User talk:MelanieN

Archives
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

My press

You made the news. Just a passing mention mind, no indepth coverage yet. ;) Dylanfromthenorth (talk) 01:50, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and again here (at the bottom). Dylanfromthenorth (talk) 01:54, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Wow, and here it is again [1] in a separate story about the same issue. Think I'm notable yet? 0;-D --MelanieN (talk) 00:22, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Multiple mentions in a Slate (magazine) article. [2] Pretty good and accurate article actually. -- MelanieN (talk) 03:56, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

ANI Notification (historic)

This is to notify you that I have opened a complaint about your behavior in the Victoria Pynchon matter here:

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive757#Complaint About Editors' Behavior In Victoria Pynchon Deletion Discussion

Pernoctus (talk) 21:23, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I modified the link for the record when the discussion was archived. --MelanieN (talk) 15:57, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

AN Notification (historic)

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Wikipedia editor paid to protect the page "John Ducas". Thank you. Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:16, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Recent RfCs on US city names

for reference
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
April 2012: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)/Archives/2012/June#WP:USPLACE was not officially made into an RfC or officially closed. September-October 2012: On another page, Talk:Beverly Hills, California/Archives/2012#Requested move was closed as "No move". An extensive November 2012 discussion involving 55 people was closed as "maintain status quo (option B)". Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)/Archives/2012/December#RfC: US city names. A discussion in January 2013 later was never officially made into an RfC or officially closed; discussion died out with 18 editors opposed to a change and 12 in favor. Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)/Archives/2013/February#Request for comment . Discussion started in June 2013: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)/Archives/2013/June#Naming convention; speedy-closed per WP:SNOW. December 2013-February 2014: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)/Archives/2014/February#Should the article be at Bothell or Bothell, Washington? . Closed as "no consensus to change existing practice (that is, USPLACE)." January-February 2014: Associated proposal for a moratorium on USPLACE discussions. Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)/Archives/2014/February#Moratorium on WP:USPLACE change discussions. Closed as "There is a one year moratorium on changing the policy at WP:USPLACE unless someone can offer a reason that has not been discussed previously." August-September 2018: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Proposal to eliminate comma-state from unambiguous U.S. state capitals. November-December 2019: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#US-centric USPLACE continues to cause confusion

Jim Rogers (California politician)

I found reliable sources for The People's Lawyer and wanted to know what you thought of the condition of the article now, I have completely redone it. Also do you know of anyone with access through paywalls at San Jose Mercury News or East Bay Times as I believe there are more sources to be uncovered over there.Ndołkah☆ (talk) 04:41, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

I lost everything in that fire, so thanks so much! -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:28, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

2019 Fresno shooting

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

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Hi MelanieN, sorry to bother you, but could you please keep an eye on 2019 Fresno shooting? User:Bus stop is up to his old tricks, adding victim names without consensus. Thanks, WWGB (talk) 01:03, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for pinging me, but why don't you cease creating disruption over your pointy concerns about the propriety of information that other editors think is relevant? There isn't an iota of sound reasoning for your removal of "rabbinical student" at the article 2019 Jersey City shooting. That is sheer meaningless disruption. This is a collaborative project. I don't think WP:BRD is an excuse for any and all manner of disruption and aggressive behavior—which would include the immediate reverting of editors merely trying to add material that is arguably valid for inclusion, especially when those editors are entirely unfamiliar with your obsession with victim names and associated material—such as an occupation of a decedent. You don't WP:OWN the article. Use the Talk page to present your reasoning about not writing the article. Find something useful to do with your editing time aside from creating disruption. An article is largely written by the additive process, especially in its early stages. You are especially attacking articles at their inception. That has been the modus operandi you have employed to good, disruptive effect, at articles that might contain victim names. You don't get to blithely revert editors such as VanEman and Uniformcharlie886 at Naval Air Station Pensacola shooting. They are not a part of your pointy concern with victim names. It is usually uninvolved editors that add victim names to articles, editors such as VanEman and Uniformcharlie886. I support the inclusion of victim names, but it usually isn't me that you are reverting. I try my best to minimize disruption so I don't go to articles at their inception and add victim names. But you are not shy about imposing your will on editors who have nothing to do with your personal fixation on the inclusion of victim names in articles and information related to victim names—why wouldn't a decedent be described as a "rabbinical student"? This isn't a creative writing project. You don't get to omit information on a whim. If it is indiscriminate, fine—present the argument on the Talk page of "Naval Air Station Pensacola shooting" that the information is indiscriminate. But please give the disruption a break. Pinging WWGB. Bus stop (talk) 21:59, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Complete fly-on-the-wall here, Bus Stop --

There is and must be a very strong presumption per BLP and other reasons why the default is not to present victims' names where they are incidental to the rest of the article, people, places, and events. Do you think that editors must relitigate this basic principle every time there's a shooting and an article? It's just the opposite. SPECIFICO talk 22:07, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Bus Stop, you are welcome to start a discussion on the article TP; where I will argue for no inclusion as per WP:NOTMEMORIAL. O3000 (talk) 22:20, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

The onus is on those arguing to depart from the general outline of a subject provided to us by sources. At Naval Air Station Pensacola shooting virtually all of the best quality journalistic outlets in the United States publish not only the names of the deceased but extensive biographies including photographs of their prior lives. There is no reason whatsoever the article does not include the names of the three U.S. Navy sailors killed. The onus is on someone to explain why those names should be omitted. Bus stop (talk) 23:05, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

The proper place for this is on the article TP. O3000 (talk) 23:13, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

WWGB—are you sure you are not working at cross-purposes with Wikipedia? Why would you remove that Charlie Dick is known as the widow of Patsy Cline? You do so at the list of Deaths in November 2015. And you give the edit summary "NOTINHERITED". WP:NOTINHERITED does not tell us not to provide information. I cite this because it is consistent with your removal of information in other areas. That information is doing no harm. So what if it notes the marital relationship between these two people? It is prominently found in the source that is provided at that list: "Charlie Dick, Patsy Cline's Widower, Dead at 81". Are you opposed to Wikipedia providing information? Bus stop (talk) 23:30, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

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

MelanieN—"Complaining in great detail about an edit WWGB made four years ago, seriously?" Not four years ago. Today. Bus stop (talk) 23:59, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

OIC. WWGB removed information today from a four-year-old listing. Do you follow their contributions around, or did you happen to have "Deaths in November 2015" on your watchlist? As for the article currently at issue, here's the situation: TomCat added the victims’ names and WWGB removed them on November 18. Nothing happened on the talk page at that time. On January 3 Bus stop restored the names, WWGB removed them, rinse and repeat - and still neither of you has said a word on the talk page. Have you both forgotten the “D” part of BRD? Or are you just so familiar with the arguments that you don’t think it’s necessary actually make them? Earlier I suggested an interaction ban; maybe what we really need is a topic ban for both of you, so that the question can be decided at each article by people who don’t have a fixed position on the issue. I’ll give that some thought. -- MelanieN (talk) 00:20, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Kinda looks like Bus Stop followed me to Talk:Murder of Tessa Majors and Talk:Ilhan Omar. But, I don't care and am not making a complaint. Just found it curious. O3000 (talk) 20:31, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Paradise High School

On 4 January 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Paradise High School, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the Paradise High School football team had an undefeated regular season in 2019, even though most of the players had been burned out of their homes the year before? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Paradise High School. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Paradise High School), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

• May I add my personal thanks for the above. Wikipedia generally shouldn't evoke emotion, but when I read your addition, it brought a tear to my eye. It's hard to make really good additions of human interest items to school articles without sounding either rah-rah or biased. Great work. John from Idegon (talk) 01:39, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, John. It affected me the same way. A very moving story. -- MelanieN (talk) 04:16, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2019).

Administrator changes

Dreamy Jazz • Newslinger • Rosguill

Deor • Spartaz • Xeno

Angusmclellan • clpo13 • Edgar181 • Matthewedwards • NCurse

CheckUser changes

Bradv • Casliber • David Fuchs • Maxim • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy • Xeno

Oversight changes

Bradv • Casliber • DGG • David Fuchs • Maxim • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy • Xeno

Someguy1221

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment asks whether partial blocks should be enabled on the English Wikipedia. If enabled, this functionality would allow administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces, rather than the entire site.
• A proposal asks whether admins who don't use their tools for a significant period of time (e.g. five years) should have the toolset procedurally removed.
• Following a successful RfC, a whitelist is now available for users whose redirects will be autopatrolled by a bot, removing them from the new pages patrol queue. Admins can add such users to Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist after a discussion following the guidelines at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist.

Arbitration

• The fourth case on Palestine-Israel articles was closed. The case consolidated all previous remedies under one heading, which should make them easier to understand, apply, and enforce. In particular, the distinction between "primary articles" and "related content" has been clarified, with the former being the entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted rather than reasonably construed.
• Following the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Bradv, Casliber, David Fuchs, DGG, KrakatoaKatie, Maxim, Newyorkbrad, SoWhy, Worm That Turned, Xeno.

Miscellaneous

• This issue marks three full years of the Admin newsletter. Thanks for reading!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Move to close Talk:2020_Baghdad_International_Airport_airstrike#Requested_move_6_January_2020

Hi Melaine, Can we try to close out this RM? Lot of folks have had a chance to weigh-in and I don't see consensus getting any clearer on the topic. Unfortunately the result seems decidedly ambiguous, so it would probably be good have someone with experience close it out. Let me know if you think I ought to post under requests for closure. Pinging Qono as nom. NickCT (talk) 13:23, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

NickCT, Thanks for the ping. I think the discussion is still pretty active and so would hesitate to close as no consensus right now. If MalanieN thinks otherwise, I wouldn't oppose it. I would encourage whoever closes it to consider the context and count the sideways support of "Assassination" titles as at least half-way supporting the intermediate change to "killing". And, as always, to give more weight to those arguments based on Wikipedia policy. Qono (talk) 15:47, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Nick and Qono. There is no way anyone at "requests for closure" is going to close this. It's only been open for 48 hours; closers usually insist on at least a week and sometimes a month. This is why I suggested going ahead with the result of the informal discussion. Since we are now in a formal process we are going to have to wait until it produces a result. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:53, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@MelanieN and Qono: - Hmmmmm..... We should have listened to Melanie (as usual). Now we're basically stuck in a corner waiting. What's worse is that we may be waiting for no consensus.

Melanie - Given this is a current event (which is attracting a high level of interest ATM), and given the RM doesn't seem to moving any more clearly towards a any kind of consensus, you don't think there's any hope that some friendly admin might step in and take action? A lot of folks have weighed-in. It seems reasonable to think that this subject has been given enough thought. NickCT (talk) 16:06, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I doubt it. Even if I were uninvolved, I wouldn't think of closing it myself. Discussion is still active, and the result is not clear. At this point the best we can do is make sure that the possible alternate titles are redirects to the article. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:14, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Hmmmmm.... Ok. Well I guess I'll wait for there to be a 24hr pause in the conversation before requesting close.

This is an unfortunate situation. Titles like this don't make WP look all that great... NickCT (talk) 16:45, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Royal Rumble (2020)

Hi, I've seen that you've protected a few WWE pages in the past, and was wondering if you could protect Royal Rumble (2020). IP users are persistently adding unnecessary content and I've also added 3 warnings on one of the users talk pages. Thank you L1amw90 (talk) 00:42, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. Swarm beat me to it. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:24, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Is this anything to be concerned about?

Hi,

Here, an IP uses what's basically original research to justify this, but it's the bit about a court of law that's worrying. Is this some sort of legal threat? Thanks. Adam9007 (talk) 01:26, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Nothing to be concerned about; not a legal threat. The person is just using a common expression to emphasize how sure they are of their information. Of course, it is inadmissible (to use another legal phrase) because it is unsourced and opinion. If they add it again, you can remove it again. -- MelanieN (talk) 04:44, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

And I see that they did, and you did, and you explained again. I also added a comment to support what you were saying. If they do it a third time, let me know and I will give them a warning. I didn't want to warn them at this point because they are clearly operating in good faith/ignorance of WP policy. -- MelanieN (talk) 04:50, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, they haven't done anything since. Hope I haven't driven them away, but good faith or not, we can't accept stuff like that. Adam9007 (talk) 17:14, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

86.8.200.94

Needs a range block I think. Please see 3RR report. Thanks. —DIYeditor (talk) 00:52, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

DIYeditor: I commented at the 3RR report. They are recommending a range block all right. Thanks for calling this to my attention. -- MelanieN (talk) 04:18, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

IP continues harassment/insults at Talk:Albert Camus

Hi MelanieN! Please have a look here.[3] Cinadon36 22:51, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I blocked them for a week. If they come back under a different IP, let me know and I'll ask for a rangeblock. -- MelanieN (talk) 00:56, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Will do. Cinadon36 07:54, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

A Christmas Carol

Hi Melanie, Before Christmas you protected the article on A Christmas Carol, as it was being vandalised. For some reason the vandals just waited until after the protection was lifted and have been at work again. Could you add a couple more weeks, which will take us to the end of January? Thanks - SchroCat (talk) 08:17, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, SchroCat. Sure enough, they started in almost the minute the protection ended. I checked the protection log and it needs protection virtually every year. And it is a Good Article. So decided to give it indefinite semi-protection. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:59, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

That's great - thanks very much indeed. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 21:10, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

LGBT slang

Hi,

There's someone (first an IP, then an account) persistently removing sourced content based on their own opinion rather than those or reliable sources (as evidenced at their talk page). I tried to debate the issue with him/her, but I don't think I did a very good job of it. Might be worth keeping an eye on (it might need protection even; I've listed it at RfPP). Is it me, or are these articles some sort of magnet for aphobia (or at least, what could be perceived as aphobia)? I know it's a controversial topic, but still.... Adam9007 (talk) 17:51, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Adam. I've been offline; looks like Johnuniq beat me to it. -- MelanieN (talk) 00:28, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I was afraid that, once he stated his reasoning on his talk page, my actions would be interpreted as edit warring, rather than disruption/vandalism reverting. I'm glad to see that they haven't been. Butt his isn't the first time that so-called "ace exclusionits" have come here to push their own agenda, and I have a queer feeling that we're going to be seeing a lot more of this kind of thing. Is there any way of discouraging this kind of behaviour (the only thing I can think of is long-term protection, but that isn't fair on others), or do we just have to deal with it as it comes? Adam9007 (talk) 01:21, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Unless it becomes frequent enough to be disruptive, we'll have to deal with it as it comes. In the current case, it was disruptive: edit warring and frequent changing of IPs, in effect sockpuppetry; hence the semi-protection. But we certainly can't impose some kind of prohibition against a certain type of edit. And let's not stereotype everyone who tries to remove these nicknames as some kind of bigot; some are undoubtedly acting on what they believe in good faith to be the criteria for inclusion, rather than aphobic or "pushing their own agenda". -- MelanieN (talk) 01:36, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Possible discretionary sanctions violation

Does this revert violate the 24-hr BRD cycle sanction on Bernie Sanders? Sanders' portrait was updated in this edit from Nov 12 2019, and user Corkythehornetfan restored the old portrait in this edit on Jan 19 2020. I reverted his edit, and he subsequently reverted my revert on Jan 20 2020 without taking the issue to talk.

For what it's worth, I think that user HappyWanderer15's invocations of WP:IAR and WP:UCS are justified in this case, considering the age of the 2007 portrait and the significant shift in Sanders' public image since it was taken. Vrrajkum (talk) 02:12, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Arguable: which was the long-standing photo - the years-long one or the two-month one? Or is there a guideline for politician photos, as Corky claimed? There may be. See, for example, the photos at Barack Obama or Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell.

If I were you I would let it stand for now and seek consensus. The main problem I see in this exchange is that neither of you has gone to the D part of BRD. I see nothing on the talk page from either of you. That's where this kind of dispute belongs. Make your argument there. And ping the other party to the discussion. -- MelanieN (talk) 04:32, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Very stable

I was thinking about nominating A Very Stable Genius for DYK, with you and me as creators. But I thought I'd check to see a) if that's okay with you, and b) if so, whether either of these appeal: ...that the title of the book A Very Stable Genius comes from a tweet by Donald Trump? ...that the book A Very Stable Genius reports that American president Donald Trump did not know that India and China share a border? I like the first one for being interesting and neutral, and the source is the material you added. If you don't think DYK or either of these hooks are good ideas, I'm fine with that, too. No worries. Thanks for thinking about it. Indignant Flamingo (talk) 07:30, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Flamingo, and thanks for the note. Good idea. You don't need to credit me, I only added a paragraph - maybe 10% of the article - while you created all the rest of a very well written and well sourced article. I also like the first hook. It is based on clear public facts, while other possibilities are more in the "reportedly" realm. If we were looking for a second hook proposal I think it would would relate to the widely reported "dopes and babies" quote, rather than the somewhat obscure and open-to-interpretation India gaffe, but probably "dopes and babies" is not ideal for a hook as it casts a living person in a bad light. Let's just go with the title hook. BTW the Washington Post review gives a lot of detail about what is in the book; I think we should use it to expand the contents section, as well as giving the usual one-sentence summary of the review. I'll look into that later today. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:14, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm done. Feel free to go ahead with whatever. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:16, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Excellent timing: DYK nom. At this rate GA isn't far off. Thanks for all your work on the article! Now that you've expanded it even more, are you sure you don't want another DYK credit? So easy to add that name. Indignant Flamingo (talk) 22:21, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, but you take this one. I have plenty of DYKs, and I was a minor participant in this one. You deserve the credit. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:30, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Junko Minagawa

Hi, hours ago I responded on the page Wikipedia:Requests for page protection here. 148.0.126.176 (talk) 03:31, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I have been away from the computer. I have now responded at your talk page. -- MelanieN (talk) 06:37, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Sindoor

Please remove following abusive content on "sindoor" page of wiki:

"in certain parts of kerala there is a practice of hindu womens wearing sindoor to protect their daughters from Love jihad attack" Alithenu (talk) 07:20, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I see that this was added just before I protected the article. I will restore the longstanding version, since you are not able to. -- MelanieN (talk) 07:45, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	Thank you for consistently prodding me to run (my bad!) and advising me on my approach at every step. qedk (t 桜 c) 15:50, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I was glad to do it. Hope you continue to be glad you said yes! 0;-D -- MelanieN (talk) 17:31, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Brief vacation

Have a nice one, Melanie! --qedk (t 桜 c) 13:25, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Timeline

Welcome to the Trump Timeline. Your history of impartial unbiased editing proceeds you. ―Buster7 ☎ 00:22, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, I think. 0;-D I wish I could figure out why every item in the subsections repeats "President Trump" "President Trump" instead of dropping the title per MOS. But it's that way in every subsection. -- MelanieN (talk) 00:25, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

It's an affliction that presidential timelines fall victim too. I prefer variety and detest the repetitiveness. Where is it mentioned in the MoS...I couldn't find it. ―Buster7 ☎ 07:46, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Susan Collins

Hello MelanieN. I saw you protected Susan Collins due to vandalism. Susan Collins (disambiguation) may need the same protection. thanks,   // Timothy :: talk  04:32, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Timothy, thanks for the heads-up. I semi-protected it and warned them. How in the world did you even spot that? Not many people have DAB pages on their watchlists. -- MelanieN (talk) 05:17, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

MelanieN I was looking the user creation log to welcome someone just starting (trying to welcome more often). I check the contribs to make sure I don't welcome a vandal and noticed it. :) Have a wonderful weekend.   // Timothy :: talk  06:40, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2020).

Administrator changes

Ergo Sum • Nick Moyes • QEDK • Wugapodes

Dennis Brown

Aude • BrownHairedGirl • CALR • Jengod • John Reaves • J.smith • Kim Dent-Brown • K1Bond007 • MECU • Refdoc • RHaworth

CheckUser changes

Opabinia regalis • Premeditated Chaos

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, partial blocks are now enabled on the English Wikipedia. This functionality allows administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces rather than the entire site. A draft policy is being workshopped at Wikipedia:Partial blocks.
• The request for comment seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure closed with wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input. No proposed process received consensus.

Technical news

• Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
• When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [4]

Arbitration

• Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2020 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2020, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2020, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• The English Wikipedia has reached six million articles. Thank you everyone for your contributions!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:06, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Commiserations

... for the fools running your country. starship.paint (talk) 10:56, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Revdel request

Could I get a revdel on my User talk page [5]? Thanks. XOR'easter (talk) 02:33, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Ah, looks like it's been done already. Sorry to bother you! XOR'easter (talk) 02:39, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

No problem. Ask any time. -- MelanieN (talk) 02:40, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Indenting

BTW: I changed your second post's indent, so that you weren't responding to yourself :) GoodDay (talk) 17:04, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, GoodDay. Actually I commonly indent a P.S., to make it clear that it's still part of what I had to say - rather than start a whole new section as if I were a new person. I changed it back before I saw this note. If it's OK with you, let's leave it that way. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:13, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

WP:SNOW

It's a moot point, but your closure/switch of the virus name debate was under WP:SNOW rather than WP:IAR. This incident will be reported to the People's Front of Wikilawyers' Central Committee Disciplinary Proactive Action Board Against Acronymalisational Deviations. Boud (talk) 02:10, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Pfft. Nobody pays any attention to the PFWCCDPABAAD. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:15, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Aww, shucks. SNOW is no fun. I live for the chance to do IAR stuff. 0;-D -- MelanieN (talk) 04:17, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Coronavirus disease RM

Hi Melanie

Just a note on my decision to undo your IAR at the coronavirus thing... I feel really bad for undoing it, as you're someone I respect greatly, and maybe it was the wrong thing for me to do I don't know. But I just personally feel that I it will be a far better and more settled outcome if it is based on a reasoned closure of the original RM, including all its discussions and policy points. And I think there is still a very good chance that such a definitive closure will be achieved. This probably wasn't your intention, but the RFC was starting to look like a straw-poll of editor's individual preferences, rather than reasoned arguments. So apologies again, I hope there are no hard feelings, and let's hope this matter can be put to bed soon.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:35, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Amakuru, thanks for the note. I'm fine with that. It was an IAR thing for me to do, and IAR only works if people accept it. My fear was just that the RM would go on for weeks and ultimately be closed as "no consensus" for anything and we'd just have to start over again anyhow. But we'll see. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:06, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Eurydice (Aucoin)

On 15 February 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Eurydice (Aucoin), which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the 2020 opera Eurydice was created by three geniuses? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Eurydice (Aucoin). You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Eurydice (Aucoin)), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

--valereee (talk) 12:02, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Bloomberg article

Hi MelanieN. I see that you recently semi-protected the Michael Bloomberg article. Thanks. I'm puzzled as to why no Admin has placed page the 1RR, Consensus Required page sanctions on it. I believe that the other announced candidates' pages all have that. It looks to me as if there are some good faith editors there who are not fully aware of the balance needed for a sensitive BLP with lots of breaking news and political talking points. Regards. SPECIFICO talk 15:32, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing, SPECIFICO. I don't really do DS tagging myself but I'll suggest it to someone who does. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:28, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Can you topic ban me?

I want to distance myself from all things Bernie Sanders. I tried explaing at the fringe theories noticeboard, but like when I tried stepping away from the shooting victims shitshow, a certain deacon won't let me move on. So instead of anyone doing it for any of the many reasons I genuinely tried to make clear, could you possibly do it for no reason other than me politely asking you this favour? Hell, even a blanket ban from the whole problematic election would be fine, if Wikipedia doesn't recognize Sanders as a distinct topic area. But not American politics altogether, that's too general. Thanks? InedibleHulk (talk) 00:57, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

I have always wondered. Can a standard user invoke IAR to topic ban another user? Technically speaking it does not require advanced tools. PackMecEng (talk) 01:11, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

If I can do it to myself more directly than this, without having to paste or type something complicated, I would. Trying through the noticeboard seems to be grounds for a total block, and I've never wanted that. I could try vandalizing a broad range of Sanders articles, but that seems even more "disruptive" to me, somehow. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:42, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Hulk, this is just weird. Using your own talk page for crazy stuff is permitted, I suppose, but you need to keep it off of noticeboards and regular Wikipedia pages. And your “prediction” is so off the wall, as well as so NOTHERE, that you really ought to delete it everywhere you have made it. But all right, since you ask: I hereby prohibit you from saying anything at all about Bernie Sanders, either directly or by implication, or editing any Bernie Sanders-related page - effective immediately, for a period of one year. The only exception would be deleting stuff you have previously said about him. And no, I’m not joking, even if you are. It’s not funny. Do it and I will hit you with a block. -- MelanieN (talk) 01:59, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you very much, and no, I'm not joking. I needed that! I'm not going to delete any backstory, but even the most "cryptic" allusions will henceforth refer to other people and races...trust me. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:33, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia IS ENABLING ETHNIC TERRORISM OF MINORITY GROUPS BY IGBOS

Etche is an indigenous ethnic group in present day Nigeria. It is not Igbo, has never been, and will never be. Non Etche people, the Igbos in particular have for decades continued to oppress, suppress and forcefully attempting to annex all minorities south of the Niger river for political and economic gains, and the Wikipedia platform continues to enable and protect this barbaric literary ethnic genocide on a peace loving group of people. As an Echie person, I find this unacceptable and I call on Wikipedia to put a stop to this. WE ARE ETCHE PEOPLE, NATIVE AND INDEGENOUS TO SOUTHERN NIGERIA, AND WE ARE NOT A SUB-GROUP OF ANY GROUP, WHETHER IN NIGERIA, OR FROM ISREAL, OR EGYPT.

You live your region to come match on our streets in Port Harcourt and its environs declaring that our lands now belong to you. You use derogatory terms on us and you stage rallies in our communities - causing havocs for us and people who live in our communities. How on earth are non Etche people empowered to rewrite the history of Etche? Why cannot we be allowed to live our lives in peace? What kind of Igbo supremacy project is Wikipedia advancing?

Igbos, we know you are on a mission for political relevance and possible cessation. I respect your choices and your rights to self determination, but please tell your workgroups to leave Echie out of your schemes.

Thank you!

Eze-Basil Oluo — Preceding unsigned comment added by BasilOluo (talk • contribs) 16:53, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Hello, BasilOluo, and thanks for the note. I see you have made this same argument on the article's talk page. That's good; that's where it belongs. However, you should supply some published sources to support what you say. Without sources, it is just your opinion. See WP:Reliable sources and Help:Referencing for beginners. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:13, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Melanie, the biggest contention here is the first line the Igbos keep adding to our page. The line that says "Etche is one of the Igbo sub-groups". The rest of the article is fine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BasilOluo (talk • contribs) 17:26, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

I understand that. Neither side has offered any proof. Proof would be Reliable Sources stating that the Etche people are a subgroup of the Igbos, or that they are not. You should search for proof. See if you can find something at Google, or better yet, Google Scholar. Try this search: [6] -- MelanieN (talk) 17:33, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Please see a list of indigenous people from Niger Delta of Nigeria:

http://mobile.ipund.org/page-4

Please see these articles from 2013, where my people are making it clear that we are not Igbos. We may be neighbors, but that doesn't mean we are a sub of anyone. https://theneighbourhoodonline.com/2013/06/12/open-letter-to-the-honorable-minister-of-niger-delta-affairs-elder-godsday-orubebe/

https://clonlesley.blogspot.com/2016/09/etche-endangered-ethnicityby-nwankwo.html

https://allafrica.com/stories/201308190182.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by BasilOluo (talk • contribs) 18:00, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Also, the issues here are:

Some people are trying to claim my ethnic group as a sub of theirs, and this group has no proof like you have confirmed.

I, on the other hand is saying my ethnic group is not a sub of any one. I am also not claiming them as my own sub. I would think the most logical thing to do would be to let my people exist as Echie people and not subject us to the opinions of the others, for they have no proof of their claims. Asking me to justify why I am not their sub is the very definition of modern day slavery; protecting and forcing their opinion on my ethnic group, even after confirming that they have no proof defines both slavery and ethnic cleansing. Etche is an indigenous ethnic group in present day Nigeria. We have a right to exist as Etche people and this right should not be subject to our acceptance of subjugation. In 2020, no human or group of humans should have to explain why they should not be enslaved or annexed. Wikipedia ought to know better. BasilOluo (talk) 19:06, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

BasilOluo, Wikipedia only knows as well as the rest of the world. We reflect the opinion the rest of the world has. If the minority says A is wrong, and the majority says A is right, Wikipedia will say A is right. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 19:07, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

BasilOluo You are putting this argument on the wrong page. My talk page is not going to settle this discussion. The article talk page is the place for your evidence and arguments. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:33, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Request for pending trial for the lego star wars complete saga page

Lately there has been infrequent disruptive editing on Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, mainly adding YouTube links or claiming it was the inspiration for the films and any additions of YouTube links would be removed by the next minute to avoid people noticing. Can you set up a pending trial because all of these forms of disruptive editing come from IPs. 209.237.105.107 (talk) 17:29, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't think Pending Changes at that article is a good idea. Here's why: literally ALL of the editing there is being done by IPs. In the month of February there has not been a single edit by an autoconfirmed editor, much less an editor with the "pending change reviewer" right. So the effect of PC protection would be to totally logjam the article, piling up IP edits waiting to be approved or rejected, with no one who is able to approve or reject them. Not an acceptable situation. People will just have to watchlist the page, and remove the problem edits as they occur. If you could recruit a few established editors to keep an eye on the page, that might solve the problem better than any protection. You could ask for "eyes on the article" at one of the related WikiProjects: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games, Wikipedia:WikiProject Star Wars, or Wikipedia:WikiProject Lego. Or you could register a username yourself; within a few days and a few edits you would be autoconfirmed. And you could watchlist. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:46, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Ok thanks for the answer. 209.237.105.107 (talk) 18:04, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Oh gnome! It's a unfriendly talkpage gnome!

A friendly talkpage gnome jammed your talkpage into their already very full watchlist (1640 pages!). They hope you don't mind. --—moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 19:25, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Braden, and welcome! Of course I don't mind; I love my stalkers. Besides, when you added yourself to your already very full watchlist, you helped me increase my Jimbo score from 9.01 to 9.04 centijimbos. 0;-D -- MelanieN (talk) 19:40, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Nirvana

Sorry for the double "thank you", but I just had to come here thank you personally. I'm glad you agree with my rational, this will take a load off :). Thank you for what you do. Cheers, - FlightTime (open channel) 02:37, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome. Ask any time you have a protection issue, that's the main thing I do. -- MelanieN (talk) 03:02, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I'll just have to take you up on that offer. I was looking a RfPP for upload protection via Twinkle and the noticeboard itself and nada. I checked upload protection guideline and found that a file I uploaded File:Buddy 2017.jpg could qualify for upload protection per the last bulleted item in that section which states Files with common or generic names. I've never had any protection issues with files (I do a lot of file moves). I don't know if you're comfortable with files, but if you could I'd appreciate it being protected, it is a common name. Anyway if you're not comfortable, I surely understand. Thanks for your time and for what you do :) Cheers, - FlightTime (open channel) 03:27, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with protecting files. I should have said page protection is the main thing I do here. I can see how to do an upload protection, but I'm not familiar with when and why to do it - apparently it can be used pre-emptively rather than just in response to a problem. How about this, let’s ping somebody who is both an enwiki administrator and a Commons administrator. @Czar, King of Hearts, and Ymblanter: Can you take a look at FlightTime's request? -- MelanieN (talk) 04:09, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

My understanding is that the line cited is to protect files with names like File:Jesus.jpg from collecting erroneous uploads. I would think that the dog photo above isn't at risk of being overwritten, right? If not, we avoid preemptive protection by default. (not watching, please {{ping}}) czar 04:55, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Czar, that's very helpful. -- MelanieN (talk) 05:27, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

@Czar: Understand, thanks for your time. - FlightTime (open channel) 05:45, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Caroline Flack

Hi Melanie, it's possible you've been misled about the need to SP this article. @Walter Görlitz:, requested a month(!) of SP for "persistent vandalism". There was no "persistent" vandalism. There were a few content disputes involving one particular IP user, and a couple of minor edits that might be construed as vandalism. In none of these cases were the IP users warned or blocked. However, regardless of the SP, Gorlitz, @SchroCat:, and a few others are still there edit warring and arguing. SchroCat is also surreptitiously removing edits, including mine, that don't fit his world view. He does this by using misleading, or no, edit summaries, and by reverting multiple edits at once. To summarise, the problem is not so much with the IP users, but with the anonymous users, and SP does nothing to help in this respect. They have achieved the neutralisation of a whole population of editors for no good reason. I note you gave the reason for SP as "unsourced or poorly sourced content". This is a far more accurate description of the problem, but the vast majority of edits falling into this category are carried out by anonymous users and not IP editors. Could I ask you to review your decision? Thanks, 31.52.163.160 (talk) 20:54, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I reverted your edit. It was poor. There is very little edit warring, and what you are calling "arguing" is discussion on the talk page, which is what is supposed to happen. - SchroCat (talk) 21:23, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

You wrote "...death as a suicide". I wrote "...death as suicide". My grammar is correct; yours is incorrect. 31.52.163.160 (talk) 22:13, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Of course; you are, of course, brilliant. How silly of me. - SchroCat (talk) 22:42, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your mis-characterization of my request to protect. Recent death and the article appears to be a focal point. Protect for a month please. Whether there is or is not actual vandalism, which is not the reason I should have selected, the article should be protected and changes discussed, particularly from SchroCat as they have gone well past the acceptable WP:3RR limit. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:59, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Please try to remain closer to the truth than you are at the moment: I am not past 3RR, given many of my edits have been because this is in relation to a BLP, which is supposed to have solid sourcing. If people keep breaching BLP sourcing I will keep reverting within the limits of WP:NOT3RR. And coming from the person who edit warred to over spaces while reverting back to sub-standard formatting, you'll forgive me for not taking your complaint seriously. - SchroCat (talk) 21:26, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

This is what you said at WP:RFPP: "Temporary semi-protection: Persistent vandalism – Recent death and the article appears to be a focal point. Protect for a month please. Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:55, 18 February 2020 (UTC)". You did actually cite vandalism as a problem. 31.52.163.160 (talk) 21:03, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. That's what I stated above.

I re-iterate my request to keep it protected as it is a focal point and has attracted a great deal of attention from all manner of editor. I would even consider elevating it to full protection with editors like SchroCat (eight edits in 24 hours) involved. There are others who are achieving high edit counts. Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:07, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I beg your pardon? Eight edits in a day is a problem?? What tosh. The number of edits is rarely a problem, the type of edit should be the only question. Please try and remember AGF Gorlitz and don't point fingers behind people's backs if you are going to try and smear them. - SchroCat (talk) 21:20, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your notes, all. Here’s what I saw yesterday when I decided to semi-protect it for two weeks: There was heavy editing by regular users and IPs. There was an IPv6 who repeatedly changed the location of her apartment. There were other IPs removing content or adding commentary or unsourced details about her death. At the time I didn’t see disruptive editing by autoconfirmed users so I gave it semi-protection. I do realize that had the unfortunate effect of locking out constructive IPs. Looking at it again today in response to your notes, I still see heavy editing, with some unconfirmed details about her death being added and removed, as well as arguing about what should and should not be in the article. I don’t consider these things sufficient to need a higher level of protection, but I do think the semi-protection should stay. My experience with controversial deaths like this is that people will keep trying to add rumors and unsourced details for another week or two. Given the existing semi-protection, those edits will come from autoconfirmed users, and they will need to be handled through regular page-watching. -- MelanieN (talk) 23:48, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Michael Bloomberg

Please lock the Michael Bloomberg for 24 hours. Vandals are trying to subtly insert false information about him being dead. GenericWikipedian19 (talk) 05:12, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Generic, and thanks for the note. Are you referring to this, which you reverted? That seems to have only happened once, and you caught it. Not enough of a problem to require locking the page; let's just keep an eye on the article. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:21, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Removal

Hello,

I have removed the statement "He would reportedly be the first openly gay cabinet member [47]" from Richard Grenell as he is not a cabinet member. There is a difference between being a member of the cabinet and holding cabinet rank status. Datamaster1 (talk) 14:50, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Datamaster1.Is your objection because he will be “Acting”? Or do you not accept the Director of National Intelligence as being “a member of the cabinet” even though the position is described as cabinet level? I suppose we could tweak the wording, but many Reliable Sources [7][8][9][10][11] are saying he would be the “first openly gay cabinet member”; one even said "cabinet secretary". I’m going to have to take the reliable sources as more authoritative than your interpretation, so I will restore it. I'm going to leave it as "would be" rather than "is," because it is not clear whether he has been formally appointed to the position. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:41, 20 February 2020 (UTC) Correction, apparently he was "named" yesterday. I assume his name will not be submitted for Senate confirmation as required, since Trump prefers "Acting" officials rather than confirmed ones. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:48, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

I think it is important to note that acting or not acting the DNI is not a member of the cabinet and there is a difference between cabinet member and ranking member. Datamaster1 (talk) 16:52, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

I think we should also be careful about edit waring and discuss before reverting... we can do a Rfc if you truly think I'm wrong I'd love to hear what others have to say. But by definition the statement is not accurate for many reasons. 1) He is not a member of the cabinet. 2) He is not confirmed as a ranking member of the cabinet. 3) If he is not a member of the cabinet he is not the first gay member of the cabinet. Datamaster1 (talk) 16:54, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Let's move this discussion to the article's talk page. When I restored the information I reworded it to "He is the first openly gay person to serve in a cabinet-level position." -- MelanieN (talk) 17:08, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

A Barnstar for you

		The Barnstar of Diplomacy
		For your work defusing and assisting with reaching a compromise in the RfC at Elizabeth II Natt39 (talk) 23:57, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Natt, but the person who really deserves this barnstar is User:Celia Homeford. She was the one who originally suggested the format that seems to have solved the problem. -- MelanieN (talk) 00:00, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Notice

You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Richard Grenell text and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. As threaded discussion is not permitted on most arbitration pages, please ensure that you make all comments in your own section only. Additionally, the guide to arbitration and the Arbitration Committee's procedures may be of use.

Thanks, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Datamaster1 (talk • contribs) 05:33, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Oh, for heavens sake. Datamaster1, you are carrying this quest of yours to ridiculous lengths. I will go to the arbitration page and I only hope that I can persuade people that you are new and just misguided; otherwise you are likely to get blocked as disruptive. -- MelanieN (talk) 05:39, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Datamaster1 has withdrawn the request. For the Arbitration Committee, Miniapolis 22:09, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Reacting

Thank you for this post. I am rather thick-skinned (the perks of growing up a minority in Eastern Europe!), but I know that people are hurt more by the community's silence than by the words themselves. Surtsicna (talk) 20:49, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome. I don't wear my admin hat at that article, but even before I was an admin I would have said something. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:16, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

It's rather a shame that you were not as keen to prevent the discussion being bludgeoned as it was. And for the record, User:Surtsicna, it's probably a bonus that you're thick skinned, as I neither withdraw, amend or regret my remarks. Happy days. ——SN54129 08:42, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Serial Number, I also don't withdraw my reaction to what you said. To accuse another editor of "trolling" is an attack and should not be said short of a formal complaint. To accuse someone of "bludgeoning" can sometimes be fact-based, but maybe you haven't noticed that in recent days the arguing has mostly stopped, with Surtsicna and others joining in the movement toward a compromise solution of the issue. MelanieN alt (talk) 17:00, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Working on a story about Wikipedia and misinformation and would love to chat ...

Hey there MelanieN — I'm an editor at Fast Company looking at Wikipedia's role in the info ecosystem especially around the 2020 presidential election, and noticed your vigilant editing on some related pages. I've spoken to a few editors, and if you have a few minutes, I'd love to send you a few questions by email. If you're interested or even skeptical, if you have a moment, please reach me at apasternack at gmail , and I can explain further! Thanks so much Johnshade2 (talk) 17:34, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Johnshade2. Thanks for the invitation, but no thanks. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:25, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Page protection

Hi, could you possibly look into adding a protection to Super Showdown (2020) please. There are IP users persistently vandalising the page.

Regards L1amw90 (talk) 19:12, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

L1amw90, thanks for the note. I'll take a look. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:14, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

I protected it for two days. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:18, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2020).

Administrator changes

Money emoji

Athaenara • DeltaQuad

Fishhead64 • Kudpung • Mikaey

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad

CheckUser changes

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

DeltaQuad

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops must not undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather than should not.
• A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.

Technical news

• Following a discussion, Twinkle's default CSD behavior will soon change, most likely this week. After the change, Twinkle will default to "tagging mode" if there is no CSD tag present, and default to "deletion mode" if there is a CSD tag present. You will be able to always default to "deletion mode" (the current behavior) using your Twinkle preferences.

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2020 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: BRPever, Krd, Martin Urbanec, MusikAnimal, Sakretsu, Sotiale, and Tks4Fish. There are a total of seven editors that have been appointed as stewards, the most since 2014.
• The 2020 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Ajraddatz and Uzoma Ozurumba; they will serve for one year.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:20, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the pointers Melanie. The bit about Twinkle in your page protection guide needs a tweak now that its behaviour has switched to ensure CSD is a two-handed process for everybody (techy bit in the newsletter above). The guidance is much appreciated. Cabayi (talk) 19:02, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, Cabayi. A question: Tell me what your Twinkle has as the default under CSD. I immediately changed my default to be "tag, don't delete" so I can't tell what Twinkle's is now. Sorry for the ping, need to do more research. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:12, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

OK, mine now works as described above. That was a sore spot for me because my very first action as an administrator was to accidentally delete a page I had only meant to tag! -- MelanieN (talk) 19:18, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

my very first action as an administrator was to accidentally delete a page I had only meant to tag! You think that's bad? Just minutes after becoming an administrator of a wiki on Fandom, I made a right dog's dinner of a page move that was actually rather difficult to put right. Yep, my first action after becoming the admin there was to demonstrate for all to see that I did not, in fact, have a clue what I was doing! I'm just bleeding useless aren't I? Adam9007 (talk) 01:41, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Welcome to the club! 0;-D -- MelanieN (talk) 03:31, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

It's not a particularly big wiki, but still, the evidence is there in the logs should anyone go looking. I say the move went badly. The move itself went fine; what happened was I needed to edit it to remove a deletion tag, but it couldn't be edited where I had moved it to, and there was no easy way of moving it back. It took me several minutes to get it sorted, but of course I was supposed to know what I was doing, but I clearly didn't. Adam9007 (talk) 04:57, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

You were very aware of the problems you were having, but I bet most people didn't even notice. Not something to dwell on, since I suspect you have done a lot of things perfectly since that bad start. I still laugh at myself for my bad start, but I don't let it bother me since I have done a lot of helpful things here since. So have you. -- MelanieN (talk) 05:04, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Please LOCK the main Kayastha page

Hi Melanie(administrator),

Please lock the following page

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayastha

It's the main page of Kayastha and the information present there is very important.

People have already started to vandalize this page. The rights to make edits to this page should only be given to reputed and recognised editors here who have been contributing to that page since years. Not to people like me. I'm a greenhorn here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmin

Similar to the page mentioned above WHICH IS LOCKED,the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayastha

was also LOCKED till a few days ago but since 2-3 days, it's been unlocked.

HOW?

I think that it's an error made by you guys!!

So,I hope that you LOCK that page to prevent vandalism!!  The pages like Brahmin and Kayastha are very important. People of wrong intent in their mind can easily vandalise this page.

Since the administrators like you don't have any idea about the content that can be added or deleted in this page,it'll be very difficult to retain that page's "correct information" once it's deleted by miscreants!!

I hope that it makes sense to you.

Awaiting your reply at the earliest! Dinopce (talk) 09:39, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I added this separate discussion again as I was not able to access the previous discussion page on your Talk page.

The several discussion topics were not being shown due to some reason.

Something should be wrong with your talk page settings. I am not sure. Thanks Dinopce (talk) 11:03, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Ok Melanie. Thanks for the reply.

You're the admin(boss).:) You'll know better!

It was my work to inform you regarding the politics behind it.

There are people who would like to mess with the contents of this page in future,similar to the Brahminpage.

There are people who write wrong articles about Kayasthas.

Eg: https://peoplegroupsindia.com/profiles/kayasth/#:~:text=From%20Chitragupta's%20two%20wives%2C%20Eravati,and%20Balmiki%20from%20the%20second. If you'll see the 3rd para of the origin section section in the link. The Varna or class status of the Kayasth has been a matter of controversy and they have been classified as Brahmin (highest Hindu priestly caste), Kshatriya (2nd highest warrior caste of rulers) and even Sudra (4th and lowest class of peasants and serfs). Despite their own high self-perception, the common view is that they belong to the Vaisya, or 3rd highest caste of traders.

Our reference in scriptures is that of Brahmin varna(The learned) or Kshatriya varna(The warriors) if you'll go through the recent changes in the main page that I made with references.

Kayasthas were not able to prove their Brahmin varna(The learned) status under law but they've proved their Kshatriya varna(warrior or ruling class)status in Calcutta and Patna high court.

Under law, Kayasthas are purest of Kshatriya! Once upon a time,Kayasthas ruled more than half of entire Indian subcontinent.

Swami Vivekananda (The man who established Hinduism as a major religion in the Parliament of World Religion in the year 1893) was a Kayastha(caste). Not a Brahmin(caste).

VID-WAAN(Extremely knowledgeable regarding scriptures, religion etc )- In the old days,only Kayasthas and Brahmins(caste) could become a VIDWAAN. It's all a game of genes! Note: I hope you'll not think of me as some crazy person or anything after this. It's just that I wanted to share what I know!

You can clearly understand the politics behind it now. If any site or person is writing other wise,then he's messing with the history for vested interest. Wikipedia articles are considered credible! Messing with the information here regarding anything means people will acquire wrong information about a topic in their mind. Wiki-pedia means Quick Encyclopedia! That quick part shouldn't contain half-baked knowledge,if you can catch the drift.:) Just keep this in mind! The rest you'll know better.

Also,just checked the following page. Somebody has messed with it. It'll require a revert,I think. It's hotch-potch.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panipuri

Ciao! Dinopce (talk) 05:29, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Ok. Melanie. Understood. As an admin,you'll know better. Dinopce (talk) 05:37, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Protection of the page "Kayasthas"

Hi Melanie(Administrator),

Please lock the following page

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayastha

It's the main page of Kayastha and the information present there is very important.

The rights to make edits to this page should only be given to reputed and recognised editors here who have been contributing to that page since years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmin

Similar to the page mentioned above WHICH IS LOCKED,the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayastha

was also LOCKED till a few days ago but from a 2-3 days ago, it's been unlocked.

HOW?

I hope that it's an error made by you guys. So,I hope that you lock that page to prevent vandalism!!

Note:The rights to make changes to that page should be given to TRUSTWORTHY USERS. If Wikipedia feels that I'm not a trustworthy user,then don't give me access to make changes in that page.

Note1:The page "Brahmin" & "Kayastha" are prone to get vandalised by people of other castes as these two are one of the most hated castes here in India by people of lower castes. Wanted to give you this information. Kayasthas are more or less like the "protestants" of Hinduism(similar to the Protestants and Catholics of Christianity). Protestants=Kayastha Catholic=Brahmin

The above is for your knowledge as you're a foreigner.

PS: Please LOCK THE "Kayastha" page and give access to genuine users only.

Awaiting your reply at the earliest! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dinopce (talk • contribs) 10:59, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Dinopce. If you're wondering why I didn't reply earlier: I was offline all day yesterday. About the page Kayastha: it has been semi-protected since 2012 and still is. That prevents editing by anonymous editors and brand-new users. I don't see any disruption in the recent history that would call for a higher level of protection. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:41, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Implementing a manual of style change in US politics

If I wanted to propose a Wikipedia policy / rule change, what would be the best / most likely way to get it implemented? The rule change / guideline I want to propose is something along the lines of: "When possible, use aggregate polling rather than individual polls". I think this rule would get rid off some pointless arguing and edit-warring. Usually, sensible people can agree that aggregate polling is infinitely superior and that it solves the problem of cherry-picking polls to fit certain narratives, but after seeing editors on Trump-related pages forcefully argue for individual polls in 2016 and most recently editors on Bernie Sanders-related pages fight for the inclusion of individual polls in this election cycle, it's clear that making a rule-change would solve some unnecessary headaches. This problem sometimes also pops up on pages for individual congressional candidates. Page watchers can chip in. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:32, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Snoogans, thanks for the note, but I'm probably not the best person to ask. I rarely get involved with meta issues or general discussion pages. Offhand I would say what you are seeking is not a policy or rule - possibly a guideline, or possibly a consensus applying only to U.S. politics. I'm trying to think of a well-traveled site where this could be discussed and a definitive consensus reached. This is an issue of content, not style, so not an MOS page. One possibility would be Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics/American politics. That is not a heavily trafficked page, but with notices at multiple appropriate talk pages it might be possible to have a valid discussion. Another might be Talk:Opinion poll, but that is an even more obscure page. I'm going to ping some other admins who might have better suggestions for where to hold this discussion. @Neutrality, Muboshgu, and TonyBallioni: Any thoughts where to take this question? -- MelanieN (talk) 16:19, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Seems like it would be a sensible change for all politics, not just US. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics, 336 watchers? Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums, 151 watchers? Cabayi (talk) 18:32, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

@Snooganssnoogans:, sounds like a case for the Village Pump. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:47, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Maybe an MOS issue? From a practical standpoint, I doubt it will gain consensus unless it already has it. RfCs exist more serve to document pre-existing consensus that no one bothered to write down than anything else. Trying to change policy that way rarely works without significant buy-in before. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:53, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Protection of US universities

Hi MelanieN, I see that you've semi-protected a whole bunch of US universities due to vandalism taking the form of "X university is an online university". It's a good idea to get a jump on the ball. I just wonder if two weeks of semi-protection is rather extreme, since it looks like it's usually vandalism from 1 or 2 IP addresses, which doesn't strike me as heavy, persistent vandalism. I would think that a couple days would be more appropriate, and then extensions if need be. Ergo Sum 23:39, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts, Ergo Sum. I agree that two weeks is more than I would usually give for something like this. (Violates my own guidelines at User:MelanieN/Page protection!). The reason I am giving them all two weeks rather than my normal two days is that I think it is likely to continue for at least that long and I don't want us to have keep re-protecting them. Yes, I guess I was using IAR and thinking a little bit pre-emptively, but I feel it is justified in this case. I was also installing protection when that particular edit had been done and reverted twice; normally I would want to see three vandalism edits before protecting, but this is clearly a pattern, probably being promoted via social media somewhere. The exact same edit is being done by different people at dozens of pages. When we get a Wiki-wide onslaught like this, I think we need to be more aggressive in combatting it. -- MelanieN (talk) 23:54, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Parkdean Resorts

Thanks MelanieN, you did a really good job of cleaning up that article and streamlining what I had written. Thank you for making the text tight and concise. Great job. Appreciate your time and input. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.187.190.111 (talk) 01:15, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome. I saw it at RfPP and decided I would edit the article and let someone else handle the protection request. -- MelanieN (talk) 01:36, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

P.S. One thing I didn't do is expand the references into proper citations instead of bare urls. I'll let you do that. If you don't know how, see Help:Referencing for beginners. -- MelanieN (talk) 01:39, 22 March 2020 (UTC) Thanks! That's a good bit of practice for me to get used to this. Thanks for taking the time to signpost the how-to. I'll do my best to tidy this up! Great to collaborate :)81.187.190.111 (talk) 02:06, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Discuss first for Trump lead

Greetings. I can't find the talk page thread, but I'm fairly certain I recently flat out told Markbassett he was wrong to revert for that reason. I don't recall any disagreement with that. If that's a thing, I wonder what the twelve "do not change without prior consensus" hidden comments in the lead and infobox are for.

If we're going to make that a requirement, I think we should have an explicit consensus and it should be in the consensus list. Otherwise the lead should be subject to BRD like anything else that's not in the list. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:57, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

I've often heard things like that said at the talk page - "you shouldn't have changed this, you should have discussed it first". And in any case removing it is an application of BRD. But since I reverted, I should discuss, and I will. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:29, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

2020 Olympics

Hi Melanie. Just wanted to drop a quick note to let you know that I have unlocked the Olympics given the official confirmation of the delay. I reset protection to semi-pp x 48 hrs. I hope you and yours are well.. -Ad Orientem (talk) 13:24, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Ad Orientem, I was hoping someone would do this as soon as it was official. (I had figured I might be in the wrong time zone, and sure enough I was!) I suspect we may need semi for longer than 48 hours, but we can wait and see what happens. Also, let's keep an eye out in case people start moving the article; it is currently not move-protected. Right now they are having a nice civil discussion at the talk page about the article title. If they reach consensus and do an agreed-upon move all will be well; if people start renaming it outside the process we will have to move-protect. -- MelanieN (talk) 14:55, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Muhajir people

User:Gotitbro was constantly removing reliably sourced content and replacing it with unsourced made up content. The user seems to have an old history of edit warring across multiple articles. Please review the edits. I can provide the sources for the edits he removed so they can be reviewed and verified.76.69.44.222 (talk)

Thanks for your note. But the place to discuss content is Talk:Muhajir people. -- MelanieN (talk) 14:46, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

I have repeatedly explained in edit summaries and cited all the edits, including from Oxford University and the Encyclopedia of Asian and Oceanic peoples.76.69.44.222 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:39, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Don't explain in edit summaries. Explain on the talk page. Show your sources, with links. The talk page is where discussion happens. That's where consensus can be reached. -- MelanieN (talk) 14:31, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	I'm awarding this barnstar for your tireless efforts at WP:RFPP. Clovermoss (talk) 19:21, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Clovermoss! My guilty secret: page protection is my favorite area because it's the only admin action that you ever get thanked for! -- MelanieN (talk) 19:36, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

We can all use a little humor while we shelter in place

I probably shouldn't do this, but hey, it's MY talk page! This is the funniest thing I have seen in days. Somebody named Daniel Matarazzo has rewritten the words to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious for our current situation. [12] -- MelanieN (talk) 18:31, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I've petitioned the OED to include this new word. Liked the comment to next do the song: Don't Stand so Close to me. O3000 (talk) 18:43, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

By "new word" you mean superbadtransmittablecontagiousawfulvirus? I'd be in favor of that. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:46, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Not as long as pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. But longer than floccinaucinihilipilification which I managed to use once. O3000 (talk) 18:52, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Well done! Hey, here's another song they should adapt for current use: Every Breath You Take. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:07, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

See, we were warned. By British rock musicians. O3000 (talk) 20:13, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

And Duke Ellington. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:33, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

"The only truth is music. Music blends with the heartbeat universe and we forget the brain beat." --Kerouac. Well, he forgot wine. O3000 (talk) 20:39, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Where have all the Kleenex gone?

Happy to be able to report that humour is also good for treating the actual symptoms (rather than just our moods)....spewing hot tea out of the nose is good for clearing nasal congestion. Meters (talk) 20:42, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Now the tea shelves will be empty in the markets. O3000 (talk) 21:21, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

And the Kleenex shelves. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:22, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

"Long time passing...When will they ever learn?" O3000 (talk) 21:28, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I thought I was the only person that remembered that song. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:35, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm a child of the 60s. Now, I'm going to have that song going through my head all night long. O3000 (talk) 21:37, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

BTW I forwarded this to a friend, and she replied "Superclevereruditeinfectioussongdelightsus!!" -- MelanieN (talk) 02:30, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

ITN recognition for Robert Campbell (California politician)

On 29 March 2020, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article Robert Campbell (California politician), which you created. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:36, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Temporary protection

Yesterday you declined temporary semi-protection at Arthur Rudolph (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), saying it was just one IP and issuing them a final warning. They are still at it, and now have moved to a mobile device, causing the same disruption. All together, there have been 4 IP's involved in this disruption, all of them using the same edit summaries, all causing the same disruption, and all locate to the same area. If you believe the article is not a candidate for semi-protection, what would you advise? Thanks. Isaidnoway (talk) 12:40, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know, User:Isaidnoway. I have semi-protected the article for two weeks. If they resume after that expires, let me know or list it at RfPP, and we can re-protect for a longer period. -- MelanieN (talk) 14:52, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

User talk:Lomita

Hi, and thank you for your action on User talk:Lomita. Since my request at RFPP is archived, I'm replying here. (Poke @Lomita: )

The last vandal on her page was dealt with at AIV and indeed it was some spillover from fr.wp. What I'm concerned with is, since Lomita is the most active admin on fr.wp, this kind of abuse is bound to happen again sooner or later once the protection is lifted. Regards, Comte0 (talk) 07:21, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

@Comte0: OK, I've slept on it and you have convinced me. I will make the semi-protection indefinite. I was close anyhow. This is kind of IAR, but I can see her situation is unique.

I can pretty much follow your conversations with her - I haven't forgotten quite ALL of my high-school French - and I can see you have been a good friend to her, so thank you for that. I have no idea what the vandals are saying. Is any of it bad enough that it should be revdel'ed? -- MelanieN (talk) 15:47, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words. Actually I patrol the en.wp user pages of the admins and RC patrol people on fr.wp, this is how I found out about her situation. Regards, Comte0 (talk) 12:17, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Indefinitely semi-protected pages previously pending changes protected

Hi, could you reset the pending changes settings for these indefinitely semi-protected pages?

Henry Kissinger, Harry Truman and Richard Gere.

These pages were previously pending changes protected but are now indefinitely semi-protected but the prior pending changes settings have never been reset.

Thanks, Putwood (talk) 01:02, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

 Done -- MelanieN (talk) 01:16, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Irdeto Wikipedia Page

Hi Melanie,

Thanks for your reply about the re-creation of the Irdeto Wikipedia page.

For next steps, we will be pulling together independent reliable coverage and we will have someone from the industry, not affiliated with Irdeto that will be contributing to the new page.

Does that work? Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Me2307 (talk • contribs) 15:29, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Do whatever you can and make it into a Draft page. Instructions are at WP:Drafts and at Help:Your first article. Don't ask me to review it. Let the normal draft review processes work. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:46, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Regarding my request for page protection

Because I was requesting PC, that is a decrease in protection level according to Twinkle. Was it moved because I then requested ECP? Thepenguin9 (talk) 17:14, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Penguin, and thanks for your note. I moved your request to "requests for increase in protection" because it wasn't clear to me that you understood that PC was a decrease. You sounded like you thought it was an increase. You asked for PC because "semi-protection isn't sufficient enough," when actually semi-protection is stronger - more "sufficient" - than PC would be. (PC allows all edits, even those by non-autoconfirmed users, which then have to be manually deleted if they are disruptive). You then wondered if "PC would be too harsh" when it is actually is weaker than semi-protection. You then said "If PC is too harsh, then would ECP suffice" - when ECP is more "harsh" than the existing semi-protection and much more harsh than PC. In any case, the article is not a candidate for PC protection because PC doesn't work well on articles that get many edits a day - any time there is a pending edit, it blocks all subsequent edits until the pending edit is dealt with. Semi-protection is better in such as case, and semi is working well at that article. See my essay on page protection for more about the difference between the various levels of protection and when they are appropriate. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:34, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

I was thinking about it in two different ways, with the reduction meaning more manual work for reviewers, and ECP being less harsh as it does not require manual work.

But, I was merely curious as to why it was moved and not really bothered about it either. I will read your essay soon when I'm more awake for it. Thepenguin9 (talk) 01:26, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Question about reversion and pending changes

Hi! Sorry if this isn't the appropriate place, but I had a couple questions I was hoping you could help with:

1. The Thomas Modly article has both the semi-protection and pending changes templates applied. According to this table, that should mean that autoconfirmed/confirmed users are able to edit normally. However, as an extended confirmed user, my edits were pending, which appears to only apply to unregistered/newly registered users when a page is in pending changes protection. Is this expected? Is there a level of protection where all non-admins/reviewers must have their edits approved?
2. You reverted my edit to the Modly article. The original (and current) wording stated that Modly was "castigating Crozier as "too naive or too stupid" to be in command of a ship." I felt this violated NPOV because what Modly actually said was Crozier was "[either] too naive or too stupid to be the commanding officer of a ship like this [or] the alternative is that he did this on purpose." Reading the rest of the speech makes it clear that his aim was *not* to say that Crozier was stupid or naive, but rather that Crozier intentionally wanted the memo leaked to the press. Using the word "castigating" along with taking his words out of context seems to be very non-NPOV to me.

Jaardon (talk) 00:20, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Jaardon. I was surprised, too, that your edit showed as pending. I have never seen that happen with someone who was autoconfirmed. I just checked your user rights and you are not only autoconfirmed, you are extended confirmed. So I have no idea how that happened. Anyhow, let's talk about your edit. I am open to something with a fuller quote, but I felt that your edits and modifications to the quote left too much out, or distorted it even worse than the brief "naive or stupid" snippet most sources are using. Should we just put in the exact quote as he said it? And in fact, include his qualification that he was talking not in generality about "stupid or naive," but specifically about Crozier not anticipating that it would leak to the press? The entire quote is

"If he didn’t think, in my opinion, that this information wasn't going to get out to the public, in this day and information age that we live in, then he was either A, too naïve or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this," Modly said of Crozier. "The alternative is that he did this on purpose."

I think we could leave out the "alternative" sentence because most sources are not mentioning it, probably assuming he didn't mean it. Maybe just put "..." instead of "either A,"? And now that I look at the quote, he has an unintentional double negative in there that messes up what he was trying to say. (If he didn't think... that the information wasn't going to get out.) How much of this do you think we should use? Let's craft a quote and use it. -- MelanieN (talk) 00:36, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your response and willingness to work together on this. Note that I think what Modly did in firing Crozier was absolutely wrong, but in the interest of maintaining a NPOV, I feel we should be fair and careful in how we characterize his words. Let's take a look at the speech—I recognize that most sources are conveniently leaving out the "alternative" part, but this seems disingenuous. If you read the rest of the speech, he makes it clear he felt Crozier intentionally leaked the memo. The question is whether Modly purposefully characterized Crozier as naive/stupid OR was he only using hyperbole to contrast with his actual beliefs (that Crozier *wanted* the media involved). Having listened to the audio a few times, I believe this best sums up what he meant to say:

"Crozier was either (A) too naive or stupid to think his email wouldn't leak to the press, or (B) he did it on purpose."

The confusion seems to come from the fact that he forgot to say "B" and didn't immediately clarify that he believes the answer is B, not A. Considering the context, you can tell he wants to highlight the absurdity of Crozier's argument (that he was didn't mean for it to leak, yet copied 20+ people). Here are some excerpts from the speech that show Modly's view that Crozier wanted the memo leaked:

• "he compromised critical information about your status intentionally to draw greater attention to your situation. That was my judgment"
• "there is no situation where you go to the media"
• "Imagine if every other CO also believed that the media was also the proper channel to hear grievances with their chain of command under difficult circumstances."
• "those facts show that what your captain did was very, very wrong"

These quotes characterize Crozier's actions as purposeful. Modly argues that Crozier knew *exactly* what he was doing when he sent out that email, he's not stupid or naive.

So how to quote it properly? Following your suggestion of including a fuller quote (and leaving out "castigating" for NPOV), how about:

"If he didn't think that information was going to get out into the public...then he was [either] too naive or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this [or] he did this on purpose."

I feel this captures the full context of the naive and stupid line (btw, the "unintentional double negative" doesn't actually exist, if you listen to the audio or read the CNN transcript he says "was." I noticed the Task and Purpose transcript has numerous issues like this). Jaardon (talk) 19:57, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

BTW I have removed the PC protection. It overlapped with and duplicated the semi-protection, and it seemed to be malfunctioning. You should be able to edit normally now. -- MelanieN (talk) 01:46, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I noticed that :). Yeah, that seems to have fixed the unexpected behavior I experienced earlier. Jaardon (talk) 19:57, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

OK, I put that into the article, using the CNN transcript as source. That also solved a disagreement I was having with another editor about where to place the reference. And I notice we already have a quote in the same paragraph from when he apologized for the remarks, confirming that he meant to imply that Crozier did it on purpose. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:59, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Yay! Glad this all worked out well, and everything got resolved. Jaardon (talk) 01:49, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Legitimate Page Protection Request

Since you are one of the most trustworthy admins on Wikipedia, I wanted to ask you if you could add page protection to The Phelps School Wikipedia page. Persistent disruptive editing by IPs destroying the page. The school has been the center of some controversy lately so it is not surprising, but please add protection. It has absolutely been justified by these IPs adding unsourced information and deleting other information randomly constantly. -Editor940-Thanks. Editor940 (talk)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Editor940 (talk —Preceding undated comment added 23:39, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Editor, give it a rest. You have been trying and trying to get someone to protect that page, because you want to win your disagreement with an IP by making them unable to edit the page. You have tried WP:RFPP at least twice. You have tried several administrators. You have never made any effort to use the article's talk page, which is a basic requirement if you want anyone to take your requests seriously. You did manage to get the attention of an administrator, Eagles247, and they have been working to improve the article. Be grateful for them, work with them, follow their guidance and advice, and stop shopping your request all over the 'pedia. -- MelanieN (talk) 00:33, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Just a heads up, they didn't appreciate your advice. Eagles 24/7 (C) 18:00, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Eagles: Thanks. I had seen that and was preparing a report about them redirecting their talk page, but you intervened and took care of it. I didn’t mind them criticizing me; as an admin I expect some of that. They were legitimately angry with me, because I was pretty strong here in my reaction to their forum shopping. But that scam with making their talk page into a redirect - that was a particularly sneaky way of getting around the prohibition on deleting talk pages. Anybody who can figure out that series of moves - and anybody who has the ability to move their user page to their talk page without leaving a redirect[13] - is no newbie and is almost certainly a sock of some kind. Thanks for your attempts to work with them - we all need to AGF - and thanks for dealing with them once they made it clear they were disruptive. Their gratitude to you can now be seen on their talk page. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:06, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree that they're likely a sock (I was the one who moved their talk page back into place without a redirect). Anyway, I appreciate your support and hopefully this editor can be less disruptive when the block expires. Eagles 24/7 (C) 18:16, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

I missed that, sorry. I saw the redirect but missed that it was to a mainspace article. They are certainly angry right now.[14] At least Serial Number got them to change their tone a little. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:23, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Request for Undeletion of the article

Dear Melanie, I see that the article Ashwin Kumar Lakshmikanthan has been deleted in a AFD consensus. While reviewing the senior editor’s comments, I realize that the Overuse of the references had infuriated them asking for a Harsh Delete. I shall work with the article’s nominator and other senior editors who have commented on the page and rectify the references as per their guidance. I realize that my mistake is not reaching out to experienced editors thru talk for assistance as I was under the impression that seeking help during AFD deletion process is not permitted. I shall get their valuable inputs and remove irrelevant references and make it a better article. Please take this into consideration and help me with this request. Much appreciated.Adapongaiya (talk) 18:47, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Adapongaiya, thanks for your note. I will draftify it for you. I do advise you: don't be in a hurry to try to move it from draft to article. Get advice and input while it is still a draft. Try to make it actually different from the restored article; don't just add or subtract a few references. The reason I advise this is: an article which has been deleted by an AfD discussion, as this one was, can be "speedy deleted" (see WP:G4) if it is not significantly different from the deleted version. So make sure it is significantly different. I should also warn you that an article about this person has been deleted twice already, and if it gets deleted a third time it will probably be "salted", which means the title gets locked so it can't be created any more. So don't be in a hurry to put it back in the encyclopedia; get advice so you can be pretty sure it will be kept this time. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:58, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

OK, you can find it at Draft:Ashwin Kumar Lakshmikanthan. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:05, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Melanie, thank you so much for such a quick turn around. I shall be patient this time, get ample inputs before submission. Very much grateful to you.Adapongaiya (talk) 20:27, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Second opinion

Hi Melanie, I wanted a second opinion on what to do about List of Henry Danger episodes. It's PC protection recently expired and I think it might benefit from indef PC protection. Amaury has been an active reviewer for it so maybe they have an insight too. I doubt there's a wrong choice, but I'd feel better with more heads. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:16, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

A good way to gauge a need for PC (vs. semi) is to see how many good IP edits are being made (i.e. how many are not reverted and kept in the article), if the number is too low in contrast to the total number of edits, then it's good to just semi it. AFAICS, only about 3/100 edits seem to be not reverted, in that case, PC is not helpful and just increases work imo. If you're starting off with RFPP, you tend to err on the side of caution and be more conservative (I was as well and Melanie pointed it out to me actually). Either way, whatever she says is probably going to be more insightful, hope I could help! --qedk (t 愛 c) 19:31, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Wugapodes, and thanks for the note. I always look first at the protection log. In this case, the article has needed almost continuous semi-protection since its creation five years ago, so IMO it is clearly a candidate for indefinite protection of some kind. For the last month it has had PC protection as an experiment. During that time editing has been heavier than I like to see with PC, which really only works with lightly edited articles. And I agree with qedk that the contributions from IPs during that time have mostly not been constructive. So I would restore the indefinite semi-protection. Sorry, IPs, but you can always request an edit on the talk page. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:42, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

P.S. Might as well throw in another of my shameless plugs for User:MelanieN/Page protection. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:48, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks both! Strong arguments for indef semi-protection, so I've added that. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:19, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Sigh

How dare you abuse your position of authority by making a simple factual improvement of obviously encyclopedic relevance to an important Wikipedia article! And in a totally neutral way too - it's outrageous! ;-) Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:10, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your well earned reprimand. How foolish of me to think that there might be anything, anything at all, that could be considered uncontroversial when it comes to current American politics. I wonder if they would accept a mention that the sun came up this morning? 0;-D -- MelanieN (talk) 14:55, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, it could be fake sun :-) Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:12, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I don't believe it's the sun at all, please obtain WP:CONSENSUS first. --qedk (t 愛 c) 15:16, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

I dunno, I think Guy made a good point there.[15] On it's face the edit was fine but there are issues with editing through protection in general. PackMecEng (talk) 15:30, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I already reverted the edit and apologized for assuming it would be uncontroversial. Several of us made minor undiscussed edits to that page while it was under full protection; I assumed this could be another one. You know the old joke about what happens when we ASSUME; we make an ASS out of U and ME. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:40, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah I was surprised by how many where editing through personally, I counted seven. I think you just got lucky! PackMecEng (talk) 15:43, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Or unlucky, depending on your viewpoint. 0;-D It was just luck that I saw that AN complaint; I hadn't been notified about it. But at least I did see it, so I could respond, hear the feedback, and react in a timely manner. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:45, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

There is nothing uncontroversial about this.[16]. The DNC and journalists may have colluded to suppress the Tara Reade story until getting Bernie to endorse Biden.[17] Frankly I think it's time to discuss the bias of the mainstream media in the RS noticeboard (if we can get better sources than The Hill). Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:01, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Felipemelo5820

Hello. Sorry to bother you, but he's come off the block and immediately made the same revert. Perhaps an indef from that article, or a longer general block may be in order. Cheers, Number 57 11:23, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the alert. Blocked from the article for two weeks this time. Third time will be indefinite. About whether a general block might be warranted: That article has been his main focus, but I see a few edits at other long-ago elections. You would be much more able to evaluate those than I. This edit, for example, might be a problem? -- MelanieN (talk) 14:43, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

It seems to be ok; the 11 July date appears to be the Korean calendar date, not the Gregorian. Number 57 17:17, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Template:Editnotices/Page/2020 Summer Olympics

Hello there, could you please make this request for edit noticing users to remind about the 2020 Summer Olympics being held in 2021:

ApprenticeFan work 14:39, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello, ApprenticeFan. Thanks for your work in creating this edit notice. But I think it should be discussed at the talk page before adding it. Once there is consensus to add it and agreement on the wording, suggest it to an admin who is more familiar than I am with how to add these. Thanks.-- MelanieN (talk) 14:49, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Douglas Mastriano and Drwillow

Thank you for stopping the continued vandalism today on this page. Would you be able to revert the page back to it's previous state? Hyderabad22 (talk) 22:56, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Hyderabad22. I suggest you ask one of the autoconfirmed users who post at that article, such as LuK3 or Ifnord. The history is confusing, and I am not sure what is and is not supposed to be in the article. -- MelanieN (talk) 23:11, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Understandable, MelanieN the page seems to have begun to be brigaded a few days ago starting with this edit. I've placed a check user request for DrWillow. The user seems to also be the subject of the article and has a clear undisclosed conflict of interest in the page.

The page Saheem Khan

Hello, How're you Sir? Recently you deleted an article Saheem Khan which I created it, saying that it's recreation of an article which has previously deleted. I accept the article was deleted already but it's been almost 1 year as it was deleted in June 2019. The title was not so much notable then and it didn't come in wikipedia notability guidelines. And now after 1 year, the title is qualifying the Wikipedia:Notability (people). And that's why I created it.SAHEEM KHAN (Google, News). Sir, Go and check in Google and also in News Section where now some recent published article showing on top which are not from so much notable websites I agree but many other notable news websites like Zee News, Navbharat Times, The Lallantop, KoiMoi etc published about his works and the awards he got at Creation Film Festival Canada.You are an admin, you are the senior wikipedian sir, please get in to deepness of the article and then create it because it's been 1 year almost when it was previously deleted and now the title is already been eligible for wikipedia Thanks. -Rama.dhanraj (talk) 11:09, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Rama.dhanraj, and thanks for your note. Yes, I deleted the article, because it was no different from the article that was deleted last June as a result of this discussion, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Saheem Khan (2nd nomination). That is a reason for speedy deletion, according to WP:G4. As of last June he had already received the CIFF award, so that was already taken into account in the June discussion. I also checked Google and did not find anything helpful. The article has now been created and deleted four times, so I locked the page so that it can't be recreated any more. The only way he could have an article is if he does some new, notable work, more than what he has done up to now. If he does, you could create a draft article in your namespace, at User:Rama.dhanraj/Saheem Khan. Then ask me or another administrator if it is different enough from the previous articles to allow it in the encyclopedia. Sorry, I know this is frustrating, but Wikipedia has rules about who can have an article, see WP:NACTOR. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:11, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Vetted Page

I see that the Operation Storm page has bene locked with reviewed edits. This seemed to have benefited one editor against another editor. The recent added UN info is dated with alter courts stating otherwise as the article has stated and the Veritas source doesn’t seem RS. Also it seems pov styled for one ethnic group in particular instead of being NPOV. Please take a look when you have the time. Thank you. PortalTwo (talk) 14:34, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello, PortalTwo. I don't understand why your edits were held up as pending. You are an autoconfirmed user so your edits should be automatically accepted - just as Griboski's and Galendalia's are. I just looked at the history again and your latest edits have been auto-accepted - so the problem, whatever it was, must have fixed itself. Remember to discuss on the talk page if you and another user disagree. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:46, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

20XX-nCoV naming format

Hi Melanie. I see you've taken an interest in the Novel coronavirus page. Therefore, I'd like to let you know that I have just, for the second time, removed the invented 'pre-cursor' terms 2002-nCoV, 2005-nCoV and 2012-nCoV, for earlier coronaviruses. They weren't used, and aren't now, as is easily googled. I've similarly removed that term from the MERS page. I've commented, and invited any further discussion, at the Novel coronavirus Talk page. (I would have advised the original editor 89.206.118.4, as he inserted a well constructed table, but he only used his IP address, which has no active talk page.)
Thanks for keeping an eye on things. - Onanoff (talk) 16:14, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Onanoff, and thanks for the note. My only "interest" in the page was to semi-protect it in response to a request at WP:RFPP. I see the protection has just expired and already there has been one incident of vandalism. So I have added the page to my watchlist and will re-protect it if it seems necessary. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:43, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. - Onanoff (talk) 21:14, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
	For reverting this edit on the clerks page Guerillero | Parlez Moi 14:20, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

De nada. Somehow I just had the feeling that person was not a clerk... 0;-D Amazing how trolls will find the strangest pages to vandalize. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:20, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Anarchism

Hi, can you have a look at Anarchism? An ip user is constantly adding a sentence at lede. Thanks! Cinadon36 19:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Semiprotected for a month. Thanks for the alert, Cinadon. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:46, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

That will do. Many thanks! Cinadon36 20:02, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Afraid to even discuss...

I saw the RfC you opened regarding Donald Trump's mental health.[18] I'm nervous to bring up this topic yet again, but it's such a noteworthy exclusion I have to look into it. Before I go any further, any thoughts on this first paragraph?[19] It's published in a peer-reviewed journal, and the other paragraphs are published by the APA (but not in a peer-reviewed journal). That first paragraph isn't actually describing Trump's health, so I thought it might serve to acknowledge the subject without violating the RfC decision. Kolya Butternut (talk) 05:42, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Kolya, thanks for the note. Yes, I opened that RfC last year because I felt one was required by the closure of the AfD on the Trump's Health article. At the time I !voted to keep the material, not because I agreed but because I thought I should defer to the AfD discussion. But I was glad the result was not to say anything. We have discussed this many, many times with regard to Trump (as you can see from the links I provided). We have pretty much always managed to keep it out of the article and I concur with that. I also worked hard to remove the speculations about Biden's mental health from the Joe Biden article - it used to have a whole section implying he was losing it. I also worked to keep health speculation out of the Hillary Clinton article. IMO this kind of speculation, even from professionals, should be kept out per BLP. Some editor's opinions on the subject seem to be swayed by their feelings for or against the subject; they want to include it because they don't like the person, or because they personally believe the "diagnoses". IMO we should keep it out of all biographies unless it has strong reliable sourcing, regardless of what I think of the person. Your draft paragraph looks very much like the previous proposals and is based on the same material as the others were, so I doubt if it would fly. Not to say you can't try it, but you asked my opinion. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:21, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. What did you think of this existing article text: "Despite this letter, rumors and conspiracy theories concerning Clinton's health proliferated online. In August 2016, Trump questioned Hillary's stamina and Sean Hannity called for Clinton to release her medical records, fueling these theories."[20] I understand the opposition to repeating speculation, but I'm confused about the opposition to reporting that the speculation existed. If an APA publication reports this as news, why shouldn't we? Those are just some of the questions I've been asking myself. Now that I've slept on it I was leaning towards: In August 2016, for Psychiatric News, Aaron Levin wrote that "columnists and op-ed writers decided en masse" to speculate about Trump's mental health. He later wrote that "psychiatrists have publicly offered their views on the mental status" of the president. This text would simply cover the story. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:39, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

So rather than reporting what they said about him, you would simply report that some people are talking about it? You are free to suggest it, of course, or even to boldly insert it into the article and see if anyone reverts it. I would note that there have been dozens if not hundreds of books about Donald Trump; most are not mentioned in his biography. The Hillary material was apparently included as an example of "conspiracy theories" during her presidential campaign; there is nothing on the subject in her biography. But I'm guessing that "conspiracy theories" is not how you would treat this.

BTW I've been meaning to tell you, I like your name. It reminds me of Rumple Buttercup. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:01, 25 April 2020 (UTC)