artfully deceitful. Shame on you.

As to NA1K's sneaky editing habits, the issue had been discussed at length with NA1K at two MFDs, one of which I quoted above. So, no I don't AGF when an editor doubles down on an already-identified problem.

And I readily acknowledge that the reverted portals are very poor. The problem was exacerbated in some cases by subsequent removal of sub-pages, and I have restored those sub-pages I have identified as missing (except for DYKs, which are nearly always both stale and fake). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:35, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I didn't "carefully lift" anything, and there's a lacuna there as well. Perhaps you missed it? Oh sorry, let's be more like you: perhaps you are being deceptively ignorant of it? No, I just picked what I wanted to respond to, and ordered it in terms of significance. It doesn't help your non-existent case that you say – and here's the full quote with no lacuna – [s]o, no I don't AGF when an editor doubles down on an already-identified problem. So I'm being deceitful in noting your lack of assuming good faith, but you admit that you aren't assuming good faith? Deceit by accurate representation. That's a new one. By what mechanism have I accomplished this? Mr rnddude (talk) 01:02, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: I am not seeing anything here that requires the invocation of ANI. I recommend closing this discussion and working it out these issues on the relevant talk pages. bd2412 T 23:30, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

How do we move forward when talks are not happening between the two at the portal talk page level? --Moxy 🍁 01:03, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps the better course of action is to address the issue, not the editor. Determine the appropriate policy discussion forum, and propose a change or clarification to policy that will resolve the situation. bd2412 T 01:31, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Sorry not understanding the request ....the issue is one editor mass reverting another while others believe the reverts were not all that good and should be talked about and in some cases reinstated. The point of bringing it here is because it involves two admins and the edit behavior behind it with little communication on going. There is no policy to change that covers one admin reverting what they perceive as sneaky edits by another admin. What can be done to help the situation over telling people to go somewhere non specific.--Moxy 🍁 01:50, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

You could try going to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) and propose a policy to allow admins (or others) to add content to portals without requiring discussion or consensus to do so, or, if you think they already have that right, ask that it be codified so that there is no question of its propriety. bd2412 T 02:33, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Comment – I have recently been adding a summary of changes on talk pages after improving portals, but overlooked doing so for the Latin America portal. I have since corrected this. Please see the discussion at Portal talk:Latin America § Portal updated, which was reverted for the summary. This is essentially a content issue, any and all who are interested are welcome to comment at the talk page discussion. I notice that BHG has eagerly reverted other work I have performed on other portals in instances where I have left a message on the talk page noting that the portal has been updated. I feel that as a significant nominator of portals for deletion at MfD, BHG has a significant conflict of interest, and the reversions are making the portals easier to be deleted in the future. The edits I performed are not "sneaky" whatsoever, and the bad faith assumptions are disappointing; my good faith work to improve portals is being instantly reverted without any discussion on the talk pages from the reverter at all. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:45, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Question, primarily for the OP, User:Moxy - Is this a content dispute or a conduct dispute? If content, what content, and why is the dispute here? If conduct, whose conduct? I have read the complaint and the discussion, and what I know is that portals are contentious, and that edits to portals are usually not discussed. What exactly is the concern? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:20, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Conduct about content removal as outlined above by 3 editors .....that being mass reverts of good faith edits by an admin by another admin with a conflict of interest with no attempt at joining talks about the updates.--Moxy 🍁 04:31, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Where's the no attempt? I see from the first comment these talk page discussions Portal talk:Ontario#Portal status, Portal talk:Guyana#Portal updated, Portal talk:Cars#Portal updated. Indeed there is no reply from BHG there. But the reversions only happened a few hours before this ANI was opened [57] [58] [59]. While BHG is active here and generally editors should join any discussion quickly after a revert, it can get complicated especially when it's a lot of articles involved.

If after a few days there is no comment from BHG then the edits can be reinstated with an edit summary "see talk" or similar. Further as I understand it in a bunch of cases there was no discussion opened before the changes were made. While in many cases there's no need to do so, as I've been telling several (inexperienced) editor's on ANI in the past few days and I hope no one here needs to be reminded of, it's incredibly dumb to argue over who should be the one to initiate discussion once there is a dispute. Someone just needs to do it.

In fact, given the inconsistency between whether a discussion was opened, I'd actually give BHG a further chance here. If the edits are reverted after reinstatement with an edit summary directing her? to the talk page, I'd still give her at least 2 days to join the discussion. If she still fails and reverts a further attempt to reintroduce the content, then only does it seem worth it to bring a case.

BTW, to be clear I'm not saying BHG's behaviour is ideal but ultimately the best way you can make an ANI case is bringing a clear cut case. An editor who continues to revert while failing to join the existing talk page discussion given ample time is generally a good example of someone who needs to be blocked or otherwise sanctioned. This requires sufficient time and clear evidence they should have been aware of the talk page discussion.

As for the wider issues, if the number of affected pages is too large to open a talk page discussion for each one, I see 2 options. Number one open a centralised RFC somewhere appropriate and properly advertised clearly outlining what is proposed including which pages will be affected and achieve consensus. Number two, do this with a bunch of pages first the normal way i.e. talk and achieve consensus (even via WP:silence). If in each case consensus is clearly in favour, you have some evidence that there is no problem and can probably expand the target range to more articles without opening a discussion first. In that case, if BHG mass reverts, she really needs to provide some decent explanation somewhere i.e. not via edit summaries and an actual reason why she feels the changes are unwarranted that isn't simply 'discuss first'.

Nil Einne (talk) 04:58, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

The misleading edit summaries in many cases is what I noticed first ....as its clear as seen at Portal talk:Serbia#Portal expanded and Portal talk:New Zealand#Portal expanded and Portal talk:Thailand#Portal expanded etc.. nothing sneaky here.... even posting articles and from where. But will wait for replies as you have suggested .--Moxy 🍁 06:40, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, I think framing this as a content dispute misses the other interpretation (which I find more likely), which is that this is part of a bullying campaign of User:BrownHairedGirl against User:Northamerica1000 that we have seen come to light several times in the past and that ANI has failed to address properly. —Kusma (t·c) 09:12, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Comment I noticed this as well and I want to revert BrownHairedGirl's edits for Portal:Croatia as in my mind no basis for reverting these edits existed, but I'm not sure what the proper procedure is considering this ANI thread. I think this is primarily a content dispute, albeit with someone with a severe conflict of interest, and while I'm sad to see it on ANI, I'm not sure a better place for this discussion exists. SportingFlyer T·C 04:38, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Should BrownHairedGirl's mass portal reversions be reverted, to restore portal improvements that occurred?

The mass rapid reversions of portal improvements performed by BrownHairedGirl (talk · contribs) has erased many hours of my good faith research and work to improve portals. Per the high number of rapid reversions performed, it is best to discuss the matter here in a centralized area, rather than one-by-one on each portal talk page. Below is a synopsis of the matter, along with a table providing a summary of some of BHG's reversions. I feel that BHG's conduct in performing these mass reversions has been inappropriate and disruptive, as denoted below.

• BHG's reversions were performed in an extremely rapid succession, one-after-another, in a tendentious manner over a very short period of time.
• From what I've checked thus far, BHG has left no notices on any concerned portal talk pages to discuss the matter.
• The reversions have only served to dumb-down many of these portals, placing them back into a significantly inferior state of existence compared to the state they were in after the improvements were performed.
• BHG stated in their copy/pasted edit summaries, "Revert undiscused change of format; unexplained, sneaky addition of dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries, let alone discussed". However, contrary to this:

• This is not the case at all, per my use of talk page notices in the vast majority of instances after improving portals, whereby I directly stated on the talk page that portal work has been performed.
• Note in the table below in the "List of articles added to talk page?" column specific instances where I also took the time to include a list of articles added to the portal in my talk page notices. This was also performed on many talk pages for the portals that are listed below the table.
• In cases where a list of articles was not provided on talk pages, the articles added can be easily viewed by selecting the Edit link on main portal pages and scrolling down.
• BHG apparently didn't bother to even check the talk pages first before their reversion spree, and simply assumed that no notification or list of articles was provided. Again, per the table and article list below, BHG was quite mistaken in many instances.

• BHG's reversion of Portal:Afghanistan has left its selected article section in an entirely broken state (diff).
• As I stated above, I feel that BHG has a significant conflict of interest in performing these reversions, because:

• The user has demonstrated an ongoing strong desire for the deletion of portals, as demonstrated by their numerous nominations of portals for deletion at MfD that have occurred.
• As another example, BHG reverted improvements to Portal:Language. However, at the portal's recent MfD discussion, the user opined for the deletion of the portal, stating in part, "The fact that after 14 years, this portal still has only 12 selected sub-topics is clear evidence of long-term failure". My improvements to the portal concluded at the time with it having 40 Selected language articles and 40 Selected topic articles (diff). BHG reverted it back to an inferior state, back to a similar state that it was in when nominated for deletion (diff).

• Importantly, please note the improved state that of the portals prior to their reversions, to view the improvements that occurred. Some links have been provided in the table below, in the "Portal's state prior to reversion" column.
• In the process of being improved, the portals were overhauled using modernized wiki markup that uses transclusions directly from articles to display content, which provides readers with current, up-to-date information as articles are updated. Furthermore, article content from various portal subpages was moved directly into the portal using transclusions. BHG erased all of this good work.
• New articles were added to all of the portals I worked on listed herein. All of this work was removed by BHG.
• Many of these portals had brand new Featured article, Good article and/or Recognized article sections added, which served to showcase some of Wikipedia's high-quality recognized content. All of the research and work involved in performing this was rapidly removed with one click, one after another.

BHG's mass rapid reversions of portal improvements

Portal name	BHG reversion diff	BHG reversion time	Portal's state prior to reversion	Did NA1K leave a note on the talk page denoting changes prior to the reversion?	NA1K talk page note date	NA1K talk page note diff	List of articles added to talk page?
Portal:Guinea	Reversion diff	18:07, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	05:53, 22 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: No
Portal:Guyana	Reversion diff	15:35, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	07:25, 11 October 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: No
Portal:Chile	Reversion diff	18:42, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	12:08, 21 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Hungary	Reversion diff	19:41, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	13:45, 21 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Serbia	Reversion diff	19:44, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	17:26, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Afghanistan	Reversion diff	19:46, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: No	N/A	N/A	N/A
Portal:South Korea	Reversion diff	19:47, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	14:15, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Finland	Reversion diff	19:47, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	13:12, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Thailand	Reversion diff	19:49, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	11:53, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Sweden	Reversion diff	19:54, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	11:50, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Food	Reversion diff	19:58, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	15:06, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Philosophy	Reversion diff	20:05, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link state	Talk notice: No	N/A	N/A	N/A
Portal:Australia	Reversion diff	20:09, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	14:27, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:New Zealand	Reversion diff	20:11, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	11:44, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes

• BHG's rapid reversions are numerous, and listing the rest in table format would be very time-consuming for me to perform. Below is a listing of more portals that BHG reverted (from my watchlist), all of which occurred in rapid succession on 12 October 2019 (UTC). There may be others that occurred that I do not have watchlisted.

• Portal:Panama (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:1920s (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Libya (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Republic of the Congo (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Somaliland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Cuba (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Switzerland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Croatia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Turkmenistan (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Iceland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Luxembourg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Mali (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Uganda (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Mauritania (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Liberia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Burundi (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Belize (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Kenya (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Sierra Leone (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Senegal (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:The Gambia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Malawi (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Somalia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:São Tomé and Príncipe (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Eritrea (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Zambia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Tanzania (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Cameroon (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:United Arab Emirates (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Lithuania (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Language (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Saudi Arabia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Global warming (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Tanks (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Renewable energy (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Democratic Republic of the Congo (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Trinidad and Tobago (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:England (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Spain (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Cannabis (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Pakistan (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Vietnam (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Hawaii (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Mississippi (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Connecticut (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Maryland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Ohio (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Arizona (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Indiana (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Pennsylvania (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Television (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Kansas (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Northern Ireland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Oman (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Egypt (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Madagascar (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Transport (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:South Africa (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Morocco (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Latvia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Bahrain (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Ontario (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Lebanon (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Cars (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:1980s (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:1960s (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Discussion

• Support reverting all of these edits by BHG, per all of the above, which will restore these portals back to their significantly improved respective states. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:04, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support .- as per all the evidence presented in this thread by different editors.--Moxy 🍁 08:17, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• I suggest to revert the changes by BHG and then to add a link to a subpage transcluding all of the pages used (do we have a template for that? We should), so it is easy to see them all at once, which makes it much easier to see whether any problems occur (as happens sometimes with automated transclusion). BrownHairedGirl, on the other hand, should really know better than to mass revert in order to force a feature she would like to see. That alone is worth a re-revert and a trout. —Kusma (t·c) 08:30, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Strong Support - A truly shocking series of reverts, the scale of which really requires prior discussion, rather than taking refuge behind the non-requirement of WP:BRD for the reverter to initiate discussion. Looking at the common denominator in the histories (numerous edits by NA1k, which each constitute some improvement), the only motivation I can see is BHG's long standing personal animosity towards NA1k. So, BHG mass reverts (yes, that's exactly what that was) and at a stroke converts all those Portals back to an inferior state, with a dubious edit summary ...dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries.... Where is it mandated in either policy (or even guideline) that Portal Articles need to be listed anywhere "visible" (even though they are available if you follow the "more selected XX" links available on most portals)? It's just yet more invention of "Policy" by BHG, now that the crutch of selective quoting of WP:POG, as if it were policy, has been removed. Thanks to Northamerica1000 for the detailed breakdown and bringing this to wider attention. --Cactus.man ✍ 09:39, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@Kusma: I think we need a much larger species than a trout for this one. --Cactus.man ✍ 09:39, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Strong support As noted above, I'm only following the Croatia portal, but now looking at the scale of the reverts, I consider these edits very tendentious. SportingFlyer T·C 09:56, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Comment – Upon review, I have found that BHG's reversions have caused additional problems. It appears that BHG may not have checked the result of their reversions after performing them. Regardless, in addition to Portal:Afghanistan's Selected article section now in a broken state, as listed above, several portals are now also broken. I haven't checked all of them listed above yet, but below is what I've found so far. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:03, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Portal:Bahrain – Selected article section is now broken, displaying red links
• Portal:Vietnam – Featured article section is now broken, displays a red link
• Portal:Luxembourg – the Selected article section is now nonexistent on the page.
• Portal:Cameroon and Portal:Liberia – Did you know sections are now broken, with a sea of red links
• Portal:Egypt – News section formatting is now broken
• Portal:Iceland – now posting no content at times in the Selected articles section (when purging)

• Support as per the detailed analysis above. I also want to note that I do not think this behavior is befitting for an administrator. --Hecato (talk) 12:58, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Shouldn't the D in BRD happen somewhere other than ANI? – Levivich 13:18, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• @Levivich: Are you suggesting we go through all these on their individual talk pages? SportingFlyer T·C 13:31, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

  Oh heck no. Just one D. One D to rule them all. – Levivich 13:38, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:FAITACCOMPLI. NA1K has been engaged in a mass, unilateral restructuring and unilateral expansion of portals with no prior discussion or even disclosure of their plan. Where NA1K's conversion to a black box has been scrutinised, e.g. at WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ghana and WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Chad the consensus has been to delete the portal.

There is not, and never has been, any guideline, policy or consensus to do what NA1K did:

1. Converting portals to a format where the face of the portal includes neither a list of selected articles, nor a link to such a list. The conversion to a black box whose contents cannot be verified with out undue effort is a extraordinary exercise which NA1k should have discussed first, rather than acting unilaterally on such a huge scale.
2. Radically restructuring the contents of dozens of portals, adding dozens of new articles to each of them, without any attempt at prior discussion or notification of WikiProjects.
3. Adding articles to portals which sneaky edit summaries which fail to disclose what has been added. The boilerplate edit summary "Maintenance: Portal updated / further expanded with more new content" is a clear breach of WP:SUMMARYNO, which says "Avoid vagueness. While edit summaries can be terse, they should still be specific. Providing an edit summary similar to "I made some changes" is functionally equivalent to not providing a summary at all." That vague edit summary was used by NA1K dozens of times, even after NA1K had been repeatedly warned that it was inadequate when used to create changes which could be not seen on the face of the portal.

I readily acknowledge that more work may be needed to restore the reverted portals, some of whose subpages have ben deleted. I will get back to that task later today.

However, the core issue remains:

Where is the consensus that one editor should unilaterally convert a large chunk of portalspace to black box portals consisting of a list of articles chosen unilaterally by that one editor with no demonstrable subject expertise, without consultation with relevant WikiProjects?".

Portals have very low pageviews (the median for Q2+Q3 2019 is 22 views per day, and as a result are largely unscrutinsed. MFD examines an endless stream of portals whose contents are years out of date, or even factually wrong. The Rube Goldberg machine structure presents a high barrier to modifying them, because even a skilled wiki-editor needs to learn an opaque and undocumented structure to figure out how to make changes.

Most WikiProjects pay no attention to any portals within their remit. The result is that the portals have rotted. What we are seeing now is that these portals without WikiProject scrutiny have become the private fiefdom of a small set be of portal enthusiasts who have not even sought community consensus for the widespread changes which they are stealthily making. All the supports above come from the usual crew of hard core portal fans under whose watch portals rotted en masse for a decade; most if them have bene vociferous opponents even of deleting abandoned junk portals which have no WikiProject support.

The long-established editing principle here is WP:BRD … but what the portal fans above are clamouring for is to have just the B, not the R and the D.

What we need now is consensus-building to establish community consensus on the remaining portals should be structured, and how their content is chosen. Instead, the portal fans above all are clamouring to endorse an undiscussed WP:FAITACCOMPLI grab of portalspace by one editor.

One possible outcome of those discussion is that there may be support for what NA1K has done, in which case NA1K's edit can be easily restored. But we won't know what the community supports until those discussions have concluded, and in the meantime restoring NA1K's edits would be endorsing NA1K's WP:FAITACCOMPLI.

Undoing my reverts is clearly designed to prevent the community from deciding against NA1K's fait-accompli-creation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:44, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

User Kredsdr

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

---

• Kredsdr (talk · contribs)

Edit-warring across multiple articles, apparently in protest of his sourcing being unreliable. --Ronz (talk) 19:08, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Let us give them a chance to explain themselves here, but if they fail to do so I am afraid we need to block.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:24, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

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

Remove jokes

Resolved

Can anyone remove this user edits [60] I feel like he is trying to make a joke.--SharabSalam (talk) 19:36, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

That's just a vandal. Blocked for 48 hours. Thank you for reporting and for reverting the vandalism, SharabSalam. For another time, though, WP:AIV is better and quicker for vandalism reports than ANI. Bishonen | talk 19:47, 12 October 2019 (UTC).

Persistent reversions, ignoring sources, and refusal to discuss on Talk page by other user

I hope this is the right place to address this and that in doing so here I am not acting inappropriately. I hope very much to avoid an edit war. There currently is an issue with an editor (the user User:Yacoob316) on the Kerma culture page. They continue to edit the Language section of that page to represent certain sources in a way that does not reflect them. I have left explanation in the edit notes (which I believe explain my reasoning) and attempted to discuss this with them on the Talk page (creating a topic where I cite the sources and discuss their claims in detail) as well as leaving a message on their own Talk page, but they have continued to re-enter their own preferred edits with repetitive explanations in the history notes that seem to indicate that they have not read or listened to my explanations. They seem unwilling to listen, engage or discuss, and I am not sure what to do. Thank you for your help in this matter. Here are links to the edit History, my topic of the article's Talk page, and my post ion the User's Talk page below: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kerma_culture#Sources_and_language_affinity_of_Kerma. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kerma_culture&action=history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Yacoob316 And (more recently, below, the talk page topic started by Yacoob316 — where I have also attempted to engage them in discussion): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kerma_culture#both_cushitic_and_nilotic_languages_were_spoken_in_kerma_according_to_julian_riley Skllagyook (talk) 19:50, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

For starters, both of you need to stop reverting the page. If you continue to revert, either of you, you'll be blocked for edit warring. You need to discuss it now. I'll comment on the talk page later about the content of the dispute. Captain Eek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 00:12, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@CaptainEek: Thank you. And what you have said is noted (I will not revert again until some resolution is reached). However it did not seem that discussion was working (I feel that I did what I could to discuss, but that my explanations were persistently ignored and never addressed by the other user). Currently the other user has not reverted or re-made the edit/edits since being warned about edit warring, but I worry that once the 24-hour period ends (or maybe sooner), they may resume their aforementioned edits. Hopefully your comments on the Talk page will help to resolve this issue for all involved. Thank you again. Skllagyook (talk) 00:33, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for block review

I have blocked User:OAbot for adding links to references that appear to violate copyright (to CiteSeerX, a web site that scrapes copies of pdfs from other web sites and makes the scraped copies available itself). CiteSeerX does provide provenance of the copies that it links, which in most cases go to web sites of the papers' authors or publishers, but in many cases do not. In the case that triggered the block, CiteSeerX linked to a copy of a paper that had been made available online by two researchers, neither of whom was the author. It may well be the case that those researchers' use of the paper is fair use, but it doesn't make it fair use for us. If these links were outside of the references section, they would certainly violate WP:ELNEVER, and when OAbot went through the bot approval process, this issue was discussed and the addition of CiteSeerX links was taken off of the list of approved bot tasks. Nevertheless, User:Nemo bis (whom I will notify of this thread, and who is one of the bot operators) has added this feature and has been adding these links at a high rate with no evidence of human supervision.

Because I was part of the original discussion of CiteSeerX links on OAbot, Nemo bis has suggested that I should be considered WP:INVOLVED. Therefore, I am asking for review by other administrators of this block. Specifically, of the following three questions:

1. Should it be considered a blockable offense to add full-text non-author and non-publisher links to otherwise-paywalled references, after a warning not to do so?
2. Have Nemo bis and OAbot violated their bot approval?
3. Am I involved, and if so should I lift my block and allow a different admin to take over here, or does a consensus on the earlier two questions make that moot?

Meanwhile, I will have no objection if any admin unilaterally takes action to modify or remove my block. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:27, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) I went ahead and notified Pintoch as well, since they're one of the other bot operators involved in OABot as well. OhKayeSierra (talk) 01:46, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I did already leave a notification on the bot talk page, also. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:49, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: I saw that it's running on the Toolforge. Dumb question, but when you blocked, did you disable autoblock? There'd be a lot of potential for collateral damage otherwise. I'm editing from my phone, and I'm having a hard time seeing the block log myself. OhKayeSierra (talk) 01:55, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I reblocked with autoblock disabled just in case. Not an endorsement of the original block. ST47 (talk) 02:12, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't realize this was an issue. Will take note for future reference. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:26, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I'm not an admin, but I fully concur with Headbomb's assessment of the issue at User talk:OAbot. OABot 3 was about flagging existing identifiers as free, and adding free dois and hdls and the like. CiteSeerX has been deemed too contentious to add automatically in the past and OABot 3 does not overturn that consensus. I also see your actions as acting purely in an administrative capacity to block a bot that's operating out of the scope of its task per WP:BOTBLOCK, so I don't see WP:INVOLVED applying in this instance. OhKayeSierra (talk) 03:37, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment) Looks like a good block per WP:BOTPOL. Looking at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/OAbot 3 a number of editors, including a BAG member, were against the addition of new CiteSeerX links, and it seems there was no consensus for the task to include that functionality. The trial approval was explicit in that it only allowed the conversion of existing URLs to IDs, and the task function which was approved explicitly said "maintenance" of CiteSeerX IDs. There's no indication that the approval covered addition of new CiteSeerX links or IDs, and there is indication that such an interpretation was opposed. This edit clearly adds a new CiteSeerX link. Copyright issues aside, the bot seems to be operating outside the scope of its approval and should be modified or the additional task approved before unblocking. Wug·a·po·des​ 04:52, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Bot operator here. It's fine to have strong personal preferences on citations: for instance, I strongly dislike links to Academia.Edu (which is not good practice) and if someone added them to a citation added by my I may replace those links, but I wouldn't go around saying that the user has infringed copyright or violated policy, because that's normally not the case per WP:COPYLINKS. Of course CiteSeerX is in a much stronger legal position than such commercial websites, personal websites etc.

  I have offered to develop a blacklist feature allowing users to prevent the addition of certain links, also to avoid the repetition of mistaken links if any. Some users have endorsed the suggestion but so far nobody has expressed an interest in using it. As soon as someone will ask me to be able to use a blacklist, I will implement it; until then, the usual per-page blacklists are possible with {{nobots}} and friends.

  Sorry if I'm less responsive than usual, I'm currently busy at a workshop with WU copyright experts in Warsaw. Nemo 07:27, 13 October 2019 (UTC)