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Appeal to rescind Topic Ban

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

---

Background

• August 2018 – First TBAN imposed at ANI: WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive989#Davidbena
• February 2019 – Successful appeal of first TBAN: WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive306#Request to lift my topic ban issued against me in August 2018
• April 2019 – Second TBAN imposed: WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive308#Hounding and Deliberate Disruptive Editing
• November 2019 – Appeal of second TBAN: WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive315#Request to lift topic ban – closed as unsuccessful
• May 2020 – Second appeal of second TBAN: WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive320#Kindly requesting admins to rescind my ARBPIA topic ban – archived without formal close
• June 2020 – Appeal of second TBAN at AE: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive267#Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Davidbena – declined as out of jurisdiction, and DB advised to reopen a request at WP:AN.

Davidbena's original post follows. – Joe (talk) 14:10, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Joe, hope it's OK, I added a minor tweak in green to prevent people from getting the wrong idea that this request is forumshopping. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:37, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

---

I, the appealing user, Davidbena (talk · contribs · WHOIS), am humbly submitting this petition to rescind a Topic ban imposed against me by Ymblanter in the ARBPIA area; imposed here (no. 55), during my last appeal in November of 2019, and which I had mistakenly tried to appeal on Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement noticeboard earlier this year. My wrongly placed topic ban appeal was declined on 13 June 2020 as shown here and where I was asked to submit a new appeal at AN, at a later time. I have duly informed all administrators involved in imposing this ban (Euryalus, Bishonen, Oshwah, Ymblanter), hoping for a fair and equitous resolution of the same.

The reason for this appeal is, first and foremost, because the current Topic ban in the ARBPIA area has been active against me for the duration of a little over one year. I am humbly asking for the opportunity to renew editing in the ARBPIA area, seeing that many of the articles classified under the ARBPIA template are, in fact, historical places (e.g. Kafr 'Inan, Bayt Nattif, Solomon's Pools, Old City (Jerusalem), etc.). Often, the involvement of these places in the 1948 or 1967 Arab-Israeli conflicts are only incidental to their broader historical context and scope, for which I am mostly interested in writing about. If I should ever touch on the Arab-Israeli wars from a historical perspective, I will do my utmost best to maintain an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among fellow contributors. I will also keep foremost in my mind that we, as editors, are to present a fact-based and fact-checked narrative of events, based on reliable sources, and detached from all personal bias and/or taking any side in this area of conflict. I assure my fellow co-editors here that I will not use my role as editor to advocate any advocacy on behalf of any one side in this conflict, but try to be as open-minded as I can to both arguments of the conflict in question (having a healthy respect and goodwill for all peoples who live in and share the same land), stating the facts as neutrally as I possibly can, whenever I am called upon to do so.

I will do my utmost best to maintain an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors, and try to present both sides of the argument (if need be), that is to say, neutrality, rather than pursue an advocacy for any one side, just as requested by WP policy.

Recently, I was asked to fix problems in the reference formatting of an article nominated for DYK that is classified as ARBPIA, as shown here, but because of its ARBPIA classification, I could not do anything to that article.

DISCLAIMER: a) In those articles where there is an ARBPIA template, I have altogether refrained from editing; b) in those articles where there is not an ARBPIA template, my edits in them have not been about anything relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Only once on a Talk-Page did I vaguely mention it in passing, but when reminded that this topic is "off-limits" to me even in unmarked pages, I quickly desisted.Davidbena (talk) 01:07, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. Reading the discussion that imposed your Topic ban, I see it is your second indefinite WP:ARBPIA topic ban (which you neglected to mention in this appeal), and that after the first one was lifted you returned to the same problematic editing. That's all I need to know. Fool us once, shame on us. Fool us a second time, stay topic banned permanently. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:44, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  I'll just add that, briefly looking through some of the previous disputes, I come across this comment from Davidbena in April 2019: "Actually, Josephus disproves the theory of modern revisionists of history (who dare dispute the historicity of King Solomon)...". Anyone with that approach to history and to WP:RS shouldn't be allowed within a mile of this subject matter (broadly construed). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:49, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  For the record, first indefinite topic ban here. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:23, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  @Boing! said Zebedee:, I didn't forget the first topic ban on purpose, but thought that it was more important to write about the second, the active topic ban only.Davidbena (talk) 16:08, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Considering your second ban was imposed just two months after the first one was lifted, and you were advised at AE to include the full timescale of your bans at any AN appeal, I'd say that was exceptionally poor judgment. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:20, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Reading through all this again today, I'm struck by Nableezy's comments below, which I find gracious and constructive. Nableezy is far closer to this subject area and its disputes, and my own judgment is far less well informed, so I'm withdrawing my opposition to the appeal. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:11, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

• Erk Does Talk:Paleo-Hebrew alphabet fall within said topic ban? (tiptoes away quietly and finally goes back to bed.) --Deepfriedokra (talk) 08:11, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Deepfriedokra, also: Wadi al-Far'a (river) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), a river in the West Bank; Madaba Map (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), a map of the Holy Land showing the "border between Israel and Palestine" and used by both sides in claims of destiny. Guy (help!) 08:38, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  The articles you mention are not under the general ARBPIA ban, since the ban only applies to articles where the ARBPIA template has been appended on the Talk-Page.Davidbena (talk) 13:03, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  @Davidbena: Err, is it? Your original topic ban was from "all WP:ARBPIA topics, broadly construed". Was there some later discussion clarified it only applied to articles with a template? – Joe (talk) 13:40, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Joe Roe, What do those articles have to do with the IP conflict? Is the Hebrew alphabet now part of the conflict? Is a mosaic from the 6th Century now part of the conflict? No, it's not. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 14:46, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  @Sir Joseph: Paleo-Hebrew alphabet: just look at its talk page. There are disputes on whether the script or exists independently or is an Israeli nationalist re-branding of the Phoenician alphabet going back over a decade. Davidbena participated extensively in a contentious merge discussion about it a couple of weeks ago. The Madaba Map, as Guy has already mentioned, is an important piece of historical geography used in contemporary territorial claims: Although the original Madaba Map was part of a Christian edifice situated outside Palestine, it was highly regarded by Zionist archaeologists not only for its universal significance but as a remnant of the Jewish national past in Palestine. The Zionist rhetoric used it to verify the important role of the city of Jerusalem in the Jewish narrative of place. The idea of creating modern maps of Jerusalem, in the spirit of the Madaba Map is best exemplified by Naomi Henrik's mosaic decoration (Figure 7), originally installed in 1957 outside the entrance to the Jerusalem Municipality building and later transferred and reinstalled at the Mount Herzl complex in Jerusalem. [1] Anyone working on the history of the Southern Levant would agree that there is practically nothing about it that isn't politicised. – Joe (talk) 15:11, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Joe, look again at the Talk:Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. In the section where I was involved in the discussion about this antiquated script, there was no mention whatsoever about "Israeli nationalist re-branding of the Phoenician alphabet going back over a decade." And, besides, I was unaware of its mention. So, does this mean that if the article New York has a discussion on its Talk-Page about Palestinian nationalists or Israeli nationalists in one of its sections that I am not free to talk about the city of New york in a different section? I do not think that this falls under the definition of "broadly construed."Davidbena (talk) 15:31, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Joe Roe, None of those examples have anything to do with the conflict. You're basically stretching it. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:28, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  You're basically stretching it, i.e., broadly construing it. FWIW, I think Davidbena has attempted to abide by the expectations of the TBAN as he understands them, but it would've been wiser, as BMK points out below, to avoid the area altogether and focus his edits in a completely different area. Grandpallama (talk) 16:13, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Grandpallama, I'm not commenting on the appeal, but the page is not even "broadly construed" to be part of the conflict, merely because some people mention "nationalism" on the talk page. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:18, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Deepfriedokra, I think what you are doing is muddying the water. To say that Paleo-Hebrew falls under ARBPIA conflict is ludicrous and knowing that most people will not check the page for content. Really shameful that you'd mention it. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 14:50, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. A second indefinite ban indicates a serious problem, and the appeal doesn't address that other than to repeat the platitudes that turned out to be false promises last time. Guy (help!) 08:27, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Guy, I understand your worries, but I wish to remind you that both topic bans against me were the result of my having filed complaints against two other editors, for which I am terribly sorry and I am resolved never again to cast aspersions against them. I am simply asking for an opportunity to prove myself, and, if all else fails, this body can ban me without any right to an appeal.Davidbena (talk) 12:59, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. First, to clarify for others, although Davidbena's topic ban cites ARBPIA and he implies it was placed by Ymblanter, it's a community ban, nothing to do with arbitration, discretionary sanctions or arbitration enforcement as far as I can tell. As to the appeal, the idea that historic (pre-1948) topics are only "incidentally" related to the Israel–Palestine conflict is deeply flawed. Everything about the ownership, naming and interpretation of historic sites in Israel–Palestine, from the 20th century right back into prehistory, is highly politicised and contested. Both sides in the contemporary conflict lean heavily on contested historical claims. It's hard to believe that anyone familiar with this area could be genuinely ignorant of this. It's especially hard to be believe Davidbena is, because the previous discussions of his topic ban have mainly concerned his edits to historic topics, and he has recently been involved in PIA-related content disputes in articles like Paleo-Hebrew alphabet and Hebraization of Palestinian place names. In fact, I think some sort of boomerang is in order given that this and other edits above seem to be clear breaches of his topic ban. At the very least, we should clarify/reiterate that he his banned from the Palestine-Israel topic broadly construed, not just articles that happen to have this-or-that template. – Joe (talk) 13:37, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Right, the re-imposed topic ban from May 2019 said "Davidbena is again indefinitely topic banned from all WP:ARBPIA topics, broadly construed", not "all WP:ARBPIA topics with the template on the talk page."-- P-K3 (talk) 13:47, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Well, that was a misunderstanding on my part. Even so, where the ARBPIA template does not appear, I have still refrained from discussing ARBPIA topics. Only once did I err in this regard, and quickly ceased from doing it again. All other edits were of a general non-political nature, such as archaeological/historical/geographical issues, without raising the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In fact, if my edits were wrong, I would have expected someone to tell me that I cannot edit pages such as the Onomasticon (Eusebius), although the work has absolutely nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and even though it speaks about towns and villages in the Holy Land.Davidbena (talk) 14:23, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Joe, I wish to remind you and others here that in the article Hebraization of Palestinian place names it was agreed upon by the contributing editors NOT to add the ARBPIA template, which enabled me to edit that page, where the issues were purely geographical. Only once did I err there, and was quickly reprimanded, and I stopped. When the editors decided that the article belonged to the ARBPIA category it was then that I stopped editing that article altogether.Davidbena (talk) 14:59, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  I can see how the template issue could be an honest misunderstanding (but to reiterate, your TBAN is from the topic and broadly construed, it has nothing to do with the ARBPIA discretionary sanctions). But are you seriously claiming that the archaeology, history and geography of Israel–Palestine is "non-political"? Hebraization of Palestinian place names, for example, is about the replacement of Arabic placenames with Hebrew ones, particularly after the 1948 and 1967 wars. An editor like you, who is knowledgeable about this subject, should not need a template to tell you that is directly related to the Israel–Palestine conflict. – Joe (talk) 15:36, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, they are "non-political" when most of the discussions there were strictly about the British governance over the country, before the rise of the State of Israel, and where the article speaks about the naming of sites after the rise of the State, my edits referred only to the ancient history of these sites, preserved in Arabic writing, and which have nothing to do with the conflict between Jews and Arabs. In fact, I stressed the importance of preserving the Old Arabic names since they are a reflection of the Old Hebrew names. What's more, my edits had absolutely nothing to do with the political conflict, but only geography and placenames (except for once when I briefly mentioned the conflict, but quickly deleted it). Again, I would NEVER have edited this page had the ARBPIA template not been removed.Davidbena (talk) 15:50, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Joe Roe, please clarify how Paleo-Hebrew is covered under ARBPIA. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 14:53, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  I've answered you above. – Joe (talk) 15:12, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Sir Joseph, indeed, Joe Roe has answered that query above, but also more substantively in their oppose comment — in an especially eloquent and poignant way, I would add. El_C 16:07, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  El C, as I said above, I'm not commenting on the appeal, but it's ludicrous to say that Paleo-Hebrew is part of the IP conflict, even broadly construed. I once mentioned that I can get any page on Wikipedia to be "broadly construed" and we really shouldn't be doing that. Just because one person mentions "nationalism" on the talk page (which may or may not have anything to do with the conflict) we should not be bringing more pages into the conflict area.Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:21, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Sir Joseph, the fact is that the Committee has chosen to widen the scope of ARBPIA, as can be seen in ARBPIA4's Definition of the "area of conflict" onto "primary articles" and "related content." El_C 16:44, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  El C, none of those applies to Paleo-Hebrew. I agree with Boing below. IF we are going to sanction someone or not accept an appeal for a TBAN, it should be for a valid TBAN violation, not for some 1 mile stretch of a TBAN topic violation. Can I edit the USA article if I'm TBANNED from the IP conflict since the USA is related to Israel and Israel is associated with the conflict? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:49, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Sir Joseph, I don't disagree that for "related content," the nature of the edits in question must be weighed in relation to ARBPIA, directly. El_C 16:52, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

• Comment I have opposed previous appeals. For this one, I just want to point out that I'm disappointed that Davidbena was selective in following the advice he was given for this appeal. While he did notify relevant admins, he did not disclose the full sequence of bans and appeals, as suggested. This whitewashes the history here, for anyone who sees this appeal and is unaware. Grandpallama (talk) 13:56, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Good point. I've added the background to the top of this thread. – Joe (talk) 14:10, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Oh dear, that shows the second ban was only two months after the first ban was lifted. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:13, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, the Topic ban came only "two months" after my first Topic ban, but I think it can be fairly appreciated by my fellow co-editors here that a previously banned editor (such as myself) has no way of knowing that if he files a complaint against another editor (say, an editor whom he thought may have acted injudiciously) that the complaint would backfire and he would find himself banned once more. I'm sorry, but this is what happened to me, and I admit that I was haste in my judgment, and that I have since made amends with that same editor; in short, I will not do this again.Davidbena (talk) 14:32, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  I'd say that both filing that complaint in the first place, and then not expecting any possible backfire, is another example of very poor judgment. I don't doubt that you are well meaning, but I just think you don't have the ability to see other viewpoints or to understand why your approach has been so problematic. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:28, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose Clear lack of understanding as to WHY the ban was placed in the first place. And no, filing a complaint is NOT a reason for a topic ban. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:38, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Again, I'm sorry, but if I made amends with the editor against whom I filed a complaint is this not a sign of remorse and understanding where I had been wrong? If this isn't, what is?Davidbena (talk) 14:46, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per the selective sanction history portrayed by Davidbena and the topic ban violations found by Deepfriedokra and JzG --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 14:44, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Guerillero, can you clarify the violations? Are you saying that paleo-Hebrew is under ARBPIA violation? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 14:48, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - It's quite clear from past actions and the comments here that Davidbena really has no intrinsic sense of how he should be editing while under a broadly -construed topic ban. It has always been my opinion that people under such a ban should edit far, far, away from the subject area in question, but that has not been the case here, nor do I see it ever being the case. In fact, what I foresee is an eventual site ban for frittering around the edges of the ban and sticking his toes into the water once too often, Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:32, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Beyond My Ken, shalom. If I were to follow your guidelines (which I think are misguided), I would not be able to edit any article (even of geographical/historical/archaeological natures) that has to do with any place in Israel, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, but this is NOT what is meant by being "broadly construed." And besides, I have not discussed Israeli-Palestinian issues since my Topic ban, except for once, and I was quickly reprimanded and I stopped.Davidbena (talk) 15:41, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  I'm afraid that is exactly what is meant by broadly construed. See WP:TBAN and WP:BROADLY. It would be one thing if the Israel–Palestine conflict had nothing to do with history or historical geography, but it does. – Joe (talk) 15:45, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  My understanding of "broadly construed" means simply not to bring-up in conversation any mention of the Arab-Israeli conflict, whether in articles that have the ARBPIA template or in articles that do not have the ARBPIA template. However, to speak about Israeli food in a Tel-Aviv article is permitted. As for Arab-Israeli political issues, I have refrained from them altogether.Davidbena (talk) 15:55, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  While I am skeptical of Davidbena's ability to edit neutrally in this area if his TBAN were lifted, and I think he misrepresents his history of edit conflicts in this area, I do suspect his editing around the edges of this area is more a product of his beliefs about what the TBAN entails rather than a deliberate attempt to push the envelope. That said, if a consensus exists that some of these topics lie within the boundaries of "broadly construed", it's probably to his benefit that this expectation is clarified. Grandpallama (talk) 16:13, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Joe Roe, that is incorrect. If someone is TBANNED from the IP conflict, they aren't TBANNED from Israel or Palestine articles. Editing an article that has nothing to do with the conflict is not prohibited and we should not be locking down articles where there is no conflict just for the sake of locking it down. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:23, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

• Comment. The scope of the current topic ban has come up above, and I'll comment here to avoid fragmenting any other conversations. It's not a DS ban, but as "ARBPIA" was specifically mentioned, I don't think it's unreasonable of Davidbena to have interpreted it as covering only the I/P conflict itself (even with "broadly construed" - that's such an nebulous concept that what might seem like obvious coverage to some will seem different to others). Yes, it could have been interpreted more broadly, but I don't see Davidbena's interpretation as obviously implausible, and I do see it as being in good faith. If the community wants to tighten the definition of the topic ban scope then that of course can be covered here. But I think any sanction for allegedly breaking the ban through a good faith interpretation of its scope would be wrong, and I would strongly oppose any such move. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:43, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

  Agreed, and very well put. Grandpallama (talk) 17:19, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

• I never understand exactly how broadly is "broadly construed". If I am topic banned from AP2, can I edit United States of America? Christianity? American English? United States Constitution? AR-15? Mass shooting? North America? If I am topic banned from PIA, can I edit Hebrew or Arabic? Islam or Judaism? Military occupation or terrorism? Middle East? If I am topic banned from The Troubles can I edit Great Britain or Ireland? Catholicism or Protestantism? What if I just edit the portions of those articles that don't relate to the conflict? I'm glad I'm not topic banned from anything because I'd have no idea. Without clear lines, sanctioning editors for editing at the edges of a topic ban strikes me as an unfair "gotcha". Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 16:46, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Is Wikipedia's search function broken for you? I mean the this description of what constitutes topic bans is pretty comprehensive. To help you, I've reproduced it below:
    • The purpose of a topic ban is to forbid editors from making edits related to a certain topic area where their contributions have been disruptive, but to allow them to edit the rest of Wikipedia. Unless clearly and unambiguously specified otherwise, a topic ban covers all pages (not only articles) broadly related to the topic, as well as the parts of other pages that are related to the topic, as encapsulated in the phrase "broadly construed". For example, if an editor is banned from the topic "weather", this editor is forbidden from editing not only the article Weather, but also everything else that has to do with weather, such as:
      • weather-related articles and lists, such as Wind and List of weather records, and their talk pages;
      • weather-related categories such as all of the categories that are associated with Category:Weather;
      • weather-related project pages, such as WikiProject Meteorology;
      • weather-related parts of other pages, even if the pages as a whole have little or nothing to do with weather: the section entitled "Climate" in the article California, for example, is covered by the topic ban, but the rest of the article is not;
      • discussions or suggestions about weather-related topics anywhere on Wikipedia, for instance a deletion discussion concerning an article about a meteorologist, but also including edit summaries and the user's own user and talk pages (including sandboxes).
  • Does that answer your questions -- or were your questions just a rhetorical device not actually dependent on answers? --Calton | Talk 07:17, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
    • That doesn't answer any of my questions. Most of what you've copied and pasted isn't even relevant to my questions (nobody is asking about categories or project pages, etc.). But feel free to provide answers to my questions if you'd like. I think you'll find answering those questions isn't as easy as copy and pasting from the help file. Same with the issue about Paleo-Hebrew raised in this thread. You'll notice several editors disagree on that one, a sure sign of a tricky issue. (Also I'd suggest removing or collapsing all that irrelevant text you copied and pasted, for the sake of our colleagues.) Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 16:54, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

      So, basically, the skills of applying general principles to specific examples and understanding general principles through the use of examples, these are difficult for you? There's not much point in trying to help someone who is determined not to understand something, so pardon me if I don't waste both my time and yours in your sealioning. --Calton | Talk 00:37, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

      Ad hominem attacks are admissions of defeat. ^Lev!v^ich 02:59, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

• I don't and have never doubted David's good faith here, and I take him at his word on his understanding of the topic ban and what it applied to and I think the arguments above on whether or not such and such page is covered by it should be reframed so it is less about his mistakes in understanding about the ban previously and more about helping him adhere to it in the future. I also dont think it is reasonable to say somebody who is subject to a topic ban about the ARBPIA topic should refrain from editing subjects even remotely related. David is one of our better resources for the Jewish history in Israel/Palestine, he researches thoroughly and when not discussing modern politics is in my honest opinion an affable and pleasant person who is enjoyable to work with. I think perhaps there needs to be a bit more clarity of the extent of the ban, but I do not see what he has been doing as "frittering around the edges". I dont really think Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, as the example contested above, is covered by his ban (though Sir Joseph I also do not think you are helping David even a little bit here). Broadly construed still has limits and I think that example goes quite a bit past those limits. My view on his ban remains unchanged. If David commits to a. not promoting fringe viewpoints regarding the modern politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and b. commits to not questioning the motives of those who have opposing viewpoints to him, then I still have no problem with him editing in the topic area. If his ban is not rescinded I would strongly suggest that it be narrowed. David is an asset for a lot of these articles, he brings sources and research that nobody else does. We should let him. Anything that is not directly related to the modern state of Israel and its conflict with the Palestinians should be excluded from his ban. Ancient villages, ancient alphabets, ancient anything should be excluded from his ban. nableezy - 16:47, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support remove TBAN. This whole ill-conceived mess is a setup for failure. It is too subjective, too vague, too arbitrary, and too confusing. Davidbena has been editing constructively and with forebearance about subjects that may or not have been covered by his topic ban. No one can say for sure whether they are or not.. As Levivich puts it, "without clear lines, sanctioning editors for editing at the edges of a topic ban strikes me as an unfair "gotcha". --Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:12, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support a narrower ban per Nableezy: something like (a) retaining topic ban on modern-day Palestinian-Israeli conflict, (b) a strict sanction on questioning the motives of other editors or promoting fringe theories in any area, and (c) otherwise permitting editing of Middle Eastern regional topics including ancient Jewish history, geography, etc unrelated to the modern state. (Nableezy, let me know if I've misinterpreted your view). Not normally a supporter of a "last chance" after a previous "last chance" but some of the comments here encouraged a look at Davidbena's wider editing history, and they seem a competent and well-researched editor outside the immediate topic area of modern Israel-Palestine. On that basis the encyclopedia seems better off for their ancient history/geography/cultural contributions, and we should aim to let them carry on in those spaces. -- Euryalus (talk) 01:18, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support lifting or narrowing the topic ban, per Nableezy, DFO and Euryalus, and per lack of evidence of continued disruption. To me, whether David properly formatted this appeal by linking to the prior ones, and David's understanding of what "broadly construed" means, are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether David has been editing without being disruptive and the answer seems to be yes. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 16:04, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support lifting the topic ban. The editor has shown remorse, and sincerely plans to edit in accordance with the expectations of the community, including the higher expectations in the sensitive area of the WP:ARBPIA area. I find the fact that Nableezy, who could be considered to be on the opposite site of that conflict from the editor who filed this request, has agreed to lifting the topic ban, and has in fact described this editor in a very positive light, a telling sign that Wikipedia only stands to gain from lifting this editor's topic ban. I would like to add that the rather unforgiving approach of some here, is tantamount to a declaration that no topic ban can ever be rescinded, and editors can't ever improve their old ways. I refuse to acquiesce to such a position, and think that any closure of this request should contain a general statement rejecting that position. Likewise I think there is little to be gained from the formalist approach of some here, with undue stress on whether the filing included all relevant details. In this regards I'd like to stress that the filing editor explained that he thought it would be enough to mention the current, active topic ban only, and I find that a convincing explanation. In short, Davidbena is one of our better editors, who after over a year of his topic ban has understood well how he is to behave in the WP:ARBPIA area, and I think it would be more than reasonable to give him the chance to contribute positively to this project in that area as well by rescinding his topic ban at this time. Debresser (talk) 06:58, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support narrowing of the Tban per Nableezy and Euryalus, along the lines proposed above. I'm moved by the fact that in this appeal and earlier ones, users who had interacted with him most said that he was capable of working well with others and brought unique skills to the project, but was let down by occasional lapses in judgement and conduct. Let's give him a chance to use those skills to the benefit of the project in a wider range of areas, and perhaps after six months of issue-free editing he could request that the ban be lifted altogether? GirthSummit _(blether) 14:55, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
• Narrow topic ban for now. Per Euryalus. starship.paint (talk) 14:11, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
• Narrow, but do not lift based upon what I've seen here. I remain unconvinced that the statements here, which are not radically different from ones made in the past, represent a genuine shift in approach to editing. On the other hand, Nableezy makes a compelling case for why we should not let sanctions to prevent disruption in one area result in blocking valuable contributions by an editor in another area. Grandpallama (talk) 15:04, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support, constructive and hard working editor who has realized the error in his past transgressions.--Hippeus (talk) 11:47, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support lifting of the topic ban. This user has put in his time and clearly improved, so it's time to give him another chance. He has never needed to be sanctioned since the topic ban was imposed. Tikisim (talk) 05:33, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Proposal for narrower ban

SUGGESTED COMPROMISE: If it will make the decision process any easier for administrators and/or contributing editors here, I will agree to remain under my ARBPIA topic ban for another year or two (when I will then be free to submit another appeal), but meanwhile, if agreed upon here by the editors, I will be specifically prohibited from adding content related to the Arab-Israeli conflict on all Wikipedia pages - with or without the ARBPIA tag, but I will be ALLOWED to contribute only on geographical issues, or on pre-1948 historical issues, and on archaeological issues in all ARBPIA articles, including the uploading of images to these Wikipedia sites, as may seem fitting to me. Many of my contributions, prior to my ban, have already been to upload images to these pages. In this way, I will continue to behave with restrictions in what concerns the Israeli-Palestinian area of conflict, but contribute in ways that are mutually beneficial to all.Davidbena (talk) 18:13, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Can somebody close this? Last time David appealed it just sat here until being archived. nableezy - 01:27, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

@Nableezy: I'll keep my eye on this and make sure it gets closed properly - feel free to ping me any time it looks like nothing's happening (well, you know what I mean). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:41, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support lifting ban. David is a knowledgeable editor and has reflected on his actions and is unlikely to repeat them. 11Fox11 (talk) 05:00, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
• Per Nableezy above, it'd be a shame if this just got archived without outcome because everyone got tired of commenting. Adding a subject header above, and FWIW support Davidbena's suggested compromise as something worth trying. -- Euryalus (talk) 08:00, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Reposting really just to prevent this archiving from lack of engagement. Can an uninvolved administrator please give this a review and determine if consensus exists for any or no action? -- Euryalus (talk) 02:54, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, I can support this. It seems like a good compromise to see how things go. And I think it essentially sums up the emerging consensus above. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:38, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support lifting ban --Deepfriedokra (talk) 11:19, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

  Or support compromise. whichever gains most support. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 11:22, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support lifting ban. I think enough time has passed, Davidbena is conciliatory and should be given a chance.--Aroma Stylish (talk) 07:50, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• Above editor is blocked as a sock. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:48, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support compromise, narrowing, or lifting ban per above. Lev!vich 22:52, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

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

Draftifying old unmaintained content translation tool articles

Yesterday I approached S Marshall about draftifying an old article which had been created in 2016 and whose original author is no longer active. In our discussion, it came out that they plan to draftify up to 1200 more similar articles based on a consensus dated from July 2017, which had never actually been implemented.

In August 2017, the community extended G13 to cover all draft articles that have not been edited in six months, regardless of whether they went through the AfC process. This means that these 1200 articles, if moved to draftspace, will languish for six months and then be summarily deleted. I don't believe that this was the intent of the July decision.

WP:DRAFTIFY says that moving articles to draft space is not intended as a backdoor route to deletion. As the changes to draftspace in August 2017 made the July 2017 decision an effective deletion of these articles, I propose that the decision to draftify them all be revisited, and these 1200 articles be dealt with through the deletion process in some form, either individually or en masse.

Here are a couple of options that I can think of:

• Bring back the X2 CSD criteria and use that instead, at least for the obviously uncontroversial ones;
• Tag them all for proposed deletion (ideally with a method to deal with anyone who reverts them all just to make a point);
• Use the AfD process as usual, handling uncontested nominations as expired prods.

Other editors more familiar with the history of the content translation discussions will surely have other ideas, and those are most welcome. – bradv🍁 13:48, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

• Delete - Unless they're notable per the extended G13 to cover all draft articles that have not been edited in six months | consensus you've already indicated exists. I'm inclusionist by nature, but I agree, drafting an article should never serve as a backdoor to deletion, that gamesmanship! Delete them unless they're notable. W.K.W.W.K...^Talk 14:21, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Wekeepwhatwekill, how and where do we determine whether these are notable? I agree with your standard, but I'm not clear on how we can decide that for 1200 individual articles. – bradv🍁 14:39, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
    • Bradv We already have guidelines to show us what's notable. They would work well in all of these cases! :) W.K.W.W.K...^Talk 16:12, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
      • @Wekeepwhatwekill: To clarify Bradv's question a bit: Suppose we stumble across an old CXT-created article whose topic does not meet our notability guidelines. Bradv is asking how we should delete the article, not whether we should delete the article: should we revive the X2 speedy deletion criterion, use PROD, use AfD, or move them to draft space? Mz7 (talk) 16:25, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Mz7 ok....got it. I move for X2 speedy deletion. W.K.W.W.K...^{Toss a coin to the witcher, ye valley of plenty} 18:34, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

• Bradv has a point that draftify doesn't mean what it did when this was determined. Also, though I may be being a bit glib since I've admittedly not closely examined that massive old discussion, I don't see the urgency that would necessitate drafti-deleting them en masse. Restrictions have been placed on the content translation tool, and we're just left with these 1200 possibly non-notable and/or sub-par articles. 1200 sounds like a lot until you realize that's the normal number of new articles created every couple days here, so it doesn't seem like an "it's just too much work to handle them individually" issue. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:04, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
• Alas, it seems that after three years, interest in cleaning up the mess created by the poorly rolled-out content translation tool has diminished considerably. I would like to begin by thanking S Marshall for their continued efforts in this area. However, I also think that this discussion to revisit the 2017 decision to draftify the 1200 articles on that list is reasonable. It seems to me that the simplest solution at this stage is to use WP:PROD in lieu of draftifying. I'm not sure we need to do the PROD-tagging en masse. As I understand it, S Marshall has been going through the list somewhat organically and individually moving them to draft space; I think a reasonable alternative is to simply use WP:PROD instead of moving to draft space. Mz7 (talk) 16:39, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
• Bradv, Fixing them is an option. But they can't really be left in mainspace and if can be bothered to fix them then why should we care? Guy (help! - typo?) 16:48, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure that they can't be left in mainspace, nor do I have an opinion on whether they should. But if the idea here is that we can dump them in draftspace and let people work on them, that won't work. It probably wouldn't have worked in 2017 either, before the G13 expansion, but it definitely won't work now. – bradv🍁 17:47, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
• This whole backlog attracts a lot of attention from those who want to decide how someone else should fix it. It doesn't get much attention from people who want to muck in and fix it.
  I shan't be using PROD. I've tried, and what happens is, the PROD patrollers look at it and see what superficially looks like a plausible/fixable article, so they want to send it to AfD; and that's a set of interactions that makes me tired and demotivated. Mz7 is welcome to PROD them all and then deal with the deproddings.
  Those of you who want to change how I deal with it: please come up with a suggestion that you, personally, are willing to implement. Or else leave it to me, in which case, please just let me do it this way.—S Marshall T/C 17:52, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

the PROD patrollers look at it and see what superficially looks like a plausible/fixable article, so they want to send it to AfD — isn't that the deletion process working exactly as it should? It sounds like you are saying you are moving these to draft because you don't want to deal with deleting them through the usual channels, but WP:DRAFTIFY is explicitly not supposed to be used like this. If you're feeling tired and demotivated by this task, take a step back from it; there is no deadline. – Joe (talk) 19:28, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, and I have taken a break from it. I didn't edit at all in 2018, and then I came back in 2019 to find that nobody had done any work on the backlog in my absence. The issue is that we're now four years after the WMF's stupidity created this issue in the first place, and there are BLPs among these articles, and they do contain mistranslations. Please, please read the whole discussion with an open mind, reflect on it, and understand the whole problem in context before opining that it's fine to leave these in the mainspace.—S Marshall T/C 21:45, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

isn't that the deletion process working exactly as it should?

Not really. Because in cases like this, the process is so inherently glacial and frustrating that no one wants to do it. So the articles sit, stagnate and basically just cling to the hull of Wikipedia like barnacles. The deletion process, in this case, is actually detrimental to improving the Wiki. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:36, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• We should take a look at each one, even if only brief, but I can't find a proper list of the 1200 affected articles. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Draftification list July 2017 is a mixed bag. @S Marshall: if you want help, you have to provide at least the list or affected articles, or for those already moved, drafts. I could probably help, but I NEED a list. Right now you are about to draftify 1200 articles (I assume you haven't draftified all of them yet?) and I have no idea exactly which articles that will be, which is a bit frightening. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 19:00, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• Sure. I used to work off WP:AN/CXT/PTR, but someone called User:ToThAc decided that list had been superseded by another list in their userspace that I found much harder to work with; so now I'm keeping the list of stuff I haven't looked at yet in my sandbox here.
  I should be clear that I absolutely do not intend to draftify 1200 articles in the next few days. I've been looking at them at a rate of about a dozen a week -- and of those, at least half of them pass my sniff test. When they do, I simply mark the affected article with {{translated}} on its talk page (to make the article Terms of Use compliant) and then remove it from my list without draftifying. It's only when I'm not completely confident that I speedy-move it to draft space.
  What you're looking for here is software mistranslations. When the WMF deployed that tool, they encouraged people to move articles from one wiki to another. Unfortunately, the way it was deployed encouraged users from foreign-language Wikipedias to use the tool to move articles to en.wiki even when those users didn't speak English. And a lot of the articles were then fixed up into plausible English by people who didn't speak the source language. Unfortunately, this means the algorithm introduced translation errors that nobody has detected yet.
  If you'd like to help, please do start with the BLPs, because I've found some amazing howlers. Feel free to edit that list; the fact that it's in my userspace shouldn't deter you in the slightest.—S Marshall T/C 19:17, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

@S Marshall: I see no issues with Blokdijk (en ik begrijp Nederlands), 1 down, 1199 to go. What do you mean with "mark the affected article with {{translated}} on its talk page (to make the article Terms of Use compliant)"? Like this? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 20:01, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, exactly like that! Thank you. The Terms of Use thing is because translating from one language Wikipedia to another is technically copying within Wikipedia so we have to credit the original authors on the foreign-language wiki for their work. (Strictly speaking there's a lacuna in that procedure, if the foreign-language article gets deleted but we keep ours; the contributors can no longer be identified so we're in breach of our terms of use. It's a rare but not unknown case which I view as an administrative headache rather than an editorial one.)—S Marshall T/C 21:46, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• Unless this discussion reaches consensus on an alternative procedure, I intend to resume my work on this backlog on the basis of the 2017 consensus, which will mean continuing to draftify.—S Marshall T/C 14:16, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

@S Marshall: Can you put this on hold for a few days while I think about alternative procedures? I have a reputation. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 19:13, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• No problem.—S Marshall T/C 20:39, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• I guess it's unsurprising there haven't been a lot of new ideas here – we have fairly well-established processes for deleting articles, and there doesn't seem to be anything too unusual about these other than there are a lot of them, and not a lot of people want to work on them.
  At this point I'd suggest adding something along the lines of {{Cleanup translation}} to each of these articles, which will provide two functions: (a) place these articles in a tracking category, and (b) advise the reader that the content needs help. Then, as time permits, we can go through each of these articles and nominate the non-notable ones for AfD. I would be willing to help with this process. @S Marshall and Alexis Jazz: is this a workable plan? – bradv🍁 13:42, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

• Well, when you say "there doesn't seem to be anything too unusual about these", I don't really agree with you, and I would respectfully refer you to all the excitement in the discussion that I previously linked. There were a lot of longstanding, respected editors in favour of some drastic, prompt and novel actions, and that's why the community used an edit filter to stop any more of these articles being created, and it's why when I (personally) suggested that we invent a new speedy deletion criterion for these, it gained sufficient consensus to be implemented within a few days. Have you read enough of that discussion to understand why?—S Marshall T/C 14:31, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

  Perhaps you can explain what I'm missing. From what I can see, there were originally about 3600 articles that needed to be dealt with, and now we're down to 1200. Presumably those aren't the worst offenders, which is why you boldly deprecated the X2 criteria saying it was no longer necessary to speedy-delete these. In the discussion, you yourself objected to draftifying these articles, saying Draftification is exactly the same as deleting them. Nobody is going to fix these up in draft space. So if we can't speedy them, and we can't draftify them, why can't we enlist the readers help in fixing them up, and AfD them as necessary? What am I missing? – bradv🍁 14:52, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

  It boggles the mind that these articles still haven't been tagged as possibly containing faulty translations. That should have been the very first step. – bradv🍁 14:55, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

• You're right to say that there were originally 3,600 and we're down to the last third of them. A lot of the 3,600 were low-hanging fruit, capable of being summarily deleted or promptly removed from the working list. What's left are the edge cases, neither the worst offenders nor the obviously unproblematic; they need to be reviewed by a human. You're also right to say that I thought draftifying them was the wrong call. I'm working with that process now because firstly, that was the consensus, and on Wikipedia the consensus is king even when it's wrong, and secondly, it's an easy way for me to get stuff out of mainspace. If I work the easy way, then there's some prospect of me finishing the job in the next couple of years.
  The problem with AfD is the process. At the time these articles were created, the content translation tool encouraged users to generate machine translations and dump them directly into other-language Wikipedias. If I had a mind, I could do this at the rate of about five or six articles a minute, into any language including ones I don't speak. And people did. The effort involved in AfD is utterly disproportionate. Besides, AfD participants assess for notability and the existence of sources, very few of them have read WP:MACHINETRANSLATION or have the foreign-language fluency necessary to understand why we have that rule. So I send the article to AfD and they go "It's plausible English, there are sources, so you need to go and fix it!" and it all gets thrown back onto my plate, and I'm simply not going to do that any more. You, however, are welcome to go through the list in that way.
  Why can't we enlist readers to help in fixing them up? Well, as I'm sure you know, we don't have that many active editors, and the ones we do have are doing their own volunteer work, much of which is important. This conversation in a highly visible place has led to one (1) volunteer editor checking one (1) article.—S Marshall T/C 15:46, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

@S Marshall: That was just to test the waters..

@Bradv: I like your idea. Do you already know how to tag them? Or do I need to figure that out? Once we have them sorted by source language like that, we can enlist the help from other language wikipedias. Adding the {{translated}} template to all talk pages should be a similar job. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:00, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

I think Bradv means tagging them with {{cleanup-translation}}, or possibly developing a custom tag for this article category. Have you spent much time on other language Wikipedias? I hope you're able to enlist help from them, but in my experience the culture is very different, and the editors who're willing and able to help with en.wiki translations are all already here.—S Marshall T/C 15:19, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Have you spent much time on other language Wikipedias? m:Equals sign parser function template conflicts you see. We first need to get these articles sorted by language. (which could be done with {{Cleanup translation}}) I would be happy to go over the entries that originated from nlwiki and we may find others who are willing to do the same for other languages, but we must categorize the articles first before we can effectively enlist help. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 08:17, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

The languages have been partially populated at WP:AN/CXT/PTR so you can probably get most of that information by cross-referencing. Failing that, the tool links to the source article in the edit summary of the first edit. How do you propose to deal with Bradv's initial question about dealing with the ones that don't belong in mainspace?—S Marshall T/C 10:56, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• Any page created by a computer should not be reviewed by a human before being deleted. You'd think after redirect spam, portal spam, etc., everybody in the community would be on board with the wisdom of "nuke spam on sight" as opposed to "let's go through thousands of semi-automatically-created pages one by one to make sure we don't accidentally delete any precious snowflakes". Draftifying them, which gives 6 months for anyone who wants to to work on them (why doesn't ARS rescue drafts?), seems like a very reasonable compromise position for the remaining batch of borderline computer translations. Lev!vich 16:12, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

• The trouble there is identifying which ones were created by computer, of course. Some editors used the content translation tool exactly as they were supposed to, translating from a language in which they were fluent, checking the machine translation and turning it into idiomatic English before uploading it. Nowadays I automatically pass any article translated by Rosiestep because I've checked enough of hers that I trust her to have done it right. Likewise Endo99 who was quite focused on biographies of female French athletes. We can't just use a bot to depopulate the list, there's too much good stuff there. A human's got to check each one.—S Marshall T/C 18:37, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Don't leave machine translations in mainspace. Jeez. How about moving them to talk space, if draft space isn't right? They should also be noindexed if that's not done automatically for talk space. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 13:25, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

I think a user is following me

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

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There is a user that has an uncanny ability to show up on almost any page I edit, even on pages I create. This is user frequently reverts my edits, often leaving little explanations which frustrates me. I don't know how the wiki rules work exactly and I don't want to accuse anyone for no reason. So can some administrator have a look at this and tell me if I'm "just seeing things" and/or if this is part of normal editing? Can I pm someone the name of the user? ImTheIP (talk) 06:50, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) ImTheIP, this is known as WikiHounding - you can email me the name of the user and I can take a look if you wish and I'll update this thread accordingly - Special:EmailUser/Ed6767 Ed talk! 09:51, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Context:The accused party is Aroma Stylish (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - both ImTheIP (talk · contribs) and Aroma Stylish (talk · contribs) predominantly edit in the Israel Palestine space, which is controversial and is covered by WP:ARBPIA, violations of which Aroma Stylish has been blocked for in the past [2]. Aroma Stylish has been subject to one AN/3 thread here.

Editor interactions: Interaction timeline

• Prior to 10th July, these users never interacted. The first major edit correlation I can see occured on 17th July on 2015–2016 wave of violence in Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There were then further interactions on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. They had a direct and civil discussion at Talk:Palestinian_prisoners_of_Israel#Removal_by_ImTheIP. Entering August, their interactions become suspiciously close together, with oftentimes there being less than 15 mins between edits when prior to this there were hours between them. However, at this time there is not enough evidence for me to say Wikihounding took place, but the closeness of their revisions certainly raises concern. I invite both parties to discuss. Ed talk! 13:28, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm not "following him". As I explained him before, I have over 5,000 articles in my watchlist, most of them related to Jewish and Israeli topics. He is a heavy ARBPIA editor and it's not surprising that ocasionally his edits are challenged by myself and others. However, I usually don't have a problem with his editing, which tends to focus on making texts more concise and tidy. I have an issue when he deletes information without warning in the talk page or edit summary.--Aroma Stylish (talk) 15:21, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Diffs, please. Grandpallama (talk) 17:38, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• I'd recommend a no fault, two way IBAN as a first step, probably as a discretionary sanction under ARBPIA. We should AGF on both sides---ImTheIP finds the behavior inappropriate and Aroma Stylish doesn't intend their edits to be distressing---but regardless of that, whatever is going on needs to stop before it continues to escalate. The solution it seems is for them to take a break from each other, and a time-limited IBAN seems like it would accomplish that effectively. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:48, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Ed6767 for investigating. My intent was not to cause grief to a fellow newbie wiki user. As there is no evidence of bad behavior I withdraw my compalint.ImTheIP (talk) 22:45, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

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

• Follow-up: Aroma Stylish blocked as a sock of יניב הורון. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:26, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Civil Threats

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

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I have been trying to explain to Stayfree76 that George Floyd was murdered on the George Floyd talk page since the officers in it were charged with murder. The user tried to claim that a murder doesn’t occur until the person is convicted which clearly isn’t true as I showed an example from a terror attack. The user went on to accuse me of libel, used bold lettering to say “Fix yourself immediately” and said I could face a civil penalty. This is excessive as I never actually edited the page and seems threatening. This user has been blocked before for being uncivil but making legal threats is a whole different scenario. I always try to explain myself and to threaten someone for using a talk page just isn’t right. Thank you. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 23:19, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Lima Bean Farmer Per the Biographies of Living Persons policy, we cannot label someone a murderer until they are convicted in a court of law of murder. 331dot (talk) 23:21, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

diff

Lima Bean Farmer, we have a strict policy against legal threats (see WP:NLT). I'll take a look. Ed talk! 23:30, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Yep, I'd support an indef block here - still many issues with this editors civility following other blocks. Ed talk! 23:32, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

331dot, I did not label him a murderer. I said that George Floyd was murdered. Also, that’s not the point of me coming here. The point is that another editor threatened me with civil penalties over edits in a talk page. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 23:33, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Agree that a NLT block may be warranted. Lima Bean Farmer, the killing has been determined to be a homicide, not a murder. It's not a murder until someone is convicted of murder for committing the act. Labeling it a murder now before someone is convicted only suggests that those who have been charged are guilty. 331dot (talk) 23:36, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

331dot, We get this in the UK all the time. The coroner returns a verdict of unlawful killing. If the sole suspect is then not convicted, there is a conflict between the sources. But Stayfree 76 has been a relentlessly disruptive voice at that article, so I would support a narrow TBAN. Guy (help! - typo?) 00:06, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

So, could someone please block this editor? Thank you! Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 01:10, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

There's several issues here: NLT, civility, disruption. Starting with the easy one (NLT): the edit is unhelpful and might be perceived as a legal threat. It is not an overt threat to sue and doesn't warrant an immediate NLT block. The appropriate response is clarification per the "Perceived legal threats" section of WP:NLT, which I've done. None of this takes away from this editor's problems with civility and disruption, which need more review to determine if any progress has been made since the last block. Doesn't look like it at this point. Stayfree76, if you're reading this perhaps you have a view. -- Euryalus (talk) 01:38, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Stayfree76 - You need to clarify this statement - say that this is not a legal threat, and we can move on. It really does borderline a legal threat, which is actionable by an indefinite block until you retract it. Let's not go down this pathway; just clarify this statement and say that it's not a legal threat, and remove the statement. I don't want to move forward with blocking you over this. Please? ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 01:47, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Woah Oshwah, what are you blocking me for? It is a legal threat. I’m not retracting that. I’d like to see myself get blocked for reporting someone threatening civil penalties against me. One thing for sure, I’m not backing down. This was a legal threat. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 01:51, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Lima Bean Farmer! LOL! Sorry about that! I accidentally pinged you instead of Stayfree76. I caught it as soon as I hit "publish changes", and I yelled at my monitor as it saved - "NOOOO!" :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 01:54, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Just saw that now! Sorry Oshwah, didn’t mean to sound harsh. Just thought I was facing a block all of a sudden for no reason! No worries! Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 01:57, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Lima Bean Farmer - You have nothing to apologize for. It was my fault for pinging you instead of Stayfree76, not yours. :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 01:59, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

No worries Oshwah, nobody’s perfect, not even Wikipedians! Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 02:06, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Lima Bean Farmer, see here. Oshwah inadvertently pinged you by mistake. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 01:53, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

I've left a message on their talkpage too (Stayfree's, not Lima Bean Farmer's!) -- Euryalus (talk) 01:56, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Euryalus - :-P ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 02:03, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

hey all, i just want to say... of course that was not a threat. i linked to an article about what happens when media does defamation/libel, which is no joking matter, but something the user i commented to kept doing. that being said... im not the person that could sue anybody for saying anything about someone else, but the living persons definately can. its a very touchy subject, and why i thought it very important to ensure the user know without a shadow of a doubt you cannot run around calling innocent people a murderer, especially on wikipedia. (guilt until proven innocent, right?). in conclusion, maybe someone can give me a pointer at a better way to handle that situation as the person was in direct violation of wikipedia policies. in my opinion me doing it politely, which i did multiple times, is better than some formal arbitration. Stayfree76 (talk) 04:32, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Actually Stayfree76, discussion on a talk page about the wording of an article is not against Wikipedia policy. That is what they are there for. Talk pages are a lot more relaxed and open to a discussion than editing on a page (edit warring). Perhaps this article may help. Also you should never make a legal threat. Whether or not you were planning on doing it, that is a “big no”. If ever a discussion gets out of hand, there are many sources such as the tea house and this page to get help. Arbitration would be the final step which would be for a larger issue. I haven’t even read that article you put but you should never threaten anything other than a block, and even that should be up to an administrator (or someone who can perform a block). You may also want to read this article and others like it so that you can become better at debating. It appears that many of the debates you got involved in turned into arguments. This is seen as uncivil and improper. Everyone has the right to their opinion. Thank you! Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 04:51, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

i find it valuable to look at the full conversation. i explained to the person twice that it was not acceptable to call it a murder, and only the third time mentioned it can be defamatory calling someone a murderer before they are convicted of the crime and i feel i handled this very politely considering. i think we are attacking the wrong user here... i mean i kept saying its not a murder and they kept saying it was... at that point a link to defamation seemed in order as they obviously werent taking my word for it. i know english isnt the first language of everyone on wikipedia, but i am alittle unsure how it could be construed as a threat for simply mentioning something that is actionable. last thing we want is the living persons to sue wikipedia, which in the US, can easily happen, especially when this situation is on the forefront of the planet. also pinging as this seems to be important. Oshwah, Euryalus Stayfree76 (talk) 04:55, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

oh yea, one final edit. yes, i was blocked for awhile, but actually if you look at all the edits i suggested which ended in me being blocked, 80% of them or more have been put into affect and tbh think i was severely misunderstood as i have cognitive disabilities and other military related disabilities and sometimes have trouble with how i write down a thought/idea. also, lima bean here has been blocked upwards of 4 times for policy violations, where i have not had a single edit reverted. please note that fix yourself is a common phrase used in the US Marine Corps as a friendly nudge to an individual engaging in incorrect behavior and is no more than a warning to ensure the person is aware of that fact. ^_^ Stayfree76 (talk) 05:13, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Stayfree76, you’re not getting the point. You should never suggest that another editor may be sued. First, vandalism happens all the time on Wikipedia. Second, calling someone a murderer on a talk page is not defamation. That’s what a talk page is for. No editor should be discouraged from editing a talk page on constructive topics such as wording. Third, all my blocks were not related to civility or interactions with other editors. You have consistently argued with other editors and multiple other editors have warned you about this. Please read the civility article I linked above and read similar articles. This is not the military. There is no commander. If a problem gets out of hand, ask a third party editor, use the tea house, or even this page to report it and find out how it should be dealt with. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 05:23, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Talk pages are not exempt from BLP, no place on Wikipedia is. Wikipedia is not a discussion forum, you do not have a [god-given] right to express opinions here. You may not go around accusing individuals of murder until/unless they are convicted of such. Also see 331dot's comment at the top of this thread, and read the linked policy. Mr rnddude (talk) 05:33, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Mr rnddude, that is true. However, I was discussing the wording. I was not sure if it should be considered murder. In fact, it was deemed a homicide and 4 people were charged with his murder. I get that it shouldn’t be on there but the talk page is the perfect place to discuss this type of issue. A warning against a law suit or civil penalties should never be given out on Wikipedia, so I get what you’re saying but that statement itself is wrong. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 05:55, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

• The legal threat was crossing the line imo. ~ HAL333 16:58, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

HAL333, please understand that it is impossible for a person to sue someone for defamation when the person suing isn't the one defamed. That fact alone should tell you that it was not a threat as i have no legal authority, at all, ever to engage in a civil lawsuit against a person in which i am not targeted by. the only person who could sue who be the person they defamed and likely it wouldnt be some random editor getting hit, but the wikimedia org itself. like come on, people in America sue for much less, lets not be the ones that are responsible for wikipedia no longer being freely edited. Stayfree76 (talk) 21:52, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Not getting the point

Stayfree76 is not getting the point that they should not be making legal threats such as they did on the George Floyd talk page. While this user made it clear they had no intention of a legal threat towards me, they have not explained that this was inappropriate or that they won’t do it again. They also don’t seem to get, based on their last edit on their talk page, that the usage of a talk page to discuss wording, such as the one for George Floyd, is acceptable, and no threat should be made. On top of all of that, their comments are still uncivil. Their most recent one in their talk page called me a “hard headed person” and said “its not about you” in bold they are not civil and now have resorted to personal attacks. The user has been repeatedly warned about this and I even gave them articles on civility. I have been civil with them this entire time. Please look into this, thank you! Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 22:01, 16 August 2020 (UTC) Oshwah, 331dot, JzG, or another editor, please take a look at this. Thank you! Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 00:34, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• I think Stayfree76 is here to WP:RGW. He has caused more disruption with his 136 edits than most editors with a hundred times that number. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:33, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure what his precise motivation is, and I haven't reviewed all of the contention, but perhaps a temporary (three to six month?) TBAN on George Floyd and Derek Chauvin (and points of law) would allow him to demonstrate he can edit constructively in other areas, if indeed he is here to build an encyclopedia. It would also be nice if he would type like an adult with adult punctuation and capitalization. Softlavender (talk) 08:51, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• Lime Bean Farmer, while I think their post was wrong, so was yours. Using the talk page to discuss the appropriate wording in the article is fine. Using the talk page to discuss your personal belief that the killing was a murder is not. The fact that your personal belief is shared by the prosecutor and many others is not enough to change things. It's well accepted that the article is not going to call the killing a murder until there is a conviction for murder, therefore, please stop calling the killing a murder until that or at least unless you are genuinely asking for a change to the article rather than simply stating your personal belief. As you have already been told, WP:BLP applies everywhere on wikipedia including talk pages. At the time when this was still extremely raw in the days after the video, it's probable we let some of that stuff slide. But now, it's reasonable for us to start enforcing BLP more stringently so inappropriate comments on the talk page may be removed and the offender (i.e. you) blocked. To be clear, this does not excuse Stayfree76's comment but I think others have already made it sufficiently clear that their behaviour wasn't acceptable. Nil Einne (talk) 09:29, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Nil Einne, there is a fine distinction: the medical examiners are generally reported to have ruled that the death was a homicide. That does not prejudge culpability, which is a matter for the courts to decide in respect of Chauvin and the rest. Stayfree76's position is that it can't be described as a homicide until after the trials, but that isn't stopping multiple RS from doing so and should not stop us either. The inconsistency between one legal finding that a death is a homicide and another in respect of responsibility for that homicide is really not our problem to fix: there are plenty of cases where death has been ruled as homicide at inquest but the only likely culprit has been acquitted. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:39, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: to be clear this has nothing to do with the word homicide, which did not occur in my comment. Since the death has been ruled a homicide by the coroner, if people want to call it such on the article talk page, that's fine. As our article says homicide "requires only a volitional act by another person that results in death, and thus a homicide may result from accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no intent to cause harm" so doesn't even suggest the killing was unlawful. Although since juries seem free to talk about their verdict in the US, we know that in some cases the jury seems to have been unable to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that it was a homicide, rather than concluding it was but it was lawful. And the situation in England and Wales (or the whole UK?) may be different. But how to deal with a contradiction between a coroner and court case is IMO an argument for another time and place.

Murder is what I referred to as it's normally taken to mean a specific crime at least in many common law jurisdictions in the anglosphere. (I understand it can get a little complicated in places like Greece where such distinctions are not so clear.) It's generally accepted that if the only people who can realistically be accused of the crime have known identities, are alive and available for prosecution but have not been convicted, we should not describe such a homicide as a murder. Despite that, if an editor wants to argue for some change to an article, for example that an article should call a killing a murder, that is generally an acceptable use of the talk page provided they are using reliable secondary sources and willing to WP:DROPTHESTICK if it's clear their arguments are rejected by the community.

But until that happens, if the article does not describe the killing as a murder (except for any direct quotations etc), editor's should not call it a murder either anywhere on the English Wikipedia including in talk pages, again except quotations etc where necessary. They of course free to call it what they want outside Wikipedia or to personally believe it's a murder. (By free I mean it's none of our concern. I make no comment on any external site ToS nor hypothetical legal risks.)

In the case of Lima Bean Farmer, they started off with "many people believe that race was a motive to the murder of George Floyd. Stating that the officers are white simply supports a common belief that his murder was racially motivated". While technically you could make the argument they were simply stating the common belief that this a racially motivated murder, IMO this was unnecessary. It would be easy to have simply said something like "how George Floyd was treated" which is also more inclusive. (You can believe there was a racial motivation without believing there was a murder whether that means you think there wasn't a murder or feel it's best to let a jury decide.)

Still maybe that comment by itself could be left be. But when challenged, they didn't say they were simply describing this as a common belief. Instead they followed this up with (inserted with edit) "Actually Stayfree76, it was a murder. I’m not saying that based on my beliefs, the officers were charged with murdering him. So yes, it is a murder. <snipped> But I wanted to clarify that this incident is considered murder." (end insert) and "This is a murder since all four officers were charged with murder". Now we start to have a problem. They are no longer simply describing what others believe, but are starting to argue that a charge with murder means the killing is a murder. This is flawed, but more importantly in an issue like this which directly affects those four individuals named in our articles, they should not be making such claims unless they are trying to argue for some change to our article/s. Again, they are free to make such arguments outside Wikipedia, but Wikipedia isn't the place for contentious claims about living people which aren't related to article content. Call the killing a killing or homicide, but don't call it a murder except for necessary direct quotations or when a conviction (including any guilty plea) is secured. (What happens if all four accused die before a court case is another argument for a different time and place.)

Nil Einne (talk) 11:48, 17 August 2020 (UTC) insert time: 12:45, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

And in case it's unclear, I understand this is an emotive issue. But as I said, while it may have been okay to turn a blind eye in the early days, IMO it's come to a time where we should start enforcing BLP norms, especially since this is a case where the subject matter may be extremely notable, but the individuals are only high profile because of that one event. (By comparison, I think it's reasonable we tend to let more technical BLP vios slide with highly notable individuals e.g. Biden or Trump.) If any editor can't resist the urge to call the killing a murder, maybe it would be best for them to just edit somewhere else. Another clarification, I don't think a block of Lima Bean Farmer is already justified. I was simply making the point that if they refuse to abide by BLP and keep calling the killing a murder, they are likely to be blocked. I felt it necessary to make it clear that BLP is also important including on talk pages and they cannot simply brush it aside. Nil Einne (talk) 12:11, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• I agree with what I understand [U|Nil Einne}} to be saying. Though LBF did not sufficiently understand the extremely broad (and in my opinion appropriately broad) way we interpret "legal threats", a block does not seem called for here, unless the conduct shows further problems. DGG ( talk ) 10:18, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• I assume we're talking about the paragraph deleted in this edit? On the spectrum of wikibehavior, I think we're further away from the platonic ideal I'd like to see, but this is a long way from the kind of threats where blocking should be considered. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:58, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• Agree with Roysmith and DGG. The OP raised a good faith concern, but the comment was not a legal threat and to the extent it was perceived as one, it's been clarified as not being so. There's still a problem with civility, especially in some edits before the block last month. The edits since the block are not all perfect either, but they're a marked improvement, and presently more in line for a continued warning than a block. The issue of how to describe George Floyd's death is a content dispute and need not be resolved on this noticeboard.

Id like to suggest a warning to Stayfree to watch the tone in their posts, and to try seeking compromise rather than entrenching themselves. Not convinced on a topic ban - there's not enough disruption to warrant it. Other views welcome as always. -- Euryalus (talk) 13:20, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

im not sure this should be discussed here, but thought it worth mentioning. to what extent do we allow a user to call explicitly state it was a murder, when it was not. i attempted to inform the person it was not ok, but then they started doubling down. instead wasting the time of everyone, i felt it would be nicer to inform the person of the offense and show a recent, public incident of what can happen if people or orgs continue to behave in that manner, instead of making a big deal about it elsewhere. i have brought up a few points on my own talk page directed at one of the admins, but i will also some here as this is obviously very important to alot of people and i think there is some misunderstandings on all fronts going on. Stayfree76 (talk) 16:43, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

1. the policy states "A discussion as to whether material is libelous is not a legal threat. Wikipedia's policy on defamation is to delete libelous material as soon as it is identified." this is more in line with what i was doing as i was discussing with the user that their actions could be taken a defamation in us civil courts and linked an article showing potential problems faced when engaging in said actions. should i just never mention defamation anymore in talk pages?

2. the policy also states "For example, if you repeatedly assert that another editor's comments are "defamatory" or "libelous"" my statement regarding defamation was singular and was not mentioned repeatedly. that being said, i mentioned that we cannot call it a murder twice before the defamation comment. does this count as repeated?

thanks, Stayfree76 (talk) 16:43, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

As for point 1, there's a huge difference between "is this material potentially libelous?" and "don't libel the subject." The former is asking whether certain content is appropriate, the latter is accusing an editor of legal culpability. I would encourage you to avoid any mention of defamation or libel when discussing content.

Point 2 is meant more for repeat behavior, but some posts about defatmation/libel are egregious enough to get someone blocked immediately. It's better to just avoid those terms entirely, and stick to arguing based on Wikipedia policy such as WP:BLP. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:29, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

HandThatFeeds, that makes sense for the most post, but the BLP policy doesnt really have clear guidance in this matter other than i should have just immediately deleted him comments.

Note that, although the three-revert rule does not apply to such removals, what counts as exempt under BLP can be controversial. Editors who find themselves in edit wars over potentially defamatory material about living persons should consider raising the matter at the biographies of living persons noticeboard instead of relying on the exemption. Administrators may enforce the removal of clear BLP violations with page protection or by blocking the violator(s), even if they have been editing the article themselves or are in some other way involved. In less clear cases they should request the attention of an uninvolved administrator at Wikipedia:Administrators Noticeboard/Incidents. See Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons § Role of administrators.

this is more so why i was bringing it up. i dont think anyone can deny calling someone a murderer is not libelous, and after multiple attempts to fix the problem politely, i made it more clear. So should the [potentially?] libelous content be removed from the talk page? As a more personal [sincere] question; after hindsight on this exact situation, what is your personal opinion on how i should have handled it? im personally bigger into discussion with the individual in question directly than make a big deal of it if at all possible. Stayfree76 (talk) 20:52, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

So, without getting too far down a legal rabbit hole here, I just want to note that, in this instance, referring to Chauvin as a "murderer" is almost certainly not libelous in any common law jurisdiction. Please note, I don't think this makes it appropriate for a BLP, but courts are arbiters of legal culpability, not moral. People who watch the video can very reasonably reach the conclusion that they have witnessed a murder irrespective of ultimate legal responsibility. That being said, I think it would have made sense to seek an administrator's help here. Generally, except in extreme circumstances, I would recommend steering clear of legal language and citing WP:BLP instead, which is both broader and subject to less technicalities. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:26, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Stayfree76, I now understand why that should not be considered murder. However, in a content discussion on a talk page, I am allowed to argue my position to why I believed it was murder. The appropriate thing would be to point me to the policy stating that this is not considered murder on Wikipedia. Once again, I am allowed to argue why I believe this is murder. Automatically going to “you could be sued for this” is most definitely over the top. Especially since this was not on the page itself. I never even actually claimed that those who were charged with murder were “murderers”. Simply stating that he was murdered on a talk page in a content dispute is not enough to claim libel. A simple redirect to a policy is all that is needed. My recommendation for you, Stayfree76, is that you come to this page or the tea house in the future and ask someone else to give a warning if you believe one should be issued. After a few times, you will be able to see from the admins how to properly handle these situations. We’ve already addressed civility but once again, saying fix yourself is never the right way to put it. One way I have seen other admins and done myself is say “please stop doing (insert policy violation here). If you continue to violate (insert broken policy here), you will be reported at the admins noticeboard. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 21:30, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

@Dumuzid:, murder is not under common law in the United States. it falls under Criminal Law. an excerpt from that wiki is: The validity of common law crimes varies at the state level. Although most states have abolished common law crimes, some have enacted "reception" statutes recognizing common law crimes when no similar statutory crime exists.. Common Law is "The body of law derived from judicial decisions, rather than from statutes or constitutions". The law itself varies by state which makes it difficult for outside parties to understand the complexity of the US legal system. for example, in my state of AZ, i can walk into a bank with a loaded AR 15 sling over my shoulder, but one state over in California, i cant even own it. Stayfree76 (talk) 21:51, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

StayFree, this is what I mean by "legal rabbit holes." With all due respect, you have seized on a term I used and completely missed the gravamen of my comment. By "common law jurisdictions" I mean countries which share a legal tradition and broadly similar principles. The actual codification of murder is quite beside the point. I am well aware of the Federal nature of U.S. law. Again, because this is an opinion on obviously disclosed facts, and one which is reasonable to hold, it is not defamatory. On Wikipedia, it is almost always better to couch complaints in terms of BLP rather than any sort of controlling law. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:22, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

@Dumuzid:, i highly suggest you read a dictionary regarding this topic. also per Defamation, Defamation law in the United States is much less plaintiff-friendly than its counterparts in European and the Commonwealth countries. A comprehensive discussion of what is and is not libel or slander under United States law is difficult, as the definition differs between different states and is further affected by federal law.[134] Some states codify what constitutes slander and libel together, merging the concepts into a single defamation law.[135] Civil defamation: Although laws vary by state, in the United States a defamation action typically requires that a plaintiff claiming defamation prove that the defendant:[136] made a false and defamatory statement concerning the plaintiff; shared the statement with a third party (that is, somebody other than the person defamed by the statement); if the defamatory matter is of public concern, acted in a manner which amounted at least to negligence on the part of the defendant; and caused damages to the plaintiff. i feel like im beating a dead horse, but at the same time i think that many non US citizens just do not get how things work in the US and that ignorance causes many misunderstanding about the country as a whole and as a proud american i feel an obligation to ensure accuracy in representation regarding my home.Stayfree76 (talk)

StayFree76, you make some odd assumptions. For the record, I am a U.S. citizen. You seem determined to not take my basic point. On Wikipedia, stick to BLP rather than defamation. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:46, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

i was not accusing anyone of not being a us citizen. it was a general statement that i see a widespread misunderstanding of US legalities and it is very detrimental the the overall project. all it takes in one person to attempt to litigate against wikimedia (for example) to cause significant changes to the way the site operates. especially given its a high profile case, think about how the people involved might feel when trying to continue their life one way or the other. (this could include [for example] attempting to get financial compensation for a destroyed image and inability to get a job). like i am just trying to protect wikipedia here. i am just some turd that will be dead before 2100, but wikipedia will hopefully be alive forever. Stayfree76 (talk) 22:55, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

StayFree76, it's best if we let WMF's legal department handle that sort of thinking. My point is merely this: had you come here saying "this is a BLP violation, and it should stop," then I think you would have met with broad agreement. By saying "this is libel," you have decidedly muddied the waters and are skirting with contravening an important Wikipedia policy. Just food for thought. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 23:02, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

tbh man, im with you, that is why i asked if i should have just removed it. next time i will remove the content and post the BLP removal template on their talk page instead of doing the process outside of a known way this is handled (using BLP without citing BLP). at the same time i am still partially concerned about people continuing, even here in this thread, and in talk pages where i started a discussion that you can not use the word murder. one of the editors touts 140,000 wiki edits and is actively on a campaign to get me topic banned. Stayfree76 (talk)

*Neither of these editors has enough experience to be arguing at that article. LBF and SF76, you both need to go find something else to edit for a good long while. Either of you could so easily end up blocked here. Kwitcherbitchin and go do something useful. —valereee (talk) 23:26, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, it's been a long lockdown and no end in sight —valereee (talk) 23:34, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

im not "bitchin" about anything. i got put here trying to do the right thing. arent we actively having a civil discussion as we speak about one of the wikis in question that i am unable to handle? Stayfree76 (talk) 23:38, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

—valereee, I don’t need enough experience to argue. I was having a debate over content. That’s what we’re here for. There’s no way that I could be easily blocked for seeing if the term murder is appropriate. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 23:42, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Oshwah, do you think that stayfree76 should have deleted the parts of the talk page where I argued that it should be considered a murder? Is this really violating BLP enough to delete my comments? Thank you. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 00:30, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Lima Bean Farmer - See this section of Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy. If the person has not been convicted of murder, we're not supposed to use that word to describe the person or the events until a conviction has been secured. The neutral way to go about this is to simply describe the set of events that occurred without referring to those events as anything contentious (i.e. a "murder", "attack", or anything of that sort). Then, simply describe what the offending person (who will be the defendant in the trial) has been charged with, and leave it at that. Do your comments on the article's talk page amount to a BLP violation? BLP applies to all pages, including talk pages. Expressing your opinion and saying that you believe the events were murder wasn't a good idea. Now is it a violation where redaction was necessary? That's debatable... I wouldn't have redacted those words from your comments, since if anything, it makes it harder for others to scrutinize the comments and respond accordingly... Again, this is debatable and I'm sure others will disagree. I'll remain neutral on that point. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 00:45, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Lima Bean Farmer, calling it murder is basically calling Chauvin, a living person, a murderer. That would be libel, as he hasn't been convicted of murder. Yes, it is reasonable to delete libel in the case of living persons. It's not by any means an unreasonable move. —valereee (talk) 00:48, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

@Valereee, Oshwah, Lima Bean Farmer, and Stayfree76: as a suggestion, is this ongoing discussion about the application of BLP to particular content edits better suited to the article talkpage than here? There's several competing issues in this thread - if possible I'd like to separate the BLP/content one from NLT and civility so we can move the others towards a close. Disagreements welcome. :) -- Euryalus (talk) 00:57, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

ill just note for record that i am bowing out (removing myself from the issue). if there is something that is needed from me i will be happy to oblige. :) Stayfree76 (talk) 01:04, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Euryalus, it's ridiculous that it's here, tbh. More evidence of not enough experience. —valereee (talk) 01:02, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Euryalus - I believe that this discussion regarding content should continue on the article's talk page, yes. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 01:14, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Talk:George Floyd is watchlisted by 150+ editors. There is no need for any new editor to start a thread at ANI over anything anyone says on that talk page; if it was that serious, some other editor with more experience would bring it to ANI, or, more likely, one of the many admins who watch the page would take action directly. Similarly, there is no need for any new editor to remove text from any other editor's posts on that page; if it was that serious, some other editor with more experience would remove it. New editors should focus on content, not on the conduct of other editors. Or, at least that's what people have told me :-) Lev!vich 01:12, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

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

2020 Beirut explosions

Hi. Please can someone look at closing this move discussion that's been open for a while now? For transparency, I did vote in it myself. Thanks. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 09:00, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

I can close it Nosebagbear (talk) 20:20, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Lugnuts, thanks for making the request, and Nosebagbear, thanks for doing a solid close. If I could be permitted to tag onto this post a bit, the fact that a big banner notice was cluttering that page for 11 days during a very high-traffic period over what is really a pretty small question (a single letter) of interest only to editors (not readers) is an issue. It's another example of why we ought to revamp {{Title notice}}, ideally turning it into something more like the {{Move topicon}} that Netoholic proposed and Wugapodes coded. (I believe a little technical help is needed to ensure proper mobile display, etc.; after that it'll be ready to put forward for adoption.) {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:27, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks both. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 06:28, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Backlog at Category:Requests for unblock

Category:Requests for unblock is now chronically backlogged at a very high level. Some fresh eyes would be appreciated - for a quarter of the cases I'm the blocking admin. MER-C 09:49, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

MER-C, I do understand that there are probably many admins who work regularly on addressing these issues and they may fully understand how the page is organized, but let me share my impressions as a first time visitor to that page.

I see a notice that there is a backlog which is fine. I see some introductory sentences which seem fine. that I see a collapse section of information for administrators which I will obviously want to read but let me check out the rest of the page first.

I see a section for UTRS appeals. With a nicely organized table. I haven't totally figured out what the status column means. My guess is that "open" means that hasn't yet been touched, "admin" means the last response in the thread is from an admin but how does that differ from "awaiting reply". In my opinion, the entries are obvious such as timestamps they don't need an explanation key but if they aren't obvious should be an explanation key. (I thought maybe this would be explained in the collapsed administrator section but no)

There is a section labeled "summary". This threw me. Given the prior section covering UTRS, I thought it would be followed by a section for non UTRS blocks. I still think that might be the case but the section title is misleading. I spot check some entries in the UTRS section and don't see them in the summary section so I think I'm right but curious wording.

Presumably, the summary section is a summary table related to the entries in the category "requests for unblock" which do not inlcude UTRS requests.

There is a portion of the table that's unshaded and a portion of the table that's shaded. Presumably the distinction is important, but it's not identified. They appear to be sorted in reverse chronological order based upon request time. Are all of these open? I clicked on the first one and it looks like it's actively being worked on.

Is there some priority for which ones need attention?

Again, I recognize that regulars probably know this but if you're looking for new eyes, these new eyes aren't clear what's going on. S Philbrick(Talk) 16:37, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

I myself don't know why the table has multiple shadings. @AmandaNP: who is responsible for both of those tables. MER-C 17:03, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

MER-C, Well, this is embarrassing. I thought I'd try to respond to one of the UTRS entries, but I clicked on a button to see what it would do (assuming incorrectly that if I did something wrong I could undo it). I still don't know what the button did but the appeal is now marked "This appeal is closed and no further action can be taken."

That wasn't my intention. It is Appeal number: #33061 how do I undo my action?

My intended response: Let them know they were caught in a range block, which wasn't directed at them personally. I see they wish to edit a page with which they probably have a conflict of interest so I wanted to share with them the conflict of interest page, then urge them to register an account and offer to help them. I didn't see a way to start a discussion with the editor. Is there a UTRS manual?S Philbrick(Talk) 17:13, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

It might be better to stick to on-wiki stuff at first. It will likely be less confusing. The "summary" table (which has been renamed to be more clear) is supposed to be helpful, but you can just ignore it if you find it confusing. The appeals are color-coded, I think, based on the unblock template used ({{unblock}} for standard unblock requests, {{unblock-un}} for username change requests, etc). What I did before getting involved in the unblock process was shadow a few cases. I looked at the unblock request, decided on a course of action or response, and waited to see what the responding admin did. Once I was satisfied that my instincts were not wildly off from current practice, I started responding to them. Certain types of blocks tend to languish for a long time. Sock puppetry blocks and undisclosed paid editing require some detective work, or at least some time spent reviewing evidence to make sure that it's solid. Few admins are willing to deal with a dramamonger, so drama-heavy blocks often languish in the queue, too. Another problem that I've seen is that someone will be smart enough to say all the right things, but the person is obviously incompatible with Wikipedia. There is a psychological barrier to outright telling this to someone. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 19:07, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

NinjaRobotPirate, Thanks, I'm fine with starting with the on-wiki items, and will consider UTRS later. I liked your shadow suggestion - I've done something similar in other contexts (copyright, OTRS) and I'll try it here. S Philbrick(Talk) 18:13, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Genetically modified organisms

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

Remedy 2 ("1RR imposed") of Genetically modified organisms is amended to read as follows:

Editors are prohibited from making more than one revert per page per day on any page relating to genetically modified organisms, commercially produced agricultural chemicals and the companies that produce them, broadly construed and subject to the usual exemptions.

The purpose of the amendment was to match the scope of the existing 1RR remedy and the discretionary sanctions remedy.

For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 16:44, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Arbitration motion regarding Genetically modified organisms

policy on women and children killed by a spouse/parent

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

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Hi This has been raised with regard to Murder of Hannah Clarke who was murdered by her estranged husband. Should Wikipedia have her referred to in the article as "Hannah Baxter", the name used in the Murdoch tabloids? There seems to be a growing idea in society that wives and children murdered by their husband and father should *not* be referred to by his surname because he murdered them. PAustin4thApril1980 (talk) 19:54, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

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

Call for close re mention of COVID-19 pandemic in the lead at Donald Trump

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure#Talk:Donald Trump#COVID-19 in the lead? (take 69) was listed at ANRFC a little over two weeks ago, following months of contentious and pretty messy debate at Talk:Donald Trump. Myself and several others at ANRFC have highlighted the strong need for an experienced closer to come in and put a cap on the spiraling discussion, but no one has stepped up yet, so I'm escalating to the main noticeboard here. Is anyone willing to take this on?

(As always with posts of this sort, everyone here is reminded to please keep your comments to meta-discussion about the process of the close only. Comments arguing for or against possible outcomes of the close should be collapsed.) {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:11, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb: That's not an WP:RfC, nor apparently was it ever one, so it lacks any sort of officialness or need for any sort of official close (and it shouldn't be listed at ANRFC, nor should it be DNAUed). There is however an RfC on the subject on that talkpage, which was opened August 5, so that has a few more weeks to run: Talk:Donald Trump#RfC: A statement on Trump and Covid-19 in the lead. -- Softlavender (talk) 07:53, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Softlavender, the call for a close is a call to close the entire group of discussions, which includes both the RfCs and the non-RfCs. They're all on the same topic, just framed differently, so it wouldn't make any sense to try to close them separately. Calls for a formal close existed even before the launch of the currently open RfC, which is just another in a long series of attempts to try to frame things in a way that actually produces an outcome. No one has !voted on the RfC in the past week, which for Donald Trump's page is about as strong an indicator of exhaustion as you could ever find. I think most participants on all sides agree that it's long past due for a close, and that it would not be beneficial to let it run for a few more weeks. The closer will be able to draw from about 10 different massive discussions going back months, so there's zero question that there has been ample opportunity for participation. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:56, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

That's not how things work on Wikipedia. Unless something is an RfC, it's just a discussion thread on a talkpage and has no site-wide input or official weight. That's why there have been so many threads on that page without resolution. Now that there is an actual RfC (which is the only way to really resolve things that have been discussed endlessly without RfC and without resolution), the matter must wait until the RfC has run for at least a month. Anything that really needs to be officially resolved with an administrator's binding close must be done via RfC (otherwise, someone will just open yet another thread, or open an RfC). Softlavender (talk) 08:30, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Softlavender, I'm pretty^{update: I just checked and confirmed} sure at least one of the previous discussions was an RfC, and it's not as though the current one is better formulated or has wider participation than the previous ones. It's a continuation of the sprawling mess, not much more or less definitive than the sprawling mess that came before it. If you think further discussion is somehow needed, fine, although I think you'd be very strained to make that argument. But if your view is just that we need to stick to the letter of the bureaucracy because those are The Rules™, then I'd suggest re-reading WP:IAR, which I hope is still alive enough that we're capable of cutting off RfCs that have very clearly gone long past the point of usefulness. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 09:02, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't sound to me like you understand what an WP:RFC is and don't even want to check and see if there have been any (if there have been, the word RFC will be in the thread title). If there was a previous RfC, with an official close, then that is a binding decision and the decision will be implemented as official. The discussion you are talking about is merely a non-official article-talk discussion between people who have that page on their watch list, to see if they can come to a consensus. Since consensus seems unclear (namely, you're asking for someone to close it), that indicates that there is not yet a clear enough consensus to be implemented. If you want an official administrative close on something, propose it in an WP:RFC, with a clear opening statement that people can !vote support or oppose on. Otherwise, all you've got is a meandering mess that someone is going to contest the details of the minute it is acted upon. WP:RFC is for issues such as this that have had extensive discussions without success. They get site-wide input, last one month, and get official closes. That's why we have them. Softlavender (talk) 09:16, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Softlavender, if you're going to link WP:RFC, then note the duration section, which states pretty clearly There is no required minimum or maximum duration. I agree with the spirit of your point that RfCs are often a useful tool for formalizing messy discussions, but your comments do not give me the impression that you are assessing the situation here on its own terms rather than blindly adhering to your understanding of the rules. We've both made our point; let's wait for some others here to weigh in now. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 09:49, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• Softlander is correct. This should have been done as a proper RFC. As is, it can only establish a local consensus, not a global consensus, and is likely to be contested as soon as it closes. Issues this large aren't typically solved with local discussions only, and require a real RFC with input outside of that talk page. A piecemeal approach isn't a solution. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 10:15, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  Dennis Brown, as is? There have been multiple tagged RfCs, none as perfectly formulated as might be hoped, but the discussion has long since run its course. We're here now since it's ready for a close. I can't do it myself since I !voted in one of the earlier discussions, but please, take the hint. We would not be coming here if there were not a reasonably clear consensus that has emerged and just needs an authoritative stamp from someone uninvolved. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 11:12, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  Then by all means, keeping having discussion after discussion and dragging it to AN. That is obviously a better solution, right? It is much easier for an admin to enforce the outcome of a real RFC. Disagree all you want, but it rather speaks for itself, that for contentious issues that rise to this level, a real RFC that is properly crafted is what you want. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:00, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

No she is not right. Discussions do not need to follow a formal RfC process. Unstructured discussions very much benefit from being closed by uninvolved editors. I'm not sure what "global consensus" has to do with a specific content proposal for the lead a specific article. - MrX 🖋 00:52, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Softlavender is absolutely incorrect that the matter must wait until the RfC has run for at least a month. If RfCs usually run for 30 days, it's because (1) many editors misinterpret the time of automatic de-listing as a recommended duration, and (2) most of those who don't would rather let it run for the full 30 than press the point. There is certainly nothing in written guidance supporting a 30-day rule-of-thumb, and RfCs may close in a few days or a few months depending on the circumstances. Furthermore, per WP:RFCEND, RfCs require a close no more than any discussion does. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:06, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• I requested the presently active Talk:Donald_Trump#RfC:_A_statement_on_Trump_and_Covid-19_in_the_lead 12 days ago. Perhaps redundant with the previous extensive discussions, but I thought it worthwhile to have a specific, formal RfC on the consensus text, given the way the process seems to have been manipulated for delay. There has not been really any opposition to the proposal, other than the universal recommendation to drop my ill-advised "weasel" words, in what I thought would be a compromise to soften the language. The RfC consensus so far has been overwhelming, other than those comments that deviate from the process (mistakenly seeing the RfC as a reopening of the issue, not following directions, etc.). So overwhelming that it seemed to me we could close the RfC by mutual agreement, as is possible according to the rules (though there have been no takers for that avenue). Something is broken/being exploited by Wikipedia processes if it takes 5 months to devise a simple sentence for the lead. I've thought about bringing the issue here already, so I support this attention. There is WP:NOW: "...when an article lacks vital content, that content should be added as quickly as possible." The text in question concerns Donald Trump and his response to pandemic...speaking of vital content. Across all the political articles, I believe this problem is likely universal just now - it is a political strategy to jam up the process. Some broader, objective strategy to prevent discussions such as this from going on endlessly (or until after the election...) is likely in order. Bdushaw (talk) 11:33, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

We had a perfectly good approximation of the consensus that was repeatedly removed and disparaged in obstinate obstructive edits by a small number of editors. The consensus was accurately reflected thanks to the work of @MrX, Neutrality, and Starship.paint: and others. It just needs to go back in the article with a warning to others to use the talk page to promote and gather consensus for any improved version. WP is not a beaurocracy. One of the obstructive editors has already been TBANned. If anyone takes on the task of compiling the evidence, we have other TBAN candidates as well. There has been consensus for something in the lead for several months. Insistent quibbling about the perfect language, with excessive numbers of proposals, alternatives, and bludgeons mostly ignoring cited RS references, serves only to enable a claim of "no consensus". That is the stuff of bans. If any Admin chooses to review the entire history of this discussion, we'd see several warnings at the very least. SPECIFICO talk 18:24, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

No reason to close no-RFC discussion Unless the discussion has turned disruptive there is no reason to close, presumably with a summary, a non-RfC discussion. This can actually be problematic if the closing gives the appearance of an actual RfC that got wider community input vs a discussion among the article locals only. If the discussion is done let it auto archive. Springee (talk) 15:05, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Of course there's a reason. Numerous editors have spent considerable time availing themselves of the dispute resolution process and you think they should be left hanging? This is exactly the type of bureaucratic thinking that contributes to battleground editing. It's truly unhelpful. - MrX 🖋 17:19, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Are you suggesting the discussion should be closed only (gray box, no further comments) or that an uninvolved editor should try to summarize the discussion as would be done with a RfC closing? If the former, why? If the latter then what authority does that discussion have beyond current, local consensus? What would stop someone from starting a RfC to discuss the same issue the day after this closing? As the discussion (presumably) didn't request wider input, as Dennis Brown mentioned, it would only represent a consensus of the current, local editors. A RfC, drawing in uninvolved editors would almost certainly superseded the local discussion and wouldn't be forum shopping. Again, what is to be gained by closing a local discussion that isn't a RfC? Springee (talk) 17:36, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

But there is an RfC, as noted above, so this discussion just above seems academic. When I requested the RfC, I cast a wide net for comments, pinging BIO, SCI, and POL. There have been no serious additional comments for about 10 days now. Those that vigorously objected to the inclusion of the sentence in question when it was attempted to be added to the lead have not voiced those opinions in the RfC, that I can tell. Bdushaw (talk) 04:25, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

That is unfortunate. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have been involved with an article level discussion that becomes locked. Someone starts a RfC and after that we get more participants. When the RfC gets more participation than the original discussion that's great. We know the RfC can be the definitive consensus (or non-consensus). I'm not sure how you should handle it if the RfC gets less activity than the previous discussion. If the RfC doesn't get much response then I guess the local participants will need to decide if a consensus has been reached and move from there. Either way, I don't think non-RfC discussions should ever be closed as if they were a RfC. Springee (talk) 04:39, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it is unfortunate - it is just a symptom of the weirdness of editing patterns on this particular article, and one of the reasons for requesting a bit of intervention. Bdushaw (talk) 11:51, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Springee, that is pretty much outside WP process. There are many ways to establish consensus on article content. In this case, there was disruptive abuse of the RfC format, evidenced by what in my experience was an unprecedented number of "Abort" !votes. A review and affirmation of the evident consensus, as reflected in MrX's edit that kept being reverted, was a reasonable way to move forward. The alternative would have been a lengthy AE tangle. SPECIFICO talk 16:20, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

That is one of the reasons why I often suggest trying to get agreement on the RfC question before the discussion starts. While editors don't agree on the content, it's often easier to get to an agreement on the question. I'm not sure which part you mean is outside of WP process. It's very common for a local consensus to be superseded by a RfC consensus. In most cases this is obvious as the RfC includes the original locals + outside editors. I don't recall the last time I saw one where the "local" discussion had editor participation than the RfC. I guess that would be a case where you could argue that the two discussions could be considered "merged" and try to establish consensus that way. Regardless, I don't think the local, non-RfC discussion should be closed vs just allowed to archive after a period of inactivity. Springee (talk) 16:31, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

You don't appear to be familiar with the history of this particular issue on that page. The first RfC posted was a mess with 5 options, concocted seemingly at random by the poster. It was the opposite of good process or even constructive collaboration. OP refused to clean up the RfC. It kept the content at bay for a long time, only to be followed by more delays and distractions even after broad talk page participation crafted what's turned out to be highly stable article text. There should not need to be a close, but it's the least severe way of stopping the small number of editors who are edit-warring consensus content out of the article. SPECIFICO talk 16:38, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm deliberately not following anything on a Trump article. It sounds like the RfC were bad which makes this a mottled mess. Springee (talk) 16:47, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, yes that is what happened. And to be blunt about it the RfC format was abused. And the substantive consensus was reaffirmed in a lenthy reexamination of the issues facilitated in part by @Awilley:, whose format we followed in verifying that the text was indeed consensus. It can still be placed in the lead at any time, and I'd be curious to see which editor is going to revert it this time. SPECIFICO talk 16:59, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I'll do it! Whose edit am I reverting? Lev!vich 18:39, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I've had my eye on this for a while, and I think we've lost sight of a couple of points.

• There is clear consensus that something about covid should be in the lead. It's just unclear exactly what that something should be. There's still a partisan divide, as there always is on that page, but in this case the usual "swing voters" unanimously favor having something, and even a couple regulars who have opposed all of the proposed wordings concede that there should be something.
• Consensus is best achieved by a combination of editing and discussion. Wikipedia wasn't meant to be written by committee votes. One reason these discussions are so messy is that it requires a new vote every time someone has a new idea or incremental improvement to the proposed wording. Once people get past the point of wholesale reverting the sentence in and out of the article they can settle in and start tweaking the sentence to resolve objections until it stabilizes into something that's good enough. The talk page is there to aid that tweaking process, not replace it.

If I hadn't played a role in formatting the discussion in the "finding common ground" section I would quite comfortable closing the RFC finding a positive consensus for Q1 and suggesting that people continue working on hammering out wording nuances using the article and talk page. As it is I'd prefer someone else do it, but if nobody steps up I'm willing to take a stab at cutting through some of this bureaucratic gridlock. ~Awilley (talk) 00:36, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Close challenge

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

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At User talk:MrX#Ayurveda RfC close there has been considerable push-back against the conclusions of a NAC. There is also a fight going on on the article talk page about the meaning of the close. I would like to request that MrX voluntarily withdraw the NAC and that a panel of uninvolved administrators an uninvolved administrator or a panel of uninvolved administrators evaluate the RfC. If MrX is not willing to do that, I would like to request a closure review.

See Talk:Ayurveda#RFC: pseudoscience in the opening sentence and Talk:Ayurveda#A lead paragraph without the whitewashing. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:06, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• Comment As the participant of the RfC, I saw no problem with the original closure, though I had voted for the outright removal of the content in question. While there a number of "support" arguments, there were enough editors who still didnt supported the inclusion of the term pseudoscience or pseudoscientific on the "opening sentence" (the RfC question) but the first paragraph. That said, the "no consensus" close was accurate. शिव साहिल/Shiv Sahil (talk) 11:33, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• (also participated) I think a review or do-over might be appropriate. The "no consensus" close seems correct to me, but then the closer went and invalidated that with a postscript [3]. Everyone's allowed second thoughts, but in a hotly contested RfC closure they don't help. Currently we are back to heavy polemics (involving things like "no consensus for inclusion doesn't mean it can't be included" by the OP...). Better to have this confidently assessed once and for all. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:34, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• As I expressed on my talk page, I believe my close of the RfC was proper in all respects. After carefully considering the "pushback" from the involved parties, and after re-reviewing the comments made in the RfC, I am not inclined to withdraw my close. Per WP:CLOSECHALLENGE, a close review can occur, and it should include "a concrete description of how you believe the close was an inappropriate or unreasonable distillation of the discussion." I am happy to answer questions about how I arrived at my assessment of consensus. Please ping me if I am needed. - MrX 🖋 14:02, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• Endorse - Range of views were offered but it was ultimately unclear that which view gained the clear WP:CON among dozens of participants. Since a number of issues were raised about every particular set of argument, I consider this to be a valid close. Kraose (talk) 14:36, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• Overturn and re-close by admin - WP:BADNAC #2 applies here. FWIW, I see many oppose !votes that should be discounted. For example, all of those arguing "no sources support 'pseudoscience'" should be tossed in light of the many sources presented (mostly by Guy Macon) supporting usage of that term. All the oppose !votes citing WP:LABEL that don't discuss the very specific part of LABEL discussing "pseudoscience" should be tossed as not policy based. Those oppose !votes citing fringe works (one of them cites the back cover of a fringe work, lol) should also be tossed as not reality based. There is at least one blocked sock whose !vote should be tossed. The closing statement did not address any of this. Once you discount all the no-policy-basis or falsely-claiming-no-sources-exist oppose !votes, I see consensus for inclusion in the first sentence. Barring that, I certainly see consensus for inclusion in the lead. Either way, this consensus is complex and should be assessed by an editor who has been vetted by the community for their ability to assess consensus: an admin more thoroughly. PS: I originally accidentally posted this to X's talk page, where he pointed out that BADNAC isn't policy and hasn't been vetted by the community (true) and that my !vote here didn't address discounting of support votes (also true). There are some support !votes that should be discounted, but in my view not nearly as many. However, that's ultimately up to the closer. This close didn't address weighing of support or oppose !votes; an admin may still close this as no consensus, but at least it'll be closed as no consensus by someone vetted by the community to address consensus. Lev!vich 15:33, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  As I mentioned on my talk page, I dispute that BADNAC applies to this case, but more importantly, it's not policy. From the top of WP:NAC: "This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community." Also, your analysis of the RfC omits any concern about supporters !votes which should be discounted, including the several examples of circular reasoning, and at least six !votes without any reasoning whatsoever. - MrX 🖋 15:52, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  Here is where BADNAC#2 was added. There was no discussion on the talkpage, but there was consensus that WP:NAC is not a guideline.[4] - MrX 🖋 16:04, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  BADNAC is part of WP:NAC, "an explanatory supplement to the Wikipedia:Closing discussions page". It documents commonly observed conventions and should not be dismissed simply because the closer thinks they know better. The convention documented is "The outcome is a close call (especially where there are several valid outcomes) or likely to be controversial. Such closes are better left to an administrator." The RfC was called by an AE admin to settle a dispute and was controversial. In those circumstances, it required more skill in closing than was demonstrated by a non-admin, and I've outlined the reasons below. --RexxS (talk) 16:36, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  I've already shown that it's not a policy or a guideline, and that BADNAC#2 was added by one (admin) editor without any discussion or consensus. I dispute that it's a "commonly observed convention" or that it applies to this situation. - MrX 🖋 17:10, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  Rexx, it sounds as if you are deprecating MrX's skill because he is not an Admin? I think his skill, experience, and judgment exceeds that of most Admins. Your comment seems gratuitous and baiting. SPECIFICO talk 01:56, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

  Every piece of text on Wikipedia is added by one editor. Spartaz needed no prior consensus to make an edit, and edits that are not challenged represent consensus. That consensus has stood for four years. If you don't believe BADNAC#2 is a correct documentation of our accepted practices, try removing it and see how far that gets you. No matter how much you dispute it, it is a commonly observed convention, and it does apply here. --RexxS (talk) 18:39, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  The text (not the consensus) stood for years because it's not part of policy so no one bothered to remove it. It simply does not have community wide consensus. All the bloviating in the world doesn't change that. If you want it to be a policy or a guideline, you can start an RfC and advertise it on WP:CENT. - MrX 🖋 00:46, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

  On further reflection, I've struck the "by admin" part of my !vote. I agree with Ivan's point below that there are non-admins who could have closed this and who still could, or a panel that might have some admins and some non-admins. I don't have a strong feeling about who should close this or how many closers, but I do think the current close should be overturned. Lev!vich 17:07, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• Overturn and re-close by admin Three issues make me belive that this should be overturned. First per BADNAC 2, a no consensus that then needed to be updated is almost definitionally close, so is not eligble for NAC. Also, anything under discrestionary sanctions should be assumed to be controversial and not eligble. Second, MrX did not show any evaluation of strenght of arguments or even any evidence that they had any understanding of the arguments given. Third, MrX immediatly started baiting participants when his judgment was called into question and wikilayering when it was pointed out deficincies in his analysis.AlmostFrancis (talk) 15:44, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• The close was inappropriate and should be overturned. MrX is not an admin, but is an experienced closer, yet he failed to discern an important theme that became apparent in the discussion and survey, and also failed to sufficiently weight the strengths of the supporting !votes and the weaknesses of the opposing !votes.
  The RfC came about because of a dispute about where the word "pseudoscientific" should be placed in the lead. It was triggered by an edit war on 1 July 2020 and resulted in article protection and a complaint raised at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive268 #Roxy the dog under the discretionary sanctions relating to pseudoscience. El C, who regularly contributes at AE, consequently started the RfC in question "to resolve this dispute". MrX failed to grasp the significance of the RfC in settling a dispute and merely focused on the bald question "should there be mention of the word pseudoscience (or pseudoscientific) in the opening sentence?". I contend that MrX should have taken note of the considerable support, rooted in policy, for the proposition that pseudoscience should be mentioned in the opening paragraph of Ayurveda.
  It has been abundantly clear from long-standing consensus and prior debate RfC July 2015, Talk:Ayurveda/Archive 13 #Pseudoscience that Ayurveda is a pseudoscience. The article is in the Category:Pseudoscience and its talk page bears the pseudoscience DS warning. MrX, however, chose to ignore that context stating "I never made a judgment about whether Ayurveda is a pseudoscience". Closers are required to take context into account.
  As Ayurveda is undoubtedly a pseudoscience, the policies that apply are WP:PSCI, MOS:LEAD, MOS:BEGIN, WP:NPOV, WP:GEVAL, and WP:FRINGE – and the support arguments strongly leant on them. Several of the opposers only attacked the mention of pseudoscience at all. These cannot be compliant with Wikipedia policy and should have been discounted. Several of the !votes of the opposers relied on WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, effectively denying that sources used in the article for a considerable time were reliable. No evidence such as RSN reports was brought forward to support those denials. Many of the opposers used arguments based on faulty understanding of policies like WP:LABEL (which requires pseudoscientific topics to be described as such), and their arguments were clearly rebutted – see Yoonadue's oppose for an obvious example. MrX failed to recognise sufficiently the strength of the support arguments and the weakness of the oppose arguments.
  In raw numbers there were 63 !votes: 21 supporting inclusion in the first sentence, 15 supporting inclusion in the first paragraph, 16 opposing (presumably inclusion in the first sentence), 10 opposing inclusion anywhere in the lead, and 1 neutral (anywhere in the lead but attributed). I'll be happy to list names on request. None of those supporting inclusion in the first sentence opposed inclusion in the first paragraph. That shows 36 in favour of inclusion in the first paragraph, with strong policy reasons for that. Whereas, 10 of the oppose !votes were arguing against policy, WP:PSCI/MOS:BEGIN and long-standing consensus, and should have been discounted. MrX failed to discern the strength of opinion in favour of inclusion in the first paragraph.
  Most importantly, the close produced no resolution to the underlying dispute, despite that being the purpose of the RfC. Any closer should have been looking carefully for consensus that would bring the dispute to a close: the finding of consensus for inclusion in the first paragraph would have performed that job, and missing that was a deficit in the close. It would be patently ludicrous to have re-run the RfC just to ask the question "should there be mention of the word pseudoscience (or pseudoscientific) in the opening paragraph?" when we already have an affirmative answer to that in the current RfC. --RexxS (talk) 16:25, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• Keep the close as is Mr. X did fine on it. The original question was:

Should there be mention of the word pseudoscience (or pseudoscientific) in the opening sentence

On the page there are votes to:

Include - no preference where
Support in the lead sentence (which is what the question is asking )

Oppose

Oppose for the lead

Mr. X did a great job in evaluating the consensus for the question. No, it wasn't an easy close, and no matter who did it, someone wasn't going to be happy, but that's no reason to overturn. Consensus is accurately reflected for the question being asked. W.K.W.W.K...^{Toss a coin to the witcher, ye valley of plenty} 16:28, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• Please observe MOS:INDENTGAP: your formatting broke the thread for screen reader users.

  Fixed it. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:59, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  MrX did not a do a great job, because a closer of an RfC should be looking for consensus beyond the simple question asked. It's a Request for Comments, not a Request for Votes, and it is expected that a closer evaluates the whole of the debate and looks for whatever consensus could be found. In this case, an RfC on a controversial subject, created to settle a dispute, the failure to discern the strength of support for inclusion somewhere in the first paragraph was a fatal flaw. On challenge, he admitted that he saw "a weak consensus to include pseudoscience in the lead", and yet the arguments and numbers do not show that at all (other than the strong support for inclusion in the opening paragraph, which is naturally part of the lead). Almost nobody argued for inclusion just in the lead, and drawing that conclusion demonstrates the weakness of the original close. --RexxS (talk) 16:50, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• Overturn and re-close by admin I think this was a procedurally bad close. To claim a consensus we must show that and/or the balance of the quality of arguments clearly favors one side or, if the arguments are of equal weight, that we have a majority sufficient to make a claim of consensus clear via a head count. By the numbers this looks like a near 50/50 split with over 60 editors participating. The closing comments make no mention of the merits of arguments presented by either side so consensus can't be evaluated based on weight of the arguments. Additionally, the closing editor reversed their original close without explanation. All of this leaves open the appearance of a super vote. For these reasons, the controversial nature of the subject matter, and the fact that the 60+ participants should be given the respect of a clearly worded closing argument, I support overturning and requesting an admin-close. Note: I have no prior involvement in this topic. Springee (talk) 16:29, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  Closing statements do not have to explain every detail of the assessment, as long as the closer is willing to explain their reasoning when asked. I have done that. - MrX 🖋 00:37, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

  If then, as you claim, your close was proper in all respects, do you have a theory as to why the comments on this page are running 2:1 against you? If your closing comments are as good as you claim they are, why not voluntarily step aside, watch as an experienced admin makes closing comments that are pretty much identical to yours, then tell us all "I told you so"?

There once was a drunk driver who was driving the wrong way on the freeway. Upon hearing on the radio (over the honking horns) that there was a drunk driver who was driving the wrong way on the freeway, he peered through his windshield, noticed all of the headlights heading toward him, and exclaimed "My God! There are DOZENS of them!!" --Guy Macon (talk) 05:39, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: Yeah, [5]  :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:c7f:be17:2d00:b9d0:9630:fc7:7662 (talk • contribs) 06:16, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: I don't need a theory—it's pretty obvious that a brigade of editors involved in the RfC who didn't like the outcome came here to have it overturned. That's not how this process is supposed to work. If it's allowed to work this way, it will be to the detriment to the integrity of the consensus process. - MrX 🖋 12:54, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Can you think of anything -- anything at all -- that might explain so many people disagreeing with you other than "I am right and they are all wrong"? The promotion to brigadier was nice, though. Much better than by present position of henchman. --Guy Macon (talk)

I answered your question in my previous comment. I've already said that I don't have an opinion about Ayurveda. It doesn't register on my radar of things I care about. I never used it; I've never read about it (other than the lead of the Wikipedia article and the talk page); I've never discussed it with anyone; and I don't care about it anymore than I do homeopathy or crystal healing. You seem to think that it's fine to overturn a close by a majority vote of editors involved in the RfC. I don't. - MrX 🖋 13:53, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Overturn largely per Levivich's evidence that MrX did not adequately evaluate the discussion, particularly in light of many obviously incorrect arguments which were not discounted, and per RexxS' detailed analysis here that the RfC was not about whether or not to describe Ayurveda as pseudoscience but about how to do so. Also, when a closer starts arguing about what pages are and are not best practice or established community expectations, they should take a break from closing things: it's up to the participants to bring those arguments; once you start bringing your own you're supervoting. Given the controversial nature of this topic I support the suggestion to nominate a panel to close, though I normally dislike closing panels. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:51, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  Also: I couldn't care less if closers are admins or not: it's the quality of the close that matters, not the closer's choice of headwear. There are just so many excellent non-admins perfectly capable of analyzing and closing this sort of discussion. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:53, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  I'm not sure how you arrived at the idea that I "supervoted" Ivanvector. Are you suggesting that I had a preferred outcome and tilted the scales in that direction? There is no misunderstanding on my part about what the purpose of the RfC was. I made no claim or implication that it was to determine if Ayurveda is pseudoscience. - MrX 🖋 17:22, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  That's the problem in a nutshell, MrX. The fact that Ayurveda is a pseudoscience is a settled issue here and in mainstream scientific opinion. By failing to start from that context, you were unable to weigh the strengths of the policies quoted. If Ayurveda is a pseudoscience, then WP:PSCI absolutely paramount; if not it's irrelevant. By ignoring the current context, your close fell foul of the pitfall underpinning WP:GEVAL. --RexxS (talk) 19:08, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  No, that is not how the process works. We do no require closers to have intimate knowledge of a subject in order to close an RfC. I also never said that I "ignored the current context". This will make about the fourth time that you have invented things that I supposedly said that I didn't actually say. You should stop that. - MrX 🖋 00:37, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

  Without expressing an opinion on whether you did or did not ignore the context, ignoring the context is about something that you didn't do but should have. You saying nothing in the closing comments about, in the words of RexxS, "The fact that Ayurveda is a pseudoscience is a settled issue here and in mainstream scientific opinion" is an easily verifiable fact. Ayurveda being a pseudoscience is an established fact. The reason why I am neither agreeing or disagreeing with RexxS about his "ignored the current context" claim is that I have yet to see a compelling argument that you were supposed to do so. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:45, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

  There is no requirement to write a detailed summary of every argument in the RfC as you seem to think. If, as you claim, Ayurveda is a "settled issue" and "an easily verifiable fact", why would that need to be summarized in the lead anyway? More importantly, someone closing an RfC should not seek out information that is not referenced in the RfC to form their own conclusion. The task of the RfC closer is to summarize the discussion, not right great wrongs or introduce new information. For all the zeal of the editors supporting adding 'pseudoscience' to the lead, a significant number of their argument were weak. Would it help if I listed the names of editors who simply voted, with a separate list of editors who made circular comments like "Support mentioning pseudoscientific or pseudoscience in the first sentence, considering that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia." or "Support I think that this question should also be asked for the Traditional Chinese Medicine article."?

We could also examine the false claim that there were WP:SPAs who opposed the RfC question. My request to point out the SPAs went unanswered.[6] Or perhaps lwe can look at the claim of canvassing[7] based on two offsite posts that predate the RfC. A closer also has to examine claims like "It is a fact that this article has been included as part of the scope of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience for several years without challenge. That settles the question of whether ArbCom regards the subject as pseudoscience." Note that my suggestion to seek clarification (really, verification) on this from WP:ARCA went unanswered. Finally, it's highly noteworthy that most of the people insisting that the RfC close be overturned are WP:INVOLVED. So much so in your case, that you boldly added pseudoscience to the lead after a determination that there was non consensus to do so![8] You have been here a while, so I'm pretty sure you're familiar with WP:NOCON bullet 2. - MrX 🖋 12:46, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Just a note on closing panels: they generally only exist to rubber stamp a long analysis that ends with “no consensus”. I haven’t read this discussion and don’t plan on contributing substantively to the review, but I’ve come to the conclusion that closing panels are virtually never appropriate. If people want that; just overturn to no consensus here and be done with it. That will achieve the same outcome in the end and save time. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:59, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  The last panel close I'm aware of was Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles/RFC on pharmaceutical drug prices and Wugapodes and Ymblanter went to considerable lengths to extract all of the salient discussion points from the debate, and then render a verdict on all of the consensuses that they could divine. It was not a rubber stamp, nor did it end with "no consensus", so that does contradict your assertions. "Overturn to no consensus" is a flip comment on a topic that has consumed many hours of many Wikipedians' time. As its purpose was to settle a dispute that went to AE, that outcome would actually be a complete waste of time, because the underlying disagreements would remain, and another RfC would be needed to arrive at the conclusion that is apparent from the present debate. --RexxS (talk) 19:24, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Race and intelligence (4th nomination) was a panel close that found consensus, following an overturned individual "no consensus" close. Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 303#RfC: Fox News was another recent panel close that ended with a finding of consensus. Lev!vich 19:44, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  All of the examples given above support my claims that it’s simple a long way at arriving at no consensus. Carve outs for specific points within the discussion that the closers say achieve consensus are typically super votes or minor parts and miss the main question, still leading to an overall outcome of the question not being settled. In each of the cases cited, I think the community would have been much better served with one closer, and that the panel closes likely made the outcomes worse not better. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:27, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Race and intelligence (4th nomination) explicitly found a consensus to keep. Where is the no consensus there? Also I would ask that you provide specifics about what elements of that close were a supervote. I have no great love of panel closes and can, if someone needs them, provide diffs of evidence of this. However, panel closes have a place. A limited narrow place. Not in this RfC, for instance. However, I think the two panel closes Levivich used are examples of where they do have a place and where they are not, necessarily, supervotes that reflect no consensus closes. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:53, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

  The schools RfC from a few years ago was the panel close I consider a super vote that I was specifically thinking of in this instance; it was a while ago and consensus at AfD has arguably shifted since then, but at the time I didn’t think it reflected the discussion. I said “typically” to avoid calling out any specific close and not to target any of the ones cited above, even though I do think they likely would have probably been resolved better with one person rather than multiple. Everyone who participated in those did that at community request and in good faith and they’re certainly valid closes. My opinion is that they’d likely have been better if one person closed them.

  In the case of the R&I AfD if it had just been overturned to keep we would have saved sufficient community time. By overturning for a panel close after a no consensus AfD, that was functionally they only available option to the closers, even if starting fresh. The community was perfectly capable of handling that at the review rather then reopening and requesting a panel. In the process, we lost more time and there were probably a lot more people angsty waiting on the close. We could have skipped that step by ending it at the close review. It was a perfectly good close: it still would have been better if we didn’t have a panel and it had ended before. If a discussion had a close review, that’s already multiple people reading the discussion. There’s no need to add the third step. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:16, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

  I agree with you that panel closes are not appropriate for all RfCs. However, the facts of R+I, where individual closings proved divisive and not supported, but the panel close received no real pushback suggest that in extraordinary circumstances panel closes have a place. I think by acknowledging what that place we have a schema against which to judge the need for panel closes. We then then we can say, no the Ayurveda RfC did not and does not need a panel close. A blanket statement that they are always super votes, carve outs of minor parts, or miss the main question makes it harder to explain to people suggesting in good faith that one is necessary here why that maybe isn't the case. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:34, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

  Yeah, I don’t think R&I got it wrong, but I think the community likely would also have been fine ending it at the review stage, and it probably would have been less taxing on community stamina to not have a panel. I’ve done a few myself, and those experiences have probably formed the way I view them knowing my own faults. When a panel close exists, there’s a desire to have an outcome, and those minor carve outs that reflect bits of the discussion also tend not to have been proposed directly. There’s a risk that anyone latches on to them in the process, but I think I’m at least more likely to latch onto them when there’s an expectation for resolution, which panels tend to have. I suppose my critique is that in most cases, if a panel is required the correct outcome usually would be no consensus on the question asked, which often is part of the result, but panels have a tendency to go beyond that in ways that are normally somewhat minor, but also matter on contentious topics. As a whole, I think we’re better served just not using them, even if they can lead to the right result. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:48, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Opinions disagreeing with the closing summary
When a large number of veteran editors disagree with the closing summary, it may be time to ask someone with more experience to write a new closing summary. This can be done with or without upholding the "no consensus" close. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:59, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Click here to expand

"I do not believe that you gave sufficient weight to the strength of the support arguments, and that you failed to sufficiently account for the weaknesses of the oppose arguments. I accept that a "no consensus for inclusion in the first sentence" close is within the bounds of a reasonable assessment of the debate. However, I believe that you failed to recognise a consensus for inclusion in the first paragraph, which was strongly supported by policy." RexxS 17:13, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[9] "I must say at the least I was surprised by the NAC here. I was sort of expecting a panel close from experienced admins followed by a mandatory review. I do agree this was, at the least, an ill-considered close." Alexbrn 18:42, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[10] "I believe the closing statement did not even attempt to provide a reasonable summation of the discussion. I see this as an editor who was indecisive and wanted to please both sides. At least a review is needed." - hako9 18:59, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[11] "Your close leaves the dispute unsettled, despite the strength of support for inclusion in the opening paragraph, as policy dictates. I do not believe your close sufficiently assessed the case for inclusion in the opening paragraph, and I believe that view will be upheld by uninvolved editors. I'll therefore challenge your close at WP:AN." --RexxS 20:09, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[12] "I appreciate MrX's willingness to help with the backlog at ANRFC, but I have to agree with RexxS. In fact, I'd say there was a clear consensus for inclusion in the lead sentence. There was a majority for it, and the minority arguing against it made poor arguments." Crossroads 21:51, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[13] "Overturn and re-close by admin ... FWIW, I see many oppose !votes that should be discounted. For example, all of those arguing "no sources support 'pseudoscience'" should be tossed in light of the many sources presented (mostly by Guy Macon) supporting usage of that term. All the oppose !votes citing WP:LABEL that don't discuss the very specific part of LABEL discussing "pseudoscience" should be tossed as not policy based. Those oppose !votes citing fringe works (one of them cites the back cover of a fringe work, lol) should also be tossed as not reality based. There is at least one blocked sock whose !vote should be tossed. The closing statement did not address any of this. Once you discount all the no-policy-basis or falsely-claiming-no-sources-exist oppose !votes, I see consensus for inclusion in the first sentence." Levivich 15:09, 17 August 2020 (UTC)[14] "I'm the process of challenging the close as I believe a consensus for inclusion in the first paragraph was established, but missed by the closer. It might be worth hanging on a day or two while it's discussed at User talk:MrX #Ayurveda RfC close (and potentially at WP:AN)." --RexxS 17:38, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[15]

--Guy Macon (talk) 16:59, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Comments that interpret the result of the RfC as allowing the word "pseudoscience" in the opening sentence
When different editors in the dispute all read the exact same closing summary and come to different conclusions as to what is allowed and what is forbidden, it may be time to ask someone with more experience to write a new closing summary. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:59, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Click here to expand

"Isn't it a huge disservice to our readers that we have to water down the language because it might offend some people's beliefs? ... The rfc is no consensus. Can't we edit? Or is this a kind of a stalemate." hako9 15:27, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[16] "It is indeed an extreme disappointment, but this is a fairly common occurrence on this website. See, for example, the endless, mind-numbing struggle at Indigenous Aryans to merely include the characterization of WP:FRINGE, despite this being obvious to anyone who has even heard the term 'comparative method' whispered in a neighboring room before. The unfortunate situation is that there exists a huge bloc of people with deeply-held religious and political beliefs which prevent level-headed thinking. Not much else can be said about it." BirdValiant 15:58, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[17] "If you look at the discussion, the consensus was that it doesn't necessarily have to be in the first sentence, but there was no consensus that it can't be in the first sentence." Guy Macon 20:26, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[18] Have you read the comment at 20:26, 16 August 2020 (search for that text to find it)? Please address what it says." -- Johnuniq 10:01, 17 August 2020 (UTC)[19] "In adding the content anyway an editor is ignoring the RfC ...That makes no sense." hako9 19:26, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[20]

--Guy Macon (talk) 16:59, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Comments that interpret the result of the RfC as forbidding the word "pseudoscience" in the opening sentence
Again, different editors in the dispute all reading the exact same closing summary and come to different conclusions as to what is allowed and what is forbidden. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:59, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Click here to expand

"No consensus means there was no agreement to put pseudoscience in the first sentence. In adding the content anyway an editor is ignoring the RfC." Littleolive oil 19:06, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[21] @Guy Macon; Instead of misrepresenting the conclusion from the RfC, I think it must be better if you drop WP:STICK in this regard now. I have reverted your edit that goes against the result of the RfC. शिव साहिल/Shiv Sahil 09:15, 17 August 2020 (UTC)[22] @Guy Macon; I had to revert your edit because it really goes against the conclusion of the RfC. Earlier there was no consensus for adding "pseudoscience" in the lead either, thus a new consensus will have to be established to add "pseudoscience". शिव साहिल/Shiv Sahil 09:29, 17 August 2020 (UTC)[23]

--Guy Macon (talk) 16:59, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• • Apologies for mess which I can't seem to fix on iPad. Fixed.

• • You're right I probably shouldn't have removed the text above. I tried to make a statement but on my phone couldn't post for some reason. (I'm on an old computer now.) I was able though to remove the cmt- probably shouldn't have. Guy please remove a comment which does not support the statement you are making nor was it meant to. I have never said pseudoscience was forbidden anywhere. You are using my statement to make a point which is not an accurate portrayal of what I said. And yeah pretty testy. Harassment does that. For anyone watching and knows what I'm talking about. Cut it out! Littleolive oil (talk) 17:53, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Overturn and re-close by administrator (involved). I have very little to add to Levivich's and RexxS' analyses which I endorse. I do however see a clear consensus for it being in the first sentence, not just the first paragraph. That is the original RfC question, and once we disregard numerous invalid comments based on misunderstanding of WP:LABEL or ignoring WP:PSCI, the numbers clearly favor that. The minority's arguments were not stronger such that there is reason to close in accord with them. Support comments that are brief should not be disregarded but should be understood to signal agreement with the arguments made by other support !voters. Crossroads ^-talk- 17:24, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

I’m on my phone-computer is being repaired-so apologize if I mess up formatting in any way.

The RfC was asking a very simple question that is, whether the word pseudoscience should be in the first sentence of the article. That’s all that was being asked. Any support or oppose votes that did not answer that question specifically should probably be discounted. The RfC was not asking about sources, about the opening paragraph, or about whether pseudoscience is a word we should use at all. Rexx’s points are well taken in that regard.

I don’t accept the argument which suggests that the RfC decision means pseudoscience can be included in the lead sentence because the close was no consensus for it to be in the lead sentence...ack... which drifts towards the disingenuous and may even be, from an earthy Canadian saying, dragging a bush. The question was and was meant to be simple, in my mind, a clear yes or no should the word pseudoscience be placed in the first sentence of the lead.

My advice is to thank the closer for his considerable work and because there is so much disagreement ask for a re close. We don’t have to blame anyone.

Finally in the past dealing with articles where pseudoscience is being discussed I have experienced off-Wikipedia harassment. This is happening again and it will not scare me away. In fact I didn’t want to get involved in this but I was determined to after and with ongoing harassment. Please feel free to fix any formatting messes.Littleolive oil (talk) 22:11, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• That close is bullshit. I know that fans of quackery will be delighted, but int he end ayurveda is pseudoscience, and the policy-based arguments support the inclusion of that fact (suitably framed) in the lead. Exactly as we do for many other forms of pseudomedicine. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:30, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Right. We have a long standing imperative to include pseudoscience. The RfC was not about whether to include in the lead but about whether to include the word in the first sentence of the lead.Littleolive oil (talk) 22:45, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

And the answer to that question is "there is a consensus to include pseudoscience in the first paragraph, but it does not have to be in the first sentence". --Guy Macon (talk) 23:45, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon that is certainly how I read it. Guy (help! - typo?) 00:56, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

But it would obviously be best placed in the first sentence, front and centre, so that the most important point on the subject is made right away. -Roxy the inedible dog . wooF 10:16, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Overturn and re-close by administrator Primarily because the close and the post-close statement could lead to more ambiguity, if not overturned, thus defeating the purpose of the rfc in the first place. The closer should have (ideally, in my opinion) striked their initial close of no consensus. Already on the talk page of the article, one editor had effectively challenged the rfc close (and was rightly reverted back). We will never be able to stop them without a clear close. As for me, MrX's Upon re-examination, there appears to be a weak consensus for sustaining the pseudoscience descriptor in the lead is sufficient for lead describing it as a pseudoscience. A weak consensus (not at all weak if we go by the analysis made above), is still a consensus. A re-close by an admin should put the matter to rest. - hako9 (talk) 07:33, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
• overturn and re-close by someone who is qualified to assess the actual discussion, and as per Levivich. Praxidicae (talk) 11:47, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Overturn and re-close by admin Although I supported including "pseudoscientific" (or similar) in the first sentence, I believe that this part of MrX's first statement is a fair summary: "No consensus to mention the word pseudoscience (or pseudoscientific) in the opening sentence." (I don't know enough about proving "canvassing" to comment on that part.) I strongly disagree with this statement by MrX: Upon re-examination, there appears to be a weak consensus for sustaining the pseudoscience descriptor in the lead." I agree with everything RexxS wrote in his/their cogent argument above, explaining why this close decision should be overturned and re-closed by a neutral administrator.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 17:38, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

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

Technical issue on Eddie891's RfA?

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

---

• Relevant page: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Eddie891 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

When I went to WP:Requests for adminship, the linked text "Voice your opinion on this candidate" linked to a "Co-nomination" section instead of a section one would be expected to voice opinions. Can someone have a look and fix it? Thanks, Eumat114 (Message) 11:52, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Fixed. The template for RFAs links the "voice your opinion" to the 4th section of the RFA. The two co-noms made separate sections/headers, so the discussion section got bumped back to the 6th section. I've updated the link to link directly to the discussion section. only (talk) 11:57, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

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Abusive edit summary

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Hello - please could you advise whether this edit summary is considered acceptable? [24] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.174.124.32 (talk) 19:46, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

It's friggin alright with me. It's not offensive or uncivil. RickinBaltimore (talk) 19:48, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Friggin A! Favonian (talk) 19:53, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

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Disruptive edits by XXeducationexpertXX; repeatedly reverting my edits on my own talk page

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

See my comment here.

XXeducationexpertXX has been repeatedly engaging in disruptive editing, both in adding POV content on a university article they appear to be affiliated with and removing well-supported content on other university articles. Various higher education editors have had to revert this user’s edits recently, myself included, and he/she has continued to engage in edit warring over it despite being told to take it to talk page repeatedly.

XXeducationexpertXX is now engaging in a campaign of repeatedly reverting my edits on my own talk page, along with including personal attacks in the edit summaries. After doing this several times, Only restored my user talk edit and reiterated the policy to XXeducationexpertXX, and then XXeducationexpertXX did it AGAIN by undoing Only’s edit. This all seems to be part of a continuing disruptive editing pattern, and it seems clear to me that this editor is not here to build an encyclopedia. —Drevolt (talk) 00:09, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Drevolt, could you provide a few diffs? Ed talk! 00:17, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi Ed6767, of course. Sorry I didn’t include them in the initial report.

Reverting edits on my user talk page:

[25]

[26] (as IP user)

[27]

[28]

Repeatedly restoring content removed from the Columbia University page by Contributor321, ElKevbo, and myself, all three of whom asked for this to be brought to the talk page (often just repeating the other editor’s concerns about NPOV and edit warring back to them while ignoring requests to take it to the talk page):

[29]

[30]

[31]

[32]

[33]

Repeated removal of reliable content from other university pages which other users had to revert, often involving repeated edit warring:

[34]

[35]

[36]

I’d be happy to provide many more diffs if necessary, going through this user’s edit history there is a very long pattern of disruptive editing.—Drevolt (talk) 00:42, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

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Surname problems for Dino Jelusić/Jelusick

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I just tried to request for moving this article about the Croatian music artist Dino Jelusić, must be a proper surname. But there is a concern for this title as an opinion for different surnames, Jelusić and Jelusick, both likely disputed. But since regarding this article of living person, it must be a proper Slavic surname in Croatian.

In all sources were titled "Dino Jelusić", and this surname "Jelusick" (in some sources) had been disputed. It seems likely unverified or controversial status (including YouTube, and other social media platforms). --122.2.99.126 (talk) 13:01, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Sounds like a content dispute. I don't see any reason why BLP would apply to a spelling difference. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:49, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

It is not necessarily the case that it must be "a proper Slavic surname in Croatian". If the person has an English-language WP:COMMONNAME, that would take precedence. I don't know if that's the case or not. But, yes, it does seem like a content dispuite, and therefore not appropriate for this board. Please discuss on the article talk page. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:50, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Recently, DinoRocker (talk · contribs) moved that page "Dino Jelusick" as a disputed or ambigious title, perhaps Jelusick (sounds like JE-LU-SICH to be pronounced in Croatian), is not part of English title. But also this is the one of these sources titled "Dino Jelusić", mostly in books, news, and videos, but also it would claim "Dino Jelusić" as CRITERIA --122.2.99.126 (talk) 22:48, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

This is clearly a content dispute. I don't understand why you haven't joined the discussion on the talk page. M.Bitton (talk) 23:12, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

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ECP on The Bourne Supremacy (film)

Athaenara has placed The Bourne Supremacy (film) under ECP, citing "Persistent disruptive editing: Special:Contributions/El_Junglas and assorted anons have been repeatedly targeting one word for, I suppose, amusement" until 26th August.

I believe this to be a poor use of ECP, for the following reasons:

• It doesn't seem to meet any criteria under Wikipedia:Protection_policy#Extended_confirmed_protection or Wikipedia:Rough guide to extended confirmed protection
• It is debateable whether Athaenara's version is correct in the first place - the quote being "Get some rest, Pam. You look tired" or Athaenara's Mondegreen version of "Get some rest, babe. You look tired." Scripts and subtitles support "Pam", not "babe". Also, as I point out on the talk page, "babe" is not within Bourne's character, but I accept that's pretty much OR.
• There was not "Persistent disruptive editing":
  • Athaenara made the change from "Pam" to "babe" and was reverted by an IP address here.
  • Athaenara reinstated their change to be reverted by another editor here
  • Athaenara reinstated their version again only for it to be reverted by yet another - different - editor here.
• Athaenara then protected the page here and once again inserted their version directly after here.
• The only "persistent ... editing" is from Athaenara. Fair point that the other editors didn't use edit summaries, but Athaenara should have started talk page discussion before ECP.

After an IP editor brought this up on the talk page, I agreed and reverted back to the "Pam" version. At this point Athaenara joined in the discussion - but not before.

I have asked Athaenara on their talk page to lift protection, but have not had any response - although they have since edited their talk page to reply to another topic, so despite minimal edits, they are present on the project.

In the absence of input from Athaenara, I'm asking if an uninvolved admin could look at the page and decide if this was an appropriate use of protection. Chaheel Riens (talk) 11:03, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Not an admin, but since the IP edits weren't vandalism or disruptive, but a content dispute, and since the admin was involved in the content dispute, this seems like a clear misuse of admin tools and ECP. Doubly a misuse since their article talkpage contribution confirms they can't find any RS to back up an edit that disputes what the script and subtitles indicate, as well as what most viewers hear (myself included, having just popped it in to check). Plus, ten days? Actual, real disruptive editing reported at RFPP often results in ECP that lasts only a couple of days. Grandpallama (talk) 13:43, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Grandpallama. Admin makes bold edit, reverted by IP, admin reinstates bold edit, reverted by non-EC editor, admin reinstates bold edit again, reverted by another IP, admin protects the page: this is not permitted according to WP:INVOLVED. Additionally, ignoring the talk page message is not permitted by WP:ADMINACCT. I don't know if the admin's edit is correct or not, but that's irrelevant. Lev!vich 18:17, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree, this doesn't look like an appropriate use of protection. There are situations in which it's OK to protect a page after reverting but supporting your own version in a content dispute isn't one of them. In addition I've seen the film a number of times and I'm fairly sure it's "Pam". Hut 8.5 20:08, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

• I agree with the above and have removed the protection. — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:21, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

• I have my own position on this and have expressed it clearly. I have no quarrel with any of those involved in the discussion here and no inclination to engage in arguments about it. – Athaenara ✉ 00:30, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

  I see where you've addressed why you think your edit is correct. I do not see that here, at the article talkpage, or on your own talkpage where you were directly asked, that you have addressed why you thought ECP was an appropriate step despite being involved. Levivich mentioned ADMINACCT already, and I'm inclined to think you should offer an explanation in lieu of editors demanding one. Grandpallama (talk) 13:04, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

  Agree. The content issue is moot; Athaenara needs to acknowledge the admin action was inappropriate and INVOLVED, or provide acceptable justification. Then this can be resolved. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 16:05, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@Chaheel Riens, Grandpallama, Levivich, Hut 8.5, Wugapodes, and Bison X: Page protection isn't my usual wheelhouse. My intention was to protect the page from unregistered anon account editing for what I considered a brief time period (10 days). The main thing I've gathered from the discussion here is that a 1 or 2 day protection which didn't require extended confirmed status would have been considered more appropriate. The ad hoc rituals on dramaboards are not my usual wheelhouse, either. – Athaenara ✉ 21:01, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Athaenara, I think the point was that you were involved in a content dispute and used your admin tools to "win", not the length of the page protection. Schazjmd (talk) 21:04, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@Schazjmd: I just thought the page needed temporary protection from editing by anons, I wasn't trying to "win" anything. – Athaenara ✉ 21:07, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I see where there was some other IP edits, so I can see why you would protect without checking out this IP edit, so INVOLVED may not really be intentional. But I think what got you here was not responding for 3 days to a request on your talk page to lift protection. Did you see the inquiry on your talk page? Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 00:27, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Vladimir Vladimirov (politician)

To whom it may concern, the page I was trying to create on Wikipedia, based on Vladimir Vladimirov, the governor of Stavropol Krai, has been restricted to administrators at this time. Can I ask you to unlock the access of creation as I am willing to translate the article from Russian to English. Anything would be much appreciated. If you have any concerns, please leave a reply on my talk page. Thanks. Ivan Milenin (talk) 23:09, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Ivan Milenin, I see no indication that the page you mention (linked in the header) is create-protected. Primefac (talk) 23:31, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

You may not see it this way, but as I am trying to do that, I am unable to create the page. Ivan Milenin (talk) 23:44, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Ah, fair enough, it's an edit filter rather than a SALT. I've created Draft:Vladimir Vladimirov (politician) for you to work on the page. Primefac (talk) 23:53, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Is there a consensus here?

This RfC has been going on for 9 days, and it followed a discussion that went on for 12 days. Many editors have commented and many edits to the disputed part were made. Just when it seemed we can see a consensus at the end, I was informed that there is no consensus there.

I have three questions:

• Is there a consensus there?
• (if yes) How can the consensus be apparent beyond doubt?
• (if no) How can consensus be achieved here?

Thanks. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 01:22, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

RfC's usually run for 30 days barring WP:SNOW which doesn't seem to apply here. Why do you think this one should be closed after only 9? Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:27, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

In that case there is no reason to be worried. 30 days is cool.

Any advice on consensus? Because it's not the RfC that worries me, it is the consensus or lack of it. One way I can figure is to wait the RfC out and at the end of 30 days (if the consensus is still not apparent) take the dispute to some mediation mechanism. Did I figure that right? Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 02:26, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Let it run 30 days, let the closer worry about the consensus at that time. A lot can happen in the 21 days remaining. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 10:04, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Disruptive editing and vandalism at 2020 China–India skirmishes needs admin attention

There's a silly amount of edit-warring, probable sockpuppetry, and offensive vandalism at 2020 China–India skirmishes. The WP:RFPP request has been sitting idle for some time while new accounts are joining the fray. Could an admin please look at that ASAP? — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:31, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

 Done. Article semi-protected for three months and sock blocked. Mz7 (talk) 05:16, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@Mz7: Thanks! For what it’s worth, there were other SPAs that joined in the edit war: Rathin.99 and Karnarcher1989. — MarkH₂₁^talk 05:20, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@MarkH21: Ah, I see. For those accounts, I think because they aren't autoconfirmed yet, I don't think we need to take the time to start an SPI or block them now that the semi-protection is in place. Maybe warn them if they continue disruptively editing, though with any luck they'll just stop editing (or better yet turn into constructive editors...). I'll also note that the 2020 China–India skirmishes article falls under WP:ACDS, so if edit warring becomes a persistent problem, we could consider implementing some kind of WP:1RR restriction on the article on top of the semi-protection, or something like that. Mz7 (talk) 05:46, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@Mz7: These new accounts were created to continue the month-long edit warring (cf. this vs this and this in July; this vs this today) against YuukiHirohiko and their now-blocked sock Bobcat1997. Since it's been such a long-term problem involving auto-confirmed and extended confirmed accounts, my thoughts were that it warrants a CU check for the sockmaster(s) as preventative against gaming the system. I'll defer to your judgment though. — MarkH₂₁^talk 06:04, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@Mz7: Just now, a person who reactivated his 20 edits account just for edit warring on this page is continuing the edit war.[37] Given this disruption, I don't think that there has been any evidence of edit warring between ECP users since last 2 months. It would be best if you just ECP it for at least 3 - 6 months and see how it goes. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 13:00, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Aman.kumar.goel,  Done Mz7 (talk) 13:21, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Rebecca Heineman

• Rebecca Heineman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I have applied 3 months' ECP as GamerGate arbitration enforcement on this due to persistent deadnaming. I am reasonably confident that protection is the right choice, but welcome review of the level and duration, and whether this is the right case. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:50, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: I now had a look. The Gamergate arbitration enforcement clearly applies (I would have chosen BLP myself, but this is not so important). I do not have issues with your chosen duration of the protection, it is clear that the disruption at some level is happening already much longer. However, I do not quite understand the protection level you have chosen. After this edit in June (which prompted the talk page discussion, resulting in a kind of compromise) I do not see a single bad edit by a confirmed user. There were some edits of user Indrian, which were not particularly great, but my understanding is that they accepted the talk page compromise and followed it, and, in any case, they are extended confirmed. The only recent edit by a non-extended-confirmed (but confirmed) user goes in the same direction and must be classified as good. My conclusion is that recent disruption in the article has been caused by IPs. My choice would be semi-protection, and possibly for a longer duration (6 months or a year). I am not going to modify the protection myself, but I have reviewed the situation and provided my opinion as an uninvolved administrator.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:30, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Ymblanter, thank you for that, I will reduce to SPROT. I greatly appreciate the effort you put in there. Guy (help! - typo?) 15:53, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, she was just featured in the Netflix series High Score that premiered on Aug 19 (hence the new attention) and though I'd have to go and look, I know "Becky Heineman") was named in it, and her story there includes her trans nature, I am pretty sure it didn't mention her birth name. The nicknames that were removed are actually well sourced and not deadnames, its the birthname that is and the protection seems right. --Masem (t) 13:39, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I actually do not understand what the problem is. I mean, the birth name is present in the infobox, but can't appear in the lead? Is that the consensus this measure is meant to uphold? Salvio 13:41, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Salvio giuliano, I missed it being added there. Fixed. Guy (help! - typo?) 15:52, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I think ECP needs to be elevated. People are still deadnaming her, I just reverted someone on the page. Valeince (talk) 18:40, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Masem -- just wanted to chime in with the fact that the High Score series (which I am quite enjoying) does in fact mention her birth name and has a brief interview with her as a young person under that name. I suspect that confluence of factors is driving a lot of this. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 18:45, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I missed that (I was watching and trying to document the names in real time to add to episode summaries there so...) So yea, that would self-identification along with other sources that exist so yeah, it's not really a deadname, BUT given the trans nature aspects , GG DS makes sense. --Masem (t) 19:05, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• User:Indrian has reverted the deadname back in four times today. I have just warned them, though I'm not going to take any admin action as I'm about to go out and don't like to block and run. Black Kite (talk) 20:24, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• I'm also wary of fully protecting whilst it's in a version that may have BLP concerns. Black Kite (talk) 20:30, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
• If you look at the talk page, Valeince chose to drop their objection and leave the conversation. At that point I largely returned things to where they stood before they got involved. The article has returned to status quo in the body and had a slight change in the infobox to address a concern voiced in talk. The article is currently in line with consensus on the talk page (as voiced by five editors in two discussions two months apart) and appears to be stable at the moment. I fail to see the problem here, as the last edit was not part of any war, but just getting us back to where we were before an anon started disrupting the article last night.Indrian (talk) 20:35, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
• And there are no BLP violations. BLP covers two situations: poorly sourced controversial material and addition of private information not found in secondary sources. The name and her transition are both well documented in sources, and her deadname is also common knowledge and referenced in numerous secondary sources. If I am missing a BLP area, feel free to enlighten me, but the consensus in talk currently is that we do not have a BLP issue. Indrian (talk) 20:39, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
• Finally, for those that don't know, there was a consensus reached on how to handle the name two months ago. It was a contentious discussion, and I fully own up to my part in that, but we ended with a good balance of accuracy, clarity, and respect to the subject. In the last day or so, an anon tried to change the article in a way that went against this consensus. That resulted in the whole thing getting dredged up again. In the last 24 hours, consensus on using the name has strengthened (by which I mean more new participants to the conversation agreed the name should be in the article than people who were opposed) and the one major opponent chose to let it be despite their reservations. I personally don't feel admin action should be undoing that compromise unless consensus shifts. Indrian (talk) 20:47, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Just because I was mentioned here, I still don't have any plans to wade back into an edit war, I will comment to why I left and what my objections are: I left because I was editing with emotion, which isn't helpful in situations like this, not because I agree with anything said in the discussion. I still think this is a BLP issue because I don't believe that you can just go by one documentary to start dead naming someone; I think the individual trans person should explicitly be mentioned in multiple RSs that make it clear they're okay with being mentioned by their old name. I don't see any of that here and still oppose any effort to do so under other circumstances. We should take the BLP's wishes into consideration, and that should be it. Valeince (talk) 21:08, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

This is not the place to go over all of this -- obviously its better suited to the article talk page -- but I just wanted to inform you because this is the first time this point has come up that its not just one source, that's just the most recent. Here is an interview in which her full original name appears. Here is a video interview that includes footage of one of her games with the credits clearly visible with the original name. Here is another interview with a picture of an article with the original name. I am sure she does not utter it anymore, and I understand why, but she has not insisted that anyone who interviews her pretend it did not exist or that she was not famous (in video game circles) under it. It really is a commonly known and referenced name, hence the lack of a BLP issue. Indrian (talk) 21:33, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

After rushing in inappropriately (mea culpa) I have come around to Indrian's point of view. The former name does have to be included, I think (she was notable then too) and it doesn't seem like any sort of secret. Still, as discussed on the talk page, I think we can minimize its use. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:38, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Yup, currently it is only in once, which satisfies current consensus as hashed out on the talk page. A second reference in the infobox was actually not accurate, and I removed it after a concern was raised that led me to research the nickname deeper (she was always just Burger, never Burger Bill or Burger Becky). This has always been about accuracy and completeness, not some agenda to shame, humiliate, or cast aspersions on her lifestyle or character. Indrian (talk) 21:42, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit

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I don't know if this is the right place to ask. There are currently 60 categories in Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit which have been emptied and can be speedy deleted as per WP:G6 as "Deleting empty dated maintenance categories for dates in the past". There is no point in me individually tagging 60 categories. I would appreciate if an admin could delete them. Thanks. Pkbwcgs (talk) 15:00, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

 Done Salvio 15:24, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

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Review of El C's block of Koavf

On 14 August 2020, El C blocked Koavf (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) with an expiration time of 1 month for a WP:3RR violation. See discussion at User talk:Koavf#August_2020 (permalink)

Today I asked[38] El C to review the block, but they declined to lift it.[39] So I bring it here for review.

There is no disagreement about the fact that Koavf did violate 3RR. This followed an earlier 2-week block of Koavf in July, also by El C.

However, the blocking admin appears to have taken inadequate account of the also-undisputed facts that:

1. This happened Koavf was actively creating the new article Show Pony (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), which he had tagged from the first edit with {{In use}}
2. The other editor Gagaluv1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) repeatedly ignored the inuse tag, and proceeded to make changes e.g. to the style of referencing while the article was actively being built
3. This caused edit conflicts and disrupted the article's creation
4. Koavf correctly responded by starting a discussion at User talk:Gagaluv1#Please_stop (permalink) ... but Gagaluv1 did not stop.
5. As Koavf continued to edit the article, he reverted the edits by Gagaluv1, so that he could continue to develop his text.

So far as I can see, there is no suggestion that Koavf's edits violated any content policy. However, Gagaluv added unsourced info, and changed the citation style[40] contrary to WP:CITEVAR. Both of those are bad conduct at any time, but they are particularly inappropriate when they disrupting the creation of a new article.

In other words, Gagaluv1 was being a pain, and deserved a WP:TROUT.

However, instead of telling Gagaluv1 to back off and hang on, EL C blocked both editors. This was Gagaluv1's first block, so it was set at 24 hours ... but because Koavf had been blocked before, El C blocked Koavf for 1 month.

This is perverse. I can see how a simple application of the bright-line principle leads to blocks of both editors ... but that simple application has ignored the fact that Koavf was creating content while Gagaluv1 was breaching content policy and disrupting article creation.

The result is that the content creator (Koavf) has been blocked for 31 times as long as the disruptor. This is perverse: any disparity should be the other way around. And the unintended consequence of this block is to create a much greater hazard for a prolific content creator like Koavf than for a disruptor. That's a very bad way to treat content creators.

I hope that in future, Koavf will create any new articles initially in their own userspace, so that their draft can be free from the sort of disruption which Gagaluv1 engaged in. But they shouldn't still be blocked for having been goaded into a 3RR vio as a side effect of actively creating an article. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:12, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Good post. The Rambling Man (Hands! Face! Space!!!!) 19:21, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• Third-party block appeals are inadmissible and should be speedily closed.. Only the blocked editor may appeal their block. Sandstein 19:40, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
  • @Sandstein: I don't see anything to that effect at WP:Blocking policy#Unblock_requests. What have I missed? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:11, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• It's in WP:UNBLOCK, but that's only a guideline. However I think this is OK. The OP isn't disputing the block per se, but is querying a disparity between the lengths of the blocks given how the incident unfolded. Black Kite (talk) 20:12, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

  Black Kite, thanks for the link, but a third-party appeal of the length of the block is still a third-party appeal and therefore disallowed. Sandstein 20:22, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

  BrownHairedGirl, our policy correctly implies that an unblock request must be made by the blocked user. The first sentence of WP:BP#Unblocking reads "Unblocking or shortening of a block is most common when a blocked user appeals a block", and the rest of the section goes on to discuss unblock requests in this context. There are at least two good reasons for this: (1) if the blocked user does not appeal the block, there is no dispute that needs resolution and a third-party appeal wastes the community's time; and (2) the possibility of a reformatio in peius or, in our parlance, a boomerang: in reviewing an unblock request, the community may well conclude that a longer block or ban is warranted, and it would be unfair to make a user subject to this risk unless they themselves request community scrutiny of their position. Sandstein 20:20, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

  Sorry, an implication isn't enough. If you wish to shut down a well-formatted, well-reasoned, good faith request on the basis of a technicality, you need to give us an ironclad policy quote. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 21:06, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

  @Sandstein: if there is a consensus to disallow third-party appeals, then the policy should say so explicitly ... but it doesn't say that. If you want to ban them, then WP:RFC is thataway.

  I also strongly disagree with the assertion that if the blocked user does not appeal the block, there is no dispute that needs resolution. A block is not just a personal dispute between two editors, and should not be treated as such. A block is applied on behalf of the community, and should always be open to review by the community. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:25, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

  I'm afraid this is another example of where Sandstein is unable to gauge the community and simplistically parses policy without applying context, nuance or IAR. The Rambling Man (Hands! Face! Space!!!!) 00:24, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

  BrownHairedGirl and Lepricavark, as noted above, the prohibition of third-party appeals is part of a guideline, WP:UNBLOCK#Appeals by third party. It is binding community consensus. This third-party appeal is invalid and disruptive. The rules apply to all, including the popular and well-connected. Sandstein 08:37, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

  That particular guideline seems to have been added unilaterally with an edit summary that invites any dissenting editor to "feel free to revert." So much for that "binding community consensus." Iaritmioawp (talk) 10:26, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• Sandstein, I don't have any opinion about the block itself, but I disagree with the suggestion that third parties can't object to blocks. I've had my wrist slapped once or twice for making bad blocks, and upon further consideration, I've reversed them. It's all part of WP:ADMINACCT. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:52, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

  RoySmith, our guideline mentioned above prohibiting third-party appeals doesn't prevent an editor suggesting to an administrator that they should reconsider a block. That can be helpful, as you write. But it does prevent third parties from requesting review of a block by another admin or the community, as has happened here. An additional reason for this is that in most cases we ask blocked editors to convince us that they understand the reason for the block and that they won't do whatever got them blocked again, see WP:GAB. That is not possible if a third party makes the unblock request. Sandstein 12:59, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but three 3RR violations in about a month or so — there has to be some consequences to that. El_C 20:07, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I can accept the view that there should be some consequences. But the reason I am raising this is that the content creator got a punishment 31 times as harsh that meted out to the disruptor. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:14, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Am I understanding correctly that content creators are exempt from consequence and should edit war freely even after multiple edit warring warnings and short blocks? Praxidicae (talk) 20:16, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

No, Praxidicae. My view is that a content creator should not be punished more severely than an editor sets out to disrupt content creation by ignoring an inuse tag and violating content policies. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:21, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Patently absurd non sequitur. What a joke. The Rambling Man (Hands! Face! Space!!!!) 00:51, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

The first 3RR block was for one week (partial). The second 3RR block was for 2 weeks (sitewide) — unblocked early. And this third 3RR block was for one month. The first offense 3RR violation on the part of the other party in this third 3RR round was for 24 hours, as is customary for users with a clean block log. Again, all of this within the span of about a month or so. El_C 20:23, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• I have previously issued blocks of differing lengths for parties in a dispute where both violated 3RR where one party has only recently been blocked for the same offence. If an editor repeatedly violates 3RR in a short time period, they should not be surprised that the length of their block escalates, and doubling each time is not unreasonable IMO. However, I do agree that the disparity in length is quite a large one – probably an unfortunate consequence of Koavf's next block being due to be a month based on the doubling principle. I'm not really sure what could be done though – it would not seem right to give Koavf a shorter block given his recent 3RR violations, and a week-long block for a first offence also seems harsh... Number 57 20:31, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
• Unblock with time served. Koavf certainly could have handled this better, but I fail to see how it benefits the encyclopedia for us to lose one of our most productive editors for a month because they got carried away reverting problematic edits. This is the problem with rigidly adhering to the model of using escalating blocks. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 21:11, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• Of the last four four blocks (all for edit warring), that would make it the third early unblock. El_C 21:14, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
  • ... which is a good indicator that there is a recurring problem with the way this is handled. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:18, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• Agreed. The last unblocking admin said they would have indffed rather than impose a 2-week block, but I felt (and still do) that that would have been too harsh. El_C 21:23, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• That's true. But what if Koavf were willing to make a commitment to work on future article drafts in userspace in order to avoid this issue in the future? I don't deny that Koavf's behavior was problematic, but under the circumstances it's hard for me to accept that Koavf deserves to be blocked for a full month. You can still see a thread further up this page in which I protested over having been subjected to treatment that was far worse than Koavf's edit-warring. Barely anyone even acknowledged it. I've grown accustomed to being personally attacked and then having my complaints dismissed or ignored, yet Koavf has to lose a month for edit-warring in spite of the mitigating circumstances. I know that consistency is an unrealistic goal, but sometimes it's hard to accept the disparities. I understand why you initially opted to block for a month, but at this point I believe that Koavf has either learned his lessor or he hasn't. Three more weeks won't make the difference in that regard. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 21:31, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• Unblock with time served - In this specific case I don't think Justin is to blame here - Sure he did edit war however the emitting factor here is that he added an inuse tag to the article way before the edit war began therefore indicating he's busy with the article and that no one should edit it until he's done, Gaga ignored that repeatedly so IMHO Gaga is to blame here not Justin. Also Justin went to the talkpage after in the hope of getting Gaga to stop.

Ofcourse if this was a simple edit war then sure a block would be warranted but as I said given the inuse tag etc I can't fault Justin for reverting. –Davey2010^Talk 21:33, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• Overturn block and unblock - not time served, not because the length is too long (though it was), but the block should be overturned on its merits because Koavf should not have been blocked for this 3RR violation in the first place. Koavf created Show Pony Aug 14 at 14:45 with the {{in use}} tag on it (Special:Permalink/972932978), and then he made a continuous series of edits, up to 15:21 (Special:Diff/972938290). Gagaluv1 made a major edit through the tag at 15:22 (Special:Diff/972938474)... that's just one minute after Koavf's most-recent edit, while the in use tag is on there, and less than 40 minutes after the article was created. And then when Koavf reverted, Gagaluv1 reinstated their edits multiple times. That's bullshit. Editing an article while someone is creating it is really, really poor conduct, almost harassment in my view. We don't need a policy that says, "when an editor creates a new article with the in use tag, don't mess with it while they're actively editing it". This is such a clear example of Koavf being in the right and Gagaluv1 being in the wrong, that I really can't believe anyone can fail to see how egregiously one-sided this particular edit war was. If anything, Gagaluv should have been blocked for a month, and Koavf should have been given some wikilove for putting up with this. Bottom line: unblock him and let him go back to creating articles, which is what he was doing when he was so rudely interrupted by Gagaluv and, sorry to say, followed by C. Lev!vich 23:13, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Thank you, @Levivich. You get to the heart of the problem. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:27, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I disagree with that analysis. Once an article goes live, it may be edited. Otherwise, there is the WP:DRAFT space. Editing while an in-use tag is displayed may be discourteous, but it is not an exemption from 3RR. Bottom line: I'm not sure that Koavf is able to observe 3RR, which is what the last three 3RR violations (all taking place within the span of a month or so) demonstrate to me. El_C 23:35, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

This is where I fundamentally disagree with El C, who appears to pay no attention at all to the fact that Gagaluv1 was trampling all over WP:CITEVAR, and thereby disrupting the creation of the article.

El C seems to me to be take a most unhelpfully binary stance on the fact that policy does not explicitly ban editing a page which is tagged with {{in use}}, and thereby discounting it entirely. I really cannot see how the goal of developing content is well-served by El C's discounting of the way that Gagaluv1's persistent violations of WP:CITEVAR disrupted Koavf's creation of content. The effect of El C's approach is to license the sort of disruption that Gagaluv1 engaged in. How does that help the 'pedia? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:58, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't know that I'd characterize a single edit as a persistent violation of WP:CITEVAR. The first edit, yes, but not the subsequent edits, in which he made use of the list-defined references. Mackensen (talk) 00:05, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Not so, Mackensen. There were actually two edits by Gagaluv1 which changed the citatiosn style:

1. 15:22[41]
2. 15:39 [42]

The latter came after the second of Koavf's two requests to Gagaluv1 to stop changing the citation style:

• 15:29[43]
• 15:37[44], explicitly invoking WP:CITEVAR

That's persistent. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:22, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I think of {in use} on a freshly created page as sacrosanct. Having someone edit a page you just created while you're still actively editing it with the {in use} tag is like writing in a notebook and having somebody walk up to you and rip the notebook out of your hands and start making changes to what you've written.

Also, I think there's a difference between preventing disruption and enforcing rules. Who was Koavf disrupting? I'd say no one other than a disruptive editor whose disruptive edits Koavf was reverting. It makes all the difference to me that this was a brand new article still actively in the creation process. (By the way, how did the other editor even find this new creation?) Lev!vich 00:50, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• I agree on its face a one-month block is harsh, but let's poke at this a little. I think the matter of the {{inuse}} tag is something of a red herring. It's neither magic nor a policy exemption. It's typically a warning to other editors that a major refactoring is taking place, so please don't come in and make trivial edits because they'll just get overwritten anyway. I can't say I've seen it used for a new article, especially not for a new article on a recent subject where you might reasonably expect to see other editors making contributions. It's unwiki-like to use it that way. There are plenty of ways to drop a fully-formed article into the article space before others can edit it. The preview button, for example. Draft space. Your sandbox. Justin's been around and he knows all this. Edit-warring with another contributor, making good-faith edits, isn't the way to go about this. He knows that, or he should know that. Coming so recently off another edit-warring block suggests that he hasn't taken this to heart. It's a tough call, but I think El_C is correct, and I think the block should stand. Blocks aren't punitive, after all, they're preventative. In this case, preventing future edit warring by making it clear what the community's expectations are. Mackensen (talk) 23:45, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

  (This is a general thought, and I haven't reviewed anything in this particular case). Two partially contrasting philosophies clash now and again here. One is to block indefinitely, expecting the blocked editor to say "OK, I won't do X anymore" and then get unblocked (and probably re-blocked if they repeat X). Another is to perform escalating blocks, basically saying, if you continue doing X, you will be blocked for increasing lengths of time. As a non-admin and mere observer, I sometimes wish WP made up its mind which notion should prevail, or in which specific cases which of these 'policies' apply. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:08, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• (ec) I disagree with Mackensen's description of Gagaluv1's edits as good faith.

Koavf twice asked Gagaluv1 to stop changing the citation style

• 15:29[45]
• 15:37[46], explicitky invoking WP:CITEVAR

Despite that, Gagaluv1 proceeded to chnage the citation style again:

1. 15:39 [47]

Where's the good faith in that?

And where is the good faith in Gagaluv1's decision to ignore Koavf's request [48] to wait 45 minutes? What was the huge urgency which justified Gagaluv1's determiatinto isert hemselves into the middle of another editor's conent creation? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:15, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

BrownHairedGirl, I'm sorry, I missed the first edit. Anyway, yes, two minutes after the invocation of CITEVAR he makes a second edit. Did he see the edit invoking CITEVAR before saving his edit? No idea, but that's a short window. I think it's entirely plausible he saved his edit and went to go see why he had more notifications. Yes, I say he was editing in good faith. He said he was changing the citation style to one that editors were familiar with. That's a reasonable thing to say, especially if you've never gotten reverted over citation styles. That he respected the citation style afterwards suggests good faith to me. As far as "insert[ing] themselves into the middle of the another editor's content creation", this is a wiki for heaven's sake. That's what we do around here. Mackensen (talk) 01:35, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• I have never liked escalating blocks, but I don't know if we have better options. We have dealt with edit warriors before (sorry Justin, but that's where you are at now), and one option is to put editors on a 1R restriction, or even a 0R. That might work here. Justin asked on his talk page, "what was I supposed to do here?" and I don't know. More better edit summaries, maybe, and warning the other editor. Then again, the other editor got off lightly with their one-day block--when edit summaries such as the one here contain a pretty revolting kind of passive-aggressive goading. I see now that I have warned that editor before, and they responded in a pretty similar manner, and I wasn't the first or the last one to have a problem with them; Justin's post/thread on that talk page is about as much as you can expect from an editor. So I don't have a solution ready here (I see the problem with an early unblock), but I also think that Gagaluv has been getting away with it for quite a while. Drmies (talk) 00:18, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• Unblock. Under the circumstances, I probably would not have blocked at all, and in any event the one-month block length is manifestly unreasonable. I am aware that Koavf has far from an unblemished record (to a degree that if anything is understated in this thread)—but that doesn't change the fact that in this specific instance his edits, while not by-the-book, were understandable. Regarding the procedural concern that the blocked user himself hasn't filed this appeal, I think it's obvious from the prior discussion on his talkpage that he would like to see this block shortened; but if anyone thinks the lack of a formal block appeal from Koavf is a serious impediment to resolving this, then Koavf should be advised to file one. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:25, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

  Incidentally, since the edits by Gagaluv1 are being extensively discussed, I've notified him of the thread. I know he was pinged near the beginning, but the discussion has moved on from there and I thought he should be aware. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:30, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• Look, for what it's worth, I like Justin —we have corresponded privately in the past on several occasions, so I trust him enough with my email address, which can be said about few editors— so blocking him again did pain me. But, him continuing to violate 3RR, three times, almost week after week, was not something I felt merited an exemption in this instance, even with all the extenuating circumstances taken into account. El_C 00:37, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• And I don't know Koavf at all, except from the noticeboards. I understand your position but I can't agree that the 3RR violation in this particular instance is typical of the genre; as I said, I think the edits were completely understandable in context, and I think the block length here is unconscionable. If this had been an ordinary appeal on the blocked user's talkpage and I were working a shift as the unblock-reviewing admin, I might well have just reversed it. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:43, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• Which would be your prerogative. But the context and totality of 3RR being violated so many times during such a brief duration is a problem, I challenge. El_C 00:47, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) I do not believe we should entertain third party appeals, but since we're here I'll give my perspective. It seems everyone agrees Koavf violated the 3RR. While there may be mitigating circumstances, violating 3RR is blockworthy on its face and El_C explained how the block length was determined by a pretty common rule of thumb. Nothing here seems to suggest the block is in violation of policy which is the only reason I think we should consider third party appeals. If Koavf believes the block was unfair or no longer serves a preventative purpose, they may say so themselves, but I don't think that's something we should figure out absent their input. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:31, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

  Just read Brad's comment about koavf's talk page discussion which I hadn't seen. If Koavf is fine with this proceeding then what I said is moot. I'm pretty neutral on the merits of the actual question. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:37, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• Unblock I think we're seeing a significant amount of bureaucracy here, especially from certain admins who are detached from community norms. Suggest that (a) Koavf is unblocked and (b) Sandstein is provided with some training to help them understand better this situation and it context, along with Wikipedia guidelines and Wikipedia policies. The Rambling Man (Hands! Face! Space!!!!) 00:46, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• Comment. FWIW, the ‘In Use’ template is not a magic wand, especially with newer users. Koavf may be learning the hard way that they should develop articles in their user space, then launch them to avoid this happening in the future. Sometimes we run into others whose editing style is sharply varied from our own but in article space they are allowed to edit, even disruptively in our own opinion, and Wikipedia generally allows for it. You can be outmaneuvered, or even outvoted. Best to focus on work you do enjoy if someone is vexing you. Gleeanon409 (talk) 01:11, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
  • "He should have sandboxed" doesn't work. Anyone who has ever created an article knows that no matter how much sandboxing you do, on or off wiki, you almost always have to make some edits after you paste the new article into mainspace. The in use template should be respected. Outside of BLP violations or threats of harm or something like that, there is never any reason to edit a page someone else is actively editing with the in use template, or that someone is in the process of actively creating (or as here, both). Lev!vich 01:18, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
    • Maybe the ‘In Use’ template should be updated to say explicitly do not edit, etc., instead it says “To help avoid edit conflicts, please do not edit this page while this message is displayed.” And people ignore it and conflicts like this happen. When it happened to me I learned to not bother using that template anymore, and try to do as much as possible before going live. Gleeanon409 (talk) 01:47, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• amazing how nobody invokes ignore all rules, which this situation is an example of exactly why that exists. rules are not meant to be applied because they're rules but because in most cases they're the rule. what disruption is being prevented here? none? wow, unblock. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 52.119.101.2 (talk) 01:16, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• Commentary from an RFU regular When I review unblock requests - after verifying that the block is valid, the things I look for are:

• An admission from the editor that they broke the rules
• An explanation from the editor that they now understand the rules
• A plan from the editor on how they intend to comply with the rules going forth.

• I see none of the above in this case.
• Failing that, what is the policy-based argument that the block is invalid? SQL^{Query me!} 02:27, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

@SQL: I think it's unhelpful to frame the question as whether a block was invalid. It's much more constructive to ask the positice question of whether a block was appropriate in all the circumstances.

In this case, the relevant policy is at WPWikipedia:Blocking policy#Disruption, from which I quote the first sentence:

A user may be blocked when his or her conduct severely disrupts the project; that is, when his or her conduct is inconsistent with a civil, collegial atmosphere and interferes with the process of editors working together harmoniously to create an encyclopedia

When this block is assessed against the policy, we get a very different answer to that found by the blocking admin. We had Koavf building a start-class article, and we had Gagaluv1 basically buggering up the work by getting in the way, even to the extent of twice violating WP:CITEVAR. Koavf responded properly by starting a dialogue, but Gagaluv1 declined Koavf's request wait 45 minutes, and persisted in tweaking the article as it was being built.

The overall situation is very clear: Gagaluv1 was being an unhelpful pain-in-the-neck, goading Koavf. The disruption initiated by Gagaluv1 and sustained by Gagaluv1 led to both editors crossing the 3RR line.

Unfortunately, the blocking admin chose to look only at one aspect of this: the 3RR violations. And on that basis, El C applied an escalating 3RR block.

So the policy-based reason for overturning the block is that it does not support the policy goal quoted above. Its effect was to endorse the uncivil, uncollegiate conduct of Gagaluv1 and thereby to interfere with harmonious working, and to undermine the effort of an editor building encyclopedic content. In other words, poor reasoning has led a well-intentioned admin to impose a block which has actually undermined policy.

I stress that I do not in any way doubt or question El C's good faith. What I do object to is their narrow framing of the issue: their failure to properly take into account the actual goal of blocking policy, and instead to focus only on one detail which is measurable. This is a systemic risk danger with bright-line rules: when applied without considering all the circumstances, they can lead to perverse outcomes, as happened here. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:20, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• Maintain block unless the above criteria quoted by SQL are met, and Koavf agrees to create and complete new articles in his sandbox or draftspace rather than using article-space as a drafting board. Softlavender (talk) 02:40, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• Maintain block - This is a textbook escalating block. The 3RR vio was objective, and the block length is not unreasonable given that there was a 2 week block last month, and El C's defense of the block makes sense, given that 2 out of the last 3 blocks for edit warring were lifted early in favor of a voluntary resolution, only to lead to more violations. BHG arguing that it was unfair for Justin to be blocked 31 times longer than their opponent is a red herring, because it ignores all of this context that justifies the obvious discrepancy. In terms of our norms and standard practices, there's nothing unusual or unfair here. The blocked user is not even offering a basic voluntary resolution, and indeed they did not even appeal the block. The only unusual thing about this situation is that Koavf is a user with 2 million edits and friends users willing to bend over backwards to protect him. Even this kind of third party forced block review, whether or not it is technically allowed, is unheard of. This intractable problem where we endlessly protect "power users" needs to stop. But at this point it's comical, I've been saying that for the past 12 years and it seems we've gotten nowhere. Not even Framgate was enough to break this endless cycle. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 03:09, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I was expecting that someone would try making the ABF claim that I am just defending a friend. The reality is quite the opposite: Koavf and I have got up each others noses for years, and our last encounter was a trainwreck. Far from defending a friend, I am defending someone who I find thoroughly annoying, and who I usually strive to avoid. I hope that Swarm will strike that demonstrably false assertion.
    Far from ignoring the context, my whole reason for opening this review is that the bloc focused only on the easily-measurable issue of the bright line ... and ignored the fact that Koavf's content creation was being disrupted by an editor whose conduct was someone on the spectrum from discourteous to menace.
    So on the two key points which swarm raised, Swarm has managed to entirely invert the reality of my position. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:35, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Please strike your accusation that I am not assuming good faith. I did not accuse you of being Koavf's friend, so there's no need to get defensive. I merely pointed out the reality of the situation, that the only thing that makes this not an uncontentious block is the fact that Koavf is a "power user", and such users have no shortage of people who will go out of their way to defend them, and I have no doubt that you understand exactly what I'm talking about. That has always been the case and I will not apologize for not pretending that this is obvious special treatment that a user is receiving because of their status. Though you do bring up a good point, defenders of power users are not limited to their "friends", so I will gladly amend that wording. Again, I'm not saying anything about you, so don't come after me acting like you're being attacked. Your second point just gets to the basics of edit warring. Per Justin's own defense, the "disruption" was another user trying to edit a live article while he was editing it. He placed an {{In use}} tag and was running into edit conflicts, so yes, I understand where the frustration would have come from, but this is a minor inconvenience at best, not a license to edit war, and certainly not a 3RR exemption, as the blocking admin pointed out. The other user was maybe a bit uncourteous to edit through the tag, but they were clearly editing in good faith and making every effort to engage in good faith discussion when Justin falsely claimed that they were required to stop editing the article, and threatened them if they didn't. {{In use}} does not override WP:BOLD. The context of being frustrated is relevant, however not relevant enough to outweigh the context of a 3RR violation with several recent blocks for the same offense, and certainly not relevant enough to take some extreme measure of forcing an unrequested block review in which objective violations are excused and routine blocks are framed as draconian. It's obviously inaccurate and inappropriate to frame Justin as a victim of a disruptive editing situation. He got into a bit of a spat with another editor, they both violated 3RR, and they both received an appropriate block. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 04:07, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Swarm, you clearly stated that Koavf is being defended by friends. That is an assumption of bad faith.

You have doubled down on that by assuming that Koavf is being defended because he is a "power user". That too is an assumption of bad faith: per my opening statement, I am defending Koavf because he was an editor creating content who was systematically disrupted, and goaded into one revert too many. The fact that he is a "power user" only makes the response more absurd (blocking a prolific contributor while the mischief-maker gets off with a trivial block), but that a secondary issue. No editor should be so harshly punished for an imperfect response to sustained goading.

Kindly have the decency to own your own words rather than accuse me of fabrication. And please stop assuming bad faith. And don't make bogus allegations then call the replies defensive. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:44, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• Comment (in addition to my !vote above): My observation over the years is that El C's admin actions are extremely well considered, and always designed to support and help Wikipedia and maintain its proper and peaceful function. Further, El C is one of the mildest-mannered (if not the mildest mannered) admins I have ever come across, which is another reason that he does not take action lightly. Secondly, in my opinion we are wasting an enormous amount of time and emotion here second-guessing a block which, as was noted early one, can be appealed by the blocked user (who is an experienced Wikipedian and does not need help) if they so desire. Thirdly, if the blocked user does not wish to appeal the block in accordance with the guidelines posted by SQL above, they can use the time period of their block to expand their newly created article, by using a portion of their talkpage as a drafting space (this would IMO not seem to violate any policy, and I've seen other blocked editors do some variation of this). Softlavender (talk) 04:36, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• Unblock. and my request is not based upon "friendship" with Justin, or him being a "super user". but from the obvious reason that Koafv is not to blame for the edit war. I agree with User:Davey2010 that Justin 1. added an {{in use}} tag to the article, 2. which Gagaluv1 ignored repeatedly, 3. Justin went to the talkpage the hope of getting Gaga to stop, 4. which Gaga ignored repeatedly, so I can't fault Justin for reverting. Also IMHO Gaga is to blame here not Justin. and as User:BrownHairedGirl has pointed out, the content creator (Koavf) has been blocked for 31 times as long as the disruptor. The first case here is that Gaga disrupted an inuse tag. The rest is just consequences of that. If Justin will not be unblocked, I guess the InUse template is useless as protection and if not deleted, should contain info, that its more or less meaningless, except as information that someone is working on a article. Dan Koehl (talk) 04:40, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• This rationale is not rooted in edit warring policy. We don't assign "blame", being "right" or being "provoked" is not an excuse. None of what you say invalidates a block for edit warring, and you're also ignoring the already-explained context that led to the discrepancy between block lengths. It's unclear why you're advocating that a serial edit warrior should receive special treatment exempting them from our basic edit warring principles. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 04:47, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• Endorse block – The best way to deal with repeated 3RR violations is with escalating blocks, and El C is to be commended for making the tough call here. If Koavf wants to be unblocked he can file an unblock request convincing an administrator that the block is no longer necessary to prevent disruption to the project, and any admin can unblock. If Koavf returns to further edit warring after this block expires or is appealed, the next block should be longer. – bradv🍁 04:41, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Overturn - per Levivich, BrownHairedGirl's OP, and Dan Koehl. Yeah, it's patently obvious what's wrong here for me too. Mr rnddude (talk) 04:46, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

since nobody seems to have taken my last comment into consideration, per the blocking policy: "Blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, not to punish users" - what damage is being prevented here? No damage was done by the user whose block is requested to be reviewed, in fact, the user blocked was trying to improve the encyclopedia, and the damage was entirely done by the other party. Further, none of the three points under "Blocks should be preventative" are met here - no imminent/continuing damage is or would occur (improvement to articles would occur), no disruptive behavior was made by the blocked editor (in fact, the other editor was the one disrupting), and the other editor was the one not being "productive" or "congenial" by continuing to undo/revert actions after being asked to stop/discuss. There is literally no basis in the blocking policy for this block, and this is entirely the case where ignore all rules (namely ignoring 3rr) applies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 52.119.101.2 (talk) 04:48, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

The block is preventative, not punitive. The editor had been blocked three previous times within the past month, for edit-warring. The block lengths are escalated for preventative purposes, because since the editor did not get the message (or made false promises) with shorter blocks, increasingly longer blocks are designed to drive the message home (i.e., prevent future edit-warring). Softlavender (talk) 05:29, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• Maintain the block pending a formal appeal - I'll touch here with my two cents if you don't mind hearing the view of some "little editor" of Wikipedia folks.The first and fundamental issue I'm seeing is that the affected editor is not appealing the ban himself.[49] All I'm seeing from them are these words written on their talk page in response to the block: "What are you talking about?", "Are you serious?", "You have to be kidding me?" and so on. I appreciate the fact that BrownHairedGirl took an active position opposing the block [50], but this is not how it suppose to be done. How do you know they even wish to appeal the ban? Therefore a formal, proper appeal should be presented by the editor affected, not handled by the third party on this board (sorry BrownHairedGir). A second less critical issue, but notable to me, is that other administrators are commenting here, somehow undermining and doubting the blocking administrator's decision. Here is why I think this is wrong. You guys (administrators) have a challenging and stressful job to do, and I respect you all, but diminishing each other choices makes your judgments, as a group, to be weak in the view of regular editors, like me. At least this is my impression. Choosing to block somebody, I imagine, is not an easy task to execute and requires courage, firmness and confidence in your own decisions. This should be respected, even if you think that you would have chosen a different path. I consider EI_C to be one of the best administrators from your team, even thou they were not always sympathetic to me[51]. I have no opinion on the decision itself, but I believe the affected user should appeal the ban themselves. This should be reviewed, as usual, as standard, by another (uninvolved) member of the administrative team. Whatever choice that person takes, it should be respected and appreciated as it should be respected and appreciated the decision of the current blocking administrator. - GizzyCatBella🍁 06:51, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• A core issue behind this block is that there is no effective way of dealing with disruptive editors who are not breaking any clear bright lines. Disruptive edits that aren't vandalism are difficult to deal with, especially on new or obscure pages that have few if any watchers. While there seems to be agreement above that Gagaluv1 was being disruptive, and there is some support for the in use tag, this thread offers no solution as to what course of action Koavf could have taken to solve the dispute aside from unilaterally deciding to IAR 3RR. CMD (talk) 07:00, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Koavf could have posted a full article rather than one that was 12 words long: [52]. He could have let the perfectly good added infobox stand instead of removing it without explanation with the bullying edit-summary "Rv. Stop.": [53]. He could have respected the in-use tag that Gagaluv1 added [54] rather than edit-warring and reverting his edits [55]. He could have explained his reverts (Gagaluv1 explained his edit [56]) instead of simply reverting with no edit summary: [57]. He could have gone immediately to the article talk page to gain consensus and discuss content instead of edit-warring. He could have stayed off of Gagaluv1's talkpage instead of haranguing him there rather than using articletalk for discussion of content and policy [58]. He could have avoided making more than 3 reverts within 24 hours. He could have AGFed and had a pleasant discussion instead of browbeating. He could have gone to his sandbox, completed his additions to the article as he saw fit in a draft there, and then (making sure he wasn't violating 3RR) copy+pasted that into the live article, whilst explaining his points on article talk. Softlavender (talk) 07:43, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

None of those address what others are saying above about the block being a lopsided response to a series of disruptive edits, which was the reason behind this AN thread. They also put all the burden on the original editor rather than the disruptive editor, which reinforces the idea that disruption is difficult to deal with. As your examples show the standard called for actions all leave the disruptive edits in place. Many here argue that the block be overturned or reduced due to not accounting for the level of disruption, but the only clear policy being cited is to IAR 3RR. That this thread is here and has as much support as it does shows a difference between policy and what many feel is the correct course of action. CMD (talk) 09:12, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

The two blocks are not equal in length because Gagaluv1 had a clean block log, whereas Koavf had been blocked 22 times already, mainly for edit-warring, and had been blocked three times in the past month for 3RR. Gagaluv1's edits were constructive; many of them may have been made while Koavf had an in-use tag on the article, but Koavf did the same thing -- he edited the article while Gagaluv1's in-use tag was on the article. Gagaluv1 explained at least some of his edits (via edit summary); Koavf did not. Lastly, the way to deal with any editor or edits you disagree with is never to edit-war, but to explain your edits, via edit-summaries and then on article-talk if there is still disagreement. Please read WP:EDITWAR: "An editor who repeatedly restores their preferred version is edit warring, regardless of whether those edits are justifiable: "But my edits were right, so it wasn't edit warring" is no defense." Softlavender (talk) 09:41, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Softlavender, your description is exactly what Gagaluv1 did and has been doing in the past: reverting back to their preferred version, intentionally disrupting article building in the process (removing referenced material). Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:40, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not sure why a quote from EDITWAR is being directed at me. I explicitly noted twice that the only policy justification being presented to lift the block is IAR. I feel that demonstrates at least some familiarity with the policies and guidelines around edit warring. Perhaps direct the "please read" comments at someone who is arguing for unblocking despite the edit war policy and guidelines? CMD (talk) 12:42, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• Comment. Without commenting on the block, let me concentrate on the following aspect. It is clear that different users, even in this thread, perceive {{inuse}} differently. Some think that it should be taken very seriously, and one may edit an article with this template on only for removing copyright or BLP violations. Others think that this is a purely information template and anybody can edit such article in the same way as if the template was not there. I myself had a very bad experience a few years ago, when I created an article with this template on, and another user started editing it, constantly putting me in the edit conflict position (I guess they were using automatic tools). I went to their talk page, to be told that they are not going to mind the template, not for this article, not in the future. I overreacted, and users remembered me this overreaction for a long time, and the user has not even ben warned. None of the positions is currently explicit in the policies. (Well, by default probably the second one would be more policy-based). Would it make sense to go to the WP:VPP and try to get at least some consensus which can be coded in the policies, or it this hopeless?--Ymblanter (talk) 07:08, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Ymblanter, people often game the system by using the in-use tag, especially when they want to circumvent normal editing practices and consensus-building, or when they have someone they disagree with and dislike and want to gain the upper hand. That's one reason there are no hard-and-fast policies about it. Softlavender (talk) 07:48, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• Overturn block as time served a whole month does seem OTT. Why not use a partial block on the article instead? Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 07:41, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• About this rule that only the blockee can start a block review request: Who came up with that, and why?—S Marshall T/C 08:57, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• Unblock. Time served is reasonable as per NYB. Govindaharihari (talk) 09:08, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• Endorse block - long history of 3RR/edit warring, escalating blocks - why is this user any different from any one else? GiantSnowman 09:46, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• Bad block As already discussed, the circumstances were such that blocking Koavf was unreasonable, if technically permissible under the current policy. Iaritmioawp (talk) 09:56, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• All too often we see administrators taking action like Wikipedia is some kind of MMO. Editor casts "3RR violation," so admin casts "block." Non-blocked user casts "unblock review," admin casts "invalid thread." I've seen this attitude a lot with El_C, and it was on full display at the last block of Koavf, where they said "I am bound to the supremacy of 3RR in content disputes as an admin enforcing that bright line rule." We've seen time and time again 3RR violations that are not in fact solved by blocks but by open discussion. You can go to ANEW right now and see a couple examples of 3RR violations not ending with a block but the use of judgment to find an appropriate action not requiring sanctions. The point is we should be here, and our actions should be driven by, the goal of building an encyclopedia, not playing the MMO game. Koavf was in the process of creating a new article and ran into a bit of a tangle. The admin should be there to help solve the issue while enabling improvements to continue. El_C, in this case, only got it half right and should unblock. Rules are helpful until they aren't, and with long term, productive editors there is usually a better option than a block. Mr Ernie (talk) 10:25, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Noting that Koavf has now posted an unblock request. For the reasons stated above, I am inclined to grant the request, but let's see if a consensus develops on whether to do so. Newyorkbrad (talk) 11:15, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose unblocking based on Koavf's unblock request. The substance of his unblock request violates WP:EDITWAR, which reads "An editor who repeatedly restores their preferred version is edit warring, regardless of whether those edits are justifiable: "But my edits were right, so it wasn't edit warring" is no defense." He has been advised by Glen, and by experienced editors in this thread, to post an unblock request in line with the criteria laid out by SQL in this thread. For someone who has been blocked 22 times, mainly for edit-warring, and who had already been blocked three times this month for edit-warring, I think that's the minimum that should be required in the unblock request. In my opinion, he should also commit to fully completing an article in sandbox or draftspace before posting it live, as a condition of an early unblock. Softlavender (talk) 12:14, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• bad blockS.  this 'edit' by user:Gagaluv1 removes properly referenced text that were added by user:Koavf, and re-introduces the {{in use}} that Koafv here removed. In fact, the before mentioned edit by Gagaluv1 is nothing more than a revert to Gagaluv1's previous version (with addition of 2 references, and a track listing). It is bluntly ignoring the {{in use}} tag and in that process overwriting good faith additions by the user who added the {{in use}} (and then removed it). This is beyond disruptive editing by Gagaluv1, this is intentionally hard pushing the information that he wanted in the article, ignoring anything else. This is a behaviour that they keep repeating: on a page was created by Koavf, who introduced a referencing style, Koafv maintained that reference style after Gagaluv1 introduced introduced a new/mixed reference style.   Gagaluv1 bluntly overwrites that reference style (diff followed by diff - hence intentionally moving back again from the original single cite variation to a mixture) and being pointed to that by Koavf (User talk:Gagaluv1#Formatting sources). Gagaluv1 on that article continues to use their preferred style as late as July, unified again by Koavf on August 10.

Maybe Koavf should have expressed this stronger in their reverts and the talkpage post, and this does not necessarily excuse repeated reversals up to 3RR (though, Gagaluv1's edits are clearly disruptive, at least bordering on vandalism), but I do feel that 3RR as sole basis for this block is not justified. Arriving 17 minutes after article creation and performing edits similar to edits that were discussed earlier between these 2 editors, ignoring a {{in use}} intentionally and insisting to do so ... (and note, the only two cases I could find where Gagaluv1 is changing reference styles are on the two pages discussed here). To me, this looks very, very much like picking a fight by Gagaluv1. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:17, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• Decline unblock. Koavf has now made an unblock request, which means that we can address it here. Their reason for wanting to be unblocked is "The substance of my edits was clearly to improve the encyclopedia while another editor was clearly disruptive and made several objectively bad edits that explicitly contravened guidelines and policies." This is an invalid request because it does not address the reason for the block (3RR), but instead complains about the editing of others (WP:NOTTHEM). Sandstein 12:18, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support unblock 72.80.58.47 (talk) 12:45, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• Decline unblock The situation presented in BHG's makes it look like the month-long block is overkill, but if you write the events from the perspective of how El_C has explained it, that this is the 3rd 3RR situation that Koavf had been involved with in 3 months, the prior two lifted early on voluntary promises to avoid further 3RR, and then did it again and had yet to explain themselves, and none of the edits fell into 3RRNO, its hard not to support the block. There were absolutely other actions Koavf could have taken when they neared 3RR on the latest case (including backing off at the 2nd revert, seeking help, etc.) Trying to frame it around the unequalness of the blocks for the action is missing the history involved here. --Masem (t) 12:51, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Thinking ahead a few steps, I foresee that this thread may wind up reflecting a sharp division of opinions between those (including myself) who think that this block was barely necessary at all and in any event is horribly excessive, and those who think it was justified as a remedy given the multiple 3RR violations. This will raise a meta-question that I remember asking here as far back as 2006 but which AFAIK still does not have a clear answer: If an unblock review thread yields no consensus in either direction, is the proper outcome to leave the block in place (because there is no consensus to unblock), or to unblock (because there is no consensus that the user should remain blocked)? My view is that we should unblock in such a case, which I believe any admin (again including myself) would have the right to do, because unblocked is the default status—but this is probably something we should figure out someday outside the context of a specific instance. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:13, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

NYB, my take on it is that if there is no consensus to unblock, then the block stays in place. The consensus trying to be reached is one of "should this block be lifted?" The onus being no if the block is valid, but should the user be unblocked. With no consensus to unblock, then the status quo would remain. The same would go for something like a IBAN, topic ban etc. RickinBaltimore (talk) 13:22, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

(ec)I agree with RickinBaltimore. I'll just add that, in my opinion, when there is no consensus to unblock, any admin can still unblock as a result of a successful unblock request, unless it's a DS or something like that requiring consensus to overturn. Salvio 13:26, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Newyorkbrad that this meta-question needs to be addressed as a separate followup discussion. I personally agree that no consensus should default to unblock, but there is currently no policy on that question.

This discussion has also raised several other meta-issues which should be addressed on a policy level, including:

• the status of {{in use}} tags. There are clearly divergent views on their significance.
• the question of treating 3RR and its escalating-block principle as a mathematical formula. I take the view that any possible block should be assessed against all the relevant circumstances, but some editors take a more formulaic approach. That needs clarification.

--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:34, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• Endorse block - Gagaluv1's behavior was rude, harassing, and disruptive, but that doesn't excuse Koavf edit warring. Koavf's history shows that they have not learned alternative means of resolving content disputes and editor conduct issues. - MrX 🖋 13:29, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

RFPP backlog

Hello all, it looks like there is a bit of a backlog over at WP:RFPP. More than 30 open requests with some being almost a day old. -- LuK3 (Talk) 19:22, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

We are back to normal now, thanks to everybody involved.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:39, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Request for Comments from Admins for WikiLoop DoubleCheck

Hi, admins,

I like to raise awareness a Request for Comment, the summary is we are planning feature sets related to how reviewers can review with the tool. Some features are relevant to providing features for admins to conduct administrative work (of course, they will require the reviewer was already such admin permissions in that given wiki). We think it's important to do things in the right way and some of the feature might be controversial or not. To err on the conservative side, we want to ask for communities feedback before we go ahead and implement them.

Thank you!

Developer of WikiLoop DoubleCheck xinbenlv ^{Talk, Remember to "ping" me} 04:31, 22 August 2020 (UTC)