Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard: Difference between revisions
Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit Advanced mobile edit |
|||
| Line 671: | Line 671: | ||
{{re|HandThatFeeds}} {{re|In actu}} {{re|Grandpallama}} [[WP:GAB]] instructs to {{tq|explain why the block reason is incorrect or not applicable to your conduct}}, and that's what I'm doing here. The entire statement above is focused on my own actions and their assessment by Callanecc; actions by others are mentioned only as context. I don't see how [[WP:NOTTHEM]] is relevant. --[[User:Crash48|Crash48]] ([[User talk:Crash48|talk]]) 14:09, 28 January 2024 (UTC) |
{{re|HandThatFeeds}} {{re|In actu}} {{re|Grandpallama}} [[WP:GAB]] instructs to {{tq|explain why the block reason is incorrect or not applicable to your conduct}}, and that's what I'm doing here. The entire statement above is focused on my own actions and their assessment by Callanecc; actions by others are mentioned only as context. I don't see how [[WP:NOTTHEM]] is relevant. --[[User:Crash48|Crash48]] ([[User talk:Crash48|talk]]) 14:09, 28 January 2024 (UTC) |
||
{{re|HandThatFeeds}} It might help if you point to specific instruction(s) from GAB that you believe I'm ignoring. {{tq|Multiple editors found fault with your behavior, which is what led to this TBAN}} is not true: the TBAN was imposed by Callanecc alone, without any input from other editors. --[[User:Crash48|Crash48]] ([[User talk:Crash48|talk]]) 12:43, 30 January 2024 (UTC) |
|||
===Statement by Callanecc=== |
===Statement by Callanecc=== |
||
Revision as of 12:43, 30 January 2024
| Welcome — post issues of interest to administrators. |
|---|
When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough. Sections inactive for over seven days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.(archives, search) |
Open tasks
| V | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CfD | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| TfD | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| MfD | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| FfD | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| RfD | 0 | 0 | 25 | 20 | 45 |
| AfD | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
- 0 bot-reported usernames for administrator attention
- 4 user-reported usernames for administrator attention
- 1 bot-generated requests for intervention against vandalism
- 1 user-generated requests for intervention against vandalism
- 12 sockpuppet investigations
- 4 Candidates for speedy deletion
- 9 Fully protected edit requests
- 0 Candidates for history merging
- 0 requests for RD1 redaction
- 39 elapsed requested moves
- 4 Pages at move review
- 11 requested closures
- 81 requests for unblock
- 0 Wikipedians looking for help from administrators
- 10 Copyright problems
Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection
Report
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Community ban appeal for Barts1a (Needs Attention)
- Barts1a (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) (user notes this as original account)
- aka Twitbookspacetube (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
- Link to CBAN discussion
Appeal carried over-- "I have questioned if this appeal is even worth it. I’m so disconnected from Wikipedia at this point that if I was successful I would be starting from scratch. I have not been successful in talking myself out of this so here we go. TL;DR at bottom. I started my Wikipedia saga in October 2006 under the username Doggie015, later renamed to Barts1a due to lessened insult potential. Over the years I slowly built up edits, complaints, blocks, and editing restrictions until I decided I should try to start fresh under a new account. To this day I cannot tell you the logic behind this decision; but in October 2012; I created the user account PantherLeapord, making it clear that I was also the guy operating Barts1a with my first edit. I was evading my editing restrictions from day 1 on that account, and I had become convinced that some time off to let the heat die down could let me return with a clean slate, so in November 2016 I created the user account Twitbookspacetube, which was readily linked to the Barts1a and PantherLeapord accounts, But I was still the same naïve fool and in September 2017 the community bought the hammer down as a community ban.
I made a few appeals of my community ban under the delusional beliefs listed below and obviously they were denied, which caused me to become disinterested in contributing to Wikipedia and take time to truly reflect on what I did. It's a long and complicated saga spanning 11 years, and there is no way to properly sum up the whole thing without writing a biography-length breakdown. But I’m not here to tell you the story, I’m here to appeal the community ban, And to address the various reasons that added up to this outcome.
First of all; I would like to present a list of what I believe to be the reasons that ultimately added up to this. I’ve had 6 years to reflect on this but even then I don’t think I got everything. Repeated lies, manipulation, being too eager to do what I see as "helping" regardless of who gets hurt along the way, being like a metaphorical bull in a china shop for filing at ArbCom, failed/Invalid WP:CLEANSTART, Being on what I now see as a false crusade against "Corrupt admins" where none exist, and generally being annoying.
I realize that there are some things I would have missed here, and if I have, or you want something further explained; feel free to point it out and I’ll do my best to expand on it. Repeated lies & Manipulation: I didn’t see myself as doing these things at the time, but now that I’ve had time to think about it I can see where these accusations come from. I did my best to work around restrictions I viewed as punitive and overbearing. Every time I would be seen as reformed, and even once managed to get some restrictions lifted, I fell back into my old behavior assuming that the lifting of the restrictions was a final victory against my fictional “corrupt admins” and when they were reimposed, I ignored them because I saw that as proof of these fictional “corrupt admins” retaliating against me. It was done to prevent my antics from damaging the encyclopedia, and the actions of all admins involved would pass any level of scrutiny.
Eagerness to help, consequences be damned: I saw myself as a “Hero” of Wikipedia who would lead the encyclopedia into a new golden age without vandalism and disruption. I realize now how stupid I was to assume I could do anything like that. And as I did my “Hero” work, I ignored everyone who I got in the way. I ran through every barrier and every person with no regard for what I did to them. I don’t think I can apologize to everyone, I suspect that a lot of them have left the encyclopedia project, but to those you still able to read this; I humbly apologize for what I did, and I hope I can make up for it.
ArbCom bull in a china shop: I was eager to help take down the fictional “Corrupt admins” so in the brief time my restrictions did not include a ban from noticeboards; I looked for cases of bad admin behaviour, posed the question to the community if there were any objections, and upon receiving none; I filed cases at ArbCom. I was assuming that no objections meant the path was clear, even if it proved to be anything but. I should have slowed down and thought about what I was doing and why, but I didn’t. I apologize for the ArbCom time wasted as a result of this, and to the community for bringing these cases without explicit approval.
Failed/Invalid WP:CLEANSTART: I assumed that WP:CLEANSTART applied to my case as a “Get out of jail free” card, ignoring that it only applies to accounts without any editing restrictions and active blocks. I was thoroughly mistaken about it and for that, I apologize. I will be sticking to the Barts1a account in the interest of transparency, should the community see fit to give me yet another chance.
The false crusade: Underlying all this behavior was my false belief that Wikipedia administrators personally hated me and wanted to do everything possible to prevent me from being the “Hero” of the encyclopedia. This delusion was the driving force behind these actions. I now realize how wrong this belief was and I apologize for it. I cannot undo the many wrongs I have committed, but hopefully, I can make up for them.
Being annoying: There’s not a lot to say on this one. I was annoying. I hope that I can be given a chance to prove that I can stop being annoying.
I cannot truly express my deep regret for my actions, and I hope that the community can forgive me. I can understand if this forgiveness is denied. And hopefully, this wall of text is not too intimidating.
Barts1a / Talk to me / Help me improve 10:39 pm, 14 January 2024, last Sunday (2 days ago) (UTC−5)
TL;DR: I started here in 2006, and attempted to evade sanctions and restrictions by changing usernames multiple times, which led to this community ban imposed in 2017. Upon reflection, I truly realize how I was dishonest, and manipulative, and overzealous, and annoying. I have addressed what I view as the major mistakes in the wall of text above. If you find a point I failed to address, let me know. Barts1a / Talk to me / Help me improve 8:26 pm, 15 January 2024, last Monday (2 days ago) (UTC−5)
Additional: I completely forgot about the Sir Uncle Ned account. I had intended to use that account as yet another WP:CLEANSTART attempt, but I couldn't bring myself to so it so I sent an email to TonyBallioni admitting this, and they got the sockpuppet tagged and blocked. Barts1a / Talk to me / Help me improve 10:51 pm, 14 January 2024, last Sunday (2 days ago) (UTC−5)"
Carried over by me, -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 14:07, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- Comment Currently awaiting a response to some questions I left on their talk but leaning towards support per WP:SO and WP:ROPE. This would be conditional on no block evasion within the last few years which would need to be confirmed by a CU. After reading their full throated mea culpa, and IF they have respected their block for the last few years, I think I'd be willing to give them another chance. Obviously, it would be with the understanding that they would be on a very short leash for a while. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:49, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- They recently created a sock User:Sir Uncle Ned as recently as June 2023. While they admitted what they did, I wouldn't say that is "respecting the block". RickinBaltimore (talk) 19:45, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- They created a sock, however he doesn't appear to have actually used it to make any edits. If a sock falls in the forest and confesses before actually socking, is it still evasion? WP:BANPOL does state
forbidden from making any edit, anywhere on Wikipedia, via any account or as an unregistered user, under any and all circumstances
and it does not look like that account violated the ban except by existing. The WordsmithTalk to me 20:11, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- They created a sock, however he doesn't appear to have actually used it to make any edits. If a sock falls in the forest and confesses before actually socking, is it still evasion? WP:BANPOL does state
- Conditional Support based on their answers to my questions on their talk page and what looks like an honest confession above. Subject to a CU finding no evidence of recent block evasion. I'm prepared to overlook their creation of the sock account last summer as they do not appear to have used it and declared its existence. All of which said, I would add that any disruptive behavior should result in a swift reblock. There has been a lot of time expended on this user in the past and I have no inclination to go down that road again. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:23, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- They recently created a sock User:Sir Uncle Ned as recently as June 2023. While they admitted what they did, I wouldn't say that is "respecting the block". RickinBaltimore (talk) 19:45, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- Comment I also left some questions on the user talkpage, and we are still pending a Checkuser. The appeal itself seems pretty sincere and thorough. I'm not taking a firm position just yet without more information, but if everything checks out I could see myself endorsing it. The WordsmithTalk to me 20:14, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- Support Unblock after thinking on it more. There would need to be an understanding that this is an absolute final chance; if there is any future disruption the ban will be reapplied and another appeal would be very unlikely. Second chances are cheap, third ones are very rare. The WordsmithTalk to me 20:31, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose their original appeal to me via email (which I shared with the functionaries list since I'm no longer a CU or admin) was clearly written by ChatGPT or something similar. That plus the nonsense of their last appeal where they intentionally vandalized logged out in order to attract attention to their appeal has me convinced they are a bad faith user who should never be unblocked. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Noting for the record that the previous appeal (presumably) referred to by Tony is located at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive297#Ban appeal by Twitbookspacetube. Dylan620 (he/him • talk • edits) 19:49, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Support unblock. The request itself seems harmless. Seems nothing wrong with giving another chance. Lorstaking (talk) 05:50, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Leaning oppose Barts1a/Twitbookspacetube has a number of editing restrictions, currently at Wikipedia:Editing_restrictions/Archive, which are: not allowed to use Huggle, subject to a 1RR restriction, topic banned from all noticeboards, including ArbCom case requests and cases, and topic banned from all contentious articles and their talk pages. I question whether it is worth the potential risk to unblock an editor with so many restrictions. I remember the disruption caused by the Twitbookspacetube account, and while six years is a long time, it's not encouraging that they admit to making "disruptive edits as an IP in late 2022 or early 2023". There's also precious little indication of how they would be a productive editor going forward. -- Pawnkingthree (talk) 22:07, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- I am sympathetic to TonyBallioni's concerns and am dismayed to hear about the IP editing referred to above by Pawnkingthree, but on balance, I support an unban here. I recall seeing some good work from Barts1a (even if I can't recall precisely what, given it was over a decade ago – I was inactive for long stretches of the 2010s). In light of that, and what I view as a thorough and self-reflective appeal above, I believe that the potential exists for Wikipedia to benefit from this user's return. That said, it should be made clear that this would be an absolute final chance; any more disruption at all would lead to a swift reban. If this appeal is unsuccessful, then I encourage Barts1a to contribute constructively to other projects—his work on the Simple English Wikipedia is scant but seems promising, and certainly the Simple English Wiktionary could do with some plugging of its holes in coverage—and file another appeal in six to twelve months. Dylan620 (he/him • talk • edits) 19:50, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Note This has now been open for a week or so. Although participation has been a bit light, I'm thinking it might be time for an uninvolved admin to close the discussion. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:27, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Support I'm hesitant to comment on such discussions, the last time I supported an appeal I was quickly burnt. But the editor seems ernest and from comments on their talk page seem to have understood The Wordsmith point that this would be their very last chance. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:24, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose the confessed disruptive IP edits are too recent IMO. Also, I'm skeptical of the claim that they had forgotten about the Sir Uncle Ned account. If I was a banned editor trying to get reinstated, I doubt it would completely slip my mind that I had created a new account within the past year. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 06:22, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Support. They admitted to creating the Sir Uncle Ned account before the unblock request was carried over and said that they forgot. Unless anyone can tell me that they were being pressed to declare that previous sock before their self-declaration I don't see an intention to mislead. As per many above, this would be a last chance if they were unblocked, and I support per WP:ROPE. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 10:46, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Support, per 0xDeadbeef & Ad Orientem. Reblocks (if needed) are cheap. Happy days, ~ LindsayHello 17:58, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Closure review request for the RfC on the "Airlines and destinations" tables in airport articles
Closer: ScottishFinnishRadish (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Notified: [1]
Reasoning: The issue the closer was to decide was whether Wikipedia should maintain complete, current lists of airlines and their destinations in articles about airports. In closing, they said the lists may only be included when reliable, independent, secondary sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE. They also said on their talk page that they believe WP:NOT makes it clear that the threshold for inclusion for content that would normally not be part of the encyclopedia is inclusion in independent secondary sources
. However, while such sources are required to show that a topic deserves its own article (WP:GNG), the same requirement cannot be applied to the content of an article (WP:NNC). Therefore, in order to avoid creating a new standard for content inclusion that is not rooted in policy, I believe the closure should directly state that per the consensus, the lists should not be included because of WP:NOT.
In addition, ScottishFinnishRadish wrote that their closure was partly based on a common thread that they had identified in people's comments. I believe there is a similar, longer thread in the RFC that actually supports the following idea: Individual routes can be described if reliable sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE. Since my list of quotes from contributors to the RFC is somewhat long, here is a link to it in my sandbox.
In short, I think the first paragraph of the closure should be reworded as follows (my text in italics): "After reviewing the !votes and discussion, it is clear that there is consensus that airlines and destination tables should not be included in articles because of WP:NOT. Individual routes can be described if reliable sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE. There is not a consensus for wholesale removal of such tables". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sunnya343 (talk • contribs)
- Superseded by my !vote below. Sunnya343 (talk) 01:35, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
RFC non-participants (airlines and destinations RFC)
- Not a huge fan of this close either for the reasons you mentioned, but if it's overturned, it shouldn't be to a stronger consensus against inclusion; there's no such consensus present in the discussion. I find weighing the WP:NOT arguments so heavily in such a discussion unconvincing; we can choose what content we want to cover and WP:NOT wasn't handed down by god. Elli (talk | contribs) 04:22, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm confused. The primary close line "airlines and destination tables may only be included in articles when independent, reliable, secondary sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE." seems rather novel. WP:DUE is mainly focused on neutrality (the first word in the section) and majority/minority/fringe opinions or interpretations, not something like a schedule, which is a hard, cold fact. I'm struggling to understand exactly how WP:DUE plays into whether or not an exhaustive list should or shouldn't be included, which is an editorial decision, based on whether WP:NOT applies or doesn't. Maybe it is just me, but again, I'm confused. Dennis Brown 2¢ 04:54, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think that might have intended to be a reference to WP:BALASP? People often conflate WP:DUE and WP:BALASP - I’m not actually sure why they are distinct, it would make sense to me to merge them into one. BilledMammal (talk) 04:59, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- While that (on the surface) looks closer to the situation, I don't think that was the intent in creating that policy. The entire policy it falls under is called "Neutral point of view", so I can't see the policy applies in any way, shape, or form, to the (dis)allowing a list of all flights. That appears to fall directly into WP:NOT. I'm not commenting on the merits at this point, I'm just saying I think it is a mistake to use any part of WP:NPOV as guidance in the close. Neutrality isn't at issue, the only issue would seem to be "is this level of detail appropriate, or not?" which exactly what Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not was created to define. The closer should be taking all the votes based on WP:NOT and deciding if they are appropriate interpretations of the policy, not only as written, but in spirit as well. I can't fathom how you can weigh neutrality in the inclusion. There may be other policy considerations, but anything related to NPOV (ie: DUE or BALASP) isn't one of them. Dennis Brown 2¢ 05:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- I would disagree with that; in my opinion as written BALASP clearly applies to all aspects of the article, even when those aspects - in the view of editors - are impartial.
- Indeed, BALASP says as much;
For example, a description of isolated events, quotes, criticisms, or news reports related to one subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic.
BilledMammal (talk) 05:34, 18 January 2024 (UTC)- But that is very different from a table of schedules, be it train/air/bus, or say a sports teams schedule, or other "hard facts" that can't possibly be "Not neutral". Describing isolated events, or select news reports CAN make an article biased. Obviously adding quotes or criticisms can skew the article and make it violate NPOV. Adding a schedule can not, in any way, skew the bias for or against the airline. This is why schedules are specifically not listed in the policy on Neutrality. It simply does not apply here. I see WP:DUE misused in this context by editors somewhat regularly, but not in a close. It's an honest mistake, but it is a mistake. Dennis Brown 2¢ 05:50, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- What I see NPOV doing is telling editors to follow the sources, in all aspects - even when editors believe that a certain aspect has no bearing on neutrality.
- For example, a recent dispute came by dispute resolution where editors were arguing how much prominence to give John De Lancie’s role in My Little Pony compared to his role in Star Trek. Both of those roles are “hard facts” that can’t possibly not be neutral, but to decide how much weight to give either in his article is based entirely on NPOV - to interpret NPOV otherwise would effectively turn resolving such a dispute into “which aspect do Wikipedians think is more important” rather than “which aspect do reliable sources think is more important”
- The same is true of schedules.
- However, these aspects can have a direct bearing on an articles neutrality. For example, giving excessive weight to “hard facts” can result in giving improperly low weight to important controversies - indeed, this is a common tool of the better paid editors, who don’t remove controversies but instead bury them in verifiable facts. BilledMammal (talk) 06:16, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- I will just leave it for now. I don't think they are the same, and obviously I think this is stretching WP:DUE too far to use in this particular instance. The issue at hand is one of appropriateness, not bias. Again, I have no comment on the merits of the discussion itself. Dennis Brown 2¢ 06:20, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- But that is very different from a table of schedules, be it train/air/bus, or say a sports teams schedule, or other "hard facts" that can't possibly be "Not neutral". Describing isolated events, or select news reports CAN make an article biased. Obviously adding quotes or criticisms can skew the article and make it violate NPOV. Adding a schedule can not, in any way, skew the bias for or against the airline. This is why schedules are specifically not listed in the policy on Neutrality. It simply does not apply here. I see WP:DUE misused in this context by editors somewhat regularly, but not in a close. It's an honest mistake, but it is a mistake. Dennis Brown 2¢ 05:50, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- While that (on the surface) looks closer to the situation, I don't think that was the intent in creating that policy. The entire policy it falls under is called "Neutral point of view", so I can't see the policy applies in any way, shape, or form, to the (dis)allowing a list of all flights. That appears to fall directly into WP:NOT. I'm not commenting on the merits at this point, I'm just saying I think it is a mistake to use any part of WP:NPOV as guidance in the close. Neutrality isn't at issue, the only issue would seem to be "is this level of detail appropriate, or not?" which exactly what Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not was created to define. The closer should be taking all the votes based on WP:NOT and deciding if they are appropriate interpretations of the policy, not only as written, but in spirit as well. I can't fathom how you can weigh neutrality in the inclusion. There may be other policy considerations, but anything related to NPOV (ie: DUE or BALASP) isn't one of them. Dennis Brown 2¢ 05:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- DUE also mentions "aspects", but it's true that it focuses primarily on viewpoints. I would say that use of "DUE" as shorthand for "worth including in the article per the NPOV policy as a whole" is commonplace, and BALANCE is underused as a link, though one participant in the RfC did reference it specifically. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:27, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think that might have intended to be a reference to WP:BALASP? People often conflate WP:DUE and WP:BALASP - I’m not actually sure why they are distinct, it would make sense to me to merge them into one. BilledMammal (talk) 04:59, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse. A major part of the objection rationale is a declaration that GNG doesn't apply to article content. This reads as a non-sequitur, since GNG was not mentioned in the close. The guidance to rely primarily on sources that are secondary and independent is not restricted to GNG. It appears, for example, in our NPOV and OR policies and the RS guideline. These were all cited in the RfC. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse. This seems pretty clear cut. If someone is arguing that content should be included without regard for its weight in reliable secondary sources, that's a fundamental misunderstanding about how content is managed on Wikipedia and such !votes are not going to be taken seriously. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:01, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse. The RfC asks
whether airport articles should mention every single flight that the airport offers (no matter the way that the information is presented)
. The answer was very clearly "no" based on WP:NOT. I think the way the close was phrased is within closer discretion and that we should avoid micromanaging a close. That said, I read many of the !votes based on WP:NOT to be against inclusion of any tables at all, but that wasn't the question the RfC was asking. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:46, 18 January 2024 (UTC)- Clarification: the tables list every destination, not every flight. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 08:50, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse. The close is a reasonable summary of the consensus embodied by the RfC responses, and this is not a venue to re-litigate the arguments. Bon courage (talk) 05:18, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn based on Wikipedia policies. I was not involved in the RfC but I have studied it and discussed it since with several people.
- The closer correctly noted the the Oppose/keep !voters were in the majority but made weak arguments. The closer then cited 3 policies in their decision to limit list items to those that are secondarily sourced. Lets look at what those 3 policies say:
- WP:BURDEN: the lead sentences of WP:BURDEN, a section of WP:VERIFY, say
”All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports[b] the contribution.”
- WP:PRIMARY, a section of WP:NOR, allows the use of primary sources to satisfy verifiability subject to criteria. There are 6 requirements; these are the ones salient to this discussion:
"Primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them."
. These table's editors cite material directly from airlines and airports. Neither publishes fake destinations."Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation."
Destination information provided by airlines and airports consists of simple facts requiring no interpretation."A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source…"
"Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself…"
"Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them."
Destination tables make up <10% of most airport articles' text.
- WP:ONUS, a section of WP:VERIFY, says:
”While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content."
- The majority of the !voters at the RfC said the tables were valuable
- At the one article where Sunnya343 deleted a destination table, opposition to deletion was unanimous on the article talk page. The opposers found the table valuable.
- The majority of the !voters at the RfC said the tables were valuable
- WP:NOT. An RfC was conducted to specifically amend WP:NOT to exclude all transportation destination tables (not just airports):
-
- Outcome:
"There is a clear consensus against the proposed addition to WP:NOTDIR."
- WP:NOT does not exclude these tables.
- WP:NOT does not exclude these tables.
- Outcome:
-
As I see it, a majority supported inclusion and the closer misapplied the 3 policies they cited. Simple facts from reliable primary sources support simple facts in these accurate, very well-maintained tables. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 07:56, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- I have a few gripes with some of these points:
Primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.
– Misuse in this context doesn't mean posting false information. It means drawing inappropriate conclusions based on the existence of primary sources. This would include the prominence of information in the article relative to its actual weight in reliable sources.Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself…
– You cut off the second half of this sentence:instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so.
Deciding that the content is important independently of its weight in reliable secondary sources is evaluation.Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them.
– You're correct that it's not the "entire article", but you ignore the portion about "large passages", which is critical here. The point of having that expectation is because we don't want primary sources to determine what type of content goes into the article. When primary sources are used (which should be sparingly), they should be in conjunction with secondary sources, not in a section of the article dependent exclusively on primary sources.The majority of the !voters at the RfC said the tables were valuable
– Consensus is not determined by head-count, and it's not fair to say that consensus to include was reached.opposition to deletion was unanimous on the article talk page.
– This is a valid point until it was overruled by the RfC. Site-wide consensus overrules WP:LOCALCONSENSUS.WP:NOT does not exclude these tables.
– That an RfC did not support a specific wording, in large part on procedural grounds, does not invalidate WP:NOTDIRECTORY, where the very first point disallowsSimple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit.
- Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:53, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- I have a few gripes with some of those points:
It means drawing inappropriate conclusions based on the existence of primary sources. This would include the prominence of information in the article relative to its actual weight in reliable sources.
Every route announcement nowadays - and likely in the past as well - gets announced in the media somewhere. A mere mention in a table is probably exactly the amount of prominence the information needs to receive.Deciding that the content is important independently of its weight in reliable secondary sources is evaluation.
We're getting really into the weeds here. Lots of factual information already on an airport article will already be sourced to primary sources, such as latitude and longitude, runway length, elevation... evaluation in this context does not mean inclusion.not in a section of the article dependent exclusively on primary sources.
The assumption here is that every airline route article is primary, which is not the case.it's not fair to say that consensus to include was reached
It's also not fair to say consensus to remove was reached. Furthermore, this discussion was about whether this information is encyclopaedic, and if it had advertised to the community which actively maintains the information a different consensus may have been reached, since many of us view it as encyclopedic....simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit.
without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit - notwithstanding WP:NOTDIRECTORY does not apply here - we could deliver this information in prose, but it's far easier to understand and contextualise in a tabular format - this was rebutted in the RfC by the premise that destinations from shipping ports were routinely included in print encyclopedias, showing there is clearly encyclopedic merit to these tables. There are two valid arguments here: whether this is encyclopedic, and whether it is WP:NOT. SportingFlyer T·C 18:05, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Finally, none of these are specifically about the close, but all get into a rehashing of the RfC. SportingFlyer T·C 18:05, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- I have a few gripes with some of those points:
- I have a few gripes with some of these points:
- Overturn per A. B., but also because the close was not supported by the discussion: out of over 50 participants, only a small number discussed sourcing, and fewer than five discussed sourcing to the level of detail to which the closer drew their conclusion. The easiest thing here would be to overturn to simple no consensus. (There are also a lot of users who gnome in this area who may not have been notified about the discussion, myself included.) SportingFlyer T·C 13:19, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse. I agree with Bon courage that the close is a reasonable summary of the discussion. JBL (talk) 21:09, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn A closer is supposed to summarize the discussion. This doesn't mean counting votes, but counting votes can be pretty illuminating for which direction the discussion is going. Reading the discussion, there's a small but pretty clear majority for keeping the tables. It's possible for a sufficient policy-based reasoning to overcome this, but despite what the closer said, I'm not seeing it. Both sides appear to be making policy-based arguments: the argument that a piece of information has encyclopedic value and therefore it should be kept is not merely WP:ILIKEIT, it's a perfectly reasonable argument against deleting a piece of content. A second reason I doubt either side was making non-policy compliant arguments is that there were several admins and lots of long-standing users on both sides of this argument, which implies that neither side was ignorant of policy. It feels to me like the closer made a WP:SUPERVOTE because the "no" arguments were more convincing to them personally rather than closing based on the actual discussion. Loki (talk) 08:28, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Here are a few !votes from the slim majority to include the tables:
The tables are fine if they are based in secondary sources rather than original research using booking systems and the like.
Secondary sourcesYes, the tables should stay – from a user standpoint, I've found them very helpful.
Yes. WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NPOV can cover relevant concerns.
Yes.
- The "common thread" quotes in my close were all from those supporting inclusion. This is why counting bolded votes is not illuminating in many cases. Additionally, some supporting inclusion cited WP:READERSFIRST, which is an essay, not a policy or guideline. WP:Closing discussions is pretty clear that arguments based on policies get more weight, and responses
based on personal opinion only
or thatshow no understanding of the matter of issue
should be discarded. Arguments based in part on personal opinion or rebutted by policy based arguments should be weighed less than those with a strong policy basis. I covered this in the close, explaining why some responses were downweighted. The arguments based on encyclopedic value without any evidence are strongly rebutted by those citing NPOV/DUE while discussing using sources to establish weight statesThe relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is irrelevant and should not be considered.
So stating "it's encyclopedic and should be included" while not providing any rationale that rebuts the requirement that sources be provided to demonstrate something is DUE and meets NPOV is a weak argument. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:40, 21 January 2024 (UTC)- Only one user cited WP:DUE and only one user cited WP:NPOV, out of over 50 participants, without any substantive discussion of how either apply!! SportingFlyer T·C 16:52, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
demonstrating that they are not significant enough to merit inclusion in an article
- link to NPOV/BALASPYes, airport articles should include such tables when including a table would be due
- invokes DUEOf course, all the usual guidelines relating to weight and reliable referencing (I'm thinking specifically of WP:BURDEN and WP:ONUS) should still be considered,
- invokes DUEAlso if no other sources are describing this information, beyond primary sources, then are they WP:DUE.
links to DUEI cannot see how these lists/tables of the airlines/destinations serviced by an airport provide so much utility and encyclopedic value as to override our policies on indiscriminate info, NOTDB, BALANCE, NOTNEWS, and OR.
WP:BALANCE is part of NPOVWP:V, WP:RS and WP:NPOV can cover relevant concerns
links to NPOVSo we get WP:NOTABILITY, WP:UNDUE, etc. weighing in too.
links to UNDUETMI is a WP:ESSAY, WP:NPOV is a WP:POLICY.
link to NPOV
- These are some of the explicit mentions. There's also plenty of discussion that covers the same ground without explicitly invoking or linking. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:37, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Whether or not arguments based on encyclopedic value are rebutted by other policies at all, let alone strongly, is a matter for the discussion. Encyclopedic value, while a somewhat vague idea, is definitely not any of the list of things WP:DISCARD says should be discarded. It's not a personal opinion nor does it show no understanding of the issue because it's clearly intended as a counterargument to the principle behind WP:NOT.
- Whether it's a strong counterargument to WP:NOT or not is a matter of how convincing that argument is to the participants in the discussion. It's your job as closer to represent the conclusion the discussion reached on that and not your own opinion. I can't see any way of reading that discussion that concludes that it reached the consensus you're drawing. Loki (talk) 19:08, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Only one user cited WP:DUE and only one user cited WP:NPOV, out of over 50 participants, without any substantive discussion of how either apply!! SportingFlyer T·C 16:52, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Here are a few !votes from the slim majority to include the tables:
- Endorse, despite the problems In vague terms this tightens up the criteria a bit which IMO is the result of the RFC. And IMO such is the right decision based on a complex application of several policies and guidelines, one which would be too complex to put into or derive into a close. The "despite the problems" is because I agree there were many problems in the details of the close, as pointed out in this review. North8000 (talk) 02:17, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
RFC participants (airlines and destinations RFC)
- There's been several discussions following the close, and although I don't agree with all of them the restriction on PRIMARY sources seems off to me. Before commenting at the RFC a check several tables and the sourcing for many of them was bad. Certainly such tables need proper sourcing (especially after they have been challenged), but I don't see why this can't be from a primary source (as long as it's a stable reliable source). Yes there's a separate discussion on whether they are due in the article if they are not mentioned in secondary sources, but that's separate from if they can be sourced from primary sources. That specific part of the close appears to merge those two separate points into one. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:35, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is what I was getting at. User:A.B. explained in dispute resolution that primary sources are acceptable for this type of information - Airline X flies from city A to city B - and I agree with their analysis. The close of this RFC is confusing because it makes it seem as though a piece of information requires independent secondary sourcing to show that it can be included in an article. This May, Condor will begin a flight from San Antonio to Frankfurt, San Antonio's first nonstop service to Europe. Naturally there are only WP:PRIMARYNEWS sources about this route currently. Does that mean this flight does not meet WP:DUE and should not be mentioned in the article on the San Antonio airport? Sunnya343 (talk) 21:59, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Well once it is reported in a newspaper, rather than just an airline or airport website, then we get a secondary source. Once there is more than one of these, the close statement says it can be included. That is fair enough in my opinion, and I endorse the close. (even though my vote would have supported weaker inclusion criteria). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:46, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- A newspaper article is not always a secondary source. See WP:PRIMARYNEWS. Sunnya343 (talk) 00:06, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Indeed newspaper content is most usually primary (and where it isn't, it's quite often not very reliable). WP:SECONDARY content is characterized by analysis, synthesis and commentary directed to primary material, and is not secondary simply by being an extra 'layer'. That is a very common misconception on Wikipedia. Bon courage (talk) 05:24, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- And it's a misconception that was pervasive in the RFC, which is why it was closed wrongly and why Sunny has been applying it inappropriately. There was consensus support for keeping the tables but adding more independent sources beyond the airlines' timetables (which prior discussions found to be acceptable), even if misstated by some in the RFC as secondary/primary. Reywas92Talk 21:22, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Indeed newspaper content is most usually primary (and where it isn't, it's quite often not very reliable). WP:SECONDARY content is characterized by analysis, synthesis and commentary directed to primary material, and is not secondary simply by being an extra 'layer'. That is a very common misconception on Wikipedia. Bon courage (talk) 05:24, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- A newspaper article is not always a secondary source. See WP:PRIMARYNEWS. Sunnya343 (talk) 00:06, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Information in an article should be weighted by it's inclusion in secondary sources. So if no secondary sources has ever reported on such information it probably shouldn't be included. But this is a separate issue to referencing.
To put it mote distinctly for this specific issue. Secondary sources are needed to show that there should be a table at all, but the entries in that table should be able to use primary sources for referencing. The former is a discussion on article content, the latter is to show the data is verifiable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:43, 19 January 2024 (UTC)- I see, thank you for the clarification. Though I have a question about
Secondary sources are needed to show that there should be a table at all
. Practically speaking, how do we apply this idea to the lists? Do you need to find a secondary source that mentions all or most current flights? Or do you need to cite a secondary source for each destination, over 50% of the destinations, etc.?Those questions made me think of something else as well. The objective of the tables is to list every airline and destination that an airport currently has. Isn't it paradoxical to talk about the need for secondary sources, which
[provide] thought and reflection based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event
, for a list that is only accurate as of today's date?I'm starting to feel like I have to do mental gymnastics to explain the relevance of WP:NPOV to this debate, whereas the WP:NOT argument is much more clear. Sunnya343 (talk) 02:14, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Secondary sources need to show that destination data is relevant. You don't necessarily need them for each exact detail, primary sources could be used for that. So no you don't need secondary sources to mention all flights and destinations.
The objective of the article is to show what is relevant balanced by secondary sources, any objective of the table has to start from that. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:11, 20 January 2024 (UTC)- I might still be misunderstanding you. Are you saying that it is OK to cite a primary source (like an airline timetable) for the individual destinations, but you need a secondary source to show that the entire table has encyclopedic significance? Would you mind explaining how, say, the Heathrow Airport table should be sourced based on what you said? I don't see where you would cite the secondary source if you are citing primary sources for all the destinations. (Sorry if it seems like I'm badgering you, but I believe clarity is needed here, or else I do not know how to implement the RFC close as written.) Sunnya343 (talk) 02:18, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think your misunderstanding comes from being unable to unlink the requirement for secondary sources from referencing. Referencing is there for the purpose of verification, and a primary source could be used for that.
The secondary sources could be used for referencing, or they could be used in a talk page discussion on whether the table is due or not. They are required to show that the destination from Heathrow are something that people outside of Wikipedia care about, they shouldn't necessarily be required for the purposes of verification. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:32, 21 January 2024 (UTC) - Or a more simple explanation. The secondary sources are need for the "should it be in the article?" part (due), it should be allowable to use primary or secondary sources in the "is it verifiable?" part (referencing). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:37, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Understood. What you're saying is that, for instance, secondary sources show that the first flight from Las Vegas to Asia is due ([2], [3]), but I can cite a primary source in the article to verify that fact ([4]). That makes sense.
However, I still think this idea is difficult to apply to the tables of destinations. Secondary sources by their nature are published some time after events occur; they look back in time and draw on primary sources to comment on those events. They identify which details ended up being more significant than others in the long run. For example, our article on the war in Gaza is pretty much entirely based on primary sources. In 20 years, by which time numerous secondary sources on the war will be available, some of the facts in that article may be removed or given less weight based on their prominence in those secondary sources. Pardon me if I appear to be lecturing you.
With regard to the subject of this RFC, it is unclear to me what sort of secondary source could be found to show that a particular list should be in an article. Maybe you can find a source that discusses the growth of Heathrow's air service during the 2010s or the development of the British Airways hub over the years. But is it possible to find a secondary source that contains
analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis
of Heathrow's current destinations? I know I'm repeating myself, but that seems inherently impossible.ScottishFinnishRadish, I know we have bothered you enough regarding this RFC, but would you mind commenting on our debate about the bolded portion of the close? Since you as the closer wrote it, you would be able to tell us what exactly you meant and how we would apply it to a particular airport's table. Sunnya343 (talk) 15:53, 21 January 2024 (UTC) Revised 16:10, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- No sorry I'm obviously still explaining bit poorly. Secondary sources are needed to show that the table should exist in the article at all, this is completely independent of any particular flight or destination.
My point is similar to the notability standards for a stand alone list article. You have to show that the list article is notable, and that requires secondary sourcing. But the entries on that list don't need secondary sourcing they just need to be verifiable.
The secondary sources just needs to say that destinations from Heathrow are something of note, not reflect on current destinations from Heathrow.
As to up to the minute content there is no requirement for Wikipedia to carry this, Wikipedia is meant to be a tertiary source. But that's a separate discussion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:55, 21 January 2024 (UTC)- In regard to WP:NLIST, this comparison wades into the territory of notability, which independent secondary sources are required to demonstrate. Here we are talking about content. More specifically, we are discussing the maintenance of current destination data, which I believe falls within the ambit of WP:NOT, not WP:NPOV.
Even if we accept the idea that you just need secondary sources to say that Heathrow's destinations are significant, I would disagree. For any airport in the world, you will likely find a source that discusses the extent of its service (though still, at a particular moment in time). For Heathrow you may find one that says the airport has destinations on all six inhabited continents, etc. I don't think that's enough to justify the inclusion of a complete, constantly updated list of destinations. Maybe that is what you alluded to when you commented on
up to the minute content
. This is what the WP:NOT arguments address.Also, if we were to apply the above idea to the Heathrow list, you would be able to create a new article entitled "List of destinations from Heathrow". But I don't think any of our stand-alone list articles are constantly being revised, with editors adding and subtracting content to remain up-to-date (as you would when Virgin Atlantic begins flights to Bangalore or British Airways stops flying to Funchal from Heathrow). Even with List of presidents of the United States, you are just adding a person every four years.
(By the way, my example of the first flight from Las Vegas to Asia applied to an event that I would describe in the history section of the article, not a data point in the Airlines and Destinations table.) Sunnya343 (talk) 17:53, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- That's why I used it as an example, it's not meant to be exactly what I'm saying. As to content in general it should be based on all significant views published by reliable sources. Policies are overlapping, so just because something falls under one policy doesn't mean it isn't also under another. Finally you are discussing maintenance of the tables, I am discussing both the maintenance and the requirement for having them. My statement of 'up to the minute' was in reply to you example of Wikipedia's war reporting, where editors take to using Telegram channels as sources so the absolute latest details can be included. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:58, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- In regard to WP:NLIST, this comparison wades into the territory of notability, which independent secondary sources are required to demonstrate. Here we are talking about content. More specifically, we are discussing the maintenance of current destination data, which I believe falls within the ambit of WP:NOT, not WP:NPOV.
- No sorry I'm obviously still explaining bit poorly. Secondary sources are needed to show that the table should exist in the article at all, this is completely independent of any particular flight or destination.
- Understood. What you're saying is that, for instance, secondary sources show that the first flight from Las Vegas to Asia is due ([2], [3]), but I can cite a primary source in the article to verify that fact ([4]). That makes sense.
- I think your misunderstanding comes from being unable to unlink the requirement for secondary sources from referencing. Referencing is there for the purpose of verification, and a primary source could be used for that.
- I might still be misunderstanding you. Are you saying that it is OK to cite a primary source (like an airline timetable) for the individual destinations, but you need a secondary source to show that the entire table has encyclopedic significance? Would you mind explaining how, say, the Heathrow Airport table should be sourced based on what you said? I don't see where you would cite the secondary source if you are citing primary sources for all the destinations. (Sorry if it seems like I'm badgering you, but I believe clarity is needed here, or else I do not know how to implement the RFC close as written.) Sunnya343 (talk) 02:18, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Secondary sources need to show that destination data is relevant. You don't necessarily need them for each exact detail, primary sources could be used for that. So no you don't need secondary sources to mention all flights and destinations.
- I see, thank you for the clarification. Though I have a question about
- Well once it is reported in a newspaper, rather than just an airline or airport website, then we get a secondary source. Once there is more than one of these, the close statement says it can be included. That is fair enough in my opinion, and I endorse the close. (even though my vote would have supported weaker inclusion criteria). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:46, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is what I was getting at. User:A.B. explained in dispute resolution that primary sources are acceptable for this type of information - Airline X flies from city A to city B - and I agree with their analysis. The close of this RFC is confusing because it makes it seem as though a piece of information requires independent secondary sourcing to show that it can be included in an article. This May, Condor will begin a flight from San Antonio to Frankfurt, San Antonio's first nonstop service to Europe. Naturally there are only WP:PRIMARYNEWS sources about this route currently. Does that mean this flight does not meet WP:DUE and should not be mentioned in the article on the San Antonio airport? Sunnya343 (talk) 21:59, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse I find the reasoning of this close review unconvincing. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:02, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed, the nominator has suggested banning the tables altogether, which would go against the consensus of the RFC, which was actually to maintain the tables but with more sources. Reywas92Talk 21:04, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Dennis Brown: I think you have a point. Let's say that a list meets the requirement for inclusion specified in the RFC close. That means you have appropriately referenced items on a list - e.g. British Airways flies from Heathrow to Aberdeen,[1] Abuja,[2] Accra,[3] ... - as opposed to the description of a particular viewpoint on evolution, or a paragraph discussing John De Lancie's role in My Little Pony to take BilledMammal's example. Does WP:DUE truly apply to the inclusion of data points? Sunnya343 (talk) 02:06, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Firefangledfeathers: What I was trying to say was that our policies do not require independent secondary sources for a fact to be included in an article. It appeared to me that the requirement for such sources in the close was similar to WP:GNG.
I recently sought dispute resolution after facing opposition to my removal of one of these lists. Due to the wording of the close, the discussion at DRN boiled down not to whether the list violated WP:NOT, but to
whether the [list was] attributed to reliable secondary sources
. As I said, however, no policy requires content to be attributed to secondary sources. Sunnya343 (talk) 23:49, 18 January 2024 (UTC) - Response to A.B.'s stance: What I do believe is accurate in the close is
Addressing the arguments, the strongest and by far most common argument put forth by those opposed to the tables is WP:NOTALLSORTSOFSTUFF.
I do not seek to rehash arguments, just to summarize what people specifically said regarding WP:NOT. We argued that airport articles should not provide a:- Directory of current airline services from an airport
- News service that documents the launch and discontinuation of every flight in order to remain up-to-date
- Database of all presently operational flights: Essentially an attempt to duplicate the content of a database like Flightradar24
- Travel guide: Though this is probably not the intention of most editors, the lists can be viewed as travel guides due to the emphasis on providing readers with a list of every city currently accessible via nonstop or same-plane, one-stop flights, and which airlines operate those flights
- The closer added that
There were also no strong arguments against the interpretation of WP:NOT, other than disagreement that it should apply.
Sunnya343 (talk) 01:36, 20 January 2024 (UTC)- To this I would respond:
- Salience: The fundamental measure of a commercial airport is the extent of its service (airlines and destinations) and passenger/cargo volume.
- London Heathrow Airport and Los Angeles International Airport are known for their large volume of travelers and their extensive number of passenger destinations.
- Not their: parking, history, appearances in popular culture or bicycle access.
- Memphis International Airport and Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport are two of the world's most important cargo airports because of their cargo volume, number of destinations and carriers.
- Experience shows these tables are maintained and diligently kept current by the editors who enjoy this sort of editing. Over many years, I've found this to be true of not just of major hubs but even tiny airports in truly remote places.
- I find them more reliable than most Wikipedia content. God bless our wikignomes.
- Other information in airport articles also relies on primary sources (passenger traffic, runway length, etc.) from the airports themselves or government air traffic control agencies.
- Secondary sources for airport passenger service -- mostly local news coverage -- are spotty and less reliable. They seldom exist at all for cargo service.
- These tables meet the notability requirements of WP:NLIST. Like many lists, they convey easily understood information in a compact manner.
- WP:NOT does not directly address transportation destinations. An RfC to add them was defeated by the Wikipedia community.
- An RfC like that one on a basic policy establishes a higher level of consensus (WP:CONLEVEL) than an RfC on a set of airport articles, just as an airport RfC trumps local consensus at an article.
- An RfC administrative review should be based on policy, not ILIKEIT or IDONTLIKEIT. The RfC closure misapplied our policies with regards to WP:PRIMARY
- These primary-sourced lists are consistent with the policies discussed here -- WP:NOT, WP:NLIST, WP:CONLEVEL, WP:PRIMARY, WP:ONUS, WP:DUE, WP:BURDEN.
- --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 03:34, 20 January 2024 (UTC) (and tweaked 04:01, 20 January 2024 (UTC))
- This would have been a good response at the RFC. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 03:49, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- @ScottishFinnishRadish, I was unaware of the RfC so I didn't comment. I agree with your comment in the RfC that you were presented with weak policy arguments on the keep side. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 04:09, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- People wrote in the RFC that it is possible to discuss an airport's air service without supplying an exhaustive, constantly updated list of destinations. Indeed, the closer noted that
There were also arguments that the tables provide an idea of how well served or active an airport is, but those arguments were weakened by pointing out that the context could be provided in prose.
The claim that WP:NOT does not directly address transportation destinations is rebutted by
The examples under each section are not intended to be exhaustive
. Naturally, a policy cannot be expected to address every possible circumstance. What people did in this RFC was apply the principles expressed in WP:NOT to this particular situation. Regarding the RFC on amending WP:NOTDIR, I concur with Thebiguglyalien's statement above.I agree with you about other information in airport articles also relying on primary sources. This is the point I am trying to make: the RFC close implies that information requires secondary sourcing to be included, even though no policy says that. I see no problem with mentioning the length of an airport's runway or how many passengers it handled in 2023, and citing a primary source. However, that is very different from the subject of the RFC, which violates WP:NOT according to the consensus. Sunnya343 (talk) 15:56, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Putting the context in prose instead of tables means there is less information and the articles are less useful for the countless people who rely on them to see a well-presented list about the airport's core purpose. I agree that the RFC close requiring "secondary sources" is wrong and against policy, but that would be incorrect to say there was a consensus the tables violate NOT. Reywas92Talk 20:40, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- This was not mentioned in the close, but several people in the RFC talked about the importance of taking a long-term, historical view on Wikipedia, which as an encyclopedia is a tertiary source. Therefore, in the context of a Wikipedia article, perhaps the history of an airport - rather than a snapshot of its current destinations - is its most important aspect. This includes the history of its air service, such as the establishment of hubs or the first international flight. Sunnya343 (talk) 01:50, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sunnya343, you make a good point about the history of airports service although that doesn't have to come at the expense of current information.
- Articles can note major changes as you've noted above: first international flights, hub status, etc.
- Many airports already do this
- Granularity: I don't think we need to note some airline added a flight from Adelaide Airport to Wellington Airport and then cancelled it later that year.
- Wikisavvy readers and future historians can make use of our edit histories to capture a detailed list of an airport's destinations and airline service at a given points in time. The refs will help, too.
- Articles can note major changes as you've noted above: first international flights, hub status, etc.
- --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 02:08, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sunnya343, you make a good point about the history of airports service although that doesn't have to come at the expense of current information.
- This was not mentioned in the close, but several people in the RFC talked about the importance of taking a long-term, historical view on Wikipedia, which as an encyclopedia is a tertiary source. Therefore, in the context of a Wikipedia article, perhaps the history of an airport - rather than a snapshot of its current destinations - is its most important aspect. This includes the history of its air service, such as the establishment of hubs or the first international flight. Sunnya343 (talk) 01:50, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Putting the context in prose instead of tables means there is less information and the articles are less useful for the countless people who rely on them to see a well-presented list about the airport's core purpose. I agree that the RFC close requiring "secondary sources" is wrong and against policy, but that would be incorrect to say there was a consensus the tables violate NOT. Reywas92Talk 20:40, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- This would have been a good response at the RFC. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 03:49, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- To this I would respond:
- Overturn to no consensus or that destination tables should be included, not OP's request – would endorse the RFC close rather than accepting OP's proposal, as the close does not mean that the tables must be removed. There was in no way a consensus in the discussion to remove/restrict usage of destination tables broadly, with a clear majority preferring to keep the tables, nor to require non-primary/truly secondary sources to be used, which contradicts policy and the usage and intent on primary source guidelines. While there was some support for the use of independent sources beyond just those published by the airport (or the airlines, which are independent of the airport, the articles' subjects), there was no basis to restrict those in the broad category of WP:PRIMARY, which even includes independent news reporting of airline activities but falls short of "generalization, analysis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information", which is not really possible for such straightforward factual information. This closure (and the OP's application of it) twisted the reasons for avoiding primary sources, certain types of which may have the disadvantages of "propaganda...omit...overstate...prejudices...unaware". However, these cases – the simple facts of which airlines fly where – fall under WP:PRIMARYCARE: "Material based on primary sources can be valuable and appropriate additions to Wikipedia articles, but only in the form of straightforward descriptive statements that any educated person—with access to the source but without specialist knowledge—will be able to verify are directly supported by the source." Further, sources used in these tables (both airline statements and new reporting that incorporates them) comply with WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD: "authoritative, high-quality, accurate, fact-checked, expert-approved, subject to editorial control, and published by a reputable publisher". The closure's mandate on the type of sources to be used is simply inconsist with the relevant guidelines. The OP points to WP:DUE, which is about maintaining neutrality and not overemphasizing fringe viewpoints, and is not relevant here. However, there is plainly substantial independent media coverage of airline routes, particularly when new destinations are announced, providing enough attention and relevance to an airport's destinations as a whole. It is also eminently clear that WP:NOT does not prohibit listing flight destinations, something that has been supported in longstanding consensuses at VPP, Wikiproject Airports, and individual airport articles. These tables are not a directory, not a news service, not a database, and not a travel guide. Reywas92Talk 18:23, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse. I saw SFR's close summary of the "DUE" arguments as a restatement of the NPOV--in particular BALASP--concerns raised by participants, to be used as a reminder that this info really should be sourced to secondary independent media rather than current destination lists on airport websites etc. Although not explicitly stated, this made sense to me as an obvious distinction between the basic, integral material for which we generally consider primary SELF-PUB sources acceptable (e.g. a lot of the stuff that goes in infoboxes gets sourced to the subject's own websites) and the material we don't consider so fundamental that it should be in every article on the topic without any individual indication of secondary independent attention. I think the NOT arguments were what actually designated this material as "non-essential", while the NPOV arguments simply emphasize what that means in this case: destination lists are not exempt from our standard policy of following that specific subtopic's treatment in IRS. If exhaustive, up-to-date lists of destinations are not considered salient enough to receive IRS coverage, then that presentation of the data should not be in the article. JoelleJay (talk) 18:46, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Absolutely, independent sources should be incorporated, but please note the dicussion above regarding the misuse of "primary" and "secondary" in that just because a source is independent new coverage, it is not necessarily "analysis", but this is not the kind of source or facts that needs such special care to avoid disadvantages of propaganda, omission, or overstatement. Your original !vote cited Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them., but that's from Wikipedia:No original research which also says A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge., which is the case here, including independent sources that aren't truly secondary. Reywas92Talk 22:55, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn, either to No Consensus, or to Relist.
- I am involved, not because I participated in the RFC, which I did not, but because I started to mediate a dispute at DRN over the removal of airline and destination tables from Harry Reid International Airport. I determined that some of the editors were acting in accordance with the close of the RFC, and some of the editors disagreed with the close of the RFC. DRN is not a forum to dispute the close of an RFC, and the RFC had established a binding rough consensus. So I closed the DRN case, advising the editors either to accept the rough consensus or seek to overturn the RFC. So here we are. (See, or do not see, Job 38:35.)
- I am seldom inclined to overturn a close, either at DRV or of an RFC, but I think that the close was not consistent with the discussion. The closer had a difficult job to do. By my count, there were 31 Yes !votes, 28 No !votes, and 6 statements of some intermediate view, and one of the intermediate statements said that the lists should only be included if they were derived from reliable secondary sources. Other intermediate statements said that the RFC was poorly stated
, which is correct,and should be closed. That is No Consensus, which is always an unsatisfying result, and the closer was in good faith trying to tease a consensus out of it. However, although the conclusion to include the lists of airlines and destinations only when based on reliable secondary sources was based on policy, some of the Yes statements and most of the No statements were also based on policy. The closer reached a conclusion that amounted to a supervote because they were trying to find a consensus when there was none. - The close should be overturned either to No Consensus or to Relist. If the RFC is relisted, it should be reworded, and the closer's conclusion of including lists of airlines and destinations when based on reliable secondary sources may be added as an option. Including the lists of airlines and destinations based on reliable primary sources has been mentioned by User:A.B., and maybe should also be in the revised RFC.
Robert McClenon (talk) 23:22, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Robert McClenon, could you explain why you think the RFC was poorly stated? /gen Sunnya343 (talk) 01:24, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- User:Sunnya343 - Some editors complained that it was not clear whether the RFC was asking if lists of airlines and destinations were allowed or required. On further review, I personally think that the RFC was asking whether they should be allowed. It should be clear that they will not be required, on the principle that stubs and other incomplete articles that can be expanded are generally allowed. I have crossed out one phrase. The question should be reworded because it was clear to some editors and unclear to others. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
Endorse - Solely because I have to reject the CR Review's proposal as raised the requestor Sunnya343 states as part of the reason to Overturn the closure:DigitalExpat (talk) 10:14, 23 January 2024 (UTC)I think the first paragraph of the closure should be reworded as follows (my text in italics): "After reviewing the !votes and discussion, it is clear that there is consensus that airlines and destination tables should not be included in articles because of WP:NOT. In re-reading all of the RfC responses, I don't see support for this polarised revision, it is not supported in the RfC. Now could SFR's statement being improved? Always! (as an aside, could I also thank SFR for his efforts, hopefully this thread isn't reading as a persecution/criticism for your efforts). I am exceedingly interested in SportingFlyer & A._B.'s suggested revisions to the Closing Statement to help increase its value/definitiveness and their logical approach in this discussion is impressive. This explicit request for CR Review to be revised to include this phrase is a binary No in my view; the proposed revising would not be appropriate/supported at all. The other (excellent contributions by multiple well-experienced contributors) in this thread/discussion are all excellent, but many feel to me to be rehashing the RfC topic at hand, *not* the proposed CR Review as stated. To restate in simple terms: This request for reviewing & revising the RFC Closure is not supported by Sunnya343's statement of "[...] airlines and destination tables should not be included in articles because of WP:NOT".- Overturn - Changing my vote as it was reacting to the lack of request for CR not following the wikipedia template (lack of neutrality/inserting suggested revisions in the reason section). I believe it was a (very) good faith misapplication of policies by the closer on a RfC that was imperfectly started (as highlighted by many respondents), the request for CR which was imperfectly crafted (non-neutral), and a topic that has been on the verge of WP:FORUMSHOP with previous RfC's being similarly ill-crafted (eg: RfC's are not to be multiple choice questions). I believe the RfC closure could have better applied WP:BURDEN, WP:ONUS, and WP:NOT instead of the way WP:PRIMARY was cited. I am definitely a biased participant in both the topic, the RfC, and now this closure. So I believe it would be the most prudent for me to suggest an Overturn based on my above points indicating a lack of strong WP:CON and suggest the root reason for lack of consensus be well considered by impartial 3rd parties (What is actually being challenged/asked for comment on here that is not WP:IDONTLIKEIT (please see my other comment) ahead of any additional formal action or RFC on the topic to be considered. A sincere thank you to all who have contributed in this/these threads! DigitalExpat (talk) 05:29, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
- Relist - per Robert McClenon. As the person who posted the RFC, I was admittedly unwilling to seriously entertain the concerns that people raised about it while it was taking place. The biggest problem seems to be how the RFC question was phrased. Trovatore, Horse Eye's Back, and others brought this up in the RFC. For example, it appears that some contributors thought the RFC was about how the destinations should be presented: table vs. prose. In the present closure review, I see that Voorts wrote that
[they] read many of the !votes based on WP:NOT to be against inclusion of any tables at all, but that wasn't the question the RfC was asking
, and A. B. said that the RFC question mentioned flights as opposed to destinations.For a controversial issue like this one that affects a large number of articles, it is important to have a discussion centered around a clearly worded question that everyone understands - so we know everyone is answering the same question. Therefore, I support relisting the RFC and working with A. B., SportingFlyer, and any other interested party to design a properly worded RFC on these tables. Sunnya343 (talk) 01:33, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- I’m happy to help. I suggest any new RfC be listed at T:CENT if it wasn’t the last time. Despite your efforts, too many people didn’t know about the RfC. —A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 01:37, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- On further thought, I recommend overturning and just leaving all this alone for a year or two to give the broader community a break.
- We've just had the RfC itself, a dispute resolution discussion, a trip to ANI and now this discussion. This follows 5 previous discussions between 2015 and 2022 (see list below). --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 19:56, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Such a postponement sounds reasonable. Sunnya343 (talk) 01:29, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- I’m happy to help. I suggest any new RfC be listed at T:CENT if it wasn’t the last time. Despite your efforts, too many people didn’t know about the RfC. —A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 01:37, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
Discussion
- I will say that there are a number of us frustrated with the close of this RfC for the complete opposite grounds of the user initiating this review for several different reasons, and that this user may have initiated the RfC review in order to preempt us from doing so. My ground is that the closer reached a conclusion not supported by the discussion (few people talked about primary/secondary sources in the review, only one discussed WP:DUE) and I believe another argument is that the conclusion goes against WP:PRIMARY sourcing as WP:DUE does not discuss primary sources, but honestly that is not my argument to present, and we weren't quite ready. I don't know if this precludes us from opening a different RfC review now considering how odd this situation is. SportingFlyer T·C 12:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Just to be clear, I would be advocating for the entire discussion to be overturned to a simple "no consensus," which is in reading with the discussion: about half of the participants think the information is not encyclopedic, while the other half think the information is encyclopedic. I am of the latter half - WP:NOT generally lists things that are included in things other than encyclopedias, but the tables in question do not fit into any of those categories (I am not convinced by the WP:NOTTRAVEL arguments because this is not information commonly found in your local bookseller's collection of travel guides, and Wikivoyage has specifically said they do not want to maintain this.) SportingFlyer T·C 12:23, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- About Wikivoyage:
- Wikivoyage only has articles for the world's 91 largest airports; none include destination tables. See: v:Airport articles
- Wikivoyage editors don't maintain those articles like we do. For example:
- v:Beijing Capital International Airport -- 127 edits since the Wikivoyage article creation in 2013 (1 edit/month)
- Beijing Capital International Airport -- 6,343 edits since the Wikipedia article creation in 2003 (26 edits/month)
- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 08:47, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- About Wikivoyage:
- Just to be clear, I would be advocating for the entire discussion to be overturned to a simple "no consensus," which is in reading with the discussion: about half of the participants think the information is not encyclopedic, while the other half think the information is encyclopedic. I am of the latter half - WP:NOT generally lists things that are included in things other than encyclopedias, but the tables in question do not fit into any of those categories (I am not convinced by the WP:NOTTRAVEL arguments because this is not information commonly found in your local bookseller's collection of travel guides, and Wikivoyage has specifically said they do not want to maintain this.) SportingFlyer T·C 12:23, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- History:
- There have been multiple discussions about airport destination lists over the years:
- Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Archive 15#Request for comments on the Airlines and destinations tables:
"Should we get rid of the Airlines and destinations tables in airport articles?"
- December 2016. Initiated by Sunnya343. Multiple options were offered. The preference was for
"Option 3: Keep the tables, but something should be done with regards to references and complying with WP:VERIFY."
- December 2016. Initiated by Sunnya343. Multiple options were offered. The preference was for
- Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Archive 17#RfC about references for the "Airlines and destinations" tables.
- August 2017. Initiated by Sunnya343
- Decision:
"references must be provided, and 'searchable' websites are suitable for such references."
- Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 141#RFC: Should Wikipedia have lists of transportation service destinations?:
"Should we update WP:NOTDIR to explicitly state that lists of transportation service destinations are outside the scope of Wikipedia?"
- February 2018
- RfC followed the community decision to delete dedicated articles listing airline destinations
- RfC conclusion:
"There is a clear consensus against the proposed addition to WP:NOTDIR."
- Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 167#Airport destination lists
- Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 167#RfC: Ariport destination tables:
"Should tabular listings of destinations in airport articles be removed and replaced with prose descriptions?"
- June 2021
- RfC withdrawn by nominator in the face of strong support for retaining lists
- Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 167#RfC: Ariport destination tables:
- Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Archive 19#RFC on Maps and Airline & Destination Tables
"Should we consolidate mainline and regional carriers in 'Airline and Destination Tables'?"
- Implicit acceptance of destination lists during this discussion of how to organize them.
- April 2022
- Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 187#RfC on the "Airlines and destinations" tables in airport articles:
"Should airport articles include tables that display all the airlines that serve the airport and the cities they fly to?"
- October 2023. Initiated by Sunnya343.
- By my count: 32 wanted to keep the lists, 21 to delete and 9 said something else (of these 9, more tilted negative than positive). I see this as a decent but not overwhelming majority to keep once you factor in the "something elses". (see User:A. B./Sandbox20 for tabulation)
- I am not asserting a majority !vote should carry a discussion but it's also "not 'nothin"
- Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Archive 15#Request for comments on the Airlines and destinations tables:
- One issue I haven't seen properly addressed is why this information has to be on Wikipedia specifically. A write up on the history of World War II or biographies of current world leaders are valuable information, but people would be understandably irritated if you started posting them on a travel site. Likewise, if you start posting directories and travel guides on an encyclopedia, people are going to be understandably irritated. That's really what's at the crux of the WP:NOT issue here. This could all be resolved if the editors who want to maintain this information went to or started a travel site and maintained it there. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:52, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Thebiguglyalien, you wrote:
"One issue I haven't seen properly addressed is why this information has to be on Wikipedia specifically."
- My answer: Salience. As I noted above,
"The fundamental measure of a commercial airport is the extent of its service (airlines and destinations) and passenger/cargo volume."
- My answer: Salience. As I noted above,
- Thebiguglyalien, you wrote:
- Just one table has been removed to my knowledge since the RfC. That sparked off a heated discussion at Talk:Harry Reid International Airport that went to the dispute resolution noticeboard and then WP:ANI.
- 1 editor deleted the content and argued for deletion on the talk page.
- 12 editors and 2 IPs objected or reverted the deletions:
"This could all be resolved if the editors who want to maintain this information went to or started a travel site and maintained it there."
- So, go away then?
- --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 22:16, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Just posting here since my name was brought up, the original reversion by me was before I was ever made aware of the RfC and as stated, I did not take part in it. This was mainly due to not even knowing the RfC existed at the time. I talked with Sunny and while I am against the decision to remove the tables, I left it alone after that. But yes, as stated I was not involved in the RfC. VenFlyer98 (talk) 23:27, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- The biggest assumption here from those opposing inclusion is that this is information that only helps people travel from point A to point B, which is not the case at all - I frequently use this data to see which places are connected to each other by direct flights for geopolitical reasons. SportingFlyer T·C 23:41, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- I just want to note that I tried my best to advertise the RFC widely at the time, as I wrote below the introduction. Sunnya343 (talk) 23:54, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- I make very few edits on Wikipedia and most relate to aviation, so I am not entirely familiar with the dispute resolution process. There is no valid reason to remove the Airlines and Destinations table, as I personally use it for my own knowledge to plan travel and learn about connectivity of certain airports. Although a lot of sources for the Airlines and Destinations table are primary and come from the airline itself, many of the secondary sources cite the airline as their source as that is the primary way to see what routes an airline flies or plans to start or stop service to. I just want to make it known that I am opposed to removing or replacing the Airlines and Destinations list for any commercial airport. Jake (talk) 00:03, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 22:16, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sunnya343, you wrote
"I just want to note that I tried my best to advertise the RFC widely at the time"
. I agree - you went to a lot of effort to advertise the discussion, diligently notifying people on both sides of previous disputes.
- Sunnya343, you wrote
- Nevertheless, 13 out of 15 people on the Las Vegas Airport talk page were surprised. That speaks more to the nature of things on Wikipedia than your exemplary efforts. Most editors aren't following everything everywhere all at once. 6+ million articles, 2 edits/second, 12,000 active editors, a plethora of discussion venues and ongoing discussions — it's a lot. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 00:21, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I did undo it the last time. Lucthedog2 (talk) 17:51, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- I see that the subheadings of this review have been changed to RFC Participants and RFC Non-Participants. I made my statement above as an Involved party, but I did not participate directly in the RFC. Should my statement be moved, or left where it is? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:51, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
* On a lesser point to main topic at hand in this request - I'm trying to understand the last 8 years of this question being brought up repeatedly in different formats and audiences, inclusive of at least 3 times by the same user. While it should always be every wiki user's indelible right to productively challenge/improve the status quo, the frequency ratio of slightly-reworded-proposals to new-productive-justifications appears to be largely unproductive re-asking a question just because one didn't like the answer received (approaching Argumentum Ad Nauseam fallacy levels). The good faith patience of ActivelyDisinterested and A._B. in their explanations (and many others in re-reading all the historical responses) is impressive. For this matter, the fact that we are now in AN discussing about completely changing a closing statement to the point of changing/challenging the closure - all suggested by the same user, feels more a kin to a crusade (and not solely a quixotic one, but one that could be seen as aiming to tire other contributors with ignorance, feigned or otherwise).
Without sounding too pessimistic, my hope for the next such seemingly inevitable round of RFCs/debate on this topic is that we can have greater isolation of the question than this RFC had (is it the format, the subject, the proper citations? This had all three muddled into one); prevailing logos; and even greater awareness/participation. Cheers! DigitalExpat (talk) 10:23, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- One more key observation that has been bugging me is I when reading this RfC and all the related ones (including the edits that sparked the Dispute Resolution), I believe are all either asking the wrong question, are framed in a fallacious way, or even worse - being presented as a false dilemma. In my reading, I think it clear that the question is:
- - Not about the article layout format (tables/lists) (which to @Sunnya343's credit he did clarify after the fact in his first edit to his RFC, unfortunately the question/title was not able to be changed),
- - Not about the subject (Aviation) - The same question was correctly pointed out in the RFC by @Reywas92 and others in the RfC, this type of information is similarly covered in other articles regarding train services, bus services etc...)
- I think the RfC's could all be better worded and more focused to reduce ambiguity, personal & subjective biases on what seems to be the topic at hand: Are the articles containing this type of information appropriately/sufficiently referenced & cited? (which ironically/appropriately is a core question for every Wikipedia article, no?). Which is just a longer way of stating some of the much more succinct points like @AirshipJungleman29 in the RFC, but I think these flawed RfC's (in particular ones that seek responses shaped into finite ternary choices like the 2016 and 2017 or binary choices like this latest 2023 one, are asking the wrong question/producing the wrong conversations from their outset (and resulting in what dangerously is then referred back to as precedent/justification for large changes to content. I would suggest that a better RFC topic would be something along the lines of "How can we better ensure articles list acceptably cited information when it comes to certain areas like transportation routes?" (or perhaps there's no RFC needed here at all as all content is bound by the same requirements to be accurate, properly referenced, and well-maintained?). DigitalExpat (talk) 09:37, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Let me add just a simple question. Are you seriously thinking that anyone involved in maintaining these tables will read all the stuff above in order to chime in and get the closure overturned? My position is to overturn it already and let us build and encyclopedia.--Jetstreamer Talk 16:12, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Procedural question
- I and others including A. B. was planning on bringing this here for a completely different reason, but Sunnya343 filed/pre-empted this on completely opposite grounds after noticing our discussion on A. B.'s talk page here: [5]. Am I/are we allowed to write a separate, dissenting opening statement? I really don't think the close was correct, and I would be endorsing the decision on the grounds presented by the nominator, even though I think the close was grossly inaccurate. SportingFlyer T·C 01:53, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
pre-empted this on completely opposite grounds after noticing our discussion on A. B.'s talk page here
- I don't think your timeline is accurate:
- 02:13, 13 January 2024 - Sunnya343 questions the closure on the closers talk page
- 04:01, 15 January 2024 - You question the closure on the closers talk page in a new section
- 04:15, 15 January 2024 - You open a discussion about the closure on A. B.'s talk page
- 00:04, 17 January 2024 - The closer declines to adjust the close as requested by Sunnya343
- 04:07, 18 January 2024 - Sunnya343 opens the close review
- As far as I can tell, the first person to question this close was Sunnya343 - I don't think it's either accurate or appropriate to suggest that they only questioned it after seeing your discussion or to say that they did so to preempt you. BilledMammal (talk) 02:16, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- The fact they posted on A. B.'s talk page and were aware of our concerns still troubles me. SportingFlyer T·C 10:10, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- My request for closure review stems from my experience trying to defend my removal of this list based on the RFC close, dating back to November. In the ANI discussion that I linked on the article talk page, Robert McClenon listed three options for how to proceed with the dispute. The list was nevertheless restored without any changes, i.e. without
[showing] that [it was] supported by secondary sources
. I could have continued to advocate for the removal of the list, but I no longer believe the requirement for secondary sources is appropriate. In short, I have my own concerns about the close, for which I have requested closure review.I have known about A.B.'s intentions to challenge the close since 20 December. So I am well aware that you and others have a very different perspective on this RFC. You are fully entitled to that perspective, just as I am to mine. Once you have formulated your arguments, I see no reason why you should not be allowed to challenge the close on the basis of them. Sunnya343 (talk) 03:07, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Question - Maybe I am making the mistake of expecting editors to explain concisely what the issues are. I see that User:Sunnya343 is challenging the close. I have known since about 21 December 2023 that User:A.B. was planning to challenge the close, since I closed the DRN case. When I closed the DRN case, I said that editors should either accept the rough consensus established by the RFC closure by User:ScottishFinnishRadish or challenge the closure at WP:AN, which is now being done, only one month after the DRN dispute. I am puzzled as to how Sunnya343 and A.B. say that they have different close challenges. If the two of them have different ideas as to how the RFC should have been closed, maybe it might be helpful if they each stated what they think that the close should have said. That is, if one wants the close overturned, what should it be overturned to? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:11, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Robert McClenon, the closer stated
"there is consensus that airlines and destination tables may only be included in articles when independent, reliable, secondary sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE"
. The closer cited 3 policies to reach this decision; my analysis above shows they misapplied the 3 policies to this situation.diff For this reason, the RfC should be overturned to allow tables based on reliable primary sources. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 08:31, 19 January 2024 (UTC) - @Robert McClenon I second A. B.'s justification but also note the close is inconsistent with the discussion, similar to a supervote argument at DRV. A simple majority of users said yes, the yes votes are grounded in policy, out of 60 participants only one discussed WP:DUE at all, and only four participants distinctly discussed either primary sources or secondary sources in their response, only four or five participants discussed the reliability of sources. The idea there's a clear consensus on sourcing is technically a supervote based on the discussion, and should either be removed, or the discussion overturned to a simple no consensus. This argument is in addition to the misapplication of WP:DUE. SportingFlyer T·C 10:08, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Robert McClenon - I strongly third the above. After much much re-reading of multiple threads (including the very essential reading of the DR!). @SportingFlyer and @A. B. describe it perfectly above, I would say part of the reason it is so needed is this CR Review was opened and in the reasoning for the opening the audience is presented with an easy to miss syllogistic fallacy (paragraph 2 of the reasoning can be paraphrased as: "many RfC voters expressed opinions that valid sources need not be secondary", paragraph 3 then can be paraphrased as: "the closing statement should be reworded to say the flight information should be not be included in articles because its WP:NOT"). This is a flawed & invalid reasoning to request a CR be reviewed and is a contributor to the much confused conversation (that ends up being non-objective (CR Review) and trends to subjective posts/voting in this CR Review (re-discussing the subject of the RfC) as evidenced above I would suggest. I voted Endorse solely because the CR Review request to be voted on is crafted in a way that makes it an incorrect/false dilemma. DigitalExpat (talk) 09:07, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Robert McClenon, the closer stated
- SportingFlyer, could you please move your comments out of the uninvolved section. You can present them in the involved section and make it clear who they are in response to. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 21:17, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- I wasn't involved in the RfC.
- SportingFlyer T·C 21:18, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sorry SF! Friday afternoon blindness. Sunnya343, could you please move your comments per the above. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 21:28, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Will do. Sunnya343 (talk) 21:52, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sorry SF! Friday afternoon blindness. Sunnya343, could you please move your comments per the above. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 21:28, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
It's time to resolve this review
It's been three days since the last comment was posted. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 01:49, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
- I just posted a request for closure at WP:CR. Sunnya343 (talk) 02:01, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
Suspicious link on user page
I found a user who has something on their page that has a "Mods click here" link to something unknown and I'm afraid it might lead to something like an IP logger. I tried removing it but the user responded by removing everything off my profile in revenge and reinstated the link. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Coronaverification Pyraminxsolver (talk) 07:29, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- You didn't notify the user of the discussion here, per the instructions at the top. I have done so. I have also removed the suspicious link from their userpage requesting in my edit summary that they not restore the link and instead explain it here. (non admin) Polyamorph (talk) 07:51, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- See Rickrolling and the Rick Roll Link Generator site. Kids today...I blame the parents...etc. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:56, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I don't click random links, and regardless of the final target, the inclusion of random external links is not appropriate. Polyamorph (talk) 08:01, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Very sensible. It's usually possible figure out what a URL is pointing at without clicking it. Sean.hoyland - talk 08:06, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- It is a rick roll link, don't ask me how I know. v/r - Seawolf35 T--C 08:42, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Very sensible. It's usually possible figure out what a URL is pointing at without clicking it. Sean.hoyland - talk 08:06, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I don't click random links, and regardless of the final target, the inclusion of random external links is not appropriate. Polyamorph (talk) 08:01, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
I don't see anything about the site more dangerous than any other novelty site. I made my own page there and it gave me an analytics page, but it doesn't contain viewers' IPs or anything like that, just a view counter. Fundamentally, one should never click on a link if one isn't comfortable with the site's webmaster knowing one's IP. If that's something one isn't comfortable with, VPNs are an option. (Wikipedia blocks VPNs, but most have some sort of whitelist setting.) -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 10:50, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- The issue is not that the target in this case is harmless, it's that placing an obfuscated external link anywhere on wikipedia, even as a harmless prank, is not productive and may indeed be harmful. Not something to be encouraged, IMO. Polyamorph (talk) 11:10, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not too convinced that it warrants removal. Yes, we shouldn't encourage it, but it is their user page. If you don't trust the link, don't click on it. It's far easier to IP log/do something malicious with domains with similar names, like the one in this blogpost 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 11:22, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- While I would agree with you for most (harmless) userpage content, the WP:USERPAGE guidelines state
Inappropriate internal or external links that unexpectedly direct the reader to unreasonable locations or violate prohibitions on linking may also be removed or remedied by any user.
Polyamorph (talk) 11:37, 21 January 2024 (UTC)- Well, that's weird. It was added in this edit, referring to this discussion, which didn't talk about what links are appropriate on user pages. The external links guidelines should be about articles, and applying them to userspace seems to be overly restrictive. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 12:16, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Johnuniq was active in that 2010 discussion and has posted on the talk page of the user concerned. @Johnuniq: please could you clarify this? Polyamorph (talk) 13:53, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think I could clarify anything from 2010, however we should not encourage obfuscated external links that might be funny or might compromise your account or computer. Johnuniq (talk) 02:33, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Johnuniq was active in that 2010 discussion and has posted on the talk page of the user concerned. @Johnuniq: please could you clarify this? Polyamorph (talk) 13:53, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Well, that's weird. It was added in this edit, referring to this discussion, which didn't talk about what links are appropriate on user pages. The external links guidelines should be about articles, and applying them to userspace seems to be overly restrictive. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 12:16, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yep, if you don't trust the link, don't click on it. Fonts are tricky too e.g. google and googIe look identical with my settings, but with monospaced text google vs googIe. Sean.hoyland - talk 11:47, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- While I would agree with you for most (harmless) userpage content, the WP:USERPAGE guidelines state
- I'm not too convinced that it warrants removal. Yes, we shouldn't encourage it, but it is their user page. If you don't trust the link, don't click on it. It's far easier to IP log/do something malicious with domains with similar names, like the one in this blogpost 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 11:22, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- The rickroll and use of the word mod, along with the retaliatory blanking and some other purposeful incoherence, indicates a relatively inexperienced user here more familiar with the norms of other sites/forums. Nothing malicious stands out, but I'm not sure what the benefit of allowing obscured external links is. CMD (talk) 15:40, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia doesn't block VPNs as a general rule. We block connections that are used abusively, which does tend to converge on "all VPNs" at long enough timescales, but no networks are blocked (by Wikipedia) from reading, and trusted editors with a legitimate need to use anonymizers to edit can request IP block exemption. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:23, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- You sure? It's my understanding that we do mass block known VPN IP addresses. User:ST47ProxyBot comes to mind. This happens both at the enwiki level and at the global level. Before I became an admin, when I forgot to turn off my VPN, I was usually unable to edit. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:07, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- I often use a VPN. As for the editor, interesting filter log. Also edit warring. Doug Weller talk 19:35, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Note that administrators automatically get exempted from IP autoblocks, so any blocks on the VPN IP address wouldn't affect an administrator. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 01:50, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
Yes administrators are automatically granted Wikipedia:IP block exemption except for Tor, so aren't affected by VPN blocks unless editing from a non admin account or well Tor.
More generally, I agree with Novem Linguae here, we proactively hard block VPNs meaning without really requiring evidence for abuse or even use on Wikipedia because history has provided sufficient evidence they will be abused if someone finds one. I'm fairly sure that this includes stuff like colocation sites and webhosts even when we have no evidence that these are actually used for general purpose outgoing connections. Note also this can happen at both the en level and the global level, e.g. Meta:No open proxies and Meta:Apple iCloud Private Relay.
This doesn't mean every VPN IP is hardblocked, it depends on the efforts of those involved in blocking them, the availability of data and whether we have access, etc. (I think sometimes we've paid for that data but don't quote me on that.) So even without IPBE you might find you're editing from an address not yet blocked depending on the service you use. And I'm sure people tend to make much more of an effort when there has been abuse. So while abuse is involved in whether something is blocked in several ways, it's not a specific prerequisite for any block.
While some of these efforts are newish coming significantly in response to the rise of P2P proxies [6] [7] [8], I don't think it's accurate to say it's a new policy. It's really part of Wikipedia:Open proxies which as those blog posts mention go back to 2006.
I'm sure some of us remember when after long controversy over how to handle AOL addresses we hardblocked them indefinitely quickly once they became open proxies Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive63#Block of AOL ranges per m:Meta:No open proxies. This didn't last long as AOL began to use X-forwarded-for Wikipedia:AOL#December 2006 but I think it illustrates the point that we've always been willing to just hardblock such IPs.
Note that while we'd always had problems with AOL, I don't think there was any evidence it was worse from AOL. The problem was simply the shared IPs in a days where it was a lot less common made it difficult to deal with. And you can see in discussions about when they made AOL OpenRide available to anyone, the comments weren't we're seeing much more abuse because of this so we're hard blocking them indefinitely, but rather they're now open proxies so there's a potential for abuse so we're hard blocking them.
Also I'd add that even when not proactive, policy IMO often did affect how we handled such blocks. For example, if a sock used a different ISP, a library, whatever; we might block it for a short time or even not at all depending whether we expect the sock to come back to it and how many other good-faith editors might be affected by it. If a sock used an IP which we were fairly sure was an open proxy/VPN, AFAIK we'd generally hardblock it for a long time no matter whether we saw thousands of other edits from this IP with no evidence that any of them were abusive and whether we expected the sock to continue to use it.
(This would also depend on the specific admin, I'm sure a bunch didn't and of course many wouldn't have realised it was a proxy. But the point is if some admin did do so, I don't think there was much room for challenge with the open proxy/VPN except for claiming it wasn't one. In other words, both for the originally blocking admin and for any review, the key question would not be 'evidence for abuse' but 'evidence that this was indeed an open proxy/VPN or webhost, colocation site etc'. If an admin did it with the other IP, they'd need to be able to demonstrate some reason why it was necessary or this block was likely to be reduced or reversed if challenged.)
As reflected in the blog posts and discussions about iCloud's VPN, Meta:Talk:Apple iCloud Private Relay and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive334#Upcoming Apple's iCloud Private Relay (sort-of VPN), there has been some talk about whether we should change how we handle things but so far this hasn't happened. Indeed the prediction that iCloud's service would force some change or lead to lots of complaints doesn't really seem to true. (Actually as pointed out in that discussion, T-Mobile issues while not open proxy related are arguably a bigger deal.)
Even the prediction it would lead to everyone doing it is somewhat unclear. While Google does seem to be implementing something, it's not clear AFAIK whether it would actually apply to Wikipedia. It sounds like Google's efforts are only targeted at known trackers i.e. Facebook etc so I'm not sure they'd relay traffic to our servers.
IMO if there is a change and we stop proactively hardblocking VPNs, it's likely to come from when we start to hide IPs and the tools etc that were developed for that.
Nil Einne (talk) 01:10, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Ultimately, the only thing that would allow us to abandon large-scale blocking of proxy infrastructure is a fundamentally reworked technical infrastructure and – at least so far – IP masking doesn't seem to be bringing that. Our tooling (blocks, CheckUser) is (and will for the foreseeable future continue to be) heavily reliant on IPs as identifiers, and we're essentially forced to clamp down on spoofing infrastructure until that changes. With how popular VPNs have become not just among people who have a "sound" use case for them, but also among people who were just fed questionable promises about inherent security and privacy benefits by Youtube sponsor segments, that is of course pretty suboptimal, but I don't really see a way around it.Perhaps somewhat ironically, our "anti-privacy" stance that people have to turn off their proxies to edit is a result of a more meaningful pro-privacy stance, namely that we ask for extremely little identifying information aside from IPs. There is no intrusive fingerprinting, no "give us your phone number to register", no "must use gmail for signup": The only things needed to get an account are a username and a password – and people can even skip that registration step entirely. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:36, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Note that administrators automatically get exempted from IP autoblocks, so any blocks on the VPN IP address wouldn't affect an administrator. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 01:50, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- I often use a VPN. As for the editor, interesting filter log. Also edit warring. Doug Weller talk 19:35, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- You sure? It's my understanding that we do mass block known VPN IP addresses. User:ST47ProxyBot comes to mind. This happens both at the enwiki level and at the global level. Before I became an admin, when I forgot to turn off my VPN, I was usually unable to edit. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:07, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
U4C ratification vote is open
Since it hasn't been properly mentioned yet on enwiki: the vote to ratify the U4C is now open until 23:59:59 on February 2nd. More information about the vote is available on Meta here.
The U4C, or Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee, is a co-equal body with other high-level decision making bodies (e.g. ArbComs and AffCom). Its purpose is to serve as final recourse in the case of systemic failures by local groups to enforce the UCoC
. [1]
As a reminder of the timeline, the Universal Code of Conduct (UCOC) was approved by the Board in December 2020. In March 2022, the Enforcement Guidelines (EG) for the UCOC was subject to a Wikimedia-wide vote. The vote only passed with 57% support, which was recognized as too low, and the guidelines were subsequently amended, passing a second vote in January 2023 with 76% support. This current vote ratifies the policy establishing a committee to investigate failures to enforce the UCOC. Giraffer (talk) 09:46, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Perhaps a watchlist notification? BilledMammal (talk) 15:50, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I have requested one here. RamzyM (WMF) (talk) 11:49, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- A notification was posted at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Vote on the Charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee on January 19. isaacl (talk) 22:46, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Is there any venue where people are discussing the pros and the cons? Cullen328 (talk) 00:34, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'd be interested in this as well. A summary of the UCOC's goals and motivations and effects by someone I trust and in a concise way would be very helpful. Is it just "oh we need a code of conduct like all the other FOSS websites on the internet"? Or is there an actual need for something like this, for example, if there is a lot of anarchy on smaller wikis and the stewards are requesting it? I really have no idea, and metawiki pages are not always very decipherable in how they are written. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:11, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Some of the UCoC came out of FRAM, where the lack of global expectations was one of the many shortcomings of the WMF, some of it came from the 2030 strategic plan, and some of it came from the experience of volunteers, particularly on small wikis. The UCoC was adopted by the board without any direct community ratification. That was then followed by the Enforcment Guidelines to say how the UCoC would actuallly be enforced, whose history Giraffer noted opening this discussion. One element of the enforcement guidelines was the establishment of the U4C, whose charter is now being discussed and voted upon. Pros/cons of the charter (what Cullen suggested) would be pretty different than the UCoC because they're trying to do different things. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:01, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- There has been ongoing discussion since last year at meta:Special:MyLanguage/Talk:Universal Code of Conduct/Coordinating Committee/Charter. isaacl (talk) 17:08, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'd be interested in this as well. A summary of the UCOC's goals and motivations and effects by someone I trust and in a concise way would be very helpful. Is it just "oh we need a code of conduct like all the other FOSS websites on the internet"? Or is there an actual need for something like this, for example, if there is a lot of anarchy on smaller wikis and the stewards are requesting it? I really have no idea, and metawiki pages are not always very decipherable in how they are written. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:11, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Ah! Well given that I was actively looking for an announcement and couldn't find it, the added visibility here is probably for the better. Giraffer (talk) 08:03, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Just as a note (and not to preclude the posting of further notifications in other places), the miscellaneous village pump is typically where the WMF posts notifications of general interest to the English Wikipedia community. This practice pre-dates the deployment of the WMF village pump, and shortly after its deployment, the WMF said it would continue to use the village pump page of greatest relevance or other specialized venues, as it felt that would reach the widest audience. isaacl (talk) 17:02, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Is there any venue where people are discussing the pros and the cons? Cullen328 (talk) 00:34, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- I will note the U4C is explicitly not a global arbcom and has equal mandates to investigate failures to enforce the UCoC and to do training and community building so those failures don't happen and so enforcement can be done at a local rather than global level. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 05:36, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- What it is, what it isn't, that is the question — rhetorical: the answer is vague, disconcerting. El_C 06:53, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Huh? This wasn't the answer to any question. Giraffer choose to focus on part of the work of the UCoC in their helpful summary. I replied pointing out there's more to that work. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:53, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- More work to erode the indepdence and self-governance of the English Wikipedia project, surely. El_C 12:50, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Huh? This wasn't the answer to any question. Giraffer choose to focus on part of the work of the UCoC in their helpful summary. I replied pointing out there's more to that work. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:53, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- What it is, what it isn't, that is the question — rhetorical: the answer is vague, disconcerting. El_C 06:53, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
References
- ^ As defined in the UCOC Enforcement Guidelines
Close Review requested for RFC at Talk:Donald Trump
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Requesting a review of the close of this RFC (with parent discussion here), by Vanderwaalforces. The underlying content debate was whether or not we should include a single sentence mention of the Abraham Accords article in the 'Foreign policy' section of Donald Trump.
There were many issues with the closer's rationale, which I pointed out to them at their Talk page (please see the link, as I don't want to reproduce all of that here). Cessaune agreed that many of my concerns were valid, and said they would've closed the discussion as "no consensus." Iamreallygoodatcheckers also mentioned they thought a "no consensus" close was more appropriate. In response, Vanderwaalforces said they would re-review the discussion and amend their close. After 4 days of no changes to the close, and no replies from Vanderwaals despite active editing, they said they'd "changed their mind" and wouldn't be engaging with the close review.
One of the more salient points about the original discussion: Of the editors who made reasonable attempts in the discussion, 13 voiced Support for the proposal and 9 voice Opposition. I know RFCs aren't a vote, but there was no policy-based reason to rule this discussion on the side of the minority. In addition, more users than myself have questioned the closer about their rationale on their talk page, and they've hardly responded at all. I think at a minimum, this close needs to be overturned; and ideally, someone can find it in their heart to re-close it. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 20:08, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
RFC non-participants (Trump RFC)
- Overturn This clearly falls under the purview of POTUS and, in that role, it was notable. A single sentence does not surpass WP:UNDUE. Moreover, the !votes seem to be clearly in favor. As I've stated at other RfC results, while it isn't vote counting, you cannot seriously look at something with a 3:2 majority opinion and conclude that consensus is the opposite is incorrect. It would be much more appropriate to say "no consensus". Without doing so, you are literally giving the minority the authority of the majority. While we are not a democracy, deciding an outcome like this and siding with the minority as a "consensus" is antithetical to general western principles when assessing what the "consensus" is. To be blunt, the closer of this decided "these arguments were better", not "what was the consensus in the discussion". Buffs (talk) 22:22, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- [ADDENDUM] from the closure "...they have been discussed and opposed by many editors in previous discussions, and there is no need to have an RfC to rehash the same arguments and sources. The issue has been settled by consensus, and the proposal is disruptive and tendentious". The idea that this discussion itself was "disruptive and tendentious" is the height of arrogance when more than half the people disagree. Buffs (talk) 22:40, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I didn't !vote and I don't wish to speak for those who did. But I'm fairly certain the UNDUE arguments were about increasing the subsection's word count by
52%.52%. Anyway, per Wikipedia:Closing discussions#Challenging other closures, closure reviewshould not be used as an opportunity to re-argue the underlying dispute
– even for uninvolved editors. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:03, 22 January 2024 (UTC) (Last sentence improperly inserted after reply, per REDACT.) ―Mandruss ☎ 04:24, 23 January 2024 (UTC)- If that was in fact their argument, it's not a very good one - the 'Israel' subsection two sentences long. In the broader scope of the article, the proposal would've resulted in a 0.069% expansion of the Presidency section, and a 0.036% expansion of the article. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 22:52, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Agree to disagree on that. I think DUE can apply within the context of a single subsection. Per sources, how significant are the Accords compared to what's already there? Significant enough to justify a 52% increase? Maybe, maybe not. I have no opinion, just saying it's a very legitimate argument. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:13, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- If that was in fact their argument, it's not a very good one - the 'Israel' subsection two sentences long. In the broader scope of the article, the proposal would've resulted in a 0.069% expansion of the Presidency section, and a 0.036% expansion of the article. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 22:52, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn. While I have some reservations about the specific wording of the RfC, a majority of the oppose !votes related to the fact that the Accords were criticized or that they were deemed unsuccessful. These should have been given less weight, not more. The support !votes were backed by reliable sources, while the oppose !votes were not. A more pressing issue is that the WP:BLUDGEONING was allowed to get as bad as it was, including a few editors for and against who picked fights with a significant number of !voters who they disagreed with and are continuing to bludgeon at User talk:Vanderwaalforces/Archives/2024/01 (January)#Close at Trump. A lot of the discussion was stifled by this, making any sort of consensus impossible. It should have been brought to ANI a month ago, and it's still ongoing. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:41, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- concur Buffs (talk) 22:27, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- uninvolved Comment: I am concerned that the close focused on how the various arguments convinced the closer, rather than how they convinced other editors in the discussion. Weight should be assigned based on reasonable application of policy by those responding and supporting sourcing, rather than which content argument the closer found better. A close against a 60% majority should focus on why the policy based arguments of the minority were sufficient to not only override a rough consensus by the numbers, but to swing consensus to the minority. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:01, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn (uninvolved): I basically agree with Thebiguglyalien and Buffs. I count a 12/10 support/oppose vote count. This I'd normally read as a "no consensus", but especially strong arguments on one side or the other could sway it, especially towards support as support has the slim majority. The closer instead swung towards oppose, and I read the oppose arguments as actually particularly weak for the reason Thebiguglyalien and Buffs listed above: the Accords being criticized or unsuccessful is not a policy-based reason not to include a mention of them. That Trump's personal involvement in them was relatively slight is slightly stronger, but not good as we regularly include information about things an administration did in the articles about presidents, and Trump's administration definitely did do a lot of the work on the Accords per the sources. Personally I would have closed as a rough consensus for inclusion, and I see a no consensus close as also very reasonable, but not a consensus for exclusion. Loki (talk) 23:06, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn to no consensus to include. That close simply doesn't reflect the discussion that gave rise to it. There was certainly not a consensus to exclude; and I would say that consensus to include has a higher than normal bar in that case, because of WP:ONUS and the sheer number of times that similar ideas have been rejected on that talk page in the past.—S Marshall T/C 23:19, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think I'm involved. I do recall editing that talk page once, when I closed this RfC, but I don't recall ever participating as an editor.—S Marshall T/C 23:22, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn to include (uninvolved) basically agree with the comments of the other overturn voters so I won't repeat them in detail. In sum, the support side should have been given more weight as their sources applied WP:BALASP and were better-quality sources as well, as can be seen from the examples in the closing statement. The oppose side focused more on the significance of the event itself rather than on whether the event was a significant-enough aspect of Trump's presidency to mention in his wikibio (and no policy suggests it needs to be a unique or defining aspect to be included -- WP:BALASP says something different); these are weak arguments that should result in downweighing of votes. So after weighing the votes, the majority is stronger than the numbers suggest. Also the bludgeoning and general hostility in the pre-RFC, RFC, and post-RFC closer's talk page discussion was really noticeable. WP:CCC, there was nothing procedurally wrong with the RFC. Levivich (talk) 01:19, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Comment I'm surprised that I seem to be the first person to note this, but shouldn't the IP's comment have been struck or even removed? While the general topic of Donald Trump is fine, the RfC seems to be clearly related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, I mean the lead of Abraham Accords says "
The Abraham Accords are bilateral agreements on Arab–Israeli normalization
". And even if we put aside one of the countries being call United Arab Emirates, there are several editors who refer to Arab countries (or similar) and Israel in their reply. The IP's comment is clearly not an edit request. So I don't quite get why people not only failed to strike their comments or at least note they shouldn't be participating but were even replying to them (directly or indirectly). I don't think it makes a difference to the result, as they look to be the only non extended confirmed editor involved but still let's remember there's a reason why arbcom decided to limit non extended confirmed editors from participating in anything related the conflict besides edit requests and so we should generally enforce it especially at this time and in a case where it so clearly relates to the conflict as this. (Note while the discussion relates to stuff before the recent extreme flareup in the conflict, the IP specifically brought up the flareup.) Nil Einne (talk) 05:05, 24 January 2024 (UTC) - Overturn, per Buffs and Levivich. The supports cited sources saying the event was a big deal, to which the opposes met with their own opinions that it was not. Those are not stronger, they are not even of equal value. --GRuban (talk) 01:57, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn to include (uninvolved in this article, but have interacted elsewhere with some opposers) By my count, it was 12 that Support inclusion and 10 that Oppose, counting only explicit use of those bolded terms and excluding any other bolded phrasing. At the very least, the close should have been no consensus, not exclude, although I believe the correct close would have been Include.
- The closer Vanderwaalforces said:
- "The opponents of the proposal argue that the Abraham Accords are not a meaningful or lasting foreign policy accomplishment, and are mostly a media event and a PR campaign for Trump and his allies." Yes, of course; it's a truism that the signing was a media event/photo op--just like innumerable other such events in the modern presidency and modern politics everywhere, from the surrender on the USS Missouri to GW Bush's speech atop a pile of WTC rubble. That such events were staged for the camera and microphone does not make them automatically not meaningful or significant, as the opposers would have people believe, at least in this one particular case. Numerous mainstream RS used terms such as "significant", "landmark", "game changer" to describe the Accords, which were signed at the White House with Trump presiding. Disregarding extensive coverage that included such characterizations of the ceremony and the Accords in plain text in reliable sources, opposers of inclusion simply substituted their own personal judgement and undisguised contempt for Trump as a justification to exclude the content. And for no good reason that I can see, the closer agreed with that approach. I don't criticize opposers for holding Trump in contempt. I criticize their disregard for the way Wikipedia operates: that the content of articles is not to be determined by personal political opinions held by editors; it is to be determined by what reliable sources publish, no matter how contemptible the subjects of the reporting may be.
- The opposers seemed to think the outcome of the Accords must be positive, otherwise the subject could not be mentioned in a section of the Trump article about his presidency, a point made concisely in the RFC discussion by Loki. The opposers' personal geopolitical analyses and predictions about the success, failure, or ultimate impact of the Accords did not, by definition, constitute a policy-based argument. Numerous RS reports and commentaries about the importance and future of the Accords, as adduced in the RFC by editors on both sides of question, only further illustrated the significance and noteworthiness of the Accords, readily justifying inclusion of a sentence about the ceremony and the Accords, regardless of how many RS reports and commentaries were positive or negative about the matter.
- The closer, in his summary of the opposers' rationale, wrote of the Accords:
- "They are also not a defining or unique feature of his presidency, as other presidents have also brokered peace deals in the region".
- Where to begin? Again, the opposers, with apparent agreement from the closer, substitute their personal political analysis of an event in world diplomacy which received extensive coverage in RS that runs contrary to the opposers' dismissive personal opinions. As for other presidents who brokered peace deals...by the so-called logic espoused by the opposers and the closer, Wikipedia articles about Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and probably any others one cares to name, should not describe, even in a single sentence, their efforts to broker peace in the Middle East, or anywhere else. They all did it, so why should we even bother to mention it? That's the tortured logic that results from the substitution of editors' personal political bias in place of summarizing plain text about prominent events published in numerous mainstream reliable sources.
- See the following examples from the RFC discussion of the opposers' dismissive personal opinions and conclusions as a basis for article content, in disregard of Wikipedia policies on Original Research and Neutral Point of View:
- "The agreement was not significant because the parties were not in conflict"
- "the purported significance of the cleverly-branded 'accords'"
- "the principal objection is that this was a Trump media event" (The objection referred to was that of Wikipedia opposing editors, not any reliable source discounting the event.)
- An editor's description of their thinking about the matter of Trump and the Accords:
- "I probably have a prior belief that it is fluff".
- An editor used the following phrase in the discussion, apparently to describe Donald Trump:
- "overblown, self-obsessed, narcissistic, cartoon animal circus performer carnival barker huxter showman". I'll stand corrected if the editor was describing someone or something else.
- In the context of collaboratively writing a neutral biographical article, none of these quotes from opposers in the RFC discussion, of which the closer was fully aware, stand as persuasive or even legitimate policy-based contributions. DonFB (talk) 02:30, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn to include per Levivich and DonFB. Putting aside the numerical advantage, arguments based on reliable sources should take precedence over arguments based on personal opinions of the significance. Rlendog (talk) 20:16, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn I'm not going to weigh in on the include/no-con debate but given both sides had sound arguments and weight of numbers favored inclusion it is really hard to see this as consensus against. Springee (talk) 03:00, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
RFC participants (Trump RFC)
- (involved) Overturn close - The close has two parts to it: a summary of both sides and a decision rationale. The former is mostly good from my reading with the exception of a couple problems, mentioned by PhotogenicScientist at User talk:Vanderwaalforces. The main issue with this close is the decision rationale where they conclude there to be a consensus against including the Abraham Accords. They sum it as "
The opponents have provided more convincing and substantiated reasons for their position, and have addressed the points raised by the supporters more effectively
." This is not about number of arguments per se or even how many were rebutted; though, it should be pointed out that the discussion demonstrated that the support side was far more diligent on addressing the points made by the oppose side. PhotogenicScientist also addressed this well when they said: "Just from a quick scan of the discussion, for votes that were ANSWERED in some way, 2 were Supports and 8 were Opposes; for votes that went largely UNANSWERED, 8 were Supports and 1 was an Oppose. How on earth do you look at that discussion, and think that the Oppose voters are being more responsive and receptive to discussion?
Anyway the rest of the meat of their decision rationale are based on (1) WP:WEIGHT in scope of the size of the article and (2) demonstration of personal relevance. Firstly, both of these points are fairly subjective and lie in the gray areas of content decision making; so for a closer to find a consensus for the minority position (the vote was 13 support, 9 oppose), the minority reasoning should be clearly superior or proof that the majority was not within policy and guideline. Ultimately, both sides provided reasonable and policy/guideline-grounded arguments with reliable sourcing. The WEIGHT argument is weak since the one sentence proposed is so negligible to the totality of the article, and frankly any true decision based on the subjective personal relevance to Trump is not a evenhanded decision-making its a super vote, especially when made against the will of the majority. Iamreallygoodatcheckers talk 20:57, 22 January 2024 (UTC)- well-stated Buffs (talk) 22:28, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse as it appears to be just WP:IDONTLIKEIT. ValarianB (talk) 21:01, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Did you actually read any of the points I made at their talk page? Would you like to answer to at least one of them? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 21:02, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Really? This bears no similarity to the examples at WP:IDONTLIKEIT. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:12, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- I concur Buffs (talk) 22:24, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- The irony is that this endorse vote does bear a similarity to the examples at WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Levivich (talk) 01:09, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- It would appear that ValarianB !voted against an argument that they didn't read on the basis of an essay that they haven't read. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 04:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- it would appear there's a gaggle of hens clucking about opinions they do not like. be better, as our former first lady once aid. ValarianB (talk) 16:11, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- In your defense, dismissing all contrary input as some form of 'IDONTLIKEIT' is much easier than crafting a well-reasoned response. That is, as long as you don't care about being taken seriously. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 21:08, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Be careful what you link to, Grasshopper, lest you shoot down your own argument. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:39, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- it would appear there's a gaggle of hens clucking about opinions they do not like. be better, as our former first lady once aid. ValarianB (talk) 16:11, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- The 3rd option IMO the close was within a closer's discretion, but S. Marshall's point above is quite reasonable, as there is clearly no consensus to include. If we want to re-close it that way I'd find that acceptable. The fact that the proposed addition has perennially failed to gain consensus is important. Zaathras (talk) 23:39, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- As Zaathras has said, there was clearly no consensus to include -- so this review is about a distinction without a difference. SPECIFICO talk 03:04, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- So, you now think this "very thorough and thoughtful" close was in fact closed incorrectly? Intriguing.
- You know full well at least one major difference between a close of "no consensus" versus "consensus against": This item would then not go on that article's "Consensus items" list. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 03:54, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- There's nothing in my brief comment above to suggest that I think the poll was closed incorrectly. As numerous editors have already stated, per WP:ONUS, it is immaterial whether there was a "consensus to omit" or "no consensus to include." I don't see any policy-based criticisms of the close here, just unsupported rehash of the RfC question, minus the discussion of sourcing and context. SPECIFICO talk 14:45, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- I mean, you said
there was clearly no consensus to include
and the discussion was closed as there is consensus, so. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:57, 23 January 2024 (UTC)- I stated, above, no consensus to include. That is not inconsistent with the close of consensus not to include. Is that clearer now? SPECIFICO talk 16:50, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- I see - you actually don't think the discussion should've been closed as no consensus to include, and instead maintain that the close of consensus to exclude was correct. Thanks for clarifying. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 18:48, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- I did not say that. Please don't put words into other editors' mouths. I'm confident my words initially (and as clarified in response to your ) are sufficient. My point was/is that this review is pointless. SPECIFICO talk 20:32, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- I too found your explanation confusing with respect to the previous discussion. Rephrasing it is one way to clarify your intent. I'm still not 100% sure on your meaning. If there is "no consensus to include" (as you're stating) that is indeed different from the conclusion by the closing admin which was "The consensus is against the proposal". There is indeed a difference. One says there is general agreement it should be excluded. The other is that there is no agreement on inclusion. While both result in the information not being included, one states the community says "don't include it" (affirmative) and the other says "eh, we don't agree on this" (inconclusive). The latter is MUCH easier to overcome in a later discussion ("We finally have agreement!" vs "Now we have two results that conflict"). Buffs (talk) 16:32, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- I did not say that. Please don't put words into other editors' mouths. I'm confident my words initially (and as clarified in response to your ) are sufficient. My point was/is that this review is pointless. SPECIFICO talk 20:32, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- I see - you actually don't think the discussion should've been closed as no consensus to include, and instead maintain that the close of consensus to exclude was correct. Thanks for clarifying. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 18:48, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- I stated, above, no consensus to include. That is not inconsistent with the close of consensus not to include. Is that clearer now? SPECIFICO talk 16:50, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- SPECIFICO, you have been at Trump long enough to know that this is not the case. It is not
immaterial
at all.- We have the consensus list for a reason, and outcomes of no consensus aren't on it. It's either consensus for or consensus against.
- Outcomes of no consensus are free to be discussed at later dates, while outcomes of consensus for or consensus against are, while still technically free to be discussed, much harder to change given the fact that there was prior consensus.
- I hope I'm characterizing your argument right. Cessaune [talk] 03:11, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I mean, you said
- There's nothing in my brief comment above to suggest that I think the poll was closed incorrectly. As numerous editors have already stated, per WP:ONUS, it is immaterial whether there was a "consensus to omit" or "no consensus to include." I don't see any policy-based criticisms of the close here, just unsupported rehash of the RfC question, minus the discussion of sourcing and context. SPECIFICO talk 14:45, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- As Zaathras has said, there was clearly no consensus to include -- so this review is about a distinction without a difference. SPECIFICO talk 03:04, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- (involved) "No consensus" is probably the least objectionable close option, but for some bizarre reason the editor chose to force a consensus where there wasn't one. Plus they didn't correctly weigh many of opposition votes which were quite poor. It's disappointing the closer didn't reflect and change this close. I would recommend someone else close it. Nemov (talk) 19:48, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn. While this isn't a vote, a !vote of 13-9 falling in favor of the 9 requires some pretty good arguments from the 9 side. Were the Oppose arguments good enough to sway the close against the direction of the wind? I don't think so.Side note: This was a no consensus (or even consensus for) outcome that should've been closed as such. At the very least, the closer should have amended their close. I'm quite disappointed that the closer in question failed on both these accounts. Closing CTOP articles is no easy task, and I feel that they failed to grasp this. It's clear from the current votes that the close is going to be overturned, and I don't get why the closer didn't just reclose. It's relatively clear to me that the closer should stay away from closing CTOP articles if this is the kind of thing people are going to have to deal with in the future. Cessaune [talk] 03:02, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Based on what I've seen at their UTP, I think Vanderwaalforces has the capacity to learn from the well-reasoned comments here, and the potential to become an excellent closer. We don't have enough good closers to dismiss them so easily. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:10, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Cessane and Buffs: The consensus list at the article talk page serves only to indicate which BOLD edits may be reverted to restore a version and place the ONUS for an alternative on the editor who initiated the bold edit. Consensus can change, and in that respect there is no difference between "no consensus to include" and "consensus not to include".
- More significant, and quite problematic in my view, is that this heavily viewed and edited article page has developed various approaches and solutions to recurring issues that have arisen. Most of them relate to DUE WEIGHT, balance of detail between the main Trump page and subtopic pages, and other NPOV factors for this main page. They are valid WP:STEWARDSHIP of this page. These approaches have been hashed out and accepted by longtime editors there but are unknown or disregarded by others who are less experienced or familiar with them. In the uninvolved section of this review, we see several comments that rehash content and sourcing views that were rebutted in the RfC. I cringe to see editors counting votes (instead of reviewing the entirety of the RfC and its arguments, policy-based discussion and sourcing) to arrive at any conclusion about the closing assessment itself, which is the issue that should be discussed in this review.
- My comment about "no difference" relates to article content. That's our focus, and in my opinion it's not worth the time and attention to revisit a question like this over and over (and over) when there is no article content at stake. SPECIFICO talk 12:52, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- There is article content at stake - an item going on the "consensus list" has historically been a great way to shut down many future discussions about that article content, effectively ensuring it does not appear in the article. Just because a close of "no consensus" vs "consensus to exclude" makes little difference for article content today, it makes quite the difference for article content going forward.
- Also,
The consensus list at the article talk page serves only to indicate which BOLD edits may be reverted to restore a version and place the ONUS for an alternative on the editor who initiated the bold edit
- this is the case at ANY article, not a special privilege granted to this one by the consensus list. Any Bold edit may be Reverted, and then Discussed at the talk page - that applies all over. How Trump's consensus list is "special", is it's used to further shut down that Discuss phase. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:28, 26 January 2024 (UTC)- The consensus list is a red herring. Its purpose is just to keep certain longstanding content in place for our readers while any challenges or improvements proceed. I don't see any of the overturn comments on this thread addressing the central point as to whether there was any serious flaw in our closer's reasoning or application of policy or representation of the sources, policies and arguments discussed in the RfC. A close review is not just another bite at the apple after some editors are disappointed at the outcome. Frankly, to state the obvious, your opening statement was not a neutral request for commmunity review of the closer's work and set the tone for a thread here that is not really doing what is intended for AN. Unless something new or a new question comes up, I don't expect to participate further. SPECIFICO talk 15:12, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- There are many flaws with the close, specifically:
They have not brought peace or stability to the Middle East, and have been criticised by many sources, such as Time, The Intercept, Responsible Statecraft
—this is not a valid argument at all. I don't even have to go into this....they have been discussed and opposed by many editors in previous discussions, and there is no need to have an RfC to rehash the same arguments and sources. The issue has been settled by consensus, and the proposal is disruptive and tendentious
—this is a flawed point. The RfC proved that the issue was far from settled. This shouldn't have been taken into account, because 13 people agreeing with addition basically discounts this.
- Remove these two points and the close falls apart. Cessaune [talk] 15:40, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Frankly, to state the obvious, your opening statement was not a neutral request for commmunity review of the closer's work
Any lack of neutrality is not obvious to me - care to elaborate? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 16:00, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- There are many flaws with the close, specifically:
- The consensus list is a red herring. Its purpose is just to keep certain longstanding content in place for our readers while any challenges or improvements proceed. I don't see any of the overturn comments on this thread addressing the central point as to whether there was any serious flaw in our closer's reasoning or application of policy or representation of the sources, policies and arguments discussed in the RfC. A close review is not just another bite at the apple after some editors are disappointed at the outcome. Frankly, to state the obvious, your opening statement was not a neutral request for commmunity review of the closer's work and set the tone for a thread here that is not really doing what is intended for AN. Unless something new or a new question comes up, I don't expect to participate further. SPECIFICO talk 15:12, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Eventually, inevitably, there will be article content at stake, and that's when the difference between "no consensus" and consensus against will actually matter. Sure, the outcome right now (excluding the proposed article content) may be the same, but six months from now?
A distinction without a difference
—there is a difference. Just not at the exact current moment. We have a process, and we can't simply disregard it because the outcome (as relating to article content) is the same. We might as well do away with the consensus list at that point. Because what's the actual point of even having a list of consensuses if the closes that generate the consensuses are faulty themselves? - Pertaining to
serves only to indicate which BOLD edits may be reverted to restore a version and place the ONUS for an alternative on the editor who initiated the bold edit
—this applies to every consensus ever. This is not how the consensus list is used in practice. It's relatively rare for prior consensus is overturned, as it was here. Normally, proposals against consensus are closed as against consensus after three or so editors chime in. - Counting !votes is one of a slew of entirely valid ways to arrive at a personal Overturn decision. Unless you are suggesting that the Oppose votes are more sophisticated than the Support !votes to such a degree that they deserved to override Support. If so, ScottishFinnishRadish says it much better than I can:
A close against a 60% majority should focus on why the policy based arguments of the minority were sufficient to not only override a rough consensus by the numbers, but to swing consensus to the minority.
That wasn't done here. Cessaune [talk] 15:26, 26 January 2024 (UTC) - Re: "The consensus list is a red herring. Its purpose is just to keep certain longstanding content in place for our readers while any challenges or improvements proceed." You basically proved my point right there. While there isn't consensus to include now, there may be later. There is already a majority opinion that it should be included. As Cessaune/SFR said, " A close against a 60% majority should focus on why the policy based arguments of the minority were sufficient to not only override a rough consensus by the numbers, but to swing consensus to the minority. That wasn't done here."
- Re: "I don't see any of the overturn comments on this thread addressing the central point as to whether there was any serious flaw in our closer's reasoning or application of policy or representation of the sources, policies and arguments discussed in the RfC." There are a LOT of people that disagree. This section alone addresses those points. If you choose not to see them, you are willfully ignoring them.
- Re: "A close review is not just another bite at the apple after some editors are disappointed at the outcome." Speaking of red herrings... I said it straight up and so did others. This isn't a matter of being solely disappointed by the outcome. We didn't even participate in the discussion in the first place. This is an assessment of the close and that it wasn't in-line with policy nor common sense. By this logic, I can just dismiss everything you said because the only reason you have your conclusion is based solely on the fact that you got what you wanted and you're horribly biased (see how bad that sounds?). Buffs (talk) 22:34, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Re: "I cringe to see editors counting votes..." When you claim "consensus", but don't even have a majority viewpoint, it sorta discounts the entire conclusion that a consensus exists. At 13-9, arguably the conclusion should be a consensus in the other way. Buffs (talk) 22:34, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Based on what I've seen at their UTP, I think Vanderwaalforces has the capacity to learn from the well-reasoned comments here, and the potential to become an excellent closer. We don't have enough good closers to dismiss them so easily. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:10, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn - I recommend that a panel of three editors go over the RFC & make a decision. Indeed, concerning 21st century American political pages, perhaps a panel of three would be best for all RFC closures in future. GoodDay (talk) 17:33, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- At a minimum, it might be a good idea to end NACs in AP2 or even CTOP in general. An editor who has only been here 5 months should probably not be closing these, and I think most RfCs and other discussions requiring closure probably fall under WP:BADNAC. The WordsmithTalk to me 17:46, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I would support such a proposal; not because the qualified non-admin closers make bad decisions (they don't) because even if the close is valid, in a CT we will get people kicking and screaming that it was a BADNAC, and the community doesn't save time by allowing a non-admin to make the close. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:07, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- People are always going to whine, and we shouldn't cater to baseless whiners. That's being said, this is a discussion for a different location. Cessaune [talk] 18:11, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- A lot of NACs are not about complex article content issues; e.g. these recent examples by me.[9][10][11] Even if you drew a line between the article and the ATP, some article content issues are too minor to require an admin; e.g. this. AP2/CTOP do not obviate the benefit of competent NACs for things like this. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:10, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I was thinking more about formal processes like RfCs and maybe a few others like XFD, ANI etc. Most talkpage discussions don't even really require formal closure, so I don't see that it would affect that. The WordsmithTalk to me 18:24, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Ok, if you make the assumptions that admin = good closer and non-admin ≠ good closer. I wouldn't. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:39, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- That's an assumption made by Wikipedia policy, not us. Loki (talk) 18:43, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- WP:NAC is only an essay. Cessaune [talk] 18:45, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- That you genuinely think "admin = good closer and non-admin ≠ good closer." is highly concerning... Everyone makes mistakes. Their opinion is just as valid as the next person's. Buffs (talk) 22:36, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- There are certainly admins who make terrible closes and non-admins who make good ones. But admins have at least been vetted by the community at some point, and are entrusted to patrol contentious topics and per WP:ADMIN to
take responsibility for judging the outcomes of certain discussions
. The WordsmithTalk to me 22:42, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- There are certainly admins who make terrible closes and non-admins who make good ones. But admins have at least been vetted by the community at some point, and are entrusted to patrol contentious topics and per WP:ADMIN to
- That's an assumption made by Wikipedia policy, not us. Loki (talk) 18:43, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Ok, if you make the assumptions that admin = good closer and non-admin ≠ good closer. I wouldn't. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:39, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I was thinking more about formal processes like RfCs and maybe a few others like XFD, ANI etc. Most talkpage discussions don't even really require formal closure, so I don't see that it would affect that. The WordsmithTalk to me 18:24, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- A better idea than ending NACs in AP2 would be to TBAN the core long term disruptive, bludgeoning, tendentious editors. We're all reading the same RFC page, the same pre-RFC discussion, the same discussion on the closer's talk page, and this discussion... and I know you all see what I see. I've been seeing it for years -- the same fucking names -- and I know you all see them too, for even longer than I've been seeing them. The problem isn't NACs, it's not that close reviews are futile, it's not some natural phenomenon, it's the same few people making the consensus-forming process like pulling teeth, for years and years. There's a few like this in just about every topic area. Levivich (talk) 20:40, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- True dat, but AE is thataway. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:44, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- To be clear, I lament not that no one is filing for sanctions, but that anyone can look at the RFC and think the person who should be excluded is the closer (or all non-admin closers). The closer is not the problem here, and I say that as someone voting to overturn the close. Reminds me of a story...
Three little wikipigs built a house of straw, and a wolf came by and blew it down. So they revised the building code to prohibit houses made of straw. Then they built a house made of sticks, and a wolf came by and blew it down, so they revised the building code to prohibit houses made of straw or sticks. Then they built a house made of bricks, and a wolf came by and could not blow it down, and the wikipigs congratulated themselves on their building code revisions. The wolf broke down the door and ate them all. Moral of the story: stop messing with the building code and deal with the wolf. Levivich (talk) 22:28, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Now where's that little boy who cried wolf gone off to now... Buffs (talk) 22:44, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sure, I've felt for as long as I can remember that there is far too much tolerance of problematic editors who have "tenure". Little to nothing has changed in ten years, so I conclude that it's just too deeply entrenched in the culture/ethos. TBAN is not a death sentence, but it's treated like one. Indef is something worse than a death sentence, maybe death by drawing and quartering. I don't expect this to change within my remaining lifetime, which is partly why I'm semi-retired. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:42, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- To be clear, I lament not that no one is filing for sanctions, but that anyone can look at the RFC and think the person who should be excluded is the closer (or all non-admin closers). The closer is not the problem here, and I say that as someone voting to overturn the close. Reminds me of a story...
- True dat, but AE is thataway. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:44, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I would support such a proposal; not because the qualified non-admin closers make bad decisions (they don't) because even if the close is valid, in a CT we will get people kicking and screaming that it was a BADNAC, and the community doesn't save time by allowing a non-admin to make the close. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:07, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- At a minimum, it might be a good idea to end NACs in AP2 or even CTOP in general. An editor who has only been here 5 months should probably not be closing these, and I think most RfCs and other discussions requiring closure probably fall under WP:BADNAC. The WordsmithTalk to me 17:46, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
The futility of close review #2
For previous discussion on the proximity of close review to rehash/forum shopping and on proposals to improve the process, see this thread from last October. SPECIFICO talk 19:21, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- A topic for WP:VPP, not here (as evidenced by the fact that the linked discussion went nowhere). ―Mandruss ☎ 19:46, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Discussion does not always reach immediate resolution - as can be seen from this RfC. Thanks for the refactor. SPECIFICO talk 20:12, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Regardless, this page is not where we make policy changes, as I understand it. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:18, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Discussion does not always reach immediate resolution - as can be seen from this RfC. Thanks for the refactor. SPECIFICO talk 20:12, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I do think the structure that came out of that discussion has at least partially helped. The non-participants section at least doesn't have reply to reply to reply bickering that is in some way inevitable of editors who have been on opposite sides of a contentious RFC. Maybe it would be helpful to find some way to cut back on that in the participants section.
The endless back and forth doesn't generally add anything to the discussion, and arguments that relitigate the close should be given less weight in any close of the review. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:58, 26 January 2024 (UTC) - I say out of that discussion, but rather it came out of a discussion at village pump that took up some of the points raised at ANI. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:01, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Vanderwaalforces input request
@Vanderwaalforces:, there are several in the community who would like to have your input on this matter. Given that you closed it and it is now being addressed here, could you please clarify? If you are unwilling to respond to community feedback, I would respectfully request that you rescind your closure. Buffs (talk) 22:47, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- notified user on talk page, something that may have been missed in this discussion. Buffs (talk) 22:51, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- What should they clarify? It's seeming like there's enough community input coalescing to overturn this close. At this point, I no longer think it would be prudent for them to try amending their close, and that it'd be best if an admin could re-close the discussion, seeing as its become particularly contentious, and in a CTOP area (recommended by WP:NAC). PhotogenicScientist (talk) 23:03, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- If Vanderwaalforces is unwilling to be accountable to the community, I retract this comment. That would be requirement #1. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:12, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Help for deceased Wikipedian
Kittybrewster was a delightful and valued contributor, a proper gentleman (I say this as an alumnus of a thousand-year-old school). As a relative of James Arbuthnot, involved in the Horizon scandal, his page is getting some views, but Talk is infested with semi-automated notices. Would some kind soul please help with archiving? I am rusty on this stuff, having edited only rarely since the Before Times. Thanks much, Guy (help! - typo?) 01:10, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- I did some work on this and I think it's in better shape now. Hope it helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:40, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm surprised I don't see a red-dashed underline under that name. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v Source assessment notes 04:06, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- For future reference, when I find extremely long user talk pages from inactive users, generally what does the trick is this:
{{Archives}} {{User:MiszaBot/config | archive = {{subst:FULLPAGENAME}}/Archive %(counter)d | algo = old(30d) | counter = 1 | maxarchivesize = 100K | minthreadsleft = 10 | minthreadstoarchive = 1 | archiveheader = {{Automatic archive navigator}} | key = }}
- Or, of course, whatever "counter" is, based on the currently existing archives. This will get lowercase sigmabot to come through and fix things automatically (and, unlike the naughty cluebot, it won't cram 1,000 kb of shit into one archive even though the max archive size is 100k). jp×g🗯️ 17:35, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm surprised I don't see a red-dashed underline under that name. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v Source assessment notes 04:06, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
The C of E tban appeal
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This is an appeal about my tban from WP:DYK ( ruling here). It has been over 2 years since the ban was created and I have obeyed the decision of the community. I would like to request if I can be permitted to return to DYK under the previous restrictions that I had been under prior (banned from nominating any hooks related to British or Irish politics, Religion, and LGBTQ topics and any user can veto a hook proposed by me).
I sincerely apologise for my actions at DYK that resulted in this. I recognise the harm it did to the community and to users and I am deeply sorry for it. If I am permitted to return, I give my solemn undertaking that I will not return to what I was and ensure that hooks are only created for the betterment of Wikipedia as a whole rather than for any POV on my part. In my time away, I have worked on creating several articles and been involved more in WP:ITN to show I can be a more productive member of the community and not the disruptive, immature POV pusher that I was. I wish to help also with the building of DYK sets and also be able to assist members of the project with any concerns they may have. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 11:16, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think the ban came out of juvenile behaviour (childish double-entrendres and the like) rather than POV-pushing. I guess to lift it comments from others on whether they have seen any re-occurrence of this over the last 2 years would be relevant. I haven't, but I haven't gone looking. DeCausa (talk) 12:25, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- @DeCausa: Yes, I worded it wrong so I have clarified by rewording by adding "immature" to the above. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 13:23, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- @DeCausa: No, it was both ([12]). I'm still considering this appeal. Black Kite (talk) 18:56, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- @The C of E: Can you please list your previous appeals of this ban, so that editors can see the full context? – Joe (talk) 12:42, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Of course @Joe Roe: 1 and 2 of this one. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 13:02, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose per my comments in the last appeal. DYK now, just as then, does not need an editor who repeatedly tried to get racial slurs onto the Main Page and who still advocates for a "white man's burden" British imperialist worldview on their userpage—which, as Joe noted at the last appeal, is fringe even for the British far-right. It is impossible to take seriously someone's claims that they've learned from their mistakes about pushing a racist POV when they continue to push a racist POV. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 22:52, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Tamzin: My userpage says nothing of the sort here. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 22:58, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oh come on. You know what "The 4 nations of the country that helped make the world" means. You know it because you wrote it, you know it because you used to have it alongside User:Mender/Userboxes/BritishImperialist (
This user is a modern imperialist and believes in the re-establishment of the British Empire
), and you know it because it was discussed at length in your last appeal. I'm not dumb and neither are you. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 23:13, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- I don't see how you are connecting the flags of the 4 nations of the UK with the Imperialist userboxes that I removed because I felt they no longer represented my views. The imperialist ones were removed because I realised what they were portraying so I got rid of them (as people rightly said I should). The point of making this appeal is to show I have matured and changed from then and I would like to be able to return to DYK. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 23:18, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- It's not the flags. It's the caption. Surely you're aware of the connotations of "the country that helped make the world"? -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 23:22, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not quite seeing what you're trying to connect but OK, if its the caption that concerns you, I'm more than happy to remove it for you. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 23:23, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- You could have done that nine months ago when that caption and its connection to British imperialism was pointed out to you by several editors, including me. The fact that you waited until today snd are still professing to not understanding why, speaks volumes. Pawnkingthree (talk) 00:03, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not quite seeing what you're trying to connect but OK, if its the caption that concerns you, I'm more than happy to remove it for you. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 23:23, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oh come on. You know what "The 4 nations of the country that helped make the world" means. You know it because you wrote it, you know it because you used to have it alongside User:Mender/Userboxes/BritishImperialist (
- @Tamzin: My userpage says nothing of the sort here. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 22:58, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose per Tamzin. I'm not particularly familiar with this matter, but from looking over at the threads that lead to the topic bans the user page content is strongly suggestive that lifting the ban would lead to a return to problematic editing. The DYK community seem to have been very fed up with this type of stuff ahead of the ban, and I don't see a need to subject them to it again. Not being able to edit DYK seems a pretty minor type of topic ban. Nick-D (talk) 00:00, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Nick-D: But I have matured since then, I have given an undertaking that I won't do that again, my editing since the ban has not gone anywhere near anything like what it was. All I'm asking for is a chance to prove I have changed. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 06:54, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose per Tamzin. I cannot forget how this editor messed around with a very interesting article to try get their twisted kicks by posting puerile penis jokes at DYK. I will quote myself from the last appeal:
This editor has spent nearly 15 years engaging in provocatively inappropriate editing. I remember their shockingly inappropriate disruption of United States v. One Solid Gold Object in Form of a Rooster, a fascinating article about the legal and artistic status of gold, and mining gold in the United States, and the use of gold to market gambling casinos in the state of Nevada. This editor creepily reasoned "rooster is a synonym for cock and cock is a synonym for penis", accompanied by "a man named Richard has a nickname of Dick" to make multiple repetitive strikingly unfunny penis jokes, severely damaging an article about a notable topic to advance their puerile and utterly inappropriate agenda, and to try to shoehorn something shocking into DYK, when the stupid "hook" was entirely unsupported by what the actual reliable sources say, all of which discuss a golden rooster statue and none of which make penis jokes. This is not ancient history - it took place in 2021.
Cullen328 (talk) 01:49, 26 January 2024 (UTC)- @Cullen328: A lot can change in a few years and my attitude has too. I have refrained from anything similar to that in any article I have made or edited and I do sincerely regret what I did back then and I apologise for it. I'm more than happy to subject myself to any sort of proposal whereby if I return to my old ways in any way, I'll be blocked or any ban from April Fools Day Jokes. All I'm asking for is a little WP:ROPE/WP:SO chance to prove that I have changed since then. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 06:54, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose per Cullen, and because I'm not seeing anything other than future potential disruption from a lifting of the ban. Grandpallama (talk) 01:59, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Grandpallama: What about my editing since then? Does 2 years of editing and participation at ITN and other articles count for nothing? The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 06:54, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose - per Tamzin and Cullen. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:10, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose per Tamzin. I really need more than someone's word that they have "matured". I weigh it based on actions and behaviors, and so far, there has been nothing to prove to me that the appellant is aware of why and how his edits were problematic, not simply that they were problematic. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:58, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Of course I understand that @WaltCip:. Granted I'm not the best with wording things and I understand that what I did brought Wikipedia into disrepute and caused a lot of hassle for people at the DYK project especially around April Fools Day (which I am also willing to undergo a ban not to nominate anything for it to prove my sincerity that I have changed). The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 14:55, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose I think Wikipedia is better off with C of E not participating in DYK, and nothing in the appeal here convinces me to change my mind. There are many other areas in which they are free to work. -- Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:22, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Pawnkingthree: I always thought bans were meant to be preventative not punitive. I am asking for a chance to show I have changed and my work on other pages and projects have shown I have, I haven't attempted to insert any of the smutty stuff or POV stuff that I was banned for into articles or other projects. I am willing to undergo any restriction to show I have changed, all I'm asking for is a little WP:ROPE to indicate that I have reformed. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 14:55, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I believe that the ban is preventative, and that you have been previous chances which still led to further problems. Again, DYK is a very small part of Wikipedia so I do not think this ban should be much of an inconvenience to you continuing to participate here. Pawnkingthree (talk) 15:41, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Pawnkingthree: 2 years away from it and 2 years of not participating in the same sort of behaviour that led to the ban anywhere else counts for nothing? The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 16:06, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Pawnkingthree: I always thought bans were meant to be preventative not punitive. I am asking for a chance to show I have changed and my work on other pages and projects have shown I have, I haven't attempted to insert any of the smutty stuff or POV stuff that I was banned for into articles or other projects. I am willing to undergo any restriction to show I have changed, all I'm asking for is a little WP:ROPE to indicate that I have reformed. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 14:55, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Tentative support. As far as I can see no one has produced examples of him going back to the ways that led to the ban. At this point, I take that as meaning he hasn't gone back - and there would be opportunities for him to do so outside of DYK if he were so minded. CoE must also be aware that if he were to go back to DYK and if there was the slightest hint of his former behaviour it would, quite rightly, be straight to a CBAN. The strong feeling here seems be rooted in disgust at his previous behaviour rather than the threat of reoccurrence, which is fair enough and understandable. But there's something deeply depressing about ruling out all possibility of change. I was going to say I hope i don't regret giving even tentative support but there doesn't seem any real prospect of the ban being lifted anyway. DeCausa (talk) 15:15, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- It is depressing indeed @DeCausa:. I feel like there's been a distraction based upon a minor connection as the main focus and no looking at the overall change in behaviour/editing when its come to this discussion. I put this forward in good faith to show that people would see that I have changed and am willing to do anything to prove it and willing to accept any restriction if I am permitted to return to DYK. So I do feel a little bit off by the pile-on above. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 16:06, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Don't get me wrong, C of E, I don't doubt the reason for the "pile on" as you call it. And actually, it's not a "pile on". Given your previous behaviour it is no surprise that there is oppose after oppose here. I think it's not in your favour that you don't show more understanding of that. But I have a question for you. Why are you so keen to get back to DYK? It's a peripheral part of WP and there's plenty of other things to be getting on with? It makes me wonder what exactly your motivation is. DeCausa (talk) 20:23, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- The reason is because I enjoyed it, it was a great incentive to improve articles and it was a good place to showcase new articles in the hope they would be improved by the fresh eyes that see them. Indeed, I had over 500 articles run on DYK and aside of the small handful already mentioned, the majority were largely unproblematic. Why I want to return is to show that I am able to create hooks without causing the drama that happened before @DeCausa:. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 21:23, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- The fact of the matter, The C of E, is that you spent nearly fifteen years, with dogged determination, trying to insert provocative and inflammatory content onto the main page through DYK, whether it had to do with the conflict between the UK and the Irish, or some poor guy named "Hitler", or the "N word" or whatever other childishly controversial hooks that you were promoting, including your "rooster" = "cock" = "penis" reasoning that led you to vandalize an article for self-centered clickbait reasons. Other editors implored you to stop but you only stopped when the community forced you to stop. Yes, people can change and mature and I am willing to conclude that a vandal at age 16 may have matured by age 20. But you started editing back in 2008. Sixteen years ago. Even if you were quite young back then, it is clear that you are no longer an adolescent or a young adult. I believe in change and try to practice it in my own life, and treasure my little victories. But I truly doubt that complying with a couple of years of restrictions imposed by the community constitutes actual evidence of a profound change. Fully formed adult personalities and adult ideologies cannot be profoundly changed so easily, in my view. And if such a dramatic change had occurred, the evidence would be stronger than your repeated, banal assertions of "I've changed! Believe me!" That's why I believe that DYK, which is paradoxically highly visible and inconsequential, does not need your help. Cullen328 (talk) 07:30, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Cullen328: The evidence is in my editing, look at what I have done at ITN with Denis Walker and J. P. R. Williams recently for example and pages I've created like Desert Hero and Caribbean Territories (Abolition of Death Penalty for Murder) Order 1991. All I ask is if people can look at how I have edited since as proof that I am not the juvenile disruptive chap I was back then. I feel that people are focussing a lot on the past from years ago and not on what I have become. All I am doing is asking for forgiveness for my past wrongdoings and be permitted to return to a project that (apart from those aforementioned handful), I contributed a lot towards. I'm even willing to just be permitted to set build if thats what the community would like to do to give me a chance. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 07:43, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- In my view, The C of E, you should continue writing, expanding and improving articles, and stay far, far away from the main page. Perhaps other editors will disagree with me. Let's see. Cullen328 (talk) 07:51, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Cullen328: The evidence is in my editing, look at what I have done at ITN with Denis Walker and J. P. R. Williams recently for example and pages I've created like Desert Hero and Caribbean Territories (Abolition of Death Penalty for Murder) Order 1991. All I ask is if people can look at how I have edited since as proof that I am not the juvenile disruptive chap I was back then. I feel that people are focussing a lot on the past from years ago and not on what I have become. All I am doing is asking for forgiveness for my past wrongdoings and be permitted to return to a project that (apart from those aforementioned handful), I contributed a lot towards. I'm even willing to just be permitted to set build if thats what the community would like to do to give me a chance. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 07:43, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- The fact of the matter, The C of E, is that you spent nearly fifteen years, with dogged determination, trying to insert provocative and inflammatory content onto the main page through DYK, whether it had to do with the conflict between the UK and the Irish, or some poor guy named "Hitler", or the "N word" or whatever other childishly controversial hooks that you were promoting, including your "rooster" = "cock" = "penis" reasoning that led you to vandalize an article for self-centered clickbait reasons. Other editors implored you to stop but you only stopped when the community forced you to stop. Yes, people can change and mature and I am willing to conclude that a vandal at age 16 may have matured by age 20. But you started editing back in 2008. Sixteen years ago. Even if you were quite young back then, it is clear that you are no longer an adolescent or a young adult. I believe in change and try to practice it in my own life, and treasure my little victories. But I truly doubt that complying with a couple of years of restrictions imposed by the community constitutes actual evidence of a profound change. Fully formed adult personalities and adult ideologies cannot be profoundly changed so easily, in my view. And if such a dramatic change had occurred, the evidence would be stronger than your repeated, banal assertions of "I've changed! Believe me!" That's why I believe that DYK, which is paradoxically highly visible and inconsequential, does not need your help. Cullen328 (talk) 07:30, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- The reason is because I enjoyed it, it was a great incentive to improve articles and it was a good place to showcase new articles in the hope they would be improved by the fresh eyes that see them. Indeed, I had over 500 articles run on DYK and aside of the small handful already mentioned, the majority were largely unproblematic. Why I want to return is to show that I am able to create hooks without causing the drama that happened before @DeCausa:. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 21:23, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Don't get me wrong, C of E, I don't doubt the reason for the "pile on" as you call it. And actually, it's not a "pile on". Given your previous behaviour it is no surprise that there is oppose after oppose here. I think it's not in your favour that you don't show more understanding of that. But I have a question for you. Why are you so keen to get back to DYK? It's a peripheral part of WP and there's plenty of other things to be getting on with? It makes me wonder what exactly your motivation is. DeCausa (talk) 20:23, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose Were we to allow this appeal, who knows how much annoyance, grief, offence, turmoil, and drama board verbiage would more than likely ensue. As it is, we have an annual appeal which is easily evaluated and turned down. Per Cullen328, Tamzin, & Nick-D; there's so much else The C of E can be doing, why risk the trouble? Happy days, ~ LindsayHello 18:41, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- @LindsayH: On what grounds do you base that? Have you looked at the work I have done recently and the fact I have kept away from drama and not repeated what caused the ban in the first place? I find that fundamentally unfair that you refuse to even consider an appeal point blank without considering it. All I'm asking for is a chance to prove I have changed and willing to put myself at the position of being blocked if I stray back to what I was in the past. That's hardly unreasonable to ask for a WP:SO. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 18:53, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- I feel here the evidence of my work since the ban is not being considered at all and it is a position that has clearly made it untenable to continue with this appeal that was made in good faith. So henceforth I Withdraw this application with disappointment. All I will ask, is what can I do to prove that I have changed and be able to have an acceptable chance of being able to return? The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 18:53, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- I realized after the fact that they had withdrawn their appeal, rendering the following moot, but I am leaving it up as the beginning of an answer to their question about what they could do. I want to say that a few well-written an balanced articles about the harm done by the Great Powers in the day would probably count heavily but articles like Canadian Indian residential school system have enough problems. Perhaps start by reading something more abstract and less personal like Scramble for Africa or Western betrayal. And I would consider it a personal favor if you lost the signature or at least toned down its in-your-face colors. Those are fighting words in my family. I doubt I am alone in this and it would be a sign of maturity if you realized that it might be offensive or at least off-putting.
Oppose: blatantly nationalist slash imperialist signature speaks volumes. Resentful tone indicates failure to understand the issue. Very minor penalty has been assessed. For the record, I acknowledge my bias: I do not want anything bad to happen to the king of England but I definitely wish he would quietly go away and I certainly would prefer not to be reminded of his existence every time C of E feels slighted, which seems to be quite often. I can only imagine how editors in the same topic area must feel. Elinruby (talk) 20:51, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
Elinruby (talk) 22:10, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- I realized after the fact that they had withdrawn their appeal, rendering the following moot, but I am leaving it up as the beginning of an answer to their question about what they could do. I want to say that a few well-written an balanced articles about the harm done by the Great Powers in the day would probably count heavily but articles like Canadian Indian residential school system have enough problems. Perhaps start by reading something more abstract and less personal like Scramble for Africa or Western betrayal. And I would consider it a personal favor if you lost the signature or at least toned down its in-your-face colors. Those are fighting words in my family. I doubt I am alone in this and it would be a sign of maturity if you realized that it might be offensive or at least off-putting.
Closure review for RFC at Talk:Lucy Letby
Following BilledMammal's close of Talk:Lucy Letby#RFC on Lead sentence, they responded to objections and another draft text with "I suggest that editors discuss it informally here, and if there is clear agreement that D is more suitable than C then switch to it; otherwise, remain with C. If you're not certain whether there is clear agreement, please ping me again and I'll be happy to assess in the context of the RfC."
[13] An editor has now opened a subsection with another option, Talk:Lucy Letby#Option 4, pinging previous participants and saying "Please review the above close and following discussion about Option 4."
[14]
Would it be more appropriate to overturn the close and re-open the RFC so that the new proposal can be considered within it, formally assessed and closed? Should the close be reviewed here? Or what?
(Disclosure: the close found that neither option A nor B had consensus and that something I'd written but not proposed did represent consensus, which was unexpected, flattering even, but I'm more worried about how we establish and respect consensus, especially when feelings are strong, than I am about my text.) NebY (talk) 19:23, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- The new version of the lead is within the scope of the close and was created by Jfire who endorsed the close. If that version doesn't find consensus then the version adopted by BilledMammal will remain. I don't understand why you brought this topic up here. Nemov (talk) 19:40, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- "Option 4" isn't in accord with the close and isn't the "Option D" that the closer referred to in comments afterwards. It's irrelevant that its drafter endorsed the close. The invention of a new way to review and modify RFCs is problematic and uninvolved guidance would be welcome. NebY (talk) 20:33, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is why I asked you what your specific objection was because Option 4 is a variant of Option D. I mistakenly labeled it 4 (I was going to fix it, but you linked to it here so it'll break links) in the new survey, but it's where the discussion about D ended up. If you don't like D/4 just oppose it. Bringing it here is a waste of time. Nemov (talk) 20:43, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- My 2¢: even though I endorsed it, I agree that the nature of the close was not typical of RFC closures, and I would welcome some guidance from fresh eyes about how to best proceed. I did draft the variant that's now receiving discussion and agree that it's within the scope of the close, but as I wrote on the talk page, I am also sympathetic to the argument that we should let the matter sit for a while, letting the wording from the RFC closure stand for now. Happy to accept doing that if it's the consensus on how to best proceed. Jfire (talk) 20:44, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- "Option 4" isn't in accord with the close and isn't the "Option D" that the closer referred to in comments afterwards. It's irrelevant that its drafter endorsed the close. The invention of a new way to review and modify RFCs is problematic and uninvolved guidance would be welcome. NebY (talk) 20:33, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- I don't see a problem with either BilledMammal's close or with discussing a new proposal right after it. Consensus can change, sometimes quickly. – Joe (talk) 21:32, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- It's a bit of an "odd close" (and by the way I'm not sure characterising it as "the close found that neither option A nor B had consensus" is quite right: BM found "there is a clear numerical majority for A, and A is not incompatible with policy"...aka rough consensus). There's maybe an argument that there was a super-vote for an unsupported half-proposal. But, meh, on reflection (I supported option A in the RfC), the close was not unreasonable, let's move on. DeCausa (talk) 22:59, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Simply put, I believe the original close was invalid by picking Option C. Option C was never formally proposed as part of the RfC, it was an offhand suggestion by an editor partway through the debate, and didn't really have much discussion as a result. We had two choices, and the closer went with a third as a "compromise." Now we have a new Option D being proposed after the closing and... it seems like the entire RfC has done nothing but lead us into more debates over the phrasing. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 20:09, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Unblock decline review Raja Atizaz Ahmed Kiyani
Raja Atizaz Ahmed Kiyani (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
I'd've posted to Wikipedia:Administrator review, but it's inactive. User contends I declined his unblock because I'm friends with the blocking admin. I'm afraid that's not the case, but he saw this conversation on my talk page with @Bbb23:, and came to that conclusion. .
The dif's for the decline and discussion is HERE. Please review my decline for the sake of keeping everything above board and in order. (Yamla removed TPA, so replies might be hard.) Thanks, -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:04, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse but, Wikipedia:Administrative action review, let's go! El_C 22:16, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks, I think that's what I was looking for though. It's hard to tell using this damn phone -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:57, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Hey, I have +10K blocks and +10K protections and I only became aware of it the other week. But a forum is a forum, I suppose. So long as people know it exists! El_C 23:01, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- And Joe Roe just closed it. Unlucky. Oh well. Can't fairly represent em all. But I agree that this is a nothing-burger. El_C 23:16, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Hey, I have +10K blocks and +10K protections and I only became aware of it the other week. But a forum is a forum, I suppose. So long as people know it exists! El_C 23:01, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks, I think that's what I was looking for though. It's hard to tell using this damn phone -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:57, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse We can handle it here, or there, but we are already here. Pretty easy case to review and the actions by all admins involved seem pretty run of the mill standard for a disruptive sockpuppet. Dennis Brown 2¢ 22:58, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse The editor did not make a convincing case to be unblocked, and their assumption that two administrators are friends just because one made a quip in a discussion with the other is pretty strange. I try to be friendly with other administrators but only a handful are actually friends. The evidence would have to be much stronger than a brief joke about jump starting a car. Cullen328 (talk) 07:05, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Not to mention the fact that Dfo did not come over and jump-start our car. As long as we have a gaggle of admins in one place, I don't suppose any of my many close admin friends would like to do it?--Bbb23 (talk) 13:58, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Get a horse. Get a horse! -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 16:26, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Not to mention the fact that Dfo did not come over and jump-start our car. As long as we have a gaggle of admins in one place, I don't suppose any of my many close admin friends would like to do it?--Bbb23 (talk) 13:58, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse decline when they haven't even engaged with their block reason in their unblock request. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 10:49, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Crash48
Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear and substantial consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.
To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).
- Appealing user
- Crash48 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Crash48 (talk) 11:00, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sanction being appealed
- Topic ban from Ukrainian language, imposed at Special:PermanentLink/1192419798#Rsk6400
- Administrator imposing the sanction
- Callanecc (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- Notification of that administrator
- https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1198915963
Statement by Crash48
The reason for TBAN was as follows: Crash48's contributions to the mediation are filled with sections where they demonstrate a battleground mentality. For example Third statement and Fourth statement. <...> Both editors also engaged in (slow) edit warring at the Ukrainian language article.
Callanecc further explained at his talk page that Engaging in discussion where you have a focus on 'winning' and instead of discussing content you focus on the conduct of other editors isn't compatitible with the collaborative nature of the project.
First of all, WP:DRNC#How to respond to a "no consensus" edit summary advises, upon not receiving any response on the talk page from the revertor within a few days, to reapply the change, prior to taking the dispute to other forums. This recommended course of action that I followed was nevertheless assessed by Callanecc to amount to "slow edit warring".
More importantly, one can clearly see that my contributions to the mediation, including the two statements selected by Callanecc as a "demonstration of a battleground mentality", were focussed on the disputed content and not on the conduct of other editors. In particular, during the mediation I wrote a draft for the section that the other party suggested creating but never contributed even a single edit to. At the same time, none of Rsk6400's contributions to the mediation related to the disputed content. Noting this, the moderator Robert McClenon warned him several times that failing the mediation is likely to result in TBAN(s). Contrary to Callanecc's assessment that I was "threatening" Rsk6400, the warnings about the possible sanctions for non-participation in a discussion of the content originated not from myself but from the moderator (and rightly so).
Rsk6400 ignored the moderator's warnings until his eleventh statement, when he wrote: You never accused me of anything specific that might merit a topic ban.
In response to that, I specified the relevant accusations against Rsk6400, so as to explain why the prospect of sanctions is real, and urged him to avoid an ANI case by engaging in a discussion of the content. Contrary to Callanecc's assessment of this as "a focus on winning", one can clearly see that it was exactly the opposite: trying to avert an imminent mediation failure and follow-up sanctions on any of the participants.
Some background of the content dispute can be found at User talk:Robert McClenon#Ukrainian language where I asked him for advice on how to deal with Rsk6400's unwillingness to explain his opposition against my additions into the article. Robert McClenon's advice was to go to DRN and open a case request. When the other editors decline to participate, I can accept the case as a one-person request for an RFC. If anyone accepts the case, then we will have moderated discussion.
While Callanecc is correct when he comments that Mediation isn't mandatory, editors can choose not to participate
, Rsk6400 accepting a mediation as an alternative to an RFC, then refusing to participate in the moderated discussion of the content, was a clearly bad faith attempt to obstruct an RFC on the content dispute.
I posted the RFC immediately after the mediation failed, as advised by Robert McClenon; but the TBAN imposed on me precludes my participation in my own RFC. While Callanecc is correct when he comments that the other party also receieved a sanction for their conduct
, the imposed TBAN effectively endorses Rsk6400's stonewalling of the content dispute, by suppressing discussion of the content that Rsk6400 didn't want to discuss in the first place.
@HandThatFeeds: @In actu: @Grandpallama: WP:GAB instructs to explain why the block reason is incorrect or not applicable to your conduct
, and that's what I'm doing here. The entire statement above is focused on my own actions and their assessment by Callanecc; actions by others are mentioned only as context. I don't see how WP:NOTTHEM is relevant. --Crash48 (talk) 14:09, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
@HandThatFeeds: It might help if you point to specific instruction(s) from GAB that you believe I'm ignoring. Multiple editors found fault with your behavior, which is what led to this TBAN
is not true: the TBAN was imposed by Callanecc alone, without any input from other editors. --Crash48 (talk) 12:43, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Callanecc
I don't have much more to say than I did in the thread on my talk page. As I explained to them, Crash's editing in this topic area was problematic. To me, Crash's appeal continues to demonstrate that Crash doesn't understand the reasons that I imposed the ban and is instead continuing to try and push responsibility for their actions onto others. If anyone has any specific questions for me please feel free to ping me. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:04, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Robert McClenon (Crash48)
My involvement is that I tried to mediate the dispute about Ukrainian language between Crash48 and Rsk6400, and then failed the mediation, and said that the next forum could be Arbitration Enforcement. Crash48 went to Arbitration Enforcement, and both editors were topic-banned from Ukrainian language for one year.
In my opinion, both editors engaged in battleground editing about a topic which is subject to battleground editing because it is the bloodiest battleground of the twenty-first century. I thought that the conduct of Rsk6400 was worse, but I thought that topic-banning both editors was appropriate. I had warned both editors that they would be likely to be both topic-banned if the dispute went to Arbitration Enforcement. I thought that Rsk6400 was trying to game the system and to confuse the moderator (me), and was demanding that the article be rolled back to an earlier version, which I was not interested in doing. I thought that Crash48 was being confrontational, and was trying to impose a non-neutral anti-Russian point of view. I would have imposed a longer topic-ban on Rsk6400, but I would have imposed at least a three-month topic-ban on Crash48, and now they are here after one month, which seems to indicate that they don't understand that they were both out of line.
Maybe I was mistaken in thinking that the other editor's conduct was worse. In any case, this appeal is misguided. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:41, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- User:Rsk6400 - It appears that I made a mistake. I thought that you had asked to roll the article on Ukrainian language back to a stable version. You asked me to fail the moderated discussion, which is an entirely different matter. I am not sure why I made this mistake, but it is possible that another editor in another dispute that I was mediating made that request.
- I am not changing my recommendation that the topic-bans to User:Crash48 and User:Rsk6400 be left as is.
Robert McClenon (talk) 05:05, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Rsk6400
@Crash48 and Robert McClenon: Since you are accusing me of several things, it's a bit sad that neither of you pinged me. Robert McClenon, you said above that I was demanding that the article be rolled back to an earlier version
. I'm quite sure that I never demanded such a thing. Could you please provide a diff supporting your claim ? Rsk6400 (talk) 17:23, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Statement by (involved editor 2)
Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Crash48
- This entire "appeal" is a WP:NOTTHEM screed, and should be rejected outright. Nothing in the user's commentary is an explanation that they understand what they did wrong, much less showing any resolve to avoid the conflict in the future. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:57, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Crash48: Yes, we understand you believe the block was incorrect. But you're cherry-picking one line from GAB, while ignoring the rest of that page's instructions. Your entire appeal is "It's Rsk's fault, I did everything right." Multiple editors found fault with your behavior, which is what led to this TBAN. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 12:55, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- It may behoove Crash48 to closely review NOTTHEM and revise one's appeal accordingly --In actu (Guerillero) Parlez Moi 12:49, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Crash48, the template for appeals at AE is not suited for appeals here. The result of the appeal will be based on the consensus of uninvolved editors, not just administrators. You may want to search through the archives for examples of such appeals, or you may want to solicit the support of an experienced editor in reformatting (I'm not available to do it right now). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:13, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Crash48 is actually doing what it says in WP:CTOP. It's just that most appeals here ignore that rule, and as long as there's a distinction made between involved and uninvolved and the right appellate standard is used, no one ever cares. I've been meaning to file an WP:A/R/CA about this for ages but keep not getting around to it. Anyways, I'll remove the editors/admins distinction, since that's the main issue with using the template here. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 19:46, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Actually, you know what they say, if you can do it in
555 minutes, do it now. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment § Amendment request: CTOP AN appeals. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 20:44, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Actually, you know what they say, if you can do it in
- Crash48 is actually doing what it says in WP:CTOP. It's just that most appeals here ignore that rule, and as long as there's a distinction made between involved and uninvolved and the right appellate standard is used, no one ever cares. I've been meaning to file an WP:A/R/CA about this for ages but keep not getting around to it. Anyways, I'll remove the editors/admins distinction, since that's the main issue with using the template here. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 19:46, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is textbook WP:NOTTHEM and should be assessed as such (i.e., not just unsuitable for an appeal, but evidence for the need to maintain the ban). Grandpallama (talk) 02:06, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- The appeal should be declined as Crash48 does not seem to understand the reason for the ban, and how their behaviour should change to fix the problems in future. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:38, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Per everyone else above, the appeal should be declined; the original sanction was well merited, particularly given the battleground approach and "not them," but mostly for failing to understand and properly apply Wikipedia's policies about primary sources and SYNTH. In reading the AE thread, two lines by Crash really jumped out at me:
Rsk6400's condition that primary sources should not be used here[31] has no basis in Wikipedia policies or guidelines
-- uh, yeah, actually, it really does, "secondary not primary" is all over our policies -- andindeed, about a half dozen editors alleged that my proposed additions are WP:SYNTH. Each one of these editors refused to substantiate their allegations. The multitude of stonewalling editors expressing baseless allegations should not be mistaken for a consensus.
-- that's just a funny expression of NOTTHEM, and it continues in this appeal.I am surprised, though, that Rsk6400 hasn't appealed their TBAN. After reading the DRN and AE, I see absolutely nothing wrong in Rsk6400's comments there. As another editor said, kudos to Rsk for trying to go through the dispute resolution process with a battlegrounding editor SYNTHing primary sources, through an unhelpful DRN and then an AE at which they get TBANed. I totally get the voluntarily-walking-away, I've done it myself many times, but that DRN and AE was frustrating to read nevermind having to participate in it, after having to go through all that, I'm (pleasantly) surprised Rsk hasn't quit Wikipedia altogether. Maybe it's just me, but FWIW, I'd vote to overturn Rsk's TBAN should they ever decide to appeal it. Levivich (talk) 17:48, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
User:Davit Hambardzumyan
Again reporting Davit Hambardzumyan (talk · contribs) for adding unsourced content despite multiple warnings and a previous block. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 12:40, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Someone please do something because the user keeps disrupting the project. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 10:33, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Blocked – for a period of one week (site wide this time): User talk:Davit Hambardzumyan#Block. El_C 15:26, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Unblock request User talk:TatyanaZhelyazkova
TatyanaZhelyazkova (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) Could an admin address this request? I did one already, and it languishes -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:14, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks @331dot: -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 23:28, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Incident report got buried
A user recently reached out to me on my talk page about an ANI thread that had been archived without any comment from anyone, posting the following message:
I reported an incident on the Administrators' noticeboard a while back. No one ever replied, and eventually it was just archived (here) without ever being handled or even discussed. How can I get it addressed? Eievie (talk) 03:47, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
I've agreed to copy the whole thread over, and I've included it in the Hat below:
| Discussion from User talk:Red-tailed hawk |
|---|
| The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
I reported an incident on the Administrators' noticeboard a while back. No one ever replied, and eventually it was just archived (here) without ever being handled or even discussed. How can I get it addressed? Eievie (talk) 03:47, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
|
I'm bringing it here looking from feedback from other admins here; the user that was complained about in the original ANI post was involved in two prior ANI threads about hounding (23 December 2021, 13 December 2022). The second one ended with TheresNoTime warning the user being complained about (Fdom5997).
I've given the complaining user some advice as to how to try to deal with the content/style part of the dispute from a consensus-attaining point-of-view, but I'm don't quite think that I've adequately addressed the behavioral aspects. Feedback on this situation from other administrators would be helpful. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 00:20, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Fdom's basically admitted to the behavior and done it to multiple users. Go look up and down their talk page, they're twisting the ears of other editors until they agree that they're wrong and Fdom's right. Fdom will revert partially constructive edits in whole and threaten to continue doing it until other people stop messing with their preferred versions. this stands out as particularly inappropriate, even in context. I'd argue for a tempblock or temp topic ban as a firm deterrent. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 07:45, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Fdom just started doing it again. This time was a particularly egregious example. I found a citation for an uncited phonology table, added it, and changed the table's content to match said citation. And Fdom somehow had the gall to call that "unconstructive". Eievie (talk) 20:04, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I was mistaken that you were just changing the appearance here, but however, the source you provided was misinterpreted because most of the info was already there (with the exception of the glottalized consonants, and <c> representing an affricate). But now it looks even better than when I reverted it before. It's not a big deal, if this is the hill that you want to die on, and call me a "wiki-hounder" just because of me reverting more users' edits who make minor unconstructive changes to just charts, then I don't know what to tell you. If you are gonna contribute, you need to do much more than just changing charts, because that does not contribute anything useful. So what if it gets reverted? Just move on, and make more constructive edits. Fdom5997 (talk) 20:31, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Fdom just started doing it again. This time was a particularly egregious example. I found a citation for an uncited phonology table, added it, and changed the table's content to match said citation. And Fdom somehow had the gall to call that "unconstructive". Eievie (talk) 20:04, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Blocked – for a period of 48 hours: User talk:Fdom5997#Block. El_C 09:29, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- While we're here, I would like to cross-check my general understanding of something against the admins' understanding:
- Fdom's usual argument is that my edits are "unnecessary." Not bad, not disruptive, just superfluous. As the person making the edits, I obviously think they add clarity — but for sake of argument — let's say for a minute that they don't. Let's say a change is entirely lateral, neither adding nor subtracting value from the page. My understanding is that — as an open-source site that encourages editing — that would still be allowed? Wikipedia likes niceties; we have infoboxes and graphs and a bajillion templates to make things neater and prettier. There's not some super Spartan policy where everything but the most essential edits should be discarded. If the defecto position is that edits are allowed, then revisions are what require justification?
- Is my understanding correct? Eievie (talk) 06:46, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
Admin eyes needed
Could the admin crew logging in for duty please keep an eye on whatever is happening at Standoff at Eagle Pass? -- Ponyobons mots 00:23, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think I've alerted all the relevant contributors (thus far) to WP:AP2-related WP:CTOPs. ScottishFinnishRadish has semi-protected the page. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 01:26, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I have eyes on it, but I also have 4700 pages on my watchlist and need to sleep soon. Any additional eyes are encouraged. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:42, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I've added the AP2 editnotice, I'll try to keep an eye on it for a bit. Let's see if the semiprotection quiets things down, otherwise for a powder keg like this I'd consider 500/30. The WordsmithTalk to me 02:32, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- The semi-protection seems to have helped a lot for now. If the real world events escalate, I suspect you'll be right that ECP will be necessary. But I don't think we're there yet. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:36, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I appreciate the assist all; came across it as I was stepping out for dinner and it looked in desperate need of admin attention.-- Ponyobons mots 17:14, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Noting that following a protection request, I upgraded the protection level to WP:ECP and extended the duration for 6 months, as AP2, independently (unaware) of this thread. HTH. El_C 02:32, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- I appreciate the assist all; came across it as I was stepping out for dinner and it looked in desperate need of admin attention.-- Ponyobons mots 17:14, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- The semi-protection seems to have helped a lot for now. If the real world events escalate, I suspect you'll be right that ECP will be necessary. But I don't think we're there yet. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:36, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Two users enforcing made up rules that violate community consensus
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
At Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language, two experienced users whom I would have considered in good standing up till now, User:Viennese Waltz and User:Baseball Bugs, are trying to enforce their private rules, repeatedly ignoring all requests to follow the applicable guideline. Here's the sequence of events:
- 01-25 12:30: Viennese Waltz inserting {{tl:bat}} ... {{tl:bab}} [15]
- 01-25 19:50: Viennese Waltz expanding {{tl:bat}} ... {{tl:bab}} [16]
- 01-26 08:38: SebastianHelm removing {{tl:bat}} ... {{tl:bab}} [17] with reference to discussion.
- 01-26 19:50: Baseball Bugs reverting without discussion. [18]
- 01-26 19:50: Sebastian asking Baseball Bugs respectfully about which policy they applied, politely requesting undo of their revert. [19]
Both users never listened to my concern that their actions were against our applicable guideline, stubbornly ignoring requests to provide a policy or guideline for their actions and instead came up with more and more absurd links.
I'm bringing this up here because I am asking our community to clarify that trying to enforce your own rules against community consensus is inacceptable, even if you found another editor who agrees with you. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 18:04, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Pinging User:Favonian and User:Future Perfect at Sunrise, both of whom are experienced in dealing with the banned user. I would just add that none of your comments on this issue yet have addressed the basic fact that this user is not allowed to edit Wikipedia. That includes your own talk page, where you have just reinstated another of the user's edits. --Viennese Waltz 18:11, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, I've found that editors enforcing their own WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is quite common on Wikipedia, and there's no real recourse. Any sort of improvement or new approach in this area would be welcome. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:24, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- WP:BMB refers to a section of the banning policy, which in a different section (WP:BANREVERT) says that edits by banned users may be reverted by anyone without regard to 3RR. It goes on to say: "this does not mean that edits must be reverted just because they were made by a banned editor" (emphasis in original). It has long been a convention that if a user in good standing undoes another user's BANREVERT revert, they are taking responsibility for it and should not be reverted again on the same basis. That is the start of an edit war, and we don't want that. On the other hand, the banned editor in this case is a known dedicated refdesk troll, so the question ought to go to SebastianHelm why you felt the need to restore their edits? Also, these rules are not "made up", go see the links if you disagree. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:26, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- That section says: “changes that are obviously helpful […] can be allowed to stand”. And nowhere does it allow hiding other users' constructive edits. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 18:41, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I personally wouldn't consider using the reference desk to entertain a banned troll playing word puzzles to be "obviously helpful", but I guess there can be a range of opinions on that. Hatting discussions started by sockpuppets is a fairly standard practice, though, when continuing the discussion is unlikely to be useful. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 19:03, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- That section says: “changes that are obviously helpful […] can be allowed to stand”. And nowhere does it allow hiding other users' constructive edits. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 18:41, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- If use of the reference desks was restricted to their intended purpose, rather than as a forum for all sorts of unsourced waffle, it would be a lot easier to deal with such problems. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:33, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- That may be true, but at least one of the users in question stands out for repeatedly adding waffle. So far, I found that harmless and rather amusing, but we have to be fair and apply that standard to all. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 18:41, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Personally I don't see a problem with repeatedly adding waffle, though my waistline might disagree. But on a more serious note, word puzzles are not really the purpose of the Reference Desk (nor is entertaining banned editors). Her LTA page specifically advises revert, block, ignore whenever she pops up. I'm surprised to see anyone, especially an admin who was around for her original tenure, arguing for keeping VX4C's shitposting. I even checked that you were actually an admin and this wasn't an impersonation account, because making nonsense AN/ANI reports about people who revert her edits is a classic VX4C tactic. Oh, and the IP making false claims about policy and the existence of her ban that "corroborates [your] impression" is another classic VX4C tactic. To put it simply, you swallowed the bait whole. The WordsmithTalk to me 21:08, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- That may be true, but at least one of the users in question stands out for repeatedly adding waffle. So far, I found that harmless and rather amusing, but we have to be fair and apply that standard to all. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 18:41, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Support the hatting of banned users playing word games at the reference desk. Deleting would have been even better than hatting. Not sure why anyone would unhat that--no reason has been put forth here--nor how hatting can be accurately characterized as "enforcing made up rules that violate community consensus," when WP:BMB/WP:BRV have community consensus. Levivich (talk) 20:26, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- @SebastianHelm: WP:DFTT is worth a read, because this kind of community wrangling over policy interpretation is exactly what the banned user revels in and encourages. Revert, block, ignore.. Acroterion (talk) 00:32, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- @SebastianHelm: See WP:NOTBURO. There are no rules about the ref desks but entertaining trolls is unhelpful. To avoid sanctions, please don't do it. Johnuniq (talk) 02:47, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- I am in complete agreement with Johnuniq and Levivich and Acroterion and the other editors commenting further above. Such good sense in one place! We should have zero tolerance for LTA trolls, who are deeply disturbed people as shown by their astonishingly bad behavior. Revert, block and ignore. This very conversation is a feather in the cap for a very sad person who cannot control themself. Cullen328 (talk) 07:41, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Agreeing likewise. WP:DENY should be applied against this tenacious, site-banned troll everywhere on Wikipedia, using all available remedies: block, revert, hatting, etc. Favonian (talk) 10:52, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- I am in complete agreement with Johnuniq and Levivich and Acroterion and the other editors commenting further above. Such good sense in one place! We should have zero tolerance for LTA trolls, who are deeply disturbed people as shown by their astonishingly bad behavior. Revert, block and ignore. This very conversation is a feather in the cap for a very sad person who cannot control themself. Cullen328 (talk) 07:41, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
User:Oliver Savell
This user continuously spreads his "experience" in the talk page of the Little Rascals film. Regardless of whether he's telling the truth or not, this information is not allowed on the article or on the talk page. Action must be taken against this user. 100.8.243.246 (talk) 20:58, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sheesh...I've read every one of their edits, and they sure read like someone trolling us. Schazjmd (talk) 21:03, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I am telling the truth, I wouldn't make it up, it was a very embarrassing moment for me being dressed as a girl. Oliver Savell (talk) 21:44, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- If it will keep you happy I will not post anything more about myself on the talk page, I didn't think it would cause a problem. Oliver Savell (talk) 22:00, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- It's too late. The damage is done. 100.8.243.246 (talk) 00:53, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- NOTHERE'd. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:14, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- I beg your pardon? 100.8.243.246 (talk) 01:34, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- @100.8.243.246 SFR has blocked the user per WP:NOTHERE. -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:14, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- As for
It's too late. The damage is done
— I've revision-deleted the problematic edits, so damage undone. El_C 02:20, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- As for
- @100.8.243.246 SFR has blocked the user per WP:NOTHERE. -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:14, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- I beg your pardon? 100.8.243.246 (talk) 01:34, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Close Needed
Could an uninvolved admin please close Barts1a's unban request at the top of the page. It's been open for more than a week and collecting dust for the last several days. Thanks. -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:02, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Closure requests#Administrative discussions is also a good spot to request closures. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:12, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, this seems to have fallen off everybody's radar. I posted at CR. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:42, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
Mach61 closed this RFC with a consensus to deprecate, however I do not think any reading of this discussion supports such a closure. The closing statement says as most all participants voted options 3 or 4, those who voted 4 strongly advocated their position, and few option 3 voters differentiated their position from those favoring deprecation
, but that effectively makes it so that users who found no reason to deprecate considered as deprecate voters and the volume or passion of those supporting deprecation somehow being a factor. In the discussion at their user talk, they said The anti-deprecation side was just Iskandar (who held the minority option 2 position) and VR
, but that again includes all the users who voted for generally unreliable but *not* deprecate considered as the deprecation side. And that is quite simply not true. I know that because I voted option 3, and I do not appreciate my vote not to deprecate being taken as a vote to deprecate. There is a super majority opposed to deprecation in that RFC, and I see no possible reading of it that supports a consensus to deprecate. The user has declined to engage at their talk page while continuing to edit, so I request review here. nableezy - 21:12, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Closer's response (EI)
- I actually meant to reply to Nableezy but interceding events came in the way.
- Anyhow, the gist of my closing logic was that the comments of several (but not all) option 3 !voters (for example, one who compared the site to Stormfront) seemed amenable to deprecation, which (per the guidance at WP:DEPS) does not mean "unique or uniquely unreliable", but rather relatively likely-to-be-cited and unusuable as a sole source of information except in an WP:ABOUTSELF fashion. I am aware that this is not applicable to every such !vote (Nableezy's argument, for example, is clearly incompatible with deprecation), but imo the very, very low general opinion of EI's factual credibility in that thread was enough for a close as "deprecate" to be within discretion. Cheers, Mach61 (talk) 21:46, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- The decision to deprecate shouldnt be "within discretion", it should be a clear consensus as the effect of that decision is so wide ranging and severe, effectively barring the usage of a source across the entire encyclopedia on the basis of some 9 votes. No such consensus exists in that discussion in my view. nableezy - 21:57, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- Agree with nableezy. starship.paint (RUN) 01:27, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- I want to add the very idea of discretion being used here doesn’t sit well with me. We as a community grant admins a certain amount of discretion in making decisions, but that isn’t the case in reading consensus, and certainly for a NAC. You aren’t making a decision, a closers role is to articulate what the participants have decided by consensus. That very word implies a super vote, that you are deciding something because you can, not that the discussion has consensus for it. That may just be unfortunate wording but nobody granted you any discretion to determine if a source should be deprecated. nableezy - 04:08, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- The decision to deprecate shouldnt be "within discretion", it should be a clear consensus as the effect of that decision is so wide ranging and severe, effectively barring the usage of a source across the entire encyclopedia on the basis of some 9 votes. No such consensus exists in that discussion in my view. nableezy - 21:57, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
RfC Non-Participants (EI)
- I didn't notice this RfC until after it was closed, but I also had the same impression as Nableezy regarding the closure. There is a world of difference in practice between "generally unreliable" and "deprecate" and it is simply wrong to count "generally unreliable" !votes as if they are "deprecate". People who !vote "generally unreliable" clearly have a low opinion of the source but their !vote should be taken to imply opposition to deprecation unless they indicate otherwise. Zerotalk 03:36, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Looking at the discussion, I'm seeing 9 editors in favor of Option 4, and ten in favor of Option 3. However, of those ten many made comments suggesting that they wouldn't oppose Option 4 or would support it:
Would also like to emphasize the latter bits of what Bob's written - the heavy reliance on already-deprecated sources such as Grayzone and Al-Mayadeen is worrying, and I could probably be convinced to vote for deprecation here as well.
Option 3 at least and probably Option 4.
They don't seem to do much original reporting. I give them 3 rather than 4 for the odd story that might serve as a useful justification for a statement, but I cannot see that happening very often. Most of their articles seem to be either one-sided reinterpretation of the news reported elsewhere or personal opinions.
Citing it in an article would be like citing Stormfront.
- I'm certainly not seeing the
super majority opposed to deprecation in that RFC
that Nableezy suggests exists. BilledMammal (talk) 03:50, 27 January 2024 (UTC)- All the people who voted anything other than 4 >>> the people who voted for 4. nableezy - 03:53, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
As a general comment, it does seem a bit weird that the barrier to deprecate a source, particular sources with a pronounced bias, isn't set a lot higher given that
- Organized vote stacking exists, is difficult to detect and could have an impact when the number of participants is low.
- Discussions about sources with a pronounced bias are likely to attract a disproportionate number of biased editors rather than an unbiased sample of the editor community as a whole.
- Although it is presumably mostly a labor-saving device, deprecating a source does superficially seem a bit like thinking we can predict the future and know that there will never be any circumstances at all where a source would be reliable in that specific context, at least until you read Wikipedia:Deprecated sources.
- "generally unreliable" and "deprecate" do seem very far apart in a practical sense e.g. depreciated sources usually trigger edit filters even though Wikipedia:Deprecated sources does not rule out their usage. Sean.hoyland (talk) 07:30, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
To be explicit: My screen width is set to about 30 words. Corrections welcome:
- ♦Only three people who voted either 4 or "3 and probably 4" wrote more than one line, one of whom (Homethegreat) was soon banned by ArbCom. Two people wrote one full line and all the other people who voted 4 (one now banned by ArbCom) wrote only 5 words each on average. ♦Of those who voted 3, five wrote more than one line, one wrote a full line, and two wrote a few words. ♦Of those who voted 1, 2, or "3 and possibly 2", four wrote more than one line and one wrote a few words. In summary, the vote was not only numerically opposed to option 4, but when the amount of argument is taken into account it was overwhelmingly opposed to option 4. I simply cannot reconcile this data with the closure. Zerotalk 07:40, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Having re-read the discussion I think the result could have been either unreliable or deprecate, which isn't a helpful analysis. It is a close result and I'd agree that some stating unreliable also showed a preference for deprecation or made comments similar to such. However given the limited participation I would be hesitant to deprecate, so this should probably have been closed as unreliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:58, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Don’t overturn After reading the discussion again, I understand the issue that Nableezy is having, but agree with the interpretation of Mach61 that most votes were either in favour of or comfortable with depreciation and therefore believe that a depreciation was appropriate. I disagree with the assessment that word count is in any way significant: quantity of arguments made is not a clear indication for or against the ‘value’ of the vote, and in many cases, you may need to write more if you have a minority opinion that is harder to argue for. FortunateSons (talk) 16:05, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is my first comment here, corrections regarding violations of form and policy are encouraged FortunateSons (talk) 16:06, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
It seems clear that the RfC should not have been deemed as a consensus to deprecate. I don't see how or why option 3 votes are being interpreted as "amenable to deprecation" or "comfortable with deprecation". There were also a few option 2 votes as well. It should also be said that there is concern in this topic area of users voting on ideological grounds and there are known to have been issues with canvassing directly involving two of the editors who voted in this RfC [20], so special care should be taken to weigh the quality of the votes rather than to simply count the quantity of the votes. (Although in this case even a simple counting of votes would not establish consensus to deprecate) IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 18:56, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn - I don't see how that discussion can reasonably be interpreted as consensus to deprecate. In addition to the numerical majority against deprecation, many of the votes for that option are simple assertions that the source is biased with little to no justification or evidence it has made serious, recurring factual errors. Hatman31 (talk) 19:30, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn per Zero, IOHANNVSVERVS and Hatman31. Deprecation is a serious matter, there should be a higher bar to meet regarding a clear consensus for it to be implemented. Votes for deprecation can easily be assumed to support general unreliability, but not the other way around, so numerically there is not enough support for deprecation. This, coupled with several weak votes for deprecation based on claims of bias without producing any evidence, as well as the recent ArbCom endorsed history of canvassing in the topic area, means we should err on the side of caution, and not deprecate. starship.paint (RUN) 01:26, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn. As Starship.paint states, deprecation is a serious matter and should only be carried out when a clear consensus exists, and the RfC simply doesn't demonstrate that. I would also concur with those pointing out that claims of bias - or even evidence of bias - aren't on their own legitimate (i.e. policy-based) grounds to deprecate. Wikipedia has never demanded that sources be unbiased (measured how, exactly?). Instead, it requires that articles be unbiased, through representation in due proportion of the differing views found in relevant sources. Given the subject matter concerned, trying to find sources with no bias of one form or another would seem a fools errand. Clearly, EI needs to be used with caution as a source, but we should be doing that with any source concerning such a sensitive topic, and not trying to apply simplistic binary biased/unbiased or always reliable/always unreliable classifications as a substitute for careful assessment of specific uses of a source. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:44, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn for the very simple reason that a vote that is comfortable with deprecation is not the same as a vote to deprecate. If everyone in that RFC voted Option 3 with a note saying they were comfortable with deprecation, it would be a clear consensus for "generally unreliable" and no consensus for deprecation. Given this, I don't think it's at all reasonable to read the RFC as a consensus to deprecate. As Nableezy says, the large majority of the votes were for options other than deprecate. I also note that there was a burst of terse Option 4 votes near the end including one editor known to have been canvassed: IMO all these should receive significantly lower weight both for not making an argument and for suspected canvassing. Loki (talk) 07:13, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn. There isn't a clear consensus for deprecation there, which one would probably expect for such a significant move. Secondly, a large number of the !votes for Option 4, especially those near the end of the discussion, are just assertions with no supporting evidence. Thirdly, though a minor issue, the Option 4 !vote by Dovidroth should be disregarded as that editor was proxying for a banned user. This should have been closed as Option 3. Black Kite (talk) 13:31, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- Don't Overturn. There was a general consensus that EI's factual credibility is very low. That is enough to deprecate it as a reliable source for an encyclopedia. Noon (talk) 12:35, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
RfC Participants (EI)
- Don't overturn. I agree with FortunateSons: Most votes were either in favor of or comfortable with deprecation, which is sufficient to establish consensus. Comfortable with deprecation means they accept this result. Marokwitz (talk) 14:48, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- How many option 3 votes do you consider were "comfortable with deprecation" and which ones? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 18:59, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
Discussion (EI)
- Just as general commentary, you posted the comment on their talk page at 18:14, 26 January 2024 (UTC), and then opened this at 21:13, 26 January 2024. Even if they are editing elsewhere, editors aren't expected to drop everything and respond to non-urgent matters; I think it would have been reasonable to give them 24 hours to respond. BilledMammal (talk) 03:50, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- They continued editing, and the prior post on their page from that conversation was unanswered from 4 Jan. nableezy - 03:54, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not mad at you for opening this, but trust me, I had the reply window open right before something forced me offline for a few hours, I wasn't ignoring you. No comment on the Jan 4 comment. Mach61 (talk) 03:56, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- I believe you, but as your one response in that section to another user said
If you still disagree, open a closure review at WP:AN
I’m not sure why BilledMammal think I should not have opened such a review. Anyway, I don’t think this distraction has anything to do with the close review and would welcome it being hatted. nableezy - 04:49, 27 January 2024 (UTC)- I raised it because I felt your comment in the appeal that
The user has declined to engage at their talk page while continuing to edit, so I request review here
was an unfair characterization; no objection to hatting or removing this section if you remove that sentence. BilledMammal (talk) 04:54, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- I raised it because I felt your comment in the appeal that
- I believe you, but as your one response in that section to another user said
- I'm not mad at you for opening this, but trust me, I had the reply window open right before something forced me offline for a few hours, I wasn't ignoring you. No comment on the Jan 4 comment. Mach61 (talk) 03:56, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- They continued editing, and the prior post on their page from that conversation was unanswered from 4 Jan. nableezy - 03:54, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
FAIT removals by FortunateSons
FortunateSons is continuing with their campaign of removing all citations to EI while this challenge is ongoing. I requested they stop so as to not add to the work of reverting hundreds of edits manually if the challenge results in the deprecation decision being overturned. They have declined to do so. Is it really appropriate for them to continue making these edits while the challenge is ongoing? If not can somebody else tell them to stop? nableezy - 15:01, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Regardless of whether the result is "Generally unreliable" or "deprecated", wouldn't most of them need to be removed anyway? BilledMammal (talk) 15:06, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Not necessarily. That’s something that should be looked at individually, not indiscriminately tossed out. nableezy - 15:19, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- I agree, which is why I avoided some and just left talk page entries on others. However, most (or all) would also be covered by a 3, as the area where most articles by EI are is also the area where they are most unreliable, such as I/P, BDS and actions of BLP. FortunateSons (talk) 15:22, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Not necessarily. That’s something that should be looked at individually, not indiscriminately tossed out. nableezy - 15:19, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for starting this as requested. While the longer discussion is on my talk page, the gist of it is:
- 1. FIAT does not cover cases where I am justified, as I am while this noticeboard is open. The beginning of my edits pre-dates the editing and was not designated to avoid this noticeboard.
- 2. I am generally careful when it comes to removing things, such as generally a) not removing subject matter experts, b) leaving talk page edits and c) reaching out to past editors where necessary. Most of my edits are in areas where the source is probably not or only minimally usable, such as I/P, BDS and BLP. Most or all of those would also be covered by a 3, including my interpretation of the vote by @Nableezy.
- 3. I believe that I am generally permitted to make those edits, and have complied in good faith with requests, such as suggesting dispute resolution and not making edits while this is ongoing. FortunateSons (talk) 15:17, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- What is meant by FAIT here? Edit: Found it - WP:FAIT IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:26, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- I would suggest that FortunateSons, in a show of good faith, pause their removals of EI. Particularly because of their stress of the source being deprecated in edit summaries when this deprecation is being challenged. starship.paint (RUN) 00:02, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- I agree and already have (unless an admin or dispute resolution mechanism says that I am permitted), but would still like a decision to be made just so this doesn’t come up next time :).
- Just to be clear, I include the depreciation as a shorthand, as I don’t really want to create a long list of issues to copy and paste from if it’s already discussed at length in the RfC.
- FortunateSons (talk) 12:44, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
User moving page
Special:Contributions/Solo-man User moved pages without consensus, not sure how to properly revert, so posting here. - FlightTime (open channel) 22:47, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I've reverted the change at Trump wall. I will note there is nothing inheritly nefarious (or against the rules) about boldly moving a page, even if in this case it was ill-advised. Mach61 (talk) 23:18, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Mach61: I know there's nothing wrong with being bold, but in this instance, without a discussion, was too bold. Thanx for the fix. - FlightTime (open channel) 23:29, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
- I've gone ahead and move-protected the page at admin level. This WP:AP2-covered page should not be moved without a move request that closes with consensus to move. Thanks. El_C 01:48, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- El_C Thank you. - FlightTime (open channel) 01:50, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Of course.
El_C 02:10, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Of course.
File mover, template editor, and patrolling access
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
There was a thread here recently about inappropriate editing on my part. The outcome of the discussion imposed some editing restrictions and there was no consensus or discussion regarding user rights such as file mover, autopatroller, patrolling of new edits, or template editing. Note: template replaced per discussion below:Jc37 (talk · contribs · logs) removed these rights from me and not having them is interrupting my work flow and creating more work for other editors (e.g. now new articles I create need to be reviewed, template edits that I can't directly make I have to request, and file uploads that I misnamed I cannot move, but have to ask to have an admin delete the old name and file). Since there was no allegation that I misused these tools and per his solicitation on my talk page, I am posting here to request that they be restored to make me a more efficient editor for things that I do on a daily basis. @Jc37: for visibility, in case the previous mention doesn't show up on his alerts. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:23, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose - firstly, you need to actually notify an editor, not just ping them; I have done that for you. Secondly, you are still here by the skin of your teeth (and I'm saying that as somebody who opposed the proposed site ban at the recent discussion). I see no need for additional user rights at this time. Let's wait 6-12 months to see if your behaviour has improved. GiantSnowman 20:41, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Per his instructions on my talk page, he just said to post here. What obliges me to notify him on his talk page? To be clear, the thread is not about the person: it's not personality-based. It's about the user rights. I only mentioned someone by name as a courtesy, not an indictment, etc. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:54, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Literally the big red warning note at the top of this page that says "When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough." GiantSnowman 20:59, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sure, but I didn't think the thread was about him, it was about the user rights. I wasn't trying to make a personality-based discussion. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:59, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- You thought it was about them enough to name them and ping them twice...anyway, this is a distraction from the matter at hand. GiantSnowman 21:01, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sure, but I didn't think the thread was about him, it was about the user rights. I wasn't trying to make a personality-based discussion. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:59, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Literally the big red warning note at the top of this page that says "When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough." GiantSnowman 20:59, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Per his instructions on my talk page, he just said to post here. What obliges me to notify him on his talk page? To be clear, the thread is not about the person: it's not personality-based. It's about the user rights. I only mentioned someone by name as a courtesy, not an indictment, etc. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:54, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Support The reasons for the ban have nothing to do with any of the rights removed other than rollback, and hence there was no valid reason for them to be removed. * Pppery * it has begun... 20:46, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose. Apart from not linking to the thread that was mentioned in the first sentence and not letting Jc37 know on the user talk page (a ping isn't enough) this thread exists (both things that an editor with Justin's experience should know to do without prompting), he makes a personal attack here by using the template {{vandal}}. The last of these should be enough for him to be blocked. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:55, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- It wasn't a personal attack: I was just linking to a way of showing his talk page, contributions, etc. How would that be an attack? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:58, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Of course calling someone a vandal is a personal attack. What planet are you on? Phil Bridger (talk) 21:17, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Earth. I didn't call him a vandal or criticize anything he did. I used a template which is called a certain thing that you would only know by looking in code just to provide links to his contributions, logged actions, etc. If you know of another template that does that, I'm all ears. The allegation that I was accusing him of vandalism is untrue and ridiculous. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:20, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- I didn't even notice the template, what on earth was Justin thinking?! GiantSnowman 21:21, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- I was thinking that I would provide a link to his contributions, logged actions, etc. If you know of another template that does that, I'm all ears. Thank you for confirming that no one would reasonably think that I was calling him a vandal. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:22, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe try {{user}} to link to a user - are you seriously saying you have never seen that template used in your 18 years of editing?! GiantSnowman 21:24, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- I did not say that and that template does not link to someone's logged actions, etc. I have not looked at the template documentation for that template in many years and I have since chosen another template that does not have any allegation or purported allegation of vandalism. I did not intend to or explicitly call anything that he did vandalism: I just chose a template that was convenient and have since replaced it. I publicly apologize for giving anyone an impression of impropriety on Jc37's part and that was not my intention. Please excuse me for the distraction and for not having explicitly looked at the template documentation first. I also personally apologize to Jc37 in particular: I hope you can please understand that it was an error, not an allegation and nothing that I wrote above was intended to implicitly or explicitly accuse you of anything inappropriate. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:27, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe try {{user}} to link to a user - are you seriously saying you have never seen that template used in your 18 years of editing?! GiantSnowman 21:24, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- I was thinking that I would provide a link to his contributions, logged actions, etc. If you know of another template that does that, I'm all ears. Thank you for confirming that no one would reasonably think that I was calling him a vandal. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:22, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Of course calling someone a vandal is a personal attack. What planet are you on? Phil Bridger (talk) 21:17, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- It wasn't a personal attack: I was just linking to a way of showing his talk page, contributions, etc. How would that be an attack? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:58, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Withdrawn There is clearly a process problem here. There's no point in continuing the discussion. I'll post again several months from now and ensure that I explicitly notify the other user on his talk page and use {{user}} in the future. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:03, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Resolved- Support this appears to be a punitive removal, for which there was no support for in the discussion. Polyamorph (talk) 21:04, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks, but I'd personally prefer if this thread were just closed. I don't want to cause any kind of conflict on process. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:06, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
2two2twenty2two
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
{{subst:AN-notice}}~~~~ I would like to create the page 2two2twenty2two 2two2twenty2two (talk) 02:44, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- @2two2twenty2two you are very unlikely to find sympathy here. You have been sufficiently warned by administrators to cease using wikipedia inappropriately. Philipnelson99 (talk) 02:46, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Indeffed for promotion. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:49, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
changin my user page draft to an article draft
Hi I wrote an article in my user page draft. But I want to check it and submit it but I can not find the button. Is it possible to move it to an artcle space that I can edit it and then submit. Thnaks a lot. Rrosasaberi934 (talk) 14:18, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Please see WP:AFC. GiantSnowman 14:21, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Rrosasaberi934, a draft was already created for that individual: Draft:Stefano De Marchi. You can edit that draft, which appears to be abandoned. Schazjmd (talk) 14:32, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
Potential vandalism of articles regarding Greek and Albanian history
Hello, and apologies in advance if this is not the appropriate place to notify the WP community.
However, I think that there is a high risk chance of a number of articles regarding Greek and Albanian history to be vandalized by IP edditors in the near future. A week ago, the Greek Nationalist pseudohistorical YouTube channel «Πρακτική Σκέψη» (en. "Practical Thinking") released a video titled "Πως οι Αλβανοί κλέβουν ελληνική ιστορία" (en. How the Albanians steal Greek history). In this particular video, the uploader attacks both the Greek, as well as the English Wikipedia as being biased towards Albanians and Albanian history in general, using as an example the article "Principality of Arbanon" claiming that the Albanian nation didn't exist at that time and that this is a fabrication of wikipedians.
Today, Youtube user "mecruz" wrote the following comment "Είναι αλήθεια ότι στην αγγλική βικιπαίδεια υπάρχει μια συγκεκριμένη ομάδα Αλβανών που παραποιεί την ιστορία της Ελλάδας με την προπαγάνδα τους. Αυτά είναι τα usernames/ονόματα των χρηστών της αλβανικής ομαδας: Βατο, Maleschreiber, Ahmet Q., Ktrimi991, Khirurg, Botushali, Alltan, Demetrios1993, Αυτοί οι χρήστες συνεργάζονται, έχουν διάφορες τακτικές που χρησιμοποιούν για να προωθήσουν την προπαγάνδα τους στη στην αγγλική βικιπαίδεια."
Users Βατο, Maleschreiber, Ahmet Q., Ktrimi991, Khirurg, Botushali, Alltan, Demetrios1993, are collectively accused as Albanian nationalists that push Albanian propaganda. It wouldn't suprise me if doxing takes place as well.
Thank you for your time, and once again i apologize if this is not the appropriate place to notify the WP community. Popular Punk (talk) 16:53, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is Popular Punk's first edit to en.wiki. WP:NOTHERE.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:10, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- I know nothing about the background here, but isn't it possible the above is a good-faith warning? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:29, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Looks like there's been an LTA slow-motion edit warring at Principality of Arbanon, but no relevant discussion on the talk page. As written, relevant claims about Albanian identity in the lead are backed up by citations to academic texts with quotes that clearly support the text in question. I'm inclined to agree with Bbb23 absent any actual evidence of misconduct by the named "Albanian nationalist" editors. signed, Rosguill talk 17:36, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Rosguill: I don't really understand you comment. Popular Punk never claimed there is misconduct by "Albanian nationalist" editors. Instead they have said Greek nationalist editors may be going to cause problems due to accusations by some Youtube video accusing Wikipedia of being biased towards the Albanian PoV. They also said some editors have been accused of being Albanian nationalists by some Youtube user. I don't see any indication Popular Punk agrees with this PoV considering they seem to be mostly concerned about Greek nationalists doing stuff in response to this channel, and that named editors might be doxed, it seems likely they probably don't. (I don't know if there's any particular reason to be that worried, there are always people moaning about Wikipedia bias all over. Unless they are super popular it doesn't tend to cause problems. And I see even less reason to worry about a Youtube comment. There is a lot of stuff on Reddit etc accusing other editors of being whatever, again most of it doesn't about to much.) Nil Einne (talk) 17:22, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- Looks like there's been an LTA slow-motion edit warring at Principality of Arbanon, but no relevant discussion on the talk page. As written, relevant claims about Albanian identity in the lead are backed up by citations to academic texts with quotes that clearly support the text in question. I'm inclined to agree with Bbb23 absent any actual evidence of misconduct by the named "Albanian nationalist" editors. signed, Rosguill talk 17:36, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think it looks like someone who just created an account in order to warn about a potential issue. The youtube video linked has >35k views, and the comment that they posted above translates to
It is true that in the English Wikipedia there is a certain group of Albanians who falsify the history of Greece with their propaganda. These are the usernames/usernames of the Albanian team: Vato, Maleschreiber, Ahmet Q., Ktrimi991, Khirurg, Botushali, Alltan, Demetrios1993, These users collaborate, they have various tactics they use to promote their propaganda on the English Wikipedia.
Schazjmd (talk) 17:30, 28 January 2024 (UTC) - Special:CentralAuth/Popular Punk. –FlyingAce✈hello 17:57, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Ah, not created for this, just popped over from their home wiki to give a head's up. Schazjmd (talk) 18:04, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Bbb23,Gråbergs Gråa Sång, Rosguill, FlyingAce
- Schazjmd
- Hello everyone. Let me clarify some things first
- a) Popular Punk is the name of my new account. I deactivated my old accountΙπποκράτης2020.
- b) I never accused users Vato, Maleschreiber, Ahmet Q., Ktrimi991, Khirurg, Botushali, Alltan, Demetrios1993 to be spreading albanian nationalist propaganda. I stated that the Greek Nationalist pseudohistorical YouTube channel «Πρακτική Σκέψη» was falsely accusing the aforementioned users to be spreading albanian propaganda.
- I wrote the previous comment in order to inform the community about potential vandalism that could be done by the viewers of the aforementioned channel (which range from nationalists to neo-nazis) because the uploader claimed that the EN. wp is spreading albanian propaganda, and also to protect the users from potential doxxing.
- Thank you. Popular Punk (talk) 19:13, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Ah, thank you for the clarification. My prior comment can now be read as simply an evaluation that there doesn't appear to be widespread disruption just yet. signed, Rosguill talk 19:15, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- You are welcome. Hopefully, it stays that way. Popular Punk (talk) 19:16, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Ah, thank you for the clarification. My prior comment can now be read as simply an evaluation that there doesn't appear to be widespread disruption just yet. signed, Rosguill talk 19:15, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Ah, not created for this, just popped over from their home wiki to give a head's up. Schazjmd (talk) 18:04, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- I know nothing about the background here, but isn't it possible the above is a good-faith warning? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:29, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you Popular Punk for your note. Some time ago the Niš article was mentioned on YT or some other online media to attract the attention of Serb nationalists. Then some vandals emerged from nowhere to remove well-sourced content they did not like. It is possible the same thing might happen with some Albanian-Greek articles as well. Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:19, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- You are welcome. FYI, in the same video, YT user mecruz has mentioned the names of the WP users Βατο, Maleschreiber, Ahmet Q., yours, Khirurg, Botushali, Alltan, Demetrios1993," as if you are acting as a gang that is spreading Albanian propaganda. I have no idea about which articles the user is referring to, but -knowing the fan base of this particular YT channel-, thought that i should inform WP. Popular Punk (talk) 19:23, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Welcome to the Balkans. If there has been no actual disruption then this report should be closed as "noted". Editors should also be aware that Youtube is not a reliable source. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:25, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for the warning - unfortunately, ignorance will always exist, no matter how many sources are used. Appreciate you taking the time to notify everyone. Botushali (talk) 06:17, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- By coincidence, I have seen a couple of videos from this channel over the last month or so. It seems to be my brother's favorite YouTube channel. I have not really checked its historical accuracy, but where does it say that the contributors are nationalists? Several of the videos are criticisms of past Greek governments over perceived political corruption and mismanagement of the economy. Dimadick (talk) 15:12, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- Popular Punk seems more concerned about the comment pasted above mentioning Wikipedia users by name and not the video, although the video itself is full of historical inaccuracies, conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. It completely ignores mounds of scholarly research from experts and scholars - YouTube really isn’t the best place to get historical information. Perhaps you should encourage your brother to read the scholarly work of qualified experts to obtain real historical knowledge rather than watching pseudoscientific videos, but that’s none of my business. Botushali (talk) 16:11, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- Dimadick, My concerns are exactly those that Botushali mentioned. Popular Punk (talk) 17:09, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- Can someone who knows how just close this thread? We were warned of potential disruption, and people that have this page watchlisted have seen the warning. What more needs to be done? Phil Bridger (talk) 19:49, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
User: 218.215.40.33
i think this user has no clue how WP works, i think a block to avoid future disruptive edits may be a good idea 83.168.137.1 (talk) 00:49, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- three edits, and the last was 6 months ago... ltbdl (talk) 01:46, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- understood 83.168.137.1 (talk) 12:40, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- @83.168.137.1 Unless there is something here we are missing, this is not actionable per Ltbdl. Are you sure you have the right ip? -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:07, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- right IP, but if u say its not actionable, i trust you 83.168.137.1 (talk) 12:43, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
Car and Cars
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I honestly think that the primary topic for Cars should be the Pixar film, à la friend and Friends. 94.21.205.27 (talk) 07:41, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- This isn't the place for that; try discussing on the article's talk page. This page is for issues requiring admin attention. CoconutOctopus talk 08:21, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
Feedback requested for AE's "Information for administrators" section
Feedback is requested for a draft to replace the "Information for administrators processing requests" section at WP:AE. The draft text and feedback section can be found at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Consultation: Admin information draft. Thank you to everyone who participates. Z1720 (talk) 20:54, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Feedback requested for AE's "Information for administrators" section
List of current National Football League staffs
Please re-instate the page that was listed here the way it was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_National_Football_League_staffs
As a writer for Blogging Dirty, but with connections to writers all around the league, national and otherwise, we use this page heavily every year to try and figure out how teams will build their staffs. It really helps us figure things out before we go. It's also been a page that's been built for like 15 years and wasn't anyone's issue until recently. The jobs listed on the page for each template does matter and the staff directory links are updated in here regularly. Please help us continue to have a guide that will save us hours for research. What used to take me 10-15 minutes to research on a regular basis, took me over 3 hours last night. CarasikS (talk) 21:00, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of current National Football League staffs. The list was deleted because it didn't meet Wikipedia notability criteria. Wikipedia is not a directory, and it would seem rather unreasonable to expect our contributors (all volunteers) to make an exception and maintain such a list just for your personal convenience. Furthermore, the information for individual teams appears to be in the relevant article anyway. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:18, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- It's not a personal convenience thing. It's a for the entire NFL writers industry thing. The people who use the reference deem it to be notable enough. If that doesn't matter for notability, then what's the purpose of notability criteria for wikipedia? If the experts in this field deem it notable, how is it not notable? CarasikS (talk) 21:38, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- Experts in the field can deem something notable, but not WP:NOTABLE. On Wikipedia, "notable" means "meets the WP:Notability guideline." There are no experts on WP:Notability (or another way to say it, all editors are "experts" on WP:Notability). But it's not up to subject matter experts to deem things WP:Notable, it's up to Wikipedia editors who vote at WP:AFDs and such. Levivich (talk) 21:42, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
- It's not a personal convenience thing. It's a for the entire NFL writers industry thing. The people who use the reference deem it to be notable enough. If that doesn't matter for notability, then what's the purpose of notability criteria for wikipedia? If the experts in this field deem it notable, how is it not notable? CarasikS (talk) 21:38, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
It should be noted the article was merely 32 template transclusions of each team's personnel template (all of which continue to be updated unaffected); Category:National Football League staff templates and Category:National Football League roster templates should fulfill the purposes you need, Carasik, just not appearing on one page. Nate • (chatter) 22:52, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
RFC: Proposal to globally blacklist opendatabot.ua
Letting the community know of a proposal to put the domain opendatabot.ua on the global blacklist. The reason for the proposal is that the addition of references has been spam-like and it is not a reliable source. As it has been added widely as a reference and not yet been widely locally blacklisted, a wider consultation is required.
opendatabot.ua: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
Community's feedback, preferably as a consolidated comment from the wiki rather than individual comment, would be appreciated. Feel welcome to let other wikis know of the request for comment. Thanks. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:36, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
- Support blacklisting - we have to control our content; we can't let spammers do this. From many years of experience, blacklisting, not editor-blocking, is the way to shut this down. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 05:36, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
- See TioMikon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log).
- Their contributions are reference spam; spam links added as references. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 05:41, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
Arbitration motion regarding the severity of remedies
The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:
Add the following to the Arbitration Procedures as a subsection of "Arbitration Proceedings"
When used in arbitration motions or remedies, the words below should be considered to have the following order of severity:
- Remind (weakest)
- Warn
- Admonish (strongest)
For the Arbitration Committee, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 06:50, 30 January 2024 (UTC)