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Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (50 out of 7868 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Type Summary Admin J Williams 2024-06-19 04:09 indefinite edit,move Persistent sock puppetry; requested at WP:RfPP Elli Writers Against the War on Gaza 2024-06-18 22:02 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses in the Netherlands 2024-06-18 21:53 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Municipal resolutions for a ceasefire in the Israel–Hamas war 2024-06-18 21:48 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case University of Texas at Austin stabbing 2024-06-18 21:41 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Palestinian sports during the 2023-2024 Israeli invasion of Gaza 2024-06-18 20:40 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel in 2024 2024-06-18 20:38 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:ARBPIA Ymblanter Noam Chomsky 2024-06-18 20:29 2024-06-21 20:29 edit Violations of the biographies of living persons policy: Reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated Muboshgu Reaction of university donors during Israel–Hamas war 2024-06-18 20:28 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case European Union reactions to the Israel–Hamas war 2024-06-18 20:22 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Draft:Akash Anand 2024-06-18 19:30 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated TomStar81 TJ Monterde 2024-06-18 18:16 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated; requested at WP:RfPP Elli Template:Getalias2/core 2024-06-18 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2508 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Template:Getalias2 2024-06-18 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2511 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Jain temples, Pavagadh 2024-06-18 10:32 2024-07-18 10:32 edit,move Persistent vandalism Black Kite Rick and Morty: Go to Hell 2024-06-18 02:13 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated NinjaRobotPirate Rick and Morty – Go to Hell 2024-06-18 02:11 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated NinjaRobotPirate Rick and Morty: Heart of Rickness 2024-06-18 02:10 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated NinjaRobotPirate Rick and Morty: Crisis on C-137 2024-06-18 02:09 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated NinjaRobotPirate Rick and Morty: Infinity Hour 2024-06-18 02:08 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated NinjaRobotPirate Sukhoi Su-57 2024-06-17 20:07 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:RUSUKR Daniel Case Meragram 2024-06-17 17:18 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Ivanvector Union Council Khot 2024-06-17 17:17 indefinite edit,move Persistent sock puppetry Ivanvector User talk:Aviram7/Editnotice 2024-06-17 16:20 indefinite edit,move user request UtherSRG Malcolm Vaughn 2024-06-17 05:48 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Ad Orientem Talk:Malcolm Vaughn 2024-06-17 05:47 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated A7 article Ad Orientem Timeline of the 2014 Gaza War 2024-06-17 02:28 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement; requested at WP:RfPP Elli DWYE-FM 2024-06-16 21:40 indefinite create Liz DWIP-FM 2024-06-16 21:39 indefinite create Liz Calls for a ceasefire during the Israel–Hamas war 2024-06-16 20:38 indefinite edit,move Contentious topics enforcement for WP:CT/A-I; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Hashim Safi Al Din 2024-06-16 19:44 indefinite edit,move raising to ECP as requested Daniel Case Module:Category disambiguation 2024-06-16 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2503 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Template:Category disambiguation 2024-06-16 18:00 indefinite edit High-risk template or module: 2502 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II J.Williams 2024-06-16 14:04 indefinite edit,move Persistent sock puppetry Girth Summit J. Williams 2024-06-16 14:03 indefinite edit,move Persistent sock puppetry Girth Summit Naznin Khan 2024-06-16 05:30 2024-09-16 05:30 create Repeatedly recreated Billinghurst 2024 University of Pennsylvania pro-Palestine campus encampment 2024-06-16 04:56 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement WP:PIA Chetsford User:Ajaynaagwanshi 2024-06-16 04:02 2024-06-23 04:02 create deleted as inappropriate is exactly that, do not redo the same editing Billinghurst Wars of the Deccan Sultanates 2024-06-15 22:48 indefinite move reinstate earlier protection due to move warring Graeme Bartlett Leve Palestina 2024-06-15 19:49 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case 2026 Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2024-06-15 19:30 indefinite edit,move Persistent disruptive editing: per RFPP Daniel Case Template:Reference column heading 2024-06-15 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2505 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Template:Abbreviation 2024-06-15 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2503 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Dinosaur of Ta Prohm 2024-06-15 14:35 2024-07-06 14:35 edit,move Addition of unsourced or poorly sourced content UtherSRG 2019 South African general election 2024-06-15 11:41 2024-07-15 11:41 edit edit warring Valereee 2014 South African general election 2024-06-15 11:39 2024-07-15 11:39 edit edit warring Valereee 2009 South African general election 2024-06-15 11:38 2024-07-15 11:38 edit edit war Valereee 2004 South African general election 2024-06-15 11:37 2024-07-15 11:37 edit edit war Valereee 1999 South African general election 2024-06-15 11:35 2024-07-15 11:35 edit edit warring by AC users Valereee 1994 South African general election 2024-06-15 11:33 2024-07-15 11:33 edit It's an AC user, too. Please discuss. Valereee

Action review: Geo Swan and imissdisco

Background: [[1]]

• Geo Swan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• imissdisco (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• User talk:Geo Swan (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Today I noticed a back-and-forth between these two editors at Geo Swan's talk page. Per the background link above, evidently Geo Swan was blocked almost a year ago for creating an article about Dan Trotta while involved in a dispute at commons with imissdisco, which claims to be Trotta's account (I have no way of confirming this). About two weeks ago Geo Swan began posting a "plan for reinstatement" to their talk page. imissdisco, who has not edited this wiki except in relation to this dispute, began to challenge various things that Geo Swan was adding to their "plan", and their conversation became hostile.

Reviewing the talk page, I came across a diatribe in which Geo Swan threatened to ping the blocking admin daily until getting a satisfactory response. Admins are required to be accountable but there is no requirement to be publicly flogged until the offended party is satisfied, particularly in this case where the blocking admin's action was already discussed by the community (background link above). As such, I revoked Geo Swan's talk page and email access, standard practice for overt threats of harassment.

I also par-blocked imissdisco from Geo Swan's talk page, given their unreasonably aggressive tone and threats of their own, because the dispute at commons that started this whole thing seems to still be ongoing and is spilling over here again, and because Geo Swan won't be able to respond anyway.

I understand that the situation between these two editors is somewhat sensitive because the deleted page I won't link to was characterized as an attack page and because one of the parties is allegedly the target of that page (in other words it began with harassment) and so I'm requesting a review of the situation and my actions. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:10, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Cat o'nine tails for HJ Mitchell obviously. But, seriously, that looks fine ((Non-administrator comment)), obvs); notwithstanding Geo Swan's plan for reinstatement, I would say he was more likely to be heading towards a site ban than away from it. It's a shame imissdisco has to be blocked from the talk, but they have absolutely no reason to be editing it that I can see. Although if GS is also harassing her on other wikis (did I see her say that?), that makes her ire very understandable, although not something we can address on en-wp. SN54129 17:24, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse. This looks like a reasonable response to an unpleasant and disruptive situation. --Jayron32 17:30, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
• (Non-administrator comment) Partial endorsement. I've been observing this for some time. It seems to me that imissdisco has been poking Geo Swan with a sharp stick. I am steering clear of the origfinal infraction. I consider, however, that all parties in a dispute are expected to conduct themselves with decorum. Perhaps the original issue was sufficient to cut the stick wielder some slack, but I wonder if the administrative action has gone far enough. My expectation is that, whatever the provocation they should avoid the talk page where they are poking with sticks. Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 17:55, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
• A clarification. HJ Mitchell is not the blocking admin. He gave a warning, and Drmies subsequently blocked. The block was overwhelmingly confirmed at a discussion here at AN [2]. Geo Swan seems to want to argue about the warning first, before requesting an unblock. I don't know if HJMitchell was even aware of the the posts: it doesn't seem required to watchlist a page almost a year after giving a warning, and the first actual ping was yesterday, I believe, though does it even work if you add a ping to previous text? In any case, Geo Swan continuing to argue that he was right, including ramping up the situation by asking for the undeletion of the contested picture at Commons (apparently in order to force Imissdisco to self-identify officially), seems very, very unlikely to convince editors to unblock him here. Slp1 (talk) 17:58, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

A ping only causes a notification if you sign the same edit that you add it with. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 19:37, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

And if you go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo-blocknotificationslist and fill in a harasser's username, you won't see those pings no matter how often they're sent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:54, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

• Geo is incapable of collegiately editing, which is a shame because he has also provided good content. I don't know the IP, but agree with them in the request that Geo's response warranted further eyes, although I don't fault anyone in opting not to. Engagement with them is unnecessarily hostile, which is why I asked them not to email me. They had talk page access and did not need to resort to off wiki communications because they believe others need to be at their beck and call. Star Mississippi 18:01, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

• Wait, Geo Swan is still writing about Trotta and still using the photo Trotta objected to elsewhere on the Internet as recently as this month? It seems like we're moving closer to Trust & Safety territory than an unblock. The summary Imissdisco posted at Geo Swan's talk page seems helpful. As he admits, he's not a Wikipedian and made the initial photo request without understanding how things work simply because he didn't like the photo. That's something we see every day. Yes, it can be annoying when you're oriented towards building a free knowledge resource and someone wants to remove an illustration just because they don't like it, but from the subject's standpoint it's completely reasonable. So when it wouldn't hurt much, or when there's something unusual about the case, we try to accommodate those requests. But Geo Swan went to great lengths to ensure it would never be deleted and, moreover, spread the photo to even more locations. It's wildly inappropriate, and I really don't see a way forward for Geo Swan without owning up to that, without pointing fingers, doing everything they can to undo the harassment, volunteering for a topic ban about Dan Trotta, and probably some other BLP restrictions. Given the current situation, I support the actions at the top. (And btw I'm not even saying the photo should've been deleted. It was two years old, was just a crop of a group photo that wouldn't have been deleted, and Commons errs on the side of preservation both due to its broad scope and to protect anyone who may have used that photo outside of Wikimedia projects and is counting on Commons documenting the license.) — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:23, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
• I participated at GeoSwan's talk page, but my advice was not taken. As I wrote there, he's an amazing editor and I hope he can eventually get over himself and be allowed to return here. In general we allow blocked users understandable latitude in expressing their frustration on their talk pages, so I hope we can avoid ourselves doubling down here, and at least avoid removing that; he's not doing a very good job of advocating for his return, but he is trying. --GRuban (talk) 18:34, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

  In general we allow blocked users understandable latitude in expressing their frustration on their talk pages In the immediate aftermath of the block, yes. Not almost a year later.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 18:45, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

• Maybe I'm looking at the wrong deleted article, but the last deleted article of GS doesn't look like an attack to the naked eye. imissdisco did look like they were wholesale deleting sections they didn't like. What about it is attack? What am I missing? Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:20, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
  • It was created for the purpose of bothering the BLP subject, while the GeoSwan was actively arguing with and insulting the subject on Commons. GeoSwan said ahead of time that it would be a dick move to create the article, and did so anyway. Cullen328 (talk) 01:50, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
    • Ah, thank you. For what it is worth, the article itself was fairly benign. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:46, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
      • Possibly, but blocks are for behavior and not content. The act of using the creation of an article as a weapon against another user is certainly a novel way to attack them, but it's still an unreasonable thing to do. --Jayron32 13:50, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
• GeoSwan's behaviour over the last few days suggests they need a community ban, and certainly not unblocking at any point. Black Kite (talk) 19:09, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
• I support any block or ban of Geo Swan that we have the power on en.wiki to implement or endorse. A year later, Geo Swan is still acting in an emotionally reactionary way, unable to control their temper in the way that I would expect a Wikipedian to be able to do were the incident something that happened yesterday, and making threats of harassment (to HJ Mitchell). They display no understanding of why they were blocked, and Imissdisco (whose comments are quite tame) alleges continued off-wiki harassment. Geo Swan says that they were drunk while committing harassment against Imissdisco, but that is a matter for more concern, not less. This is becoming a T&S matter, as Rhododendrites says.
  Lastly, while my condolences go to anybody who is experiencing grief, editing Wikipedia is a privilege and not a right, and we have precedent of not lifting blocks/bans that were issued after impulsive behaviour by a person experiencing serious negative life events due to the pandemic. The question here is "will this person be a net positive if unblocked?", not a question of fairness. — Bilorv (talk) 13:50, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
• Considering GeoSwan is using their Talk page to argue about the block, rather than attempting to appeal, I'd suggest revoking Talk page access & making them use UTRS. This obsession of his is getting out of hand. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:59, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support full-fledged site ban of Geo Swan, and I'd probably support a T&S ban too. I do not recall crossing paths with Geo Swan, but I do recall having a high opinion of his past work, and being shocked to find he'd been indef'd... and then disgusted after reading why. We must reject and act against any forms of harassment; Imissdisco does not deserve this treatment. If Geo Swan is still obsessing over this matter nearly a full year on from the imposition of his indefinite block, then I think we can safely say that he is no longer "here". --Dylan620 (he/him · talk · edits) 00:10, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support ban GeoSwan has been repeatedly counselled over many years for a range of BLP issues relating to their editing (e.g. creating negative articles on people for what appear to have been WP:COATRACK purposes, creating articles on non-notable people accused of terrorism, etc - see the various reports via [3], Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Geo Swan and the list of articles they created which have since been deleted at [4] - most of the 708(!) are BLPs). As they are continuing problematic behaviour related to BLP while blocked for this, a ban is clearly in order given there appears to be no likelihood they will be ever adhere to the key BLP policy. Nick-D (talk) 00:35, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support per my original comment. SN54129 13:21, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
• This action seems entirely appropriate to me. There have been problems with Geo Swan's editing, especially concerning BLPs, for a very long time. It should not be necessary to explain to an editor of GS's experience why weaponising Wikipedia in such a way is abhorrent, and that he still doesn't get it a year later shows that the block is clearly still necessary. His conduct on his talk page unfortunately necessitated the removal of his ability to edit that as well. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:58, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
• Endorse admin action and support site-ban. I take a very dim view of using our internal processes to harass someone, regardless of good work that they did. Reminds me of Tenebrae, but arguably milder. Still, harassment is not to be tolerated. Jip Orlando (talk) 15:57, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Site-Ban. We don't need an editor who seems to have spent a year seeking vengeance. I haven't researched their record as a content editor, but we don't need editors whose desire for revenge appears to be greater than their desire to contribute to the encyclopedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:39, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
  • He's one of the top 1000 editors of all time. Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/1–1000. He specializes in the losing side of politics - for example he wrote a huge series of articles about the Guantanamo Bay detainees. His desire to contribute to the encyclopedia is quite strong. I hope the revenge thing was a one-time aberration, and he will promise to cut it out - though I admit he hasn't yet. --GRuban (talk) 12:44, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
• Endorse removal of talk page and email.
• Endorse partial block of imissdisco
• Support site ban of GeoSwan . A once great editor who continues to try to harass people. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 00:37, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

  Laments being blocked on Wikipedia, yet continues the same destructive behavior? While drunk? (what!) Classic lack of insight. Wikipedia is not therapy-- or AA. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 00:42, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

  i cannot reach WikiAlpha. Is it me, or is it down? --Deepfriedokra (talk) 01:05, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

  Have a trout... ><((()))> Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:13, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support Site-ban The fact that he is still doing this means that any unblock should have to be approved by the community. This is unacceptable. Scorpions13256 (talk) 14:53, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Attempts to hack into admin accounts

I have received a notification that there have been multiple failed attempts to log into my account from a new device. The last time that happened it also happened to numerous other administrators' accounts. I have the following suggestions:

1. Any administrators, please make sure you have a secure password, not something easy to hack, such as an English word, or a password only five characters long, etc etc.
2. If anyone else has recently had the same experience then I suggest they post here to say so, so that we can tell whether it is another mass attack or not. JBW (talk) 15:49, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Isn't 2FA mandatory for admins? If not, it should be. GiantSnowman 15:53, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

No, 2FA isn't mandatory. Hog Farm _Talk 16:02, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman strong, unique, passwords are mandatory for admins. 2FA is only mandatory for interface admins. Unfortunately the 2FA system lacks sufficient support to make it mandatory for larger groups of users so far. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:05, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Sage advice. I'd point out for JBW's benefit, that this is SOP for anyone who has gone near a sock of User:Projects, such as 5.229.128.166. It's intended as an annoyance. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:06, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for that information, zzuuzz. If that's all it is then it's not too bad. In the context I can tell what you mean, but I have no idea what "SOP" stands for. Just out of interest, would you like to enlighten me? JBW (talk) 18:25, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Standard operating procedure; routine, normal. I see our article also says, "practices that are unconstructive, yet the norm". -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:31, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

I use 2FA on my account, and recommend it for those that have the means to enable it. See WP:2FA. --Jayron32 16:09, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

He tries again and again and again and again (yes, this person, also known as "Projects") -- one day this week he tried just under 200 times to guess my password. I know it's him. He'd probably stop if he realized I'm more amused than annoyed. Antandrus (talk) 16:40, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Nothing on my Wikimedia account, presumably since I have 2FA, but someone tried to reset the password to my VRTS account (which has access to restricted CU queues) this morning. Could be a coincidence, but... – Joe (talk) 16:55, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Nothing, but I also have 2FA, enabled when I decided to run RfA. I think any admin who doesn't is nuts possibly not giving enough consideration to the possibilities. :D Yes, it's a minor extra step when you need to login again. Yes, the whole scratch codes thing sounds scary. But I would feel so frickin' idiotic if I got hacked because I crossed my fingers instead of acknowledging that as an admin I needed to be more careful. For those who haven't enabled because it feels daunting: the good folks at Help talk:Two-factor authentication won't make fun of you even when you ask the stupidest question they've ever heard. Believe me. valereee (talk) 18:07, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Scrath codes are not really scary. I recently had to reset the 2FA because I switched to a new device; I just disabled 2FA and then re-enabled it; this generates the new set of codes.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:11, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

That's exactly what I did. If you can work a smartphone, you can figure out 2FA. The instructions are wordy and full of scary-looking warnings but it's actually pretty simple. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:19, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

This has been said a million times, but there's no harm in saying it again. Don't use the same password as you use on any other site. You might be really proud of yourself for remembering "l+0r@NLngf^#G2amVm~;", but if you also used that on another site that does something idiotic like storing passwords as plain text (and how would you know?), it might as well be "12345". Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 18:50, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Password managers are pretty great. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:20, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

• Last I heard, people whose technical opinions I respect were of the opinion that MediaWiki's 2FA was not fit for purpose. Has something significantly changed in how it's implemented, compared to what it used to be? This isn't a bank; if you have a long password unique to WP, I can't imagine a realistic scenario where 2FA is actually important. The one use I can think of for 2FA on Wikipedia is it helps me identify people who take this place too seriously; they're the ones who tend to mock/patronize the people who choose not to use it. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:50, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

  Because people vastly overestimate their ability to choose high-entropy passwords. You tell them to choose a 10-character passsword, and they use "opensesame". Tell them to include a mix of uppercase, lowercase, and numbers, and they use "OpenSesame1". Tell them to include punctuation too, then it's "OpenSesame1!". Eventually you just give up and use a system that doesn't give them any options. Other than that, it protects against casual shoulder-surfers, and maybe provides some minimal protection against malware and eavesdropping.  2FA is not magic pixie dust. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:41, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

  I understand the benefits of well-implemented 2FA in general. What I don't understand is why I should bother with (what I understand to be) poorly-implemented 2FA on a random website like Wikipedia. If someone does manage to break into my admin account, their ability to cause anything beyond fleeting problems for anyone besides myself is, to a first approximation, zero. 2FA on a bank account? Yes. 2FA on a WP account? Meh. Demanding admins use 2FA on their WP account? Obnoxious. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:29, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

  I agree. 2FA should not be mandatory for admins. However, as much as I'd like to believe that checkusers, oversighters, and intadmins are all using strong, unique passwords, that's probably not the case. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:58, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

• Just changed my password to "12345679", just to be safe. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:13, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
• I have been receiving such notifications regularly for the last two years. Most of these notifications come from projects where I don't know the language. However, I have 2FA on my account. —Yahya (talk • contribs.) 21:17, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
• If 2FA becomes compulsory for admins, you'll definitely lose my services, which won't break Wikipedia — but still, I may not be the only one. (I can't work a smartphone, HJ Mitchell. What do you think of that?) Not sure which would come first — me accidentally locking myself out, or me being too pissed off to stick around. Do not be concerned for my security, though; I have a very secure password that's not even a little like "opensesame". Admittedly Bishzilla uses "Bishonen" as her password, and thinks she's being very clever. But then she's not currently an admin, fortunately. Bishonen | tålk 22:50, 2 March 2022 (UTC).

  

  A YubiKey

  @Bishonen: Just out of interest Bish, would you feel the same way about WebAuthn? Instead of relying on a code generated by your smartphone, you'd (probably) use a hardware key (this YouTube video might make a bit more sense). At the moment, the WMF's implementation of WebAuthn apparently isn't great, so I can't recommend it, but on principle would that be more palatable? -- TNT (talk • she/her) 23:11, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

• I'm waiting for 3FA to come out. If I have this crooked, I should buy a smartphone (don't own one) and jeopardize my privacy every time I use it so I can protect my password on Wikipedia. Got it.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:00, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

  There's nothing stopping you from using whatever device you're using right now to generate the token. Arguably, that's no longer exactly "two factor" and won't protect at all against malware, but hey, no one will ever know. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:06, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Bbb23 3FA, even 4FA are actual things - but don't expect WMF integrations to them any time soon! — xaosflux ^Talk 02:12, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

• If WMF makes more than a lazy hand wave in the general direction of providing support for their 2FA system, I will respond in kind. I guess I'm just a nutter, eh Valereee? Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled security theater programming!-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 23:04, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Bbb23, there are a variety of apps you can run on your desktop that implement 2FA (actually, time-based one-time passwords), so you don't need a smartphone. I can't recommend specific ones, though. In case anyone's unsure if it is safe to reuse your password on another site, HaveIBeenPwned should quickly convince you otherwise. A good password manager should be in everyone's toolkit, especially admins. Not just on Wikipedia, everywhere. I freely admit I haven't been able to set up my partner with a good password manager, though, so take my advice with a grain of salt. Some of those password managers even implement 2FA, though an argument could be made for doing that separately. I'd love to demand admins enable 2FA, but I do have to admit the user experience, both here and on other sites, just isn't up to snuff yet. --Yamla (talk) 23:09, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

@Ponyo, just pointing out that I struck that word in its original appearance and also gave a laughing emoji after the statement. No, I don't actually think you're a nutter. valereee (talk) 15:38, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

• Like Bish and others, I would be inclined to bail on the Project if they forced admin to use 2FA. Their current system is butt ugly with virtually no way to recover a lost token. And I never use a smartphone for Wikipedia, even to just read. Surely there are better ways to add security than the current 2FA system. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:19, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
• Just for fun, I created a password strength estimator. For obvious reasons, please don't enter your real password. -FASTILY 23:20, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

• Thanks User:Fastily! I tried it with a password constructed on similar principles as mine, and got told it was "very unguessable - great", plus something about centuries that I didn't altogether understand:

• centuries — 100 attempts/hour (one machine, rate limiting in place)
• centuries — 10 attempts/sec (one machine, no rate limiting)
• centuries — offline attack, assumes multiple machines
• centuries — 10 billion attempts/sec, assumes aggressive attacker with access to many machines

Meaning it would take centuries no matter what..? I don't use it for any other purposes than Wikipedia, nor outside my home at any time - so no shoulder-surfing - and have complete faith in the discretion of my family. (My AI-professional son indeed advised me on how to construct a good password, that I can remember and nobody can guess.) TheresNoTime, I therefore don't really feel the need to get my head round WebAuthn at least not at this time. Sorry, but there was just a lot of thorny reading. Bishonen | tålk 23:45, 2 March 2022 (UTC).

It means you have a very strong password :) "centuries" means that it would probably take literal centuries for a hacker (of sufficiently advanced capabilities) to guess your password. -FASTILY 23:50, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Oh, interesting! I did the same thing as Bish (created one from the principles I use) and came up with "safely unguessable", although I only got "centuries" for the first one. After that it was 31 years/12 days/1 sec. valereee (talk) 15:43, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

• Fastily, thank you -- I like the "centuries" it says to me (if that particular deranged LTA wants to spend centuries trying to guess mine, it's fine with me -- it's certainly a better use of his time than spewing his usual cringey sputter). Antandrus (talk) 00:58, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't know, Fastily. According to your password strength estimator, setting your password to "This is my Wikipedia password." would be a great idea, as it would take centuries to guess. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 16:53, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

It would, because no one actually guesses passwords, they try dictionary attacks, or of the have the hash they try and solve it locally. Length of really the best security for a password. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:07, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. There are 30 characters in the phrase "This is my Wikipedia password.". If we assume a limited character set of [A-Za-z.], that's 53 possible characters per position, which means that there are a total of 53³⁰ possible passwords. Using Power of 10 notation, this comes out to ~5.349 × 10⁵¹. For reference, the Earth contains 1.33 × 10⁵⁰ atoms. -FASTILY 00:12, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Another way to look at that, from a dictionary attackers point of view, is that it's just five of the most common words in English, in a somewhat predictable order. A dictionary attacker would eat it for breakfast. At least add some random stuff. Thanks. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 01:15, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Maybe, but I think that's still a step up from the average person who most certainly isn't choosing passwords like that. Obligatory xkcd. -FASTILY 01:32, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Let's say someone did that - everywhere they went their password was "This is my Wikipedia password." "This is my Facebook password." "This is my Hotmail password." "This is my bank account password." Technically, they are using a different password everywhere. It's a difficult password for a computer to guess, easy for them to remember. But all it takes is for one of those passwords to appear on a list of hacked passwords somewhere and it would be easy for hackers to guess all the others because of the obvious formula. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 21:38, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

This illustrates a problem with any password quality checker: If well-implemented, then you can trust any answer of "this password is bad". But you can't always trust "this password is good"; all it takes is for the attacker to be using a different dictionary than the tool. For example, Fastily's checker says that "correct horse battery staple" is a good password. No, not a password I generated using the CHBS method. The actual string "correct horse battery staple". Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:43, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for this. I tried some well-known song lyric phrases: rock, hymns, folk music. Very easy for me to remember, but perhaps because they were sentences, they were considered to be unguessable, even though they were comprised of common words. Did not insert any symbols or unnecessary capitalization. Try some well-known verses from Led Zeppelin, and you will see my point. Is this because the sentence is long, or because a machine is unable to parse human speech? Tribe of Tiger ^{Let's Purrfect!} 23:28, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

@Tribe of Tiger: See my comment just above. Not to pick on Fastily's estimator, but you really can't trust any such tool in that way. All you learned is that the phrase you typed isn't in Fastily's dictionary. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:58, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

@Suffusion of Yellow: Your comment makes sense. As an older person, out of the loop, it's discouraging and confusing, attempting to follow instructions for strong passwords. Before the yr is out, I must upgrade my ancient (dumb) phone to a Smart Phone, so I guess 2FA is the best choice? Yet another learning curve? I am so confused. Tribe of Tiger ^{Let's Purrfect!} 02:03, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

@Tribe of Tiger: Go low tech. Unless someone's likely to break into your house and rummage through your (physical) files in search of your passwords, just choose something really complex and write it down. And in the unlikely event that that's a real risk, write it down and lock it away. If you prefer high-tech, use a password manager (I use KeePass), but don't forget to make multiple backups of the password database. No don't use 2FA; you don't have any "dangerous" privileges so people aren't going to try that hard. You'll just end up locking yourself out. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 04:50, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

My situation is like Yahya, every week I get notifications that someone is trying to log into my account. It's been going on for years, always a few every week. And often on other language Wikipedias. I think in part it's because I have a short username. But it seems random, it's not repeated attempts from a determined troll, that would be alarming. Liz

Read! Talk! 01:40, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

I have a specific determined troll targeting me almost daily, both with login attempts (across multiple projects) and with death threats. My password is strong, I have 2FA enabled, and I filter the emails. They aren't getting my account and I don't see the emails unless I check. Oh, the joys of volunteering at Wikipedia. --Yamla (talk) 02:26, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

• Is there a reason WMF doesn't have a system for email or SMS 2FA? It seems like email would certainly be simple enough, and the SMS 2FA isn't exactly going to break the WMFs bank. That tends to be a lot more comfortable for users than a dedicated app to provide a code. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:46, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  Email is already the recovery mechanism for passwords, so making it also the recovery mechanism for 2FA would mean one compromised email account would meet both factors. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:48, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  Set a second email address for 2FA. I assume most everyone here already has one email address they use for Wikipedia, and another for personal. You're just never going to get buy-in on using 2FA with apps or an external key. My place of work can't even get buy-in for it, and they pay us. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:59, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  Email and SMS 2FA are notoriously insecure. Most security conscious services are phasing them out. MrOllie (talk) 15:54, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, we're talking about Wikipedia though, not actual secure information. Here's a totally unreliable source that says SMS 2FA only stops 76% of attacks... is susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks, social engineering and SIM swapping. So 76% percent of what attacks? Who knows, but it's still leaps and bounds more secure than no 2FA. No reason to let perfect be the enemy of good. If someone is doing MITM SMS attacks, or cloning your SIM to get your Wikipedia password, well what the fuck. You're probably a spy using Wikipedia talk pages for one way blind coded messages, and should have better security anyway. Can also break MITM attacks by having a user text the code to Wikipedia, rather than the other way around, vastly improving the security. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:11, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  A bad actor doesn't even have to bother with SIM cloning these days, they just have to gin up a fake letter of authorization on the proper letterhead to get a copy of SMS messages forwarded in real time, as well as ability to spoof outgoing messages. There's no sense in building a system that we know will be junk before the first line of code is written. I'd rather see the foundation use some of their bloated budget to mail out hardware keys for admins. MrOllie (talk) 16:24, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  For all the admins that will willingly disclose their mailing address to WMF? You're assuming that someone A) Wants to access AdminX's Wikipedia account, B) Already has AdminX's Wikipedia password, C) Has AdminX's mobile number, D) Is willing to forge documents and get involved with a telecom company to try and get realtime access to SMS messages and access to spoof outgoing SMS messages. That's the use case you're designing against? Rather than something that exists now, will prevent the vast majority of the already vanishingly few admin account compromises, and is much easier for people to use, so will have a much higher use rate? Sure you can mail individual hardware keys to every admin willing, and replace them as they get lost and such, and the foundation can maintain an list of people's addresses, usernames and hardware assigned to them so that 20% of admins will take part. Or, OR, you set something up that almost everyone can use very easily, isn't quite as secure, but has a much higher use rate resulting in a more secure environment than the more secure design. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:33, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  (nac) @ScottishFinnishRadish: a spy using Wikipedia talk pages for one way blind coded messages! Given some of the edits I see in recent changes, this possibility has crossed my mind. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 22:54, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  I would say it is almost certain that Wikipedia talk pages have been used in this way. It's a perfect platform for it. Now the quest to find IP range number stations begins! ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:00, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Like a few people above, the WMF would be losing my services if they made me use the utterly useless Heath Robinson 2FA system that they currently claim to be useful. You'd think that we'd currently have developers working hard on crap like this, or the fact that a large amount of people using mobile devices don't even receive talk page messages, but apparently "Growth features" and fancy skins are far more important that people actually being able to use or administrate the project. Black Kite (talk) 18:57, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
• As I'm one of the admins whose account was compromised back in 2015, I am quite shocked that the community focuses more me having weak password, not the hacker who committed the criminal act of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by accessing my account. I'm Canadian and I don't know how this applies when the perpetrator (in any country), committing the act in the US (since WMF server is in the US) on a Canadian victim. But whoever hacked my account could have been sentenced up to 10 years in jail for that stunt according to the Canadian law. The community seems quite intent on blaming the victim. I draw the analogy that someone's house is being broken into. Instead of calling the police, the neighbours blamed the victim for installing a cheap lock that enabled the breaking in. To this date, I don't think CU (which would have IP address of the person committing the unauthorized access in a timely manner) has notified the police for this on-wiki crime. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 07:11, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

  Equating an Internet account compromise with a home invasion seems a bit too much of a hyperbole for my taste. Suppose that an elected official in your government uses a weak password to secure their social media account, and then an attacker manages to compromise the account and use it to mislead the public. Yes, the attacker would likely be guilty of a crime, but surely both the government official and the social media website should also bear some responsibility for not having stronger safeguards against the use of weak passwords. Mz7 (talk) 07:36, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

  It wouldn't be the job of volunteer CUs to notify law enforcement. That would be a WMF thing. I wouldn't assume they would tell us if they had; that might compromise an a investigation.

  I also agree with Mz7; going back to the house analogy; suppose you let a friend use your house while you're away on vacation. You explain to him that your neighborhood has had a rash of burglaries so could he please remember to lock the door and set the alarm when he's out. He heads out for drinks with the door wide open and no alarm set. Wouldn't you know it, someone walks out with your TV. Is it "victim-blaming" to be angry with your friend? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:13, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

  Suffusion of Yellow, please avoid using strawman argument or diminishing other people's experience. I didn't share my password with anyone so it was not like a friend borrowed the password and being careless about it. As you can see from that conversation, someone systematically crawled through the internet looking for leaked passwords. I am very disappointed that the community took a harsher stance towards sockpuppets, copyvios, incivility or harassment while letting real criminals (with clear evidence) off the hook without any punishment. Compromised account from this project alone is quite prevalent. Judging from Category:Compromised accounts and Wikipedia:List of resysopped users, over 400 editors and 15 admins in en.wp had their accounts compromised at some point. I do wonder if WMF Legal team has ever been notified in any of these 500+ occurrences? Can Maggie Dennis comment if Legal/Trust & Safety team have ever been informed of account breaches and whether it was in any standard operating procedure for admins/stewards locking compromised accounts to contact legal team? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:55, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  Accounts are stolen all the time, on many websites. I doubt the police does anything about it: one they'd be swamped with work if they tried to process these, two they often don't have jurisdiction, and three it's often difficult to find the attacker, not least due to use of proxies etc. Prosecution is even more difficult, and very costly. If a person uses a strong password, does not reuse that password, and takes basic security precautions to avoid getting malware on their computer, their account isn't going to be compromised. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:39, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  A brief skim through Category:Compromised accounts suggests many of those are just WP:LITTLEBROTHER incidents. Surely, some 9-year-old walking up to a logged-in session and typing curse words is not a matter for law enforcement. And in your case, it looks like a white-hat did you (and us) a favor. Sure, they were a bit of trollish in how they went about it (could have sent an email to T&S, no?), but in the end they prevented someone with worse intentions from using your account. Back in 2015 admins had the ability to edit sitewide JS. I'm sure you're happy that no one used your account to add a privacy-violating tracker to Mediawiki:common.js. Now they possibly did violate some law or other, but it would be nonsensical to prosecute someone for merely demonstrating a security issue. Even if you disagree with that, I wouldn't assume there is "clear evidence" of who did it. There a good chance that they (correctly) used a VPN or a proxy. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:46, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I know some high level NS_ people use very strong passwords and no 2FA on their personal stuff. Of course I don't ask why.North8000 (talk) 18:19, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Darkness Shines unban appeal (for discussion)

Copied from User talk:Darkness Shines

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

It has now been four years since the community voted to ban me from Wikipedia. For the last two years I requested of the arbitration committee that I be allowed to edit again. However given it was Wikipedias editors who decided I had become a net negative, I believe it is those editors who I ought to need to appeal to. I fully admit to being short of temper, frequently drunk, and quite often profane to the extreme. But that was four years ago, and I have changed for the better. I no longer drink to excess . I am far calmer and not prone to losing my temper as I used to, perhaps because I drink far less, or maybe I've just gotten calmer with age. So I'm asking the community if they would allow me the privilege of editing again, should anyone have questions for me please feel free to post here. If someone would be so kind as to copy paste this to where a majority of editors will see it I'd be grateful. Thanks ¬¬¬¬

I have one, why is this so important to you? Slatersteven (talk) 18:02, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

I enjoy editing and creating articles, it's that simple really. Darkness Shines (talk) 18:04, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

To expand on that, creating something that anyone in the world can access for free, well who wouldn't want to be allowed to do that? Darkness Shines (talk) 18:07, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

(watching) It's certainly ironic, considering the number of editors we have whose very successful wiki-careers are built around everything but content creation. Hey ho. SN54129 19:54, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Admittedly, I'm biased. But, assuming that there aren't any red flags (socks), I'd support allowing DS to edit again. Agree that DS is aggressive and often (apologies, DS) sloppy in their haste to add content. But they have added a lot of useful content to Wikipedia and I consider DS a net positive. I should also mention DS's ability to identify nangparbat socks is unparalleled. --RegentsPark (comment) 20:39, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

A Checkuser was recently run on my account, hilly Billy Holiday socked with a similar sounding username. I have no other accounts and have not edited since my ban. Darkness Shines (talk) 21:34, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

This is documented at Hillbillyholiday's SPI - it may read a little confusing, but I can confirm it's the case. I can also confirm, being somewhat familiar with the technical circumstances, that I have nothing to add from a checkuser perspective. In other words, it gets a tentative green light from me. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:39, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

• I generally prefer a formal probationary period for situations like this (where self control appears to be the issue) of something like 3 or 6 months. But I'd support without that as a second choice. The issue appears to be solely self control, and it's been ~4 years. Worth another try for someone with a strong content history IMO. Hobit (talk) 23:35, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
• Accept appeal and I'm willing to accept any probationary steps others think are appropriate. I remember DS vividly, as both an excellent defender of sources, and as a major pain in the ass. I'm glad he mentions drinking in the appeal, something some of us already knew was part of the problem. (but I wouldn't have mentioned it unless he had). If DS comes back and stays away from the extremes, he really is a big net plus. He has that potential. Whether or not he lives up to it, only time will tell, but it has been long enough that I feel we should give him a last, 2nd chance. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:42, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. I really don't know where some people are getting this idea from that DS was somehow a potentially useful contributor with only a short temper being a problem. No, DS was never a useful contributor. His main problems were always incompetence and tendentiousness. He wasn't forever edit-warring because he had a short temper; he was forever edit-warring because he was always drawn into editing articles where he had a massive tendentious POV, didn't have the self-restraint to stop him from filling articles with poorly-digested, poorly-written and poorly understood tendentious POV fluff, and lacked the intellectual acumen to engage meaningfully on talk about these issues. Yes, he wrote a lot of content – a lot of uniformly bad content. He's the only editor I ever knew who managed to get himself topic-banned from at least three political hot-issue areas at once (Eastern Europe, India/Pakistan, and US politics); this didn't happen just because he used to swear a lot when drunk. A net positive? Ridiculous. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:51, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
• Accept per WP:ROPE, and four years being a long time in Wikipedia. It's certainly long enough for people, and their circumstances, to change. If FP@S's venom is at all justified, then we'll all be back here soon enough. Most importantly of all, DS must know that too: if he has another chance, it'll only be the one. SN54129 08:02, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Oh, the old "give them a last chance, re-blocks are cheap" mantra. No, re-blocks are never cheap, especially not with entrenched, experienced disruptors with wikifriends protecting them. This person has had dozens of second chances and last chances. He somehow managed to talk himself out of a block 12 times in 9 years. And every time he had to be re-blocked afterwards, it was a long-drawn-out, energy-draining procedure, devastating to all envolved. BTW, he now even denies [5] he was ever topic-banned from Eastern Europe. Yes, he was, under his "User:The Last Angry Man" sock account, in October 2011 (shortly after having talked himself out of the initial sock block for that one.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:31, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

(General reply to all) It wasn't much of a denial when in the same sentence they admitted to being t-banned from two other topic areas. I think we can allow a gill of good faith for a memory lapse over something that occurred a decade ago for three months. What I'm looking for is the possibility that someone can change in the amount of time that has passed (I doubt anyone would argue that, except the most incorrigible), and signs of recent disruption (socking). CU gives that a (tentative) all-clear, and I suppose NOTPUNITIVE means something. Admittedly I have the advantage of looking at this as something of a historical episode, not being personally invested, but I assure anyone who wants to know that, should DS go back to their old ways—or discover new ways!—of disruption, then I will be the first back here calling for reinstallation of the site ban. And one where their feet won't touch the ground. SN54129 10:30, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'd like to see evidence of meaningful, constructive editing elsewhere (not necessarily a wikimedia project) before voting to support an unban. This user has been blocked before and convinced us they'd changed, only to demonstrate no significant improvement. Maybe this time, they really have, but there's nothing here that demonstrates that to me. --Yamla (talk) 10:40, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support unblock per WP:STANDARDOFFER. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 11:36, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support unblock, four years of patience and still willing to volunteer? Open the door wide for those who wait. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:48, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
• Conditional support only under a formally logged restriction that, for at least one year, the indefinite siteban will be immediately reinstated if they are blocked for any reason whatsoever. This user has been blocked, conditionally unblocked, and then re-blocked twelve times; the average time to the recidivism block is 44.08 days thanks to an outlier at nearly 6 months; in all but three of these cases they were re-blocked less than a month later, the shortest time being less than two days. This doesn't count numerous blocks that expired with no action, nor the block logs of the ten confirmed socks in their SPI. This is a user who has shown, repeatedly and consistently through time, that they know how to talk themselves out of consequences, that blocks don't teach them anything, and that they either fully intend to reoffend or they can't help themselves. I'm all for second chances (although we're well into double-digit numbers of chances here already) but let's not waste our time if they show, again, that they still can't follow the rules. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:46, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Ivanvector:, I'm honestly struggling to understand how this restriction is supposed to be effective. The threat of, and actual implementation of, indefinite blocks/bans has previously proven to have little deterrent value in this editor's case. Are we really giving that much benefit of the doubt that this time it will work? Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 01:31, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  Actually, I am concerned that such a "one strike and you're out again" rule would actually have the opposite effect, of effectively raising the bar for any sanction to be imposed. Given the long history of administrators bending over backwards to accommodate this person and of wikifriends protecting him, administrators might be even more reluctant to impose even just a short-term block if they knew that it would automatically trigger a permanent ban again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:31, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Eggishorn: well, the fact that previous sanctions have done little to deter this editor is the point of the restriction. They have a long record of not learning from restrictions and we don't have any way to be sure that this time in the penalty box will be any different from the other dozens of times. The restriction is just a relief valve: if we unblock them and they just get in trouble again, we don't need to have another lengthy discussion about what to do about it this time, we just reinstate the ban. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:57, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

• Conditional support, per IV. I remember DS well, he was among the first prolific editors I encountered in my own time on Wikipedia. He was impatient, sometimes careless, profane, and bloody rude. Also, to anyone who knew him well, it was obvious that he believed deeply in Wikipedia's mission, and he drew his motivation from writing content. He stepped over the line often enough that I don't see this being a "last chance": but I think four years off the site is long-enough, given his particular offences, that we can seriously consider an appeal that identifies and promises to correct behavioral problems. He's going to be on a very tight leash as is: I believe he's still under an ARBIPA TBAN (right?) and I would additionally suggest, per IV, that any further issues with copyvios or sockpuppetry should lead to a reinstatement of the ban. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:49, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
• Conditional support also per IvanVector and Vanamonde93. It's possible that he has overcome the issues that led to his siteban, but I'm afraid I don't trust him enough to support him coming back without strict restrictions. I note that he doesn't discuss all of the issues that led to the siteban. Doug Weller talk 17:16, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
• Conditional support under the terms outlined by Ivanvector. He has now stayed away from the project for almost half as long as he was ever active, and I don't think his failure to spell out why he kept being blocked is a sign of incorrigibility so much as the fact that he has already admitted to being an ass and not much else really needs to be said. I never have never encountered this editor or his contributions, so I cannot comment on the above question as to whether there was a fundamental content problem as well as a behavioral one; if there was, I hope that not being drunk will help with the quality of his edits as much as he claims it will help his behavior. Darkness Shines should understand, however, that if he is blocked again at any point in the nearish future, that block will be essentially permanent. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 17:54, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per Future Perfect at Sunrise. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 01:13, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
• Strong oppose Per FutPerf. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:23, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per FutPerf. I hate to say it, but the time for "one last chance" was past when the ban was implemented. RickinBaltimore (talk) 16:36, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose The WP:STANDARDOFFER was expended long ago, they have had enough WP:ROPE to moor a battleship, and their content creation cannot offset a fundamental inability to cooperate. While I appreciate the intention behind Ivanvector's proposed restriction, I cannot support it. After looking through the history of blocks, bans, ANI threads, etc., I think that there will be lengthy discussions the next time that DS blows their top. There is copious evidence that such another incident is inevitable. I would like to believe their claims of growth but there is a years-long record of previous such claims not being borne out. If DS is able to show productive, civil editing for an extended period (six months or more) on a similar project, I would reconsider. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:23, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. There was probably a time where I would have been swayed by the appeals to personal growth, time served, right to an nth chance, etc. But that time is past, because I've seen over and over again how this community bends over backwards to rehabilitate endlessly problematic editors while denying even a scrap of empathy to the people whom they've harmed. We pat ourselves on the back for our graciousness, quote the-quality-of-mercy-is-not-strained and WP:ROPE, condemn as "venomous" anyone who objects to lifting sanctions... and then when these editors backslide, no one who's commenting here in favor of an nth chance will lift a finger. I'm no longer willing to participate in what increasingly strikes me as a cynical dynamic. MastCell ^Talk 18:11, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - I note that I was the original proposer at WP:ANI in February 2018 of the current site ban. I was about to propose that Darkness Shines be asked to identify a niche area in which they would be allowed to edit to demonstrate that they had, in four years, learned how to edit collaboratively, or at least to avoid the worst. Then I reviewed their history again. I see not only the longest block log I have ever seen, which is mostly in 2011 to 2014, but also repeated episodes of sockpuppetry. As a result, I don't trust Darkness Shines, and I don't think that I will trust Darkness Shines in 2026. They may and do mean to contribute positively to the encyclopedia, but they have demonstrated not only a lack of civility and a lack of discipline, but a lack of respect for the rules. As I said four years ago, Yuck. Ugh. I don't trust Darkness Shines. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:43, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per MastCell and FutPerf. This pattern stretches over years and does not inspire confidence. GAB^gab 00:49, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
• Accept appeal and unblock. Four years is a long time, and Darkness Shines has given a plausible explanation of why we can expect they will contribute more productively now than they did before. I know it's not guaranteed, and we've been burned before, but if we're not willing to accept their explanation then we might as well give up on the theory that indefinite does not mean infinite. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:30, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. Anyone who is thinking of supporting needs to first review Darkness Shines' block log, which contains three indefinite blocks (that is to say, Darkness Shines has successfully appealed an indefinite block in the past saying they've changed, exactly like this, and then gotten themselves blocked again, twice), as well as the discussion that led to the most recent block, their appeal to their previous block (which had an "it's been a long time, I have changed" tone similar to this one); the full text of the other time they successfully appealed an indefinite block is unavailable because it was via email, but the message here makes it clear they promised they had turned a new leaf and could be civil back then, too. The only rationale given here is "they may have changed", but note that in Darkness Shines' explanation for how they changed, they say almost nothing - they were not simply banned for being short of temper, frequently drunk, and quite often profane to the extreme. They were banned for continuous edit-warring and a sustained pattern of gross, repeated incivility across entire topic areas - something that goes way beyond the occasional loss of temper. --Aquillion (talk) 09:41, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support, perhaps with the conditions mentioned above by Ivanvector. I'm certainly not saying that DS was ever a model editor (and nor is he, to be fair) but some of the attacks on DS above are slightly overblown, and at least one is exaggerated to the point of being economical with the truth. I don't see the downside of a WP:ROPE trial. Black Kite (talk) 10:01, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• I'm not thrilled with the idea of Darkness Shines' return. He's expensive in volunteer time.—S Marshall T/C 14:30, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. I recall interacting once with Darkness Shines, whose action was (in my opinion) helpful for Wikipedia. I'd support a filter for foul language, but it should apply for everyone. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:46, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Looking through their edit history I have a hard time believing they would be a net positive should they return, and I place more importance on that than the length of time they've been blocked for.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 15:04, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose I'm all for extending some latitude for time served, but this was a community ban after 3 previous indefs, I don't think any more chances are going to change anything for the better. How many more hours are people supposed to waste on one editor when they have shown no interest in moderating their tone or editing behavours? Valeince (talk) 15:02, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

UCoC enforcement guidelines voting has begun

This is your unofficial reminder to vote in the UCoC enforcement guidelines ratification. Please, consider doing so if you haven't already!! –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 05:18, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Ah, the impenetrable Meta Strikes Back. Well, at least as a venue, it isn't a ghost town like Fakebook's Meta (Truth Sokial?). BTW, the Glossary cracked me up. Q: what is X? A: See X on Meta. What, we are on Meta? Well, we're still not gonna link it for ya, peasants! And... scene. El_C 08:53, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I linked the most obvious ones. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:53, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Oh, Affcom is the Affiliations Committee and not the Affections Committee? Now I'm extra-sad. El_C 15:59, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure if there is a logical discussion venue - no doubt there should be one, not sure if it should be here, somewhere else local, or there @MJL: - thoughts? Nosebagbear (talk) 10:38, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear: I'm cool with whatever, but I'd check with Xeno (WMF) since he's the one that gets paid for this. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:29, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that's pretty pathetic. Doesn't anyone there know how to link? Doug Weller talk 12:26, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

This was a reply to El C, but reply didn't put it in the right place. Known problem? Doug Weller talk 12:28, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Your reply was (and still is) correctly positioned as a reply to El C. See WP:INDENT for the basic rules of threaded discussion: If you want to reply to a comment, but another editor has already done so, just position your own text beneath that other editor's reply, at the same indentation level. Floquenbeam's reply above (not made with the reply tool) is an example of one that is not correctly positioned. Modulus12 (talk) 01:32, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

You're right of course. It's a problem with WP:INDENT, not the reply tool IMHO, in that it's not obvious unless you carefully look and line up the replied. Like it or not, User:Floquenbeam's post is an obvious reply to El C, mine is not. Doug Weller talk 09:05, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

@Modulus12: Didn't read all of your post. So you are saying that the reply tool isn't doing what I expect/want it to? I did notice once that using it and saving after someone else posted didn't cause an edit conflict but put it after the other person posted, so I went in and moved mine. Doug Weller talk 09:08, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't know what you expected it to do. But in this diff the reply tool correctly positioned your comment as a reply to El C, after Nosebagbear's reply to El C. I don't think there's anything wrong with the essay WP:INDENT either. Modulus12 (talk) 22:23, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Question, asking for a friend. Do administrators have to sign their names in blood when forced to agree to this or will a regular pen or pencil do? Randy Kryn (talk) 10:40, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Are You Now or Have You Ever Been A Metamate? El_C 10:53, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: Assuming your friend isn't an admin yet (because existing admins don't have to sign anything), I'm pretty sure it'll be a digital signature –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:34, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

My friend is rejoicing as we speak, because apparently "All advanced rights holders" doesn't apply to admins, as in "The following individuals should be required to affirm (through signed declaration or other format to be decided) they will acknowledge and adhere to the Universal Code of Conduct: All Wikimedia Foundation staff, Board members, Wikimedia affiliate board members, staff and contractors; All advanced rights holders;". Randy Kryn (talk) 17:03, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

• Vote early, vote often, vote no. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 12:29, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
• Can someone please answer a procedural question (I don't want to e-mail the meta address to ask)? If I vote no, there is apparently a box to comment on why I'm voting no. Do I have to comment? If I don't, is there some kind of, uh, follow-up? I find the instructions confusing. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:37, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  Having just voted, you do not need to fill out the comment. There was no follow-up after submitting my vote, beyond receiving a PGP hash receipt of it for my own records. Sideswipe9th (talk) 14:49, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  I think there actually is a box even if you vote yes, though I've not tested Nosebagbear (talk) 14:59, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  The comments box is available regardless of the answer to question 1 (Options: No, -, Yes); it is for overall comments, not necessarily a justification for your vote. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:05, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  For the record, upon voting No (a few min prior to commenting here, at AN), my vote box comment read (in full): learn to condense! I'm helping! El_C 15:22, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  "Learn to condense"? That's rude! BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 15:34, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  It's probably a violation of the UCoC. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:36, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  To quote James Randal: I got scared. El_C 15:39, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  I highly recommend you include the reason why you voted no if you voted no. If ratification was to fail at this stage, then the revision committee that gets formed is going to use what people wrote as the basis for deciding what changes should get made. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:27, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  Leaving comments no matter how you vote is helpful. Either it will pass and there will be an amendment process in a year (at which time it would still be good to know what people liked/disliked at ratification) and a U4C building committee (who might be able to address some issues that were disliked) or it won't pass and revisions will get made in which case again it's helpful to know what people liked and disliked so the right things are changed. If you already voted and didn't leave a comment you can go back and vote - only your most recent vote/comments are kept. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:15, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

• In other words, we're going to keep having the vote with minor tweaks until we say "Yes". Black Kite (talk) 18:23, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  Why would the tweaks have to be minor? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:25, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

• They don't. But this is the WMF we're talking about here, I can't see them majorly revising this very important thing. Black Kite (talk) 18:28, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

• This may be a gross misreading on my part, but does the section on harassment, as currently written, prevent us from sending non-public off-wiki information about other editors to ARBCOM? If so, that's immediate grounds for opposition; we cannot hope to deal with off-wiki harassment and coordination without the ability to handle such information. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:34, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  While I'm very confident that it's not intended as such, you're right that the base UCOC text doesn't include write-outs for it. It has a general category, that UPE (etc) combatting wouldn't fall into, and then names certain "included but not limited to" names buckets. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:30, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for this, Nosebagbear: do you know if ARBCOM members have commented on this before? I'm minded to ping some of them here, but I don't want to make a scene if it's been resolved elsewhere. I find this very concerning. ARBCOM has frequently banned users here because of their off-wiki activity; how is this to be brought to their attention going forward? Is the board aware that they are essentially preventing us from discussing off-wiki harassment anymore? Vanamonde (Talk) 15:29, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  I hate to yell for attention, but given the off-wiki harassment I've seen, I think it's justified; @Wugapodes, Barkeep49, and L235: I'd be interested in hear whether y'all think the the doxing section of the UCoC prevents editors from bringing off-wiki information to ARBCOM when it relates to things besides paid editing. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:54, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  Speaking only for myself, I don't get that reading, but if you are not confident that the policy is clear enough, then that is a good reason to oppose. Section 3.1 of the UCoC, Harassment, includes a definition at the start any behaviour intended primarily to intimidate, outrage or upset a person, or any behaviour where this would reasonably be considered the most likely main outcome. Sharing non-public personal information with the arbitration committee in private for the purposes of administering the project does not seem to fall under that definition. My understanding of the doxing example in the text is that it is limited by that main definition, and covers the public sharing of non-public personal information as the main outcome of that action would be intimidation, outrage, or upset, but private reports have the main outcome of effective project administration. — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:07, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks. I can see how it may be read that way; and if it's always read that way, it would address my concern. I'm not (yet) confident it will always be read that way, however. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:10, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  Just noting that I am not speaking publicly about the UCoC Enforcment draft, other than to encourage people to vote and leave comments regardless of which way they're voting. Courtesy ping to MJL who has been speaking about their interpretation of things. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:16, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  I don't have any special insight about the UCOC itself, so I try to avoid talking about it. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 00:45, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• Other than the apparently obligatory fear and loathing of anything WMF does, can somebody explain what the problem is with the UCoC? I get the objection made by Vanamonde93 about off-wiki evidence, but I assume that's something that can get fixed with a minor working tweak. So, what else about this has people upset? I've read through the whole thing and I really can't find anything it prohibits which I wouldn't want prohibited. I assume nobody's saying that sexual harassment, doxing, threat of violence, etc, are actually things they want to allow. So, what am I missing? -- RoySmith (talk) 15:49, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  I'm perhaps in the "pass with fixes but not right now" camp. I'm leery about the lack of language describing who gets to decide when there are failures to resolve disputes locally or systemic failures to enforce the UCoC; if this is clearly a decision made by the community at the target project and/or Metawiki, there's no problem IMO, but right now it's vague and could be interpreted as a blank check for office actions. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:54, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  But there already is pretty much a blank check for office actions, and this doesn't change that one way or the other. Is there any fundamental difference between WMF doing something we don't like and justifying it with "Because T&S" vs "Because UCoC"? -- RoySmith (talk) 16:06, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  I think it's reasonable to worry, even without indulging the "WMF is out to get us" mentality, that the community buy-in afforded by a successful passing of a UCoC would encourage the WMF to use its provisions more fully than the existing T&S. Given the possibility, I'd rather object now and push for language I am fully comfortable with rather than endorse something I don't necessarily agree with. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:10, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  @RoySmith: I'm not convinced about the possibility of a minor working tweak. I'm also not sure how this impacts on fighting paid editing. Without something more official I shall probably vote no. Doug Weller talk 16:49, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  Principal issues to me, @RoySmith with the enforcement guideliness (phase 2) include:

  i) There are numerous requirements of anonymity capacity, but no countervailing evidentiary safeguards for the accused. It moves the marker a very long way.

  ii) It also, despite it being the single most requested amendment to the 1st iteration of phase 2, has functionally zero right to be heard inclusion. Such a right definitely shouldn't be absolute, but given the community demand, its exclusion (other than one line that may refer to it, but only in specific regard to the U4C) is unacceptable

  iii) It is unclear - even in English, making the translations likely even harder to be confident on reasoning

  iv) The training is mandatory (the definition that grandfathers admins doesn't apply here), and doesn't give a community veto on its content

  v) We were guaranteed that phase 2 would be iterative, but they decided, right at the endgame, that we would not be permitted any chance to amend significant parts of the policy text prior to the vote. That is, we'd never seen it until December, and despite major discussion, if we don't vote no, we can't fix flaws with it.

  vi) We were not permitted a vote on phase 1, and then T&S policy stated that no-one in the community had requested a ratification vote prior to the ARBCOM open letter, and when I provided a diff demonstrating exactly that, six months earlier, they ceased communicating about it. Until all issues with prior engagement have been resolved, I am nervous about trusting future ones. Nosebagbear (talk) 18:48, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

• I hope any admins supporting this are looking forward to their compulsory UCoC training course. This hasn't been developed yet but the WMF's anti-harassment course lasts 8 weeks and includes coursework. Hut 8.5 18:14, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  Where does it say there's going to be a compulsory training course? -- RoySmith (talk) 18:41, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  RoySmith "Individuals required to acknowledge and adhere to the Universal Code of Conduct will be required to attend training to ensure a common understanding of implementation". That includes all advanced rights holders. Black Kite (talk) 18:47, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  (edit conflict)Individuals required to acknowledge and adhere to the Universal Code of Conduct will be required to attend training... That includes admins: the "Affirmation of the UCoC among certain groups" section says The following individuals should be required to affirm... they will acknowledge and adhere to the Universal Code of Conduct...All advanced rights holders. The glossary says that "Advanced rights holders" includes admins. Hut 8.5 18:48, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  Ah, OK. I had to go hunting to find that, but for future reference, it's here. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:56, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  lasts 8 weeks and includes coursework - Not gonna do that, personally. WP is suppose to be a fun hobby for me, and having to deal with a lengthy "seminar" and likely giving more personal information to the WMF than I would care to in the process of signing up does not sound enjoyable, plus whatever "follow-up" I'm sure they'll deem is necessary in a few months. I will almost certainly be resigning the mop if it comes to that. Hog Farm _Talk 20:02, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  I don’t think that’s going to happen. They must know that’s too much. Do we have any information about what they actually plan? Doug Weller talk 20:05, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  Call me cynical, but I'm not sure the WMF wants us to know exactly what they plan, or they'd be making it more clear. Either that, or Hanlon's razor is at play here. Hog Farm _Talk 20:08, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Doug Weller: As far as I am *personally* aware, no course has actually been made yet. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 23:57, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  Which makes it difficult to support. A bit of a pig in a poke. Doug Weller talk 13:31, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm just trying to share what I know. How the vote goes is beyond my control, but I'm glad the WMF is having a ratification process here. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 00:40, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  Roy, with insufficient clarity about local control vs WMF control of enforcement, I worry that without further clarification in advance, this process as written will make it much easier to weaponize the UCOC, even easier than it is to weaponize our local policies. Some may recall we had a little dust up about that a few years ago, involving Fram? Voting yes on this, as written, seems to me to be giving up all the local control we painfully clawed back from WMF that time. Once approved, WMF will have zero incentive to modify things they like that we don't. Of course we all don't support harassment, but there is a thread on ANI right now where an editor is threatening to report another editor they're in a content dispute with to T&S for "bullying". I do not trust T&S to evaluate such a claim fairly. I think it will be easier to pull the wool over the eyes of T&S than even editors at ANI, or our local ArbCom. One thing I'm curious about; if editors of other language wikis - where there may be no functioning ArbCom, and where something like this might make sense as "better than nothing" - vote for this, and English WP editors vote against, I'm guessing WMF is going to interpret that as an approval to go ahead and apply it to us too? --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:21, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

  If 50.1% of voters support the enforcement guidelines, they will be applied to all editors. The UCoC was implemented by a Board resolution making it binding policy under section 11 of the Terms of Use, but also means it can only be modified with the consent of the Board. I expect the enforcement guidelines to be resolution'd into force the same way. Neither document allows the community to make amendments to the UCoC itself or the enforcement guidelines, the only indication such a thing might be possible is an announcement that is not binding on anyone and was signed only by the current Vice Chair of the Board. The latest I've heard from the WMF is that if the guidelines pass even with widespread opposition, there will be no amendments for at least a year. Of course, the Board can modify either document by resolution whenever they want.

  Putting on my pile of non-enwiki hats, I think the UCoC will be a good thing for many wikis. But the enforcement guidelines are just not ready yet, and ideally the UCoC itself should have had another pass too. It is not possible to simply legislate social change into existence with a few Board resolutions, it is necessary to actively work with the affected people to fix problems and to find a mutually-acceptable solution. However, the WMF has decided to ignore this successful consensus-based model, and I think both documents are worse off because of it. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 05:17, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

• WP:Fram, if anyone has forgotten. Please everyone: vote! I might disagree with "the powers that be" here on en.wp from time to time, but I have a heck of a lot more trust in en.wp that I have in WMF. Huldra (talk) 20:41, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Pointless, off-topic
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Comment - The voting's taking place on Meta? No thanks. GoodDay (talk) 06:50, 12 March 2022 (UTC) No, it takes place here. The explanation page on how to vote is on Meta, however. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:58, 12 March 2022 (UTC) Not signing in at that other place, to vote. GoodDay (talk) 23:38, 12 March 2022 (UTC) @GoodDay: You don't have to (and in fact can't) sign in at vote.wikimedia.org. Just click the "Go to the voting server" button at this meta page and you'll be taken to the voting page. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:01, 13 March 2022 (UTC) I believe I'll pass. GoodDay (talk) 00:03, 13 March 2022 (UTC) @GoodDay: Special:SecurePoll/vote/802 would be a non-meta way to the voting server. Habitator terrae (talk) 06:40, 13 March 2022 (UTC) I'll pass. GoodDay (talk) 06:45, 13 March 2022 (UTC) I've always held the opinion that those who don't vote also don't get to complain about the result — I'm sure you feel the exact same way. -- TNT (talk • she/her) 06:53, 13 March 2022 (UTC) The opposite, actually. George Carlin's observation on the vote/don't vote topic, is one that I tend to agree with. GoodDay (talk) 07:02, 13 March 2022 (UTC) So that logic actually suggests you should vote in referendums. You're not voting for a person here. No gargabe in, no garbage out. Unlike with a person by voting you are making an actual decision here. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 10:24, 13 March 2022 (UTC) @GoodDay: sorry to add to a close discussion, but while it's your choice if you want to vote because of the above discussion I just want to ensure that you understand SecurePoll is the exact same way we've been voting in arbcom elections (and some others) since 2009. And the only difference I can think of between this vote and such votes other than the obvious i.e. what you're voting for (possibly including the area of effect) and timeframe, is the scrutineer selection process (although scrutineers for arbcom elections come from outside en.wikipedia) and instructions, and voter eligibility. The software you're voting on, connection of the software to en.wikipedia and the community etc is the same. Nil Einne (talk) 02:20, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Topic ban appeal

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

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I submitted an appeal for a topic ban at WP:AE, which has been declined. The reasons behind my topic ban are vague, and I was hoping to clarify and hopefully explain myself further during my appeal, but we never got there. May I discuss this appeal here? Courtesy pinging user:Vanamonde93 who topic-banned me. Ypatch (talk) 04:33, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Let's add User:The Blade of the Northern Lights who closed the appeal, and pinging @RegentsPark, El C, and Dennis Brown: Doug Weller talk 11:14, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

• (involved admin) Vanamonde93 issued the sanction 1.5 days before the appeal. In the appeal, I saw exactly zero acceptance of any wrong doing. As pure as the driven snow. Short of any abuse by the admin giving the sanction, appeals like this are typically not going anywhere. No admission of anything, no path forward, appeal right after it is given. I didn't see any abuse in the giving of the sanction, and a couple of diffs WERE provided by RegentsPark in the denial. El C also linked to some logs, so information has been provided. This seems a wasted second bite at the apple. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:03, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

• From a brief look I'm inclined to agree with RegentsPark's comment at the AE appeal. The two threads linked [6] [7] show Ypatch raising largely procedural objections to content they disagree with, as opposed to other people who are mainly engaging on the content itself. The second thread in particular includes a section where Ypatch stopped responding to a discussion about one of their edits for almost a month, and when someone else understandably just reverted the edit Ypatch reappeared to accuse that person of edit warring and breaching a restriction. Restrictions such as "consensus required" are tools to get people to discuss the content, they aren't weapons to be used to gain an advantage in a content dispute. Hut 8.5 13:09, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

• I don't understand what this is. A user subject to WP:ACDS may appeal their sanction either to: the community at WP:AN, a quorum of uninvolved admins at WP:AE, or to the Committee itself at WP:ARCA. Key word: either. You don't get to use whatever the remaining 2 venues are for further appeals. What's next after this appeal of the appeal is declined? Appealing the declined appeal of the appeal at ARCA? (Although, I suppose, in theory, anything could be appealed to ArbCom, whether they accept is another matter. But my point stands. Either, not over and over.) El_C 14:53, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  Per Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § appeals.notes point two, sanctioned editors are implicitly encouraged to appeal via AN and AE before going to ARCA. sanctions.appeals refers to a three-stage process, after all. I agree that it's either AE or AN, then ARCA, though. Sdrqaz (talk) 16:03, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

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

Review of RFC closure

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

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I'm asking for a closure review of Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability#RfC: Abolish the current version of NSPORTS, as the user making the closure was clearly WP:INVOLVED. I don't believe there is a separate niticeboard for this (like WP:DRV for deletion reviews), so listing here, as it likely needs admin attention. WP:RFCEND says that an RFC may be closed by any uninvolved editor, but this RFC was closed by RandomCanadian, who has made 66 edits to that discussion, and so is clearly involved, and they have closed it matching their own point of view on the subject. I deem this unacceptable (and would have raised sooner, but only just noticed who the closer was). Would it be possible for this closure to be re-reviewed and re-closed by any uninvolved admin, in accordance with the proper RFC process? This is a challenge of the process of closing, not of the outcome, so if an uninvolved admin agrees with the closure and confirms it themselves, then that's acceptable to me. But RandomCanadian being allowed to close this RFC is unacceptable. Joseph2302 (talk) 12:12, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Per WP:CLOSECHALLENGE, the closer should have the opportunity to explain their closure before it is taken here for review. It doesn't look like RandomCanadian was given that opportunity. ––FormalDude talk 12:18, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

RandomCanadian was not the closer; it was closed by Wugapodes (I think this confusion arises because the close is not clearly highlighted in the usual manner of having a coloured box). Number 57 12:36, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Whoops! May want to close this thread then, @Joseph2302. ––FormalDude talk 12:39, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

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

Apologies, my mistake. Consider all my complaints withdrawn. Joseph2302 (talk) 13:45, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

NSPORTS closure review

I'm requesting community review of the close at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability, ideally from uninvolved editors. On 7 March I closed the discussion with my impressions from the discussion and its subproposals. Editors raised concerns on my talk page, and after about two days of responding I closed the user talk discussion and pointed further concerns here. Community review was not sought by participants. GiantSnowman raised concerns about the community response on my talk page and at the time I responded that I thought things were proceeding normally. Muboshgu then notified me of an edit war on the guideline page which resulted in the page being full-protected.

Clearly the result of the RfC is contentious and implementation is stalling in part because of concerns about whether my close is valid. To resolve these concerns, I hope community review will yield a firm outcome that can be implemented without further disruption. — Wug·a·po·des​ 01:06, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I believe the close, both in general and of the specific subproposals, was a reasonable and accurate reflection of the discussion and consensus resulting from it, even though I am personally disappointed that some of the subproposals, such as subproposal #10, were closed as "no consensus". The edit war noticed by Muboshgu is WP:STONEWALLING by editors who opposed the proposals, and isn't suggestive of an issue with the close. BilledMammal (talk) 01:16, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Comment Stonewalling aside, it's worth noting here the closer's conclusion in subproposal 1 that "Editors debated whether NSPORTS should be revised to require biographies to meet the GNG" and "The ammount of opposition suggests this is in fact not the consensus understanding". This contradicts the statement in the collapsible FAQ that "sources must be provided showing that the general notability guideline is met". This reflects the established consensus as was built throughout the years, and so the closer wasn't in a position to challenge (effectively supervoting) it at that moment, especially since subproposal 11, which aimed to eliminate NSPORT's dependence on GNG, ended in failure. Wugapodes also had to cherrypick a DRv which suited his conclusion (that NSPORTS doesn't necessarily require GNG) while ignoring others that did not (1, 2, 3). That part of the closure needs to be amended. Avilich (talk) 01:50, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Ping Amakuru and JoelleJay who raised the issue in the closer's talk page. Avilich (talk) 02:01, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  But that statement contradicts the policy itself which reads The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below. I think it's obvious that the policy document itself should supersede the FAQ. NemesisAT (talk) 13:28, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

No 'policy' says that. The very purpose of the FAQ is to clarify ambiguities in the main text, so it supersedes any isolated sentence that just so happened to escape scrutiny. The FAQ is the result of years of RfCs and consensus building, and it is clearly the FAQ which reflects the ultimate spirit of the guideline. Avilich (talk) 14:53, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

I disagree on your interpretation of the FAQ and personally perfer to go with what the guideline, and WP:N actually say. NemesisAT (talk) 15:30, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

This is about NSPORT, not N. Avilich (talk) 17:28, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

The part of the guideline Nemesis is quoting doesn't even apply to determining notability or whether a subject merits an article: it is essentially equivalent to the instructions at AfC requiring assertions of notability be sourced, which is not necessarily the same as actually demonstrating notability. For subjects strictly under GNG (and failing ANYBIO), to be accepted at AfC a claim to notability must be supported by SIGCOV in multiple IRS: they have to show they meet GNG from the start. But NSPORT SSG-meeting subjects can be accepted with a claim to notability sourced only to an RS verifying they meet the SSG. That doesn't mean the subject is notable, it just means they don't need to demonstrate they meet GNG immediately (and in practice, don't need to until notability is actually challenged). For NSPORT, this sourcing requirement is also applied to all articles, not just ones that go through AfC. @Isaacl maybe could provide more info on this. JoelleJay (talk) 19:56, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

What a bizzare and contrived way to interpret that sentence. Of course the first paragraph in an SNG applies to determining notability, that's what SNGs are for. Another sentence in the lead, Failing to meet the criteria in this guideline means that notability will need to be established in other ways (for example, the general notability guideline, or other, topic-specific, notability guidelines). again suggests that notability can be presumed if a subject meets GNG or NSPORTS by suggesting that notability does not need to be established in other ways if NSPORTS is met. NemesisAT (talk) 20:13, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

The first sentence states This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) is likely to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia. This establishes the notability criteria as being GNG, with NSPORT SSGs helping to predict which subjects will meet GNG. How do you interpret that sentence? In particular the part where it says "and thus merit an article"? Or the part in the third sentence where it says then it is likely that sufficient sources exist to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article? Why does this link to GNG and nowhere else, and why does it say the inclusion criteria?

The second sentence is describing the sourcing requirements for an article to be in mainspace without being speedily deleted or rejected from AfC. That's not a "bizarre and contrived" interpretation, that's literally what that sentence was intended to mean.

The consensus is and has been that NSPORT presumes GNG notability but does not supersede it, and that the presumption is rebuttable. It takes extreme levels of WP:IDHT to ignore the result of the 2017 RfC, the entire purpose of the successful NOLY RfC, the explicit rationale behind the deletion of hundreds of SSG-meeting athletes, and the stated reason for upholding numerous DRVs. Claiming the guideline is just "internally inconsistent" means you have to ignore that overwhelming precedent as well as the several places in NSPORT where prediction of GNG is described, like the entirety of the FAQs (which haven't been challenged in 5 years). JoelleJay (talk) 22:46, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

The FAQs, while they derived from the 2017 RfC close, are pretty badly flawed (it was not a very good close). For one thing, they constantly refer to the "GNG", which does not apply to biographies, which most of the subjects covered by NSPORTS actually are. It should instead refer to NBASIC. Likewise, sports organizations should be meeting the (stricter) NORG requirements- a GNG pass is not, by site-wide policy, enough. "Both sides" of these NSPORTS disputes are so far up a rabbit hole, IMO, that it is difficult for an "outsider" even to understand what went wrong - bot-like creation of unsourced articles has been allowed to result in some highly motivated reasoning about Notability, when the actual problem is much more of a WP:MEATBOT issue, AFAICT. Newimpartial (talk) 23:59, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

The FAQs, while they derived from the 2017 RfC close Uh no they were not. They predated that RfC by about 4 years, and reflect the consensus present from very early on that NSPORT predicts GNG.

For one thing, they constantly refer to the "GNG", which does not apply to biographies Where does it say GNG doesn't apply to biographies??? Just because there's a link to a people-specific SNG doesn't mean GNG can't apply, especially when BASIC itself links to the GNG. JoelleJay (talk) 01:36, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

I apologize; you are right about the first thing; I have been holding the RfC close responsible for the misleading FAQ language, when it is much more likely that the misleading FAQ language helped skew the 2017 RfC.

For the second thing, where in WP:NBIO do you get the idea that the GNG applies to biographies, as some kind of underlying or alternative standard? That isn't what a see also reference means, nor is it backed up anywhere else in the guidelines AFAIK. The way NBIO is written, if someone wanted to argue that a biography meets the GNG though not NBASIC (say because IND is more strictly laid out in the latter guideline) then that argument should be given no weight, in the same way that, if someone argued that a publication passed NBOOK but not someone's idiosyncratic GNG exegesis, the latter argument for deletion would cut no weight either. NBASIC clearly supercedes the GNG for biographies in the same way that NORG does for companies. I thought this was clear enough from WP:N and NBIO themselves. Newimpartial (talk) 01:54, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Newimpartial, there are thousands of biography AfDs that not only did not appeal to NBASIC or ANYBIO, but which explicitly hinged on whether the subject met GNG. Again, where do you see that GNG is always prohibited from applying to biographies? JoelleJay (talk) 01:35, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Don't even get me started on the quality of AfD discussions. The fact remains, though, that in 95%+ of cases there is no appreciable difference between the GNG and NBASIC - that doesn't change the fact that it is NBASIC that applies to biographies. The GNG can't apply in those cases any more than it can for books or for organizations (and yes, I've seen contributors cite the GNG in book AfDs and SIGCOV in ORG AfDs - that doesn't change the fact that neither is strictly relevant in those instances). This is the simple logic of these guidelines, and is quite straightforwardly presented on the relevant pages IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 01:42, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Where is this exclusion of GNG straightforwardly presented? And how does that track with the multiple SNGs that explicitly defer to GNG/require equivalent sourcing? Are you genuinely claiming we must ignore the parts of an SNG that explicitly state its subjects can also be notable through meeting GNG, like WP:NPROF; or where the SNG defines itself specifically as a way to explain how the general notability guideline applies to its subjects, like WP:NFILM; or an SNG that ultimately requires GNG, like WP:NSPORT and WP:NWEB; or any SNG where the criteria are virtually identical to those of the GNG, e.g. requiring independent sources that provide in-depth information about the [subject]? JoelleJay (talk) 01:37, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure I've made myself understood (based on this reply), so I will try again. SNGs certainly can attempt to predict or defer to the GNG, but not all do. WP:NBASIC is one of the ones that does not. So on the face of it, what the 2017-2022 version of NSPORT did for athletes was to carve out an exceptional set of biographies to which the GNG rather than NBASIC is the relevant standard. This is silly, though, and incompatible with WP:CONLEVEL, and I can't imagine, for the small number of cases affected by the difference (mostly matters where NBASIC is stricter about independent sourcing), that anyone actually intended that the GNG standards apply rather than NBASIC.

In strict parallel to this, the 2017-2022 version of NSPORT also apparently intended to carve sports leagues out of NORG requirements and apply only the much looser GNG standards to them. Some people may actually have intended or desired this, but I would argue that the idea still runs afoul of WP:CONLEVEL. I would even go as far as to say that the current NORG carve-out for sports teams should be rethought (apparently they only need to meet GNG standards, but I can't imagine that this was anyone's thought through intention, either) - but because this is explicit in NORG, it would require some new consensus to eliminate the carveout.

So of course I am not saying that all SNGs are hermetically sealed from the GNG, which would be absurd. Some operate quite differently (GEOLAND, and in another sense NORG and NNUMBER), while others defer to it (NWEB) and others replace it while maintaining a very similar structure (NBOOK, NFILM and NBASIC). Some allow parallel paths - NPROF allows NBASIC as an alternative, for example. But what I am saying is that for SNGs that do structurally replace the GNG, typically by specifying criteria on similar principles (NORG, NNUMBER, NBASIC, NBOOK, and NFILM, notably), there is no recourse "outside" that SNG back into the GNG, unless explicitly carved out. Since there is no carveout for athletes in NBASIC, it - not the GNG - therefore applies to them. Newimpartial (talk) 02:03, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment The controversy isn't about the RFC closure but its implementation, whether that should happen immediately or whether the guidelines are changed once a suitable replacement is formed. It's not stonewalling to stop an edit war, it's trying to rein in the chaos and if it happens again, I expect there will be blocks handed out. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:51, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
  • To clarify, Muboshgu wasn't stonewalling when they protected the page. The stonewalling was by the editors who were reverting attempts to implement the consensus, rather than attempting to address any inconsistencies or other issues (such as a need for copy editing) that resulted from its implementation.BilledMammal (talk) 01:57, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Liz Well, part of it is about the closure. The closing statement for #1, despite having probably the correct outcome, is a gross mischaracterization of the proposal, the arguments, and the status quo ante consensus interpretation of NSPORT, and it absolutely needs to be amended. The claim that the proposal aimed to introduce a requirement for GNG is completely false, but he uses this definition and the fact #1 only got 55% numerical support as evidence that the interpretation of NSPORT that the subproposal references is not in fact consensus. To support his case he then specifically cites one DRV that was not brought up in the subproposal discussion (and did not even attest to any interpretive consensus) while deliberately ignoring the dozens of appropriate AfD/DRV examples that were actually mentioned there (and which did explicitly state NSPORT interpretation consensus). He additionally misrepresents a select quotation from NSPORT as if it was the only textual backing for the proposal's interpretation offered by supporters, and then tears it down with the specious assertion that the guideline doesn't include certain wording -- all while neglecting to acknowledge the comprehensive rebuttals to identical claims made within the discussion, including multiple examples of other textual support, including one with the exact wording he said was lacking. All of this, coupled with his history of unfamiliarity with the guideline followed by hostile rejection of the (again, reaffirmed-many-times-over consensus) interpretation of NSPORT in a very demeaning response(*) at a prior RfC (which itself confirmed consensus!), demands quite a bit more scrutiny of this close than what has been suggested so far.

  (*)

  Your comment is based on multiple false premises. NSPORT specifically requires article subjects meet GNG This is so false I suspect you haven't actually read NSPORT or N. To quote the big bold text at the top of NSPORT: The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below (emphasis original). You incorrectly interpret policy on the talk page of that policy, and yet you seem to think that making more and more restrictive rules will improve compliance? Call me suspicious.

  JoelleJay (talk) 20:56, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I think this was a difficult close and a difficult discussion. The RfC is titled "Abolish the current version of NSPORTS" and subsequent proposals largely attempted to narrow the discussion. The vast majority of editors did not support that initial proposal. The challenge became, as the closer mentioned, "most editors lost interest" in the sub-proposals and there was no initial discussion/survey on what the community actually thinks is a problem with NSPORT. Some editors expressed concerns that there are too many articles about sportspeople, others expressed concern that there are too many stubs based solely on databases, and the initial proposer stated that a problem was that too many editors at AFD just say passes N(insert sport) without examining the actual sources used. Because there were differing understandings of the problem (and the scope of those problems), the sub-proposals were all over the place. Each sub-proposal sought to address what one editor thought would address the problem or as a potential compromise to a previous sub-proposal. These sub-proposals, if adopted, may or may not work well together. My issue with the close is that closer saw all of the sub-proposals as discrete discussions and not how they interacted with each other. An example of this is the closer's discussion of proposal 4. If Proposal 3 were to reach consensus, proposal 4 should not be closed as "no consensus" but closed as moot. Similarly, I don't think the closer considered whether editors would still support proposal 3 if proposal 5 were to pass or what implications if any the two proposals have with each other and the SNG as a whole. I also agree with comments that the close did not anticipate implementation problems or propose tentative ways forward that could unite the community. --Enos733 (talk) 03:49, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Comment. Here is the complaint I made regarding subproposal 1 on the talk page before being pointed to this discussion. I outlined the closing statement's total misrepresentation of subproposal 1, the existing consensus on NSPORT, and the consensus (or lack thereof) within the subproposal discussion. I am deeply concerned that the closing statement's faulty evaluation of NSPORT's purpose/consensus interpretation could be used to rewrite NSPORT as entirely independent of GNG (or at least strongly encourage its interpretation as such), when the proposal that actually aimed to do that completely failed. I would ask BilledMammal to please reconsider his endorse in this case. JoelleJay (talk) 05:22, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Comment The closing of proposal 5 with removing the "from inceptioin part" is not what the proposer meant and what the people were voting for. Therefore such radical change of the essential part of the proposal seems as a supervote. Also proposal three seems as a clear no consensus to me, especially if we compare it with an original proposal. Ludost Mlačani (talk) 06:27, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Comment The whole RfC was flawed from the beginning, when notifications to NSPORTS projects were labelled as canvassing in an attempt to bring in partisan editors. The whole thing grew out of control into a monster walls of text, including constant replies and questioning on every comment by a couple of users who were working to push it through (BilledMammal has 128 comments and RandomCanadian 66). The whole thing reeks of setting out to destroy NSPORTS (and if not manage to completely remove, to seriously gut and maim), and not to improve it. --SuperJew (talk) 07:23, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
  • There were also attempts to stonewall by complaining of a lack of legitimacy when "no new notice to the impacted sports projects" for the times new subproposals were created in the same discussion. -Indy beetle (talk) 17:14, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
    • To be fair, some of the apparent discrepancy between the consensus (or not) on the original proposal and the consensus (or not) on various subproposals might be explained if editors had !voted on the original proposal before other proposals were added. I don't see any real attempt by the closer to evaluate this question, but it seems a fairly fundamental flaw in the RfC process - I don't find it reasonable to expect editors to watchlist and recheck every RfC to which they contribute. In RfCs on other subjects, I have seen participating editors explicitly pinged when additional options or questions were added, if they contributed to a prior state of the question(s), but I didn't see any evidence of that in my skim of this RfC. FWIW, I am uninvolved in the RfC/subject area: while I read the close thoroughly (many passages more than once), I have only skimmed the original bludgeoning chaos discussion. Newimpartial (talk) 17:24, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
  • I don't believe the accusation of bludgeoning is appropriate. I made less comments than other editors, and RandomCanadian made around the same number of comments as many other editors. Further, most of the comments made by myself and other editors with high comments was not to argue against other positions in response to the proposals, but in response to general discussions, to ask for clarification, to clarify ones own position, and more. Finally, it is always appropriate to raise concerns about canvassing, even if not all editors agree that it is canvassing. BilledMammal (talk) 03:12, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• I think the closer did the best job they could, but the sheer number of subproposals in an RfC of that size is going to be problematic. It's fair to say that in a discussion the length of a novel subproposal #5 of #10 probably isn't going to get as much scrutiny as it should for a contentious change of this magnitude. Hut 8.5 08:47, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I don't believe there was consensus in favour of proposal 3, and this is the one that has the biggest ramifications – i.e. the removal of most of the criteria in WP:NSPORTS, leaving many sportseople with no SNG. I would like to see this part of the close overturned to no consensus, or at the very least, reopened and reclosed by a panel. Number 57 08:59, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Comment The whole RfC was a rambling mess that initially had lots of contributors, but then tailed-off into 12 different proposals. I think it is very hard to come to a firm consensus taking into account all of the initial discussion along with the later sub-proposals and how editors would agree with a certain proposal only if another one failed. Spike 'em (talk) 09:19, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Mostly endorse - the close was a very good summary of the discussions that took place, and also reflective of the broad consensus of the community dating back to the 2017 RFCs which established the prior guideline. My one objection, as alluded to by Alivich above, is that in finding no consensus for proposal #1, the closer has misrepresented the status quo ante. The 2017 RFCs clearly established the need for sports bios to meet GNG, this requirement has never been repealed, and nor should it be repealed through a discussion which resulted in no consensus. While some AFDs and DRVs may fail to adhere to this principle, many others (again, as noted by Avilich) followed exactly that principle, deleting articles which met NSPORTS but did not appear to meet GNG. The goal should be to crystallize the guidelines so that DRVs which don't match guidelines, like the one the Wugapodes linked to in their close summary, do not occur again. I have to say, the attempt by some editors to cast doubt on this close (without even having brought it here for review themselves) through edit warring the changes made and dismissing the whole RFC as a "rambling mess" is not what I consider good etiquette. WP:DROPTHESTICK already - the community has spoken, and the NSPORT guidelines as we've known them are going to be changed. This is long overdue anyway IMHO.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:49, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Comment - in hindsight, given the scope and size of the RFC, a panel should probably have closed - and then, like I have suggested multiple times, actually implement the close. Letting the community do it is clearly not working. There has been an edit war and the page is now protected to prevent further disruption. GiantSnowman 10:15, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

I also agree with Black Kite below that the close of #3 was probably wrong. There was consensus for NSPORTS to be tightened, but not for sports to be entirely removed. GiantSnowman 10:48, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment This was difficult to close as it was (as mentioned above) a big rambling mess, but I have to say that I can't see consensus for Proposal 3 - it's not far off 50-50. Also, one thing that seems to have escaped a lot of people in that discussion is that the "one professional appearance" criteria is actually designed to prevent lots and lots of stubs - removing it could ironically increase the number, as there will be plenty of players who have only ever played in semi-professional leagues who have coverage ... Black Kite (talk) 10:16, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  I may be wrong, but your comment here suggests you may be missing the point of these changes. The goal is not to "prevent lots and lots of stubs", it is merely to remove stubs where no significant sourcing exists and which can therefore never be expanded into any sort of sizeable article. If someone from the semi-professional leagues has coverage, then they meet our definition of notability and are eligible for an article (or at the very least a paragraph somewhere per WP:NOPAGE), while if a professional player does not have any coverage at all then they should not have one, irrespective of which league they play in. This principle applies pretty much across the whole project, and the change brought about by this RFC merely reaffirms that it applies to sports people too.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:43, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with Amakuru, and would add that I don't believe I've ever seen NSPORTS used as Black Kite suggests it has been used - to support the deletion of an article that would otherwise meet WP:GNG. BilledMammal (talk) 10:45, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  It hasn't been used in that way because that would go against what is written at WP:N, which states that notability is presumed on passing either an SNG or GNG. NemesisAT (talk) 13:31, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  That is again entirely missing the point regarding NSPORT and GNG. NSPORT explicitly does ultimately require GNG (as do many other SNGs, for example NCORP or NASTRO), as affirmed in 2017 and re-affirmed here. People ignoring that is those people's problem and maybe a lack of clarity issue. But it's not one where the guidelines are contradictory - unless you deliberately attempt to interpret them as such. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:46, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  You've missed the point of the comment and my reply. Even if a subject fails an SNG it can still be presumed notable under GNG, that was what I was pointing out. NemesisAT (talk) 15:33, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  I don't think I'm missing the point, because the proposal dealing with the issue of insufficient sourcing is Subproposal 5, which clearly did have consensus, and no-one is complaining about; I'm talking about Subproposal 3, the appearances SNG. It's all very well saying that someone "with coverage meets our definition of notability"; but we're talking about the minutiae of sports coverage here. The prof appearances SNG was designed to at least stem the flow of badly-sourced bios which might have marginal notability through providing a specific metric. Black Kite (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 12:02, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Subproposal 5, which clearly did have consensus, and no-one is complaining about Some people are definitely complaining about it -- there's one such comment above. --JBL (talk) 12:21, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  This analysis seems flawed. The close explained very well why it wasn't a headcount – arguments citing lack of replacement were given less weight because the replacement guideline already exists at GNG (also SPORTCRIT and BASIC) – and NSPORT participation criteria have not routinely served the described function. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 13:30, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• I concur with Amakuru. It would be great if the unfortunate characterization in the close of proposal 1 could be amended. --JBL (talk) 12:25, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I have to say I thought that Wugapodes was brave to take on the RfC to try and close it himself. Maybe a new user group needs to be added to wikipedia, one that deals with editing policy/guideline project pages. Govvy (talk) 12:51, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Endorse - The closure accurately reflects consensus on a very complex series of proposals and counter proposals. Wugapodes should be commended for taking this on.

The problem is not with the closure, but with the next step - figuring out how to implement consensus on such a complex series of proposals. That will probably take some follow-up RFC’s. There is no rush. Take it slowly and deliberately. We will get there eventually. Blueboar (talk) 13:48, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Someone probably wants to tell User:BilledMammal that, given their editing pattern on the policy pages and bludgeoning of AfDs (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bianca Fernandez, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Randolph Lablache) from pretty much the moment the RfC was closed. WP:NOHURRY. Black Kite (talk) 15:36, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  As I mentioned above, the bludgeoning has been from the beginning of the RfC, including accusing editors of canvassing when they notified the affected WikiProjects (which is funny now that their tune is "there was an RfC that everyone could attend so if you didn't that's your problem".) --SuperJew (talk) 15:53, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  "Pending proposal to declare NSPORTS an invalid argument at AfD" is not exactly the poster child of neutral notification (given the rather alarmist title, despite the rest)... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:21, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment Note that I was a participant in the discussion. I'm not seeing the consensus on subproposal three and feel that one should have been no consensus. That being said I think overall the closer has done a good job given the complexity of the discussion. NemesisAT (talk) 15:35, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Comment (involved in the RFC), mostly I think it was a good close, but I just do not see how proposal three had a consensus and suggest that one be overturned (to "no consensus"). BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:46, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Comment/Endorse Mostly the close seems fine, although a few elements (subproposal 1, mostly, as argued) might need a few corrections. The issue around proposal 3 mostly seems to have been lack of clarity around its implementation (the close seems procedurally fine, and the reasoning is well explained, and there is nothing preventing closers from giving less weight to some arguments when they are not very persuasive); and maybe a bit of an adverse reaction to the edit warring. I've attempted to move towards a constructive non-confrontational resolution to that on the talk page (Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(sports)#Implementing_the_RfC_-_participation_criteria_-_interim_status), so hopefully that should give a pause to such concerns. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:39, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Endorse I think that it was a good close. The fact that comments above ranged from "too cautious" to "not cautious enough" reinforces that. The inevitable challenges are not related to the close and are two-fold:

  A result that many people won't like. It's only human that some might wiki-lawyer nit-pick it. Others could do various things to prevent or mire down implementation.

  Implementation is much more complex because the subject wording is embedded in many many places in the guideline.

Sincerely, — Preceding unsigned comment added by North8000 North8000 (talk) 19:50, 10 March 2022 (UTC)(talk • contribs)

• Comment terrible close, way too many discussions open, and BilledMammal and RandomCanadian dominated discussion with hundreds of comments to push their pointed agenda. There was no consensus from the community, there was push back against sports users commenting. The whole thing was a joke and should be overturned and handled in a completely different way going forward.--Ortizesp (talk) 18:00, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Instead of attempting to belittle other editors as fanatics with a pointed agenda and dismiss the whole thing as a joke, you'd better stop casting WP:ASPERSIONS and instead attempt to back-up your assertions with facts. Problem is, once you do look at those facts, what you are saying is about as utterly ridiculous as it gets. The page statistics are incomplete (as this was moved part-way through); but extrapolating a bit, and looking at the amount of added bytes (instead of the raw number of edits, which can give misleading impressions due to various factors), there is no single editor or group of editors who overwhelmed the discussion (between the time the page was moved and when it was closed, the page size grew from 350ish kb to nearly 850kb, but the top 10 editors (including editors who were very much opposed to the proposal, like Bagumba or Nfitz, or more moderate, like Cbl), only contributed, all 10 together, to less than half of that... In light of that, your comment seems more like a generic grievance against the idea of the RfC as a whole (and probably it's result) than an actual valid reason why the close would be incorrect. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:30, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for pinging me User:RandomCanadian, when you raised me at AN - I only just saw this. Personally, I didn't even read the last few weeks about it - it jumped the shark after about the 4th proposal - and the argument that there should be no notification to those at NSPORTS and related projects because they might be biased was very bizarre, and should alone have voided the entire process; I see no consensus on any of it, merely a handful trying to push a minority position through bludgeoning. Though that would be an opinion, and you and I were not the ones asked to contribute to this discussion - which you seem to be bludgeoning none-the-less. Nfitz (talk) 07:08, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Nfitz: You've commented more in this closure review than RandomCanadian (nine comments to eight). Neither of you are bludgeoning, though, as neither of you are dominating the conversation or replying to most comments. However, WP:BLUDGEON does state To falsely accuse someone of bludgeoning is considered incivil, and should be avoided and I would suggest you are more cautious when making such accusations in the future - I also note Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cashion London where you accuse me of bludgeoning for making two comments. BilledMammal (talk) 08:33, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse (took part in subproposal 1 and 5, came from WP:NSPORTS talk). I believe the close reflected the rough consensus (or lackthereof) at the RfC, and I think North8000's comment helps explain why the close is being challenged. I just read subproposal 3 in its integrality, and while the split is 60-40 to support the proposal without looking at the arguments, the judgement by the closer to give little weight to "no replacement"-type votes, because they are not substantial but procedural in nature, is in my opinion valid. When taken together, as the closer correctly asserts, proposals 3 and 4 show a community consensus to dispense with participation-based criteria. Pilaz (talk) 18:18, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
  • I also note a strong WikiProject Football turnout in this discussion due to this discussion, referenced above. To all future editors, kindly disclose where you came from if you participate in this discussion and whether you previously participated in the RfC. Thank you. Pilaz (talk) 18:25, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
    • I also agree that editors at this review need to disclose whether they were involved or not. Those who "got what they wanted" would be happy with the results, and those who opposed the results would be unhappy. This review needs a lot more uninvolved users to take a look. Sorry, to follow my own disclosure ask: I heard about this RfC from the NFL WikiProject, but did not participate in the RfC. Natg 19 (talk) 18:37, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Endorse There was a clear consensus to do things to stop flooding Wikipedia with substandard articles that do not meet GNG.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:41, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  I think "clear consensus" is a bit of a stretch. Also, you ought to disclose your (very significant) involvement in the discussions. NemesisAT (talk) 21:00, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment (uninvolved) Main issue I see with the close is with Subproposal 3, described as a "rough consensus". I believe this should be overturned as no consensus. The RfC was an unwieldy mess and the bludgeoning by those seeking to abolish NSPORTS may well have discouraged those with an opposing view from participating. Jevansen (talk) 21:03, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment (uninvolved in the RfC) Seconding Jevansen - I was definately deterred from bothering to participate due to the bludgeoning by BilledMammal and (less so) by RandomCanadian - from the claims at the beginning of notifying WikiProjects being canvassing and bringing partisan editors, through the bludgeoning in the discussion itself, and also due to past interactions with them on AfDs which they've exhibited similar patterns. --SuperJew (talk) 21:33, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Uninvolved with the RfC, but very much involved in WikiProject Tennis discussions on this matter, so only partially uninvolved, alas. Pilaz (talk) 21:35, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse- The most important part of the RfC, namely that database scrapes != biographies, plainly gained consensus because the remaining objections were procedural rather than substantial in nature. Reyk _YO! 21:15, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I occasionally post at WT:FOOTY , but did not take part in the RfC. As mentioned above, my only issue with the RfC close is Subproposal 3, which I do not believe has consensus (it's around 55-45%, which isn't really enough on numbers to divert away from the status quo, but also that a number of the Support !votes there appeared to be under the incorrect impression that an SNG confers automatic notability, which it clearly doesn't). Black Kite (talk) 23:33, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  To be fair, most people not engaged in writing one-line substubs already understand this. It's the defenders of such gunk who treat meeting their own SNG that tend to claim that SNG pass = automatic notability and unchallengeable exemption from sourcing requirements. At some point, when you're confronted with people who keep misinterpreting what SNG/SNG actually say at one AfD after another, you eventually decide, "Bugger it, we'll just redo the SNG." Reyk _YO! 00:14, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  Indeed. Evidence from AFD suggests that any views on SNGs similar to those described by BK are most common in those opposing these proposals. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 04:04, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  I'm assuming good faith here (it's been a few months), but you did indeed participate in the RfC: Special:Diff/1066711996, Special:Diff/1067298946. Natg 19 (talk) 00:29, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  I count seven comments, including four !votes. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 04:04, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  Good grief, I am clearly losing it in my old age and had completely forgotten that was the same RfC. Struck. Thanks for pointing it out. You will note that I was actually against the concept of SNGs in general, though, so I don't have an axe to grind about Prop.3. Black Kite (talk) 08:07, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  From my count proposal 3 had a numerical count of 28 support to 22 oppose. However, at least one oppose was procedural (issues with not having a replacement), 1 oppose was changed to neutral and seemed to only oppose grandfathering in exceptions to #3, and 2 opposes were on the basis that this proposal didn't go far enough -- which is antithetical to the intent of the bulk of oppose !votes and should not be counted with them. There were also at least 3 comments that were supportive. So that leaves us with 28-18 at worst and 35-18 at best if we want to count opposes and comments. JoelleJay (talk) 01:50, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment Although uninvolved in the discussion, I agree with other editor's concerns above about the process of the RfC, particularly SuperJew and Jevansen - the discussion was an "unwieldy mess", the constant walls of text make it very difficult to follow, and the constant addition of sub-proposals surely didn't help either, which, alongside the bizarre accusations of WP:CANVASS and the seeming bludgeoning of the debate all surely limited participation from the WP:SPORTS community in a way that is not helpful for reaching a broad consensus on the matter. I also agree that the closer was incorrect to close subproposal #3 as a consensus, when there was a roughly-even split of !votes, and would support closing as no consensus or a reopening of the discussion. Microwave Anarchist (talk) 00:27, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose the implementation of proposal 3, the consensus was rough and the discussion much less well attended than proposal 1. The whole RFC was substantially expanded midway into many proposals which made it a trainwreck when people who had voiced their opinion at proposal 1 would have assumed that their participation had been enough. There was also substantial bludgeoning which put off good faith editors. I think I made 1 comment at proposal 3 or it may have been at proposal 1. The solution in my opinion is to allow each wikiproject to craft their own sng and if there is goodfaith opposition then have a seperate RFC for each one rather than slamming them all into one RFC which would be another trainwreck. Also leaving it to the noisiest editors at the WP:NSPORTS talkpage is just a recipe for another edit war, in my view Atlantic306 (talk) 03:50, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• Difficult to close, yes, but also the truest type of consensus discussion, which is truly about discussion, compromise, and meeting the legitimate concerns of others. I think, substantively, the entire analysis does represent the consensus position, in which a very large number of editors participated, expressed concerns, and tried to reach compromises. Wugapodes's analysis seems to have correctly extracted the parts editors agreed on the most. That doesn't mean everyone agreed on them, and different people will disagree on different parts. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 03:59, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• Closer comment I appreciate the comments so far, though like others I was hoping for more input from uninvolved editors. So far the concerns seem focused on proposals 1 and 3. The concern with the close of proposal 1 seems to center around whether the result of a 2017 RfC should still be considered controlling in light of the no-consensus close, and whether the close should be revised to reflect that. The concern with the close of proposal 3 is whether the consensus result accurately reflects the discussion. Further discussion from uninvolved editors would be helpful in revising the close and determining next steps. (edit conflict) — Wug·a·po·des​ 04:04, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• I don't think the community has finished talking about this. The close of this RfC needs to be understood as the staging point that will lead to a more focused attempt at progress. The community is not happy about sports notability. Personally, I feel that the RfC outcome as determined by Wugapodes reflects the nose count but is hard to reconcile with our strict rules about sourcing biographies of living people.—S Marshall T/C 10:22, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• Request The review was a request, particularly from uninvolved editors. Yet what I see is a lot of comments from involved editors - including ones that bludgeoned the RFC itself. Is there a way to tag those who are involved (perhaps by striking), to better understand what uninvolved editors think? (I'm involved). Nfitz (talk) 21:42, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
• Closer comment I have revised the close of proposal 1 to clarify the reasoning and suggest next steps on how to resolve the propblem of how to interpret the relationship between NSPORTS and the GNG. Editors here are split on proposal 3 variously endorsing it or saying it should be overturned to no consensus. Further review or a close of this discussion by uninvolved editors would be helpful in resolving that aspect of the close. (edit conflict) — Wug·a·po·des​ 01:20, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Request for reevaluation of subproposal 1 closing statement

Following several unfruitful discussions at Wugapodes' talk page, I'm asking for an uninvolved admin to please review the subproposal 1 closing statement with respect to the following:

1. What Wugapodes asserts is the purpose of proposal 1 (whether NSPORTS should be revised to require biographies to meet the GNG) versus the context and stated intent of the proposal (All athlete biographies must demonstrate GNG when notability is challenged at AfD).

2. His assessment of overall !voter sentiment, and specifically whether we should assume all opposition (re: The ammount of opposition suggests this is in fact not the consensus understanding) is to his version of proposal 1 whether NSPORTS should be revised to require biographies to meet the GNG or to the proposed restriction of when notability is challenged at AfD. I would like to point to this comment by an oppose !voter to challenge the assumption that !voters were unaware of the distinction between the two: There's a big difference between saying "the subjects of sports biographies must meet the GNG" and "all subjects of sports biographies will be deleted at AfD unless evidence that the subject meets the GNG is presented right now"

3. How faithfully the rest of his statement reflects the status quo ante consensus interpretation of NSPORT as discussed in the proposal, including whether his conclusions are accurate given the strength of the arguments. I would appreciate particular attention to his invoking one undiscussed DRV outcome while ignoring all of those brought up in the discussion, and his claim that the NSPORT guideline only says subjects "should" and not "must" meet GNG without acknowledging that multiple editors in the discussion had pointed out a place where NSPORT does say "must".

4. Whether the existence of proposal 11, Rewrite the introductory paragraph to put this guideline on a similar footing to other SNGs, removing the dependence on the GNG, implying the current NSPORT guideline is in fact dependent on GNG, should be entirely disregarded as evidence of a pre-existing consensus.

5. The merits of his conclusion that a) all opposition to proposal 1 was opposition to his version of the proposal scope, and therefore was a direct rejection of the interpretation of NSPORT that places it ultimately subordinate to GNG; b) the ~35–45% opposition to proposal 1 means the above interpretation was not the consensus before the RfC; and c) that opposition is sufficient to overturn a consensus if it was in place beforehand.

6. Whether it appropriate for him, despite acknowledging majority support, to unilaterally fail part 1 of subproposal 8 (Rewrite the introduction to clearly state that GNG is the applicable guideline, and articles may not be created or kept unless they meet GNG.) on the basis The first part was substantially similar to proposal 1. ... To the extent that the first part of this proposal would create a requirement that a sports biography meet the GNG (i.e., must), there is no consensus. Proposal 1 was better attended and did not find consensus, so proposal 8 is not sufficient to overturn that. Was his assessment that this proposal and proposal 1 are materially equivalent accurate given the proposals' wording/arguments and in the context of the existing NSPORT text? JoelleJay (talk) 01:15, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I'd encourage editors to read through my talk page where I've answered various iterations of these complaints. — Wug·a·po·des​ 01:25, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

(Apologies for any formatting issues, I'm on mobile at work) I very much appreciate the substantial amendments Wugapodes made to his close, however I still strongly dispute equating opposition to the proposal with opposition to the select interpretation of it he has ascribed to oppose !voters (that is, that they were specifically against the premise of GNG (already) being ultimately required) when that was NOT what most !voters understood the proposal to be. A closer should not be assigning intent to ambiguous !votes, especially if it is then used to justify weakening a statement that was not even under review. Only 15 out of 70+ !votes were even ambiguous enough to possibly be interpreted as opposing the GNG requirement itself, that is very far from a "no consensus" on that question! JoelleJay (talk) 03:34, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Process questions

A few editors raised process-related questions at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports) that are going to come back up regardless of how this is closed. It would help to have some admin eyes on the page to make sure that folks are raising legitimate concerns rather than stonewalling.

1. Which changes are to be implemented immediately and which require further discussion? Should we delete participation-based criteria immediately or wait until replacements have been agreed on? Should this decision be left to the relevant wikiprojects?
2. Is there consensus to "gut" or heavily trim sections of NSPORTS? Is this constructive, disruptive or a back-door attempt to abolish the guideline?
3. Who may implement the changes that have consensus? Must it be the closer? May it be editors who were heavily involved in the discussion? Should it be someone who's completely uninvolved? Is the closer obligated to oversee the process? –dlthewave ☎ 04:41, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

My thoughts on these. (1) Generally changes should be implemented as quickly as possible, but not necessarily immediately if there turn out to be practical problems. For the participation-based criteria specifically, if a wikiproject is actively working on replacements then it might make sense to wait for that, but in general any future replacements can just be added back later since either way they'd need consensus to implement. (2) Yes. Participants in the general discussion pointed out that while the guideline as a whole should not be deprecated, problems with the guideline should be fixed through editing and rewriting. (3) In my experience anyone has been able to implement RfC closures, but that seems to have failed here. How we fix that is a useful point of discussion. I'm willing to help oversee the implementation (regardless of the review outcome), but I think the more help from uninvolved editors here the better. — Wug·a·po·des​ 05:40, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• In regards to the process questions, yes, implement immediately (unless there was literally a replacement being discussed atm) - because GNG will always be available, so it's not a case where we'd be severing entirely. While it's a major re-write, it still leaves significant aspects present, and guidance for further re-writes. As to implementation, usually it can be anyone, with a preference for the closer, but in controversial aspects like this, perhaps best to go for an uninvolved individual(s). Nosebagbear (talk) 11:35, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) As someone that spends a sizeable amount of my time here helping out at ANRFC, the idea a precedent would be set where closers are in any way responsible for implementing or overseeing changes outside of admin action-required closes (like deletion discussions) seems very bad to me. Editors failing to follow WP:BRD (or in other words, seek consensus if their edits are getting reverted) in this case does not mean the closer needs to come in and supervise. Other dispute resolution processes are available, even if one would feel they're heavy-handed right after an RfC. Right now it seems like many supporters of the previous NSPORTS version before the RfC wish to re-litigate it, but I'm sure that's just the pain that comes with removing a band-aid rather than a serious concern that will continue over weeks. FOOTY seem to be coming around to a more constructive mindset, for example. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 15:43, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

(Involved in the RfC, mere IP user (obvs).) Strongly agree with the observation about setting a bad precedent. And a tremendously ad hoc one, too: I don't recall anyone suggesting ahead of time or even during the process that the closer would single-handedly have such a responsibility, and that anyone else doing so would constitute an entitlement to revert to the "last good version" (... that a community decision has just determined is not the "good version"). Or they'd be insulted on their talk page for their trouble. Or that a "panel" would be required to do such a thing. Or that any change needs a huge supermajority -- one not evinced in NSPORT's original adoption. I won't presume to know the motivations behind such actions, but their consequences seem highly unlikely to be constructive. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 02:17, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• I feel that User:Muboshgu was heavily involved, and should not have protected the page.—S Marshall T/C 12:53, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  S Marshall, pardon? How so? I have not commented on the RfC, I have not involved myself in that debate in any way. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:48, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

  • • I apologize wholeheartedly and retract that. I had you confused with someone else.—S Marshall T/C 18:57, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
• On the question of creating new SSG guidance I feel like there needs to be an aggressive but reasonable timeframe put forth for the projects to put this in place - maybe April 15 or 30. To do this thoughtfully and based on data takes time and we are all volunteers so not like folks are putting in 40 hours a week on this. I also think we need to clarify up front what the approval process is for the new criteria. I would very much like to suggest that uninvolved editors be brought in to review any new proposed SSG criteria. As a mostly sports editor I am very willing to have non-sports folks evaluate the criteria but for many folks who were active in the discussion I can no longer assume good faith based on their words and actions in that RfC. That group should not have the "final say" on the SSG criteria - it is not a neutral body. To have input, of course, is reasonable. Rikster2 (talk) 13:48, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  If you have a problem with AGF and some users, then you should either A) read WP:ABF and get some fresh WP:TROUT from your favourite provider or B) add an "I" to WP:AN and open a thread there... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:10, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  Hey, if you come out of the blocks with an RfC titled "Abolish NSPORTS" (not "reform," or "substantially reduce" but "abolish), or if you restated your point and over 140 times at the RfC (just at that page, it was split out many times over many pages so the number is much higher), or if you spend the majority of your Wikipedia life at AfD and vote delete nearly every time (often with a demonstrated lack of WP:BEFORE), then you forfeited your right to be seen as an independent actor in this. I am not saying that sports project's proposals should not be reviewed. I am just saying that the folks who put so much effort into getting rid of the guidance shouldn't be the majority of the final arbiters of the new standards that are meant to truly reflect GNG. You guys are as biased as the permastub kings. I am just suggesting that knowledgeable, unaffiliated editors ought to play a big part in implementation if at all possible. Rikster2 (talk) 14:34, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Rikster2 you've linked JPL's stats (which, if I was ABFing like you, I would have to conclude was deliberate misdirection), and both you and him appear to have a WP:BATTLEGROUND problem, to which I frankly wish to have no part in. Take it to the WP:CESSPIT if you wish to keep casting WP:ASPERSIONS about others. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:25, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  At this point, I am just going to reiterate my request to have independent unaffiliated editors be the ones to sign off on any new SSG recommendations. This was a reasonable request and is a genuine area of concern for me and for others. I think it's pretty obvious why. Also, no misdirection. I linked what I intended to link. I didn't say those were your contributions, if that is what you are implying. Rikster2 (talk) 16:35, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  Your request is moot since, if agreement on consensus cannot be reached, discussions will get closed by an uninvolved 3rd party. Having said that, you do give the impression of wanting non subject matter experts to assess and adjudicate on the proposals, bypassing wider community scrutiny involving those you have issues with, which simply isn't going to happen. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 17:32, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  You are being absurd as I have said nothing of the sort. What I am asking for is Wikipedia editors who understand notability and can gauge if an SSG meets it but who have not already expressed a depply held opinion that sports notability is "a problem" to be the decision-making body. I have a legitimate concern that I and others will put in a good amount of time and energy crafting new guidelines in good faith and if the audience that has to agree to it is 100% the same as the one who proposed "abolishing NSPORTS" (or voted to affirm that original recommendation) then that is pretty unfair - there should be fresh eyes on it. I have said (more than once if you care to read) that all should be able to comment. Rikster2 (talk) 18:49, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  Again, decisions are made by consensus, not "decision-making bodies"; closer(s) will only evaluate consensus, not any proposed criteria. If we have what you still appear to be requesting, we'd probably end up with another RFC proposing the abolition of NSPORT pretty rapidly. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 19:30, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  You were replying to me, and while my guess is that it was an innocent mistake/lack of clarity, it's still not a very productive kind of comment nor a good way to move things forward, if you argue that some editors are so biased as to be unable to provide a balanced take on things - again, this isn't a WP:BATTLEGROUND, and it's better if everyone is invited to take part in building a new compromise if the previous situation was not acceptable. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:08, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• I think that action that really needs review is the locking of the page.North8000 (talk) 15:10, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• Why? There were six experienced editors edit-warring on a policy page. Locking it was absolutely correct. I suppose the admin could have partial blocked them all, but then someone else might have come along and carried it on. Absolutely correct decision, and I would have done the same myself. Black Kite (talk) 15:14, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Another option, that's not a "pox on all your houses" option, would have been to warn the editors who were editing directly against an RfC result (reinstating content that the RfC said should have been removed). Someone also could have said something to the admin who edited against the RfC result and reinstated the content the RfC said should have been removed with the very specious and unfounded claim that an RfC result can only be implemented by someone who didn't vote in the RfC. Also, it's good you didn't protect the page since you voted in the RfC. Sometimes, when a bunch of experienced editors are edit warring, it's because half of them are wrong and being disruptive. Sometimes being a good admin means figuring that out and not using the tools in a blanket way. Levivich 15:35, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
    • Levich, I agree that this wasn't a "both sides" thing, the problem was that editors were restoring the previous version against the RfC consensus. I've given warnings to the four editors who did this. I'm also surprised that the edit requests to implement subproposals #3 and #8 have gone unanswered as the close has not been overturned. –dlthewave ☎ 17:47, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
      • Being "right" is not an exemption from 3RR/EW per WP:3RRNO, so you should be warning all of them, or none of them. Also, you are completely involved, so shouldn't be warning them at all, especially in such a passive-aggressive way. I am unsurprised that some have kicked back against your warnings. Black Kite (talk) 18:49, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
        • As somebody who has been 'warned' by @Dlthewave: I must say I am positively quaking in my boots. Tbh I've never seen something so embarrassing in all my life. I'd expect some grovelling apologies to me and @BeanieFan11, Felixsv7, and Spike 'em: in the morning. GiantSnowman 21:44, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

      What is the point of threatening to report people to ANI when the issue is already very much under discussion here? LEPRICAVARK (talk) 21:56, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

      • and, even if anybody had been naughty (and they haven't) what sanctions are there going to be 48 hours later?! This conduct from Dlthewave has served no purpose but to annoy people and enflame an already volatile situation. GiantSnowman 21:59, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
        • To answer your question, my concern is that editors might continue to restore the current non-consensus version after page protection expires. This discussion does not preclude implementing the consensus which was reached at the RfC; the closing statement stands until it is overturned or retracted. I'm also quite baffled by some of the process-related objections which are still being raised: When did it become policy or practice that an involved editor should not implement consensus changes or issue warnings; that a close should not be implemented if it's under review; or that editors implementing that consensus are just as disruptive as those who edit against it? ANI is the next step if this disruptive editing continues. –dlthewave ☎ 03:01, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
          • So basically you are sharpening your tools to rush in with your non-consensus preferred version of NSPORTS when protection expires, even though an ongoing discussion on that guidelines Talk page doesn't support that course of action at this time? Am I understanding you correctly? You have heard of collaborative projects and norms, hey? Newimpartial (talk) 17:58, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

• Being right doesn't exempt Muboshgu from WP:INVOLVED either. He should not have protected the page. This is not a quibble or technicality but a bright line rule.—S Marshall T/C 01:14, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
  • As I was not INVOLVED in the RfC, I don't see how protecting the page from an edit war violated any rules. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:49, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
    • I apologize wholeheartedly and retract that. I had you confused with someone else.—S Marshall T/C 18:57, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Comment: I was not involved in the RfC, but was involved in the discussion about implementation of the RfC after I became aware of it. My concerns were, and are, that "rough consensus" of the editors who took part in the RfC clearly didn't translate into a meaningful consensus of interested editors, and that implementation of the decision was done disruptively and left the page nonsensical and useless, with fragments of old policies left stranded out of context and incomprehensible. When challenged, some of the editors who left this trail of destruction challenged those who objected to clean up the mess they had left. It was a clear example of disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. --Nicknack009 (talk) 19:20, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Reprotect NSPORTS

It looks like the protection on WP:NSPORTS expired, and there's further attempts to edit NSPORTS without a closure of the discussion here. Can someone reprotect it until there's full consensus? Nfitz (talk) 20:03, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

• Strong oppose - If anything, it is this version that should be protected. The RfC close stands until it is overturned, and subproposals 5 and 8 can be implemented immediately since there is no question of how they should be written or need for replacement text. I would note that subproposal 3, which is currently under discussion about how best to implement, has not been reinstated. Nfitz, please self-revert this edit which removes consensus content. –dlthewave ☎ 21:19, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

  I'm simply going back to the previous frozen version from when the RfC close review started - as per WP:QUO. How is that version any different than this version which is from someone who is very much involved. Nfitz (talk) 21:31, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

• I agree with Nfitz. NSPORTS should be protected until this review is closed and there is a clear consensus on the remaining issues. There should be no rush to make changes to NSPORTS, regardless of how "unanimous" they seem. WP:NODEADLINE. Natg 19 (talk) 21:37, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

  There may be no deadline, but we're not going to talk about it forever, either. This RFC was open for two months. The implementation of the RFC is not subject to the consensus of NSPORTS editors. This RFC review is the last stop on this train. Unless the result is overturned, the RFC outcome will be implemented, without waiting for any further discussion. Local consensus will not overcome global consensus. This is our way. Levivich 21:53, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

That is indeed the way. But the way is also to wait. (though I doubt very much if this is the last stop! This has been simmering away for many years - and isn't the first RFC on the subject). Besides, the RFC was to delete NSPORTS - with umpteem follow-up proposals and severe bludgeoning, I really don't know how that RFC has any clear outcomes ... but as I'm involved, it is bad form for me to offer my opinion here. Nfitz (talk) 22:39, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

• Cmt Nfitz conveniently fails to mention here that the changes he's reverting have unanimous talk page consensus, reached after the first page protection, and are not themselves part of the current review. Since there is no non-procedural case against these particular changes, WP:NOTBURO applies here and the normal editorial process should be allowed to continue unimpeded. Avilich (talk) 21:38, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

  How many editors even found that brief discussion? It's certainly not consensual. The discussion is at WP:AN - where, I note, involved editors shouldn't even be participating - something that you seem to have taken as an invitation to violate 44 minutes later. There is NORUSH. Nfitz (talk) 21:53, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Nobody aside from you seems to think I violated anything by posting here. I did not even cast a formal endorse/overturn vote, just pointed out one of the contentions ahead of everyone else, which at least one uninvolved person took notice of and agreed with. That was my only substantive post before you started this edit war. Avilich (talk) 23:12, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

• Admin note I have partially blocked Nfitz for 36 hours for continuing to revert after I warned them about edit warring on NSPORTS. (edit conflict) — Wug·a·po·des​ 21:58, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Great, now can you restore the stable version? The changes he was reverting had been discussed on the talk page: the process was working exactly as intended after the first page protection, until he came along. Muboshgu effectively took his side again by locking the page in Nfitz's preferred revision. Avilich (talk) 22:02, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree that this limited change should be implemented as per sub-proposal 8. I also fully support the full-protection of NSPORTS to prevent further disruption. GiantSnowman 22:05, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Page protection is a reasonable response as well. Muboshgu and I just seem to have acted at the same time in different ways. I left a talk page message for them to try and work out next steps. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:21, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

• Can an uninvolved Admin please revert User:Wugapodes's blatant violation of WP:INVOLVED, and explain to them that they are very much involved with NSPORTS! Not that I have any intention of further editing the page for 24-hours given the 3RR bright line, which I never crossed. Nfitz (talk) 22:33, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

  Please post diffs of edits that Wugapodes has made that makes them involved with NSPORTS. Levivich 22:39, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

  Levivich I presume that Nfitz is referring to the fact that Wugapodes closed the actual RfC in the first place. Black Kite (talk) 23:08, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah - not to mentioned opened this whole thing at AN. Here's some diffs that got caught in an edit conflict - One [8], two [9], [three https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Sports_notability&diff=1076988647&oldid=1075707274] Nfitz (talk) 23:12, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

  Those three diffs are "closing", the close, and revising the close. I was AGFing that closing the RFC wasn't what you were relying on to claim WP:INVOLVED, since that would clearly be exempted by the second paragraph of WP:INVOLVED. Also, the third paragraph exemption would apply, seeing as you re-re-reverted immediately after responding to an edit warring warning. In that situation, even an admin bot would have partially-blocked you, that's how clear it was. I see now you've asked "so how did I ask for protection first?", whereas your OP in this subsection was "...Can someone reprotect it until there's full consensus?", so we can all see that you asked for protection first, then made 3 reverts, the third coming after an edit warring warning that you were aware of. Did you think because you claimed "involved", you could re-re-revert and Wug wouldn't be able to block you? If so, you thought wrong. Your account is 16 years old; you've been indef'd and tban'd and otherwise sanctioned before; you know or should know the edit warring rules, and the INVOLVED rules, by now. Levivich 23:25, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

  • Why is this even a big issue for you? You can't edit NSPORTS for 36 hours, which you can't even do since the page is now protected. Either way, the reasoning is straightforward: don't edit war or violate 3RR. I don't see that Wugapodes did anything wrong here. Natg 19 (talk) 23:01, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
    • It's protected? Missed that ... all the more reason to revert the block. In the past, I've had nonsensical blocks ... which were then used against me much later. It's a reasonable request surely to have the reversion on the record. Nfitz (talk) 23:12, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
      • No, it was quite a correct block for edit-warring. FFS, even if you think the close for this particular point was wrong, that doesn't give you the right to revert to the former consensus and edit-war over it. The AN thread is right here, if you don't like that element of the close and want to challenge it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:43, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
•  Done Muboshgu has protected the page for another 2 weeks: Special:Diff/1077172755. Natg 19 (talk) 23:03, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
• Protecting the page to prevent edit warring is an easy stopgap, and of course anyone who edit wars should be warned or blocked, but it would be really helpful if admins could weigh in on which proposals have consensus and specifically admonish editors who go against it. There's also no reason not to implement this edit request immediately and I'm concerned that Muboshgu's "not done" response focuses on editor behavior instead of content. –dlthewave ☎ 02:23, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Possible NOTHERE, COI, PROMO for Postriduan and Sereyu1 and IP

• Postriduan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Sereyu1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 61.218.44.76 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

All of these accounts are possibly not here to make an encyclopedia, and instead seem fixated on matters of pushing public relations for HTC products they may be involved in. Postriduan especially is a single-purpose account for editing HTC Vive-related pages. Sereyu1 has shown an interest in editing heavily PR-laden pages related to Hong Kong businesses and people (and also uploaded a logo of an HTC product as an "own work" to Wikimedia Commons since nominated by yours truly for speedy deletion). The editing times and similar interests seem to show that they are the same user, or are otherwise acting on behalf of the same party. The IP address likewise shows being a possible alt or puppet because of these overlapping interests at the same time and place. Mewnst (talk) 10:03, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

The proper venue for this is WP:SPI.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:22, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't know for certain if these users are all the same, and I know that it doesn't matter if they quack like a sock, but I reported the issue here because their edits are more problematic than their possible petty puppeting. Postriduan is also unrepentant about their promotional nonsense. Mewnst (talk) 17:52, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Arrest of a Wikipedian in Belarus

Today reportedly a Wikipedian was arrested in Belarus for editing Russian Wikipedia. (He is a former arb there but not an admin). It was also reported that there is a channel on Telegram which is doxxing editors of the Russian Wikipedia who are introducing edits not in line with the government policy (specifically for the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the official standpoint of Russia is that this is not a war or invasion, but a special operation which protects Russia from NATO, and that Russia does not bomb Ukrainian cities but instead targets military installations with high-precision weapons, the number of casualties is zero). I am pretty sure they will start doxxing us soon. Not sure what we can do about it, and not sure this is the best place to post, but the community probably wants to be aware of this.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:24, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

This makes us realise that most arguments on Wikipedia are very trivial when compared to matters such as this. I live in a liberal democracy that is a member of NATO, so can speak my mind reasonably freely compared to some others, so would not presume to give advice to any editors in Russia or Belarus, or Ukraine for that matter, except to say that anyone should know the possible consequences before writing anything. If you want to risk your life and/or liberty than you should go into it with open eyes. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:13, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Is there anything non-Russian-speaking enwiki editors can do to help the situation at ruwiki? Levivich 17:16, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

I am not myself a Russian Wikipedia editor, but I would think no, probably not at this point. Thanks for asking.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:46, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Coincidentally(?), the San Francisco Examiner did a piece yesterday on Russian Wikipedians and the current challenges, interesting read.[10] Schazjmd (talk) 18:40, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

This needs verification as otherwise it just creates fear. Secretlondon (talk) 18:42, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

https://w.wiki/4wX6 is the thread on the Russian Wikipedia if that helps..? -- TNT (talk • she/her) 18:52, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Via Google translate [11] Still note there's a war on and information is part of that. Secretlondon (talk) 19:15, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

You may wish to note that the OP has often been accused (although I have not seen an instance where the accusation is valid) of being a pro-Putin stooge. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:43, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

What the hell? Phil Bridger why are you spreading rumours? Here[12] he says "Russian reporting is clearly a lie". This is beneath you. Doug Weller talk 10:35, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

I suggest you read what I wrote properly. I am not spreading rumours and have said nothing that is beneath me. Many false accusations have been made, as I'm sure Ymblanter himself would confirm. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:41, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

I know that. I don't know why you even mentioned them. I guess you meant well, but if you felt you had to mention them you should have said "You may wish to note that the OP has often been falsely accused..." - which is not the same as "Although I have not seen an instance where the accusation is valid". Maybe it's just me, but I see a difference in my phrasing and yours. Doug Weller talk 11:17, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

There is no difference. I mentioned it because the comment I was replying to implied that the incident of a Wikipedia editor being arrested might be pro-Ukrainian/Western propaganda, and I wanted the writer to know that Ymblanter's editing is neutral, and he doesn't push propaganda from either side. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:37, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Ok, thank you. I still see a big difference but I agree that you weren't trying to spread rumours but to dispell false accusations. Doug Weller talk 11:44, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, I read it exactly the way Doug did and if I hadn't been on mobile I'd have said something. Saying "I think this thing is false" does strike me as meaningfully different than "I haven't seen evidence that this is true" and I think what Phil wrote here was more this second version that the first. Glad it got cleared up. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:59, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

I an sure everybody here acted in good faith. Concerning the verification, the arrest has been reported in reliable sources (I have only seen Russian language media, but I did not search broadly), and, for example, someone already added this material to our article on the Russian Wikipedia. I do not see any reasons for doubts here.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:45, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

• His talk page is likely to have more info [13] as time goes on. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:25, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• I'm sure this goes without saying, but if there is any attempted doxxing on-wiki, please email oversight to get it taken care of. If something needs to be removed in the meantime, use a neutral edit summary (not "removal of doxxing" or the like) to make it less obvious. We'd rather decline something borderline than miss something important.Primefac (talk) 21:40, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

I hope everyone has seen Maggie Dennis's post to Wikimedia-l on what is clearly this topic. 2600:387:F:4833:0:0:0:4 (talk) 22:04, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Can I join the discussion? Current situation in regard to the freedom of speech and the freedom of convey information in Russia is terrible.

The assisting the foreign or international organization in the activity directed against the security of Russian Federation is considered a treason (the article 275 of Russian Criminal Code). Editing Wikipedia's articles can be considered an assistance for the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. If the result of editing is dissemination of information unfavorable to Russia authorities, it could be considered "an activity directed against the security of Russia". And it doesn't matter whether this information has status "classified" or not. Treason is punishable by imprisonment for a term of 12 to 20 years.

The dissemination of fake information about the use of Russian Armed Forces is punishable by imprisonment for a term of 3 to 15 years (the article 207.3 of Russian Criminal Code). Any information from non-official government sources is considered fake.

The discrediting of Russian Armed Forces and its operations, including the calls for prevention of the use of Russian Armed Forces for interests of Russian Federation is punishable by imprisonment for a term of 5 years (the article 280.3 of Russian Criminal Code).

At the moment, an amendment of the Russian Criminal Code to add into the articles 207.3 and 280.3 others "siloviki" being considered. In the event of the amendment being passed, "dissemination of fake information" and "discrediting ... including the calls for prevention of the use" will apply to Russian Federal Security Service, Russian National Guard, Russian Police, Russian Investigative Committee, Russian prosecutor's office, etc, and to operations of these agencies.

In fact, the democratic freedoms and the human rights got thrown overboard in Russia. And it's not temporary situation. Aforementioned laws are regular laws, not exraordinary, and it means these provisions will act always. Putin's Russia is de facto totalitarian state from now.

So, again, like I said, current Russian reality is all-too-grim and painful. The revival of Stalinism is finally realized. K8M8S8 (talk) 15:26, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Russian Wikipedia is likely to trend in the direction of being Russian propaganda. Obviously a lot of its editors are from Russia. And from there, only pro-Kremlin editing is acceptable. Ugh. Adoring nanny (talk) 01:47, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

This can be avoided. There are many Russian-speaking people in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. Many of them fled Russia due to political atmosphere created by Putin. They can get special permissions and see to it that Russian Wikipedia will not become another tool of Putin's propaganda. We need to think about ways to make it. K8M8S8 (talk) 07:59, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I would note that in a recent discussion there on whether they should have a banner backing Ukraine, 60% supported it - it was only the fact that they require 2/3 for such things that it wasn't implemented. Clearly, the Russian editor group is hardly the most putin-focused group Nosebagbear (talk) 14:06, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

protect page about Russian fascism (ideology)

Please protect from editing by user:Veverve this page Russian fascism (ideology). I can also avoid editing the page to stop war editing. However, the user nominated the page for deletion and now they shorten it and vandal it (my own opinion) to make it look stupid and not notable. --Tsans2 (talk) 22:18, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

I dot think user:Veverve edits are biased, and considering such a fragile and delicate topic as Russian fascism in the context of Russian invasion of Ukraine the decision should be quick. Tsans2 (talk) 22:20, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

@Tsans2:

• It is written: "When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on the editor's talk page." You have not warned me in any way, yet you have requested I get article-banned, accuse me of vandalism, disruptive editing and vandal [sic]. I have only been made aware of this ANM since I had a look at your edit history right now as I suspect you of being a POV-pusher.
• Other users have thanked me for my removals. I have justified each of my removals of this article in the edit summaries. Nothing forbids me from editing an article while it is under AfD, see also WP:HEYMANN. I have also opened a discussion at Talk:Russian fascism (ideology)#Editing problems to explain how some of your recent edits are problematic.
• the user nominated the page for deletion I did not, it is Endwise who did
• You might want to create an ANI and not an ANM for complaints such as those, especially since you want the decision [to be] quick.

Veverve (talk) 12:36, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

•  Declined - Although if the edit warring worsens, I will be happy to dish out blocks. It isn't kosher to rush and revert to your preferred version, then quickly come ask for protection. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:19, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Dennis Brown I wasn't rushing here after reverting. but thanks again and please take a closer look at the topic and that guy. Tsans2 (talk) 16:41, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

  First, you were reverting both before an after. Second, Veverve didn't nominate the article for deletion, another editor did, and whether or not it gets deleted, the nomination appears to be in good faith. Finally, you only have 62 edits and you are already at WP:AN pointing fingers (incorrectly) at well established editors. If any editor needs to be monitored, it would be you. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 16:52, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

• If you are concerned about NPOV issues, you might raise the issue at WP:NPOVN to attract more attention to the article. --Aquillion (talk) 22:51, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

  User:Tsans2 - Yelling 'vandalism' is not useful, and can be a personal attack. You lost half of my attention as soon as you said "vandal", because, from your description, the dispute is not vandalism. Do not yell vandalism to "win" an edit war. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:57, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Robert McClenon I don't want to win. I want to attract someone else. I'm biased too as I created the article :p Tsans2 (talk) 10:33, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

  User:Tsans2 - Do not yell vandalism in order to "attract someone else", although that evokes an image of trying to flirt in a bar while insulting your romantic rival. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:27, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

  but I do think it's vandalism. another experienced Wikipaedian has already warned that person. Tsans2 (talk) 09:13, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Attacking other editors

Xplore Master (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has attacked me on my talk page in bad language. Please block the user. When using Google translate, I came to know that it is very bad language. He is also vandalizing several pages. Girth Summit Deepfriedokra Black Kite Ponyo

(117.230.2.140 (talk) 13:15, 13 March 2022 (UTC))

Haven't had my coffee, but looks like an edit war over Pokemon? Eyes not open yet. Might not be back. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 13:24, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Google Translate gives pretty meaningless waffle for much of what they wrote, and draws a blank for some of it. What does it mean? Girth Summit _(blether) 13:32, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

• Google translate gave me an odd translation (You are about to start the journey on the path to your success. etc), but couldn't translate one sentence of it. (Malayalam) Seemed like a copy paste, not "bad language". The IP has a dynamic address, so harder to follow (one more reason to get a registered account). As for reverting the IP on the Pokemon page, that edit seems perfectly legitimate, removing one small bit of unsourced "fact". Right or wrong, there seems to be good faith in the edit. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:38, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

It is very bad language in Malayalam. They are also vandalizing pages related to actors and films and changing the reviews, box office etc. Girth Summit Dennis Brown

(117.230.2.140 (talk) 13:55, 13 March 2022 (UTC))

I don't speak Malayalam. Can you be specific about particular phrases which concern you? You will also need to provide diffs of what you assert is vandalism, if you want us to investigate it. Girth Summit _(blether) 14:33, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

• I do know that he is spamming the hell out of some IP talk pages. I'm tempted to block just for that, regardless of what it is. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:09, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

• And it does just appear to be random spam. Blocked indefinitely. Black Kite (talk) 19:44, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

• 🤦‍♂️. I was looking too hard for bad language. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 00:25, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

AfD really needs to be closed

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Windmills in the Channel Islands has been relisted a second time. WP:ATTREQ is not something that can be ignored. Whilst I sympathise with the arguments for deletion, it cannot happen. Would someone please close this? Mjroots (talk) 13:53, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

 Done--Ymblanter (talk) 14:09, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm concerned that this could, in fact, have been deleted. Despite Mjroots' adamant bold type on the matter, in fact a list of contributors could have been inserted in an edit summary (for example). It looks to me as if the AfD participants were given the wrong directions.—S Marshall T/C 16:32, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

There were 15 contributors before the splitting of the article, I can not reasonably see how they could be attributed in a meaningful way, and there was nothing even close to the consensus for deletion.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:53, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Some of them are bots but more importantly there is no requirement for attribution in a "meaningful way". The only requirement is for a list of contributors. This could be via an edit summary or as a list in the target articles. WP:ATTREQ makes it clear that both are acceptable albeit not preferred. The simplest solution IMO if editors really feel the current title is useless is probably to move the page somewhere else then properly annotated the relevant article histories to make it clear where the attribution has gone. If necessary, it could be made a subpage of one of the split targets or something else. Frankly I'm doubtful it's necessary to preserve the history after 2013-04-01 anyway, so the history could even be merged with Windmills in Jersey or List of windmills in Guernsey and the relevant other articles could be properly annotated. Personally it doesn't seem worth the effort, the article title isn't that bad, something meaningful can surely be done with it but I agree with S Marshall the idea we have to keep it at that exact title for attribution reasons isn't correct. Nil Einne (talk) 18:26, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

We don't HAVE TO redirect this, but why on Earth not, as it's the easiest path and doesn't harm the encyclopedia in any way? Phil Bridger (talk) 18:34, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

To add onto Nil Einne's comment, I wrote WP:Attribution does not require blame as an essay recently. I skimmed the article's pre-2013 history and found only one non-Mjroots edit containing significant creative content: diff, by Man vyi. Flatscan (talk) 04:25, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Mjroots, your various comments invoking WP:ATTREQ and claiming that deletion is therefore prohibited are not an accurate interpretation of the WP:Copying within Wikipedia guideline. Proper attribution (shortcut WP:PATT), a few sections later, is clear that a List of authors is sufficient. Reusing deleted material (shortcut WP:RUD) is also relevant. WP:Merge and delete (supplement) describes possible approaches for this rare situation. I intend to create WT:Articles for deletion/Windmills in the Channel Islands with a note to prevent future readers from being misled. Flatscan (talk) 04:25, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Flatscan. The attribution requirement does not prevent us from taking the editorial decision to delete an article. In such cases, attribution can be provided in an alternative manner, as discussed above. I note that the attribution requirement is in actual practice seldom met because nobody has enough time to disentangle thousands of contributions in the history of an article with tens of thousands of edits and dozens of mergers to be able to determine who wrote a specific phrase, but we do not worry overmuch about this problem either. Sandstein 15:31, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

AfDs needing immediate closure

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/George Lawton (canoeist) needs an immediate closure, as it was last relisted on 10 February. Apparently no administrator ever goes to WP:CR since nobody has yet responded to my closure request there. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tarek Aggoun had also been going since 10 February without a relist, until yesterday when it was inexplicably supervote-relisted by Gidonb. That one should also be closed immediately, as the discussion has already dragged on for enough time. Avilich (talk) 14:14, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi Avilich! Like others here, I use the automatic function to relist. It did not work for this particular AFD. This is probably why the AfD was relisted only once. Someone did complaint about that. I relisted manually, given the lively and ongoing conversation. Someone after me said that this could or should close as delete and stated as a reason that more people wanted to delete. I believe this is going in the delete direction and not only for the reason given. Initially it were mostly keeps, later mostly deletes. This too points at delete. I think that, absolutely, if this continues to be the case, the article should be deleted. On the other hand, relisting only once, with such a lively discussion is a problem. Give it another week and then, by all likelihood, this should be deleted. In discussions, we need to be fair and give a chance to all sides. I would appreciate if someone can check what went wrong with the AFD so this could not be automatically relisted! gidonb (talk) 14:35, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi gidonb. I think that there was already a legitimate consensus at that point, which, coupled with the procedural oddity and the long lifespan of that discussion, would make it more appropriate for an administrator to perform the close, or at least for a rationale to be provided for the relist. You will have seen that several people got upset and frustrated that this was extended yet again without any statement to justify the action. Avilich (talk) 18:48, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Since you raised it yourself, I do not think this frustration was justified in any way. We need to WP:AGF and give people a chance to have their say, especially if the discussion is lively, ongoing, and was relisted only once. Relisting was the correct way forward. Patience and respect for colleagues is important in a community project. I do think that this is heading in the direction of deletion. gidonb (talk) 19:51, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

The last part of my comment referred to the views displayed by other users in the discussion, not by me personally as I didn't comment on that there. Though again, I did find the lack of an accompanying summary a more than a bit baffling given the unusual circumstances. Avilich (talk) 23:52, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Most relists are without a comment although these can been helpful. Anyway, the discussion is closed now. gidonb (talk) 23:59, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

•  Done Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:14, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Partially done only. Avilich (talk) 18:48, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Rightfully so. gidonb (talk) 20:09, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

•  Done been did x 2. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:38, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Avilich (talk) 23:52, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

• I'm a fairly regular closer of the most-overdue AFDs but due to the current ongoing unpleasantness around sports-biographies, I am no longer closing these AFDs until the GNG vs NSPORTS wars are settled. Stifle (talk) 09:47, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Stifle, I totally understand your decision and hope that the greater WP community takes note that there is currently too much pressure around the sports AfDs and notability guidelines. gidonb (talk) 18:45, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I've no issue with the close, User:Stifle, but why had it fallen off the list of open AFDs at WP:AFD? Nfitz (talk) 22:42, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Nfitz If you look at the contribs of the user who relisted it on February 10 ([14]) it looks like they used XfDCloser to relist seven AfDs, but only two (the first and last) were properly transcluded to the February 10 list. These were two of the five that weren't, and I'm just checking the others now. Black Kite (talk) 22:52, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm not familiar with these tools. Nfitz (talk) 22:53, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Of the other three, one had been closed, I've just closed another, and the third has been relisted on today AfD log, so we're all good there. Black Kite (talk) 22:55, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

This might explain the problem relisting that I raised above. gidonb (talk) 00:07, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

The relister tool is great but if you try to relist a lot of AFDs in quick succession with it, it can produce undefined behavior. Stifle (talk) 09:15, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Article maintenance templates and drafts

Are article maintenance templates supposed to be used in drafts? I see them all the time, but it makes no sense to me, and I'm hesitant to remove them. What about short descriptions? Stub templates?--Bbb23 (talk) 14:56, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

The general consensus, at least among AFC reviewers, is that they aren't really necessary in the Draft space, and there is a bot to remove a handful of these templates, but generally they're just removed by AFC reviewers. Primefac (talk) 15:01, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

These often originate from draftifying articles. That is, they get tagged in mainspace, then the article gets moved to draftspace. One exception is the COI or UPE templates, which I sometimes see draft reviewers place intentionally. I usually leave all these tags, especially short description and stub which are useful if the draft is moved back to mainspace. But to each their own. I believe almost all of these templates have code that detects draftspace and keeps drafts out of their hidden maintenance categories. So for example, using the template {{Lizard-stub}} in draftspace would not put the draft in Category:Lizard stubs –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:28, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Check my work

I just partial blocked Zanuda petro (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) from Telegram (software) for 31 hours. Zanudo and ASpacemanFalls (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) have been edit warring over this content, with this edit summary by Zanuda--"Attempt to represent Telegram in their interests (unacceptable). The source shows the opposite. (Only the most recent example. Zanuda added this content about eighteen times, but not always with aspersions.). Please note this edit is sourced to Snoopproject and on Zanuda's user page, he wrote "Тестовая страница для проверки Snoop" ("Snoop test page"). So I sense a COIness in his edits. Please see Zanuda'a talk for my warnings/advice about COI and aspersions and WP:BRD. The deciding factors for me to block him and not ASpacemanFalls was the COI link on top of the aspersions and the refusal to discuss after being advised to do so. Please see my talk for more information. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:05, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

• Shorter than I would have given, and yes, there does seem to be a possible COI issue clouding his judgement. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:26, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

The Red Paintings

I don't know if other noticeboards have been aware of this yet, but The Red Paintings keeps getting nominated by people speaking on behalf of the band, making spurious claims pushing for the article's deletion. These claims are mainly "they haven't recorded since 2013", "their music isn't on any digital platforms", and "there are minor inaccuracies in the article". So far, it's been sent to AFD twice by sockpuppet accounts, and both times I've closed the AFD discussion per WP:SNOW. User:Alan191919, User:Theredpaintings, and User:85.56.220.216 all seem to be involved in whitewashing the article; the former has been outed as a paid editor. Would an IP range block and/or indefinite semi-protection help to stop any of this? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:49, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

• Long-term semi-protection might assist, but otherwise I think it's a case for WP:RBI. Stifle (talk) 09:48, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
• We've no idea who these nominating disruptors really are. I went ahead and semi'd to stop the disruption. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 13:07, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
• I've given educational material to Alan191919. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 13:10, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Call for experienced closer at RfC: Skeptical Inquirer

Could an uninvolved editor with experience in contentious closes please close Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RfC: Skeptical Inquirer, either with an immediate snow close or after the usual 30 days?

The last substantive comment was four days ago on 10 March 2022 and further discussion is unlikely to change the result.

I am asking for a experienced closer for several reasons:

First, emotions are high on this one, and it is likely that whichever way it closes there will be accusations that it was closed with a WP:SUPERVOTE.

Second, there are open questions regarding wikipedia policy; can a source be biased yet still be generally reliable for supporting statements of fact? Is scientific skepticism Wikipedia's "house bias" as I contend in my essay at WP:YWAB?

Third, Arbcom published a FoF (Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Skepticism and coordinated editing#Skeptical Inquirer as a reliable source) on what the current consensus was at the time based upon RSNB discussions from before this RfC. If the result of this RfC does not match the FoF IMO the closing should explicitly discuss which of the two is authoritative and whether an additional decision at WP:ARCA to bring the two into alignment is needed.

--Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 05:47, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Any consensus at the RfC would be considered authoritative, Guy Macon Alternate Account, as the FoF explicitly states "There seemed to be no community consensus on its general reliability." A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 06:20, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I've also opened a request at WP:RFCL, though I think we can let it run the full month.

Second, there are open questions regarding wikipedia policy; can a source be biased yet still be generally reliable for supporting statements of fact? Is scientific skepticism Wikipedia's "house bias" as I contend in my essay at WP:YWAB? - the closer can't answer those questions. The first they might address in their close, based on the weight of arguments presented, but for the second you would need an RFC proposing to implement a "house bias".

Regarding the FoF, I believe Barkeep49 already addressed that question: The FoF is true. When this case closes there will be no community consensus on its general reliability. However you are obviously correct that there's a reasonable chance it would become quickly outdated if the RfC finds consensus other than "no consensus" and so I have added a sentence noting that RfC for people who read this case in the future. In other words, the RFC consensus applies, not the FoF. BilledMammal (talk) 06:25, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

The FoF reflected community consensus at that moment. As consensus can change there's no tension if a consensus is found now. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 07:08, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Also I guess I should underscore that ArbCom was not making a decision about the reliability of the Skeptical Inquirer. Such a decision would be outside its scope. ArbCom was instead stating what the current thinking in the community was. After this RfC the thinking will have evolved in some way which is fine - the decision is meant to be true at that point in time and not a living document. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:27, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

• Related: Wikipedia:Closure requests#Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RfC: Skeptical Inquirer --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 07:40, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
• Not sure why folks keep requesting closes here, when there exists a venue specifically for requesting closes. Also, there's no rush to close the discussion, might as well let it run the full time. Primefac (talk) 12:57, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
• I'm still mulling over the arguments, as well as looking through how the source is actually used on-wiki, but I (who opened the RfC) intend to make a !vote before it's over. — Mhawk10 (talk) 16:07, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
• There is no rush to close it. Just let editors participate and, when the RfC tag is removed, someone will come along and close it. Isabelle ^🔔 16:12, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Requesting review of closure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jussie_Smollett#Close_challenge

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Jussie_Smollett&diff=1077213517&oldid=1077213048

FormalDude implemented a non-admin closure of a discussion which was not formally opened, which was still on-going, and which was only two days old. Their rationale is a complete misreading of WP:MUG and they have shut down all objections to their closure, insisting we take it elsewhere, hence this. Le Marteau (talk) 13:52, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, I'm going to revert the close by FormalDude, and give him a warning. Way too many things wrong with it. For starters, in an informal discussion, if someone closes a discussion and there is an outcry from the general editor pool, you reopen it. The discussion was only two days old. Next, FormalDude started hatting discussions, seemingly to push away those that disagreed with him. Next, FormalDude reverted someone who had removed the close [15], which was done in a rude fashion. Plus the closing itself was just a giant super-vote. FormalDude, this was a textbook case of doing everything in the worst possible way imaginable. Trying to close it? Ok, fine, but do a proper job of it (ie: no supervote), and NEVER revert a reopening. Hell, I'm an admin and I wouldn't do that. I would take it to the boards for review. Same for hatting the discussion over the close. It just looks like you playing god and dictating it will be closed, dictating it shall not be discussed. Maybe you shouldn't be closing discussions. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:17, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

  My mistake for reverting and hatting. Although that hatting was done because Le Marteau was no longer criticizing the closure and was instead just making personal attacks against me.

  I don't see how this was a supervote. What possible other outcome is there that is based in Wikipedia policy, Dennis Brown? ––FormalDude talk 15:24, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

If you want to categorize my justified questioning of your competence as an editor, as a "personal attack" that's fine. I'd do it again. Le Marteau (talk) 15:33, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

And furthermore, in between questioning your competence and behavior, I ABSOLUTELY was continuing to criticize the closure, when I pointed out your complete misreading of WP:MUGSHOT. Le Marteau (talk) 15:37, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Obviously one of us, Le Marteau or me, is interpreting WP:MUG incorrectly. It would help if someone could decide who that was. ––FormalDude talk 15:39, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Sometimes these discussion get people to searching for replacements, and sometimes find them. Sometimes they need time to hammer out policy considerations. Sometimes it just take a little time for a consensus to form, maybe to not include or bother at all. This is why you let them play out. Your close The mugshot cannot be included without a top-quality reliable source with a widely acknowledged reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that links the relevancy of the image to the specific incident, per WP:MUGSHOT. This discussion cannot override Wikipedia policy by claiming the onus is on removal when in fact the exact opposite is true. No prejeduce against starting a new thread, if it provides a RS for the mugshot., you are making determinations that you don't get to do in a close. On the contrary, your close was "I don't want you discussing this". It's very presumptuous. By you deciding ahead of time that WP:MUG didn't allow inclusion, and instead of commenting, you close the discussion, that is a TEXTBOOK example of a supervote. You are trying to lay down the law, when you have zero authority to do so, then revert to maintain "order". Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:44, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not seeing you say that my interpretation of WP:MUG was incorrect. ––FormalDude talk 15:47, 15 March 2022 (UTC)