Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

Welcome — post issues of interest to administrators.

For urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems, use Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. If you are new, try the Wikipedia:Teahouse instead. Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead use Wikipedia:Requests for oversight. For administrative backlogs add {{Admin backlog}} to the backlogged page; post here only if urgent. Do not post requests for page protection, deletion requests, or block requests here. Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly. If opening a close appeal, use {{RfC closure review}} When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:AN-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. Sections inactive for over seven days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.(archives, search) Start a new discussion

Open tasks

XFD backlog

V	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Total
CfD	0	0	2	42	44
TfD	0	0	3	2	5
MfD	0	0	2	1	3
FfD	0	0	0	6	6
RfD	0	0	42	19	61
AfD	0	0	0	0	0

• 2 bot-reported usernames for administrator attention
• 15 user-reported usernames for administrator attention
• 2 bot-generated requests for intervention against vandalism
• 8 user-generated requests for intervention against vandalism
• 125 sockpuppet investigations
• 19 Candidates for speedy deletion
• 4 Fully protected edit requests
• 0 Candidates for history merging
• 3 requests for RD1 redaction
• 40 elapsed requested moves
• 5 Pages at move review
• 22 requested closures
• 130 requests for unblock
• 1 Wikipedians looking for help from administrators
• 26 Copyright problems

Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection

Report

Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (24 out of 8220 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Type Summary Admin Adult Swim (Latin American TV channel) 2024-08-14 01:28 2024-10-14 01:28 edit Persistent disruptive editing from (auto)confirmed accounts Goodnightmush Thejo Kumari Amudala 2024-08-13 21:57 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated; requested at WP:RfPP Isabelle Belato Draft:Landmark Structures 2024-08-13 16:06 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Ad Orientem Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Caleb Avilés 2024-08-13 01:54 2024-08-20 01:54 edit,move Persistent sock puppetry Star Mississippi Gabiley 2024-08-12 20:09 2026-08-12 20:09 edit Persistent disruptive editing: Regular semi-protection ineffective, persistent block evasion and additions of poorly sourced material. Yamaguchi先生 Draft:The Young Scientists Festival 2024-08-12 17:56 2024-08-19 17:56 create Repeatedly recreated BusterD JD Vance 2024-08-12 17:28 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement CTOP AP Ad Orientem Mar-a-Lago 2024-08-12 17:23 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement modern US politics Ad Orientem Al Hasan Milad 2024-08-12 15:07 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Enwiki23 Favonian Mostafa Makhlouf 2024-08-12 10:12 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Justlettersandnumbers Jordan Chiles 2024-08-12 02:34 2024-08-19 02:34 move Arbitration enforcement: Biographies of living persons. Requested at WP:RfPP: Special:Permalink/1239661096#Jordan Chiles Red-tailed hawk Ana Bărbosu 2024-08-12 02:33 2024-08-19 02:33 move Arbitration enforcement; requested at WP:RfPP: Special:Permalink/1239661186#Ana Bărbosu Red-tailed hawk Draft:Umar jaum 2024-08-12 01:47 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Isabelle Belato Jason Itzler 2024-08-12 01:43 2024-11-12 01:43 edit Persistent vandalism Star Mississippi Michael Lisovetsky 2024-08-11 20:57 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated BusterD Yaroslav Kysil 2024-08-11 20:51 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated BusterD Mongol invasions of the Levant 2024-08-11 18:50 2025-02-11 18:50 edit Persistent sock puppetry; requested at WP:RfPP Isabelle Belato Template:Infobox Pan American Games event 2024-08-11 17:59 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2844 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Draft:Shubham Rameshwar Kakde 2024-08-11 06:15 2025-08-11 06:15 create Repeatedly recreated Johnuniq Narayana Guru 2024-08-11 04:27 indefinite edit Arbitration enforcement Johnuniq User talk:Yamla/talk/talk 2024-08-11 01:17 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Ad Orientem User talk:RickinBaltimore 2024-08-11 00:17 indefinite move Persistent vandalism; requested at WP:RfPP Isabelle Belato Draft talk:Farlight 84 2024-08-10 21:28 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Ad Orientem Al-Tabin school attack 2024-08-10 13:36 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: Per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case

Open proxies

I am currently under attack of an LTA who hounds me cross-wiki for more than a year now (SwissArmyGuy, see the latest case). Of course the LTA uses a lot of open proxies. Some of them are already detected and blocked, some are not. For instance, 179.63.255.230 looks like one. I'm afraid there are more to be seen, so I wonder where to report them. Is this board a right place, or is there a more specific venue? — Mike Novikoff 02:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I took a quick look at Special:Contributions/179.63.255.230. They are blocked for six months as a proxy on the Russian wikipedia so I've gone ahead with a two-month block here. In general you can report possible proxies at WP:OP. EdJohnston (talk) 04:37, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! — Mike Novikoff 15:55, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Vector 2022 has an RFC

Administrators, there is an RfC on whether Vector legacy should be restored as the default skin on the English Wikipedia. If you haven't already and would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rollback of Vector 2022. Thank you. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:53, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

On a related note, it has been suggested at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rollback of Vector 2022#Publicizing this RfC that mass messages (WP:MMS) be used to publicize this RfC, as this issue affects millions of users who use this website, and WLNs and Village pump posts alone proved ineffective last time in gauging an accurate consensus. Editors have proposed sending these messages to either (a) all active users in the past 30 days, (b) all active extended confirmed users and administrators, (c) a random sample of active users, or (d) everyone who was on the nine 2022 ArbCom election mailing lists. Is this a good idea, is it feasible, and which group of users should receive these hypothetical messages? InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:04, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

No, because as many have already pointed out to you there, this RfC is fundamentally toothless per the third fourth point of WP:CONEXEMPT, and we already had a widely-advertised RfC on Vector 2022 just a few months ago. – Joe (talk) 05:27, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Wait, the third point? ArbCom? And the previous RfC was not widely advertised enough, as evidenced by how many users were blindsided by the launch. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:38, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Fourth, sorry. And you will never reach everyone, but the last RfC attracted ~328 participants, which is far more than usual. – Joe (talk) 06:05, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

In the previous RfC, the Web team wrote (emphasis in original): If the community decides against deploying the skin, no deployment will be made. Which means that the WMF was willing to comply with the community's will, and they were prepared to stand down if the community was against deploying V22 at this stage. If you're suggesting that the WMF will do an about-face now that Vector 2022 has launched and refuse to honor the consensus (or lack thereof) of the community, then that is truly unfortunate. And yes, 328 is indeed a higher number than usual, but guess what: it wasn't enough. We're talking about a UI change that affects millions of visitors, this wasn't a debate on what to put in an article's lead or what speedy deletion criterion should be amended. We need to do better this time. InfiniteNexus (talk) 06:20, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I can't say what the WMF will do. But if I were making a bet, I'd go with what the web team has already politely implied that they will do: continue with their years-long programme of pre-deployment UX research, community consultation, incremental change, and post-deployment UX research. – Joe (talk) 06:58, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Mass messaging seems a massive overreaction. Doug Weller talk 09:32, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Over complex perhaps. Just throw it into MediaWiki:Sitenotice on the 25th (a week after deployment).©Geni (talk) 14:23, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

• I said in the RFC that there is nothing to suggest that it will be more representative than the original, well attended(relatively) one. And people are always quicker and more likely to air grievances than offer praise. 331dot (talk) 17:32, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

  I'm still not even sure what purpose the RFC serves other than to register a note of protest. Per WP:CONEXEMPT, WMF is not required to abide by it. "Truly unfortunate", yes, but I doubt that people who are predisposed to dislike WMF are going to have their opinions changed whether or not the skin is rolled back. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 19:09, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

  There are some people who will never change their mind about the foundation. But I believe most people who are Wikipedians are willing to go where the evidence takes them and so if the foundation starts acting differently (better) I believe that people will see the evidence accumulate and change their opinions. The foundation, at great negative financial impact didn't try to pull CONEXEMPT with the fundraising banners and I hope they will work hard in this case, even if they strictly don't have to, with the community. Now I will admit that so far this team's record on working with, rather than viewing the community as an obstacle to be overcome, is mixed to poor (depending on how charitable you are). But that doesn't change the idea that "the foundation shouldn't even try to work with Wikipedians because we're set in our ways" is, I think, a disservice to the editors that work on this project. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:53, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

  You're absolutely right, Barkeep49, and my comment was a bit off-the-mark. Still, after seeing vocal commentary directed against the WMF for all of these years, it's difficult to imagine that people would not continue to join that bandwagon due to the fundamental relationship they have with Wikipedia's editors (i.e. they're paid, we're not; they dictate, we contribute). But I concede that you have a valid point, and that their reputation among the active editors would be a lot better if they made some different choices. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 14:13, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Personal attacks etc.

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

---

I would like for someone to look over my shoulder at User talk:Qalandar303. I've made a few edits to the article the editor is fighting over, so I'd prefer to withdraw administratively, so to speak, and the editor is testing my patience (which, admittedly, is in short supply). The editor has made some serious personal attacks on Talk:Subh-i-Azal, following their edit-warring with User:Cuñado over something silly--they wanted to add two citations that weren't actually being used, and in arguing their case crossed a few boundaries, IMO. I warned them for this edit, which put the cherry on top of the sundae. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 03:30, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

• I think they upped the ante with a legal threat involving various other (?) editors. Drmies (talk) 03:38, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Other editors may also wish to take into consideration consistent personal attacks and slurs by User:Cuñado - one against me personally, here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Attempted_schisms_in_the_Bah%C3%A1%CA%BC%C3%AD_Faith#This_Page_Needs_a_Rework (which was admitted as being such by another editor) - against anyone who attempts to contradict narratives of the organization he has openly admitted to belonging to. I would also like to cite the following entry Criticism_of_Wikipedia as context. Qalandar303 (talk) 03:39, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Indeffed for legal threats. Acroterion (talk) 03:41, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Quick note on my comment mentioned above. There was an argument on Talk:Baháʼu'lláh#White washing, biased, and imbalanced about one month ago involving Qalandar303 and Drcombo (not to be confused with Drmies). Both were brand new accounts. Qalandar303 accused Drcombo of representing the Iranian government (to be fair, that's a real thing when it comes to Baha'i pages). When Qalandar303 appeared again recently, I forgot which was which and made this comment. Obviously in retrospect I should have just kept it focused on page content. Cuñado ☼ - Talk

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

RFD backlog

I haven't seen a substantial CfD backlog as has happened several times in the past few years, but on the other hand there are currently 52 old WP:RFD discussions. The listings on the main RfD page have reached 903 KB after substitution, which has made the page difficult to load; I'd suggest reducing the number of closed RfD's collapsed on the main page by closing or relisting the oldest discussions, especially on dates with few open discussions, to hone down the older entries. A few of these RfDs have been listed by me at WP:CR. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 11:36, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

After several closures, it is now down to 780 KB and 44 old RfD's. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 14:48, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

How is https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ARedirects_for_discussion%2FLog%2F2023_January_6&diff=1135581898&oldid=1135350819 aas a closure? Animal lover |666| 15:47, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:03, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

I've worked the oldest discussions up to about the second week of January, but I'm going to have to step away. Any discussions that are older than Jan 18 (if I counted right) and not obvious results can be relisted to clear up the logs, that will save space on the main list. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:03, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Pages created for EC restriction on Armenia/Azerbaijan, Kurds/Kurdistan

Hi everyone. I recently created Wikipedia:General sanctions/Armenia and Azerbaijan and Wikipedia:General sanctions/Kurds and Kurdistan so that editors and admins have somewhere to point to when it comes to the extended-confirmed restriction on these two topics. This is a result of the January 3 close of this discussion, which no one else has parked somewhere to my knowledge. I have never created a page to record a community sanction before, so I would appreciate some review/correction/trouting as needed. Pinging TonyBallioni in particular, the closer of the discussion. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:56, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Having such pages is important and very helpful, thank you very much! ~ ToBeFree (talk) 05:13, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree. Doug Weller talk 08:43, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Fine by me. I assumed one of the people invested in the topic would be the administrative bit after the close :) TonyBallioni (talk) 01:17, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Proposed motion for amendment to Arbitration procedures: Documenting transition procedures

The Arbitration Committee is considering a motion to include a section on arbitrator transitions in the Committee's procedures. Comments are welcomed in the relevant section. For the Committee, — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:37, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

IP submission of my WP:AFC draft

At, Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk/Archives/2023 January 20#21:21:37, 20 January 2023 review of draft by TonyTheTiger, I noted that my WP:AFC draft article had been submitted by an uninvolved IP, while I still had a {{underconstruction}} on the article. No one responded before it was archived. I was requesting the submission be undone since it is highly unusual for an uninvolved IP to nominate an article underconstruction at AFC.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:45, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

What sort of violation is alledged? Near as I can tell that's perfectly legitimate if unusual. WP:DRAFT states that Editors may also optionally submit drafts for review via the articles for creation process by adding the code {{subst:submit}} to the top of the draft page. An article created in draftspace does not belong to the editor who created it, and any other user may edit, publish, redirect, merge or seek deletion of any draft. WP:OWN applies to drafts just as much as they apply to articles. (loopback) ping/whereis 13:10, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I heartily disagree, especially as the rogue IP user had not contributed to the draft previously. It is a bit of a dick move to just randomly pop in and submit an in-progress draft with nothing but a flip "seems ready") edit summary. ValarianB (talk) 14:05, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree it's not a nice thing to do, but is there policy somewhere that doesn't allow it? Otherwise I'm not sure exactly what you're disagreeing with. If its the section highlighted in DRAFT that's a community consensus discussion and not just us saying we disagree. --(loopback) ping/whereis 14:11, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

The first sentence at WP:AFC says "The Articles for creation (AfC) process is designed to assist any editor in creating a new page as a draft article, which they can work on and submit for review and feedback when ready." It seems that it is a space where an editor can create a new page and get review and feedback when ready. It seems to be a substitute for a private sandbox. It does not seem to be a space intended for community editing. The first sentence seems to suggest that the creating editor is suppose to work on the draft and the creating editor is suppose to submit it. The they in that sentence grammatically seems to refer to the editor creating the page. That person is suppose to work on the page and that person is suppose to submit it for review. The 2nd paragraph also suggests that those not "required to use the AfC process" should not submit articles for review. The IP was not required to use the process and should not have submitted the article. Furthermore, the sentence at WP:DRAFT that says "any other user may edit, publish, redirect, merge or seek deletion" does not say any other editor may submit the article.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:47, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

IP's are actually required to use AfC, because they typically can't create new pages. Footnoote 4 on WP:DRAFT states Wikipedia's editing policy applies to all pages, including drafts. The editing policy is, as the name suggests, policy. WP:AfC, and especially inferences made and not stated can't really override it. That said, why is the decline a big deal? You can keep working on it and resubmit. --(loopback) ping/whereis 14:59, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

First, in terms of those not "required to use the AfC process" as it applies here, an IP is not required to use draft space to edit my sister's new article, but I am. If it were in article space, they could drop in and edit without any policy implications. Since I created the page, whether an IP would need to use AfC to create the page is irrelevant. By policy, since an IP is not required to use AfC to edit my sister's article, they should not submit articles for review, per WP:AFC. WP:DRAFT which enumerates a variety of permissible actions (edit, publish, redirect, merge or seek) clearly omits permission for anyone to submit. So per both WP:AFC and WP:DRAFT the uninvolved IP should not submit. You ask why is the decline a big deal?. It sort of changes the burden of my editorial involvement.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:48, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what you're disagreeing with, I'm disagreeing with the entirety of your response. Whether there's a policy or not is not pertinent, in a collaborative editing environment it is just extremely disrespectful to muck about with a draft others are working on, when they contributed nothing beforehand. ValarianB (talk) 14:59, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

We make decisions and evaluate editor behavior based on our policies and the community consensus behind those policies. Arguing that policy is not pertinent is rather nonsensical and it leaves us without a common touchstone to guide our decisions as editors. When I returned after 10 years away from the project I had to do an enormous amount of reading to try and comprehend what's changed policywise since I last was active. I'm a little bit aghast to think none of that mattered and I could have just started plunking away based on what feels right. --(loopback) ping/whereis 15:19, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I can't say I agree. If editors aren't interested in collobrating then Wikipedia is not the place for them. So yes, this means if they expect that draft space is somewhere they get to place content and then only they get to decide what happens to it, they're wrong and should learn so, quickly. Note in this particular case, I don't think the IP's actions were helpful. Even assuming they made a careful assessment of the article and were sufficiently experienced to make such an assessment, the rejection means they were wrong. But just as importantly, the article was edited recently, tagged as under construction and was not of a timely subject. However if we imagine a different case, where an editor comes across a draft which hasn't been edited in months, finds the editor disappeared too and based on their experience is certain it's ready and submits it, and it's accepted and we now have an article we didn't have before, well that's for the benefit of Wikipedia so is a good thing. Even if it annoys the editor who hasn't edited Wikipedia or the article in months, sorry not sorry. Some editors may feel it better to ask the editor who hasn't edited in months anyway, that's fine; but it's also fine if they don't do so. Again if the original editor wanted to developed stuff without collaboration, they needed to do so somewhere else e.g. on their on computer of the plenty of cloud services that would allow it. I mentioned timely earlier which highlights another important point. If it's something timely, even where it has not been months it's IMO still fine for another editor to submit it for review, especially when they have the competence to properly assess it and feel it's ready for main space themselves. I see no reason why the editor needs to do any work if it's already good enough for main space. If they come across an article which is sufficient and is the sort of thing they would have written if the article didn't already exist as a draft then most would agree it's actually harmful if they ignore the draft and completely independently write a similar article just because the draft writer may want to 'own it' and get to decide when to submit. Nor should they need to get the article into a better state then is needed or they feel is worth the effort just because someone else already made the effort to get it into a level they feel is needed. That said in a case like that where it hasn't been months, while I still don't think asking first is necessary albeit may be polite, I do think they definitely should inform the original editor of what they did and why. Nil Einne (talk) 16:00, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

User:Nil Einne you have me pretty lost with your counterfactual if thens and such. Are you saying that I interpretted WP:AFC and WP:DRAFT wrong or are you saying you disagree with the current policies at WP:AFC and WP:DRAFT?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:35, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Point in fact neither WP:DRAFT nor WP:AFC is a policy one is an explanatory essay, the other a process description. Personally I don't consider that to be the be all end all, however it's probably best to avoid confusing the discussion (see both WP:PGE and WP:DCE). The more salient issue is that the consensus behind WP:DRAFT in particular is highly questionable review some of the recent noticeboard archives regarding WP:DRAFTOBJECT for just a snapshot, and so citing it is unlikely to add much weight to your arguments.

Now, and please don't take this personally because I'm confident your acting in good-faith and understandably frustrated with the situation, but even excepting that on the merits your interpretation would be flawed. We've never run on everything not expressly permitted is forbidden, rather the opposite actually, so trying to apply that framework to win an (and don't take this the wrong way) ultimately trivial dispute does not come across well. Further asserting that the technical interpretation of the policies and guidelines should override the underlying principles they express is rarely going to persuade others. It's likely for that reason you've seen people discussing the principles underpinning draftspace.

Finally, it's unclear what sysop action you are requesting (if any). Why is this thread here and not at the village pump or other more appropriate venue? Removing (or adding) declines is not a sysop action and neither page protection nor a block would be appropriate at this time, what exactly is it you want a sysop to do?

So I'm happy to keep discussing this with you and trying to understand your perspective if that's what you want so long as I have your patience, but that should probably happen elsewhere, could even be on user talk if that's what you prefer, but I don't see any sysop action coming out of this. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 01:24, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

I think I have stated a couple of times, that I don't think the uninvolved IP submission was a valid action and that I wanted it reversed. I.e., return the article to the status it was prior to the invalid submission.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:25, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

That's not a sysop action.

Moreover it's not an action that makes sense for anyone to do at all. Contrary to your assumption that It sort of changes the burden of my editorial involvement, it in fact changes nothing. Every draft is evaluated on it's merits at the time of review and a previous decline is of no consequence following non-trivial improvement. Repeated resubmission without improvement is an issue, but presumably you don't plan to do that. Just continue working on the draft as though nothing had happened and try to calmly work through any issues that are noticed with your reviewers. If you want further input I suggest you inquire at WT:AFC, but I expect you'll receive the same answer.

Otherwise I'm a bit busy this week but if you drop a note on my talk I'll try to follow up in a few days or whenever I get chance. I know this was probably a frustrating experience for you so forgive me if I've been overly blunt. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 19:45, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

As the IP has said, I don't know why you TTT keep saying it changes anything. It doesn't except your ability to submit it for review without making substantial changes. If you had intended to submit it without making any changes then I don't get why you care who submitted it. If you intended to make minor changes then submit it this might be an issue although frankly I'm doubtful you'd get in trouble for resubmitting it with minor changes in these circumstances although it is likely to be a foolish decision since I strongly suspect it will be decline as it would have if the IP had never gotten involved. I'd also go back to my earlier point. You keep saying the IP's submission was inappropriate because they were uninvolved but that's simply nonsense. If you want to keep it in draft space then you need to accept it belongs to the community including uninvolved editors. The primary reason the IP's actions might be considered inappropriate has nothing to do with them being uninvolved, it has to do with them very likely making a submission when they lacked the competence to actualy evaluate the article and probably didn't really do a significant review we should expect from someone who is making such submissions. (Since if the IP is going to do be doing something like this they need to be doing something sufficiently productive. Reviewing an article and submitting it based on your extensive experience is productive. Randomly submitting an article after a cursory glance, especially in circumstances like this, not so much.) Ultimately as I mentioned in my first reply if you don't accept that anything you write on Wikipedia belongs to the community then don't post it on draft space. Even user space isn't ideal although we generally accept despite all content even in user space also belonging to the community, other editors should only edit them in minimal ways. Also the suggestion is just plain flawed anyway. Let's say the IP had been right and it had been ready for main space. Would we be returning it to draft space because the original creator isn't happy about it being moved to main space? The answer is almost definitely no, since it belongs to the community. Again, if you don't accept this then all I can say is don't post stuff publicly on wiki. Nil Einne (talk) 07:44, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I should clarify my user space comment. While we generally accept editors should not fool around with userspace drafts directly unless they have permission, remember that by posting it here you've already released it under the appropriate licences. An editor is free to recreate the draft somewhere else using your text with appropriate attribution. And if the editor talks to you first and you say it's not ready but the editor disagrees we don't have any clear policy or guideline nor do I think we should, that the editor is forbidden from simply creating a copy somewhere else either directly on main space or as a draft. (I'm fairly something related happened before and after a long discussion there was no consensus that this sort of thing should be automatically forbidden.) Again if you don't want this to happen your only choice is to work on something privately since once you've posted it here you've given up on the right to decide what happens with it. Nil Einne (talk) 12:06, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

As it stands now the OP can just resubmit after they have completed work on the draft, it has been declined not rejected. So is there anything that actually needs to be done? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 15:42, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I am here because by both WP:AFC and WP:DRAFT (as I stated above at 15:48, 28 January 2023 following my 14:47, 27 January 2023 post) an uninvolved IP should not submit AFC works. Having an article declined shifts the editorial burden. In terms of whether there is anything that actually needs to be done, all I ask is that you undo that which should not have been done.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:56, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

That's more or less my view as well. Drafts are declined and subsequently accepted after being improved quite routinely. Submitting a draft you haven't made significant contributions is usually rude; however, I don't believe we would want to prohibit it absolutely since there are cases where it's appropriate. If I saw an eligible for G13 soon draft that looked mainspace worthy where the creator had apparently forgotten about it I would have no problems submitting it for them.

In point of fact, the premise behind draftspace is that, in contrast to userspace drafts, everyone is encouraged to edit there to promote collaboration the evidence suggest that premise is flawed but that's a discussion for another time so any restrictions on who can edit them are going to be suspect.

Bottom line, this is a rare phenomena so any additions to policy addressing it specifically are questionable WP:BLOAT. If someone, registered or unregistered, makes a single drive-by submission ignore it. The draft will be declined; it takes a bit of editor time, but far less then discussions like this one. If someone repeatedly makes drive-by submissions then revert their edits and p-block them from draftspace for disruption. Quite straightforward really. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 01:10, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Wow! we have an opinion from an IP.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:52, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

There's actually still quite a few of us that are active in projectspace Though my own activity level has long been too low for me to truly count. But it is to your credit that you avoid the noticeboards enough to find this surprising. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 00:30, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

I missed the IP's comments earlier. The one nitpick I'd have with the IPs suggestion goes back to my other comments. I don't think we should or even would automatically p-block or topic ban an UP for making "drive-by submission"s. The proof is in the pudding as they say so we'd look at several things. Number one, does the editor involved discuss and explain their actions satisfactorily? This is a cornerstone of all editing here and while it can be difficult for IPs, ultimately if they're repeatedly doing something they need to find a way. And if they did discuss, this significantly lessens concerns. Two is and this is where the "proof" comes, what was the result of their actions? The important thing is whether the IP is doing anything productive. If the IP is going through draftspace, and with a high degree of competence picking out those which are ready for main space and submitting them then they're doing something productive. It doesn't matter that they're "uninvolved" or that these are "drive-by submissions". I think for good cause we'd tend to evaluate such actions harshly so maybe even demand a 80% success rate, perhaps even 85-90%. But I find it unlikely the community would support partial blocking or topic banning an editor who is clearly being useful e.g. with 95% success submitting articles for AFC no matter that it may annoy certain creators or whatever. I do think the success demands would probably go down the less their actions are "drive-by". Since such actions require some degree as review, probably not a full AFC review since it's fair for them to just stop once they see the article isn't ready, still it would generally be useful for them to explain somewhere why they feel the article isn't ready for main space rather than just submit articles which are ready and ignore those which aren't and discuss when queried. (Especially in cases where the article isn't so terrible that virtually in editor with experience will instantly dismiss it.) In such a case, I could imagine even 50% would be acceptable especially if the editor also engages a lot with creators where it's asked and generally avoids drafts with recent edits. (Although even there, I also feel the community will largely embrace the proof is in the pudding principle and if e.g. the IP has 95% success rates and this is based on the original article when they submitted not based on a later version the creator may have made which they rushed through because an IP submitted it before it was ready, the community is going to be reluctant to sanction them if as I said at the beginning they also discussed and explained their actions where needed.) Ideally the editor would just become a reviewer themselves but there are various reasons why an editor may not with to register an account or otherwise become a reviewer but may be interested in sorting through unsubmitted drafts. Nil Einne (talk) 08:26, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

The above discussion and the actions which started it have convinced me to write all my drafts in my sandbox from now on. Last time I used draft space, some rando (non-IP) user came along and accused me of vandalising a draft article to which I was the sole contributor.  Tewdar  17:05, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

I always advise people to use sandboxes and user subpages for their articles instead of drafts. There are all upsides and no downsides. Especially since user subpages aren't automatically subject to the 6 month no edits speedy deletion criteria. Best just to avoid that nonsense entirely. Silverseren^C 18:39, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

WP:DUD is also good-reading. Granted I've used draftspace to create articles before, even going back to when they were all in project talkspace, but there are a lot of downsides to familiarize yourself with before making the decision to use it. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 00:22, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

That's quite a good essay. Userspace drafts are my default when I'm working through something. Once it's ready for more eyes I can link the userspace draft on wikiproject talkpages asking for input and making it clear that others are welcome to edit it, and once I'm satisfied I can push it to mainspace. Thats beat for beat the exact workflow I used to write Del Riley (clerk). --(loopback) ping/whereis 07:53, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

You can also tag your userspace drafts with {{editable user page}} to further remove ambiguity so other people are more comfortable editing them. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 12:52, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oddly, it seems that instead of reverting the inappropriate uninvolved IP submission, I am being offered a course of moving the page to a userspace sandbox draft. It seems to me that this is a subversive action. I am asking you as administrators to endorse the claim that the IP submission was inappropriate and to revert the article status to that prior to the submission. By moving the page to a userspace draft, it undermines the reasoned review which categorized the article with a declined status requiring certain procedural actions to pursue mainspace. The move never "undoes" the review by making it the result of an inappropriate procedure. It just circumvents it. Furthermore, as a WP:COI editor, I don't even understand what would follow moving to userspace sandbox draft. What is the procedure for a COI editor to move a page from userspace draft to article space?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:25, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
  • P.S. I do want to be clear that User:Scope creep, certainly gave a respectful and procedurally correct review. I do respect his opinion in that regard. I don't necessarily believe that 10 out of 10 AFC reviewers would decline my sister's bio in its current state, but his review is reasoned. I believe that in its current state my sister's article would have a better than 50% chance to survive at WP:AFD, and that WP:AFC may have a higher bar for source evaluation than AFD. I am here to assert that the review should never have happened because a submission by an uninvolved IP of a draft with a {{underconstruction}} tag should be regarded as inappropriate.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:35, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

    If you truly believe there should be additional restrictions on who can submit drafts and when, and I can't see why we would want to add anything to the PAGs covering this kind of rare specific and trivial case (again WP:CREEP), or otherwise seek broader reforms of AFC due to perceived issues. Then the place to propose that or seek clarity on the community's current interpretation on existing PAGs would be at the village pump. Hopefully this succinctly clears things up.

    I'm not trying to be overly bureaucratic here, but AN in general is a poor forum for altering or reforming long-standing community processes. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 19:53, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

    I am not trying to propose the any reforms. I just think that based on the current set of PAGs, an uninvolved IP would be considered an ineligible/inappropriate AFC nominator.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 08:34, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

    I've heard a lot of people say that AFC is harsher than AFD and often rejects stuff which will easily pass AFD. I don't have enough experience to personally comment, but I suspect it's probably correct. I'd also note that I'm doubtful the community wants any AFC reviewer passing something that only has 50% of surviving AFD. But in addition to this, for good reason we tend to evaluate content written by editors with a COI even a disclosed COI more harshly even at AFD. Also, while this is more aspirational than something I can say plays out in practice, for good reason articles on living persons should really should be evaluated at both AFD and AFC much more harshly than articles on companies and the like. While we don't want spammy articles on companies, articles on living persons can easily go very very wrong when the person does or is otherwise involved in anything which receives any real degree of controversy. So such article are far more of a problem for Wikipedia and for the people involved. It's very common on BLPN to see such disasters, often by the history written by someone who almost definitely had an undisclosed COI probably a paid one, which I suspect the subject was happy with until something like that happened enough that I think most BLPN regulars are very happy with harsh notability standards for articles on living persons. Maybe most importantly though is any editor with a COI needs to recognise no matter how much experience they have and no matter how much they may try to avoid this, any assessment they make of a situation where they have a COI is highly suspect. They should welcome any feedback from editors without a COI and consider it very likely holds far more weight than their own attempt to evaluate. (Or in other words, if an editor with a COI makes an evalution X and an experience editor makes an evaluation and comes to conclusion Y, it's very likely Y is far close to how the community as a while will see situation and so the editor with the COI should say okay I'm very likely wrong it's actually Y.) Nil Einne (talk) 07:57, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

• I had the feeling it was women herself that submitted it for review,or more likely somebody from the company. Who ever did it, seemed to be overly optimistic in their assumption it would pass review, perhaps feeling it was finished when it clearly wasn't. It wasn't ready in any manner I think. But the Afc process has own state machine. It was submitted and I reviewed it. Not much else you can say about it. If it went to mainspace I would have to try and delete it. It has six month minus 2 weeks to be updated with some real secondary sourcing, to improve it. Plenty of time. I'm sure it will be in mainspace eventually. scope_creep^Talk 21:24, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

  If you help updating it, or help finding relevant references, WP:WIR is a good place to request help. scope_creep^Talk 21:27, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

  User:scope_creep, I imagine that an IP confers some sort of geolocation information. I doubt my sister or her family did the nomination, but felt that the type of IP that would nominate such an article would be one of two types. I too assumed one of those types was an associate from her company. The other type of IP was someone associated with a reviewer with one of them having an axe to grind. However, the more I thought about the review and the role of AFC, I started to feel that AFC has a vastly different perspective than I am familiar with. Where as my content contributions have been through dozens if not a hundred plus AFDs, I have no familiarity with AFC. I feel AFD has a more binary RS evaluation, where as this experience with AFC makes me feel that AFC has a RS classification evaluation. AFC looks at RSes and says this is a high-class, medium-class or low-class RSes and without any really high-class RSes we can't support this. I feel that many of the things classified by AFC as WP:PRIMARY and/or WP:SPS are things that AFD would probably allow as RS. Of course, I have never had the type of WP:COI role that I have and it is impossible for me to assess how much my own vision is clouded. My belief is that AFD just looks at whether there are RS and then evaluates whether notability is permanent or temporary (1 event) and that many of these sources would be viewed as RS at AFD. That being said, I do hope to get this page to a point where it can enter mainspace and be considered for and by an AFD.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 08:34, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

• I am also now understanding that the talk by User:Tewdar, User:Silver seren, Special:Contributions/74.73.224.126, and Del Riley (clerk) about the alternative course of User sandbox space is no longer an option here. At first, I thought they were telling me to move the article to that space.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 08:47, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  I think you (or someone else) can just move the draft page to your userspace, no? If not, just make a new page in your userspace and copy n' paste your draft there. I'm sure it's very irritating having some rando submit your draft when it's not ready, even if it doesn't violate policy... yet another reason to avoid draft space.  Tewdar  08:57, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  User:Tewdar suppose I move this to a sandbox in my user space. How do I later approach moving it to Main/Article space as a COI editor?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:27, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  Not that I'm really the right person to be answering your questions, but I'd say, when you're done in user space, move it back to draft space then submit it immediately through AfC? I'd wait for someone who knows what they're talking about, though. 😁  Tewdar  20:35, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  I don't know how Kosher that is.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:21, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Category:Copy to Wikimedia Commons with hidden file revisions

Hi, Could you please unhidden the revisions for these files? I am going to transfer them to Commons after reviewing. Thanks, Yann (talk) 11:08, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

@Yann: You would be better off requesting individual files be restored at WP:RFU, such as how Mdaniels5757 has done. (See their edits there.) - UtherSRG (talk) 16:27, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. There are currently 314 files in this category. I won't make 314 requests, as it doesn't make sense, but I made one. Yann (talk) 16:35, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Ban

I can't create a account because of some sort of IP ban but this is the 1st time I have tried to create account what's happening here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.107.48.45 (talk) 14:22, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Hello IP! Unfortunately it appears that your IP is caught in a very broad partial range block due to persistent vandalism coming from the range. An admin or more experienced user will be able to tell you what to do in this case. Also, could the IP range's partial block from my talk page be removed? I don't think it's necessary for them to be blocked from my talk page anymore. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:26, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

@Blaze Wolf: took care of that for you. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:59, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:02, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Tables of Contents

Why is that people have to take something that works, and then change it, breaking it in the process.

I do not like the new layout because articles are missing the tables of contents making it much harder to locate specific information. The new layout also means that there is a large are a wasted white space to the right of the text. 86.164.61.82 (talk) 15:59, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

You are not the only one who does not like the new layout. Feel free to voice your thoughts at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rollback of Vector 2022. Also, if you create an account, you can revert to the old layout in your preferences. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 16:03, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

@Drmies: I edit conflicted with you removing this discussion. I went ahead and overrode the conflict; just in case the person comes back here looking for it, so they can see my response linking them to the massive RFC and explaining that if they create an account they can adjust it in their preferences. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 16:05, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

User:ONUnicorn, please see the IP editor's talk page. Drmies (talk) 16:06, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I did see your comment directing them to the village pump; but do we know what kid of device they are using? Have all the Wikipedia:Mobile communication bugs that make communicating with many mobile users difficult been fixed? ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 16:12, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

None of the IP's edits are tagged as coming from any of the mobile interfaces so I'm not sure why those problems are relevant. I'd additionally note it makes no sense even without looking at the IPs contribs that they are using any mobile interface since if they were, they wouldn't be complaining about Vector 2022 Nil Einne (talk) 14:40, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

According to How to restore Wikipedia's old design, you can do it without creating an account too. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:37, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Page Update/Photos

A few of us were attempting to update the photo on this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Micky_Dolenz#Micky_Dolenz_Infobox_photo User Wes Sideman seems to have a bias and repeatedly has changed 2 images back to an original that is somewhat unflattering of the subject. 2 photos from 2 different people were contributed. Wes has attempted to make points against updating the photos however, he has contradicted himself on this repeatedly based on his own profile statement "This user believes that one's edit count does not necessarily reflect on the value of their contributions." as well as other factors. We would like someone to step in and provide input on the matter at hand and perhaps exclude this user from future editing on the Micky Dolenz page as he is not qualified to make changes, he does not have valid information and has provided no valid insight as to why photos cannot be changed out for more recent ones that more accurately depict the subject. RG137 16:42, 27 January 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by RegionalGirl137 (talk • contribs)

Pinging Wes sideman out of an abundance of caution. Happy Friday to all. Dumuzid (talk) 16:45, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Please read WP:OWN. Any editor can contribute in good faith, and no one is going to exclude Wes Sideman from discussing what he believes is the best image to use in the article. You don't hold any monopoly on the discussion, and unless and until Wes is disruptive to the discussion in some way (and I don't see how he has been) he's allowed to express his opinions on the article talk page. I'd suggest RegionalGirl137, that you let the matter rest for a bit and let other voices contribute to the discussion, which Wes Sideman themselves recommended when they said "I would do that regardless; you'll just get more eyes on it that way. You're only going to have 3 people talking about it here. More input is better." in response to another user's comment. --Jayron32 16:57, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Jayron. With the increasing personal attacks from one of these editors, (and both of whom acknowledge their connections to the Monkees), I feel it's best if I sit the rest of this one out. My goal was always for additional editors to weigh in on the discussion because 2 people isn't a consensus, and I even tried to be helpful and pointed HomecomingQueenEmily to the best place to ask for input. She didn't do that. Then she tried to pass off RegionalGirl137 as a random person that agreed with her, and didn't admit the truth until I called them on it. At this point it's a mess of meatpuppeting and conflict of interest. I'm hoping other editors can handle it from here. Wes sideman (talk) 17:30, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

MOVEment

My head is spinning and I need dessert. Can one of you smart(er) people figure out how to repair the damage done by User:345NHL, and the subsequent moves by User talk:BornonJune8? Thanks. Drmies (talk) 01:44, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

@Drmies: - I'm not sure this countermove of yours was the best idea - the article content is specifically about the MLB on a TV network, not the MLB as a whole. Hog Farm _Talk 01:48, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure either--which is why I asked for a smarter person to take over: I think I made a mistake and copied the wrong title from a nest of similar ones. Please go ahead and correct me. Drmies (talk) 01:50, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

I've moved it back to History of Major League Baseball on ABC and have undeleted the original redirect content at History of Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball on ABC was the title for the main article there until the sock farm moved it to MLB on ABC w/o discussion. That should probably be restored as well, although I can't effectively look into this and make sure I don't burn the frozen pizza at the same time. WT:BASEBALL would be a good place to ask as well. Hog Farm _Talk 01:56, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Kenny Dinh

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

---

Sockpuppet of Niponese Dog Calvero - Ryder1992 (talk) 12:30, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

You mean Nipponese Dog Calvero. I'll leave this to people with more experience identifying this particular LTA. --Yamla (talk) 12:52, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

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

Help needed at CopyPatrol

Hi everybody, particularly those with an interest in copyright cleanup. After seven years as the primary patroller assessing reports at CopyPatrol, I have reached the point where I am no longer able to work at the volume I have been doing all this time. For the last couple of weeks I have been suffering ill effects from too much computer time, and I have to protect my health. I would appreciate it if people could stop by at CopyPatrol daily and assess some reports. You don't have to be an admin to do this task; any experienced editor should be able to quickly figure it out. If you are just starting out, you might like to try assessing reports about biographies or schools – they are pretty easy as the issues are usually quite obvious. Please feel free to stop by my talk page if you have any questions. — Diannaa (talk) 15:54, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• Link to copyPatrol
• Documentation page and detailed instructions

ALL the gratitude, dear Diannaa; you are one of the most admirable and valuable people I’ve worked with on this project. Alphadeltafoxtrot, the Bravo-dog, and the Mike- and Sierra-cats join me in sending you our warmest thoughts. Julietdeltalima (talk) 20:19, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

No damaging your health on behalf of Wikipedia, Diannaa. Rest! --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 20:22, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks everybody for your understanding, and for your kind words and thoughts! — Diannaa (talk) 00:25, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

User:Doug Coldwell

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

---

Two socks continued in January 2023 the same editing pattern that led to Doug Coldwell's block last October. The new edits include poor use of archaic sources, too close paraphrasing, and copying public domain sources without attribution at Willis Fletcher Johnson and Charles Henry Ludington—after Coldwell's December request to be unblocked to work on "his" articles was declined. I bring this before the community for a community ban discussion, as well as some consensus on how to move forward on the cleanup. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:43, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

History

Accounts

• Doug Coldwell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
  • Douglas Coldwell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
  • LordGorval (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
  • Thomas Trahey (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Blocks and ANI: ANI 1 (September 2022) · ANI 2 (October 2022) · ANI 3 (January 2023) · Talk page discussion of block · Older ANIs: 2007 and 2016

SPI: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Doug Coldwell

Copyright Contributor Investigation (CCI): No 1 (533 pages) · No 2 (718 pages) · No 3 (78 pages)

GA and DYK Stats: 233 GAs (no record of which have been re-assessed, but there are seven GAR templates on his talk page) · 549 DYKs, and a number of awards for both speed and quantity

Follow up discussions DYK talk; Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Doug Coldwell GAs (permalink)

Notifications: DYK [1] · GAN [2] · Doug Coldwell [3]

Summary and sample

So to recap, we now have a giant mess of copyright violations, improperly attributed sourcing, dodgy sources which don't properly verify claims, and outright tripe to clean up, and need to figure out how that will be done. That isn't exactly within the scope of ANI. So, the question now is, where does that discussion happen?
— Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 12:00, 28 October 2022 (UTC), Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1112#Where to now?

I feel I should add the following, for the record in case years later someone can't understand why all this happened. Bluntly, it's the only thing you need to know to understand why Doug Coldwell simply cannot be a productive editor here until he allows himself to be tutored in the proper use of sources. On May 31, 2016, he added the following to the article Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation [4]:

The largest plywood panels ever made were manufactured by the Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation

This is cited [5] to an article published in 1918 and written by a Haskelite employee [6]. What's going on here is wrong on so, so many levels:

• Even if the claim was "As of 1918, the largest plywood panels ever made had been manufactured by the Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation", we wouldn't accept that with a source written by the manufacturer itself -- we'd need a reliable and independent source.
• But the statement made in the article, in Wikipedia's voice, is that Haskelite made the largest plywood panels ever made, period. And it's cited to something more from more than 100 years ago. This is so monumentally stupid that even my very substantial powers of invective cannot do it justice.
• And to add the cherry on top, the cited article isn't talking about the largest plywood panels ever made -- it's talking about the largest waterproof plywood panels ever made. That qualifier just got left out.

It's just hopeless, and it's not occasional -- it's typical of DC's work. I'm really beginning to think we need a special process to deal with the stupefying amounts of crap he's woven into the fabric of the English Wikipedia -- a sort of nuke-on-sight authorization for deleting his articles, or reducing them to harmless stubs, without the usual ponderous processes. We did something like this, IIRC, in the Neelix situation.
— EEng 15:36, 26 October 2022 (UTC), October 2022 ANI

Proposals

What looked initially to be ownership and lapses in DYK and GA reviews has now extended to outing, socking and a 3-page contributor copyright investigation. Other than CCI, there has been no formal attempt to coordinate clean up of the mess left behind. Three proposals below: the second and third are necessary for gauging community consensus because of the type of issues one encounters when attempting to address Coldwell content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:43, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Community ban of Doug Coldwell

Per WP:CBAN, "discussions may be organized via a template to distinguish comments by involved and uninvolved editors". Please declare prior involvement and post in the "Involved" section only if you were previously involved.

Support

1. Support The scale of the problems with material not supported by sources is sufficient to justify a ban, and the sock puppetry indicates that this person is not interested in editing constructively at present. Nick-D (talk) 07:16, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
2. Support. I was the reviewer for some of Doug's GAs, and participated in the September 2022 ANI thread, but I don't think that makes me involved. I had hoped at the time of the ANI that Doug could be persuaded to fix some of the problems in his articles, but the sock-puppets have convinced me that he should be banned. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:22, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
3. Support This is mostly symbolic due to the fact that he will hit 3X the next time he uses socks or meats, but the cban will send a clear message --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 13:47, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
4. Support I have reviewed some of Doug's GAs, but I have not participated in previous ANI discussions (though I did roughly follow the conversation at the time). The socking is not helping, and it seems like Doug is not able to self-reflect on how to improve his behaviour, so a CBAN should be in place until such time that Doug can demonstrate how to improve their editing, per an unblock request. Z1720 (talk) 22:10, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
5. Support While it may have been Doug's long tenure and prolific content creation that made him lapse in adequate sourcing, his attitude when asked to improve articles he worked on was uncooperative, and his insistence on continuing to make poor edits after cases were opened shows an unwillingness to work towards Wikipedia's goals, rather just to get "his" content onto Wikipedia. Kingsif (talk) 00:06, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Involved

1. Support ban. (AFAIK, I had never encountered Coldwell before these incidents, but can probably now be considered involved because of bringing forward the ANI that uncovered the socks.) I believe Coldwell was a good faith contributor whose competence to edit Wikipedia should have been questioned a decade ago. Along with the burnout factor of those who work in the area of copyright patrolling, we have a cleanup problem that is beyond Coldwell's capability to help with; he has demonstrated again this month that he is not able to contribute content written in his own words, using appropriate sources and reflecting them accurately. Whether the new editing represents socks or meatpuppets, it is concerning that others may be emulating Coldwell's poor editing habits. It is time to send a clear message to Coldwell and any Wiki-associates that their time might be better spent elsewhere, and meatpuppets will be reverted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:43, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
2. Support ban. Like SandyGeorgia, I don't believe I encountered Coldwell before September 2022. I tried direct engagement with him at Talk:New York Central and Hudson River Railroad No. 999 and came away unimpressed (in particular, he incorporated part of a source assessment I made on the talk page word-for-word into the article). My impression is that Coldwell doesn't have a good grasp of the spirit and intent of our policies. I think this is clearly illustrated at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1112#User Doug Coldwell at Haskelite Building and 801 N. Rowe Street--keep in mind that this incident occurred a month after a long ANI discussion in which he was banned from GA/DYK nominations, had autopatrolled removed, and came pretty close to an indefinite block. Since then the poor-quality editing has continued, and he's either socking or encouraging people he knows to edit (badly). He's well past the point where his editing is a net negative, and the CCIs will take years to resolve. Mackensen (talk) 22:04, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
3. Support ban. I was one of the first editors to investigate Coldwell for copyright violations after an editor reviewing one of his GAN submissions raised some concerns to me about copyvio, and I was the editor who filed the CCI case request that got us to this point. I'm not going to say that Doug Coldwell should have been caught and disciplined years ago. I'm not going to say that because our processes back then were weren't very good. But now he has been caught, and he's refused to change, and he's has made a big a mess for actually good editors as Billy Hathorn made. Coldwell and Hathorn are not learning types, so as punitive as I feel writing this, advocating for and obtaining a CBAN for Coldwell is not a punitive act. This is the driving into the turf of a fence post for razor wire that will keep future copyvios off English Wikipedia. I do not doubt that as a consequence of his CV and the cleanup required to remove it all, a lot of our coverage of American history is going to regress by years. If it even moved forward in the first place. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 23:03, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
4. Comment: I would support a ban and I think that it is needed as can be seen from his block appeals however due to the fact that I have been started multiple GARs for his articles and in one of his block appeals he said that I do believe I know who is behind having me banned - User Gusfriend. His campaign is to have all my Good Articles delisted. I believe that I am too involved for a formal !vote on this section. Gusfriend (talk) 01:32, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
5. Support - my involvement is that I participated in the Sep 2022 ANI thread which led me to do a little editing of the 999 railroad article Mack linked above. I just read the 2007 ANI thread and it's stunning how similar that one is to the one I participated in. After fifteen years we just can't risk spreading more misinformation. Levivich (talk) 01:45, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
6. Support ban. My first encounter with Doug Coldwell took place in January 2022 with the GA3 review of Cone Mills Corporation. Cone Mills had failed GA1 on copyvio concerns, which I found to be remediated. The reviewer for GA2 never returned, but a comment was left casting doubt on the broadness of the page. I quickfailed Cone Mills on GA3 for failing to address in any substantive manner that comment. I then reviewed five more Coldwell pages, passing two (since delisted at GAR; I have participated in attempts to improve the pages) and failing three others. I participated in the September 2022 ANI but not the October or January ones. The issues have since been revealed to be far broader than poorly cooked GANs and indeed will require long-term, multidisciplinary collaboration to resolve. The mess he has left us, his continued socking activity, and his disregard for some of our most important policies and guidelines merit a ban. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 02:09, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
7. Support ban In my early days of editing in 2021, I reviewed one Doug Coldwell GAN. I am clearly involved, as the first ANI thread that kicked all this off was started by me. At the time, it was just Doug adding photos of himself into articles along with self-promotional text and then ignoring all attempts to communicate with him, forcing a block just to make him engage at ANI. And then he started posting his "I have over 300 confirmed kills 200 GAs and 500 DYKs" copypasta, and accusing me of being jealous of him (LOL) and otherwise acting poorly. At the time there was hope he would learn from the experience and so an indef block proposal didn't pass. And then the second thread happened and an admin rightly indeffed him. Cue repeated insane unblock requests, one over 50 kb long, and Doug having to get OS'd for OUTING another editor, and then the socking/meatpuppetry. There is no alternative but to impose an outright community ban so any further socking can be reverted on sight. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:56, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
8. Support Was not in any contact with Doug, that I am aware of, before the first ANI thread in September 2022. I believe I first saw it after a link was posted in the Wiki Discord, and watched the goings-on for some time, as I rarely get involved at ANIs unless I have to, and watched as the conversation evolved from mild ownership concerns to severe copyright concerns and failure to communicate, requiring a brief block to ensure actual communications. There I got involved, and there saw paranoia, refusal to learn, and petty insults. By near the end of the discussion, I expected Doug would run himself into an indef at the very least, even when he narrowly escaped it at the first ANI thread. Soon after, he did, only to come back with sockpuppets. The CBAN is an unfortunate necessity. Prolific editor, but unwilling to learn, refusal to communicate, and the whole trainwreck of the unblock request... Has to be done. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 06:07, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

   Iazyges, you posted in the "Involved" section, without declaring an involvement. Did you mean to post in the "Support" section above? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:13, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

   @SandyGeorgia: Amended to declare involvement; should have occurred to me that that should be included. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 06:21, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

   Thanks; I was concerned the format was unclear, so added a line of instruction. I'm not sure if participating in an ANI makes you involved, but the closing admin will have to sort that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:03, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

9. Support - copyvio sockpuppeteers need to be dealt with in the harshest of manners because of the massive timesink they cause. No idea as to whether I am involved, so I am parking myself here. MER-C 10:57, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
10. Support per above. I think the fact that I failed the now-deleted Preparation (principle) article's GA review makes me involved in some form. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 16:10, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
11. Support Back in 2020, I decided to try my hand at GA reviewing and help out with the backlog. I picked an article that looked not too long, and then I quick-failed it for copyvio and unclear writing. Coldwell then showed up at my Talk page to complain at me: I have created 500 Did You Knows and 50 Good Articles, so have an idea how this goes. [...] I'll ask someone else to do the Good Article review. I'll renominate it. Please don't interfere and just let another editor do it on their own with their own opinion. If I'd had more sense, I would have looked into those 50 GA's back then, and we might have known about the problem 3 years ago. I'll call myself "involved" on those grounds. XOR'easter (talk) 18:11, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
12. Support ban. I first ran into Doug at Talk:Star Watch Case Company/GA1. It was only my 2nd GA review at the time, but it was obvious that the (low) quality of the writing didn't jive with the number of GAs logged by the author. The perfunctory way they responded to my review also pegged my WTF-meter; it was obvious they weren't giving any real thought to my comments. It was so jarring, I made some off-wiki inquiries to find out what was going on. It wasn't until later when the extent of his GA and DYK gaming came out that I fully understood the situation. And of course the socking (which goes back 15 years) removed any doubt that we're better off without him. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 23:33, January 29, 2023 (UTC)

Delisting Coldwell GAs

Pending completion in early March of GA process mergers now underway, the proposal under discussion at GA is that Coldwell GAs will be delisted via a global process except for those articles where a reviewer has opened an individual GA reassessment and vouched for/verified content of all sources, including offline sources (that is, AGF on offline sources is suspended because of history). During the ItsLassieTime CCI, a handful of copyvio GAs were stubbed and delisted via individual GARs; there are over 200 GAs in this case. See implementation details at GA talk, and an encouragement to wait for the GA process merger to be completed.

Discussion of proposal to delist Coldwell GAs

• Support. Implementation detail is being worked out at the GA talk page, and is similar to what is done at Featured article review. Opening 200+ GARs would be a burden, and a combined process will be more efficient. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:43, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support this is unfortunately necessary, the problem is widespread enough and reviewing these individually is unrealistic and unfair. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 21:55, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support GAR is overburden as it is --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 21:58, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support. Save a massive amount of time and effort by avoiding GARs. Basically every single one of his contributions is getting reviewed at CCI anyway. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 22:00, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support, per my comments on the GA talk page. GAR cannot possibly scale to handle the volume, and a GAR without a user to work on the article is something of a dead letter anyway. Mackensen (talk) 22:05, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support. This is going to be necessary given the experiences I had with the only two Coldwell GAs I passed of six nominees reviewed, Mail chute and Shelby Gem Factory. Not doing this would cripple GAR at a time when GAN itself is also sorely backlogged. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 22:09, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support I'm not sure if there are any precedents for such a large scale GA delisting, but it is warranted in this case. I note SandyGeorgia's comment at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations that her spot checks have found significant problems that are time consuming to fix. Nick-D (talk) 22:22, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support as in my comments linked above. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:43, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support per the various comments above. There's no realistic alternative. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:52, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support There are too many articles that would need to go to GAR and it would not be sustainable to take them ther individually. Gusfriend (talk) 01:11, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support - going through them one by one is too much of a burden to place on volunteers. Levivich (talk) 01:48, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support This must be done in order to preserve the GA rating having any meaning anymore. Doug Coldwell mass-produced these with little care for accuracy or avoiding copyvio; we should not spend the time to rigorously check each and every one when many if not most are chock-full of copyvio, failed verification, and factual errors. I've personally looked at several and they all had massive issues to the point they never should have been promoted to GA regardless. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:49, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support I agree that sending all of Doug Coldwell's articles to GAR would be too much work for reviewers. Better to mass-delist and then renominate those that seem like they have some value (not that I think there are any.) NW1223<Howl at me•My hunts> 04:38, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support, as unfortunately necessary. No prejudice against anyone who chooses to re-nominate one to GA, although anyone doing so should be warned to enact a full rewrite. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:51, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 06:07, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support, on the understanding that any article which is clean of copyvio gets relisted. Animal lover |666| 07:03, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

  Issues are beyond copyvio (misrepresentation of sources, for example), although nothing prevents anyone from re-nominating an article to WP:GAN after a WP:GAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:02, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support, articles often fail broadness and copyvio criteria. GAR costs too much time. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 10:50, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support per above. MER-C 10:52, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 16:11, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support The very first one that I randomly plucked from the list, Typographer (typewriter), reads like it was written for a school assignment, and not for a very old student either. For example, He observed office workers overwhelmed with laborious tasks of handwriting lengthy official documents that took a long time. It would be surprising indeed if the laborious task of writing a lengthy document were completed in a short time! XOR'easter (talk) 19:10, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support as someone who quickfailed several Coldwell GA nominations only to see them quickly renominated. The GAR process is too cumbersome and there are too many articles for it to be possible to review them individually. And delisting does no real harm to the encyclopedia as the articles are all still there and can be renominated if someone wishes; it merely removes undue credit from Coldwell. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:20, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support Too much community time will be taken up by reviewing all of this user's GAs to ensure that they comply with the criteria. I would rather that these are delisted, and interested editors can check the article (and maybe make improvements) before renominating them. Z1720 (talk) 22:13, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support. I took a look at Star Watch Case Company, which I failed in GA1, but I see was eventually passed in GA3. The quality of the writing is still abysmal. It's fine as far as spelling and grammar goes, but it's stodgy, stilted, and just plain boring to read. I plugged most of the text into a "readability estimator" website which ran a bunch of scoring algorithms on it; the rankings ranged from 5th to 9th grade reading level. If I were reviewing it today, I'd fail it again. I assume this is typical of his other GAs. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:51, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

  Another Ludington company. I'm beginning to wonder how much POV there is throughout anything now on Wikipedia related to Coldwell's Ludington, Michigan due to COI, and why COI has never come up in these discussions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:18, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support As someone who has done hundreds of GAN reviews, I may be the most prolific reviewer to have never touched Doug's work (I'm pretty sure). There were two reasons for this: 1. he had hundreds of noms with zero reviews. 2. when one of his noms for one of the Hall family became the oldest unreviewed nom, I looked over the article and decided that I would not be able to pass it, but that I was not sure I could adequately explain why, at least not without an essay in the review. If we were to run reassessments on all of those articles, those same two issues would make life hard: there are hundreds. There are issues it will likely be hard to explain. But we know there are issues.
  And I honestly do not think delisting should be seen as some horror solution. A GA assessment should be viewed as an assessment, not a badge of honour (as much as we know we wear listed articles as such), and there will be plenty articles out there that could be GA listed or nommed that aren't (GA status is not all-encompassing); i.e. delisting Doug's articles means that they require assessment, is all. I think that's already been established. Kingsif (talk) 00:16, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Removing unverified content cited to offline sources added by Coldwell

Application of WP:PDEL. Any content added by Doug Coldwell that is cited to an offline source may be removed by any editor from any mainspace article, except those that have passed a new Good article reassessment.

A similar past example for User:Oanabay04

An example of how content from Oanabay04 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) was handled: Posting to WP:Trains: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains/Archive:_2015#Major copyright problem Block discussion: User_talk:Oanabay04#Block_extended Sockpuppet discussions: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Oanabay04/Archive Sample notice used when reverting articles: Talk:Pennsylvania_Railroad#Copyright_problem_removed Sample AfD of articles: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fox Chase Rapid Transit Line

Coldwell's articles are already at CCI so WP:PDEL applies, but community consensus to shoot offline sources on sight and stubbify articles might help advance the cleanup by at least removing instances of too-close paraphrasing that are extremely time consuming to chase down.

Discussion of removing content cited to offline sources

• Support, but hold off on stubbing articles until the GAR processes complete the planned merge and it is determined what GAs other editors intend to rewrite. I was surprised to find the same issues recurring in 2019, and in the recent sock edits. Of particular concern is the difficulty in tracking down copyright issues in Coldwell's edits because of the extensive use of very old and offline sources; it takes hours to examine one article. The damage spread across content, has been seen already in a healthy sampling of articles. With misrepresentation of sources along with copyright issues, inaccuracies, and archaic sources, WP:AGF on offline sources in GAs is not useful. My own sampling reveals everything covered in the post above with EEng's sample, and the often-archaic sources along with misrepresentation of them combined with plagiarism or too-close-paraphrasing. Because he is often the only editor on obscure topics, it is fairly easy to see what can be deleted if it can't be verified. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:52, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

  To confirm - if an article is not a GA, then it can be stubbed/deleted without waiting? MER-C 11:02, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

  Correct. I believe the GA folks are wanting to preserve some GAs if possible, but there are technical issues in how and when to make it happen, so we are asked to hold off until they finish the Proposal Drive and get everything in place. No reason not to deal with other (non-GA) content per usual. Of course, if the copyvio is egregious enough on any given article, I would think that CCI admin action would override GA preferences. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:59, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support, and ask that copyright inquisitors not to be expected to restore the articles that CCI will necessarily, as a part of the process, eviscerate. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 22:08, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support This seems uncontroversial and there are a number of precedents for this where we have had to assume everything an editor has added is unreliable and/or a copyright violation. I've handled some instances of this over the years, though not on anything like this scale. Nick-D (talk) 22:24, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support but, as Sandy notes, delay until implementation of some of the other points. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:45, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support but hold off per above. Levivich (talk) 01:50, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 06:07, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support. Anyone can do this anyway using existing policies but I have found that (1) a community ban and (2) explicit approval from the community for PDEL makes it much easier to deal with. MER-C 10:50, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support Especially given the scale of the problem. Details as per SandyGeorgia. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:14, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support Sounds like the sensible course of action. XOR'easter (talk) 21:00, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support Time is an important resource for Wikipedia editors. It takes too much time to track down and evaluate offline sources, so this solution is a better idea. I hope that editors who go through this process will keep the sources in a "Further reading" section so that future editors might be able to use these sources to improve the article. Z1720 (talk) 22:15, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

  Great idea ! You should bold that, Z1720. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

General comments

Image copyright issues

I have yet to dig to find if this is a pattern, but File:1965 Time Capsule II interior.jpg is not in the provided source and is tagged at as FDL image for some reason. File:See-through of Cupaloy.jpg is also improperly tagged. File:Westinghouse 5000 year pin.jpg provides no source so I can not find if DC was the author of the image or not. Someone at commons is going to need to do a CCI as well. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 22:19, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

I contribute File:1960s TV camera.jpg and the bizarre recreation that is File:Lionel Flash Lamp.jpg Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 22:49, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Deleting articles for copyright violations

When it is necessary to seek the deletion of an article on grounds of suspected copyright violations based on precedent by the user concerned, like for example with Billy Hathorn, copyright inquisitors do not use AfD; an AfD wastes time for CCI and AfD regulars (believe me, I know). Instead, copyright editors use Wikipedia:Copyright problems (CP), which gives a seven-day grace period to allow for rewrites before MER-C an admin deletes the article. The method used at CCI for determining what can/should be sent to CP to save volunteer time is demonstrating majority authorship of the article text by a proven copyright violator. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 22:22, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Concurring. MER-C 10:50, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Talk page header

I would like it if a talk page header was created with a link to this discussion plus any other relevant information to be added to any article which was one of the GA articles including those that have already been delisted. This would give people context when they come to the talk page and wonder at the history of the page. Gusfriend (talk) 01:19, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Maybe note it in the article milestone. Where we'd normally link a GAR, we could link to this thread, perhaps. Levivich (talk) 01:51, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

There might need to be a project space page with an explainer. Something like Wikipedia:Doug Coldwell copyright violation removals or Wikipedia:Delisting of Good Articles by Doug Coldwell. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 02:17, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

I think something bespoke would work best here much like Sammi suggests -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 13:48, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes. I've now spent more time looking at the script used to close GANs and GARs, and unlike when Gimmebot processed all content review processes into articlehistory, GA now uses a script which operates very differently from the original (gimme)bot or FACbot. (And doesn't give oldids on GARs or roll in DYKs, etc) I've some ideas of how to make the process work, but it will involve some combination of new coding or mass message sender or something. My idea to do it the way FAR does won't work. But better heads can convene elsewhere to figure out how to effect a delisting of a couple hundred GAs without having to initiate a couple hundred GARs. Whatever is written for transclusion to the GARs or talk pages would hopefully not name DC rather be written more generically. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:07, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

If GAR uses a process similar to what FAR does, the end result would be a GAR listing in articlehistory that points back to this thread. Should they decide to go that way, I am familiar enough with {{Article history}} and the FAR process to help them set it up. However. Coldwell has many more DYKs than GAs, so that leaves a lot of articles uncovered. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:24, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

I just had a look at User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/GANReviewTool, and it will be trickier than I thought. Some special script coding may be needed, but for 200 plus articles, probably worth the effort. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:55, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

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

SeeAlsoPolice

The user SeeAlsoPolice seems to be displaying a number of odd behavioral problems:

1. they vandalized another user's Wikipedia page, see [7]. They have also refused to stop posting on his page, even edit warring about it: [8], [9], [10], [11]
2. they seem to be using our Wiki to try to make sock edits on Dutch Wikipedia, where they are banned see [12]
3. They are edit warring, see [13], [14], [15], [16]
4. they are rude, see [17] nobody did them because someone falsely claimed I did not provide a X to Y statemen, [[18]] This page should not be speedily deleted because... the user's behaviour on Wikipedia is the digital equivalent to book burning.

--00:35, 30 January 2023 (UTC) Ermenrich (talk) 00:35, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Came across this at AIV, I indefinitely blocked them for disruptive editing, personal attacks, vandalizing another editor's user page, and edit warring. DanCherek (talk) 00:36, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

User:7&6=thirteen and Doug Coldwell content: Topic ban consideration

See User:Doug Coldwell Community Ban

User:7&6=thirteen was involved at many of Doug Coldwell’s GAs and DYKs, issued most of the barnstars awarded to Coldwell (scroll down), and initiated Coldwell's Editor of the Week award. He had the confidence to edit Coldwell’s user page, was the top editor at Coldwell’s talk page (after Coldwell), and that relationship went both ways: [19] [20]

The community has spoken unequivocally with respect to Doug Coldwell’s content. While being friends or Wiki-associates cannot and should not be held against anyone, being unable to see the level of issues with Coldwell’s content, or respect community consensus in the matter, is a problem, and one that should be nipped in the bud as the community moves forward with a CCI and GA reassessment.

Considering the amount of work ahead to clean up the messes left behind, please review the following to contemplate whether 7+6 should be topic banned from all issues relating to Coldwell, broadly construed:

• At Willis Fletcher Johnson, 7+6 reinstates content under discussion for copyright issues (and more) before discussing on talk
• Johnson talk page discussion
• At Ludington Public Library, see stonewalling and uncooperative responses at the talk page of the Coldwell GA, beginning 25 January

For disclosure purposes, I am involved at Johnson as I removed the content originally. I could be considered involved at the library (?) as I flagged it as part of the CCI. Ludington Public Library still has sources that do not verify the content, and the majority of the sources are offline and not available at newspapers.com. Further, the lead gives UNDUE attention to one Ludington, who wasn't even instrumental in the library funding, as he withdrew his pledge (an example of POV seen in Coldwell’s articles). If the behaviors seen at the library article and the Fletcher article are what we can expect going forward with the CCI and GA reassessments, even more time by more editors is to be misspent, and I submit that 7+6 is not neutral, not collaborative, not working in the best interest of content, and should be removed from those conversations.

Separately. Whether 7+6 should continue to participate in DYK nominations might be contemplated.

Notification: [21] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Guilt by association? Really? No cited grounds.

The article that she "flagged" has been improved. Article improvement is supposed to be a shared goal of all of us.

Shutting off any opposing vieiwpoint seems to be contrary to the basic underpinnings of Wikipedia. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:21, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

If you're restoring Doug Coldwell's contributions then you're taking ownership of it. This doesn't seem like a great choice given the community consensus above about Doug's contributions. Is your "opposing viewpoint" that Doug's contributions are in fact good and should be retained? Please elaborate. Mackensen (talk) 16:28, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Agree with Mackensen, there is a valid point being raised here and dismissing it as "Guilt by association" is just childish. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:00, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Personalization seen at the library continues at Johnson. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:32, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

There was nothing wrong with the article to begin with. I am not talkng about all of his articles, only this one. Indeed, User:SandyGeorgia are again taking inconsistent and mutually exclusive positions. "cut and paste" copyright violations and WP:OR. You can't have it both ways. But these are mutually exclusive by definition. You need to spend some time on a logic course if that is your position. Res ipsa loquitor But it you are saying that Wikipedia is treating Doug Coldwell and all of his edits is nonexistent, and something along with his history, accomplishments, improved articles 500 DYKs and untold GAs are to be summarily expunged — I get that. But I think WP:Preserve and the established procedures for individual consideration are to the contrary. Remaking history is anathema to our values, and is something endemic elsewhere.

I personally edited the Ludington Public Library article 58 times, and made it substantially different than this. Nobody can improve or change the 'tainted articles'? Really?

If those are your rules, then torpedo them all, but put up a warning notice.

As a responsible editor with damn near 150k in edits, I expected better treatment.

Personalization continues here. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:42, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm not going to look into the context here but it should be obvious an editor can easily be guilty of both OR and copyright violations in the same article. Even in the same paragraph. Further OR is often used loosely to include taking material from primary sources or other unreliable sources, and especially taking material from primary sources and advancing a position not stated in the primary sources. It's clearly trivial to add material not stated in the source while also copying as I can do right here "As a responsible editor with damn near 150k in edits, I expected better treatment. Personalization continues here. I suggest a siteban for SandyGeorgia." The first two sentences I copied from you. The last one is just some shit I made up. Nil Einne (talk) 16:55, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support block for thirteen. The last time they were here was also in a matter regarding their lack of care regarding sourcing―which puts it generously, frankly, considering they were effectively being accused of falsifying a source―a lack of concern which the above complaint would seem to indicate hasn't been addressed by 13, but which has instead become a pattern, or habitual. Nor, would it seem that that they took the closer's final words into account: this discussion should serve as a sufficient, final warning. If problems continue, administrators responding to editor concerns should consider resolving the issue using existing tools. By now, they're approaching, if not actually, a net negative to the project. SN54129 17:08, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  Wow. Considering that the "made up sources" was a lie and was found to be wrong, and I was acquitted, User:Serial Number 54129 has jumped the shark. But double jeopardy, innocence and due process of law are seemingly alien concepts with no application here. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 17:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  A jump to a block is ridiculous, SN. A topic ban, as requested, yeah, I can see that being something to discuss. But to throw petrol on the fire with a leap to a block seems... excessive. — Trey Maturin™ 17:26, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  Not at all, merely following the recommendation of the last admin to warn 13 of his behavior. It would certainly not 'throw petrol on the fire' any more than the usual sprawling threads that seem the inevitable outcome of any discussion with them at the heart of it. It would also take into account the continuing WP:LISTEN issues they continue to demonstrate here: they literally argue that they were 'acquitted' last time, when in fact they received a final warning. And anything that enables an impression of being fireproof...however many edits... is unhelpful. SN54129 17:36, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  A sprawling thread is now guaranteed by escalating this to a drama, SN, and the likely result will therefore be no action. I'd assume this is the opposite of what you were seeking, but so be it. — Trey Maturin™ 17:41, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

• The underlying charge of "making up references" was untrue and found to be a mere typographical error. Check the record before again repeating the lie. I am not niffnawing about the warning or the topic ban. I know that they exist, and I've acted accordingly — which I have scrupulously respected. But you folks will have to follow your own conscience.

FWIW, I thought the arbitrator's got it wrong. That is a closed issue, however. As arbitration has to be final and binding for the community to function; as the community ruled, I obeyed. See Socrates and Hemlock. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 17:47, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

• I am not niffnawing about the warning or the topic ban = ∴ "the next step is escalating blocks". Cool word, niffnawing though. SN54129 17:58, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  Perhaps someone will separate the two (topic ban or block) via subheads? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:10, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  Never mind: I just read Wugapodes closing statement at the previous topic ban discussion, and see that it is quite relevant to behavior that continues here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:25, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support t-ban - There was nothing wrong with the article to begin with. - and yet, unattributed public domain copying and source-text-integrity issues (AKA the "bless-your-heart" version of saying something is OR) noted on the talk page well before this. And yes, unattributed public domain copying is still problematic even though the source is PD, we need to be indicating where material came from. And bragging about edit count (150k edits ...) is not too far removed from what got Doug in trouble. Thirteen, I'm starting to wonder if you have trouble identifying sourcing issues with articles, given the past AN/I discussions. Hog Farm _Talk 18:09, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

There are lots of sources. If it needed more quotation marks, that could be done. Indeed, that was one of my suggestions. Blowing up articles that are well sourced and attributed, like Ludington Public Library which is fully attributed, seems extreme to me and contrary to the best interest of the project. Improving and rewriting the article is permissible. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 18:39, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

You're not grappling with the main issue, which is that given an article that was substantively edited by Doug Coldwell, many (most?) editors don't trust the attribution. You should read over #User:Doug Coldwell further up this page, if you haven't already, and consider what's been said and proven there. Looking briefly at Ludington Public Library, I see many offline sources that will be difficult to check, including a number well over a century old. Given Coldwell's record, I don't trust any of those to say what he claims they say without seeing them for myself. Mackensen (talk) 18:50, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Use of real library books used to be encouraged; and their use (instead of whatever you might find on line) does not make them unreferenced. I 7&6=thirteen (☎) 18:53, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

This is not all responsive to what I or others have written. Mackensen (talk) 19:00, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

The question is though: have you read them, and can you vouch for the statements and accompanying sources? If so, can you share the sources for others to vouch for the content similarly? – robertsky (talk) 19:10, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

AND can you confirm that they aren't copied or closely paraphrased. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:12, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

It's not for us to question AN consensus. But.

How many of the offline sources at Ludington Public Library have you reviewed? Most of the article is cited to offline sources. It is difficult to consider that you have accessed the offline sources, because your rewrite still includes online sources that are inaccurately represented. I'm hoping you understand that the frequent misrepresentation of and misuse of sources, besides our inability to verify copyright issues in the offline sources, is why the AN found consensus to stubbify these articles (which WP:PDEL provides even without the AN consensus).

Separately, it's curious that you revisited talk to sign, but did not remove the personalization;[22] logic was a core course in my undergraduate major. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:02, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment Unless 7&6=thirteen is personally taking responsibility for the sourcing of the content (as in they have checking and confirm the details) they are restoring they need to stop. There has already been discussions about the issues involved. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:40, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  Maybe you need a refresher. I know User:Doug Coldwell from Wikipedia for over a decade. He is an honest contributor. I know that he regularly consulted with the library (including the Library of Congress. I know that he would send me copies of off line sources if a question arose. WP:AGF should cover those. I also know that his Wikipedia articles and research have actually become the basis of newly published scholarly books, and that he got letters and mention in the books attesting to his conribution. I also know that he was a pain in the ass, who bombarded me with missives telling me how to research and conntribute to Wikipedia; he is a true believe in article preparation (he had a second account for his drafts, but always posted them to the main space from his own account) and careful off line research. He had a standard method of operation, and would get the books, do the drafts, redo the drafts, and only belatedly post a full blown article. He had more patience and persistence than I in the whole good article quest. His work was repeatedly reviewed at DYK and GA. He had no incentive to lie about what he found. His format style was not always electronically informed, so that when we edited the same article we would work on that together.

  I did not keep track of off line reviews of materials. It was not part of my job description. With 150k (almost) edits, I have little recollection.

  As to your opining that the off line sources do not exist, that is contrary to what Wikipedia says about off line sources. As Jonathan Swift Charles Kingsley once wrote, "you cannot say that water babies do not exist, unless you have seen them not existing."

  You expect me to confess, recant and thrown Doug under the bus. As Galileo said as he left the Inquisition: "And yet it moves."

  That you folks think your evil thoughts of him is not my experience. Honi soit qui mal y pense 7&6=thirteen (☎) 21:24, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  I missed where someone said "the off line sources do not exist"; pls clarify.

  So, you have not answered the question, but it appears from what you have said that you have not read the offline sources for Ludington Public Library, nor have you yet corrected the content that misrepresents accessible sources. (You might recall that I found one of the books-- which was incorrectly cited-- at archive.org; as more and more of these archaic sources are being indexed at archive.org, the problems are becoming more and more evident.)

  So, when you revert content back in, how do you know you aren't reinserting copyvio? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:31, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  AGF is not a suicide pact. With respect to Doug's editing, there is currently a CCI case open against him, due to repeated findings of copyvios and close paraphrasings in the article text. Just a few days ago, because of the volume and nature of Doug's problematic contributions, it was decided to apply WP:PDEL to any content added by Doug which was cited to offline sources. We are very, very far past the point of AGF on this.

  7&6=thirteen, when you are restoring content written by Doug, that editors have removed on PDEL or any other copyvio or CLOP grounds, are you actually verifying that the sourcing is correct and supports the text in the article, and that the text in the article is neither a copyright violation or close paraphrase of the source material? Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:49, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support topic ban (involved): 7+6 had a chance to answer the concerns, but instead keeps digging, doesn't answer direct questions, can't acknowledge the problems, and time is being misspent on an issue that has already taken more than its due. Wugapodes previous close of a similar tban discussion should also be considered in light of the personalization. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:34, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  Support ban from DYK as well; it is not hard to see how we got such a big Coldwell problem, and we need to remove reviewers from DYK who don't understand core policies. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:49, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support topic ban. 7&6=thirteen's post above, in reply to ActivelyDisinterested, convinces me that he other does not understand, hasn't read, or doesn't care about the problems with Doug's editing. Hundreds of edit hours are being spent to clear up the copyright and paraphrasing problems Doug refused to acknowledge or help with. The community needs to be able to trust in the commitment of the editors working on trying to clean up the content Doug wrote. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:37, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support - we know that final warnings don't work because 13 has interpreted the last final warning as being "acquitted". In response to the "but did you check the sources?" query from multiple editors, 13 admits they did not, but thinks that because they have 150k edits, they deserve better treatment. In addition, 13 denies that Doug Coldwell's articles were problematic, ignoring community consensus to the contrary. 13 reminds me very much of Doug in this way: either unwilling or unable to comply with our sourcing policies (or even to recognize the difference between good sources and bad sources, or the importance of actually checking sources). I'm not sure what kind of sanction exactly (a block or a ban, and if so, how long/from what, etc.), but clearly talking to 13 isn't working, warnings aren't working, and nobody should have to deal with someone wholesale reinstating Doug Coldwell's content with offline sources without even checking those sources, that's disruptive and a timesink, and contradicting recent community consensus. The incivility (telling another editor take logic classes, "evil thoughts" above and the comparison to Galileo and the Inquisition, etc.) is an additional layer of disruption, but recklessly adding stuff to mainspace without sufficient care for accuracy and policy compliance is more important. Levivich (talk) 21:38, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support topic ban at minimum per Levivich. Given the disregard for a consensus regarding Coldwell arrived at after careful analysis from the community, 'reckless' seems a fair description here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:42, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Actually, I found the book on line, and there was an extended discussion about whether the ISBNs were right.

I recognize your power. I respectfully submit that no violation has been proved, and telling everyone that articles are to be nuked (without considering other editor's input on them, for instance) is a bad idea. But I also understand that I am now to be collateral damage when all I did was improve articles. You are destroying the village to save it. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 21:51, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

You really aren't doing yourself any favours with such facile analogies. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:54, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I recognize your power. I saw what you did there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:57, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Restoring content that is presumed to be a copyright violation, without actively checking if it is a copyright violation, is not improving the article. It is reckless, and as the header at WP:CV states, has legal considerations. If you cannot see the problem here with regards to the inclusion of text that is violating copyright, then do we need to open a CCI case into your contributions as well? Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:02, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

If you "found the book on line", I wonder why I had to add it? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:19, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support topic ban from all things Coldwell at a minimum. Levivich summarizes the problem well. Cullen328 (talk) 21:56, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

You've already made up your minds. Now comes into play that they just want to delete Coldwell's articles and use the term "Nuke Coldwell's articles". Do they mean they want to delete articles he created = that means all the other editors that have expanded it since lose their work instantly. Take now for instance Columbus's letter on the first voyage that Coldwell created in 2008. However User:Walrasiad has been expanding for years and has 92% authorship. He will then instantly lose all his work = what will he say about that? It doesn't seem right that all these editors that have expanded an article Coldwell created will lose their work.

There are some articles that Coldwell didn't create but has the largest authorship into. An example would be Eber Brock Ward where Coldwell has 54% into it and 7&6=thirteen have 21% into it. The creator of the article is User:Krosewood\. Does that mean then that other innnocented editors lose their work instantly because Coldwell has the largest authorship into it and therefore must be nuked and deleted in 1 step. I guessing that "nuking" any article Coldwell has edited (989) might present a problem. Time will tell how this is going to play out. The complete Wikipedia project might have to be rewritten as to how it is to be done if you "nuke" any article Coldwell has edited. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 22:01, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Thirteen, I think you're misunderstanding the proposal. At least as I've understood it, content that's been checked/rewritten for copyright/verification issues (for instance, what I did with Appomattox Court House National Historical Park to keep it from being stubbed) isn't going to be removed, and content from other editors like Walrasiad isn't going to be removed either. Hog Farm _Talk 22:17, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

This is one of the (many) problems with so many editors having no idea how much work a CCI is, or even what is involved. Coldwell's content actually has to be teased out from other content, so that extensively rewriting his GAs before his content is removed makes the work even harder. 7+6 is seriously misstating the "nuke the article" issue, as one actually has to go into painstaking, time-consuming detail to figure out what can be removed. I did it last night for the Library article, took me over half an hour, but I didn't save the edit because the AN consensus is to hold off for GAR reasons. This half hour is after I have already spent days on that one article, and located as many sources online as I could. I shouldn't have to do that for every one of thousands of edits that need to be checked at the CCI. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:27, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support Regrettably there doesn't appear to be another option. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:02, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support TBAN and DYK ban 13 has been given ample opportunity to reflect on his actions with regards to this issue, and acknowledge the issues he has created when restoring content removed for copyvio reasons. For whatever reason he seems unable to understand, or unable to accept that Doug's contributions, particularly with regards to content supported by offline sources, were a problem. In order to prevent disruption of what will already be a long cleanup process, and in order to prevent future articles with copyvios from passing DYK, I have to support both bans. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:08, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
• This feels like a bit of a mob action. Now that doesn't mean the mob doesn't have a good point. But my sense is most of the folks commenting here are involved and have strong feelings about the user that predate the particular issue. That said, I think User:7&6=thirteen is doing a poor job of dealing with the issues and, at the least, is communicating poorly. I'd personally prefer someone open an ARBCOM case or, perhaps, find a set of uninvolved admins and get them to sort out the issues. I just don't think we have an unbiased jury. Which, I want to note, isn't the same as saying the defendant is innocent. Hobit (talk) 22:28, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  You're not wrong--I'm one of the people who have complained at noticeboards for a long time about 13's editing. Why does that make me "biased" as opposed to "perceptive" ... or "correct"? :-) Serious question: I have a greater-than-average knowledge of 13's editing, as do some of the other folks here. Why should our opinions be valued less than people who have less knowledge/experience with this issue than we do?

  As to opening an arbcom case... we just had one last year about 13 and deletion discussions, and 13 was TBANed from deletion as a result. If we open another arbcom case, who is going to post the evidence? Why make editors do more work? If I'm the one who posts the diffs, should they be discounted because of my past involvement? Does that help the community resolve this?

  Hobit, I encourage you to !vote, no matter how you vote. I fundamentally agree that this discussion, like most discussions, could benefit from more voices, but I don't think that an experienced jury is a biased jury. Levivich (talk) 22:36, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  I am the only involved editor entering a declaration, and my involvement is declared. On what basis do you claim that "most folks commenting here are involved"? Arbcom doesn't take cases that the community can solve. And an uninvolved admin will sort this when they close the thread. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:37, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  I saw some of the same names at the last 13 discussion. And at least two are, IMO, folks that sit in ideological opposition to 13 when it comes to inclusion/deletionism issues. And to answer the question about needing to post diffs: A) an involved person always posts diffs and makes a case at ARBCOM. The difference here is that you are making the case and serving on the jury by having a bold vote. And B) if you feel you'd need to do too much research and work to make a case ARBCOM would take, doesn't that say something about the case that's been made made here? A I don't have time right now to dig through all this and I probably won't until the weekend (I'm a single parent for a few more days). Hobit (talk) 23:37, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  Edit conflicted with Levivich, who says they are also involved; that makes two. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:38, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

• Perhaps I missed it in the fast-moving thread, but I haven't seen anyone yet mention 7&6's reply to Sandy on their talkpage here, which strikes me as being at best astonishingly tone-deaf and in poor taste. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:44, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  I chose to ignore it as just another side show. I was hoping to keep focus on a user who should not be reviewing content at all-- much less his friend's content-- in an environment where so many people are asking how we let Coldwell happen. Coldwell happened because of Quid Pro Quo reviewing at DYK, that feeds a need for bling, that can be furthered by friends reviewing friends' articles. And suddenly the problem is huge ... and as EEng said, woven throughout the fabric of Wikipedia. Hence, the DYK ban as well. It all started there, and we have the same thing happening there today: people passing articles to the main page that shouldn't even be on Wikipedia. We don't need editors reviewing DYKs who don't understand COPYVIO or too-close paraphrasing, or OR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:51, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  13 makes comments like that in every one of these discussions (something I know because of my prior involvement...). Civility and battleground behavior is the finding that arbcom made in the deletion case. We're seriously talking about 3 TBANs on an editor in one year, plus ongoing incivility? I'd support a siteban at this point. Levivich (talk) 22:55, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

  I did not know of this extensive history ... sometimes I amaze myself at what I stumble in to. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:39, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

• Blocked for 72 hours found this after SandyGeorgia followed up with me about the original close on my talk page. Reviewing the edits to mainspace and here, they're editing against community consensus in the AN thread above and are displaying battleground behavior on general and in this thread. I've blocked for 72 hours to allow the community to decide if further action is needed without having to worry about continued disruption. If there's consensus here to undo my block at any point, I'm fine with it being lifted, but I thought it would be helpful in allowing the process to continue while limiting disruption. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support Topic Ban 7&6=13 simply doesn't understand what the issue with his actions are with regard to Doug Coldwell articles, and unless he shows significant understanding, there is no choice but to topic ban him from the area given the massive amount of editor time already being spent dealing with Coldwell articles. Also, Comment since another user has already proposed a block, I am not yet weighing in, but 7&6=13's past of sanctions must be considered. In 2022 he was a party to an Arbcom case in which he was topic banned from deletion, and one arbitrator (Worm) supported a site ban even at that time. ( Two other arbitrators abstained.) Jackattack1597 (talk) 23:41, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support both topic bans and site ban. Competence and a willingness to cooperate are both necessary to collaborate here. 7&6 is lacking one or both, and in plenty of contexts apart from Doug Coldwell's contributions. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 00:37, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support both topic bans— at a minimum. We need a cooling off period here so that editors can dig into the DC mess without unnecessary impediments in their way.
  Now, let me address 7&6 for a moment. He and I have worked together a little long ago, and I know him to be well meaning in the past. 7&6, I understand that you think that you're defending the honor of a friend. I know you want to preserve contributions to Wikipedia that you think are valuable. Loyalty like that is commendable. The trouble is that the object of your loyalty has been found to have breached core levels of trust with the community and opened that same community up to potential legal ramifications. Unfortunately, a lot of Doug Coldwell's contributions will have to be undone. They all need to be scrupulously checked against all of the original sources. We can't assume good faith anymore at this level. We have to verify everything he's done to get rid of these issues. You need to step aside and let people do that work. Doug has no more honor to defend.
  Now, 7&6, you have a temporary block to give some time for this discussion to proceed. This time should also allow you to reflect on the situation. If you come back guns blazing, obstructing the CCI work on DC's articles, if you fight the process to delist GAs that aren't adopted and rewritten, etc., then I will support a full site ban given the past history of warnings and the behavior here before your temporary block. Imzadi 1979 → 01:32, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support both topic bans. I've followed this since the Doug Coldwell problems came to light recently, and more than anything it just makes me very sad. But sometimes hard decisions need to be made, and the right one was made in his case (with a strong community consensus). Now, 7&6=thirteen has clearly been working too closely with Doug to have been the right person to do DYK or GA reviews, and is too emotionally involved to attempt to work on any cleanup. That alone would mean they should be excluded from the work. But the refusal to understand and accept the consensus decison, the deliberate attempts to obstruct the cleanup, the evasion, the obfuscation, the hyperbole, the battleground, the personal attacks, all make that exclusion more urgent. This is very disappointing behaviour from someone with such extensive experience here. I hope further sanctions aren't needed once the current short block expires. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:49, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

  PS: I just want to add that, to the best of my recollection, I've had no past conflicts with either Doug Coldwell or 7&6=thirteen, I don't think I've overlapped in any subject areas with them, and I'm not aware of any ideological differences with either of them. I'm about as uninvolved as I can be, as far as I know. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:16, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

As I am processing through a chart to sort article history and template errors for the talk page notices to be sent re User:SandyGeorgia/sandbox9 and implementation of the GAR process, I happened across an interesting example of 7+6 participation in a GAR: Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/James L. Buie/1. Worth a read as relevant to this discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:15, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support topic and community bans Anyone who compares being discussed at a noticeboard with being dragged off by the Gestapo lacks the maturity to participate in a collaborative environment.72.213.11.193 (talk) 14:59, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support TBANs and CBANs. This is just one in a long, long series of AN/Is related to 13's behavior and it doesn't surprise me in the least that he's here again. The same attitude that was incompatible with deletion discussions is also incompatible with DYK/GAR, and the continuing civility issues just push this over the edge. JoelleJay (talk) 17:41, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support topic bans at minimum Full disclosure: I have come into conflict with 13 before. Their conduct in this case falls below the standards expected of an experienced user, and I don't see any other viable alternative other than to topic ban them to avoid continuing disruption. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:44, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Remove me from AutoWikiBrowser checkpage

Please remove me from the AWB checkpage. I haven't actually used it at all, and don't have a real need for it either, so I think it's best for me to be removed from it. Invalid^OS_talk 19:41, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Done. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:31, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Personal attacks?

In almost 20 years on Wikipedia I have never sought admin action over personal attacks. I usually just ignore them. However, there is a content dispute shaping up at Rocket Lab and I'm hoping to discuss the issue without things becoming personalized. In an attempt to keep it content focused I responded to an edit summary that I thought started down that path, requesting the editor avoid such things. I got even worse in return. I'm not necessarily advocating for a block, they're a good editor with valid concerns on the topic, but would like to note the exchange at User talk:NickCT in case it gets worse. Dispute resolution is for content and I don't really see it spelled out where the line for admin action is, so could use some direction there. Thanks. Grey Wanderer (talk) 19:43, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Hey, GW. You're required to notify, I've done that for you. Valereee (talk) 20:25, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! Grey Wanderer (talk) 21:19, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Unban request for Raymondskie99

Raymondskie99 is currently banned by community consensus (WP:3X, I believe) as well as being locked across all Wikimedia projects. They have a long history of evasion documented at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Raymondskie99/Archive. They have made the following request via UTRS appeal #68877 to have their ban lifted and so I will reenable their talk page access. I present the request without taking a position on whether it should be granted. Note that there's been technical block evasion here, but I believe WP:AGF would apply to that. Checkuser data shows no recent block evasion (keeping that single edit out of consideration). --Yamla (talk) 21:00, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

I created my first account with Raymondskie99 back in 2017 and was blocked several months later by User:Bbb23 when that time he still has checkuser rights. I was unaware of policies like sock puppetry and etc. I just keep reverting the majority of critically endangered species to extinct, eventually leading to my account being blocked as disruptive editing. I was still immature way back then, and my English is awful. After being blocked for months, I decided to evade by creating new accounts, which User:Loopy30 noticed and reported to the sockpuppet investigation. Then, when I saw this, I regretfully personally attacked him homophobically once as User:Yamla said, and also disruptively edited German Wikipedia, which eventually my account was later globally locked. Some of my accounts overlap with other sockmasters at video games articles like TotalTruthTeller24, PlayerSasha, Cassandra, possibly impersonating MRY (since he attacked my SPI and talk page after allegedly stalked the protecting admin, Ferret, after the vandalism spree from Fire Emblem characters) and etc. After plenty of socks had been blocked, I decided to evade further and created User:GeeJay24. After being caught, I decided to vandalize some of the articles at the end since requesting a self-block has failed, so my account wouldn't be checkuser blocked and my edits wouldn't be reverted per deny policy. I went on discord to send dm on ferret and User:Sergecross73 and promised to fulfill the Standard offer, but I doubted that I would be unblocked at that time, so I decided to evade once more and lied. After my most recent account was blocked, I decided to use a variety of IP addresses and proxies to edit other articles and then finished improving 10 species of nuthatch articles, including White-throated treerunner into GA using my dynamic IP addresses. Those articles were mostly GA reviewed by User:AryKun, User:Jens Lallensack and User:An anonymous username, not my real name. After editing with multiple ips, I decided to create another account for the last time, BloatedBun, so I could edit on semi-protected pages. 5 months later, ferret caught me again, and with no choice but to follow the rules and fulfill the Standard offer now. After it was blocked, I used my IP for the last time to expand a little bit more and fix every flaws I saw at the articles before eventually stopping editing. I am aware that I have been blocked several times due to sockpuppetry. I am remorseful for everything I did. I am currently a grown-up person with a job, unlike before when I was just a kid who had nothing to do with my life. I spend my 6 months elsewhere doing things like focusing on the job, Twitter, YouTube and playing video games often, but I admit that I still broke the rules on discord by joining my other account to the Wikipedia server despite my original account was already removed so that I can maybe avoid editing while waiting for SO. I fully understand why my prior conduct has been unacceptable, I have learned from my past mistakes and will not repeat them, as my only goal is to improve the encyclopedia further. Thank you, Wikipedia community! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Raymondskie99 (talk • contribs)

Presented without taking a position. Yamla (talk) 21:00, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if you re-enable talk page access. A globally locked editor can't log in to their account. If you want this account to respond to you on-wiki, you would have to ask a steward for a global unlock. You can do that at m:SRG. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:35, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Will do, thanks NJP. --Yamla (talk) 21:37, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Procedural/policy question: does a global lock preclude us from lifting a local ban? —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 22:42, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Unban or modify a CIDR range ban

A friend informed me that you have banned the entire IP range of 109.178.128.0/17 . That's 32,768 IP addresses from the most popular ISP of Greece (Cosmote). As a result, new users from Cosmote's network cannot register an account or edit articles. I believe that this is too severe a measure as it pretty much hinders an extremely large portion of Greek users from contributing to Wikipedia. TritonXVIII (talk) 21:40, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Note that the block is anon-only. Anyone with an account can contribute without problems, anyone without can get an account via WP:ACC. The blocking admin in this case is Widr. TritonXVIII, you are required to notify them. --Yamla (talk) 22:36, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

User 193.207.202.54

Vandalism on Amanda Lear and Amanda Lear discography. Thanks. Eliedion (talk) 23:10, 31 January 2023 (UTC)